by Bill Hiatt
I felt silly. Aside from not wanting to answer my questions about Carrie Winn, Mrs. Doyle had been nothing but accommodating to me. There was something strange about her, though. I just couldn’t put my finger on what it was.
The day’s mail was the top item on the desk, spread out, so I didn’t need to touch it. Most of it was bills. However, one envelope with a handwritten address immediately caught my eye. It was expensive looking and pastel green, like some kind of party invitation.
The return address was Carrie Winn’s.
Mrs. Doyle had been specific about knowing her, yet here was a very personal-looking letter. I longed to open it but knew I couldn’t. I didn’t want to risk blowing my cover before I’d even properly started the investigation.
I heard the door opening, but I was really looking out the window by the time it did.
“I’m sorry that took so long,” said Mrs. Doyle. “Some people just won’t take no for an answer.”
“Unhappy tenant?” I asked, moving back to the table.
“There are no unhappy tenants here,” she replied, as if I had suggested the apartment was built over a Native American burial ground. But then she giggled. “I’m kidding you, dear. The ‘gentleman’ I just dealt with was upset because I’d told him there was no prospect I’d have a vacancy any time in the near future. He dropped by to argue with me—as if that were going to magically produce another apartment.”
“But you will have a vacancy if I don’t get the job, right?”
“Have faith in yourself, dear. You’ll get it.”
Mrs. Doyle’s wink was that of an insider who knew something I didn’t.
Just like a friend of Carrie Winn would.
“The truth is I prefer to rent to Carrie Winn’s employees. That way, everyone has something in common, and the place becomes like one big, happy family.”
“Does Carrie Winn subsidize that as well as the greenery?” I asked. That would be one way to account for the cheap rent.
Mrs. Doyle stiffened, and her smile disappeared again. “Ms. Winn wanted employees who didn’t already live in town to have the option if they wanted. Her real estate company developed a number of apartment buildings and sold them to people like me—people who shared her vision of a close-knit community. And yes, I got a great price on the building in exchange for an agreement to keep the rents low. Is there anything wrong with that?”
I put on the best contrite face I had. “I’m so sorry, Mrs. Doyle. I didn’t mean to imply that you were doing anything wrong. I’m just trying to get acquainted with the community I hope to work in.”
Mrs. Doyle relaxed, and her smile returned, though it wasn’t as broad as before. “That’s perfectly natural. I shouldn’t have been so quick to look for implications that weren’t there. Why don’t you sit down and finish your tea?”
I checked my watch. “I’d love to, but I really should go. My interview’s in half an hour, and I don’t know the town well.”
“Of course, dear. We’ll have an opportunity to get to know each other later. Good luck at the interview.”
“Thank you.” I put the teacup on the table and gave her the best smile I could manage.
For a second, I thought I could see a faint glow around her. I blinked, and it was gone.
“Everything all right?” she asked, taking a step in my direction.
“Just fine, thank you,” I said, getting myself out the door as fast as I could without looking as frantic as I felt.
I scolded myself for letting my imagination get the best of me. If I couldn’t calm my nerves, I’d make a poor impression in the interview and sabotage my own investigation.
As I walked to the car, I tried to get Mrs. Doyle out of my mind, but my suspicions continued their paranoid squirming inside my skull.
My prospective landlady had much stronger ties with Carrie Winn than she had at first let on, and she was decidedly jumpy about relatively innocent questions. I should have checked her out more carefully, but nothing in my preliminary investigation had suggested Winn’s influence spread as far as it apparently did.
As I drove away, I took one last glance at the Irish Gardens. Right next door was a very large house, even by the standards of Santa Brígida. It was was three stories tall but otherwise fit the Spanish Colonial Revival pattern that seemed almost universal in town—except for one thing.
The landscaping was similar to the Irish Garden’s, right down to the stone leprechauns.
The place had to be Mrs. Doyle’s.
