Spooky Trills

by Nic Saint

  “What meds?” asked Grandma, alarmed.

  “I told you about this, Grandma,” Lucien said, signaling with his eyes. “My meds?”

  “You didn’t tell me anything,” she said.

  “It’s his transgender meds,” said Calvin, languidly sipping his coffee.

  Lucien looked up as if stung. “How do you know about that?”

  Calvin pointed at the label, which read Quality Health Corps. “They specialize in do-it-yourself hormonal therapy for transgenders. I’ll bet you’ve got your Estradiol in there, along with your Spironolactone and your Bical, right?”

  Grandma looked horrified. “Lucien! What are you up to?!”

  Lucien directed a dirty look at Calvin, who gave him a beaming smile in return. “I thought I’d explained this to you, Grandma,” he said, emphatically gesturing at her with his eyes. “In great detail.”

  “You told me you’d finally found yourself, and that you were going to take steps to becoming even more true to who you really are,” said Grandma. “You never said anything about starting hormone therapy.”

  “I’m a woman trapped inside the body of a man,” said Lucien, placing a hand to his brow like a genuine diva. “And now, finally, I’m going to free that woman, and, like the caterpillar, turn into a beautiful butterfly.”

  “Or a moth,” said Calvin.

  “A butterfly!” Lucien insisted.

  “I thought you meant figuratively!” said Grandma.

  “It’s just a bunch of meds,” said Dalton, who knew a thing or two about self-medication. “It’s all pretty harmless.”

  “Thank you, Dalton,” said Lucien. “The first smart thing you said today.”

  “It can do a lot of harm,” said Calvin. “Estrogen contributes to blood clots and can increase your chance of suffering a stroke or heart disease.” He suddenly turned serious. “If this isn’t another one of your fads, Lucien, and you seriously want to go down this road, I suggest you seek medical advice.”

  “I’m just dabbling for now,” said Lucien. “I’ll see where it takes me.”

  “You’re not going to do any dabbling,” said Grandma, trying to make a grab for Lucien’s box. “That stuff is dangerous!”

  “Oh, just let him,” said Brice. “He’ll just get really silky skin and grow a pair of boobies. And what’s wrong with that?”

  Rodrick’s eyes had gone wide. “Boobies? With nipples?”

  “Oh, God. What’s with you and nipples already?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “Nothing.” He then directed an eager look at Lucien. “Can I see them? Once they come out, I mean?”

  “Eww,” said Brice. “Gross, dude. Who wants to see Lucien’s boobs?”

  “Lucien isn’t getting any boobs,” Grandma decided. “It just isn’t natural.”

  “And this is why I didn’t want to tell you,” Lucien said, getting up. He then turned to us. “You just don’t understand!” And he swept from the room, his do-it-yourself hormone replacement therapy under his arm.

  “Nice exit,” Brice commented. “He’s turning into a diva already.”

  “Stop teasing your brother,” said Grandma. “And Rodrick, why aren’t you ready for school?”

  “I’m ready,” said Rodrick, whose cheeks were red and his eyes shiny. I was pretty sure he was going to be stalking Lucien next, trying to catch a glimpse of his third nipple.

  “It’s all right, Grandma,” I said. “I’ll talk to Lucien.”

  “Yes, me, too,” said Calvin.

  “No, I think you better sit this one out, Calvin,” I said. “I don’t think Lucien is ready to take any more advice from you.”

  “Why not?” asked Calvin indignantly. “I give the best advice.”

  “You go talk to him, Saffron,” Grandma said. “And please try to talk him out of taking those drugs. That really can’t be good for him.”

  “They’re fine, but only when taken under medical supervision,” said Calvin. “Which is what I was trying to tell him, but he wouldn’t listen.”

  “And why, I wonder, is that?” I asked.

  “Beats me,” said Calvin with a shrug.

  “Next time try removing that smirk from your face,” I suggested. “Maybe then he’ll listen to you.”

  “That’s not a smirk,” said Brice. “That’s his normal face.”

  “Yeah, you’ve got a smirky face, bro,” Dalton chimed in.

