by Raven Snow
Rowen thought Irene was overselling things a bit. She wondered if she did that with everything she investigated. Rowen still hadn’t taken the time to watch a whole lot of Irene’s past work.
The cameras cut to Irene again. There was a more serious look on her face now. “There’s more to report, I’m afraid. One of our own has gone missing.” A face was plastered up on the screen. Rowen didn’t recognize the man. He had a stocky build and a handlebar mustache. The stats to the left of the picture said he was fifty-five years old and rather short at 5’5”. “It’s too early to file a police report, but if anyone has any information, we would be grateful for it. Stephen Berry is a very important part of this team.”
Rowen rolled her eyes. She knew what Irene was getting at here. She was trying to suggest that this Stephen guy had possibly been abducted. She wouldn’t say it out loud for credibility reasons, but she was definitely trying to stir up the imaginations of those watching.
***
Rowen finished her breakfast, put on some clothes, and ventured out into the world. Things were as crowded as ever. It felt like ages before she reached the Lainswich Inquirer building. She let herself in, locking the door behind her just in case. Margo was the first to look up from her computer. Her lip raised in something like a snarl. She stood and turned, heading for the small kitchen area. Despite Eric’s best efforts she clearly still held a grudge.
“How was traffic?” asked Eric, looking up from Rowen’s own desk. Rowen made a groaning sound in response. “That bad, huh?”
“I kinda like it,” said Peony, inserting herself into the conversation without a second thought. “I started an audio book.”
“Rowen, is that you?” called Rose from her own office.
“Yep!” Rowen yelled right back.
“Can you come in here for a minute?!”
“Coming!” Rowen crossed the room and let herself into Rose’s office. Rose was sitting behind her desk, busily clicking away at her computer. Rowen was surprised to see Ben sitting in a chair across from her. “What’s up?”
“How was last night?” asked Rose. Ben turned in his chair a bit to face Rowen. He waved a hand in greeting.
“Long,” Rowen said, flatly. “I know that’s not what you called me in here to ask.”
“I was just being polite.” Rose rolled her eyes at her cousin. “I’m allowed to ask questions about your well-being.”
“I think Margo’s grudge is about the only thing threatening my well-being now.”
“She’ll get over it.” Rose pointed to the chair next to Ben. “Sit down.”
Rowen did as she was asked. “That serious, huh?”
“Probably not, but it’s the biggest news of the day regardless.” Rose took a deep breath like it was going to take a lot of energy to say what she needed to say. “Did you hear about the guy that’s missing?”
Rowen nodded. “Yeah, I heard a little bit about it. Stephen something, right?”
“Stephen Berry,” Ben added. “Everyone’s out looking for him.”
“Really?” That did surprise Rowen a bit. “So why are you here?” she asked Ben. She didn’t mean to offend him with the question. It was just that he was always so caught up in keeping an eye on things. If a search party was formed he would be out there at the head of it, bum leg or no.
“It’s not the police,” Ben explained. “It’s a bunch of people WNT incensed.” Ben’s normally passive expression was quickly turning to a frown. “No one has so much as filed a missing person’s report yet. I can’t pin down when he actually went missing. Everyone keeps giving me the run around.”
“Does the guy have any family? Anyone who’s super worried about him?” asked Rowen.
“None that I or my men can find. He has a couple of ex wives. We could only reach one. She didn’t seem too bothered by the idea that he was missing, said she hoped he stayed lost.”
“Sounds like Stephen is a pretty upstanding guy.”
Ben shrugged. “Not my place to judge.” He hesitated then. “It’s unlikely, I know, but I don’t suppose you saw him last night?”
Rowen thought back to the picture on the screen. She couldn’t place the face. Then again, she had seen a lot of new faces over these last few days. “I don’t think so. What was his job with WNT exactly?”
“He sold merch.”
“I wasn’t ever at the merch table. Sorry.” Rowen was about to ask another question when it hit her. “Wait, maybe I do know the guy.”
“Really?” Rose raised her eyebrows.
