Spooky Trills (Alice Whitehouse Book 2)

by Nic Saint

  And as we all stood there, something suddenly clicked into place inside my head. “Venganza Mierda. That’s Spanish for shit revenge, right?”

  “Right,” said Rick.

  “And Sheena Easton… doesn’t that remind you guys of someone?”

  “Yes, the eighties singer,” said Fee. “Though I never saw that Bond movie.”

  “Someone else,” I said, smiling. “Someone with a dog called… Sheena.”

  Fee slowly turned to me. “Mrs. Evergreen?”

  I nodded.

  “No way!”

  “Think about it, Fee. Shit revenge. Sheena. Dog mask. The neighborhood watch will pay? Why didn’t I think of this before?!”

  “You mean that little old lady who you bullied into cleaning up after her dog?” asked Rick.

  “Bullied?” Fee cried. “You should have seen it, Rick. There was poop everywhere. Even on my shoes!”

  “But didn’t she finally comply?” Rick asked.

  “She did, but only reluctantly so,” I said. I frowned, thinking back to the intruder, who most definitely did not look like Mrs. Evergreen, who was indeed a little old lady with a habit of allowing her bulldog Sheena to deposit the product of her bowel movements wherever she saw fit, and refused to clean up after her. “Give me your phone,” I told Rick, holding out my hand.

  Obediently, he handed it over. Rick doesn’t go anywhere without his iPhone, which appears glued to his hand. I opened the browser and typed in ‘Celandine Aldonza Evergreen,’ then added her maiden name ‘Relish’ for good measure.

  “You know Mrs. Evergreen’s full name?” Fee asked, astonished.

  “When you’ve been hounding a woman for so long, you get to know her,” I said curtly.

  “Become the enemy,” Rick murmured, earning him a scowl from me.

  “Here she is,” I said, bringing up Mrs. Evergreen’s Facebook page.

  “Huh. She’s on Facebook,” said Fee. “What do you know?”

  “She also has a separate Facebook page set up for Sheena,” I said. I quickly scrolled to her list of friends, and paused at the picture of a thickset youth with a wide mischievous grin on his moonlike face. “Cady Relish,” I read. “I’ll bet this is her nephew.” I showed the picture to the others. “Lady and gentleman, behold Venganza Mierda, aka Sheena Easton, aka Cady Relish, Mrs. Evergreen’s personal avenger.”

  Chapter 23

  The next morning, I decided to join Fee on her bread run. It was a hardship, as I had to get up at five o’clock, but if we were going to catch Venganza Mierda, it was a sacrifice I was going to have to make. None of us had slept well, knowing that even with my dad’s police crew patrolling Stanwyck Street at regular intervals, Mrs. Evergreen’s nephew had still managed to evade detection and had snuck into our home.

  “At least he’s not going to slice our throats in the middle of the night,” Fee said as she steered the lumbering bakery van through the deserted streets of Happy Bays.

  We’d picked up our supply of bread to be delivered, all nicely placed in plastic containers, the addresses pinned to the top, and were now going through the list.

  “Yeah, at least there’s that,” I agreed as I sat back in my seat. We’d divvied up the tasks. Fee did the driving while I went out and delivered the bakery wares to the front steps of Bell’s customers. I was surprised that there were still so many people who had bread delivered to their doorstep. I imagined bakers didn’t do home deliveries in the big cities anymore, but in Happy Bays it was still very much a thing.

  “I can’t believe Mrs. Evergreen would set her own nephew up to harass and threaten us,” said Fee, shaking her head. “That’s just… wrong.”

  “Very wrong,” I agreed. “Though hardly surprising. The woman is evil. And she totally hates us.”

  We’d had more than a few run-ins with Mrs. Evergreen, who seemed to think the laws of Happy Bays didn’t apply to her and her bulldog. But if she thought that a few videos and the public humiliation that went along with them was going to stop us, she had another thing coming.

  Finally, our bread run over, we pulled up in front of our last stop. The house of Celandine Aldonza Evergreen. I knew the brownstone well, as I’d staked it out only a few short weeks before, along with the other members of the watch, in an effort to try and catch Mrs. Evergreen in the act of soiling the fine streets of this fair town of ours with poop.

