Cotton Candy and Corpses

by Allyssa Mirry

  “You’re not reporters trying to do some expose on Miss Cassandra to embarrass her after her death, are you?” Mona asked.

  “Of course not,” said Lydia.

  “We’re not even friends with the main reporter in town,” said Trina.

  “We’d just like to find out what happened,” Lydia said. “And I think you’d like to know too.”

  Mona popped another taffy into her mouth so she would have more time to consider her answer. Finally, she said, “I do want to find out what happened and who would do such a horrible thing to her. But I don’t want to embarrass her either. What she did was entertain and help people.”

  “She wasn’t really a psychic?” asked Lydia.

  “A medium,” said Mona. “But no. It was for show. But she wanted it to feel like it was real. So she hired me to help.”

  “How?” asked Trina.

  “I did research on people in town and on big deaths. I tried to uncover things that would make it personal. Most people really do want a chance to speak to their loved ones again,” Mona said. “I know that I’d give anything to have another moment with my dad. And Miss Cassandra provided people with these chances. She could help people have closure.”

  “I don’t feel like she provided me with closure,” said Trina. “I felt like she was sic’ing a vengeful spirit on me.”

  “And she was reopening a wound for my brother,” said Lydia.

  Mona frowned. “Well, maybe she couldn’t do everything that everyone needed all at once. But she told me that she was doing this to help people. She was giving them an opportunity to say goodbye. Like what I wanted with my dad, who died so suddenly.”

  Lydia tried to ask her next question gently. “Do you think it was possible that she was manipulating you? And that she wanted to manipulate others so they would keep coming back and paying her?”

  Mona shook her head. “No. She wouldn’t do that.”

  “Did she do research on her own too?” asked Trina.

  “Yeah. There are a lot of people in town, so it was a two person job. And sometimes it was a rush job if a tourist wandered in from off the street. It was easier to deal with the locals. I guess sometimes Miss Cassandra would take over the research for a certain person on her own when she thought something was interesting.”

  “What do you mean by that?” asked Lydia, leaning forward in her wicker seat.

  “She was always trying to find out people’s secrets, so she could use them in her séances,” said Mona. “It made it more realistic if she knew things that she shouldn’t.”

  “She was actively trying to find out people’s secrets?” asked Trina.

  “You make it sound like it’s a bad thing,” Mona said defensively. “But she just did it to make the readings better.”

  “Really?” said Trina. “She never tried to do anything else with that info? Never let the spirits do any blackmail work?”

  Mona opened her mouth to protest, but then closed it.

  “What is it?” asked Lydia. “That made you think of something, didn’t it?”

  “A woman came in the other day while Miss Cassandra was with a client. She handed me an envelope full of money to give to my boss. Miss Cassandra said it was a deposit for a party, but I didn’t know of any upcoming gigs we had. And the woman looked scared when she was there.”

  “Do you know her name?” Lydia asked.

  “No. But she’d be easy to recognize again. She looked like a supermodel but was wearing a neck brace.”

  “If she is a local, I bet we can track her down,” said Trina. “The ladies at my salon keep track of everyone’s injuries in town.”

  Mona looked away sadly. “I hate to think that Miss Cassandra really was blackmailing people. But it might explain why someone attacked her like that. And there’s something else too.”

  “What?” asked Lydia eagerly.

  “She kept some of her research in a beach locker. You know where most people keep a change of clothes. She didn’t want it to stay in our building. I thought it was so it wouldn’t look crowded if we used file cabinets, but it might have been because she wanted to keep some distance from it.”

  “Like evidence of blackmail,” said Trina.

  “Do you know which locker it is?” Lydia asked.

  Mona nodded. “I have the key.”

  She went to her purse and retrieved the key. She handed it to Lydia, who stared at it, hoping that this might be the literal key to solving the case.

  10

  Discovering Dirt

  “I’m nervous,” Trina admitted.

  She and Lydia were standing in front of the beach locker that Mona had told them about. The row of lockers was under a pavilion to keep them out of the sun and was near changing and restrooms so visitors could keep their belongings safe and dry when they went into the ocean. Lydia was just about to insert the key into the lock but paused to look at her friend.

  “What if she put some sort of curse on the locker?” Trina continued. “And we get cursed for opening it?”

  “But if we don’t open it, we won’t get any closer to solving the case,” said Lydia.

  Trina groaned. “I guess you’re right. And I should be the one to open it.”

  “What?”

  “Madame Waverly said that you’d end up in danger and fighting for your life, but she didn’t say anything about me.”

  Lydia was going to argue with this logic, but Trina pushed her aside. She grabbed the key, took a deep breath, and unlocked the locker. Trina recoiled, but there was no need. Nothing jumped out at them. There were only paper files before them.

