The clip begins with the famous host addressing the audience: “We’re here with Edgar and Ceil Waterman, who have just revealed that they write the wildly best-selling Count Le Plasma vampire series under the name Victoria Kensington.”
The audience claps up a frenzy. Edgar and Ceil maintain severe expressions.
Buddy: “So why now? Why reveal that you are the people behind the stories, after sixteen books?”
Edgar: “Frankly, Buddy, fans were already beginning to figure it out. We don’t intend to change the name on the books, but, well, our readers were clamoring to meet us.”
Buddy: “So it’s a publicity thing?”
The audience laughs.
Buddy: “I’m kidding. But doesn’t this present a problem for you? I mean—” (Buddy holds up Transylvanian Drip) “—this says Victoria Kensington talks to Count Le Plasma, right? And now we know she doesn’t exist.”
Ceil: “And? Your point is?”
Buddy: “So that neat little fiction is, well, gone.”
Ceil: “Not at all.”
Buddy: “I’m sorry?”
Edgar: “The Count still relays his adventures to us.”
Buddy: “Okay. I’ll play along. So you still get the plots directly from the vampire’s mouth.” (He gives the audience a big wink.)
Ceil and Edgar don’t break character. They are doing a great job of acting—if they are acting.
Ceil: “I don’t see what the difficulty is, Buddy. The only thing that has changed is the fans now know the real, flesh-and-blood people who are receiving the stories from the Count.”
Edgar: “The stories are his. We simply tell them.”
The camera zooms in on Buddy rolling his eyes, and the audience laughs.
Buddy: “Well, folks. You heard it here first. Edgar and Ceil Waterman, authors of the Count Le Plasma series, talk to vampires.”
Music swells, and the YouTube clip cuts off abruptly.
I flop onto my bed and look at the cracks in my ceiling.
I hate to admit it, but the clip reminds me of something Ella told me about from one of her dad’s books. His famous detective character, Monroe Spalding, always says, “The cleverest lie is the one that’s closest to the truth.” Really, it’s the perfect cover-up.
And this is what scares me now: if Edgar and Ceil really are meeting with a vampire, they won’t have to deny it. I could tell Mom, and they’d say, Yes indeed, we are! And she’d laugh and say, That’s great marketing.
But if the worst is true, that’s not cool or funny or great marketing. It’s a danger to all the cats and people at Pidgin Beach and Maiden Rock.
* * *
The morning drags on, and I worry over Ella’s safety in that house. How can I tell her that her favorite aunt and uncle might be meeting with a real bloodsucking vampire? I can guess how that would go.
I hear a knock at my door, and Mom sticks her head in. “Coming down for lunch?”
Wow. Lunch. What time is it? “In a little bit. I’ll maybe get a sandwich.”
“You okay?”
Am I okay? No, I am not okay. Vampires could be roaming the beach. “Yeah.”
“Love you,” she says.
“Uh-huh.”
“That’s good enough for now,” she says and shuts the door.
I turn on my lamp and push some of the mess of paper around my desk. I’m fidgety. I’m cranky. I’m going bonkers. It must be phone withdrawal. And I can’t just say to Ella: “Edgar and Ceil are on the dark side.” She’ll hate me. I need to talk to Dominic.
Hunger draws me downstairs to the kitchen. The clock on the microwave says 2:20 p.m. The house is quiet. Of course it is. Dad’s at the café. Mom’s holding an open house at #4 Mile Stretch Road. But—yay, Mom! She’s made me a peanut butter-and-jelly sandwich, and next to it is my phone! Thank you, thank you, Mom.
I’m chewing big bites of my sandwich while I find Dominic’s number and press Call.
Instead of hello, he says, “You’re sprung?”
“I am, and we need to talk.”
“Meet on the beach?”
“Ha-ha. That must be a joke. I’m not allowed on the beach.” Is he?
“At all?”
“Not until the mystery of the coyote is solved.”
“That could take a while,” he says.
“I know.”
“Because it’s not a coyote.”
“I know!” Thank goodness, Dominic sees it too. “We have to do something.”
“What do you mean?” Dominic asks.