  “That’s not even a thing,” Calvin protested, his smirk increasing in wattage.

  “I think Lucien will look great as a girl,” said Rodrick.

  “Lucien isn’t going to look like a girl,” Grandma said. “Not now. Not ever.”

  “Well, if he really wants to go through with this, we can’t stop him,” I told her.

  “Oh, sweet Jesus,” Grandma muttered, making the sign of the cross. “Have mercy on my soul.”

  Just then, there was a rumbling sound in the pipes that ran through the whole house. We all knew what it was, and we stopped doing what we were doing and stared at the end station for the pneumatic tube system which was located right in our kitchen. There was more rumbling and rattling and the noise drove Lucien to retrace his steps and return to the kitchen.

  Finally, with a dull finality, the cylindrical container dropped down into its receptacle and Grandma stalked over. She was the designated recipient for the Happy Bays branch of Karma Corps. She took out the container and opened it. A piece of parchment fell out, written in the elegant handwriting of one of Karma Corps Headquarters’ secretaries. A single name was written on the document, along with a time and a place. The name was the name of a person who’d recently been murdered, the time and place of the murder added beneath.

  Grandma slipped her glasses onto her nose and squinted at the page. “Mariana Piney,” she said, then shook her head. “Never heard of her.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” said Calvin cheerfully. “We have our assignment.”

  “Who’s the lucky agent?” asked Brice, putting his copy of US Weekly aside.

  Grandma turned the piece of parchment, and glanced up at me, taking off her glasses. “Calvin and… Saffron.”

  I gasped. “Me?”

  Grandma nodded, then her wrinkly face broke into a smile. “Congratulations, honey. Your very first assignment. I’m so proud.”

  Cheers rang out around the breakfast table. Even though I’d been employed by the family business for six months, I’d never been out in the field. Now I would be bringing justice to the murderer of Mariana Piney, whoever she was. It was an auspicious moment in the life of any Diffley.

  “Thanks, you guys,” I said, glowing with pride.

  “And don’t worry, sis,” said Calvin, clapping me on the back. “I’ll be there every step of the way to make sure you don’t mess up.”

  “I’m not going to mess up,” I said. “I’ve got this.”

  “You sure do,” said Grandma, and gave me a warm hug.

  “When can I join the business?” asked Rodrick.

  “When you stop annoying the heck out of our neighbors,” said Brice.

  He looked thoughtful at this, then shrugged. “Nah. I like annoying them. I’ll wait.”

  Well, he was going to have to wait anyway. At least until he was eighteen. As for me? My time had finally come, and I couldn’t wait to sink my teeth into my first case. Jerome, who must have felt my excitement, emitted a loud bark, then pushed out an even louder fart, and promptly collapsed on my foot, granting me the full benefit of his odoriferous joy.

  Chapter Three

  While the others went down to the office, it was up to Calvin and me to drop Rodrick off at his school, since he’d missed the school bus. Again.

  “So why were you harassing Mrs. Gauntlet, exactly?” I asked. “And don’t give me this witch business, because I’m not buying it.”

  “But she is a witch,” Rodrick insisted. “And I’m going to prove it.”

  He was in the backseat while I was riding shotgun, Calvin our designated driver. I
t was only a short drive from Diffley Manor to the heart of Happy Bays, the small Long Island town where we live, and it took us along the coast, where we could see other, bigger mansions, all belonging to millionaires and billionaires and maybe even trillionaires.

  Diffley Manor is something of an anomaly. It’s a big, rambling place, in urgent need of renovation, something Grandma has been telling us to take in hand one of these winters, when crime rates drop and we have less on our plate. But it’s hard to work on a house in the middle of winter. Spring would be a better time, but the last couple of years there were an inordinate number of murders come springtime, so my brothers all had their hands full.

  “I think you should just leave the poor woman alone,” I said.

  “She’s not a poor woman,” Rodrick shot back. “She’s loaded!”

  “Well, that’s still no reason to go harassing her.”

  “It is if she’s a witch. She could be after us. She could want to bewitch us!”

  “I don’t think there’s such a thing as witches,” I assured him.

