by Ava Barry
Brite Spot’s turquoise walls and pine furniture reminded me of my grandmother, because she used to take me there for grilled cheese sandwiches and hot chocolate. In the last few years it had become a haven for hipsters and fashion interns, but it still reminded me of my childhood. I knew most of the waitstaff by name, and I considered the diner to be a part-time office.
The soda fountain bar was empty when I sat down. Casey, an architecture student who worked late nights, came over and passed me a menu.
“Dinner?”
“No, thanks, Case, just coffee tonight.”
I probably only had ten minutes before Leland realized his phone was missing, possibly another ten minutes before he realized that I had it. If he drove fast, it would be another twenty minutes before he arrived at the diner, potentially with police in tow, calling for my arrest.
I had to work quickly.
Keeping Leland’s phone turned off, I scrolled through Google on my own device. The location feature on Leland’s phone wouldn’t work as long as the phone was off; I knew this from experience.
After Casey brought me a cup of coffee, I started looking for Leland in the most obvious places, pinging Google with the keywords “Leland” and “Windhall.” The top search results for that query all had to do with the dead girl found on the fire trail, but Leland’s name was missing from all of them.
Since my job relied heavily on research, I was pretty good at finding things through a simple process of Google queries. The fact that Leland’s name was eluding me was more than a little frustrating, and after a bit of fruitless searching, I sat back and thought.
Casey returned with her own cup of coffee and leaned against the counter. “Working tonight?”
“I blew off work, actually,” I said. “Something better came up.”
“Oh yeah?”
“I have a huge favor to ask,” I said. “If a really angry-looking man shows up, would you warn me?”
“That sounds like half our late-night customers, Hailey.”
“He’ll be wearing an expensive suit. Blond, somewhere north of sixty.”
“I’ll do my best.”
I struggled to remember the name of Leland’s companion at Windhall, and after a moment, it came back to me. Ben. Leland and Ben had clearly been trying to hide something, but I wasn’t sure what it was. It seemed like they were trying to get the house ready for a sale, and maybe, by conjunction, the fact that Theo was back in town.
A bit more research finally revealed that Leland Bates was the name of Theo’s lawyer. A Wikipedia article gave me Leland’s birthday, which was March 10, 1967.
Bingo.
I turned on Leland’s phone and tried a few configurations of his birthdate. On the fourth try, the password went through.
“Silly boomer.” I kept my eye on the clock as I went to Leland’s email folder and began scrolling through his emails, looking for evidence. The most recent emails had nothing to do with Theo, but it didn’t take long for something to turn up.
The email’s subject line read “The Dead Girl,” and it was dated three days before, just after the art student’s body had turned up on the fire trail.
L—
Have you seen the news? How is this going to affect the house? I know that you’ve mentioned taking the house off my hands for a while now, but I imagine interest will be especially high after such a high-profile murder case.
I’ll be in town this weekend; we can talk then.
Theo
My hands trembled as I read the email. It was from Theo; Theo was back in town. I grabbed a napkin, located a pen in my satchel, and quickly copied down Theo’s email address.
“Hailey,” Casey called. “Is that your angry man?”
“Shit,” I muttered. “Two seconds, I’m almost finished.”
“You must have pissed him off something good,” she said, leaning against the counter. “Need me to dig out the baseball bat?”
I glanced over my shoulder and saw Leland crossing the parking lot, about to reach the front door. I got up and came around the counter, then ducked down by Casey’s legs.
“I’ll be out of here in two seconds,” I whispered. “Just buy me another minute, if you can.”
I didn’t have time to scroll through Leland’s other emails, but there was something else that I did have time for. I went into Leland’s contact folder and searched for the name “Ben.” To my dismay, the search returned nineteen results, and only a few of them had photos.
My hands trembled as I worked through the contacts one by one. I had an anonymous email account that was untraceable, and I sent each contact to this email. I had barely had time to email myself the last of the Ben contacts before the door swung open. The last thing I did was send myself Leland’s own contact card, so I could get in touch if I needed to.
I couldn’t see him, but I could hear Leland walking up to the counter. Judging by the sound of his footsteps, he was standing in front of Casey.
“Good evening,” he said. “I’m looking for a phone.”
“You need to make a call?” she replied. “There’s a pay phone on the next block.”
“I’m looking for my phone,” he said. “I have it on good authority that it’s somewhere in your diner. Have you seen a man with dark hair and bad posture? Somewhere around thirty? His name’s Max Hailey.”
“I haven’t.”
“Would you mind letting me use your phone to call my phone? I’d be happy to pay for the privilege.”
My hands shook as I turned off Leland’s phone.
“My cell phone’s dead,” Casey said. “I’d be happy to check in the lost and found, though. Someone might have turned it in. Why don’t you take a seat, I’ll see what I can do.”
I heard one of the bar chairs creak as Leland sat down. Praying that he couldn’t see me, I crawled into the kitchen behind Casey, and then, when the door was shut, stood up.
“Hailey, what kind of mess have you gotten yourself into?”
