Peaches and Scream

by Chelsea Thomas

  Once we all tried and praised the apple crumble, Mrs. McIntosh turned the conversation back to the reason for our visit. “Now. Tell me about this person who is not quite dead.”

  Miss May nodded. “Right. We’re here because someone in Blue Mountain has been murdered. And one of your residents is a person of interest in our investigation.”

  “Do you know Lillian Edwards?” I asked.

  Mrs. McIntosh put down her fork and and sighed. “I knew her mother Janet very well. Lillian was a lot like Janet, in many ways. Such a bright light. Sometimes a little too bright. My heart aches for her.”

  “We saw Lillian speak at the victim’s funeral,” Miss May said. “She was eloquent. Very interesting.”

  “Interesting is the perfect word,” said Mrs. McIntosh. “You think Lillian is the killer?”

  “We’re not sure,” said Teeny. “We need to talk to her. But apparently the old guy who works at the general store wouldn’t provide any information.”

  Mrs. McIntosh laughed. “You tried to get gossip out of old Isaac? I would have loved to see that. He doesn’t make small talk, big talk, or anything in between.”

  Miss May hung her head. “Yeah our conversation didn’t go well. But he did sell us your apple chips.”

  “Oh good. We sell a lot out of that store. Once the people come up to go apple picking they like their gourmet sundries for the ride home.”

  “Don’t I know it,” said Miss May.

  “We all do,” said Teeny. “I once had some city banker fellow buy every dessert in my dessert case to take back to his friends in Manhattan.”

  I shrugged. “City people like a little taste of the country life. I was like that once. I’m lucky, now I have it all the time.”

  Mrs. McIntosh pointed at me. “Smart girl.”

  Miss May leaned forward. “So have you seen Lillian Edwards around town lately? I know she had been at Five Pines for quite a while but she left last week and never returned.”

  Mrs. McIntosh leaned back in her chair and exhaled. “Oh Lillian is most certainly back in town. And she’s not just laying low and freeloading either. She got herself a job.”

  “So you know where we can find her?” asked Teeny.

  Mrs. McIntosh nodded. “Grab a piece of paper. Write this down.”

  39

  Dunkin’ Suspects

  Mrs. McIntosh informed us that Lillian Edwards had gotten a temporary job working at a booth at the Blue Mountain summer carnival. Summer carnivals in New York were a special phenomenon, so I was excited to experience one as we tried to find Lillian.

  Miss May and Teeny were excited too, and the three of us bubbled over with anticipation as we parked the car near the Blue Mountain fire department and headed toward the big field out back.

  The place was packed with happy people from Blue Mountain and presumably from even smaller surrounding towns. A food truck sold curly fries, pizza and funnel cakes. And there were dozens of booths where visitors could throw darts at balloons or toss ping-pong balls into fishbowls or play other carnival games.

  “This place is amazing. I feel like I’m ten years old again.” I pointed out a little blonde boy who was eating a big bowl of chocolate ice cream. “That was me every summer. Except I had ice cream all over my face and shirt.”

  Miss May laughed. “You were adorable.”

  “This is a terrific summer carnival,” said Teeny. “We should come every year.”

  Miss May nodded. “Blue Mountain is nice. Pine Grove is great, so we don’t have a ton of reason to leave…but you’re right, I would come back for this.”

  Teeny squinted into the neon lights with her hand on her forehead like a sailor. “Any sign of Lillian?”

  Miss May looked at the notes she had written back in Mrs. McIntosh’s farm. “Mrs. McIntosh said Lillian is working at a booth all the way in the back of the carnival. Let’s pick a direction and walk around until we find her.”

  “I vote we walk in the direction of the funnel cakes,” I said.

  Miss May chuckled. “I thought you might say that. Why don’t we save the funnel cakes for a reward after we talk to Lillian?”

  “If she’s the killer, we might get too caught up in the case and forget all about funnel cakes,” I said. “I vote we get one now.”

  Teeny smiled. “I second that vote. The funnel cake will fuel my investigating muscles.”

  Miss May gasped and covered her mouth. “There she is.”

