The Dead Girls Detective Agency

by Suzy Cox

  “Just ignore him,” Nancy warned. “He’s used that line many, many times before. And not one new arrival has laughed at it yet, have they, Edison?”

  “Tess did,” he shot back.

  Tess? Was he friends with her? Not that I knew the girl, but I strongly suspected that made this Edison guy trouble.

  “So you say, but seeing as you were both here before Lorna and me, we don’t have any proof that’s the case,” Nancy said. One thing I could not imagine Tess doing was cracking a smile.

  Edison raised an eyebrow at her and smirked at me. Oh boy.

  “See you around.” He walked out of the room. No “hey, nice to meet you,” “who are you?” or even a “how did you die?” Men: Clearly some were as incommunicative in death as in life.

  “So, um, these Rules,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady. “Sorry to sound stupid, but I’m not really getting them. Can we run through the important stuff again?” Without making me read the book because it looks really, really dull, I silently added.

  “Oh, we can do better than that,” Nancy said, brightening and leading the way out of HHQ. “I’ll show you how they work—out in the real world. In practice.”

  Chapter 4

  I’D BEEN IN WASHINGTON SQUARE PARK A million times before. After all, I’d lived in New York all my life. Me and my best friend, Ali, used to cut through to go shopping in Soho (the thought of that gave me an instant pang). Mom’s favorite Italian was around the corner (double pang). But if you said “Washington Square,” I always thought of one person: David.

  I’m not one of those boyfriend name-droppers. I hate those girls—who doesn’t? Ali and I used to say they had broccoli syndrome. Like, they could work their boyfriend’s name into any conversation. So even if you were discussing something as blah as broccoli, they’d be like, “Oh, Pete, my boyfriend, he loves broccoli.”

  I’m so not a broccoli girl. But, being here, I couldn’t help thinking about how we met.

  David transferred from his super-fancy private school uptown to my regular one near Rockefeller Center last spring. When he walked into my homeroom, all shy looks and baggy pants, I decided he was probably the hottest guy I’d ever laid eyes on right then and there. He was tan, had messy blond hair, and a guitar case permanently slung over his shoulder—he looked like a cute surfer who’d run away from the beach to join a rock ’n’ roll band. But I also figured the omnipresent Strat and remnants of last weekend’s guyliner meant he was probably one of those try-hard prep kids too. You know, the ones who figure they’re hip, but blow it by thinking it’s okay to actually use words like summered and supper.

  After school one day in his first week, I was walking down Fifth, when I saw him smiling across the street. If I’m being honest, I had to stop and take a second to check he was waving at me and not some other girl standing behind me.

  “Hey, where are you going?” he asked, bouncing across the street like an overenthusiastic puppy dog. Was he for real?

  “Just down to the Village.”

  “Great! Me too!” He smiled and I noticed that, when he did, his eyes crinkled. “Mind if I go with you?”

  I was totally prepared for this to be the most awkward subway ride of my life. But the bizarro thing was, as soon as we started talking, we couldn’t stop. It was like he’d read every book I had and downloaded all of my favorite songs. We talked about discovering Hole years before Jennifer’s Body came out, how we knew we should have read A Clockwork Orange, but hadn’t made it past the first page, and how—even though he’d only just started—David could totally tell our school sucked and was full of a bunch of vapid morons.

  Before I knew it, we’d hit West 4th Street and walked over to Washington Square. We sat on the gray walls of the fountain, our backs to the water. It was a scorching May day, but there was this breeze that, every so often, would pick up out of nowhere, making the leaves on the trees rustle and wave. I remember that, not because I’m some weird weather obsessive, but because when it did start up, the spray bubbling up in the fountain would catch on the breeze and fall on our backs like mist. And, even though I am so not into my looks, I kept thinking all that moisture in the air was going to make my wavy black hair frizz. And that David, this cool muso boy I’d just met, was going to decide then and there that he didn’t want to date a big ball of hair fuzz like me.

  Which was pathetic, I know. But everyone’s allowed to be vain once in a while. Especially where cute boys are concerned. Especially cute boys who have three Cure albums on their iPod—instead of just downloading “Pictures of You” because it was on that commercial—and actually know who Emily Dickinson is.

