"Tessa Green isn't here," Malik said. "Graham terminated her because she refused to initial today's rejection."
Nadine looked sharply at Graham. He said Tessa had been insubordinate, and when Nadine asked to see the termination documentation, he admitted that he had not yet submitted it to human resources. The authority he had exercised in front of the produce counter was much more absolute than the authority actually granted by the employee handbook. He had dismissed her on the spot, but the formal process still required review.
"You are being removed from duty pending a compliance investigation," Nadine told him. "Turn over your keys, access card, and company equipment to security. Human resources will decide the employment consequences after it reviews your account and the evidence."
"You're doing this because of one man in a dirty jacket," Graham said.
"I'm doing this because you cannot support nineteen financial adjustments with nineteen proper inspections," Nadine replied. "And because you fired an employee who questioned one of them. The jacket has nothing to do with either issue."
Graham turned toward Samuel. "You came in here planning to humiliate me."
Samuel had imagined that he might feel satisfied at the sight of the manager being forced to surrender his keys. Instead, he thought of the fruit in the waste bin and of Tessa placing her badge on the counter. The cost of this afternoon had spread across people who had been doing their jobs long before he walked through the front door.
"I came to find out what happened to our peaches," he said. "You told me."
When Graham was escorted from the office, he did not shout. He gathered the notebook from his desk, adjusted his shirt, and walked past the people who had once stepped aside at his approach. Some looked away; others watched with the guarded curiosity of people who could not tell whether the system was finally correcting itself or merely choosing a different person to blame. Malik remained near the door, still holding the clipboard on which he had recorded the afternoon's disputed delivery.
The examination of the forty-eight cases continued until after sunset. Priya documented visible handling damage in a limited portion of the sampled fruit, but her findings did not support rejection of the entire load as a supplier-fault shipment. The appropriate disposition would require sorting, with the condition of the accepted and damaged portions recorded separately. Nadine ordered the pallet maintained on hold until the sorting plan and payment treatment could be confirmed in writing.
Samuel did not call it a victory. The peaches were perishable, and every hour in a receiving dock consumed some of their remaining shelf life. A frozen deduction was not the same thing as money in the bank, just as an inspection begun was not an inspection finished. He reminded Nadine that his growers had to pay the people who picked the fruit whether Bridgeville's computers agreed or not.
"Six thousand eight hundred dollars," he said. "That's the amount held from this account. My twenty pickers expect wages tomorrow. A promised audit won't buy their groceries tonight."
Nadine rubbed one hand across her forehead. She could freeze additional deductions immediately, but she could not personally authorize repayment without the necessary finance review. She told him so without pretending otherwise, then promised to request an emergency supplier advance and a written response from purchasing before the next day's delivery window. Samuel told her to put every promise on paper.