“You mean, murder?” I whispered. OMG. We’d been right!
“No. Suicide. There were no skid marks, and she hadn’t been drinking.”
“Oh.” That was disappointing. And did that thought make me a bad person? “Why suicide? Was she depressed?”
The owner of the comic shop next door poured herself coffee from the nearby urn. Joy somberly lifted her mug to me in a mock toast, and I smiled in response.
“Not as far as he could tell,” Gordon said.
“But he didn’t think foul play was involved?”
“The SNPD was understaffed at the time,” he said carefully. “It’s a small town.”
Huh. If I was reading him right, Gordon thought the police officer had made the wrong call, but he couldn’t say so.
“There’s no real connection between that death and the recent murders,” he said. “Not that I can see.”
“But Theresa Keller was in the English department, wasn’t she?”
“Yes. She was.”
“I think Professor Jezek might know something.”
His voice razored. “And why might you think that?”
“Um, no reason. I mean, he hasn’t said anything about Theresa to me. But he was at the college when she died, and I noticed he gave a nice quote in the paper about her after her, um, accident.”
“Why don’t I believe that’s the entire story?” he asked.
But I thought I heard laughter in his voice.
“All right,” he continued. “I’ll talk to him.”
We whispered a few non-Baker-Street-Bakers things to each other, and hung up.
I checked the line at the counter. There were only two people waiting, and Petronella seemed to be managing. So I hustled over to the gamers’ pink corner booth.
I smiled at the group. “Hey, Charlene, have you got a minute?”
“Not right now,” she said. “I’m ironing out some things with our friends.”
“Gordon called,” I said significantly.
“What did he say?”
“Maybe we should talk in my office.”
“It’s okay.” Ray brushed his hand across the top of his red hair. “Charlene’s told us all about the murders. We were wondering when you were going to bring us in.”
I stared. “She . . . What?”
“Since your brother has deserted us,” she said, “I thought it was time to bring in the big guns. Ray’s team has not only infiltrated the college, but they also have access to its computers.”
Henrietta’s broad face creased. “I wouldn’t say infiltrated. We’re students.”
“Same difference,” Charlene said.
I studied the gamers. Ray and Henrietta had been auxiliary (honorary?) members of the Baker Street Bakers earlier this year. And it wasn’t as if we’d been exactly quiet about the investigation. Tally Wally, Graham, Abril, and a host of other characters had all stuck their oars in.
I sighed. “Why not? Officially, Theresa Keller’s death was accidental. But there were no skid marks at the scene, and there was no alcohol in her blood.”
“Murder,” Ray said.
“Or suicide,” I said.
Charlene pointed at the gamers. “Your mission is to find out everything you can about Theresa Keller and our suspects who were at the college when she died.”
“But only computer research,” I said. “We can’t seem to be interfering in a police investigation.”
“Got it,” Ray said. “Nothing IRL.”
“That means in real life,” Charlene said loftily. “You’ve got to stay on top of the modern lingo, Val.”
Ray rubbed his pale hands together. “So, the usual compensation? We’ll be paid in pie?”
“Pie left over at the end of the day,” I countered.
“Deal.” He stuck out his hand, and we shook. “By the way,” he said. “I thought the pie-tin UFOs were cool.”
“Thank you, Ray,” Charlene said.
I smiled. As usual, everything was going to work out.
And then Ray spoke again, and my heart dropped to my soft-soled shoes.
I gaped, uncomprehending. “What?”
His freckled brow furrowed. “I said, is it true a group is protesting Pie Town?”
CHAPTER 27
Outside the window, a motorcycle buzzed down Main Street, its engine an angry wasp. My shoulders tightened at the noise. “Protest group? What group?”
Sunlight streamed through Pie Town’s blinds and made prison-bar shadows across Ray’s broad face. He tugged down the hem of his comic-hero tee. “I saw something online about the pie-tin UFOs.”
“Where online? What was it?” I asked, frantic. We were being protested? This was not good publicity.
Ray looked toward the ceiling, and his broad face wrinkled in a frown. “It must have been on a message board, but maybe I was wrong about the consumer group. It would have been a UFO message board, though they can get pretty nutty.”
Charlene rolled her eyes. “Tell me about it.”
“Why would they—?” My nails bit into my palms. No. I couldn’t panic over an unsubstantiated rumor. I had bigger fish to fry. In a few short hours, Charlene and I would be tracking a secret society through the creepiest cypress forest ever. True, the forest was small and on a super-charming ocean cliff, but it was still ooky.
His girlfriend, Henrietta, nudged him. “Freaking her out isn’t very nice.”
“But she should know,” Ray said.
“But know what?” Henrietta said. “This is why we’re only associate Baker Street Bakers. We need to get more specific with our data.”
“Thanks for letting me know,” I said, gulping. “Could you try to get more info and send it to my cell phone?”
“We will,” Henrietta said.
“Right,” he added hastily.
There was no use worrying over something I couldn’t control and didn’t have the facts on.
But I couldn’t help worrying. I worried as I took the van out to deliver orders. I worried as I returned and closed the empty restaurant. I worried as I cleaned up, turned off the lights.