  It was all going great. Way too great as it turned out. Because then she appeared.

  “David! Hey!”

  I looked up from Mr. Probably-as-Perfect-as-a-Guy-Can-Get to see a sickeningly cute, slender redhead wearing a maxi-dress I’d never look that good in, waving at us across the square.

  David jumped away from me as if we were six and I’d just told him I had cooties.

  “Oh, I … I’ve gotta go,” he said, pushing his iPod into his bag and racing off across the baking concrete. “Bye!” he shouted at me, without even turning back. When he reached the redhead, he slung his arm around her shoulder. As he pushed his Wayfarers up his nose, she threw back her head and laughed. They looked like something off the front of a Bob Dylan album.

  Maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised that, looking at the fountain now—a year and a half later—I still felt nauseous at the memory, so badly I wanted to sit down.

  Of course it all worked out. Eventually. But what did that matter now? What did it matter that, back in the Living world, I had a boyfriend who totally got me. And a family who loved me. And a best friend who, well … What did it matter? Not one bit.

  Not now as I stood here, on the evening of the day I died, with only two dead girls for company.

  What if I never spent another afternoon like that with David—or any guy—again? What if this was it for me? What if the only people I would ever talk to now were Nancy (Her Geekiness), Lorna (signs of intelligence yet to be discovered), Tess (not my biggest fan for who-cared-why), and Edison (tall, dark, and probably trouble)?

  Uptown, the lights on the Empire State Building twinkled in the evening air. Tonight they were orange and green—in honor of Halloween, which was less than a week away. While I’d totally never admit this out loud, I liked them best when they went pink for Valentine’s Day. I hadn’t been up the Empire State since I was about eleven. Not since me and Ali went through our super-lame Sleepless in Seattle stage (triple pang). That felt eons ago.

  “Now, porting is actually quite easy. Though most newbies don’t manage it on their first try.” The sound of Nancy’s voice snapped me back to the here and now. Unfortunately. The now where I was meant to be learning how to be a good ghost instead of thinking about David or Ali or stupid old movies or signs or whatever.

  “Por—What?”

  “Porting. Well, transporting, to give it its full name. Jeez, Charlotte, have you never seen a scary movie? Read a supernatural book?”

  Not recently. I was more of an art gallery girl. I shrugged.

  Nancy went on. “In order to solve our murders we need to be able to travel around the city. To spy on the Living. Maybe haunt them a bit. But only if absolutely necessary. And it’s not like we can hail a cab or get the subway.”

  The subway. No, I was definitely not super-keen to jump on the subway anytime soon. Glad to hear I now had a new mode of transportation.

  “So here’s the good news: Ghosts have their own way of traveling—porting. And it means we can get anywhere in the blink of a human eye.”

  “Anywhere?” I asked. This could be kinda neat.

  “Anywhere!” Nancy said. “Well, anywhere in Manhattan. Rule Four. Remember Rule Four?”

  I nodded. Yes, I remembered it. Ghosts don’t do water, therefore no going anywhere remotely interesting like London or Venice or Par
is … or Williamsburg. Which big-time sucked.

  Guess saving for a summer backpacking around Europe had been a total waste of my time then.

  “If we need to go somewhere in the city to investigate your murder, all we do is shut our eyes”—Nancy crinkled hers tightly for effect. Or maybe just because she thought I was that dumb—“concentrate really hard on the place we want to go, and when we open them again we should be there.”

  “Do we need to have been there before?” I asked.

  “Nope,” Nancy said. “Just as long as you know where it is and can concentrate on the location, that should be enough.”

  Sweet. That sounded easy enough. I screwed up my eyes. Where to?

  “No! Wait! I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to port on your own on your first go,” Nancy said. “You could end up anywhere. Do you remember that time we lost the new dead boy, Lorna?” She nodded. “He was seventeen, but he wasn’t really all that smart. To put it mildly. Anyway, he got overexcited and ported to some part of Central Park up near the East Meadow where he and his friends used to go to smoke pot when he was alive. But because he’d never been there at night before—”

  “Or not baked,” Lorna interrupted.

