Acting Up

by A. A. Albright

  Finn gave him a scathing stare. ‘You can stop your crocodile tears right there, Bruno. You might be able to convince us you didn’t kill Felix, but you’re still the prime suspect for Yvonne’s murder.’

  ‘They’re not crocodile tears! And I didn’t kill Yvonne, either. I have no idea how that bottle of Blue got under my hat. I hated Mandy, it’s true. And I did exactly what the mask told me to when I gave them to the others. But I didn’t kill anyone. And out of those three, if I had to bet money on who did kill Felix, Yvonne and Mandy, my money would be on Dashell. He hated Mandy more than any of us. I mean, she dumped him for Will, for Hecate’s sake!’

  I leant across to Finn. ‘He didn’t do it,’ I whispered. ‘But he did more than enough. So how about we leave him sweat while we go find Aidan and Gillian?’

  Finn grunted his approval and stood up. ‘We have enough to book you for Conspiracy to Murder, just for starters. And while you’re waiting for that trial, we can be building up a file on everything else.’ Finn gave him a sharp smile. ‘Somehow, I don’t think Be My Witch is ever going to be on TV again. Let alone the messed-up version you wanted to make. Well, toodles for now, Bruno.’

  22. Do All Dogs Go to Heaven? Even the Really Annoying Ones?

  ‘You’re wrong,’ said the dog for what felt like the fiftieth time. ‘You have to go back and question Dashell again, you silly woman! Ugh! Mandy was right about you. She said you were just a hapless but lucky moron who only solves cases by accident.’

  I used to think of myself as an animal lover, but it turns out it’s not quite the case. I like nice animals. Not nasty ones. I gritted my teeth. ‘I’ve told you, we’ve already discounted Dashell. And if you keep being such a jerk, Bonbon, then I’m going to give you an even worse perm than the one you have right now.’

  He growled, but it was far more half-hearted than before. ‘I’m just saying. No one could have killed Mandy out of hatred because … well, why would anyone hate her? She was fabulous. But Dashell loved her. Even wanted to marry her. A crime of passion is the only thing that makes sense, Wanda.’

  ‘Hey, calm it down, Orphan Annie,’ Finn said to the dog. ‘We’re working on it, okay?’ He turned to Paul. ‘Still no luck on locating Aidan and Gillian?’

  Paul shook his head. ‘I can’t get a fix on either of them. These masks are amazing. If they don’t want to be found, they won’t be found. I’ve never seen objects like it.’ He stopped gushing about the evil dark objects and cleared his throat. ‘Anyway, I’m scanning through their social media at the moment to see if I can track their locations that way. I’m hacking into their personal computers, too.’

  ‘Y’know, I love that you do these things for the good of all,’ said Finn. ‘But you don’t, y’know, ever use your powers for idle curiosity, do you?’

  Paul gave Finn an innocent stare. ‘No. The people I have to hack for work are bad enough. I don’t want to know what my friends are up to online. Why?’

  Finn shrugged. ‘No reason. But on an unrelated note – if someone had been keeping, say, a journal on their computer, what would be the best way to protect their private thoughts and feelings from hacking attempts?’

  I snorted. ‘No one needs to hack your super-secret diary, Finn. We all know what it says already.’

  His cheeks turned pink. ‘You do?’

  ‘Oh sure.’ I grinned. ‘Lassie is the prettiest, most bestest kisser in the whole wide world. Someday, dear diary, I’m gonna marry that weredog.’

  Finn grunted. ‘When did you say the college term starts again? Because I’ve been rethinking that part time position I’ve offered you. I reckon it’d be way too messy. Yeah, I reckon when you go off to Crooked College this autumn, you should get a job somewhere else.’

  I stopped grinning, but not because I was worried he’d go through with his threat. The truth was, he might have offered me a part time position for when I went to college, but I hadn’t yet said I’d take it. I hadn’t slept properly since this case began. There was no way I could juggle this kind of schedule with my college work.

  ‘Hey.’ Finn squeezed my shoulder. ‘Chin up, Wanda. I didn’t mean it. You know I couldn’t operate this place without you.’

  I pasted a smile on my face. Maybe he couldn’t read my thoughts, after all.