  “Mrs. Rinsky believes in witches. Mrs. Rinsky says they fly around at night on their brooms and cast spells. She showed us a movie and witches kidnap kids and use them to keep themselves young!”

  “Hey, I know that movie,” I said, turning to Calvin.

  “Hocus Pocus,” he said knowingly. “Classic Bette Midler. Though not necessarily based on true facts,” he added with a quick glance in the rearview mirror at Rodrick.

  “Well, I think it’s true,” the little tyke said stubbornly. “There are witches out there and I’m going to find them before they eat me.”

  “I really don’t think—”

  “That’s because you’ve got nothing to fear! You’re old!”

  “I’m twenty-three!”

  “That’s old. You’re almost as old as Mrs. Rinsky.”

  I gave him a dubious look. “How old is Mrs. Rinsky?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. Like, a hundred maybe?”

  I huffed out a cry. “You think I’m a hundred years old?”

  “I said you’re almost as old as Mrs. Rinsky,” he hedged.

  I turned around in my seat. “Look, buster, I’m going to stop you from bothering Philana Gauntlet again. Do I make myself clear?”

  “You and whose army?!” he cried, then cackled like an evil witch.

  Too bad we’d reached his school’s drop-off zone, for before I could respond, he’d opened the door and was off at a trot, still cackling evilly.

  “Gah, that kid,” I said, shaking my head. “Was I like that at his age?”

  “I wouldn’t know, hon. I was too busy fighting for my life in the cage called Diffley Manor.”

  “It can’t have been that bad,” I said, giving him a surprised glance.

  “When you’re the younger sibling, with no less than three older brothers, life can be pretty tough,” he said with a grimace. “Which is why I had to learn to rely on the power of my intellect to see me through.”

  “And now you’re using the power of that same intellect to bully your own younger brother.”

  “I’m not bullying Rodrick,” he said with a frown. “Just keeping him in line, same way you’re trying to do.”

  “Well, it’s not working. I’m sure that we’ll get a lot more visits from Mrs. Gauntlet before she finally gives up and calls the cops.”

  “I’m sure it won’t come to that,” he said, expertly navigating the streets around Happy Bays Middle School. In spite of the fact that we live in a peaceful little town, morning congestion is pretty bad, as everyone is determined to plunge into traffic at the same time to get where they’re going.

  “And I’m pretty sure it will. Rodrick needs a role model, Calvin.”

  He arched his eyebrows. “Don’t look at me. I’m nobody’s role model.”

  “Tell me about it. No, I mean he needs a father figure. A man in his life.”

  “He’s got four men in his life—well, three, now that Lucien seems determined to become a woman.”

  “So why don’t you talk to the others and set an example for Rodrick?”

  He frowned. “You mean, like, throw the ball around and stuff? I’m not Sporty Diffley, hon, you know that. I’m Bookish Diffley. You better ask Dalton.”

  “I think if we all work together, we can make a decent kid out of Rodrick yet. Bookish Diffley can give him a taste of the intellectual life, Sporty Diffley can throw the ball around with him, Posh Diffley can teach him a thing or two about personal hygiene—”

  “Who’s Posh Diffley?”

  “Lucien, of course.”

  “Oh, right. So what is Brice?”

  “Um… Fun Diffley?”

  Calvin laughed. “He’d like that.” He gave me an amused look. “So which Diffley are you, exactly?”

  “Isn’t that obvious? Pretty Diffley, of course.”

  “Yeah, sure,” he said with a grin. “More like Spunky Diffley. You’re pretty eager to launch into your first assignment, huh?”

  I smiled and settled back, dragging a hand through my short-cropped blond hair. “Wouldn’t you be? I’ve been waiting twenty-three years for this.”

  “Don’t be too eager,” he warned me. “It’s just like any other job. It’s work.”

  “I’m not afraid to get my hands dirty. I want to help. Bring order into the universe, just like all Karma Corps employees do.”

  “Let’s talk again after you see your first corpse,” he said.