“Tell him you found it,” I said. “Please. Say a homeless guy turned it in half an hour ago.” I handed her a folded-up fifty. “I’ll see you in a few days.”
* * *
Thierry called me the next morning as I was making lunch.
“You still interested in Windhall?” he asked.
“Always.”
“I might have something for you,” he said. “I found that guy’s number in my Rolodex.”
“Which one?”
“That crappy magician, the one who says he has some kind of film. Said it has to do with Theo. He’s having a show tonight in Hollywood; he told me to stop by afterward. You game?”
“Yeah, of course,” I said.
“I can’t vouch for him,” he warned. “Could be a nutcase.”
“Let’s go,” I said. “I have to stop by the office, but I’ll give you a call afterward.”
I had woken up early that morning, unable to sleep any longer. The first thing I did was go to my computer and start going through the contacts that I had stolen from Leland’s phone, but I hadn’t figured out which Ben had been at Windhall. I had been on the verge of anonymously calling them, one by one, when Thierry’s call interrupted me.
The Bens could wait, though, because there was something more important that I had to deal with first. I knew that if I didn’t stop by the office that morning, I would risk losing my job. The fact that I had blown off the Rigor Mormon show had landed me in deep shit, as evidenced by a barrage of missed calls and text messages from Brian and Marty.
I packed up my computer and then headed toward Hollywood.
* * *
It was a Saturday afternoon, so the office was fairly quiet. Many of our staff were freelancers, and we didn’t adhere to a strict nine-to-five schedule, but people still liked to spend their weekends out of the office.
When I stepped in, I saw that the secretary’s desk was occupied by a young woman with dark eyes. Her dark hair was cropped in a chic, short cut, and she wore a lo
ose-fitting tunic. When she heard me come in, she glanced up from a book.
“Welcome to the Lens,” she said. “How can I help you?”
“You’re not Jordan,” I said. “Who are you?”
“Petra,” she said. “Can I help you with something?”
“I work here,” I said. “Are you new?”
“I’m an intern.”
“Max Hailey.”
“Ahh,” she said. “You’re the infamous Hailey.”
I leaned against the wall. “If you’ve been talking to Brian, allow me to disabuse you of a few things.”
“No, you wrote that story,” she said. “The one about politicians selling works of art and then pretending that they were stolen. What was it called again?”
“The Jenner-Foster case,” I said.
“That was really impressive,” she said.
“Thanks,” I said. “That was back when I could afford to let my morals dictate what I wrote. Now I have a roof to replace, and a four-foot gremlin riding my ass.”
She blinked.
“That was a metaphor. Brian in?”
“I think he’s expecting you.”
Brian’s door was open, and he was on the phone when I reached the door. I could see him, leaning back in his chair and gabbing away with someone about a party from last night.
“I swear to God, Rihanna was there,” he said. “You can ask Jackson! He went up to talk to her!”
I waited a moment, then knocked on the door. Brian kicked off the wall to spin around in his chair, wearing a goofy grin on his face. The moment he saw me, the grin vanished.
“Gotta go,” he said, then hung up without waiting for a response. “Hailey.”
“I missed the show last night,” I said. “I’m sorry about that.”
“You missed the show. You missed the show! You don’t think I already know that?” He stood up. “This is the hot new band of the year. They’re supposed to be the next Tame Impala, and you weren’t there to cover them.”
“Who’s Tame Impala?”
He stared at me for a moment, then shook his head and slipped his phone in his pocket. “Look, my dad’s always liked you,” he said. “I don’t get it, personally. You’re lazy and disrespectful, and you have a massive problem with authority.”
“Sorry, I drifted off for a second. What were you saying?”
He glanced at something on his desk. “You’re not very popular here, Hailey,” he said. “This isn’t coming from me. People find you abrasive and condescending.”
I didn’t respond.
“Your contract’s coming to a close,” he said. “Dicking around and blowing off articles isn’t going to improve your chances of staying on.”
I will not kiss ass, I won’t, I won’t…
“I hate to pull this, but you haven’t given me much of a choice,” Brian said. “I gave you an article to present to Alexa on Monday; you decided not to cover the show.”
“Alexa…?”
“Alexa Levine. She’s our new editor.”
I laughed. “You expect me to believe that Alexa Levine is coming to edit the Lens? Now I know you’re bluffing, Brian—she used to cover things like Sarajevo and the Madoffs. Plus, everyone knows she stopped writing years ago.”
Brian gave me a bland smile. “You’re right, Hailey, I’m bluffing.”
“Look, Alexa aside, I’m sorry about the show. Really. Something else came up, but I’m happy to write a different story.”
“What came up?”
I weighed my options, then decided to go with the truth. “I went to Windhall,” I said. “I think I have a good angle on a story.”
“Fuck, Hailey. Seriously? Seriously?” He pressed his fingertips together. “You write what I tell you to write. Nobody cares about dead people and old houses.”
“Windhall is a better lead than a band called Rigor Mormon. If it makes you feel better, I watched some of their clips on YouTube, so I could probably write something vaguely comprehensive.”
