At a loss as to; endeared him to

He immediately called Chikatilo and told him to track down the missing linoleum and take it in immediately.

'All right, I'll bring it in,' Chikatilo replied. But he didn't. He was certain that he had delivered the right amount and had no idea what had happened. At a loss as to what to do, he simply stayed away from work  for a couple of weeks.

If it had been any other employee, it might well have been left at that. Chikatilo, however, was different. Evgrafov was not the only one of his superiors to dislike him. The away he behaved had not endeared him to any of them. And he was not very good at the job, either. In fact, they had been trying to find some way of getting rid of him for a long time. There had already been one occasion shortly before when they had suspected him of stealing a car battery. But there had been no evidence and one person had claimed that he had actually paid for it. This time, though, they seemed to have a cast-iron case against Chikatilo.

~ Pg 74