by J. C. Eaton
“Astounding. Sounds like a take on those old nineteen eighties urban legends where someone gets a mysterious videotape, they watch it, and within days they die.”
“You think someone is trying to scare a bunch of old ladies?”
“I don’t know what to think. But you were right. Your mother should stick to reading a cookbook or something.”
“She never went near one when I was growing up, and she’s not going to start now. Frankly, the only thing that’s going to stop my mother from dwelling on this is if I fly out there and make a fool of myself investigating.”
“Listen, kiddo, you’d never make a fool of yourself, no matter what.”
“I don’t know the first thing about investigating. I’m no detective.”
“The heck you’re not! The way you track down and verify receipts, hold everyone accountable for monies spent, and triple-check every bit of documentation that comes across your desk? If that’s not detective work, then what is?”
“You know what I mean. What does my mother expect me to do even if I fly out there? Take out a pencil and paper and start acting like Sherlock Holmes?”
“Nah, he’d use an iPad by now.”
“You do think this is absurd, don’t you?”
“Yes and no. Coincidental deaths maybe, but not that e-mail. Keep me posted, Phee. By the way, what’s the name of that book?”
“It had a strange title. The Twelfth Arrondissement. Whatever that means.”
“It’s a neighborhood in Paris.”
“How on earth do you know that?”
“You’d be surprised at all the irrelevant facts I know. But this one is firsthand. I lived in Paris for a year when I graduated from college. Couldn’t figure out what to do with the rest of my life and thought I’d take a crack at studying art. Needless to say, that dream evaporated and here I am.”
“Yes, here you are!” came an unmistakable voice that bellowed down the hallway. “I was looking all over for you, Williams.”
“Be right there, Boss. Gotta run. Remember, Phee, if anything turns up, give a holler.”
“Sure thing.”
I clicked the Refresh button on my computer and waited for the screen to adjust. Of all the crazy things. Why would the book club be reading about some neighborhood in Paris? It didn’t sound like their usual cozy mystery. Then again, there was nothing cozy about this.
As hard as I tried, I couldn’t stop thinking about that bizarre book and my mother’s irrational fears. They plagued me the entire afternoon. I mean, who in the twenty-first century, other than my mother, her book club friends, and my mother’s sister, Aunt Ina, would believe in curses? The only saving grace was that my aunt wasn’t in the book club. She lived in the East Valley, miles from Sun City West. Compared to her, my mother was the epitome of rational thinking.
Once when my cousin Kirk and I were ten or eleven, we were having lunch with our mothers at some restaurant after a horrid morning of clothes shopping for school. Kirk accidently spilled the salt shaker and my aunt went berserk.
“Quick! Kirk! Take a pinch of salt and throw it over your left shoulder.”
“I’m not gonna do that. I don’t want salt all over my neck. It’ll itch.”
“If you don’t throw it over your shoulder, you’ll be cursed with bad luck. Pinch that salt and throw it.”
Kirk refused, forcing my aunt to lean over the table and throw the salt for him. Unfortunately, she knocked over two water glasses in the process, both of them landing in Kirk’s lap. What followed next was one of those memorable family moments they tell you you’ll be laughing at ten or twenty years later.
In a rush to stand up, Kirk toppled backward, knocked the chair over, and landed on the floor.
“See, I told you,” my aunt said. “Next time you’ll listen to me.”
Was The Twelfth Arrondissement my mother’s spilled salt shaker? I tried dismissing it from my mind till the moment the workday ended and I set foot in my house.
Chapter 2
I barely had time to put my bag on the counter and kick off my shoes when my phone rang. The voice in my head screamed, LET THE ANSWERING MACHING GET IT, but I didn’t listen. I grew up in a household without an answering machine and you had to race to the phone or forever wonder what you missed. Old habits die hard.
“Phee, thank goodness you’re home.”
“We agreed I’d call you later this evening, Mom. I just got in.”
“Thelmalee Kirkson is dead. Dead. This afternoon at the rec center pool. It was awful.”
“Oh my gosh. Did she drown?”
“Drown, no. She doesn’t even swim. I mean, didn’t even swim. Just sunbathed and read.”
“Heart attack?”