  I was just about to offer to do a coffee run when Paul punched the air (he was more dramatic than Kitty at times). ‘I’ve got something, guys. Something good.’

  ≈

  We stood around, reading the script that Paul had found on Aidan’s computer. In it, his character was given a potion that was supposed to help him stay up all night so he could work on his latest advertising campaign. But someone had switched the potions, and instead of feeling hyper enough to work all night, he felt angry enough to strangle the person nearest to him – and that person just happened to be his hapless human wife, who was bringing him coffee and sandwiches in his home study.

  ‘This isn’t real,’ said Finn. ‘I saw some of Bruno’s scripts. He uses British spelling – this one uses American.’

  ‘You’re right,’ I agreed. ‘And who was it who told us he studied in America? Maybe Aidan’s interest in screenwriting wasn’t so much a creative pursuit as it was a murderous one.’

  Bonbon started yapping furiously. ‘No. No I refuse to believe it. Aidan couldn’t have come up with a fiendish plan to murder Mandy. He loved her, the same as everyone did!’

  ‘Sure he did, Bonbon,’ I said, stroking the dog. ‘Sure he did. He was obviously affected by the whole evil mask thing, though.’

  ‘Ah.’ Bonbon sat down. ‘Well, I suppose that makes sense. Well, what are you doing standing around here then? Go and arrest him!’

  Paul glanced at the dog. ‘You know, I might not be able to understand what you’re saying, Bonbon, but I have a feeling it’s not helpful. So why don’t you stop your yapping and let me concentrate on finding Aidan and Gillian.’

  Unsurprisingly, that was the wrong thing to say. Bonbon decided to yap even more – and even louder, too. Because he was just as lovely a dog as Mandy was a witch. I had some sudden and serious thoughts about the afterlife as I looked at the most annoying canine in the world, and wondered where he and his witch would spend theirs. There were scholars in Crooked College who spent their entire careers arguing about the heavens and the hells. And unfortunately for them, the ghosts of loved ones who returned every Halloween seemed to enjoy keeping it a secret.

  But if there was some terrible hellish dimension which people went to after death, then I had the feeling it was filled with perky noses and yappy dogs.

  Paul kept his calm – somewhat – as Bonbon continued to interrupt his concentration. I was just about to perform a Shut It spell when our wonderful wizard let out a sigh of relief and said, ‘Okay everyone. I think I have something.’

  We moved to his screen again, where he had pulled up Gillian’s Super Social page. A few seconds earlier, she had received an alert from Aidan:

  Message to the cast and crew of Be My Witch: Impromptu Memorial for Mandy, on set at three p.m. We all miss Mandy. Come along to Studio Nine right now and share your stories of just how wonderful she was.

  As we looked at the screen, we saw Gillian’s reply: Count me in.

  Finn nodded decisively. ‘Let’s get going. Oh, and we’re not taking the dog. That’s an order.’

  I turned to Bonbon. ‘Oh, that’s such a shame. But I can’t refuse an order from my boss, so I guess you’ll have to stay here.’ I looked at Sixteen. ‘Fancy dog sitting?’ The robot had made a return this afternoon, and so far I hadn’t done anything to break him.

  He stood up. ‘Anything for you, Wanda Wayfair. However much it scrambles my morality circuits, I shall happily sit on this dog.’ He picked Bonbon up and placed him on a chair. ‘He is rather annoying, after all.’

  I might have taken a second whether to decide to stop Sixteen or not. I’m not proud of it, but come on – the dog was a monster. ‘I don’t mean sit on him,�
� I said. ‘I mean look after him. Make sure he has enough food and water and toilet breaks, and that he doesn’t run off before I get back.’

  ‘Oh.’ Sixteen looked vaguely disappointed. ‘That does seem to make more sense.’

  23. Memorial for a Monster

  Finn and I stood on the abandoned set, looking around, but we seemed to be completely alone. It was eerie, looking at the bedroom Mandy’s character had shared with the horrible husband. I’d just seen a scene in here the week before, where he was telling Mandy’s character how much he loved her even though she was ‘a silly, tempestuous human.’ She had giggled and said, ‘That’s me, my darling! Ha, ha, ha!’