“What was the name of the guy? The one who supposedly killed his actress?” Brian snapped his fingers. “It wasn’t Hitchcock, was it?”
“Theodore Langley. He’s back,” I said. “I can prove it, too.”
“Oh yeah?” Brian feigned interest. “How’s that?”
I decided not to mention the stolen phone. “His lawyer is fixing up the house so they can sell it,” I said. “This is incredibly pertinent to what’s going on with that dead girl. We can write a story about Langley, then tie in the current story. If we can get an interview with Theo, he might be able to shed some light on what’s going on now.”
He was quiet, and for a moment, I thought he might actually be considering my story.
“I know it sounds crazy,” I said. “But I’ve always thought that if I could get Theo alone in a room, I could prove that he killed Eleanor. They were so close to proving that he did it. If the trial hadn’t been thrown—”
Brian raised a hand to cut me off. “I’ll let you finish your contract,” he said. “But after that, I’m going to have to let you go.”
The little shit. I could feel the color rising in my face, but I couldn’t bear to debase myself further by arguing with him.
“I still have three weeks,” I said.
“I know that, and like I said, you can finish out your time here,” he said. “I’ll be using that time to interview people to replace you. I’ve got a stack of résumés about a mile high.”
I was silent, and he laughed. “Come on, this is Hollywood, Hailey. Don’t feel too bad; people struggle to reach their dreams every day. I’ve got another meeting.”
He grabbed some papers and his glasses from his desk, then walked to the door.
“Up you get.”
I followed him out of the office, so pissed that I couldn’t articulate a good response.
“I’ll see you Monday, hey? I’d say enjoy the rest of your weekend, but if I were you, I’d start looking for another job.”
There was a bounce in his step as he walked through the office and headed toward the stairs. I stayed there for a moment, waiting for him to disappear, because I knew that if we left the office together, only one of us would emerge. I waited in the lobby, counting to twenty to try to calm myself down.
“I want to help you.”
I turned to see the dark-haired intern.
“Help me with what?”
“I heard that you’re going to write a story about the Langley trial,” she said. “I’ve read every book on the subject. I’ve been to Windhall a few times, too. You’re wrong about Brian, though. He’s not bluffing. Our new editor is actually Alexa Levine.”
“Were you eavesdropping just now?”
“Yes.” She didn’t blink, and I had to admire her grit.
“Alexa Levine,” I said, then whistled. “Not the Alexa Levine, though?”
“The one and only.”
“Look, the last thing I heard, Alexa was either in jail or on the run. I mean, she dropped off the face of the earth after that whole thing in Burma.”
Petra frowned. “Did she actually go to jail for that?”
“She was definitely on trial. You know what I’m talking about, don’t you?”
“I read the news.” Petra seemed offended. “It was all my parents could talk about when it happened.”
“Man.” I stuck my hands in my pockets. “I don’t like Brian, but I’ve got to hand it to him. If he got Alexa to come out of hiding, he’s really doing something right.”
“Ford gets all the credit for that,” Petra said quietly. “Brian had nothing to do with it.”
“Anyways,” I said. “I’m going to go home and try to save my job. It was nice to meet you.”
“I think that Brian is rude to you because you have a reputation around here.”
I couldn’t help laughing. “What kind of reputation?”
“A reputation.”
“You don’t happen to have a law degree, do you?”
&nb
sp; “No,” she said. “I was serious about Windhall, though. I’d really like to help you. Eleanor never got any kind of justice, because women were treated so badly back then. If there’s one time to prove that Theo killed her, it’s now.”
“Look, thanks for the offer, but I don’t think this story is going to go anywhere.”
“If we work together, we can pull together a proposal this weekend,” she argued.
“At this point, I have no leads,” I said. I didn’t want to mention the stolen phone and Theo’s email address, because I didn’t know how Petra would react. “I doubt I’ll be able to get inside Windhall again. You know I’ve got a record, right?”
Her expression didn’t change. “Yes, I do.”
“Keep your head down; you’ll do fine here,” I said. “Have a good weekend.”
* * *
I had been fired before, but in the past, I had always deserved it. There were one or two restaurant jobs where I got fired for stealing food, and then there was a time in high school when I was fired from a bookstore because I’d gotten drunk and fallen asleep in the nonfiction section. Those times hadn’t really bothered me. This time, though, it was personal.
Ford had given me credit for saving the Lens twice; once with a legal connection that helped us dodge a lengthy lawsuit, and the second time by publishing the Jenner-Foster story under our masthead. We’d made enough money from the traffic off that story that we had been saved from the brink of bankruptcy.
Now I was short a mortgage payment, and it looked like I was going to miss the next one as well. I had no idea how I was going to save my roof, and it looked like my only option was to put my house on the market. The worst thing about the whole situation, however, was the fact that Alexa was about to start working at the Lens.
If there was one editor who would champion a story about socioeconomic injustice and the disparity between male and female scrutiny under the American legal system, it was Alexa Levine. I was intimate with Alexa’s work, because she had been the topic of my senior research project at Northwestern. If I had to pinpoint a single person who had inspired me toward journalism rather than writing fiction, Alexa would be it.