Carter's War - 12. Chapter 12

He hated it when he slept poorly. Marching across the floor to his office, he snarled at Jacynthe as he passed the reception desk, a mug of Tim Horten's coffee, as yet untouched, in his hands. His staff were used to his bad moods; if anything, it endeared them closer to him, made him more human to them, one of them, with the ups and downs that went along with real life.

By all rights, after the day he had yesterday, he should have slept well. But instead he had just laid there staring up at the oyster-white ceiling of his bedroom while the small television at the end of his bed played an infomercial announcing he could lose 6 inches guaranteed in just three weeks, or his money back. It was better than the one on the other channel that told him he could become independently wealthy by buying and selling pieces of his soul in yet another pyramid scheme.

It wasn't anything specific that had kept him awake, just a case of insomnia; some nights he simply couldn't sleep at all. He lay awake aware of life just ticking by, the memories of so many mistakes haunting him, so many sins to atone for, so much in his mind as it grew ever closer to that infamous hour of the wolf that lurked just before the dawn.

It was the hour when doubts and regrets laid siege, and the ghosts of the past sat on the end of the bed to remind a person of every mistake in life. Will's own ghosts manifested in the form of Andrew, his sandy-brown hair and glittering blue eyes. The way his breathing steadied while he slept. He had never had to fend off the wolf while he was with Andrew; now that they had broken off their relationship the wolf visited him regularly.

He made a steady line towards his office; junior recruiters that saw him, scattered, each familiar with their boss's moods. As much as they liked him, none of them had a desire to get in his way before he had his morning coffee and a chance to settle into his routine. However, Sam Conner didn't see him coming; he backed out of his cubicle and walked straight into Will.

The cup of Tim Horten's coffee hit the floor.

"Hey, why don't you..." Sam's eyes widened when he saw whose coffee he had spilled, "Oh...my god..."

Will stared slowly down at his coffee, then up at the man who had spilled it. He didn't say a word, simply stepped over the spill, ensuring he didn't step in it, and walked into his office. The loud bang of the door slamming closed caused everyone in the office to stand up and stare towards his door.

Sam stuttered as he looked down at the spill, "I didn't mean to..."

Alicia sighed as she rested an arm on the cubicle beside him, extending some paper towel for him to mop up the mess, "Don't worry about it, clean this up and run down to the coffee shop across the road. He takes a double-double," she glanced up at the clock, "just get it to him before nine."

He nodded dumbly as he stared at Will's door still in shell-shock, wondering if he would still have a job if he came back. So much for that bonus he was hoping for. His mind swam through a hundred different possible futures as he started towards the elevator on automatic.

She rolled her eyes; rookies. Sam was young, intelligent and good at his job, but hadn't grasped the plain fact that Mister Carter's morning coffee was sacred. Will was like a bear first thing in the morning; get in his way and you got mauled, piss him off and you got mauled, but deep down he was nothing more than a teddy bear, as long as the job got done he was happy.

She returned to her desk and sat down, running over Will's schedule for the day. Thankfully, aside from his regular morning meeting Will had a light day signing off on transfers and sending a stack of recent-hire files over to payroll for processing. Nothing that could stress him out further; judging by his mood, Will wouldn't handle a client meeting or interviews well.

She shuffled his day around slightly, pushing back the payroll till just before lunch, and giving him as much time as she could for him to cool off. By the time Sam returned from making his coffee run, she had finished. She smiled up at the rookie as she liberated the coffee from him, before she sent him running back to his desk and the pile of work he still had to get done.

She didn't knock on Will's door. She knew his moods, and knew he wouldn't answer if she had. He stood with his back to her, hands clasped lightly behind his back as he stared down Bay Street towards the city. She always found that strange; most people looked down towards the lake and the magnificent view of the CN tower, but Will always chose to stare Northeastward.

She silently crossed to his desk and set the coffee down on the edge.

"Thank you," he said without turning; there was no hint of anger in his voice, he sounded deceptively calm, collected.

"Part of my job," she said as she straightened the papers on his desk. "I moved back your meeting with payroll and the staff are ready for the morning ritual."

He turned finally, his eyes creasing with pleasure, "Anyone ever tell you how appreciated you are?"

"Remember that when you speak to payroll," she shot back, "I could use a raise."

He snorted, "No chance."

