by JM Addison
Chapter 4
During the night, Mara endured a tempestuous sleep. Continued conflict of worry against anger made a good rest difficult. She awoke with something similar to a hangover as if she spent the night drinking. One look in the mirror only made her feel worse. A mixture of exhaustion and apprehension gave her an odd feeling of tired nervousness. She was up early and yanked herself through the morning ritual of showering, dressing and grabbing a bite to eat which certainly wouldn’t be considered health food.
On the way to the office, she thought about what to do next with regard to discovering what had happened to Chris. She was a Human Resources supervisor with freedom to go most places within the company. However, the software development labs were pretty well off limits to most employees. She thought she would check around his cubicle first. Casually ask anyone who might be in the area when they last saw him. Perhaps she would look up who this “Marty” was that left the message on Chris’s home Number and ask him.
She went through the motions of entering the parking lot passing the Guard station and gaining access to the employee entrance. She went upstairs and booted up her computer. Here voice mail indicator showed that she had messages waiting. So while she waited for her computer to finish coming up, she went through them. They were pretty typical. Nothing that might lead her to knowing what happened to Chris. It was hard to pay attention to them with thoughts of last tight tugging away at her ability to focus.
Once her computer was up, she pulled up the employee database. Being a supervisor in Human Resources she had access to all employee personnel records. She looked up Chris Chandler to get his department code: 018A. Then she filtered all employee records to only those that matched department code 018A and first name “Martin”. Bingo! One “Martin Kowalski” worked in the same department. She pulled up his employee record, jotted down his phone number and noted his location: This building, second floor, application development department. Same as Chris. This had to be the guy that called Chris and left a message on his machine. Now should she go find him, or just give him a call?
She thought that a phone call would raise less suspicions. She wanted to call as a Human Resources representative, not as Chris’ big sister so she decided to use someone else’s phone. That way, if “Marty” had one of the phones that displayed the name and number of the caller, he would not see “Chandler” on the display and make the connection. If Chris worked with the guy, he probably knew all about the fact that Chris’ sister worked here too.
She picked up the phone of one of her staff members who wasn’t in and punched in his number. It was only a little after eight and she wondered if he was even in yet. After a couple of rings he answered with an enthusiastic “This is Marty!”
“Eh, hello Martin, this is Mara in human resources.” She said in what she felt was a businesslike flair. “You wouldn’t by chance have seen Chris Chandler this morning have you?”
“No, in fact, I was supposed to see him since, like, yesterday. But I heard he’s home with the flu. Must be a rotten one too, because he usually comes in to work in spite of what ails him. Ha!”
She didn’t think his doleful attempt at humor met any normal standards for intelligent thought. This wasn’t going anywhere. She would have to try something else.
“Thanks for your help Martin, I left a voice mail with him – that explains why he hasn’t called back. Do you know when he was last in?”
“Yeah, I saw him on Tuesday. In fact we worked together for a while on a new project. We were working on a new algorithm for rapid manipulation of… Oh! I don’t suppose you care to hear about…”
“That’s OK Martin.” What a geek, she thought. “I just needed to get some beneficiary information missing in his personnel file.” She lied. “Thanks again for your help.” Then she quickly hung up the phone.
She wondered what to do next. As she turned to go back to her office, she saw Will Cohen, the Director of Resource Management heading to his office. Will was several layers of strata above her in terms of the corporate food chain. He worked in this part of the building because human resources was one of the departments in which he had executive oversight. He liked being a little closer to where many of his people worked. In fact, that kind of management thinking was popular throughout the corporation. Hence the executives were sort of distributed throughout the organization. It made executive meetings a little tough, however, this tended to reduce the number of meetings which many view as a loss in actual productive time anyway. Many believed that distributed executives actually improved overall efficiency.
She had sort of an on-again off-again (more off than on), relationship with him in the past. They had lunch a couple of times and hit it off pretty good, but he was divorced, a little bit too much older than she was for her liking. Plus, people tended to exaggerate juicy tidbits of gossip about someone who might be dating a corporate executive. So they mutually agreed the relationship would not be able to progress. Although it was quite some time since they were seeing each other, she was still on good terms with him and he was someone she trusted.