“Well, not exactly,” Rowen said, back pedaling. “It’s more like, I guess, I might know of him. You know those merch guys who went to work at Odds & Ends? Someone was complaining about being a replacement for a guy who didn’t show.”
“When was this?” asked Ben.
“Yesterday morning. The same merch guys are probably working there today. You can ask them yourself.”
“I’ll do that.” When Ben said something, he meant it. He was already standing to leave.
“Do you think the guy is really missing?” asked Rowen. She had a feeling she already knew what he thought about the matter. Even so, she couldn’t help but feel the need to ask.
“No, I don’t suppose that I do. Either way, though… I don’t like it. If this was staged, I’ll be holding WNT accountable.” Ben let it go unsaid that pinning all this on WNT would be difficult. The frown on Ben’s face said he knew that already.
Rose wished her husband the best, giving him a hug and a kiss before he went. She turned back to Rowen as soon as he had gone. “I need you to work today.”
“Yeah, sorry about running late. Eric said—”
Rose waved a hand, dismissing all that. “No, that’s fine. If I’d needed you before now that desperately, I would have called you. I mean, at least you turned your phone on, unlike Margo.” The way Rose said that sounded like she was still harboring a little bit of resentment as well. Most likely she was resentful that Margo was being resentful. Things would just have to sort themselves out in time. “I’d like you to go out to the campground.”
“For what? Interviews? I thought Willow and Benji were out there.” Rowen had noticed that Willow’s desk was empty. She could only think of one other place she would be on a day like today.
“They are,” Rose confirmed with a nod. “They don’t exactly have the rapport with Irene Jones that you do, though.”
“Ah.” Rowen was beginning to understand what Rose was getting at, and she didn’t like the sound of it. “You want me to see if I can’t get an interview with her.”
“More or less.”
“Frankly, I don’t think I can. I mean, she hasn’t called me back about another interview yet. If I just show up out of the blue and start asking questions, she’ll see right through me. Seems like it would be better to be upfront about the questions rather than sneaky about all this.”
“Which is why I want you to kinda… play dumb.” Rose said those last couple of words slowly. She chewed on the inside of her mouth for a moment before elaborating. “I know it sounds bad, but… I don’t think it’s that much of a stretch to assume that Irene believes her core audience and the people she brings on for interviews are complete idiots.”
“What?” Sure, Rowen might have caught on that Irene was making a spectacle of underwhelming things, but she hadn’t gotten the impression that Irene thought she was stupid.
“She thinks that you think you’re a witch, a witch that can weave spells, do magic and stuff. I’d be genuinely surprised if she believed in that sort of thing. She has a real head for business. She’s no nonsense. She obviously hasn’t studied the occult or conspiracy theories or anything. She talks about that stuff the way your average Joe might. She’s parading people she considers unusual out in front of an easily entertained audience. Sure, some of her fans might be fanatics, but it seems to me that WNT is just there to entertain.”
That made sense. Rowen didn’t much like that it made sense, bu
t it did. Most people thought she was delusional. Why would Irene Jones be any different? “I wonder if that’s why she switched Margo with me. Margo is so worried about what other people think of her— She probably came off as more of a skeptic than Irene. I don’t think a skeptic is what Irene is looking for. She wants to be the voice of reason on her own show.” Rowen groaned. “I feel stupid.”
“You’re not stupid,” Rose reassured her. “You’re just… nice. There’s not anything wrong with that.”
Rowen wasn’t sure this was all about being nice. Still, she didn’t argue the matter. “Yeah, I’ll head down there and play dumb.” She stood and headed for the door.
“I’ll let you know if I hear anything about this missing person of ours,” Rose called after her.
“Missing,” Rowen repeated, rolling her eyes. “Yeah right.”
Chapter Ten
The campground wasn’t terribly crowded. Anyone who wasn’t out in town dining or shopping was likely out looking for Stephen Berry. Rowen could hear them calling his name from the sidewalk, in fact. It was easy to see why Ben and the local police force were more than a little upset.