  “Where?” I followed Miss May’s gaze to a booth about twenty feet away. Indeed, there sat Lillian Edwards, in a dunk tank. She was perched on a bench above a pool of water, challenging people to throw a ball and send her under.

  “Hey, mister. You look like you got a strong arm. Grab a softball see if you can dunk me.”

  “Is that really her?” I took a few steps closer. “Whoa. It is. For some reason I wasn’t expecting her to be working the dunk tank…”

  Whoosh! The man threw the ball. He hit the target and Lillian fell into the water with a splash. A small crowd of people clapped and a little boy begged his father for the opportunity to throw the ball next.

  Miss May, Teeny, and I drifted over to the edge of the crowd to watch the spectacle and hatch a plan. After a few seconds, Lillian popped out of the water with a smile. “Great shot, mister. Who’s next? Who else thinks they can dunk me?” Lillian climbed a small ladder and slid back onto her perch above the water. Just as she got settled, Lillian made eye contact with me. Her eyes widened. I tried to look away but it was too late.

  “Five-minute break for me, people. I’ll be right back. Need to use the restroom and I don’t want to pee in my own dunkin’ water.”

  The small crowd of people laughed as Lillian swung her leg over the side of the tank and descended down an exterior ladder toward the ground.

  I edged my way through the crowd, toward the booth. I looked back at Miss May and Teeny. “Let’s go. She saw me and now she’s trying to get away.” So much for funnel cake.

  By the time we got around to the other side of the dunking booth, Lillian was already a dozen yards away, hurrying toward the edge of the property. She looked back, spotted us and quickened her pace.

  “Lillian. Wait.” I called after her.

  “Stay away from me.” Lillian jogged.

  “We don’t want to hurt you. We’re here to help.” Miss May tried to jog after Lillian but stopped and held her head after a few seconds. “I can’t keep up with her. Chelsea, try to catch her.”

  “I’m not a runner,” I said. “Look at me.”

  Miss May pointed up at Lillian. “She’s getting away. Go.”

  I took a deep breath and ran as fast as I could after Lillian. My legs tired in seconds. My chest pounded. My arms flailed for some reason, like I was swatting bugs.

  Lillian, on the other hand, appeared to be in great shape. She jumped over a picnic table. She did a spin move around a happy young couple. Then she reached a chain-link fence and jumped onto it, clinging to it like a spider in a web.

  “Come on. Wait there, Lillian. You’re not going to climb that…”

  I was wrong. Lillian climbed the fence with ease, flopped over to the other side, and disappeared, running into the darkness.

  I arrived at the chain-link fence, got a toehold and grabbed on. But that was as far as I could go. I tried to climb and slipped back down to the ground. My shirt caught on the fence and ripped. I called once more into the darkness but it was too late. Once again, I’d scared Lillian away.

  I hung my head and trudged back toward the carnival. Although I thought I had been running for five minutes straight and that I must have covered at least half a mile, I arrived back at the dunk tank in only one or two minutes.

  Miss May and Teeny perked up when they saw me. “Did you talk to her? What did she say?”

  I kicked the ground. “I’m sorry. She got away.”

  Miss May put her hand on my shoulder. “It’s OK, Chelsea. I think we had a breakthrough, anyway.
”

  I raised my eyebrows. “Really? How?”

  Miss May held up a big, black purse. “Lillian forgot her bag.”

  40

  Loosening the Purse Strings

  All three of us piled into the back of Miss May’s van. Miss May had long ago converted the rear of the VW bus into a kitchenette for farmer’s markets and events. Technically, the kitchenette in the van had been my first interior design job.

  Right after my parents died, I’d moved in with Miss May, and she’d wasted no time in offering a cure to my sadness — hard work. I’d worked on the farm, of course, doing menial tasks, but Miss May wanted to offer me more of a challenge. So she’d asked me to design and decorate the little kitchenette.

  At first, I’d doubted my ability to undertake such a task. I was a sad, recently orphaned adolescent and I’d never designed anything, let alone a mobile kitchen. But the kitchenette had turned out adorable.