  “No ghosts and no bathing suits,” said Lydia. “But I think this is what we’ve been looking for. These secret files should reveal what Miss Cassandra found out about people in town. And if she was blackmailing anyone, we should discover who her victims were.”

  They both grabbed a folder and began flipping through them, careful not to let the breeze from the ocean blow anything away.

  “This looks like blackmail to me,” said Lydia. “There’s not just newspaper articles here. But receipts and other documents. I think Miss Cassandra was also keeping a count of her payments here too. She wrote two dollar signs and dates on this page. I don’t recognize the woman in this photo, though.”

  She showed the picture of the young woman with lots of freckles to Trina, who shook her head.

  “She looks a little familiar, but I don’t know who she is. She doesn’t come into my salon.” Trina showed off the picture that was in her file. “This guy looks like a mailman.”

  “Not just any mailman,” said Lydia. “That’s my mailman, Marky. Miss Cassandra was blackmailing him too?”

  “There are also dollar signs and dates written on a paper here too.”

  Lydia reached for another file and nearly dropped it when she opened it. Inside were articles and photos about Leo and Detective Grey.

  “Are you okay?” asked Trina.

  Lydia recovered and nodded. “I was afraid that Leo was being blackmailed too for a moment, but I don’t think he was. There are no dollar sign marks on this file. I bet she thought this was important research though because she wanted to be able to prove to the police that she was really able to contact the dead.”

  “She did a good job convincing Leo,” said Trina. “What does she have in there?”

  Lydia flipped through it. “There’s a lot about Uncle Edgar in here. It also looks like she gathered information on Leo and Detective Grey’s cases, especially the ones where there was someone who died.”

  “Maybe she would have pretended to be Rhonda down the line when she talked to Leo too.”

  “Maybe. But I think she ended up being more effective by hitting closer to home. And I think she wanted to manipulate Detective Grey’s emotions too, but I don’t think he went to visit her before she died.”

  “Detective Grey’s emotions?” asked Trina. “But he’s so stoic and serious.”

  “She gathered some infor
mation on his last partner. He retired right before Leo was promoted. It looks like he had a heart attack two years ago. Detective Grey told me that he thought of his partners like family. I bet Miss Cassandra pretending to be his deceased partner would have affected him.”

  “Maybe I’m too hard on the guy,” Trina said. “I didn’t like that he considered me a suspect before, but I guess he does have a heart.”

  Lydia set the data collected on her brother and partner aside and picked up the last folder. She opened it and saw an attractive woman wearing a neck brace in photos.

  “This must be the person that Mona saw bring the money into the psychic shop,” said Lydia.

  “I know her,” Trina said excitedly. “Her name is Penny Simon. She’s a regular at my salon. But, actually, she hasn’t made an appointment lately. Some of the other women said that she had been in a car accident, but that it wasn’t too serious. She must not have wanted her hair worked on if she can’t move her neck.”

  “Except I think she can move her neck,” Lydia said, flipping through some pictures in the file. “It looks here like Penny isn’t really injured. Maybe that’s what Miss Cassandra was blackmailing her about.”

  Trina nodded. “That makes sense. If Penny was engaged in some sort of fraud, she’d pay to keep it a secret. Of course, Miss Cassandra was also a fraud. Maybe they should have canceled each other out.”

  “What we’re going to need to decide is whether we should tell Leo and Detective Grey about this right away,” Lydia said, frowning as she thought. “Part of me wants to tell Leo how Miss Cassandra was able to pretend to be Uncle Edgar right away. But I’d feel a little guilty handing over the dirt that Miss Cassandra uncovered to them. It could hurt those people.”

  They both stared at the files in their hands and in the locker, feeling the weight of the decision they had to make. People’s lives would be affected by whatever they chose.

  “I see what you mean,” said Trina. “On one hand, if they did something that they’re willing to pay blackmail for, then they did do something wrong. On the other hand, no one seems to have committed a serious crime, and they would get in trouble if we told the police. If we had another hand, I’d also consider that we should tell the police if this is really part of a homicide investigation. And on yet another hand, these people were already victims of what Miss Cassandra did to them.”

  “But was she a victim of one of them too?” asked Lydia.

  “She might be. Either Penny or your mailman or the mystery woman could be the killer.” Trina shrugged. “So, what do we do?”

  Lydia considered the matter. Then, she started putting the piles into the beach bag tote that she had brought with her. The brightly colored stripes seemed to clash with the serious contents she was stuffing into it.