  It was … yeah. It was bad. And now that I knew just why Mandy had seemed so adorable on screen, the whole series felt even worse in retrospect. But at least now I had an excuse for those two or three (or twenty) times when I’d watched it in secret.

  ‘I don’t get it,’ said Finn. ‘The message went out from Aidan’s Super Social page half an hour ago. Why isn’t anyone here?’

  ‘Paul found Aidan’s post when he was looking at Gillian’s page to see if he could track her location that way, right? And sure, it says it’s been sent to everyone in the cast and crew. But has it?’

  Finn’s face fell. ‘You think Aidan was luring particular people here? Particular people like maybe Gillian. I mean, she is the only other member of the club who we haven’t got under arrest right now.’ He didn’t wait for me to answer. He got straight on the phone with Paul. Even though I could only hear one side, I got the gist. Paul was flummoxed, but he thought that I was right.

  ‘Paul is flummoxed,’ said Finn. ‘But he says you’re right.’ Yay for female intuition. ‘Aidan must have found a way around Super Social. Made it look like the message was sent to everyone in the cast and crew. But in reality it only went to Gillian. The sly bugger! Good goddess, I hope Gillian didn’t actually come.’

  ‘Paul can’t track her?’

  ‘He can’t track either of them. I’m guessing Aidan is wearing the mask, to make it impossible. It seems like you can do anything you need to do with those bloody masks. You could probably walk on water. Where the hell could they be?’

  As soon as he asked the question, we heard a woman’s scream.

  ‘Mandy’s dressing room!’ we cried in unison.

  ≈

  As we burst through the door, Gillian was on her knees, crying. There was a scarf around her neck, and Aidan seemed to be pulling at it. ‘Please Aidan. Please don’t do this. I know you’ve done some terrible things, but you’re a good person. It’s the mask, Aidan. You should have thrown yours away, like I did.’

  Aidan dropped the scarf, blinking at Finn and me. The scarf wasn’t the only thing he dropped, though. There was a black and white mask by his feet. ‘You … oh my stars! I know what this looks like. It looks bad. Really, really bad.’

  ‘Step away from her, Aidan,’ said Finn, his voice commanding. ‘I’ve disempowered you.’ He pointed to the disempowerment device on his belt. ‘And Wanda’s about to bind you. It’s over.’

  ‘What? What’s over? I don’t understand any of this. I got a message saying there was a memorial for Mandy. Gillian called me over here and then she started strangling herself in front of me, so I was trying to stop her.’ He gave us what appeared to be a stare of genuine confusion. ‘I would have phoned for help, but my phone won’t work. I couldn’t click out of here for help either. It was just me, Gillian, and her efforts to strangle herself to death.’

  ‘So why do you have the mask?’ I asked, more curious than accusatory.

  ‘Ask Gillian. She brought it here. It was one of those stupid things that Bruno gave to a few of us. I never even took mine home with me when I got it. It creeped me out, and I felt like Bruno wanted us all to wear them a little bit too much, if you know what I’m saying. Like he had something up his sleeve. I only came for the memorial. I swear.’

  Finn gave him a dubious stare. ‘You can cut the act now, Aidan. You can’t win a Plummy once you’re in Witchfield. We know all about the We Hate Mandy Monday Club. There’s no way you’re here for a memorial.’

  At the mention of the club, Aidan swallowed. ‘That was … I just liked having a gang to hang around with. I know Mandy could be hard work, but I liked her. She believed in all the same things as I did. I certainly didn’t hate her. I was probably the only one on set who didn’t. But I had to pretend. Y’know – to fit in.’

  ‘That’s a lie!’ Gillian cried. ‘Why couldn’t you act this well when the cameras were rolling? That’s what I’d like to know. Just before Wanda and Finn came to my rescue you told me that you sent out the message about the memorial to get me here. And you laughed in my face, and told me I must be a right doormat to actually want to attend a memorial for Mandy. I wish I hadn’t lied for you now.’ She looked fiercely at Finn. ‘I’m so sorry, Captain Plimpton, but I wasn’t completely honest with you the other day. Yes, Aidan, Dashell and I were having coffee on the morning Felix was murdered. And Bruno popped in, too. But Aidan disappeared for well over twenty minutes. He said he had a dicky tummy and he was in the loo, but … I think he might have been lying. I think he killed Felix.’