  It was a 50s-style design, with a little booth, a colorful, bubbly, retro refrigerator, and a stove where we made hot chocolate. Usually for ourselves, but sometimes for customers.

  That day, Teeny and I sat on one side of the booth and Miss May scooted into the other side. As soon as we were settled, Miss May turned Lillian’s purse over and dumped it out on the table. A seemingly endless stream of items poured from the purse. Three different brands of cherry lip balm. Three tattered old Agatha Christie paperbacks. Some duct tape. Two or three handfuls of loose kettle corn.

  Finally, something caught my eye…

  “That’s a book on tarot.”

  “Where?” Miss May dug through the pile.

  “Underneath that popcorn. I can see the cover peeking out. It looks like one of the images from the Eternal Deck.” I reached into the pile and removed the palm-sized book with a ginger touch. After I flicked a few sticky popcorn kernels away, the cover of the book was fully visible. “I knew it. Look.”

  I showed the cover of the book to Teeny and Miss May. It was called “The Essential Guide to Tarot Card Reading,” and it was well-worn.

  “Good eye, Chelsea.” Teeny picked up a piece of the popcorn.

  “Don’t eat that popcorn,” said Miss May.

  Teeny clucked her tongue. “I wasn’t going to eat loose popcorn from a stolen purse, May. I just wanted to see if it was butter or kettle corn or caramel or what.”

  “Clearly kettle corn,” I said. “I solved that mystery as soon as I felt how sticky the kernels were.”

  “We’ll know for sure if one of us tastes it,” said Teeny.

  Miss May shook her head. “You are unbelievable.”

  Teeny laughed. “I’m joking. I’m not going to eat garbage popcorn! I’m not an animal, Chelsea. Now open the tarot book.”

  I flipped the tarot card book open. The pages were filled with small, dense type. Every so often there was a picture of a tarot card with a long explanation of what it might mean. “It’s just like the cover states… A guide to tarot card reading. Not sure how that helps us now.”

  “Let me see that.” Miss May reached out and I handed her the book. She flipped it open and smiled. “This book is far more helpful than you thought, Chelsea.”

  I shrugged my shoulders. “OK. Great. What did I miss?”

  Miss May fanned the book open and showed me the inside cover.

  I read aloud, “‘If found returned to Lillian Edwards. 6 Hamilton Drive, Blue Mountain, New York.’ Whoa.” I lurched forward with my eyebrows raised. “She put her address in the book. That’s amazing.”

  Teeny sat back with a grin. “That’s good detective work.”

  Miss May snapped the book closed. “That’s luck. Let’s head over there soon, before our luck runs out. Strap in, ladies. We’re going for a ride.”

  Miss May climbed from the back of the van up to the driver seat. I caught her by the shoulder. “Hold on. Lillian just left the carnival on foot. That address can’t be more than two or three minutes from here by car. If we go there now, she won’t even be there yet. We’ll beat her home, she’ll see us waiting, and we won’t be able to ask her anything.”

  Miss May scooted around to get comfortable and adjusted the rearview mirror. “She doesn’t know the car I drive. She won’t know it’s us. And I want to see her arrive.”

  Hamilton Drive was nestled in the outskirts of Blue Mountain’s dilapidated industrial area. The area was about three blocks long, and it was dotted with abandoned factories and warehouses that had long since gone out of business. There were no people on the streets and there were no lights on in any of the buildings, except for one. You guessed it, the single illuminated building was 6 Hamilton Drive.

  Miss May screeched to a halt across the street from the address. There, painted on the brick above a steel door were the words, The All-Seeing Eye Communal Living Center.

  I squinted to make sure I was reading the words right. “The All-Seeing Eye Communal Living Center. That’s Lillian’s address?”

  Miss May cranked the car into park and turned off her headlights. “It makes sense to me. Lillian is a fugitive from Five Pines. So she came to this cult for anonymity. These are probably the people who run the carnival. I bet they got her the job in the dunk tank.”