After a moment of consideration, she made an about-face and headed toward his office. She thought if she could just talk a little about her “missing” brother, she might develop some idea of what to do next.
As she approached his office, she almost bumped into him as he came back out with his empty coffee mug in his hand, no doubt on his way to fill up.
“Oh! Hi Mara!” He took a couple of steps backward and motioned her through the door ahead of him. He always was considerate. One of the things she liked about him. “How have you been?” he asked.
“Great, Will. Good to see you.” She realized she sounded a bit hollow.
“Well I can see from that little telltale look of worry on your face that something is bothering you. Is everything OK?” Just like him to get right to the point. No chit chat.
“Fine. Nothing urgent. Just was a little worried about my little brother.”
“Let’s see now, that’s Chris, right? He’s the one working here with our application development team?” he asked with a bit of empathy in his voice.
He couldn’t possibly be familiar with all the employees, but no doubt he remembered their conversations in the past about Chris. when he was first hired, whether any might imagine impropriety with a relative in HR. “Yes, I haven’t heard from him in a while. He hasn’t let me know where he may have gone and he doesn’t return my phone calls.”
“How long has it been since you talked with him?”
She sort of blurted the whole story in a single sentence: “Well, it’s been over a week. But I first left him a message Tuesday. Since then I left him messages at work, on his cell and at home, I left him an e-mail message and even stopped by his apartment. He wasn’t there. I didn’t even see his car although I think he usually parks in a small lot behind his building. I called my Mother to find out if she’s heard from him and she hasn’t…”
“Hold on! Slow down a little. I can’t keep up. So really it’s been only since Tuesday that he’s actually been missing. Was he seen around here by any of the other people in his department either Monday or Tuesday?”
“I talked with someone in his department who said he was definitely in on Tuesday.”
“Well it wouldn’t be the first time someone lied about being sick to get out of coming in to work. Perhaps he just took a short trip. Has he ever done anything like that before?”
“Not recently. When he was in school, he pulled a couple of stunts that had us worried, but he’s become much more predictable now with the responsibility of work. And it’s work he seems to really enjoy. He’s really sharp when it comes to program development and computers and he seems to fit right in here with his job. We talk at least once a week and quite often get together for a quick lunch.”
“Has he made any recent romantic attachments? Perhaps a little get-away trip with someone special?”
“Not that I know of. I would be surprised if he h
adn’t told me, but he hasn’t had a girlfriend in quite a while. So I don’t know for sure.” She continued: “I know this seems a little reactionary, but I was thinking of reporting him missing.”
“You mean the police?”
“Well, yes. I mean he’s been missing for two days. I’m getting a little worried.”
“I understand, but why don’t I check with the supervisors in his department. Perhaps they know the real story. Maybe someone he works closely with, someone he would consider a confidant. They might have heard from him or would know where he went.”
She felt a little skeptical and relieved at the same time. At least someone was trying something she thought. “That would be OK. It’s a good place to start I guess.”
“As soon as I hear from anybody, I will let you know right away.” He soothed.
“OK. Thanks a lot Will. I hate being a pain, but I’m just worried, that’s all.”
“As you should be. Let me see what I can find out.” He surprised her by lightly pulling her toward him and giving her a firm but brief hug.
As she walked back to her desk, she felt even more at odds with her emotions. She held back the incident with the car following her the previous night. She was afraid she would sound like a ditz babbling on about being followed like some cliché out of the movies. She still had an underlying feeling of worry not knowing what really happened and concerned that Chris might be in trouble. She also still felt a little mad at Chris for doing this to her – making her feel this way. Now her conversation with Will brought her some relief, yet she was fairly certain that he wouldn’t be able to find out anything.
She sat down to do whatever she had to do next, but couldn’t keep focused on the day’s tasks. Her mind kept drifting to what she should do next. Perhaps a trip down to the second floor would help. She had to do something and sitting here trying to do her job certainly wasn’t getting her mind off the situation. She reminded herself again that the car following her was indeed real. Something wasn’t right.
