Masking for Trouble

by A J Maybe

  Her lips twitched with the effort of hiding a smile. “That’s not too far off.”

  Kasper slapped the steering wheel. “Espionage! Some subtle subterfuge! With a dash of magic. I can’t wait!”

  Approaching Thessalon, donuts were the first stop. Kasper went in alone and insisted that we not open the box until after dealing with the OPP. “Business first, pleasure later. And no peeking! The magic will leak out.” I assumed he was joking. Surely not every baker along the north shore of Lake Huron could tap into supernatural powers.

  Another two or three clicks down the highway, the old man slowed and pulled into a little motel. “The Thessalon Motel”, read the sign. Very creative. It also said ‘Pets “Welcome”’, with quotation marks around “welcome”. Given the state of the place, I guessed they’d welcome anyone with a working credit card. “Interesting choice of accommodations,” I noted.

  Kasper shrugged. “LT isn’t Mr. Big Time, you know. It’s affordable and they’ll take a horse-sized dog. Wait here.”

  We did. I assessed the space behind the bench seat. “How exactly are we cramming Leo in here?”

  “Can’t have a dog in the truck,” Sherry said, as if that were obvious.

  “Ha! Why not? Need to protect the vintage upholstery?”

  “That dog in a confined space with a box of donuts? It’d be chaos.”

  “Fair point.”

  Just then a bear-shaped black blur bounded across the parking lot. Leo plunked two paws on the passenger window and sniffed vigorously, straining her eyes toward the bakery box on the dash.

  Sherry giggled. “See?”

  Kasper meandered after the dog, carrying a leash, a bowl the size of a hubcap, and a nearly empty bag of food. As he slapped the rear panel of the truck and dropped the tailgate, Leo abandoned her donut quest and jumped into the truck bed with ease.

  “Really? Can you still let them ride back there?” I said. I remembered people driving around my old neighbourhood with dogs in truck beds and never heard of any accidents, but I hadn’t seen it in years.

  “Of course. Leo’s smart. She won’t jump out,” Kasper said. “There’s more to that dog than you’d think. Plus, she knows where the donuts are.” He climbed in and deposited the remains of LT’s smashed phone in the cup holder.

  In the OPP parking lot, Kasper took the time to back into a spot facing the entrance/exit. “In case we need to make a getaway, hey?”

  “Sherry and I will go in first,” I said. “Then, when you make your grand entrance, Sherry will have a chance to do her thing.”

  Kasper nodded.

  We passed under the black and yellow sign and entered the brick building. Sherry paused in the vestibule to study the Missing Persons posters. Derek sat at his post, ramrod straight and studying his monitor intently. I noted that his hair was parted crisply and oiled heavily. “Good morning, officer,” I cooed. “Your hair has a particularly high sheen today.”

  I cringed. My attempts at ‘feminine wiles’ just never seemed to come out right.

  “Not an officer, Ms. Mars,” he said. “Here to speak with the Detective? I didn’t receive notice that you were summoned.”

  “Summoned?” I laughed breezily. “Like a demon? I’m no demon, Officer Derek. A bit of a devil, maybe.” I winked coyly but it seemed too quick, more like a blink, so I winked again.

  He stared, expressionless. “If there’s something in your eye, there’s an eyewash in the storehouse. I could call an officer to escort you there.

  I froze for a long second, considering this. “Oh, dear, yes!” I said, seizing the opportunity. ‘Storehouse’ sounded a lot like ‘evidence room’, didn’t it? “But this eye, it’s just awful!” I wailed. “I can’t wait for an officer. Plus I wouldn’t want to waste anyone’s time. Couldn’t you just, you know, point out the way?”

  I held a hand over my eye and peaked at Derek with the other.

  He looked unimpressed. “Actually, on second thought, I’m sure you could get it cleaned up in the bathroom sink.” He flicked his head toward the door in the east wall with the restroom symbol on it.

  Sugar. I’d overdone it. I pouted at Derek. “But—”

  “But nothing, Ms. Mars. The Detective will be along in five minutes. Wash quickly.”

  That’s how far ‘feminine wiles’ got me.