  I knew he was just trying to scare me. All my brothers, in varying degrees, had told me that ours was a pretty tough job, dealing with murder and mayhem all the time. But I thought it was probably the best job in the world. Who doesn’t want to see justice done and balance restored in this weird world of ours? I certainly did, and to be able to do my bit, knowing full well this was my destiny as a Diffley, simply felt right to me, no matter what Calvin said.

  We’d arrived at a three-story apartment block, right in the heart of Happy Bays, and Calvin parked his gray Ford Taurus across the street, right behind a cop car. I was so excited to launch into my first investigation I practically leaped out of the car and was crossing the street before Calvin got from behind the wheel.

  “Hey, wait up!” he cried. “You can’t just barge in there!”

  I could and I would! The front door was open, so I darted right in, my cover story ready and rehearsed. There were cops everywhere, walking up and down the stairs, and even more cops on the second floor, where Mariana Piney, my first charge, had lived. They gave me a curious glance as I powered through the throng. The first cop who tried to stop me was a uniformed specimen, with customary paunch, standard-issue mustache, and an insolent way about him.

  “Hey, what do you think you’re doing, doll face?”

  I flashed him my card. “Diffley & Sons insurance brokers. We’re here to investigate the murder of our client, Mariana Piney.”

  He was so startled by this, that he stepped aside, and let me through. I repeated the same trick three times, until I’d finally reached the kitchen, where a dark-haired woman was studying a body that lay sprawled on the floor, a very burly, very tough-looking cop looking on.

  The moment he caught sight of me, a frown appeared on his brow. “This is a crime scene, ma’am,” he said in a deep, gravelly voice. “Please get out.”

  I studied the cop. He wasn’t dressed in a uniform, like all the others, but in jeans and a checkered shirt. He was also a lot taller, and had one of those square jaws you always read about but rarely see in real life. His hair was dark and slightly wavy, descending to his shoulders, and his eyes were a gunmetal gray, his gaze unflinching.

  I took out my card again, a little more hesitantly this time, as I sensed he wouldn’t fall for my line as easily as his colleagues had done. “Diffley & Sons. Insurance brokers,” I said, then pointed at the body at the cop’s feet. “And that’s my client.”

  He glanced from me to the lifeless body of Mariana Piney. The woman lay fa
ce down, her blond hair matted with blood, her arms spread out in front of her as if trying to cushion her fall. And then I saw it. One of her fingers was missing. The ring finger of her left hand was gone, only a bloody stump remaining. What the…

  I returned to the present moment when the cop snapped his fingers in my face. “Being the victim’s insurance broker doesn’t give you the right to barge in here and disturb my crime scene,” he said, sounding more than a little peeved.

  “We need to investigate this murder,” I said, still staring at the missing finger.

  “I know the drill, Miss…”

  “Diffley. Saffron Diffley.”

  “I deal with insurance brokers all the time, but not once has one of them ever come trampling all over my crime scene. Please get out and get in touch with the police department. They’ll provide you with all the information you need.”

  “What happened to Virgil Scattering?” asked Calvin, who’d appeared at my side.

  “I’m the detective in charge of this case,” said the cop.

  “Pleased to meet you, Detective…”

  “Munroe. Logan Munroe. And you are?”

  “Calvin Diffley. I’m Saffron’s brother.”

  “Another insurance agent, huh?” asked the cop with lowering brows.

  “That’s right. It surprises me we never met before,” said Calvin smoothly. “I’ve been doing this for a long time and usually my firm collaborates with Virgil.”

  “I just got bumped up to homicide. And Virgil never told me anything about you, or your sister.”

  Calvin displayed an amiable smile. “I’m sure if you get in touch with him he’ll be able to vouch for us. Diffley & Sons is a reputable company.”

  “I’m sure that you are, but this is my investigation, and I’m telling you that insurance agents need to liaise with the department and stay out of the investigation,” said the cop, his voice dropping to a throaty growl.

  “They’re fine, Logan,” said the coroner. “I’ve worked with the Diffleys.”

  “Thanks, Angela,” said Calvin graciously.

  “They’re not fine with me,” said Logan. “Get out. Now.”