by Nic Saint
He set us down for our second police interview that day, and had us run through the entire scene. There wasn’t much to tell, really. Though we did skip the part about the ghoul possessing Petunia, of course. Ghouls don’t have a place in a police investigation, unfortunately. We just mentioned how strange Petunia’s behavior was, which prompted him to call out to the coroner, a dark-haired woman of crotchety aspect, that he needed a tox report, stat!
I could tell from his next few questions that he seemed to think that drugs would feature into his investigation prominently, even though we tried to convince him that Petunia Hudson hadn’t been high on anything when she died. Except on a nasty ghoul who’d prompted her to take her own life…
Someone had wanted Petunia Hudson dead, and wanted it to look like a suicide, and we were going to have to find that someone, for Sam was going to treat this as a suicide, that much was obvious.
“What’s going to happen now?” I asked.
“Well,” said Sam, closing his notebook, “we’ll notify the next of kin, of course, and they’ll have to sort out how to handle the rest.”
“You’re treating this like a suicide, I take it?” asked Edelie.
Sam stared at her for a moment, then looked away again. “Yes,” he said. “That’s a fair assumption. Though we’ll have to wait for the coroner’s report to know for sure. Barring any surprises I think it’s safe to assume she killed herself. Unless you three pushed her, of course,” he said with a small smile.
“No, we didn’t!” cried Estrella, and she wasn’t smiling. “We would never do that! I was Petunia Hudson’s biggest fan!”
“Yes, well,” said Sam, a little uncomfortably, “I’m sorry for your loss, Estrella. I’m going to arrange for you guys to talk to a police shrink now, if that’s okay. You just went through a very traumatic experience—twice, I should add—so…” He glanced at Edelie again, and I could see the look of concern in his eyes. “Are you all right?” he asked now.
She nodded. “Yes, Sam, I’m fine. I wasn’t as big a fan as Estrella.”
“Still, the whole thing must have rattled you,” he insisted. “What with Skip Brown being murdered and now this…” He shook his head. “Two deaths in one day. What is this world coming to?” he murmured, getting up.
Yes, what was the world coming to when people were putting ghouls inside other people just to hurt them? And now I wondered if the person who’d saddled Valerie with a ghoul had extended the same service to Petunia. I mean, how many ghouls could there possibly be in New York? Or people who knew how to handle them? Could it really be a coincidence that we were now dealing with two ghoul-related crimes? I was starting to think maybe there was a connection between the two cases…
Sam approached Edelie. “If you want to talk about this…”
Edelie stared at him for a moment, then shook her head. “I don’t think so, Sam. I’m fine, thank you.”
He nodded curtly, his lips twisting into a grim expression. “I’ll leave you to it, then,” he said curtly, and stalked off, Pierre in his wake.
“I wonder what’s going to happen to Petunia’s fortune,” I said, darting a look at the wall bedecked with gold and platinum records.
“And the vault full of unpublished music,” added Estrella.
The vault, placed next to the grand piano, looked as impenetrable as it looked impressive, and I wondered if the world would ever get to hear Petunia’s music.
“I’m sure Rupert will take care of all of that,” said Edelie.
“We have to get to the bottom of this, you guys,” I said. “Someone murdered Petunia, and the police aren’t going to be looking for the culprit. So that only leaves us. We’re the only ones who know what really happened.”
“You’re right,” said Estrella, wiping away her tears. “We have to find out who killed Petunia, since no one else will.”
“But how? We’re not the police,” said Edelie. “We have no business investigating her death.”
“We signed a contract, remember?” I asked. “Her death is our business.”
“You’re right,” said Strel. “She hired us to help her, so help her we will.”
“So how are we going to get paid?” asked Edelie.
“Who cares?!” cried Estrella, balling her fists. “We have a moral obligation to avenge Petunia’s death!” When it came to her idol, suddenly she wasn’t so worried about getting paid, apparently.
“Yes, we’ll get paid,” I assured Edie. “I’m sure Rupert will handle it.”
