Tortus Bay

1.11: Conspiracy

Mathas Bernard became the talk of Tortus Bay once again, though not for fond reminiscence or familial condolence, but for wild murder conspiracy. For that is what the village decided upon learning the true cause of the man's death: it could be nothing but homicide. But by whom? And with whose assistance? Unanswered questions stirred the people of Tortus Bay into a frenzy. How had the coroner missed such a basic piece of information? Was it the sheriff herself, concealing facts? Or the family? By noon, Henry had enough of the whole lot.

He slipped out of the Tortoise Shell Inn and headed not toward the center of the village, as had become his routine, but to the park for a chance to catch his breath. To his mind, there was no doubt what would happen next. He saw the thoughts behind their eyes already. Emboldened by the chorus, people would start asking him what he knew, and demand to know exactly what he was doing in their village. A majority of them believed he was a journalist, and his silence on the matter would certainly now be taken as evidence that he was some sort of undercover reporter cracking a case behind the scenes.

The thought of himself as a hard-bitten murder investigator made him laugh, but if it could be believed anywhere then it would be in a small, insular community which eschewed newspapers in favor of their local barkeep. Up until that morning he'd thought that the entire thing would blow over. Time would pass, no theoretical story on the death of Mathas Bernard would materialize, and people would eventually forget the entire matter. He'd been wrong.

A buzzing in his pocket roused Henry from his thoughts, and he accepted the video call without thinking about it. "Am I speaking with Henry Cauville's... torso?" asked a woman's angular face. She had a dramatically pointed chin, and thin lips.

"Yes, it is. Speaking." He hastily tried to right the phone to point at his face while he crossed the street to the park. "Hello."

"Yes, hello. Can you stop walking for a moment? The motion's making me nauseous."

He pulled up short, looked around, and belatedly remembered that there were no benches in the park. Standing it would be. "Is that better?"

"Much. This is Aria Bethel, giving you a call from inHale. I hope I didn't catch you off-guard—our office is open seven days a week, and we observe flexible schedules."

"No, not at all." Henry reminded himself to smile. "That sounds very productive."

Aria met his smile with a slight frown. "We do our best. I have a referral here from my colleague Kara; I understand that you're interested in our open Communications Assistant position?"

He told her that he was, and reflected on his past work as an in-house editor. She told him that the aim of her company was to provide clients with 'a streamlined amalgamation of the latest diets, workouts, food science, and healthy lifestyle tips—personally tailored through clever data aggregation and delivered through a proprietary algorithm. To keep you hale.' Aria went on in excruciating detail about how proud she was of having founded a successful, local tech company, and how she needed dedicated employees to keep it going.

All things considered, it was a standard interview, up until the very end. "I hope you don't mind me asking," Aria said, "but how long have you been in Tortus Bay? The referral doesn't say specifically."

"Almost a week now."

"I see." She visibly exhaled. "Well, Mr. Cauville, we believe in fast actions and direct answers here. I'd like to thank you for your interest, but at this time I don't believe that your experience lines up with the expectations of the position. We have your information on file if anything comes up in the future."

What had seemed to be a pleasant conversation and a hopeful interview was abruptly finished, leaving Henry staring down at his lock screen. It told him that it was already 2:15, and that reminded him of something important.