  “Let’s do this,” said Fee, cracking her knuckles, a resolute look on her face.

  “Yeah, let’s kick some ass,” I said.

  We got out of the car, like a two-woman hit squad, and stalked across the road, then up the few steps to Mrs. Evergreen’s home. I rang the bell while Fee balled her hands into fists.

  The door finally opened and a sweet old lady appeared, with hair the color of snow and the consistency of cotton candy, and the kindest smile on her wrinkled old face. She was dressed in a pink velour housecoat that she’d wrapped around her with a sash.

  “Oh, it’s you, Alice, and Felicity. Have you come to deliver my sourdough? I hope you didn’t forget I eat non-salt these days. My doctor says I have hypertension, if you can believe it. No idea why. I’ve been a clean eater all my life.” She gave us her sweetest smile, and once again I had a hard time believing that behind that kindly face lay a devilish disposition.

  “We’re not here about the bread,” I said.

  “You’re not?” she asked, seemingly confused.

  “We’re here about your nephew Cady,” said Fee. “He’s been harassing us. Breaking into our homes and secretly filming us and then putting the footage online.”

  “Oh, my,” said Mrs. Evergreen, bringing a feeble hand to her face. “Are you sure?”

  “I saw him last night,” I said, “filming me in my room. He was wearing a dog mask.”

  “But if he was wearing a dog mask, how can you be sure it was Cady?”

  “Well…” She had me there, of course. “He looked like Cady,” I said. “And he uses the pseudonym Venganza Mierda.”

  “I don’t think Cady speaks Russian, dear.”

  “Venganza Mierda isn’t Russian,” I said. “It’s Spanish.”

  “He doesn’t speak Spanish either. He’s a very nice young man.”

  “So what about the avatar? He’s using a picture of Sheena Easton.”

  “I’m sure I don’t know who that is,” she said, looking confused.

  “Look, we know it’s him,” said Fee.

  “Actually we know it’s you,” I added.

  Mrs. Evergreen clutched her robe a little closer around herself. “Me?!” she cried.

  “Yes, you’ve set Cady up to this, haven’t you? This is you taking revenge—a little venganza—for the shit we put you through.”

  “Nicely put, Alice,” Fee murmured.

  “Well, you certainly put me through my paces,” said Mrs. Evergreen, losing some of her effervescence. “And all because poor Sheena can’t go on the potty like a human. The poor creature has to walk the streets at all hours of the day and night to do her business, and then suffer the indignity of having to watch her own owner clean up after her. It’s simply a disgrace.”

  “No, it’s a disgrace that you don’t respect the rules and regulations of this town.”

  “But surely an exception can be made,” she said. “I’m an old lady. And all this bending down and having to remove poop from the sidewalk simply wears me out.”

  “Maybe you should have thought of that before you got a dog.”

  She pursed her lips primly. “I pay taxes. I don’t see why the town sanitation crew can’t keep the streets clean. Why do I have to pay taxes and do their job for them? It’s just not fair.”

  “Look, you can’t send your nephew to take revenge for feeling slighted,” I said. “So if you don’t want us to hand him over to the police, you will stop this nonsense right now.”

  “This is such an effrontery,” she said quietly, giving me a scathing look. “To harass an old woman in her home, accusing her of
all kinds of terrible things. Shame on you, Alice Whitehouse. And you, Felicity Bell. I expected more from you girls.”

  “Well, we had expected more from you, Mrs. Evergreen,” I returned.

  “You’re not going to let this go, are you?” she asked now. “You’re determined to make a big thing out of this, as usual.”

  “We’re not making a big thing out of anything!” I cried. “We’re just asking you to stop your silly revenge schemes. Because the next time we catch Cady breaking into our home we are going to have him arrested and we are going to bring charges against him.”

  She raised her chin. “My nephew has nothing to do with any of this. And if you don’t stop harassing me, I’m going to bring charges against you.”

  “He filmed us! In our beds! And Marjorie, Virgil, and even Mabel Stokely.”

  “Serves you all right,” she snapped. “With that silly watch of yours. Making perfectly innocent people’s lives a living hell. You know what? I think I’ve had it with you. Coming here and accusing me and my family of all kinds of perfectly nonsensical charges. I’m calling the police right now.” And with this, she slammed the door in our faces.