  Aidan’s eyes looked fit to burst out of their sockets. ‘What the …? You had a dicky tummy that morning, not me!’

  ‘Oh, just stop it, Aidan.’ She shook her head, giving him a disappointed stare. ‘Stop lying. You were going to strangle me, just like you strangled Mandy. You even told me about the fake script you wrote to lure her here, so she’d think she was coming to rehearse with you! That’s why, when you started to strangle her, she didn’t try to stop you, isn’t it? Isn’t it?! Because the poor girl thought it was all part of the script.’ She looked plaintively at Finn, tears rolling down her face. ‘You should check his computer. I’ll bet the fake script is on there.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Finn. ‘We have all the evidence we need. Aidan Flynn, you’re under arrest for the murders of Felix Kline, Yvonne Kelly and Mandy Parker …’

  As Finn went on reading the Magical Law Rights, Gillian sank to the floor, weeping in relief. Wow, she had a lot of tears to cry.

  ‘I’m so glad it’s over,’ she said through her tears. ‘Now I can finally mourn my dear, dear friend Mandy.’

  Okay, that was taking it a bit too far. Gillian had hated Mandy. I looked more closely at her. Her face seemed … odd. There was shadow down one side of it, and it was starkly pale on the other side. Aidan might have had the mask when we walked in, but he wasn’t wearing it. And if he wasn’t wearing it, then how could he access its power?

  ‘Oh my stars.’ I pulled out my finger, about to bind Gillian, when the door slammed shut.

  I shook my finger. Nothing happened. I could feel the magic coursing there, but it just wouldn’t come out. ‘What did you do to us, Gillian?’

  Finn looked perplexed. ‘Gillian? Oh crap, you’re right!’ He wiggled his finger, then shook his hand out and tried again, but his magic was on the fritz just like mine was. ‘Gillian’s been the murderer all along!’

  She stood up, gave Finn the most exaggerated eye-roll of all time and said, ‘Duh. How do you get to be the captain when it seems like it’s always Wanda who solves the crimes?’ She smiled pleasantly at me. ‘Y’know, Mandy was wrong about you, Wanda. She was always saying you only solved things by fluke, but that’s clearly not true. You figured it all out – at the very last moment, sure. But it was a pretty twisty crime caper, so well done.’ Her smile widened, and she clapped. ‘Tell me what clued you in.’

  ‘The mask you’re wearing.’

  She gritted her teeth. ‘Bruno told us they’d be invisible the second we put them on.’ She moved to Mandy’s mirror. ‘Wait … it is still invisible. Is this one of those Wayfarer gifts we’re always hearing about? Colour me impressed.’ She turned from the mirror. ‘But unfortunately, your super-awesome talents can only get you so far. As you’ll have noticed, you can’t get your power to work at the
moment. Neither can you, Finn.’ She smiled at him. ‘But don’t worry. You might be useless as a captain, but you’re incredibly handsome. So you won’t come to any harm.’

  She sat down in one of Mandy’s chairs, resting her arms at the sides and letting out an ‘Aah’ of satisfaction. ‘The big dressing room. I’ve always wanted this place, and soon it will be mine. Of course, we’ll have to get a new actor to replace you, Aidan, but I hardly think anyone will notice.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ said Aidan. ‘I mean, I know Bruno said those masks were designed to ignite our inner fire and make us better actors, but none of us actually bought that, did we? Didn’t you notice the weird little glint in his eyes, and all the not-so-secret villain facial expressions he had going on that night. Oh, Gillian! I thought you of all people would have seen through it. You might think you’re in charge right now, but you’re just doing Bruno’s dirty work for him.’

  Finn glared at Aidan. ‘You might have seen that Bruno was up to something, clever clogs. But you didn’t tell us about it, did you? And you didn’t try to stop him. You’re just as complicit in this as Bruno is. Dashell, too. In fact, every single member of the We Hate Mandy Monday Club is going to be enjoying a nice long stay at Witchfield.’

  Gillian shook her head. Now there was some hair that really did have some golden flecks in it. Maybe I could convince Sixteen to develop a crush on her instead.