  The sliding door blocking the vestibule from the rest of the station slid open as I passed under the sensor. “Sherry, I’ll just be in the washroom for a minute, if you—”

  I broke off my sentence as I saw Kasper drop the tailgate on the truck. Leo leapt down and hit the ground running full-tilt toward the detachment’s front door. In that second, I felt like a rabbit in front of a hound.

  I thought it best not to react. I casually stepped toward the restroom, away from Leo’s path, and wondered what command Kasper had given her.

  I heard the sliding glass door engage as the sensor registered Leo, but a millisecond later: BWAACK! The door hadn’t opened in time, and Leo’s enthusiastic bulk crashed it off the track. The heavy glass panel thwacked back into place as I covered my head and dove into a corner like the sky was falling. Somehow, the glass remained intact.

  I stayed there, frozen, and listened to the small riot unfolding.

  The door’s electrical motor grinded away uselessly.

  Kasper, in the parking lot, laughed joyfully.

  Derek screeched: “GET THAT DOG — oomph!”

  The “oomph” came as Leo’s skittering claws left the ground and she hopped up on the counter, overshot the mark, and skidded onto Derek’s lap. They both toppled to the ground with muffled thumps and one loud crack, which was Derek’s chair snapping in two.

  “Oh Leo, you silly pup!” Sherry laughed breezily, as if the dog had only hopped up on a couch or something. “Get back in the truck, you!”

  I poked my head up in time to see Leo sauntering back toward the vestibule, patiently waiting for the inner doors to slide open before trotting through. I followed, with less of a saunter and more of a scurry, and squeezed through the gap between the misaligned outer doors.

  Looking back, I saw Sherry surveying the damage at the reception desk. “Well, ah, we’ve gotta hit the trail. Sorry about the mess but, ahhh, chat soon, ‘kay?” Derek rose from behind the counter, his face tomato red, and another officer wandered over in a shockingly unhurried fashion, smirking lightly when he saw Derek’s chair.

  I concluded that Sherry must’ve flexed some serious witch power to enchant the staff. Otherwise, we’d be staring down the barrels of several pistols and being cuffed, right? I sprinted back to the idling truck, where Kasper sat at the wheel.

  “So, that was a bust!” I said, slumping against the seat.

  Kasper furrowed his brow at me. “A bust? No, nothing too broken. One door, easily fixed.”

  “And a chair. But I mean—”

  “He knows what you mean,” Sherry said, pulling herself up into the cab. “He’s being funny. And it wasn’t a bust, Piper. I saw the coroner’s report.”

  I gasped, and bolted upright. “And?!”

  “And Rex wasn’t strangled, and he didn’t suffocate. It said” —she cleared her throat and switched her tone so I knew she was reciting the words— “‘victim aspirated a quantity of fine particulate and water’ and ‘victim received a single, significant blow to the juncture of the occipital and temporal bones’.”

  “A-ha!” Kasper said. Then, after a pause, “What’s that mean?”

  “It means he was clubbed behind the ear—”

  “A-ha! The boy never did learn to take a big bump, like his dad could.”

  “—and it means he choked to death on some sort of powder.”

  Sherry brightened. “Oh! It said that too. Rex’s lungs were full of cinnamon,” she said, then she sounded much too happy. In a solemn tone, she repeated, “I mean, uh, Rex’s lungs were full of cinnamon.”

  “Cinnamon!” I swore.

  “A-ha!” Kasper delighted. “Now we’
re getting somewhere!” He gunned the truck onto the highway with a cursory check for traffic.

  Fresh tears sprang to my eyes. “No, Kasper. Now I’m not going anywhere. Not in a food truck, anyway. They must think the cinnamon came from the truck’s kitchen.”

  Kasper moaned. “Ah, dear.”

  Sherry clucked sympathetically.

  Kasper turned his sparkling blue eyes on me again. “Piper Mars,” he said, full of sincere concern, “What are you going to do now?”

  16

  Binge

  I knew what I was going to do. I was going to binge-watch dumb internet videos and eat donuts and cry.

  I yanked my seatbelt into place. “I should just stay out of it, honestly. If I can’t get the truck back, Rex Bales and whoever bonked him on the head are none of my business. Maybe I can try again with the credit card companies. Or the auction people? Do I need a lawyer? I don’t know, who cares? I need carbs. Sugary carbs, and fat.”