  “Not if I call them first!” I yelled.

  “Alice, maybe we should leave?” Fee suggested. “Before this turns into a thing?”

  “Oh, we’re way past this turning into a thing,” I said, taking out my phone. “This is a thing. A big thing.”

  So I called my dad, and after he listened to my story, he snapped, “Sit tight. I’ll send Virgil.”

  “Not Virgil!” I cried, but too late. He’d already hung up on me.

  Moments later, an aged Crown Vic trundled down the street and came to a full stop right behind Fee’s van. Two men got out, and when I saw Virgil had brought Rock along, I groaned.

  “See?” Fee asked. “Are you happy now? It’s a thing.”

  “Alice. Fee,” said Rock in acknowledgement. “What seems to be the problem?”

  I was on the verge of responding that we’d seen a ghost, but felt that this was probably not the time or place. “We caught the person who’s been breaking into our houses and posting those videos,” I said, then pointed at the door. “Mrs. Evergreen’s nephew.”

  “That’s odd,” said Rock. “Cause I just received a complaint from a Mrs. Evergreen about two women harassing her in her own home, hurling all kinds of crazy accusations at her and generally disturbing the peace.”

  “Oh, you’re here because she called you?” asked Fee.

  “Yes, and I’m here because you called,” said Virgil. “Isn’t that funny?”

  “Really funny,” I said, refusing to meet Rock’s eyes.

  “Yeah, and since we were both coming out here anyway, we decided to team up,” said Rock, now stepping up to the front door and ringing the bell. I could feel his eyes burning holes into my skull, but I refused to look up. If he was here on Mrs. Evergreen’s request, technically he was the enemy, right? And Virgil was our friend.

  “Virgil,” I said. “It’s him. It’s Cady Relish. He broke in last night—again—and tried to film me. I almost caught him but he got away. And I have the DNA to prove it.” I took out the plastic baggie that I’d used to secure Cady’s dog mask. “This is the evidence.”

  Virgil took possession of the bag and studied it. “This is a dog mask,” he finally said, very astutely.

  “That’s what Cady was wearing when he broke in last night. I’m sure it’s full of DNA.”

  “Right,” said Virgil dubiously, then handed it to Rock.

  Rock studied the bag closely. Just then, the door swung open and Mrs. Evergreen appeared. “It’s about time, officer. I thought you’d never show. These two women are harassing me,” she said, pointing a bony finger at Fee and me. “And it’s not the first time!”

  “Have you ever seen this mask before, Mrs. Evergreen?” asked Rock, holding up the baggie.

  Mrs. Evergreen frowned. “Never seen it before in my life. What is it?”

  “The mask that the intruder was wearing last night when he broke into Miss Whitehouse and Miss Bell’s home.”

  “It’s Cady’s,” I said triumphantly. “It’s filled with his DNA.”

  “Where is your nephew, Mrs. Evergreen?” asked Rock.

  My heart was soaring. Rock might think I was a kook, but he was asking all the right questions right now. Soon he’d arrest Mrs. Evergreen and her nephew and lock them up in the pokey. In spite of all of his flaws, the man was my personal hero!

  “I have no idea,” said Mrs. Evergreen. “I’m not my nephew’s keeper, officer. And what’s with all these questions? I want to file charges against these two lurkers!”

  “And I want to file charges against you!” I cried.

  Rock held up his hands in a pacifying gesture. “Let’s all calm down. Nobody is filing charges against anyone.” He turned to me. “I’m going to hold on to this,” he said, indicating the doggie mask, “and have a few words with this… Cady Relish. And I’m going to ask you, Mrs. Evergreen, to reconsider filing charges against Miss Whitehouse and Miss Bell.”

  “But I want to file charges, officer.”

  “I strongly suggest you don’t.”

  “But I want to.”

  “I insist.”

  “But—”

  He held up the doggie mask. “If I find that there’s any truth to this matter…”

  She eyed the mask a little trepidatiously. “But…”

  “DNA, Mrs. Evergreen,” I said triumphantly. “Cady should watch CSI sometime. He might pick up a thing or two.”