“Would I sound crazy if I said that, just maybe . . . that wolf, from the other night? It might be Count Le Plasma, here to visit Edgar and Ceil. That’s what I mean. What did you mean?”
“Whoa, I think your positronic subcompact unit is on the fritz.”
“What are you taking about?”
“Never mind,” Dominic says. “You have my full attention. Explain, please.” His voice sounds mechanical.
“What are you doing?”
“Watching Star Trek: The Next Generation,” he says. “It’s the ‘Dark Page’ episode. So bad. Lwaxana Troi has a mental breakdown. I can’t help myself.”
“Isn’t that show thirty years old?” I ask. “And will you snap out of it to help me?”
“Yes, but it’s great. And okay.” His voice sounds normal again. “Let’s hear it.”
“I can walk to Gusty’s. Can you walk to Gusty’s?”
“Yep.”
* * *
It’s threatening rain as Dominic and I head toward Gusty’s. Soupy clouds hang over the surface of the Maiden Rock Tidal Pool.
“Just listen, okay?” I say.
He nods. We walk almost shoulder to shoulder.
“On YouTube, I saw Edgar and Ceil on a talk show where they made a huge deal out of saying that they were the ones who wrote the books and they were the ones who talked to Count Le Plasma.”
“Maybe they are huge into selling books.”
“That’s not listening.”
Dominic pretends to lock his mouth.
“They are telling the world that they talk to a vampire, which the world does not, of course, believe, because it is so over the top. But what if that’s a total cover-up for the fact that they actually talk to vampires?” I stop to take a breath. “And what if the Count went to see them in the form of a wolf, like Dracula does in Dracula, and after Count Le Plasma met with them on the beach, where Ella said they went for a walk, he stopped at the lighthouse and drank a cat?” I take another breath. “And the reason he was here was to tell them their next story?”
We keep walking.
“Well?”
Dominic hesitates. “My turn now?”
I nod.
“I think it was a wolf. Totally. I think the wolf killed the cat,” Dominic says. “But—I think it has something to do with Edgar and Ceil too. Because, one: you never saw a wolf here before. And two: it showed up the day after Edgar and Ceil got here.”
I’m nodding and nodding.
Dominic continues: “No one has disproved the existence of vampires, so it is possible Le Plasma exists and can turn into a wolf—and probably a bat and other nasty stuff—and talk to Edgar and Ceil.”
I clap my hands. “Yes!”
“But that last part is kind of a problem. Because although no one has disproved that vampires exist, no one has proved it, either.” He looks at me like, right? “And just because Edgar and Ceil say it’s so, that isn’t good enough, because they are weird, and it really does look like a publicity grab . . .”
We’re just about to walk into Gusty’s. I plant my feet and put my hands on my hips. “I agree. But I think we can prove it all by ourselves.”
12
I groan as soon as I see the counter at Gusty’s. Dominic does a double take. We are experiencing the first spring sighting of the exotic Flatland Fish Catcher.
Seated at the counter are a couple of paunchy guys dressed like they just came from Boston or Phill
y and didn’t even take the tags off their brand-spanking-new fishermen’s outfits. I can just see the salespeople at L.L.Bean laughing their plaid shirts off as these two drive away with new waterproof waders, gear pants with ten pockets, vests, hats with netting, tackle boxes, and fishnets. Sure, it’s all authentic Mainah stuff, but on these guys, it looks like part of a comedy skit.
Dad is trying to keep a straight face while he explains the menu. John Denby comes in, takes one look at them, and veers off to a table. Mom is polite, but as she leaves, she gives me a look that says, Oh, boy. Here we go.
We hear the tourists say they’re staying at Miss Wickham’s B&B and want to “really experience Maine.”
Mom and Dad have always told me to be kind to Maiden Rock visitors because they probably just don’t know any better. I mean, true, these guys aren’t hurting anybody, and they are helping the Maine economy, not to mention the Boyd family bank account. They’re just hard to look at and painful to listen to.
“Can’t wait to eat me a lobstah,” says the big one, “and see a lighthouse.”
“And a moose,” the smaller one adds.