She shrugged, "Worth a try." She moved aside to let him sit down as she sorted the colour-coded file folders. Green for employee files, red for operations projects, and orange for payroll and benefits.

Will watched her a moment as he frowned, reaching out to take the orange one from her, remembering Bruce having them the day before. It was strange--more from the fact that no one ever needed orange files, they were only ever used by payroll. The only time he had them was when he hired someone on for the first time--he had to ensure the social insurance numbers had been entered into the hard copies personally. Company policy.

"Everything okay?" Alicia asked, seeing him tap the file folder thoughtfully.

"It's nothing," he said, handing the file back to her, turning on his computer. He had a department meeting to start in a few minutes, and then endless files to process. He didn't have time to dwell on a peculiarity.

* * *

Payroll was always typically located in a forgotten part of the building. Avery-Woods owned the building, leased several of the lower floors to other companies, and maintained the top ten floors for its own operations. In the heart of the building, in an area originally intended for filing purposes, payroll had been sandwiched between a storage closet and racks of corporate archives.

It was like winding his way through a maze, but he spent a lot of time back there. In the constant race for companies to be cost-effective, a lot of Canadian firms had turned to outsourcing their payroll departments to third-party companies. But Avery-Woods hadn't taken that step. Eventually it would have to, and several times in board meetings the matter had been discussed at length. But so far the overworked, understaffed department had survived. Which in Will's opinion was a good thing; it let him sort problems out directly, to have direct access to the department responsible for paying the employees he hired.

That and he liked Bertha; she always had a friendly smile for him and reminded him of his grade school math teacher. She ran her department well, and made the most efficient use of the resources she had available. And she always took the time to sort a problem out personally.

He frowned when he set the extra coffee he had brought from upstairs for her down on the edge of her empty desk. He glanced about for her, wondering if she had taken a moment to step away from her desk.

"Can I help you?" The young woman leaned around a filing cabinet to look at him. She couldn't have been more than twenty, dressed in an ill-fitting suit that said she didn't wear one regularly and looking at him as if he were a complete stranger.

"I'm looking for Bertha," he said pointing to her empty chair.

The young woman shook her head, "I'm sorry, Bertha has a couple of weeks off, I'm temping until she gets back."

Will's brow deepened, he hadn't been notified. "I'm sorry, who hired you?"

She shook her head, "No, I'm only a temp, I'm with an agency, they called me up yesterday morning to fill in for the week and...here I am."

Will's brow darkened further, "Who authorized this?"

"I'm sorry," she looked confused. "I met a manager when I arrived yesterday, he showed me what I had to do, and he signs my time sheet."

Will extended the files he was carrying, studying her intently. His department was responsible for hiring and contracting temps, and someone had arbitrarily assigned an outside contractor without asking him. If someone in his department had done it, they hadn't filed the appropriate forms with him, and without his signature she couldn't have started work. Not according to corporate policy.

He moved around Bertha's desk and scooped up her phone, "Reception, get me the training manager." He was determined to get to the bottom of this.

"Ms. Conner here," Mary replied almost immediately.

"Mary, this is Will from HR," he said. "Do you know anything about a temp filling in for payroll this week?"

Mary paused, "I don't know anything about a temp in payroll. When did you hire her?"

"I didn't," Will said, "I am trying to find out who did."

Mary sighed, "If you find out, let me know. Should I send someone down to make sure she's trained on our computer system properly?"

"That would probably be a good idea," Will said as he switched hands with the receiver. "I'm going to call this agency and find out who signed off on this. I will call you back." He set the phone down and stared at the temp. "What's your name?" he asked.

"I'm not in trouble, am I?" she asked in concern.

"No," he reassured, "It's simply that no one informed me you were going to be here, and I handle all our staffing issues."

"Well, I'm Jennifer Beatty, and I work for Simmons Staffing." She extended her hand.

"Will Carter, Human Resource Manager." He shook her hand, "Alright Jennifer, keep doing what you're doing, someone from our training department should be down soon to show you what you need to do while I figure out who hired you."

He shook his head as he left the payroll department. Ordinarily, when something like that happened, Bertha was the one who could straighten it out. But with her away, Will was at a loss. If both training and HR were circumvented, and Bertha was away, who could he turn to?

He checked his watch, he had half an hour to get to his lunch meeting and when he got back, he would get to the bottom of this latest mystery.