I told myself that proved nothing—but it raised a lot of questions. Just exactly how much of a bargain had Mrs. Doyle gotten on the apartment building? Enough to buy the house next door to it, a mansion even by Santa Brígida standards? Cheap as the town’s real estate was, someone who could afford that kind of house and an apartment building could have invested much more lucratively elsewhere—without being subject to informal rent control.
Either Helen Doyle was a saint, or Carrie Winn had bought her off. I couldn’t imagine what Winn would have needed from her, and Silas would have laughed at my finding fault with yet another public-spirited citizen. Still, the idea wedged its claws into my mind, and I couldn’t shake it.
For now, I needed to clear Mrs. Doyle out of my mind and focus on getting to the interview.
Ever since I’d come into town, I’d had the smallest ghost of a headache. It had gotten a little worse about the time I’d seen the aura around Mrs. Doyle. Now it was amping up, really haunting me. I never had migraines, though I knew seeing auras could be a migraine symptom. But why would such a problem develop so quickly? I seldom had a headache of any kind. It had to be the stress, but I’d never reacted so dramatically to stress before.
It might have been a reaction to the drug no one could feasibly have administered to me. I did the best I could to put that thought out of mind—until I remembered the tea. It could have been drugged. I hadn’t watched what Mrs. Doyle was doing when she poured. That was silly, though. She would have had no reason to drug me. She hadn’t gotten riled up by my questions until later.
The new Gwraig y Llyn Consulting building was clear on the other side of town from the apartment. Santa Brígida wasn’t that big a town, but the shortest route, through downtown, was pretty slow in afternoon traffic. My headache was inching up from a routine haunting to something that would have challenged the Ghostbusters.
I should have pulled over, called Gwraig y Llyn, and rescheduled the interview. I was in no condition to get through it now. Instead, I kept driving.
I didn’t know why, but my instincts were pushing me ahead. Instead of acting like a good reporter, I was getting lost in my imagination again. It was if destiny was whispering to me that I had only one chance. If I missed it, it would be gone forever.
The Job Interview
My headache eased up a little during the last few minutes of my drive. That was fortunate, since I pulled into the parking lot with only five minutes to spare. I wasted a couple of them staring at two contrasting buildings: Awen, Carrie Winn’s home; and the Gwraig y Llyn building. Both of them stuck out like sore thumbs in a town that was otherwise almost entirely committed to a particular architectural style—if one didn’t count a certain collection of stone leprechauns.
I’d seen pictures of Awen, but even standing some distance away from that imitation medieval castle was different. On the outside, it looked historically accurate. The place even had a moat, though because of the drought it was no longer filled. Its looming, gray stone façade was still impressive, but I couldn’t fully enjoy it. I couldn’t help imagining a dungeon with Dennis McBride chained up in it.
The Gwraig y Llyn building looked as if it belonged to another century, maybe even another planet. It was all glass, chrome, and smooth, white walls. To soften the futuristic look, the building was surrounded by a mixture of Pacific yew and Rowan trees that made the structure look as if it had appeared miraculously in the middle of a forest.
I followed a cement p
ath with a stony surface to the front entrance and walked in quickly, afraid of losing my nerve.
The lobby was all glass on three sides, with the fourth being consumed partly by elevators and partly by a mural above them, which depicted a beautiful blond woman in a blue robe rising from a lake.
I was struck by the number of security guards in the lobby. There had been two at the door, two more flanking the reception desk, and six standing by the elevators. Sure, it was a big lobby, but such a display of force was still overkill. I had to fight the urge to turn and run. People who weren’t already suspicious of the place might not have noticed as much, though.
“May I help you?” asked a young brunette receptionist, the only other person in the room who wasn’t security.
“I have an appointment with Mr. Pickering for a job interview.”
The receptionist looked down at her computer console, clicked away at the keyboard, and said, “Oh, you must be Amy Madison. Welcome to GYL, Ms. Madison. Human Resources is on the second floor. Mr. Pickering’s office is Room 201.”