  “That’s enough, Alice,” said Rock. “This feud has gone on long enough. I strongly suggest you let it go, and stop bringing your own brand of justice to this matter.”

  “But…”

  “Enough is enough,” he said with a finality that rendered me mum. For a moment I expected him to add, “Kiss and make up,” but fortunately he didn’t.

  Mrs. Evergreen and I glared at each other. ‘This isn’t over,’ my look said. ‘Not by a long shot,’ hers indicated. And then I turned on my heel and stalked off. I heard the door slam behind me. If the old lady wanted war, war is what she would get, no matter what Rock said.

  Chapter 24

  I went straight from Mrs. Evergreen’s house to the funeral parlor, where Uncle Charlie needed my help setting up the service for Banning Pender. He was expecting a boatload of relatives and assorted friends and acquaintances, so he had me set up the biggest of the three viewing rooms.

  I thought he’d done a great job on Banning, who looked fresh as a daisy as we rolled him into the viewing room and set him up in the front, surrounded by large framed portraits of himself dressed up as Elvis. Not a mention was made anywhere of his past as a duck farmer, as that wasn’t how he’d want to be remembered.

  The room smelled like the hundreds of peonies Uncle Charlie had made me buy. They were Banning’s favorite flower. In the background, music of the King was softly playing, which was a nice change from Banning’s grating singing voice I’d been forced to listen to all through the embalming process.

  The first guests started to trickle in shortly after nine, and by the time the clock struck ten, the place was packed to capacity. Carney, Kelley and Jack were in the front row, along with their respective significant others, and so was Dorritt, who’d managed to disentangle herself long enough from Lawton Pacey’s arms to attend the service. Judging from the disgruntled looks on Banning’s sons, their digging efforts had proved fruitless so far, and they still hadn’t retrieved the money their father buried.

  Dear friends of Banning all spoke a few words, and when Uncle Charlie himself recounted how he’d miss his best friend, there wasn’t a dry eye in the house.

  Lots of Elvises were there, of course, having come straight down from the convention at the Inn, and more than a few Priscillas were attending, too. I kept my eyes peeled for Banning’s Priscilla, but half an hour in she was still a no-show. I was about to give up hope I’d ever get to mee
t the woman when suddenly I saw her slide into the room and take a seat in the last row. She was dressed in black, just like the first time I’d seen her, with a veil covering part of her face, and sunglasses the rest. She was a dead ringer for the real Priscilla, at least as far as I could tell, and in that respect gave all the other Priscillas in the room a run for their money.

  I sidled over to her, hoping that this time she wouldn’t give me the slip, and I’d just moved in behind her and was about to give her a gentle tap on the shoulder when she must have become aware of my presence. She turned her head, and I found myself staring straight at her. Her lips moved in surprise, and then she shot up from her seat like a rocket and was out the door before I could say, “Surprise!”

  “Priscilla!” I cried as I tripped after her. “I want to talk to you! Priscilla!”

  But just like on the previous occasions, she was a lot faster than I thought, and when I reached the street, she was already pulling out of the lot, tires squealing.

  “Not again!” I cried. Luckily this time the key to my bike lock worked like a charm, and within seconds I was in hot pursuit, my leg pumping, and my lungs, too.

  I was no match for the powerful car, of course, but I was determined to give it everything I had. Oh, why hadn’t I ever made it past my driver’s test? I could be driving a really fancy ride now, easily keeping track of the mystery woman.

  I pedaled like crazy, sweat streaming down my brow and soon my T-shirt was glued to my back. I didn’t care. I was going to catch this woman or die trying. Well, maybe not die. I wasn’t ready to die and return as a ghost. Though maybe I should, if only to give Rock the scare of a lifetime, and prove that he’d wronged me wrongly.

  I saw the suburban disappear around a bend in the road, and when I reached it, saw it turn a corner in the distance. For the first time since commencing my pursuit, I smiled, for I knew exactly where that road led. To the Happy Bays Inn.

  I arrived at the Inn about half an hour later, having slowed my pace to a crawl. It was all uphill from the main road, not to mention the stiff breeze that blew in from the ocean, which seemed determined to blow me all the way back to Happy Bays.