  “I think we should have a little conversation with these people first,” Lydia said. “We’ll see if any of them could be a real suspect in the murder. And we’ll give them a chance to make amends on their own instead of turning it into a police matter.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” Trina said, helping to fill the bag. “And I think I know where we can find Penny. The ladies at the salon said that she’d been spending her recuperation on the beach. And I remember her telling me a while ago that she liked to sunbathe near the cute new lifeguard. That must mean your Daniel.”

  “He’s not my Daniel. He made quite sure to let me know that,” said Lydia. “But I think it would be great to visit the beach and see if we can find Penny.”

  “And we can find out if she’s a lucky Penny or not,” Trina joked. “Maybe we’ll luck out and get the answers we need to solve this case.”

  11

  Beauty and the Brace

  Lydia and Trina headed straight toward the beach. They took off their shoes and trekked across the sand toward the lifeguard stand that they knew so well. Lydia had to admit that it felt strange heading towards where Daniel was without any intention of speaking to him. Instead, she was hoping to talk a murder suspect.

  “I think that’s her,” Trina said, pointing.

  Lydia would have noticed her without her friend’s gesture. Penny Simmons looked as lovely as she did in her pictures. She was sporting a skimpy bathing suit that Lydia would never have felt comfortable in, and somehow Penny had even made sure that there were beiges in the suit to match her neck brace. She lounged in a beach chair under an umbrella. She held a book, but Lydia suspected that the woman’s eyes behind her sunglasses were really enjoying the view of the lifeguard.

  “Come on,” said Lydia. “Let’s ask her our questions and get out of here.”

  They approached the woman, who smiled at them quickly. She set aside her book without marking the page she was on, which confirmed Lydia’s suspicions that she hadn’t really been reading at all.

  “Trina,” Penny said. “It’s so nice to see you. I’d get up to greet you, but it takes a little coordination with my neck the way it is.”

  “That’s all right,” Trina said. “But do you mind if we join you for a moment? This is my friend, Lydia.”

  “Not at all. I’ve missed seeing you at the salon, but I haven’t really felt up to coming in while I have this injury.”

  Trina and Lydia knelt in the sand to be near the woman under her umbrella.

  “I’ve missed seeing you too,” Trina said. “It must be very difficult for you right now. You were hurt in a car accident?”

  “That’s right. Another car ran right into mine,” Penny said. “I was so scared at the time. And my neck injury has been quite painful. I haven’t been able to go to work for two weeks. And I’ve missed my social engagements. But I suppose there have been one or two perks. I got that lifeguard to help me into my chair.”

  Lydia was determined not to turn around and look at Daniel in the lifeguard stand. If he needed time and space to heal, she would give it to him. Whatever feelings she had been developing for him, she pushed away. She had other things she needed to focus on anyway: like finding a killer.

  “He was such a gentleman helping me get settled and making sure I wasn’t in pain,” Penny said before a mischievous smile formed on her lips. “Of course, he wasn’t a gentleman the whole time. I felt his eyes on me in this suit, and I think he liked what he saw.”

  Lydia tried to keep a neutral expression on her face, but she couldn’t deny that this news affected her. Maybe Daniel hadn’t needed time to heal. Maybe he just wasn’t interested in her and thought that was a kinder way to let her down. He was surrounded by beautiful women on the beach all day and could probably have his pick of any of the singles there. Maybe he just didn’t want to be with someone who made taffy all day and found themselves embroiled in investigations.

  He didn’t know that Penny was lying about her injury and she was stunning. Maybe he was more interested in someone like her.

  “And I like what I see of him,” Penny said, moving her sunglasses so she could view him even better. “What’s his deal? I haven’t seen him with another woman. Is he divorced? He’s so mysterious. And hunky. Maybe I could ask him to help me with a few things around my house. I am having some trouble completing tasks while I have this awful injury.”

  “It’s about that injury that we wanted to talk to you,” said Lydia abruptly.

  “Oh?” asked Penny. “You want to hear about that fateful day that the other car hit mine? My neck hasn’t been the same since then.”

  “Did Miss Cassandra have the same opinion?” asked Lydia.

  Penny paled, but she tried to keep on a brave face. Her fingers rose to touch the neck brace.

  “Miss Cassandra?” asked Penny. “Yes. I did visit her for a reading before. I’ve been looking for some entertainment since my injury prevents me from working. She didn’t comment on my injury though. She must have sensed with her sixth sense that I didn’t want to talk about it. But I heard that she had been killed. The newspaper said she was killed with her own crystal ball. I couldn’t have done something like that.”

&nb
sp; “I don’t know if your neck injury would have prevented you from hitting her,” said Lydia. “Miss Cassandra had already found out that you were faking.”

  Penny shushed them and looked around to see if anyone could have overheard what they said. Her eyes danced around nervously.

  “Not so loud.”

  “Do you deny it?” asked Lydia.