by Erin Huss
But first, “Where is Russell?” I put the call on speaker so Connie and Mike can hear.
“He came to surprise his grandma.” I can hear the smile in her voice. “We are at Butter Bakery, and he’s at the counter right now buying me lunch. Isn’t that lovely? We haven’t had a proper visit in months.”
It would be lovely if he hadn't told his wife that he was laid up in bed with a headache.
“That can’t be right,” Connie says. “When Russell has a headache, he can barely move.” She flickers in and out. “He has to be here.” She walks through the wall and into her house to presumably check on her husband, who isn’t there.
I shoot an agonizing glance at Mike before I return to Mrs. Batch, except I have no idea what to say to her. Does Russell look like he has a headache? Why didn’t he answer his phone? Why hasn’t he returned our calls? Can you ask him why he didn’t go to Elijah’s parent-teacher conference? Is he having an affair? Who is Charleyhorse99? Did he kill his wife?
“Thank you for the tea, dear,” I hear Mrs. Batch say to someone other than me. “Russell, speak to Zoe Lane. She’s a powerful medium who can talk to all the dead people. One of these days she’s going to connect me to Lee Harvey Oswald. I’m going to give him a piece of my mind. Here, take the phone … stop shaking your head like that … yes, I am taking my medication … of course mediums are real! … I will not keep my voice down! … Her boyfriend Mike can speak to dead animals. He summoned a cat for me once. He can speak to that hamster you had in third grade. Take the phone!”
I’m slightly mortified, just as I imagine Russell is when he comes on the line. “Hello?”
“Hi.”
There’s a stretch of silence. I can’t tell Russell that his wife is dead over the phone, not after what happened with Rose, and especially not after the introduction Mrs. Batch just gave me.
“Uh …” I look to Mike for help.
He opens and closes his mouth several times but ultimately does not come up with a better suggestion than, “Uh … uh …” Which is about all I got as well.
“What can I do for you?” Russell sounds impatient.
“Uh … Connie didn’t show up to work today.”
“How do you know my wife?”
“I’m a friend of Connie’s, and she didn’t show up to work today, and I’m worried about her, and I think you should come back to Trucker, and Rose has tried calling you, but you haven’t answered your phone.”
“I left my phone at the house,” he says. “How do you know she wasn’t at work?”
“Because she’s also psychic,” I hear Mrs. Batch say. “She can see your future.”
Gah! She’s really not making this better. Also, I am not psychic. Mike is.
“Okay, Zoe Lane,” Russell says, and I get the feeling that I’m about to get the sendoff. “It’s been nice chatting with you. I’ll check on Connie. Thanks. Here is my grandma.”
There’s a mumbling of voices, and Mrs. Batch returns to the line. “Is there anything else, dear?”
“Yes, can you please encourage Russell to return home? It’s important.”
“No. He rarely comes to visit me, and he bought me lunch!”
“I know, but this is important. Please.”
“Hang up,” I hear Russell say.
And the line goes silent.
Crap.
I’m feeling heavy with shock. “Do you think Russell is our killer?” I ask Mike.
“He sounds fine, and he lied to his wife about having a headache.”
Which isn’t an answer, but also kind of is an answer.
Nine
Connie returns to the front porch where Mike and I are trying to come up with a tactful way to tell Connie that we think her husband killed her.
“Russell is not here,” she says breathlessly, which is odd since she doesn’t actually need to breathe. “His phone is charging on his nightstand, and he made the bed. Do you understand what that means?”
“No,” Mike and I say in unison.
“Something must have happened to him! He never makes the bed, and he never leaves his phone. He’s been kidnapped!”
“Connie—” I break off helplessly. I don’t know where to start. “I just spoke to Russell. He is with Mrs. Batch at Butter Bakery in Fernn Valley. He didn’t sound sick.”
“That can’t be true. He never visits Great Granny and Poppa Batch. I take Elijah to Fernn Valley once a month while Russell stays home. He always says that he’ll come next time, but then the next time he doesn’t come. Why would he visit her now, in the middle of the day on a Tuesday?”
“I think we need to explore the possibility that Russell is not being upfront with you.”
Connie’s mind starts to spin this around, and around, and around. I wish I could take her by the shoulders and shake her. But I can’t. So I say, “Don’t overthink it. Go with your gut not your head.” I check the time. “We have less than an hour before we must go to Elijah’s school. Can we go inside your house and have a look around?”
She’s not listening.
“Connie!”
She looks up. “What?”
“Can we look around inside of your house?”
“Yes, of course. There’s a keypad on the garage door.” Connie’s voice is only a whisper, and her eyes seem hollow. “The code is zero-nine-one-three. That’s our anniversary. September thirteenth.”
“Great. Come on.” I rush over to the garage, where Mike is already punching in the numbers on the keypad. The door rolls open and, holy moly! Every skateboard, scooter, bike, and hoverboard ever made is crammed into this garage. I count one … two … three … dirt bikes, a quad, and a miniature motorcycle.
“Dang!” Mike is all heart-eyes. “These are some serious wicked toys.”
“Elijah loves anything with wheels, and he always has. When he was a little boy, he collected Hot Wheels. They were everywhere.” She laughs at a memory.
