The rest of the story

Ranger has now loaded everything he had at the park into a storage unit here. He's looking for jobs here. Right now, it's anything he can find, then he'll worry about finding his ideal job.

Now that the dust has settled, he thinks he's figured out what exactly happened last Friday. He showed up for work, after three days off, and found that the register tally was off. Mike had been working it while Ranger was gone.

Keep this in mind: they do not have individual user IDs for the register. There's no logging on or off, and there's no way to tell who was actually using it when a transaction happened.

There's a form they have to fill out when they open, recording certain numbers for the opening state of the register. Ranger did this, found the discrepancy, and wrote his documentation at the bottom of the form, including that it was balanced when he left and who was scheduled to work it while he was gone.

The morning was very busy, but he got no help from Mike, who kept disappearing back to his apartment instead of working. Ranger admits he was riding his case pretty hard that day because Mike was slacking off so bad. Mike was at the apartments when I got there, and went to the station to tell Ranger to take lunch and go see me.

Ranger did just that. While he was telling me about his frustrations that morning, he remembered that he left the morning's form (with his documentation) at the station. He hoped Mike didn't find it, since it was about him.

When he got back to work, his worst fears were confirmed. And then some. His morning form was gone. A new one was in its place, without his notes at the bottom. Mike had copied all of the opening data to a new form, called the boss, and was accusing Ranger of being responsible for the discrepancy.

Mike's "proof" was that there was a new transaction and the $30 for it was missing. He claimed to have found the new transaction when he relieved Ranger for lunch.

The rest is the most unbelievable part, where Ranger gets arrested for the discrepancy. They took the $700 (that he had saved to get his son back home) from his apartment and gave it to the authorities as evidence. Nevermind that the discrepancy wasn't that much....

That night, the Big Boss runs all the reports he needs on that register. They find what caused the discrepancy while Ranger was gone. What's left is the transaction that Mike "found."

Most likely, this is a phantom transaction that Mike rang up, to get rid of Ranger. The time of it is after Ranger left for lunch, about the time Mike would have found the form from the morning, with Ranger's notes.

The following morning, the police try to get Ranger to confess to taking $30 from the register. They're still holding his $700 as "evidence," even though they are now worried about a $30 transaction. Ranger refuses and is allowed to see his son and get bail arranged.

He realized then that his son never called me. Why? He couldn't find my name in his dad's phone. Ranger felt a little silly over that - he uses the nickname he has for me in his phone: "Beautiful."

Ranger called the prosecutor the other day and learned the charge against him has been reduced to a Class B Misdemeanor, for "altering records." That is a mystery to him. He has no idea where that's coming from. No mention of theft now. And the $700? They're still holding it because the case is "under investigation."

Can you say ridiculous? As you might guess, Ranger is depressed. He's found a stop-gap job here and is hoping his last paycheck will be enough to find a place to live.

I'm just heartbroken for him.