Rowen jammed her hands in the pockets of her track jacket and kept her head low. She didn’t want anyone recognizing her. She wasn’t sure if they cared whether or not she had been a co-host the night before, but it felt better to err on the side of caution.
She made a beeline for the WNT trailers. The first person to intercept her was a security guard. This was a different one than the guy she usually dealt with. He was younger and slimmer. He didn’t look like he would be particularly helpful in the event of an emergency. Even so, he fixed his face into a scowl and held up a hand to stop her from going any further.
“Excuse me, ma’am. You’re not allowed to be here. Please stay outside of the stone perimeter.”
Rowen stopped. The guy was just trying to do his job. She didn’t want to make things any more difficult for him than she had to. “I need to talk to Irene. I’m Rowen Greensmith. I co-hosted things with her last night.”
The young man lowered his hand and squinted at her. “Oh, yeah. I remember you.”
“So, can I see Irene?”
The security guard looked around at this point, like he badly wanted to defer to someone else. “She’s kind of busy at the moment.”
“Doing what?” Rowen asked without pause.
“Um.” The guard looked around like an answer might appear somewhere in a three-foot radius around him. He seemed to find a solution in the radio on his hip. “Veronica?” he spoke into it. “Veronica, are you there? I have a question.” There was only static when he took his finger off the button. “Veronica?” he tried again. He sighed and looked in the direction of her trailer. “Wait here,” he told Rowen before heading in that direction.
The security guards here were bad about expecting her to stay in one place. As soon as the guard was out of sight, she headed right for Irene’s trailer. Quickly, before anyone could even think about stopping her, she knocked on the door.
There was talking going on inside. Irene was speaking to someone. “That must be the coffee,” said Irene’s voice, muffled by the wall between them. “Come on in, Veronica!”
So that’s where Veronica was. Rowen opened the door. “Sorry, I’m not Veronica.” She stood in the door for politeness’s sake, refusing to barge in if she didn’t have to. That was her intent anyway. As soon as she saw Willow sitting in a chair across from Irene she changed her mind. “What are you doing here?” The door banged shut behind her as she approached her cousin.
Willow’s eyes widened. She smiled. “Oh, hey! Irene saw me walking around with Benji. She wanted to talk about, like, maybe coming on her show?” Willow looked to Irene. “Right?”
Irene hesitated. She glanced from Willow to Rowen then back again. A momentary frown flashed across her face, like she had just been caught with her proverbial hand in the cookie jar. It didn’t take long for that frown to become a smile. She was a professional through and through after all. “Since you were already here, I thought it would be a shame not to meet you. I’ve already met some of the other Greensmiths after all.” She motioned for Rowen to come over and take a seat. “This is a surprise though. I didn’t think… Veronica didn’t call you yet, did she?”
“No, I was just here already. After last night, I came in late to work. Rose, you know, my cousin who runs the Inquirer, asked me to come out here and give Willow a hand.” Rowen walked to stand near where Willow was sitting. She didn’t sit down herself just yet. For some reason, the idea of doing so made her uncomfortable. “I thought I would swing by and see how you were doing. I heard about that fellow who went missing. I hope it’s not anything serious.”
Irene nodded and assumed a somber expression, bowing her head a bit to look at the floor. “I certainly hope he’s all right. I’m trying not to worry myself too much about it. Maybe he just met a girl or is passed out drunk somewhere. It wouldn’t be the first time I discovered that an employee of mine had a drug or alcohol problem… Please don’t put that in your paper. It’s just me talking to myself, really. I’ve had Stephen on my team for a while. He’s a great guy. All of us here are hoping for his safe return.”
“Have you filed a missing person report yet?”
“It’s too soon for that. I spoke to the police. If he’s still missing tomorrow, they’ll be able to do something about it.”
Rowen was certain she was lying, certain Ben would have mentioned as much if what she was saying was true. “You’ve got a lot of people out there looking though.”