Ella and Ben are sitting at our usual table. It looks from the empty plates and balled-up napkins as if they’ve just finished eating.
Ella sees me and cries out, “You’re free!”
I shoot Dominic a look that says, Don’t say anything to Ben or Ella about what we were just talking about, and he shoots a look to me that says, That’s the last thing I’d do.
We join them in watching the L.L.Bean guys like it’s a sitcom.
The small guy turns to Dad and says, “Where’s that cranky old geezer who gives directions by saying, ‘You can’t get they-yah from he-yah’? We want to ask him how to get to Boothbay Hah-bah.”
The man busts out laughing, which gets a half-smile out of Dad.
Eventually, Dad walks up to our table with a familiar take-out bag and the trusty glug pail of coffee. Ella and Ben get up to leave.
“Gotta get this stuff home,” she says. “Are you coming over?”
While Dad is still standing there, I look at him with imploring eyes. He knows that the new safety measures say Ella’s house is out of bounds, but I can tell he’s sympathetic. Ella looks at both of us, like what? Then Dad does a remarkable, never-before-seen-in-Maiden-Rock thing. He makes a big decision about me without calling Mom.
“If you are home before it starts to get dark,” he says. “Maybe even a little before that.”
I turn to Ella. “Sure, we’ll come soon,” I say, we meaning Dominic and me. Inside, I’m jumping for joy at the idea of doing some investigating around the Philpotts’ place. Ben doesn’t look overjoyed that I’m bringing Dominic with me, but he doesn’t look ticked off either.
When I look back at Dad to say thank you, he’s brushing it off, like I shouldn’t worry, like he’s got this. Then some loud laughter from the L.L.Bean guys attracts Dad’s attention back to the café counter. I notice a gear pack on the floor by their feet with a strap for a rifle. Thankfully, there’s no gun in it, so the moose in Maine are safe.
But it reminds me of last night. I turn to Ben. “Hey, did you hear anything like a gun going off last night? Was that your uncle shooting at the . . .”—I stop and choose my word carefully—“coyote?”
Ben perks up. “Yeah, he was. Didn’t get it, but there was a yelp, like he grazed it. I think he’s going out again tonight.”
“Come on,” Ella says, hoisting up the coffee pail. “Let’s get this home while it’s hot.” Then she turns to me and says, “Say good-bye to the L.L.Bean guys for us.”
We all laugh a little bit, and they take off.
As soon as the door is shut behind them, Dominic says, “Now, Sherlock, I’m dying to hear how we’re going to prove that Edgar and Ceil talk to vampires.”
“You’re an A/V geek, right?”
“Right.”
“Well? We start by setting up a surveillance camera outside the Philpotts’ house. Easy peasy, yes?”
Dominic’s interest shoots so high I think his cap is going to fly off his head. “Absolutely. Easy peasy. I know exactly what we need to do.”
It doesn’t take us long to eat two Gusty burgers, some lobster fries, and two pieces of blueberry pie. Setting up a surveillance operation takes fuel.
When we leave the café, Dad calls out, “Before it starts to get dark.”
“Yes. Fine. Okay.” I try to be really nice about it because Dad was super wonderful for saying I could go, but sometimes being so closely watched just makes me twitch.
“Okay,” Dad says.
I can tell by the look on his face it’s taking every ounce of restraint for him not to say, Be good, be careful, stay safe. I smile and wave. That helps both of us.
* * *
Dominic’s room is . . . different.
Of course, the only other boy’s room I’ve ever seen has been Ben’s, and I haven’t seen that in a while. But when I did, it had a computer, some books, posters of sports guys and rappers, a pile of running shoes, a mound of dirty socks, a wet towel hanging over the chair back, a stack of Running magazines, a soccer ball, a catcher’s mitt, a half-made bed, and two packages of Oreo cookies.
Dominic’s, on the other hand, is a cross between Best Buy and Toys“R”Us:
Tripods. Cameras. Cables. Books. Electric guitar. Comic books. Funko Pops. DVDs: The Dark Knight, Man of Steel, Star Trek, Star Wars, Avengers, Ant-Man. I’m about to stop reading titles when I see a shelf that interests me. Zombieland, Evil Dead II, Blade II, The Wolfman, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.
