Like Bette Davis said, "What a Dump!"

What a dump! The voice in her head doing a dead-on impersonation of Bette Davis--or maybe Elizabeth Taylor being Bette Davis in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf", Mindy looked around her new office digs with dismay. And she thought the newspaper building was bad! It looked positively stately compared to where she would be spending eight hours a day at Kutrate Kemicals.

Mindy sat down at a desk that was slightly smaller than the Queen Mary and banged a knee against its metal side. "Ouch!"

"Problems, Ms. Cooper?" Her boss, Bernard Morton, came into her office and looked at her through his horn rimmed glasses. He looked even more like Warren Beatty than he had the first time Mindy met him.

"No, I just hit my knee on the desk."

"I'm sorry to hear that. I know the furniture here is somewhat antiquated but we prefer to put all of our money into research and production instead of non-essentials such as office furniture."

And paychecks, Mindy thought. Out loud she said, "I see."

"You'll get used to it. After all, furniture is merely for function, not form, right?"

"Well, not always," Mindy replied but then stopped. She had the feeling that pointing out the fact that if employees were more comfortable at work, they might like their jobs better seemed like a waste of time. Although she didn't now Bernard Morton very well, she had the feeling that the only thing he cared about was making money, not spending it. Besides, it was her first day and she was supposed to be a dutiful employee, not a smart mouth. "So, what would you like me to do first?"

Bernard scratched his cheek absentmindedly. "I have a meeting at ten today. It's in my office and I'm expecting five people. Please make sure there's fresh coffee."

"Would you like me to attend the meeting too?" Mindy asked hopefully.

"No. Stay out here and answer the phone. That's your main duty, to answer the phone."

"Anything else?"

"Just get used to being here, Ms. Cooper. I hope this all works out so I'm going to do my best to be accommodating. I can't tell you how many administrative assistants I've run through over the past year."

"You can call me Mindy," Mindy told him. She actually felt a little sorry for Bernard. He seemed so befuddled, like he didn't know how he got to be the president of his own company.

"Mindy. Welcome aboard, Mindy. Any questions?'

"I have a million questions," Mindy replied. "I don't know anything about Kutrate Kemicals. I don't even know what you make."

"Air fresheners," Bernard said. "We're the Midwest's biggest producer of air fresheners."

"Seriously?" How could she not know that? "How many people work here?"

"Oh, I'd say around a hundred."

"That's it?" A hundred didn't seem like many employees for the Midwest's biggest producer of air fresheners.

"We're small but we work hard." Bernard nodded politely and left Mindy alone. She began to look through her desk, hoping she'd find some kind of clue that would tell her what they really did at Kutrate Kemicals because she wasn't buying that air fresheners story. There had to be something else going on that Bernard Morton was hiding from the rest of the world. Something that smelled like apple pie mixed with a scent that was a lot more sinister.