She got off the elevator on the second floor and headed down toward the wing of the building where Chris had a cubicle. He spent a lot of time working in some of the various development lab areas, but his cubicle had the standard issue office Computer and phone. As she negotiated the maze of isles, she noted that the place was pretty busy looking. There were a couple of impromptu meetings made up of people gathered casually having spontaneous discussions relating to various computing issues. Others were on the phone or staring intently at their computer monitors as if there was an Oscar winning performance being displayed or something.
She arrived at Chris’s cubicle and sat in his chair. His computer and monitor were off. He had a lot of technical publications crammed among the shelving units. His desktop was pretty much covered with an incomprehensible array of notes, printouts and even a couple of magazines related to computer topics.
Pinned to one partition was a group calendar with various meetings scribbled in. She noted that Wednesday had a note with regard to Marty’s meeting: “Mtg. w/ Marty, Joanna – New data element structure.” She wondered who “Joanna” was. Next Tuesday was a reference to the monthly management review meeting. She wondered if he kept more detailed meeting noted in his cell phone or computer calendar.
Sitting here looking around, she didn’t notice anything odd or that might be considered a clue. She heard a voice from behind, “May I help you?”
She turned and found a blonde woman looking back at her. “Oh Hi! Are you Corrine?” Mara said with a bit of surprise.
“No, Joanna. I work with him.”
“Him?”
“Chris, the guy whose desk you’re sitting at.” Joanna made a gesture toward the flat screen monitor on Chris’ desk.
“Oh! Sorry. I’m Mara. Chris’ sister.” She noticed Joanna looked like the female version of the stereotypical computer nerd. A little unkempt, slightly overweight, obviously unconcerned about her selection of clothing but friendly and cheerful.
“Mara? Yes, I recall Chris mentioned he had a sister. How is he doing? Does he need anything?”
“Need anything?” Mara felt that this girl was always one assumption ahead of her.
“He called in sick Wednesday. When you mentioned you were his sister, I just thought you stopped by to pick up something he might have asked for from his office.”
“Well actually, I was wondering just wondering where he actually is. I tried to call him at home, but haven’t been able to reach him. I was hoping that perhaps he had returned to work or that maybe even someone here has seen or heard from him.” Mara didn’t go into the details of visiting his apartment and such.
“Well, I don’t believe anyone has seen him since… Tuesday I guess. Yes, I saw him Tuesday.”
“Well if you or anyone hear from him, please ask him to call his sister.”
“No problem. You don’t think he’s in any serious trouble do you?”
“Well, when I get the flu bad enough, I usually ignore the phone, so hopefully he’ll be back on his feet Monday after a weekend of recovery.” Mara said. She didn’t want to cause unnecessary worry.
“Yeah, you’re probably right. If I hear from him, I’ll definitely tell him he’s got a concerned sister. It was nice to meet you.” Joanna’s smile seemed to glow. As Joanna turned to go, Mara responded with “Great to meet you too.” And Joanna headed off to wherever the computer geeks went to do whatever they do.
She stood up and took one last look around Chris’ area. Who knows what might be buried right on his desk in the form of notes and printouts that might be a lead to what happened. She looked at his phone and noticed it did not have the buttons to speed dial frequently called numbers like hers did. She noticed the trash bin was empty but as she turned around to leave saw there were what looked like some small, ripped open boxes in one corner. She peered at them for a moment and noticed that they were simply packing materials from a well-known computer vendor. Probably manuals or small parts.
As she rode the elevator back to the fourth floor, she pondered what she had learned. She didn’t know what she expected to find. However, one thing for sure, it seemed from Joanna that no one else had heard from Chris either.
At the back of her mind something was bothering her about his cubicle but she couldn’t quite put her finger on it. Hopefully it would come to her later. Another thing she felt pretty certain about: Will wouldn't likely turn up any more information. Should she tell him that she had gone down and asked around for herself? Perhaps she should think more seriously about calling the police?
She Returned to her desk and pondered the situation.