“We should watch some of these,” I say. “The vampire ones.”
Dominic stops digging in a box of video stuff and walks to the DVD shelf. He runs his finger over one, two, three rows of titles until it rests on a particular movie, and he pulls it out.
“This is what we should watch,” he says. “It’s the only movie ever made from a Count Le Plasma book.”
I put out my hands. “Give. Give.”
The cover of the DVD looks like the covers of the books: dark red, black, and silver. Creamy white faces, piercing eyes, blood-dripping fangs. The title is AB Positively Drained, and the blurb on the back says: Is Count Le Plasma’s next victim the Highland Princess at the Edinburgh Renaissance Faire?
“I’m ready,” Dominic says.
I look up, and he’s got a lumpy backpack over his shoulder with a telescoping tripod peeking out of the top. He’s grinning from ear to ear. He really loves this stuff.
“We could take it along and watch it with them.” I hold up the DVD and waggle my eyebrows. “They’ll be sitting still for over an hour, and we can study them closely.”
“Or I could set this up outside while you’re inside watching the movie and them.”
“That works.”
* * *
When we get to Ella’s house, Ben answers the door.
“Where’s Ella?” I ask.
“She’s . . . I don’t know . . . around.” Ben walks over to the big couch by the fireplace and flops down. He immediately picks up his phone and goes back to a game. “She’ll be back in like a minute. She may be in the kitchen.”
Darkness outweighs the light in the Philpotts’ living room, even though it’s two thirty in the afternoon. No lights are on, and the curtains are drawn.
I walk toward the kitchen, leaving Dominic with Ben. I hear Dominic ask Ben what he’s playing.
The hallway’s overhead light has been dialed way down. And over the framed mirror that hangs opposite the stairs, somebody has draped a bath towel. Maybe it’s broken. Bummer. I love that mirror. Every time Ella and I walk down the steps, we stop and pose in it. But if it’s broken, why not just take it down? I carefully lift the corner of the towel, and—nothing. The mirror’s perfectly fine.
Someone shuts the tap off in the kitchen, and I push against the hallway door that swings into it. As it opens, I see Ella standing at the sink, wearing floppy rubber cleaning gloves. The s
ink is full of water, and her arms are plunged in it up to the elbows. A pair of scissors and pile of cut-up pillowcases rest on the counter next to her.
“Ha! What are you doing?”
“You wouldn’t believe it,” Ella says, hiking up the gloves that must be two sizes too big for her.
“What’s with the pillowcases?”
“I’m cutting them into strips and bleaching them for Ceil’s arm.”
“What happened?”
“She fell on the rocks last night and got a pretty deep cut.”
“Does she need stitches?”
“OMG, no way would she go to the hospital. Think of the people who’d bug her. There’d probably be paparazzi. No. This is what she wants. She says it’s an old family remedy.”
“Crazy.”
“Times two. But whatever.” Ella looks at the DVD in my hand. “What’s that?”
“You are going to love me. Look at this.” I hold up the cover and she reads it out loud.
“AB Positively Drained: A Count Le Plasma Encounter.” She jerks her hands out of the water and grabs for it.
“Bleach! Bleach!” I tell her.
She rinses and dries her hands before I give her the DVD case. “I didn’t know about this. When was it made?”
“It’s ancient. Like, before we were born. Hey, what’s with the towel on the mirror?”
Ella turns to me with concern on her face. “Quinnie, Ceil is so run down and so . . . I don’t know . . . exhausted. She thinks she looks awful and she doesn’t want to see herself when she comes down the stairs.”
I squint like I’m trying to comprehend this.
“Seriously,” Ella says. “She refuses to have mirrors anywhere in the house—they’re all covered.”
13
Ella has returned from upstairs after delivering the damp bandages to Ceil. I’ve made microwave popcorn. Dominic and Ben have miraculously found something they have in common—some phone game—and are talking about tricks for higher scores on Level 121. The DVD is cued up, and we are ready to start.
Vampires on the Run: A Quinnie Boyd Mystery (Quinnie Boyd Mysteries) Page 6