all. We just did what she told us to. It worked well. She handled the accounting, and we made sure everything was nice, neat, and orderly. You’re not going to find any issues with our part of things.”
“Well, I’ve been asked to find out what you’re good at and pass recommendations on. They wanted a non-biased individual handling the interviews. Unless you go to school and pass the various tests, you can’t legally act as an accountant. That’s really the issue here. You’ll probably have to take your original hiring agreement with HR and discuss it with them, but considering I was asked to figure out what you are good at, you’re valued employees. Really, I’m just an accountant, but I’m good at solving problems and working with numbers.”
I had a few questions for Garret, which I’d ask tomorrow, assuming I survived my meeting with a room full of hot male prostitutes. Given an opportunity, I bet the group could catch the attention of every damned woman in the city.
William glanced at the other men, who either shrugged or nodded.
I needed more friends I could communicate with without saying a word.
“We didn’t do anything we didn’t want to do,” William announced.
Well, that was more than I wanted to know about their relationship with their now ex-boss. “I’ll let HR worry about that. My job, right now, is to make sure each of you shine in terms of your actual skills. So, what do you gentlemen bring to the table?”
William brought attention to detail, extreme flexibility, an insane amount of strength, and a wicked sense of humor to any table he was invited to. The rest of the men gave me very similar answers. After thirty minutes wasted on innuendo, explanations of sexual positions I couldn’t evict from my head, and more enthusiasm over updating their resumés than I could readily handle, I determined Miss Meltrew had groomed a sexy army of meticulous secretaries who could count to ten without help and could handle even complex spreadsheets.
Given an opportunity, enrollment in the appropriate school, and some time, they’d likely make excellent accountants.
Once they figured out I meant to help them, they swarmed over the computer, worked on updating their resumés to be accurate, and regaled me with tales of life in the marketing department.
They also regaled me with tales in which marketers couldn’t keep their numbers straight or their purchases legit. That gem came from William, who did most of the talking for everyone. Not only did he provide the gem, he pulled out the invoices he thought seemed weird.
I read over the invoices, my brows furrowing. “Why would an entertainer such as yourself view invoices for sex toys to be weird?”
“We market advertising for vanilla stores.”
Vanilla? I frowned and regarded the invoice, wondering what sex toys had to do with vanilla.
“Non-sexual or plain sex. Nothing kinky. Those toys are rather kinky. We sometimes handle advertising for adult companies, but never anything physical. There’s no reason for there to be those kinds of invoices here.”
I checked the amounts; a firm the size of the one I audited wouldn’t miss a thousand dollars, but fraud was fraud was fraud, and illegally using company funds for explicit purchases tended to fall into the no-no category. “Anything else like this?”
“There are some with unusually high spend compared to the other marketers.”
After an order from William, his team divided and conquered to locate and present all questionable invoices.
Not only would they make excellent secretaries, they’d make marvelous general assistants. I set the invoices in a pile and patted them. “Please put everything you believe to be questionable here with a note explaining why you believe it’s questionable. In the meantime, I’ll go have a talk with HR. Can you point me in the right direction?”
“I’ll take you there myself,” William replied, heading to the door. “Thank you for helping us, Miss Kensingvale.”
I smiled. “You’re welcome.”
Armed with their resumés, I ambushed the manager of HR, notifying her I’d been asked to gather and review the resumés of Miss Meltrew’s employees. The woman, one Mrs. Thomasson, confirmed they’d made the request to help mitigate potential bias, considering the situation.
The entire company seemed in dire need of a shakedown if they were looking at an auditing firm to fix their mess from top to bottom. Bracing for the worst, I said, “They all seem very competent individuals with strong resumés, especially for assistant or secretarial work. They’re also good candidates for proper schooling in accounting, if your company