  I punctuated my rant by grabbing the donut box and viciously flipping the lid open. Twelve perfect rings of thickly glazed perfection presented themselves and I instantly felt a little better. I swear I heard angels singing. The scent of sourdough wafted up, yeasty and fresh, piqued by a hint of that earthy nutmeg note. The top of each donut was cracked like tectonic plates had shifted within each pastry.

  Okay, more like a bun being pulled apart, but deep fried and coated with a translucent syrup, which was epic in its own right.

  Behind me, Leo devoted herself to cleaning the rear window with her tongue.

  I liberated one and offered the box to Sherry and Kasper, who each took a donut. My teeth broke through the glaze and perfectly light crust with a soft crunch. The cakey interior was pillow soft with a network of holes in a variety of sizes, each one unleashing a dose of flavour as it tore apart. Transcendent.

  “You’re still staying at my place, yes?” Kasper said around his mouthful. “For safety.”

  I chewed slowly, refusing to rush just so I could answer him. “Sure. Thanks,” I said, finally. “But can we stop by the camp so I grab some essentials?” I was thinking mostly of my laptop. Silly cat videos, here I come.

  The brown bottles still stood guard at my back door, an odious triad. I thought about skirting around them, or even entering by climbing up to the never-used front door that didn’t even have steps up to it. Instead I gulped down the last of my third donut and jumped out of Kasper’s truck with determination.

  I stomped up the porch steps and kicked the bottles into the grass. “And stay out!” I said.

  Leo hopped over the tailgate and landed on the grass with athletic poise, then immediately squatted to relieve herself. “Yeah, that’s right Leo. Mark this territory!” I said it loudly, in case anyone needed to know I had a big ferocious canine backing me up now.

  Leo only seemed ferocious until she was licking your hand or begging with her earnest, golden eyes, but whoever left the bottles at my door didn’t know that.

  They do know a lot about me though.

  I darted in and grabbed my laptop, an oversized hoodie and lounge pants, and returned to the truck. It didn’t look like anyone had visited the camp while I was gone.

  “And can we stop downtown for a bag of Cheese-ums?” I asked. “These donuts will not survive to see the sunset,” I predicted.

  “Bah!” Kasper made a face like he smelled rotten eggs.

  “We’ll bake,” Sherry decided.

  “Is my laptop allowed in the sanctum of the kitchen?” I asked. “I gotta introduce you to the Picky Persian. Funniest cat on the whole internet, I swear.”

  Sherry rolled her eyes at me. “I’ve been on the internet before, Piper. I subscribed to Picky Persian four years ago. I’m more into Machie231’s pranks lately. And those eating challenges always crack me up.”

  “Machie’s the best,” I said. “Love his accent.” This was going to be just the ticket to take my mind off things.

  “But we can watch whatever you want,” she offered, voice full of sympathy. “And yeah, it can be in the kitchen. I’m no purist.”

  At Kasper’s, Sherry showed me the spare room and I changed into my comfy clothes. Stress-fueled exhaustion and depression pulled me onto spare bed and I crashed into a long, dreamless nap without meaning to.

  Sherry finally roused me, just in time for dinner, and we sat down for a French toast casserole. “My tradition for Sad Days,” she said. Each bite was a forkful of comfort, like a buttery, maple-drenched sponge, but I still felt pretty blah.

  I have four days left before I have to slink back into Saint Mauvais and start restocking the potato chip rack like when I was fifteen. A ribbon of anxiety tightened around my stomach.

  “I’ll wash up, of course,” I said. “If you didn’t cook it, you clean it.” That was always my mother’s rule. Bussing the dishes to the sink, I spied the shoebox I’d transported my failed donuts in, flattened out and ready for the recycling bin.

  “What did you do with the hockey pucks?” I said.

  “Sold them down at the marina,” Kasper said. “Ballast for people’s sailboats.”

  I indulged him with a smirk.

  “No, no, not really. I brought them down to the Dungeon,” Kasper said. “Built a new torture device.”