“I’m not so sure,” said Edie. “He’s her manager, not her next of kin. All of Petunia’s estate will probably pass onto her sister. And since there’s a good chance she’s behind the murder, she’s not going to want us snooping around.”
“Her sister? You think Joanna’s behind this?” asked Estrella.
Edelie nodded. “She’ll have most to gain from Petunia’s death, and you heard her. She and her sister didn’t get along. It’s conceivable she got wind of Petunia’s plans to disappear and decided to kill her before she got away.”
Edelie was right. We had to take a long hard look at Joanna Hudson. And The Blackguards, of course. In fact we had to look at anyone who stood to gain from Petunia’s death. And since we had a mandate from Petunia herself, we could do so in an official capacity. But first we had to talk to Rupert. And find out what the state of Petunia’s estate was. The man would be devastated, I knew. As the only friend Petunia had, he would be a wreck.
“Poor Petunia,” I said. “She wanted to live in peace, and now she won’t.”
“Oh, yes, I will!”
Petunia’s grating voice had suddenly sounded behind us, and when we all whirled around, we found ourselves staring at… the deceased rock star!
“Petunia!” cried Estrella. “You’re alive! But how…”
Petunia was still dressed in her tracksuit, only now she looked a little battered, after dropping thirty stories to her death. “Of course I’m alive! Why wouldn’t I be? So you finally showed up, huh? I had a great idea about how I want to die. What about falling into a volcano? No need for a body!”
We simply goggled at her. “But you’re already dead,” I said finally.
She laughed her throaty smoker’s laugh. “Yeah, right! Good one, Ernestine. I never figured you for the jokester in your outfit but you are funny. If I were dead, would I be talking to you? Huh? Of course not!”
“I think…” Estrella was wiping tears away again. “I think you’re…”
“You’re a ghost, Petunia,” Edelie said. “You died and now you’re a ghost.”
Petunia laughed again, though less heartily. “Did you just say I’m a ghost?”
Edelie nodded. “We saw you jump from your balcony an hour ago.”
Now it was Petunia’s turn to gasp. Then, abruptly, she walked into the wall, disappeared, and walked out again a few seconds later. She swallowed, her eyes wide as she stared at us. “You’re right! I’m a ghost! I’m frickin’ dead!” She stomped her ghostly foot. “Dammit! Who did this to me?!”
“That’s what we’d all like to know,” I said.
“And what we’re going to find out,” added Edelie.
“And then we’re going to punish the ones who did,” finished Estrella, a look of determination in her eyes now.
“You better!” Petunia warned. “I’m not going to stand idly by while people just take a big old whack at me. I wanted to fake-die, not die for real!”
It was obvious that someone hadn’t gotten that particular memo. They’d killed Petunia in the sneakiest way possible. It was the perfect murder.
Chapter 16
Skip was feeling a little out of sorts. First he’d left Hartford Manor in a hurry that morning, when the sisters insisted he meet them for an urgent business meeting, and now, suddenly, he was right back where he’d started his day, probably due to the witchy gifts of Cassie Beadsmore.
He stared around his room, and wondered why it couldn’t always be like this: wit
hout having to resort to the tediousness of traveling back and forth by car, he was right where he wanted to be—or, as in this case, where he didn’t want to be—with a simple snap of the fingers. Well, Cassie’s fingers, at least. He could snap as much as he wanted to, it wouldn’t do him any good.
He’d already asked Cassie several times to give him the gift, too. He wanted to be a witch, though Cassie said that in his case it would have to be a wizard, obviously. Like that Harry Potter guy, or Albus Dumbledore even, the old wizard, minus the beard please, and go through life bewitching stuff.
But she’d told him this kind of thing couldn’t be taught. It was something you were born with or not, and since he was born a baker, that meant he was never going to be a wizard, unless he was born again, and that could take a while. Plus, he would have to die first, and he didn’t want it that badly.