“No, bee sting. Out of nowhere. She got stung and died from anaphylactic shock before the paramedics could get there.”
“That’s awful, Mom. I’m so sorry. She was in your bridge group, wasn’t she?”
“No, that’s Thelma Morrison. Thelmalee was in my book club. When the fire department finally removed her body from the lounge chair, do you know what they found?”
Before I could catch a breath, my mother continued. “They found that book. The Twelfth Arrondissement. Facedown on the small table near her chair. She only had a few pages left. So you see, it was that book. It’s put a curse on us!”
“For the last time, Mother. There is no curse. No book curse. This was a horrible accident. A fluke.”
“Four perfectly fine book-club members dead in such a short time is not a fluke or a coincidence. Sophie Vera Kimball, you need to fly out here and investigate. I don’t want you to get a phone call from my friends, or worse yet, the Sun City West Sheriff’s Posse telling you that your mother is number five.”
“I think you’re overreacting. Besides, I can’t just up and fly to Arizona.”
“Knowing you, Phee, you’ve got plenty of vacation and personal days. I’m right, aren’t I? Besides, you can get away from that awful Minnesota weather and enjoy the sunshine out here.”
“The weather’s fine in Minnesota. It’s September, for crying out loud. You’ll see me in December. Liked we planned.”
“December is too late. Call me tomorrow to let me know what flight you’re on.”
“Mother, I am not—”
Drat! She’d already hung up, and I wasn’t about to call her back. I took off my blazer and slacks, and slipped into my favorite worn jeans and an old sweatshirt. Then I grabbed some leftover lasagna from the fridge and popped it into the microwave. No sooner did I press the Start button when the phone rang again.
Unbelievable. Is there no stopping her from driving me insane?
I debated whether or not to answer and decided to let the machine get it. Nate’s voice was loud enough to drown out the sound of the microwave. I quickly picked up the receiver.
“Sorry, Nate. Couldn’t get to the phone fast enough. What’s up?”
“Thought I’d give you a head start, kiddo. I looked up that book, and I have to say, it’s really obscure. I mean, on the Amazon ranking list, it’s got a really high number, and that’s not good. Plus, it’s not even listed with Barnes & Noble. No one’s heard of it. No one’s reading it. Except for your mother’s book club.”
“Who’s the publisher?”
“It’s self-published and copyrighted with the author. Also an unknown. So unknown the name didn’t come up on Google.”
“You didn’t have to go through all of that trouble on my account. Honestly, my mother is just being overly dramatic about this. Although . . . she did call a few minutes ago to tell me another book club member died. She was stung by a bee and died of shock at the large recreation center pool.”
“So that makes what? Four? Four deaths in less than a month with all of the people having a common relationship? If you ask me, maybe you should fl
y out there to investigate.”
“Oh, come on. I don’t have the slightest inkling of how to go about something like that.”
“Want me to rent an old noir movie for you? It’s really quite simple. You interview, or in your case, talk with the people in the book club, library patrons, and witnesses who were there when one of the women died. Start to put together bits of information that seem to lead up to something. You know, follow the clues. Like I told you earlier today, you already know how to conduct an investigation.”
“Nate, you don’t really believe there’s a curse related to that book, do you?”
“Logically, no. Then again, was it a curse that killed those archeologists who uncovered King Tutankhamun’s tomb, or was it a coincidence?”
“I think it was a virus. Dust spores. Maybe you should be the one to fly out there and commiserate with my mother.”
“Thank you, no. But I’ll do one better for you. Do you remember Rolo Barnes who used to work in the IT department for us?”
“Rolo Barnes? The guy who looked like an black Jerry Garcia?”
“That’s the one.”
“Of course I remember him. Made payroll a nightmare for me. He refused to have direct deposit and insisted that his paychecks be even-numbered only. Boy did that guy have his quirks. Why?”
“Because no one knows more about cyphers and codes than Rolo. And, he owes me big-time for a matter that I’d rather not discuss. Anyway, I downloaded the e-book version of The Twelfth Arrondissement and sent it to him. He’ll check to see if there are any codes or messages embedded in the text.”
“Boy, things in your office must really be boring if this is getting your attention.”