“I do, don’t I? I didn’t ask them to. It’s something they organized on their own. WNT really does have some loyal fans.” Irene’s tone changed slightly then, like even she didn’t particularly like the formation of a search party.
Rowen changed the subject. “So, what? Are you pulling another all-nighter? Are you the co-host this time, Willow?”
Willow’s eyes widened again. It looked like she wasn’t sure what to say here. She probably didn’t want to offend Rowen. “I dunno yet. I mean, we were just talking about stuff and… Well, I mean, I was the one who saw the aliens first out of all of us. The video that got everyone here was shot by my boyfriend.”
The certainty with which Willow had said the word “aliens” was telling. That was probably what Irene saw there. She was making her way through the Greensmiths and Willow was the prize. She had never wavered on the idea that the lights were aliens, not once. She would be the perfect co-host for Irene. She’d be able to bounce skepticism off her for hours. It felt wrong though, like she was preying on her. Rowen didn’t like it one bit.
The dissatisfaction Rowen was feeling must have been obvious. Irene tensed up, very uncomfortable all of a sudden. “Is that all right? I would have called you about it, but we were still just talking about it. I haven’t been in here that long or anything.”
Rowen needed to say something. A large part of her wanted to call Irene out, though on what exactly, she wasn’t sure. A sudden commotion outside of the trailer kept her from having to say anything.
People were shouting. There were sounds of running. Willow and Irene both stood. Irene was on her way to the window but stopped when the door opened. Veronica was standing there with two cups of coffee. Her freckled face was a bit pale. “What’s going on?” Irene demanded.
Veronica glanced over her shoulder. Through the open door, Rowen could see people hurrying both toward and away from something. “I don’t know,” said Veronica. “I think… I think I heard someone say something about a dead body?”
“What?” Irene moved past Veronica, ignoring the coffee and going down the stairs. “What’s going on?” she called, looking around for someone around the WNT trailers that might know. Rowen followed her and heard Willow do the same.
“It, ah, seems the search party found a dead body,” said a voice that sounded like it belonged to the young security guard. “It sounds like it might be Stephen.”
“What?” Irene’s voice was soft, caught in a state of disbelief.
Rowen stepped around Irene and walked to the edge of the gravel where the trailers were parked. She kept her eyes on the chaos rampant in the camp site as she pulled out her phone and called Ben.
“I know,” said Ben, answering almost immediately. Rowen hadn’t expected him to pick up. She had assumed there was a good chance someone had called him already. “The station called me a few minutes ago. I’m on my way to the campground now.”
“Is the body really Stephen Berry?”
“We’ll have to get someone who knew him to confirm that. My first guess is that, yeah, it’s him.” Ben sighed. The station had already been busy with so many people in town. Things had just gotten a lot more difficult. “I figure getting someone to identify Berry will be a lot easier than the woman.”
“The woman? What woman?”
Ben was silent for a few seconds. He had clearly assumed Rowen knew as much as he did right now. “There was a second body found by the first. It’s a female body.”
Rowen took a moment to process that, to wonder who it might be. “No ID on her?”
“No ID on either of them. They were both found nude, and you know what people are going to say about that.”
“Well, if it was an alien abduction, they obviously don’t come in peace.”
Chapter Eleven
The bodies were a little worse off than just nude. They both had incisions made in strategic places. Rowen wasn’t well versed enough in medicine to be able to tell if they were amateurish or not.
Irene Jones had been angry when Ben allowed Rowen to come with him to the crime scene. She demanded to know why it was that someone from the local news was allowed in on police business. Ben tried to explain the paperwork Rowen would have to sign, that she was in part a private investigator. Her husband was on the way as well, Ben said. None of these details would make it into the paper. That didn’t satisfy Irene, even though there wasn’t much to hide at the moment. The unofficial search team had trampled the scene of the crime. Pictures had been taken on cell phones. Video had been shared online. It was all terribly grim and out in the open. Rowen looked down at the corpses and couldn’t help but feel sorry for them—even the female victim who she hadn’t liked much in life.