How could I stalk a secret society when I was in emotional tsunami mode? I took deep, cleansing breaths and grabbed the purple robe from the back of my office chair. Someone had printed on the inside collar in black felt-tip pen: PROPERTY OF THE DRAMA DEPT.
Okay then.
I draped it over my arm, walked to my van, and drove to Charlene’s house.
She pirouetted in her living room, her purple robe billowing over her fuchsia tunic, hood pulled low over her eyes. “What do you think?”
Coiled in a fraying wing chair, Frederick buried his head in a cushion.
I thought her high-tops ruined the effect, and she really needed to take me up on dumping her burnt sofa. “Very secret society.”
“Dorothy didn’t give us the secret handshake.”
“I’m sure we’ll get by, with or without the capes.”
“They’re robes, not capes. Look, sleeves!” She flapped her arms. “You’re not taking this seriously.”
“Their entrance passcode is Hello, Dolly! I don’t think they’ll sacrifice intruders on a sacred stage. And I also don’t think we should drive around San Nicholas in purple capes.”
“Robes!”
“Robes,” I said.
“But you’re right. They’ll get wrinkled. We should wait until we get to the haunted forest.”
“It’s not—” Never mind.
Robes folded over our arms, we climbed into Charlene’s yellow Jeep. She thought my pink pie van was embarrassing, but she had no trouble traipsing around in purple satin. Go figure.
We whizzed down Highway One, screeching left in front of a line of cars to make our turn. Horns blaring behind us, we bumped down the road and along a cliff.
Charlene craned her neck and slowed in front of Marla’s gate.
“The forest is a bit farther,” I said.
“Yes, but we are so close . . .”
> My eyes narrowed. “Close to what?”
She tugged on her ear and squinted. “I’m thinking.” Charlene stepped on the gas, and we lurched forward, driving to the end of the road and a small, dirt parking lot.
I stepped outside. A wind blew off the ocean, and I shivered, zipping up my Pie Town hoodie.
Charlene’s headlights went off, plunging us into autumnal gloom. I widened my eyes, trying to adjust to the lack of light.
The robes were roomy, and I slipped mine on over my hoodie. But they didn’t provide much extra protection against the cold.
Robes flapping about our ankles, we walked through an arch of cypress trees, our footsteps quiet on the soft earth. The trees had obviously been planted, spaced evenly apart. A full, harvest moon glinted through the dark branches, groaning in the wind.
My jaw tightened. I’d been here in the daylight many times. But at night, this trail was creeptastic, and not in a spooky-Halloween-fun sort of way.
We moved along the broad path.
Out of the corner of my eyes, I caught movement in the nearby trees. I whipped my head toward the motion, my heart thudding. But in the darkness, all I could make out were the silhouettes of the broad and twisting cypresses.
It’s just an animal. Like a raccoon. Or a coyote. Or a . . . Gulp . . . mountain lion.
Picking up a large stick, I tiptoed onward, my gaze darting around the miniature forest. What temporary insanity had convinced me this was a good idea?
A branch cracked, and I grasped Charlene’s sleeve.
“Did you hear that?” I whispered.
She cocked her head. “Nope.” Charlene hurried forward. “The cave’s this way. Pull up your hood. We’re getting close.”
Something rustled in the trees. Nerves officially racked, I adjusted my hood, and we turned off the path and into the trees. Charlene and I hurried down a slope, branches crackling beneath our feet.
Near blind, I stumbled over a rock, my hands damp on the bark of the rough stick I carried.
“Shhh!” Charlene hissed. “A little farther. What secrets will be unveiled?”
My robe snagged on a branch. I tugged free. There was a faint ripping sound, and I winced.
“Shhh!”
“Sorry,” I whispered.
We skidded down a steep slope, and Charlene stopped and grabbed my arm.
I froze.
Light flickered from a narrow, uneven entrance in a natural wall of jagged gray stone.
A still figure stood beside the entrance, not three feet away. I smothered a gasp, forced myself to drop the stupid stick. Had it not been for the flutter of his robe, I wouldn’t have noticed the person.
“Password,” a man intoned.
I cleared my throat.
“Hello, Dolly!” Charlene boomed.
He nodded. “Enter and be silent.”
She passed inside.
“Hello, Dolly!” I muttered, feeling foolish.
“Enter and be silent.”
I scuttled past him and squeezed through the rocks.
The cave was bigger on the inside than its entrance suggested. At the far end, by a large, flat stone, people in hooded robes milled about. A card table laden with chips, brownies, and crudités stood on one side of the cave.
A purple-robed approached me. “Hamilton,” she whispered.
“Hamilton!” I squeaked back.
“Hamilton, Hamilton, Hamilton . . .” The password echoed through the cave.
Someone clapped their hands. “Okay,” a woman said. “It looks like everyone’s here.”
People shuffled into a circle. Charlene and I found spaces across from each other.
The woman raised a mask in each hand—tragedy and comedy. “Master of dialogue,” she intoned.
“Master of dialogue,” the others chanted.
She made a quarter turn, and the others did as well, facing in the same direction. Belatedly, Charlene and I turned.
“Mistress of representation,” she said.