  “He got lost,” Nancy said, being very careful to keep her eyes on me. I don’t think Nancy wanted to give Lorna any encouragement. “For some reason, he hadn’t been listening when I’d told him where the Attesa was”—I wondered why—“so he couldn’t port back here. It was a whole day before we found him walking around the zoo and got him back. He was hiding out in the penguin enclosure. I estimate that held up his investigation by weeks. Weeks! We don’t want that happening again.”

  Hell no.

  Lorna stood beside me. “So we’ll take you on your first port, get you used to the feeling, then after that you can go wherever you like.” She winked at me. “In the line of investigation of course.”

  Hmmm, maybe this was going to get interesting. Nancy walked over to my other side. I felt surrounded. Just as I was about to ask them to give me some space, both girls lifted their hands, making an arm circle around me. What the …? “So,” Nancy said, “where do you want to port to on your first trip? Bearing in mind that we can’t leave the island, of course.”

  Where? I honestly had no idea. Where did I want to go? Nowhere near the F train, that was for sure. Or my apartment. I couldn’t handle seeing my parents upset. Or knowing that they couldn’t see me when I was right by their side. Not yet anyway. Ali’s place? That could also be, well, weird. And the other option? The obvious one that involved going to the one person I really, deep down, wanted to see? That was way too painful right now.

  I shifted my eyes back to the Attesa. There was a quick movement in one of the upstairs windows. A chill ran through me. Come on, Charlotte, I reasoned. You’ve got nothing to be afraid of in there. I focused on the window. I could just about make out a figure dressed in black. Edison. Why was he bothering to watch me? He must have seen this whole training session BS a trillion times before.

  “Charlotte, pick a place,” Nancy said.

  But where? I looked over to the Attesa again. The figure in the window pointed upward. At something high in the skyline, way above the hotel.

  I looked up, following Edison’s lead. But before my eyes even found it, I knew which building he was pointing to. The one looming above the rest of the skyline, standing proud like the tallest kid in class.

  “There,” I said to Nancy, pointing to the Empire State.

  “Then we’ll take you,” Nancy said. She and Lorna lifted their arms.

  I looked back to the hotel, to make a sign that somehow thanked him for the suggestion, but the window was empty.

  “Let me guess, the spookabee requested you take her up the Empire State?” a voice drawled.

  I looked to my right and there was Tess. How had she snuck up on us?

  “You know, statistically, that’s the second-most-picked place for the recently murdered to choose when Nancy gives them this part of the induction,” she said, walking around the three of us. “Of course, number one is usually ‘home,’ but you never let anyone go there, do you, Nance?”

  “Of course not,” Nancy said. “There’s a time for that and I don’t think it’s so soon after … arrival.”

  “No, not at all,” Tess said. I wished she’d stop walking. She was making me feel kinda dizzy. “Don’t you ever wish though, Nancy, that someone would pick somewhere more exciting? Like the Chrysler? Or Harlem? Or maybe a subway track?”

  Wow, that was unnecessary.

  “Tess …,” Nancy warned, in a voice that told me Tess was in control of this one, no matter what Nancy said. “Where do you suggest we go then?”

  “I’d love to stay and think of somewhere good, but in case you haven’t noticed I’m not the local limbo guide,” she said. “That would be you. And I—unlike you losers—have much better things to do. See ya.”

  Tess turned. There was a pop! and she disappeared.

  “How did she …? Where did she …?” I asked, hoping maybe she’d gone forever, even though that was totally not something I could say out loud. Yet.

  “So that was your first introduction to porting,” Nancy said, shaking her head. “Not quite the one I had in mind, but I guess at least you know what it looks like from the outside now. Anyway, let’s get this lesson back on track.”

  Nancy and Lorna resumed their places around me, arms curved.

  “If I were you, I’d shut my eyes,” Lorna said.

  Suddenly Washington Square started to spin. The white arches melted into the trees and the streetlamps and the sidewalk and the buildings and the bricks. When I was a little kid, Ali and I played this game where we whirled around and around and around until we felt sick and couldn’t walk in a straight line. Urgh, this was that feeling squared. Being dizzy wasn’t any better when you were dead. Leave it to me to be the only ghost to develop porting sickness.

