“Sounds like she must have been very unhappy,” Gus said.
“We haven’t found any reason to think so,” O’Hara said. “That’s why we wanted to speak to Sam Masterson, to see if he knew whether she would have had any reason to kill herself. But if you can think of anyone else here who might have known her, that would be a place for us to start.”
“We are a dynamic and growing company,” Gus said. “Half the employees here seem to have started after me. But let me check her file.”
O’Hara expected Gus to get up and leave the room or at least to pick up a phone to buzz a secretary to bring the file. Instead he waved his hand through a beam of light that shone down from the ceiling and a small square hatch slid open in what she had thought was a seamless piece of wood, revealing a computer monitor. He touched the screen in a couple of places and a virtual filing cabinet slid open. Gus waved his fingers over the image and files flew by until he found the one he wanted. Then he tapped the screen again and the image of the file opened. Gus leafed through the pages quickly.
“Okay, it looks like she joined Benson three years ago as an assistant in our sales department. She was promoted twice within her first six months and then given a small sales route in our Midwestern region. When she exceeded all expectations, the company gave her the choice of any route in the country. She asked for central California specifically so that she could move back to Santa Barbara, where her mother lived. In the year she worked that territory our sales were up thirty-six percent. Apparently there was serious talk about bringing her back into corporate and giving her-” He stopped, looking surprised, then started again. “Well, giving her my job. My old job, that is.”
“They were going to make her the sidekick to a phony psychic detective?” Lassiter said.
Gus smiled. “I’m impressed, Lassie. It was just seconds ago that I had to explain how sarcasm worked, and now you’re practically a master at the stuff.” He turned back to Juliet. “They offered her a position of junior vice president of marketing. She declined. She sent a letter saying she had decided to end her career in pharmaceuticals sales, thanked the company for the opportunity, and said good-bye.”
“When did all this happen?” O’Hara said.
Gus glanced down at the screen again. “Looks like it was a little over a month ago. Just before they made me the offer.”
“Maybe Guster killed her,” Lassiter said hopefully. “Got her out of the way so he could steal her job. Sure, it’s a long shot, but we’ve got to exhaust every possibility.”
“We’ll get right on that, Carlton,” O’Hara said wearily.
Gus slapped a hand down on the table. “Now, that’s what I call sarcasm,” he said.
“Is there anything else you can tell us about Mandy?” O’Hara said.
“I’m e-mailing you her entire file right now, but I don’t think you’re going to find anything in here,” Gus said, already entering her e-mail address into the SEND box. “She was doing fine on her own, but then she suddenly felt a desire to return home to live with her mother. Then she quit her job for no reason. It sounds like some kind of downward spiral to me. Maybe she started sampling the product-it happens sometimes. Or maybe she was always fighting depression and it finally got the better of her. Either way, if it were my case I’d have to think it was suicide.”
“If Guster thinks it’s suicide, then I’ve finally got a reason to believe the poor girl was actually murdered,” Lassiter said.
“How I’ve missed your zany zingers,” Gus said, getting up out of his chair. “It makes me wonder how I could ever leave my old career to take this job. Then I remember I get paid three times as much as you and it all becomes clear.”
“There are more important things in life than money, Guster,” Lassiter said. “We do this because we want to make a difference in the world.”
“Well, people always seem happier after you leave a room, so I guess that’s working out for you,” Gus said. “And speaking of leaving the room, I’ve got a conference call. If there’s nothing else?”
“You mean in addition to the volumes of help you’ve provided?” Lassiter said. “No, I can’t think of anything else.”
“I have a couple more questions,” O’Hara said. “Please, Gus. It will just take a second.”
“I can let London and Mumbai talk to each other for a bit,” Gus said. “I usually can’t understand a word either of them says, anyway.”
“Ticktock, Detective,” Lassiter said. “Not to mention ka-ching, ka-ching.”
“If you go now, you can get the car out before there’s another twenty minutes on the clock,” O’Hara said. “I’ll meet you down on the street.”
“If there was street parking, we wouldn’t have this problem,” Lassiter said.
“Drive around the block,” O’Hara said. “I’ll pay for the extra gas.”
Lassiter looked like he wanted to argue, but before he could open his mouth, an alarm on his wristwatch chimed. “I’m going around the block twice,” he said as he headed for the door. “Then I’m heading back to Santa Barbara without you.”
He disappeared through the conference room door.
“I don’t think you have to worry too much,” Gus said. “This is San Francisco. With all the dead ends and one-way streets and crazy bicyclists, a single trip around this block is going to take longer than the drive back to Santa Barbara.”
“I don’t need that much time,” O’Hara said. “I just wanted to ask about you and Shawn.”
“No, you didn’t,” Gus said, giving her a look that was meant to be filled with compassion but instead seemed to be the product of eating day-old sushi for breakfast.
“Okay, you caught me,” O’Hara said, blushing just a little. “I can see you’re fine. How’s Shawn doing?”
“How is he always?” Gus said. “He’s great.”
“Really?” O’Hara said.
“Really.”
She thought that over for a bit, then nodded. “Okay, thanks.” She turned toward the door, then back to Gus. “It’s just that he seems like someone who needs… who isn’t himself without…”
“An audience?” Gus said with a smile.
She colored a little more deeply this time. “Pretty much, yeah.”
“I talked to him last night,” Gus said. “He’s doing great. He’s got a whole virtual universe filled with people to virtually talk to.”
O’Hara felt an odd mix of emotions she couldn’t quite identify, so she chose to ignore them all. “That’s good to know,” she said. “Next time you talk to him, say hello for me.”
“I have a better idea,” Gus said. “Since you’re both in Santa Barbara, why don’t you say hello to him yourself? I’m sure he’d be happy for the company.”
“I’m sure I’ll run into him on a case,” she said.
“Then you can say hello for me,” Gus said. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I really need to jump on this call.”
Chapter Fifteen
When Gus was little, he had been astonished by the idea of a long-distance phone call. It seemed so miraculous that you could pick up the receiver and talk to someone who was hundreds or even thousands of miles away.
Now Gus found himself astonished by the concept all over again. But it wasn’t because he was able to talk to people in London and Mumbai at the same time. It was because no matter how many times he tried to get off the call, it would never end. Apparently the Indian sales team had some complaint about the British marketing department concerning the rollout of a slightly reformulated version of Nitrozine, Benson’s hugely profitable cold-and-allergy medication, and the Brits were refusing to take them seriously.
That immediately put Gus on their side because he was having trouble taking the whole thing seriously. As far as he could tell the entire squabble would be over if the Brits would change one word in their marketing campaign, or if the Indians would make a slight alteration in their sales plan, but both sides had dug in and neither one was willing to move at all. The angry voices had been blasting out of the speakerphone for more than an hour and Gus still had no idea what anyone wanted him to do.