Pity, he felt, for he could have done a great deal of good. He could have made Hollywood turn out a Star Wars movie every week, instead of once a decade or so, and he could have convinced the Tolkien heirs to let Peter Jackson direct another Lord of the Rings movie.
And then there was the fact that the world in general could use an extreme makeover, as there were a lot of things he didn’t like about it and would change with a flick of the fingers, just like Cassie did when she didn’t like something.
Though Hartford Manor’s grand old dame—though he didn’t call her that to her face, of course—had also told him that to be a witch or a wizard required a sense of responsibility. You didn’t just do as you witched. Though her granddaughters certainly did. They just mucked about all the time.
He sighed and got out of bed for the second time that day, and walked over to the window. After having spent a couple of weeks renting an apartment in downtown Happy Bays, the Flummoxes and Cassie, out of the goodness of their heart, had decided to let him stay at the manor. They had room to spare, and it was easier to have him at hand while building Flummox, Inc, the sisters’ brand-new enterprise.
And then they’d decided, overnight, to move back to New York, for some reason, and divide their time between the two places, and now he hoped they’d let him move with them, for it wouldn’t do to be stuck here in Happy Bays and commute to Brooklyn. Especially since he didn’t own his own ride.
He was actually starting to suspect Cassie simply wanted to get rid of him, because he was now here, and they were there, as it were.
He wondered what had happened to his clones. Had they all popped off by now? Or had some of them managed to stick around and were they now having fun in Central Park, playing with balloons and stuff?
He stretched and yawned and decided to have a second breakfast. If he was having a second start of his day, he might as well take advantage of the fact, and enjoy his favorite meal a second time. And it was as he was coming down the stairs and stepping into the spacious kitchen, that he noticed his phone was inundated with messages from the Flummoxes, his employers.
He lazily decided that he would take a gander later, as he had developed quite an appetite after being whisked around and cloned. So he poured himself a cup of steaming hot coffee—Cassie had made it before she’d decided to relocate to New York in the middle of the night—and then he picked a glazed sour cream donut from a bag of Bell’s bakery goodies, and took a big bite. Only then did he take out his phone and check his messages.
As he quickly scanned them, he digested their gist—along with his donut. Apparently, as far as he could make out, there had been some trouble with a rogue clone who’d gotten himself killed by Valerie Gabby, which had landed the woman in prison, the police looking for Skip’s body. He paused a donut in midair and stared at this last message. Looking for his body? Well, his body was right here, so why would they be looking for it over there? It made no sense to him, but then a lot of what the Flummoxes did made absolutely no sense to him whatsoever. Not that he minded. That’s what you got when you worked for three witches and their equally witchy grandmother.
It certainly didn’t stop him from enjoying his job and having a ton of fun. And it definitely beat having to operate an industrial-sized batter mixer, and having to listen to his cousins’ stories about their plans for the family-owned bakery that he would never own, even though he was also part of the family.
Just then, the doorbell rang, and he groaned, not feeling in the mood for visitors. He slouched down the long corridor to the front door, and into the hallway, where the original family crest of the Hartfords had been replaced by a nice floral mural, and yanked open the door, wondering who’d dare to disturb his second breakfast—third, if he added Fritz’s Fizzy Fuss. He found two policemen on the mat, staring at him as if they’d just seen a ghost.
“Hey there, officers,” he said jovially, for he was a friend of the police, and liked to think they were friends of his, too. “What can I do for you guys?” He’d seen these two before, and seemed to remember they were homicide, though they’d never been formally introduced.
The cops continued speechless for a long moment, and he feared the cat had got their tongue. Not that there was a cat in the house. Unlike most witches he’d seen in the movies and had read about, Cassie Beadsmore wasn’t a cat person and had even forbidden her granddaughters to own a cat. Which was a pity, he felt, but then she also didn’t possess a cauldron to cook up strange brews, and neither did she kidnap children to grind them up into powder, or make people disappear. Well, unless he counted himself, of course. She’d made him disappear a few times now, but he was getting used to that.