  Sherry giggled. “Kasper thinks he’s funny. Remember what I said about dogs in confined spaces with donuts? Leo got into them.”

  I gasped. “All of them?! Is she gonna be okay?!”

  Kaspar shrugged. “Leo is, right now, a big dog. But she’s outside, in case all that dough exits explosively. But probably she’ll be fine.” Then he eyed up the mound of dinner dishes piled atop the breakfast dishes and declared he was going to bed early.

  Sherry grabbed a dish towel and helped in spite of my protests. I never minded doing dishes, honestly. And in that moment, it just felt good to be doing something productive. When the rest of life was falling down around me, at least I could make a plate shiny. It gave the illusion of having things together, anyway.

  “Hey Sherry, how come we haven’t been arrested? We basically just stormed an OPP detachment and walked away scot free.” I thought I knew the answer, but I wanted to hear it.

  She giggled. “Oh, that’s a little trick I’ve been working on. It’s just an enchantment that makes people very agreeable, but I supercharged it with a ‘seeing things in the best light’ spell.”

  “Ha! That’s an absolute super-power.”

  “Maybe. That’s the first time I’ve tried it in the wild. It’s exhausting, and it doesn’t last very long. Next time Derek sees either of us, the memory will come back in full, accurate detail.”

  “And he’ll be mad?”

  “One would think so.”

  “Thanks for the warning. Not that I mind the idea of just avoiding that guy for the rest of my life.” It occurred to me that I’d still have to talk to the Detective, but that was a problem for Future Piper.

  I set up my laptop and found a video playlist of pets sleeping in places they shouldn’t.

  Sherry directed me to the ingredients we’d need: nothing fancy, we were just doing a double batch of classic chocolate chip cookies. “I guess we all try to cast spells like that, eh? The whole ‘presenting things in the best light’ thing? And trying to make people like us? That’s like 90% of what the internet is. It’s all about keeping up appearances” I said, aware of the rant that threatened to spill out of me. “You could call your creation ‘The Social Media Charm’. I just mean… we’re all so worried about how we look, how things seem to everyone else, about building and maintaining this mirage version of ourselves, you know?”

  My witchy mentor set out two stainless steel bowls, one for dry and one for wet ingredients. “Are we?”

  “Hm. Aren’t we?”

  “I once saw a squirrel turn into a woodpecker. It still acted like a squirrel. Drilled holes in trees just to hide acorns in ‘em.”

  Huh. Sherry was really getting the hang of this cryptic mentor th
ing. Was she saying the woodpecker had stayed true to its true nature? Or was it just a funny story? “Okay, so maybe it doesn’t apply to everything or everyone. But it applies to me. And Ty! He was so worried about what I thought of his dad, so concerned that people judged the unicorn truck… like, is he mourning, or is he worried about his family’s reputation?”

  “Grief makes us say funny things,” Sherry said, answering my question, but I was thinking about the luchador mask and how it must’ve hid Rex’s agonized expression. Another way to put a pretty face on something ugly.

  I examined the dried vanilla bean, handling it like a jeweler with an opal. While visually disgusting, like a crunchy black leech, its intoxicating aroma had driven people to voyage around the world in wooden boats in search of it.

  “Piper? Piper!”

  “Huh?”

  “Can you sift the flour, please?” Sherry asked. By her tone, I knew she’d asked it before, while I was inside my wandering mind.

  “Oh, yeah, sure.” I sifted the fine powder. The particulate. An image of Rex’s body pushed itself into my head. What a way to go. Choking on cinnamon. Those silly kids on the internet had made themselves miserable, but imagine having it force-fed to you.

  How would that even work? I wondered. The killer must’ve been able to completely overpower Rex. Or trick him, maybe.

  I’d been picturing a crime of passion — someone losing their temper, finally losing their patience with Rex and all the accumulated hostility for his list of awful behaviours, and having all that anger boil over.

  That’s what the OPP were picturing too, if they thought Lion Tamer did it. An argument at the bar escalates, carries on down the street, and it all goes bad. The big man clubs the smaller man behind the ear and…

  But the killer used cinnamon as a weapon. That had to be premeditated, right? That’s not part of a standard bar fight.