  I scrunched up my eyes, hoping that if I didn’t watch the world twirl, I could fool my body into thinking I wasn’t moving and the grab-me-a-bucket feeling would pass. Tighter, tighter. I concentrated on nothing but squeezing my eyes shut.

  Then—just like that—with a pop! my own personal merry-go-round stopped.

  “Charlotte, it’s cool,” Lorna whispered into my right ear. “We’re here. Open up.”

  I did as she said. A surge of reassurance rushed through me. The whole of New York lay out beneath us. Its lights winking in the moonlight. There we were—on top of the world.

  Chapter 5

  LIKE I SAID, THE LAST TIME I VISITED THE EMPIRE State Building, I was eleven years old and kinda easily impressed. Even though I’d been up there before—once for some kid’s birthday, another time on an elementary school trip—I’d still walked around the viewing platform gawking like a tourist. I wanted to be cooler about it, but I felt a buzz the second the elevator doors opened. Eighty-six stories up, you were on a level with the clouds. It felt like you ruled the city and anything was possible. Anything at all.

  That day, Ali and I spent ages trying to pinpoint my apartment building and find where she lived, a few blocks west and nearer to the river. Mom pointed out our school, and the New York Times building where Dad worked on the sports desk. There was a Yankees game on, and Mom joked that, if you looked closely enough, you could see him jumping up and down at his desk with excitement. I was too young to make a face and tell her to stop being so dumb, and looking back now, I was kind of glad about that.

  Now, at night, even after everything that had happened to me today—and it was a lot—it was just as impressive.

  “Does everyone feel beyond dizzy the first time they port?” I asked Lorna, who was staring wistfully at a group of girls our age in super-fashion dresses, carrying so many shopping bags they could hardly lean on the rails.

  “Yes, it’s fine. Don’t sweat it. You’ll get used to it. Do you see her adorable Marc Jacobs bag?” She pointed at the girl gang again
with a pout.

  “Lorna …” I tried to get her attention, but she was still obsessing over the girls, nibbling on a hangnail that would never come off, and scrunching up her eyes.

  “Lorna!” I practically shouted.

  “Yeah?” She finally stopped staring and turned back to me. I tried not to think about the fact I was sentenced to eternity in clothes Mom had bought from the school supply shop. Hopefully her kick-ass boots saved me. A bit.

  “Why did you and Nancy circle me with your arms like that? Just before we ported.”

  “To make sure we all traveled together,” she explained. “When you get the hang of porting on your own, we can all just think of the same place—like the hotel or a particular street—close our eyes, and end up there. But until you’ve passed Nancy’s port test, it’s safer if we act as the TomTom and guide you. It worked though, right? The hotel to here in less than ten seconds. How cool?”

  Lorna lowered her voice—though not that much—and leaned in. “Honestly, I am so glad you’re here, Charlotte. It’s the best when new people turn up. Even if it’s just for a few days before they get their Key. Keeps me sane what with all the Rules and the clues and the Scooby-Dooing.”

  I was so glad my untimely death was good news for someone. I nodded and tried to smile. Maybe it was time to ask the question I’d been dying to ever since Nancy admitted that she could probably find her Key if she really wanted to.

  “Haven’t you tried to get to the Other Side? To find your own Key,” I asked, hoping she wouldn’t get upset. Lorna might be ditzy but she was way friendlier than Tess. Though so was a rabid rottweiler. Still, this was the first chance we’d had to talk. I didn’t exactly have unlimited friend options.

  “My Key? Not really.” Lorna shuffled. “I mean, I know how I died, but I’m not totally Key focused, if you know what I mean. My family”—Lorna’s face softened—“they live just up there.” She pointed to the Upper East Side, somewhere past the Guggenheim Museum, which glowed dental commercial white in the moonlight. “And I kind of like the fact I can still go visit them. See what they’re up to. Talk to my cat, Tiger. Find out how my little sister, Emma, is doing. See how much cuter she gets every day.”