“I wouldn’t say boring, more like routine. And honestly, Phee, what detective wouldn’t want to sink his or her teeth into a good old murderous curse.”
“One who lives in this century and not the Middle Ages. Anyway, thanks for doing some of the legwork. If I do decide to hop a plane, you’ll be the second one to know.”
No sooner did I hang up the phone when the buzz of the microwave made me jump out of my skin. I half expected to turn around and see my mother standing there offering to pack my suitcase. Now I was the one getting unnerved. I was positive my mother was being totally irrational about this. Or was she? Nate certainly didn’t dismiss it, and he’d dealt with all sorts of bizarre situations. Still, my mother lived in a senior community and well . . . the likelihood of someone passing away wasn’t unusual, even if the cluster of deaths was.
I hated thinking about getting old and at approaching forty-five, I still considered myself years away from middle age. I had no gray hair and still looked decent in a two-piece swimsuit, although I shied away from thongs and bikinis.
I ate my dinner quickly, threw on a light jacket, and headed out for a quick walk before it got too dark. The river side of Sibley Park was only a few blocks from my house and strolling down the trail that bordered the water always seemed to help me unwind. The maples, elms, and oaks were starting to show the first signs of autumn, but the spruces and pines held steadfast to their greens and blues. In another few weeks they would be the only ones with any color left. Soon I’d need a heavier jacket. Then a polar fleece one. And then . . . Ugh. The heavyweight down coat that wouldn’t come off until April. If I was lucky.
I had to clear my head, but, unfortunately, the walk wasn’t working. All I succeeded in doing was giving myself more time to think about death, curses, and my mother’s perpetual nagging. She wouldn’t give up. When I returned from the park and turned the key into the front door, the annoying beep sounded from my answering machine.
Not my mother again! I swear I’ll have the landline disconnected.
I glanced at the clock on the microwave: 8:37 p.m. Almost a quarter to six in Sun City West. I pushed the button on the phone and sure enough, my mother’s voice exploded like a cannon.
“One more thing, Phee. I know you think there’s no such thing as curses or hexes, but I wanted to remind you about the summer when you were eight. You may not remember it, but I do.
Of course she remembers it. The woman must have an eidetic memory. She probably remembers everything I did or said. Yeesh.
I took a long breath as her message rambled on. I expected the machine to cut her off, but it didn’t.
“The water pump went out on the car and cost us a fortune; then the dryer broke and was beyond repair, so your father and I had to shell out money we didn’t have, and then that rotten storm swept through Mankato and the tree in front fell, taking our bay window with it.”
I recalled the tree falling into the front window but pulled up a blank as far as the car and dryer were concerned. What any of this had to do with unexpected deaths in Sun City West was beyond me.
“For six weeks, we were jinxed. That was the only explanation. And you know when it ended? Well, I’ll tell you when it ended, Phee. It ended with the tree. That was the third thing. Jinxes always come in threes. But this is different. This is a book curse. A curse! God knows when it will end. We’ve already had four. And that’s why you have to come out here and figure it out. Four dead women aren’t figments of my imagination. And you don’t want your mother to be number five. Understand?”
I understood all right. The curse had reached me. Across the phone lines and into my living room. My mother would nag, demand, and whine worse than a fourteen-year-old girl whose cell phone was confiscated by the vice principal. Dinnertime or not, I pushed the Redial button on the phone. She picked up before it even finished ringing.
“So, did you make those reservations?”
“No, Mother, I didn’t make reservations. I’m sorry those ladies passed away, but there’s no such thing as a book curse. Only Wes Craven could have come up with something like that.”
“Who’s Wes Craven? Don’t tell me he’s someone you’re dating.”
“I’m not dating anyone, Mother. And never mind about Wes Craven. He was a director of horror films who passed away.”
“I’ll bet he was reading that book. Well, are you coming or not?”
She’d gotten me so rattled I mumbled the four possibly worst words in the world: “I’ll think about it.”
Meet the Author
J.C. Eaton is the wife and husband team of Ann I. Goldfarb and James E. Clapp. Ann has published eight YA time travel mysteries.
Visit their website at www.jceatonauthor.com.