“Mistress of representation,” they repeated.
Another smart quarter turn, and this time Charlene and I were quicker off the mark.
“Thespis,” she said. “God of actors.”
“Thespis, god of actors,” they said, and we turned.
“Dionysus, great god of the theater,” she said.
They echoed the chant and turned to face the center. The tiki torches lengthened our shadows, rippling on the gray stone walls.
Their so-called society was silly and harmless. So why were my palms damp, my pulse loud in my ears?
She raised the masks high. “And to the great in-between, the liminal space that represents the stage, we call you.”
They repeated the words.
She dropped the masks to her side, and pulled back her hood, revealing a cheerful young blonde. “Hi, everyone. Thanks so much for coming tonight, after the tragic loss of Professor Starke.”
People removed their hoods and spoke in low voices to each other.
My heart pounded. Oh, damn. It would look weird if we kept our hoods on. Across from me, Charlene stood, as indecisive as me.
Someone in a hood wandered into the cave. “You started without me?” he asked.
Everyone turned to him.
The blonde frowned. “I thought... I counted. Twice! Everyone was here.”
Another robed person jogged in, panting. “Sorry I’m late.”
“Hold on,” the blonde said. “If you two weren’t here, then—”
Charlene tugged down her purple hood. “You’ve been infiltrated.”
The blonde colored. “You don’t—How did you . . . ?”
“Don’t get your occult knickers in a twist,” Charlene said. “We’re the Baker Street Bakers. We’re here to investigate Michael Starke’s murder, not expose whatever conspiracy you’re running. Unless it connects to the murder.”
I covered my face with my hands. No one took the BSB’s name seriously.
“Where did you get those robes?” the blonde asked.
The volume in the cave rose.
Charlene whistled, a piercing shriek, and everyone winced.
“Now we can do this the easy way,” Charlene said, “and you can tell us what you know, or we can reveal your little secret group to the world.”
The blonde’s lips flattened. “Fine. But we don’t know anything.”
“Which of you were at the poetry reading the night Professor Starke was killed?” I asked.
A half-dozen hands lifted into the air.
“All right,” I said. “Could everyone who was at the reading please join me on that side of the cave?” I pointed. “We’ll talk there.”
Muttering, the group separated, one heading toward the food table. The other joined me on the far side of the cave.
“Okay,” I said, looking around. But Charlene had migrated to the card table with the goodies. “First, the obvious question, did anyone see Professor Starke on the street, after the event?”
A tentative hand went up. A slender brunette. “I saw him walking away.”
“Was he alone?” I asked.
She nodded.
“Did you notice anyone else?” I asked.
She shook her head. “I was going in the opposite direction.”
“Okay, did anyone notice anything odd or unusual at the reading?”
People glanced at one another.
The blonde, who seemed to be the group’s leader, cleared her throat. “Brittany was there.”
“What was strange about that?” I asked.
Nervous laughter echoed off the stone walls.
“Well,” the blonde said, “it was, like, Brittany.”
“And?” I asked.
She tossed her head, her blond hair cascading over the satin robe. “Okay, I guess we were all weirded out, because she’s, like, been totally stalking him, you know?”
“Stalking Professor Starke?” I asked, my scalp prickling.
“Everyone knew it,” she
said. “Professor Starke laughed it off, but it was just weird, you know? I mean, the real reason she switched to engineering was because she’d taken all the English classes the college had. The only way for her to stay at the college was to switch to a new program. She did it to stay close to Professor Starke.”
The others nodded.
“Did you see Brittany leave?” I asked.
“I did,” a slender young man with round glasses said. “She left just before Professor Starke.”
So she could have been lying in wait. I shook myself. Anyone could have been lying in wait. “Anyone else?” I asked, brisk.
They shook their heads.
“Any other odd events?”
The young man pushed up his glasses. “I didn’t expect to see Professor Jezek there.”
“Why not?” I asked. “He’s part of the English department.”
“Yeah,” he said, “but he hates going out at night. Everyone knows it.”
“Why?” I asked.
The young man laughed. “Because he’s nuts.”
“I think something happened to him in Eastern Europe,” a slender redhead said quietly. “He’s not nuts. He’s talked about it a little. When he was a child, the neighbors in their apartment building disappeared one night, taken by the secret police. The rest of the building pretended it hadn’t happened. They were afraid they’d be next.”
We fell silent. It was hard to believe a world like that had existed—still existed in some places. What had that childhood done to Piotr Jezek?
“Anything more?” I asked, subdued.
“Professor Starke and Professor McClary got into it,” the young man said, as if trying to redeem himself. “But they were always at each other’s throats.”
“I thought it was kind of a joke,” the blonde said. “Until Professor Starke and Professor McClary were killed. Now none of it seems funny.”
“Anything else?” I asked.
They shook their heads. “Okay. Thanks.” I walked to the snack table, where Charlene was in a heated discussion with a tall, sandy-haired youth.
“What do you mean you don’t believe in the ghost light?” she asked.
He shrugged. “I’m not saying I don’t believe theaters put them out onstage at night. I know they do. I’m just saying, it’s got nothing to do with keeping the ghosts happy.”
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