  “Oh no. I don’t do cults. Cults freak me out. I hate drinking the special juice. I do not like the idea of men in long robes. It’s all wrong,” Teeny said. “We’re not going into a cult. That’s where I draw the line. Sorry, Beth. The mystery of your murder must go unsolved.”

  “Quiet down,” said Miss May. She slumped down in her seat and Teeny and I followed suit. Miss May gestured at the building with her head. “Those people are going in.”

  I craned my neck a bit to get a look outside. Three twenty-something women knocked on the door three times, in a specific rhythm. The women were dressed in long, flowing dresses. Each wore a drowsy smile and their arms were all intertwined around each others’ waists. After a few seconds, the steel door opened and the women went inside.

  “Maybe it’s not a cult,” I said. I mean, it was definitely a cult.

  Teeny sat straight up. “Chelsea. You saw those girls. Don’t play dumb.”

  I hung my head. “Fine. This seems like a creepy, creepy cult and I don’t wanna get involved.”

  Miss May took a deep breath and exhaled. “Whatever the situation, those were young women. If Teeny and I go in there, we’ll stick out like rotten bananas.”

  Teeny nodded fast in agreement. “That’s true. Excellent point, May. We can’t go in that cult. We would, of course… But the cult leaders would know right away that we’re up to no good.”

  I grunted with resigned dismay. “You’re saying I have to do this alone.”

  “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.” Miss May pressed a button on the dashboard and the rear passenger side door slid open with a slow creak. “But justice is on the line.”

  I shook my head. “Don’t open that door on me. I’m not ready. What am I supposed to do in there? What are my goals? What room am I supposed to be in?”

  “Calm down, Chelsea. Knock on the door,” Teeny said. “Tell them you’re a lost soul. Your fiancé left you at the altar and you need a place to stay.”

  “OK that’s too personal,” I said. “I have to actually confess my heartbreak?”

  “The back story doesn’t matter,” said Miss May. “Just get inside that building, find Lillian’s room and see if there’s proof that she killed Beth.”

  I looked up and made eye contact with Miss May. “Oh well, when you put it like that… so easy!”

  I took a deep breath to try and calm my nerves. I stepped out of the van and headed for the All-Seeing Eye Communal Living Center.

  41

  Eye See You

  I knocked on the steel door just like the trio of girls had, with a simple but specific rhythm. Three knocks, each a little louder than the one that came before. After a few seconds, the door opened and I was face to face with an older woman. She had beautiful,
gray hair down to her waist. She wore blue jeans and a long flannel shirt. And she gave me the warmest smile I had ever seen.

  My first thought? This is so annoying. Miss May and Teeny are definitely younger than this lady. I do not need to be here alone. I resisted looking back at the van with a scowl as the woman held the door open.

  “Greetings. Welcome. Come in.”

  The woman stepped aside and allowed me to enter a small brick foyer. The room was unadorned. There was an elevator on the far side. “Hi. Thank you for letting me in.”

  The woman nodded. “You look surprised.”

  “I am. I expected you to ask me questions or demand that I offer my qualifications for visiting your facility.”

  The woman let out a small chuckle. “If you are here, you’ve been magnetized to our community, and that’s enough of a qualification. All-Seeing Eye only attracts those who need us most.”

  “So you don’t want to know my back story?”

  The woman scoffed. “There are no back stories in life. Not like with characters in books or movies. We’re living people. We are ongoing stories, evolving shapes. And as such, we must focus on the present and enjoy being rooted to the earth with every step we take. You need a place to stay for the night or longer?”

  I stammered. “Yes. My husband… I was supposed to be married…”

  The long-haired lady held up her hand to stop me. “No back stories. Only the present.”

  The woman crossed the room and pressed the button to call the elevator. I drifted behind her almost in a trance. It felt good to forget the past. But then the elevator arrived and I stepped inside, and I tried to snap back to my mission. As we glided up to the fourth floor I remembered that I was in that building for a reason. I needed to bring justice to Beth. I couldn’t forget that, no matter how much I wanted to stay rooted in the present and the hypnotizing effect of the woman’s voice and smile.