I peel Mike away from “the most wicked KTM 450 EXC-F,” whatever that means, and open the door into the house. Inside everything is white. White walls, white floors, white counters, white couches, white tables, white chairs. The winding banister going up to the second floor is white with a black handrail, and I can see from here the guest bathroom has a hexagon alternating back and white pattern on the wall.
The entire home has character, charm, and an understated elegance. I love it.
We search the first floor for Connie’s body, blood, signs of a struggle, missing valuables, or anything to prove that anyone other than Connie, Russell, or Elijah had stepped foot inside the house today.
Everything appears normal.
Up the stairs we go. The master room is perfectly square with a black wrought-iron headboard, white bedding, and a white rug with a light gray pattern. With the light streaming in through the windows, this place looks like the cover of a home decorating magazine.
“His phone is right here.” Connie is at the bedside table where an iPhone is sitting on top of a charging pad.
I swipe the phone. “What’s his password?”
Connie gives me a blank stare.
“You know his password, right?”
“I’ve never really thought about it,” she says. “It’s his phone, not mine, and why would I need to get on it?”
“For an emergency,” I say.
She gives me a sheepish smile.
“Try their anniversary,” Mike says.
I type 0913. Nope.
Connie has me try Russell’s birthday. Nope.
Her birthday. Nope.
Elijah’s birthday. Nope.
“Stop!” Mike snatches the phone from my grip. “If you type in too many wrong codes, the phone will lock.”
He’s right. Dang it. I want to check Russell’s emails, text messages, and social media. I want to look for an email from Charleyhorse99. I want to see if we can locate Connie’s phone using the Find My Phone app.
“Then what are we supposed to do?” I ask.
Not sure why being eleven means he’d know the password, but whatever.
“What about a computer?” Mike asks.
“We have one in the study.”
I shove Russell’s phone into my back pocket and follow Connie down the hall and into an office. It is the only room in the house that has color. Three of the four walls are covered in floor to ceiling dark brown bookshelves with the books lined up by color, and there is a matching desk with a computer atop.
“This is where Russell does all the bills.”
I wiggle the mouse to wake up the monitor. “Do you know this password?” I’m almost afraid to ask.
“It’s not that he’s hiding anything,” she says in a rush. “He handles all the bills and taxes and house stuff. I go to work and schedule Elijah’s extracurricular activities.”
“Dude, what if he died? How could you get on his computer?”
I give Mike a really? look.
“Yeah, okay,” he says. “Guess that hypothetical isn’t relevant in this situation.”
“No, it is relevant,” Connie says. “I should know the passwords to his phone and computer. What if something happened to him? How would I know what to pay and when to pay it? When I wake up, I am going to ask Russell for all his passwords, and I’m going to be more involved in the financial responsibilities.”
Oh. Geez.
We have five minutes before we need to leave for Trucker Middle School, which isn’t nearly enough time, but I have to try and get Connie to understand the magnitude of her situation.
I step out from around the desk and to where Connie is standing. “You’re not going to wake, because you have died.”
“We need to go,” she announces and storms out of the room.
This is so freaking frustrating! I feel like banging my head against the wall, but that would hurt, so I smack my forehead repeatedly with the palm of my hand. That doesn’t feel so great either.
“Come on.” Connie reappears in the doorway. “I need to get to Trucker Middle School. I need to see my son.”
With a sigh I turn to Mike. “Has the future changed?”
He shakes his head.
Dang it.
Ten
Maneuvering through this middle school traffic is quite possibly the most nerve-wracking thing I’ve ever done—and I solve murders on the regular.
This is serious uncharted territory. Growing up, my classroom was our kitchen table. My classmate was Jabba. My recess was spent in our backyard. When school was over, I went to my room to read, or I watched TV. There were no pickup lines; no bus lanes; no women wearing big visors, holding a megaphone, shouting directions on where to park, where not to park, and when to pull forward. There weren’t hundreds of cars and vans and SUVs and more vans all trying to fit into a parking lot with one narrow entrance and one narrow exit.
School hasn’t even officially ended yet. The gates are closed, and we’re in my car, waiting in a line that runs along the fence. There is a group of kids on the soccer field dressed in their PE clothes with the school’s porcupine mascot on the front of their shirts.
The bell rings in five minutes, and all the children appear to be cleaning up. Well, all but a group of girls who are doing weird things with their arms. At first, I think one is having a seizure, but then all the girls started doing the same movements.
“What the heck are they doing with their arms?” I ask Connie.
She peeks out the window. “TikTok dances.”
I suddenly feel very old, because nothing in that sentence makes sense to me. “They’re not dancing, they’re flinging their arms,” I say.
“No, I heard about this,” Mike says from the passenger seat. “TikTok is an app like Instagram.”
“Is it a dancing app?” I ask.
Connie laughs. “No, it’s hard to explain. You’ll have to download it and see for yourself.”
No, thank you. It took me long enough to learn how to use Facebook and Instagram, and that’s enough communicating with the outside world for me.
“Dude, what are we going to do when we see Elijah?” Mike asks. “We can’t go up to an underage kid and tell him to get into the car. That sounds like a solid way to get arrested.”