“Are you…” The tallest of the duo swallowed with some difficulty.
He raised his eyebrows. “Am I…”
“Are you…”
“Am I…” he prompted.
Finally, the smaller policeman spoke. He didn’t have much left in the way of hair, but what he had of it he was patting now, in a dazed sort of way, still very much shaken. “Are you by any chance related to Skip Brown?”
He laughed what he hoped was a careless laugh. What a strange question. “Actually I am Skip Brown, if you see what I mean.”
The two men obviously didn’t see what he meant, for they continued to goggle at him.
“But… Skip Brown is dead,” the tall cop finally said. He was a giant of a man, and wouldn’t have looked out of place in the WWE lineup.
“No, Skip Brown isn’t dead,” he explained patiently. “If he were dead, I would know about it, since I am Skip Brown, and I’m very much alive.”
Then he remembered a message from the sisters about his clone being terminated by Valerie. Oops. He saw how this might be cause for confusion.
“But we saw you being murdered,” said the smaller cop, now darting a curious look at the cream donut in his hand. “And we saw your body.”
“Well, I don’t know what you saw, but it wasn’t me,” he said kindly, and decided that this was his final word on the matter. He didn’t enjoy the gruesome undertones of the conversation. No one would, he imagined.
“May we come in?” asked the bigger cop.
“Sure, of course,” he said, stepping aside to let the two officers of the law inside Cassie’s humble home. “Cassie’s casa es su casa and all that.”
“We went to Brown’s Better Bread Bakery to inform your next of kin that you were dead,” explained the big cop now, after introducing himself as Sam Barkley, NYPD, and his colleague as Pierre Farrier, working for that same outfit. “And your mother told us she’d just talked to you.”
Well, that was true enough. Mom had called to talk to him about returning to work for Brown’s. She still had high hopes that one day he’d return to the fold, and drop this foolishness of working for the Flummoxes.
“She also told us you were holed up in Hartford Manor, which took us by surprise, in light of the fact that you’re supposed to be dead. So we called.”
“And texted,” added Pierre.
“And then called again,” said Sam.
“And then decided to drive up here to witness the
miracle for ourselves.”
“Yes, well, I’ve been busy,” Skip said. After going through about a million messages from the Flummox sisters, he’d given up. Breakfast was one of those meals that shouldn’t be disturbed, he’d always felt, unless it was by the funnies. He loved to read the funnies over breakfast, so he had.
They arrived in the kitchen, and since he hadn’t finished his third breakfast yet, he decided to attend to that now, while entertaining these two fine gentlemen of the New York Police Department.
“It’s all very confusing,” intimated Pierre, who was now licking his lips and staring at the bag of donuts, freshly deposited on the Hartford Manor doorstep by Bell’s Bakery that morning, just like every morning.
“Just pick one,” Skip said generously, and the detective didn’t have to be told twice. He picked one and was soon digging his teeth into the tasty morsel, eyeing Skip gratefully.
“Can I…” Sam grimaced, reaching out a tentative hand. “Can I touch you?”
It was an odd request, and one Skip had never heard from a man before, but for the sake of the investigation he figured it would behoove him to comply, so he nodded, and Sam gave him a poke, then continued to stare.
“This is the weirdest thing,” the detective admitted finally.
“Yes, well,” he said cheerfully, “that’s what you get when you work for the Flummox sisters. Weird stuff tends to happen around the triplets.”
“I know,” said Sam. “I’ve been discovering that, too.”
He considered for a moment to put the police detectives out of their misery by revealing that the dude who got killed was a clone, but decided against it. When he started working for the Flummox sisters, they’d sworn him to absolute secrecy. He knew they were witches, but that didn’t mean the whole world was supposed to know. Even though this was the twenty-first century, and people frowned upon burning witches at the stake nowadays, it was still not a great idea to reveal themselves as such to the public at large. Even though the triplets sinned against that cardinal rule themselves when the mood struck them.