This was, she saw, possibly, a blunder. Apparently, Tim hadn’t even heard Brenda shit-talking him. And now she was making it worse, by reinforcing Tim’s sense of her, Gen, as a snob who’d made the long stroll down here merely to underscore how laughable she found lowly Brenda.

Oh, the hell with it, she was just going to say it, to get it off her mind, so she could go back to work.

“Listen,” she said. “I hate doing this? But Brenda, just now, in the break room? Called you a ‘dodo.’ Honestly, my jaw dropped. I was so shocked, I couldn’t respond. And I didn’t want you thinking I was on board with that. If, you know, you heard it.”

“A dodo,” Tim said, seeming more amused by the word choice than offended by the insult.

What a strange, off-focus little person.

“Well, it’s a free country,” he said. “My guess is, she probably says things like that because she feels insecure. What with the jail situation and all? Anyway, I don’t see any need for us to be running around turning each other in, you know?”

What? So now she was a narc? An overinvolved tattletale casting shit on perfect, saintly Brenda? And was supposed to meekly walk out of here, chastened, knowing all she knew about Saint Brenda, i.e., that this name-calling tendency of hers was only the tip of the frigging iceberg?

No, sorry, she literally couldn’t do it.

Then it occurred to her why she’d really come in here. Or, rather, a way occurred to her by which she could rebut Tim’s facile dismissal of her, i.e., by which she could eradicate Tim’s sense of her as someone who’d come in here just to rat out someone for calling him a dodo, when, in fact, what she’d really come in here for was—­

Ah, yes.

There it was.

“Tim,” she said. “Something’s been going on around here. For a long time now. I don’t know if you’re aware of it. Apparently not.”

That got his attention.

She took out her phone, put it on the desk, hit Play.

The video showed Brenda stepping into the break room, casting a surreptitious glance around, stuffing one, two, three coffee bags into her purse. Then a cut and she was waddling down the main hallway, whistling, a roll of paper towels under each arm. Then another cut and she was fleeing the supply closet, hands full of Sharpies, like a drunk in a silent film who’d broken into a cigar store.

“Why were you even taking these?” Tim said.

What an offensive question! Would he have asked that of a man? Come on, it was hilarious! This stout middle-aged chick stealing from work in plain sight? Last night, she and Rob had watched the new edit like six times, with Byron, her godly little stepson, their one-kid Morality Commission.