“I need to find my son,” Connie says. “That’s all I know right now.”
The school bell dings, and the line inches forward. I’m gripping the steering wheel and intently watching the van in front of me.
“Cut,” Connie says. “Go around this car.”
“I don’t know if I should. The lady with the megaphone seems a little intense.” Aka, scary.
“This is important. We need to find Elijah, now.”
“How does he usually get home?” I ask.
“Either Russell will pick him up, or he walks home with a friend and I’ll get him after work. Go around the car.”
I can’t ignore the urgency in her voice. It’s the first time all day she’s been passionate about any part of this “quest.”
“Here goes nothing.” I flip on my blinker and ease out of line. The car behind me slams on the gas and takes my spot. Now there’s no going back.
I drive around the van in front of us, when I hear “BMW stop!” It’s the megaphone lady. “Get to the back of the line!” She cocks her thumb. “Not cuts!”
There’s a cacophony of horns. One lady driving an SUV with little children in the back flips me a double fisted bird. Geesh.
“This is taking too long.” Connie walks through the car and disappears into a sea of kids spilling out of the front gates.
“Connie left,” I say in shock.
“Put your emergency lights on, and I’ll take over the driving while you go after her,” says Mike. “And be careful.”
Someone lays on the horn behind us, and megaphone lady is having a total fit—or maybe she’s doing one of those TikTok dances. Either way, she looks like she wants to kill me.
When I turn on my emergency lights, all hell breaks loose. You’d think I just killed someone. My gosh. A man driving a silver Audi actually sticks his head out of the window and attaches the F-word to just about every noun in the English language.
I fall out of my car, and Mike comes around to take over driving. People are screaming and cursing and honking, and megaphone lady is now marching toward us.
This might very well be how I die today.
“Wait, Zoe.” Mike holds out my Bluetooth. “You’ll need this.”
Right. I’ll need my Bluetooth as a prop since Mike won’t be with me.
I shove the Bluetooth into my ear and take off running, weaving through cars and teenagers until I’ve passed the front gate. No one asks for ID or questions me on why I’m here. Maybe because I’m about as tall as all the students and blend in with the exodus of adolescents. It’s like trying to swim upstream, and I crane my neck to see if I can spot Elijah or Connie.
My phone rings, and I tap the Bluetooth. “Hello?”
“It’s Brian. Where are you? It’s loud.”
“I’m at a middle school.” I push through the crowd and into a hallway lined with lockers. “What is going on?”
“We’re running an article about your missing cat,” he says. “I need a few pictures, and I’d like to get a statement from you.”
Oh, geez. I forgot how boring Fernn Valley is. “I’ll send that to you later. Any leads on his whereabouts?”
“There have been a some reported sightings. A few businesses have even given their employees the day off to go find the cat. People are very excited about the reward.”
Gah! The stupid reward. I forgot about that.
“I feel bad everyone is searching for Jabba when you think he’s in Los Angeles,” he says.
I turn down another locker-lined hallway and rise to my toes. I don’t see Connie or Elijah anywhere.
“Zoe? Are you there?” Brian asks in my ear.
“I’m here. We had
a change of plans. A new spirit showed up this morning. Her name is Connie Batch, and she’s a doctor in Trucker. She’s Mr. and Mrs. Batch’s granddaughter-in-law. Have you ever met her?”
“I have. She often brings her son to visit Mr. and Mrs. Batch. The son is into dirt bikes, right?”
“Anything with wheels.” My eyes are darting madly from to face to face, hoping to at least find Elijah. I turn down another locker-lined hallway crammed with teenagers with giant backpacks. Down another hallway I go, and another, and another. Then, in an instant, it’s like a ghost town. The noise level goes from a ten to a zero, the children are gone, and I can see an actual ghost—as in Connie—hovering by a group of boys near the restrooms at the end of the hall. Finally!
“Zoe?” Brian says in my ear. “Are you there?”
“Uh, yes, I am. Sorry. What did you say?”
“I’ve never met Russell. The last few times I saw Connie, she was here with her son.”
I try not to roll my eyes, but I’m only partially successful. “I need to find out who the email address Charleyhorse99 belongs to. Any idea how I can get that information?”
“I can try. Who is the host?”
“Host of what?”
“The email host? Hotmail? Gmail? Yahoo?”
That is an excellent question. I never did take the picture of the email address, and I don’t remember who the host was. “Can you try all of them?”
“That’ll take a lot longer. Why do you need this information?”
I stop and tell Brian what we’ve learned so far regarding Don, Connie, Russell, Elijah, Arturo, the yellow bandana man, the parent-teacher conference, our visit to Connie’s office, Rose and the security guard, and Charleyhorse99, all the while keeping my eyes on the situation down the hall. Elijah is talking to a much shorter boy with slicked blond hair and a Star Wars shirt on. His back is pressed up against a locker as if he’s willing himself invisible. Two other boys are standing idly by, not saying a word. Connie is fluttering around the group, wringing her hands, and flickering in and out of focus. I can tell she’s distressed. I hope she doesn’t break a window again.
“Does Mike have a vision?” Brian asks.