“Thank you very much,” I said, trying hard not to look at the guards as I headed for the elevators. I could tell they were looking at me. To be fair, there wasn’t that much else to look at. Even so, having ten pairs of eyes boring into me wasn’t pleasant.
When I got off the elevator, I was standing right in front of Room 201. I straightened my skirt, brushed a hand through my hair, and stepped inside.
Mr. Pickering was the head of HR, so naturally, there was a secretary in his outer office. She was older than the receptionist but also warmer. She shook my hand as if I were a long-lost friend. Pickering’s door was closed, but she ushered me in without knocking.
I had to fight again not to let my surprise betray me. I had been expecting the fifty-something executive whose grim countenance graced the website. Instead, I saw the twenty-three-year-old Lucas Santos. In the spring of 2013, he’d been one of the high school students involved in the mysterious goings-on. In fact, his family had moved to Santa Brígida from the Merced area quite suddenly, when Winn hired his father to be what amounted to an architect on retainer. Santa Barbara was full of architects, but she went with someone she’d never met for no apparent reason—and reportedly paid all his moving expenses, to say nothing of an exorbitant salary far above what he had been making. It was just one of many business decisions that didn’t make any sense at all.
I’d hoped to meet Lucas—but not quite this soon, and certainly not when I wasn’t expecting to. He was filling in for Pickering? To the best of my knowledge, Santos had absolutely no HR background. He was a dancer associated with a company in San Francisco. He was also an accomplished practitioner of capoeira, the Brazilian martial art. Neither of those credits qualified him for a high position in the HR department of a large consulting group.
He gave me a firm handshake and motioned for me to sit down.
“Ms. Madison, I’m Lucas Santos. I’m sorry that Mr. Pickering wasn’t able to keep his appointment with you. I’ll be handling the interview today. I hope that’s all right.”
“Of course, Mr. Santos.”
“It’s Lucas,” he said, smiling.
He was a little lighter skinned than I because of his mixed black/Portuguese ancestry. He had the kind of face I couldn’t help thinking of as strong but gentle—and definitely handsome. He wore his jet-black hair closely cropped and had a thin mustache. His body was slender but muscular, and I could see his dance background in the way he moved.
My heart beat faster, and my pounding headache receded just a little. I cursed myself for being so superficial. This guy could easily be complicit in whatever was happening in Santa Brígida. The kind of journalist I wanted to be would remain objective, not get all fluttery like a high school girl.
“Are you all right?” Lucas asked. Either he cared, or he was an excellent actor.
“Uh, I’m sorry. I have a headache.”
“Can I get you some aspirin?”
I did my best to smile. “No, I’m sure I’ll be all right.” I probably should have taken one, but I still had drugs on my mind. I didn’t want to accept the idea that Lucas might slip me something, but after the day I’d had, anything seemed possible.
“Well, in that case, let’s get started, shall we?”
I nodded, and Lucas asked me questions about my work experience. Even with a bad headache, I had internalized my fake history well enough that I could respond naturally.
Lucas wasn’t easy to read. He seemed to be impressed with me, but he might be the kind of guy who wore a pleasant mask all the time. It wasn’t as if I were trying to qualify for a job as a nuclear physicist, anyway. I should look like a good candidate for the available clerical jobs.
When we were almost done, there was a knock on the door, which opened before Lucas had a chance to say anything.
“Khalid, I’m in a meeting.”
I frowned slightly at the coincidence. Khalid was another one of the Santa Brígida teens involved in whatever had happened. I didn’t want to appear too interested in him, but I turned enough to get a look.
Khalid was younger than most of the others, only a child when he first became part of the story, but he must have been about sixteen now. He still resembled the cute little kid he had been in those old photos, and his black hair and piercing dark eyes were the same. He was taller, and his face had lost the childlike innocence in favor of adolescent cockiness.
