The next morning, they finally made some progress. Coral came in early and made numerous phone calls and Bettina used her computer skills, and between the two of them they managed to track down what appeared to be the original purchaser of several of the parcels. It was a company named Metamorph. They were based out of an Eastern European country called Kazmekistan, but had a branch in the United States based in California. According to their corporate records, they manufactured pharmaceuticals.
Metamorph had set up numerous shell corporations to make purchases of at least three of the parcels, including the one adjacent to the parcel where the three ley lines were known to cross. Coral and Bettina still hadn’t been able to find the purchaser of that property, but she suspected that it was also Metamorph.
“A pharmaceuticals company? That is odd,” Coral said. “I wonder why they’d want property in that location. It’s out in the middle of nowhere. It’s hardly well-suited to construction if they wanted to build new facilities. And why did they work so hard to disguise the fact that they bought the property?”
“Call them and see what kind of comment you can get,” Mr. Brewster said. “And hurry up. It’s six hours later there.”
Metamorph didn’t have a website or any public listing of their telephone number, but Bettina managed to find their telephone number on their incorporation documents, which were public record and available online.
“You’re good,” Coral said. “Seriously. You should consider being a reporter.”
Bettina beamed at the compliment.
Frederick had wandered up. “She is really good, isn’t she?” he said eagerly. He turned to Bettina. “Can’t we at least be friends?” he asked. “I miss hanging out with you.”
Bettina glanced at Coral, who shook her head.
“Call me when you’ve made up your mind. I’m going to the Donut Hole on a cruller run,” she said, and grabbed her purse and walked out.
“I’m off to do some investigating. And Bettina’s too good for you.” Coral grabbed the phone and called the number Bettina had dug up for her.
The woman who answered the phone sounded less than delighted to hear from her.
When she told the woman who she was, the woman cut her off with a “We don’t speak to the press,” managing to make it sound as if the word “press” was synonymous with “pustulant syphilitic leper”. Then the woman hung up.
When Coral tried to call back, the call went straight to voicemail.
She waited ten minutes, and then called again, using her cell phone this time.
“We’re publishing a story on your property purchase, whether you comment or not, so you might want to give your side of the story,” she said, without giving the woman on the other end time to hang up on her.
There was a long, angry pause.
“I know you’re there,” Coral said. “I can hear you breathing.”
“You will be hearing from our legal department,” the woman said finally, and hung up again.
“Bitch.” Coral muttered.
Half an hour later, her cell phone rang.
The man on the other end sounded snooty and pompous.
“What is the nature of the story that you’re writing?”
“Who am I speaking with?” Coral asked. Geez, these people really didn’t care about the corporate image they were projecting, did they? A “hello” would have been nice.
“That’s not your concern.”
“I don’t talk to anonymous people,” she said coolly. “You can give me your name, or I can hang up and go back to writing my story.”
“Everything that I say is off the record, and I assure you, if you violate that, I will sue you.”
“I’m waiting.”
“My name is Easton Berger, attorney at law. I represent Metamorph.”
“I figured as much, what the threats of lawsuits and all,” she said.
“Again, why are you writing about a property purchase? There’s no news value there.”
“Well, there have been a number of parcels of land in the county area of Blue Moon Junction that have been snapped up over the past year. We traced the purchase of one of the parcels back to your company,” she said.
“I fail to see why that’s newsworthy.”
“My boss determines what’s newsworthy,” she said.
There was a long moment of silence, and she could hear angry, indignant breathing on the phone. She formed a mental picture of him: he’d be skinny as a pipe cleaner and he’d have gold rimmed glasses and he’d glare at people down his long, straight nose.
“I will tell you, again, this is off the record, the reason that we purchased the property is that we are cultivating a rare flower which will only grow in the soil in that particular area. It has healing properties, and we are hoping to synthesize it for mass production, but at the current time we have only been able to grow it in small quantities. I will also tell you that ours is a very competitive business, and if word of this were to leak out, there would undoubtedly be trespassers on that property, putting our business at risk. I will also tell you that we have armed guards stationed on our property, and trespassers will be shot on sight, as is our legal right.”