“I can see you’re in a meeting,” Khalid said, making eye contact with me rather than with Lucas. “You can’t keep all the pretty job applicants for yourself, though.” He winked and gave me a toothy smile.
“Khalid!” Lucas was trying for a stern tone, but I could tell he wasn’t really angry at the kid.
“I know, I know,” said Khalid, raising his hands. “This is a business, and I should act like it.” Turning to me, he said, “I apologize,” in a sincere tone. Then he winked again. I knew I should probably be annoyed with him, but I had to stifle a chuckle.
“Hire this one,” he said to Lucas. “She’s nice.”
“Did you have an actual reason for coming to see me?” asked Lucas.
“Oh, yeah. I finished stuffing those envelopes. What do you want me to do now?”
“You know perfectly well you get your assignments from Tal. He’s the one in charge of high school interns.”
“Yeah—but he doesn’t have any beautiful women in his office.”
“Would you excuse me for a moment?” asked Lucas. I nodded, and he got up, grabbed Khalid by the arm, and dragged him out of the office. Khalid had time for only one more wink before Lucas firmly closed the door behind them.
I tried to put myself in the mindset of a real job applicant. Should I try to act subtly annoyed? The place seemed oddly unprofessional. Would someone thinking about working here have second thoughts?
Maybe, but if I knew nothing about the background, I would have found the atmosphere refreshing—except for the overabundance of security guards. Lucas and Khalid seemed more like family members than boss and intern or even coworkers. I couldn’t afford to let myself be seduced by appearances, though.
Even though the door was closed, I could hear Lucas scolding Khalid. I was tempted to try to sneak a peek at the documents spread out on the desk, but that was too risky. The scolding could end at any time. Instead, I reviewed what I knew about Khalid.
He had come to Santa Brígida under circumstances almost as suspicious as Lucas’s. He was introduced as a cousin of the Sassani family who had come for a visit, but he stayed with them for a long time. Then he was supposedly orphaned, and they adopted him.
The problem with that story was that I couldn’t find a speck of evidence that any of the Sassanis’ relations had died in the right time frame for Khalid to have been orphaned. Besides, the Sassanis were Persian, and Khalid was an Arab name, not a Persian one. I’d done enough research to convince me his documentation was as fake as mine. It was as if he’d come into e
xistence as a child of eleven. What records of him that did exist prior to that time were generic and unconvincing.
Could Carrie Winn be involved in some kind of baby selling? Khalid had been much older, but it was the only explanation I could think of that would account for his sudden appearance. In that case, though, why didn’t the Sassanis adopt him right away?
Lucas came back in and apologized again. “Khalid’s actually a good kid, but he needs to learn to have a more professional pattern of behavior at work.”
“It’s all right. I’ve seen much rowdier teenagers than he is.”
“Seeing them on the street is one thing. Having to work with them in the same office is different.” Lucas sighed. “In any case, we need to finish up. I think I’ve asked all the questions I need to. Do you have any questions about the job or the company?”
That was a common enough way to end an interview, but it gave me an opening to probe a little bit. “I like to know something about the company I’m working for, but GYL is so new, and the website is a little vague about what kind of consulting it does.”
“I’m afraid the website is kind of a work in progress. Our consultants help companies develop environmentally and socially responsible policies. You’d be surprised at how many people are so focused on profit that forget their responsibility to their communities.”
“What companies is GYL working with right now?”
“Ask me that in a couple of months. Typically, our clients request that we not talk about the process until we can cite them as a success story.” He chuckled. “I think some of them are afraid they won’t like the advice we give, and if we’ve advertised who we’re working with, people will wonder where the new policies are.”
That was a reasonable response, but it could also be that GYL was doing something completely different. It had no advertising I could find, the website was vague at best, and the name wasn’t easy to remember—or even to pronounce. Not a very promising beginning for a business—if that was what it really was.
