by Blair Merrin
Speaking of Maximoff, he serves as the centerpiece of the room, since he’s sprawled out on his back, snoring inhumanly loudly.
“Should we wake him?” I ask.
“Well… we did hear a shout, didn’t we?” Dash winks at me. “Should make sure he’s okay.” He leans over and shakes the old man. “Mr. Maximoff? Hey, are you alright?”
On the third shake, the old man bolts awake with a snort. He shoves Dash backwards and shouts, “Gedoff! I didn’t do nothing!”
“Whoa, easy.” Dash puts his hands out.
Maximoff blinks a few times, and then looks from Dash to me. “What are you doing in my house?”
“We heard a shout,” I tell him.
“Oh. That’s probably just Bart.” To our blank expressions, he says irritably, “Bartholomew Maximoff? My brother? He roams the upstairs halls and howls from time to time.”
“That’s Bandit Hills for ya,” Dash mutters, suddenly looking all the more uncomfortable. He’s not so hot on the supernatural stuff, despite being born and raised here.
Neither of us wants to admit that there wasn’t actually a shout, so we just let Maximoff believe our story. “Would you like some water?” I offer.
Maximoff holds his forehead with both hands. “That’d be great,” he murmurs.
I head into the kitchen, terribly envious of the amount of counter space, and spend a few minutes searching for a glass. I fill it with tap water, turn to leave, and stop dead.
“Um, Dash? Could you, uh, help me? With the water?” I call out.
He hurries into the kitchen. “What’s up? Oh.”
Sitting on the marble countertop, closest to the stove, is the bronze skull—very clearly the same bronze skull, because the left side of it is stained with blood.
CHAPTER 9
“I’m telling you,” Dash says quietly. “It doesn’t make sense.”
After we discovered the skull, Dash had no choice but to call Phil, who first confirmed that the skull was indeed not in the evidence locker, and then rushed to Maximoff’s house. He had no choice but to arrest the old man, who at the time was still sitting on the floor in his living room, very bewildered.
Dash and I followed him back to the police station, where Maximoff insisted over and over that he didn’t take the skull… but at the same time had no recollection of the night before, on account of his drunken stupor.
“There’s no way he could have gotten into the station without being seen and broken into the evidence locker,” Dash continues. “I mean, look at the state of him.”
The two of us hang out in the small reception area of the station while we wait for Phil and Sharon to review the station’s security footage from the night before. Maximoff sits alone in a holding cell near the rear of the station.
“What if he’s faking it?” I say. “We all think he’s this drunken hermit, but what if that was his plan all along, so that no one suspects him?”
“Come on, Cassie, does this guy look like a criminal mastermind to you?”
“No, but wouldn’t that be the point?”
“What’s his motive, then?”
“What’s his alibi?” I counter.
Dash sighs and stares at the ceiling. “He was drunk. He claims he was passed out the morning that Bill was killed. He woke up around noon and drove to the diner, where we saw him.”
I raise an eyebrow skeptically. “And you just believe him?”
“I don’t know what I believe anymore.”
Phil comes around the corner, looking defeated.
“That was fast,” Dash noted.
“You guys aren’t going to believe this.” Phil shook his head. “The tapes are wiped. The whole night’s footage is just… gone. We’ve got nothing on him.”
“But it was in his house!” I shout, probably louder than I should.
“Sharon just dusted it again. No fingerprints. The padlock on the evidence locker wasn’t tampered with. Nothing else was taken. There is zero way that we can prove anything on Maximoff.”
“For all we know,” Dash adds, “someone else planted it in his kitchen to frame him.”
Phil sighs. “I’m going to keep him for a little while, at least ‘til he sobers up. Maybe he’ll spill something. Otherwise, I’ll have to cut him loose.”
“Phil,” I ask carefully, “do you mind if I talk to Maximoff?”
He looks at me sidelong. “Cassie, you know I don’t mind if you go running around with Dash on these cases; I’m used to it by now, and you’ve been helpful. But I gotta draw a line at you doing your own interrogations.”
“Nothing about the case, I swear.”
“I’ll go with her,” Dash offers.
Phil puts his hands up. “Sure, why not. Go for it. Somehow you’re usually a step ahead of us anyway.” He walks off towards his office, muttering all the while. “Should just deputize the woman, honestly.”
Back in the holding cell, Maximoff leaps off the narrow wooden bench when he sees us. His gray eyes are wide and afraid. Apparently being arrested is a very quick way to sober up.
“I don’t know how that skull got into my house,” he insists. “You have to believe me. I was at home the entire night! I would remember if I’d gone anywhere!”
“Relax, Mr. Maximoff,” Dash says. “We’re not here to ask you about the case.” He looks to me.
“Right. Hi there. Can I get you anything? Some water, maybe some coffee?”
“Cassie, just ask him—”
“’Kay. Um, Mr. Maximoff… who’s Matilda?”
Maximoff’s gray eyes narrow. He approaches the bars, wrapping his hands around them and glaring at me. Very softly, he asks, “Where did you hear that name?”
“I, uh, read it somewhere.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“Honestly, I did. It was in a letter that was found in the Waverly place. I think it was from you. It said—”
“I know what it said!” he snaps suddenly. He looks into my eyes and speaks in a low growl. “Listen to me very carefully, girl. You have no business prying into my personal life. I don’t ever want to hear that name again, or else I’ll bury you, understood?”
“Hey, whoa,” Dash steps in sternly. “There’s no need for threats, Maximoff. Especially when you’re already behind bars.”
“We both know I won’t be here for long—” he starts, but suddenly there’s a commotion behind us.
A shrill female voice rings out from somewhere down the hall. “Where is he? Where is he?! I know you’re here, Maximoff!”
“Penny?” I crane my neck to see Phil struggling to hold back all five-foot-nine of flailing Penny Harrigan (six-two, if you count her bubble of red hair).
Penny owns the fifties-style motel on the edge of town closest to the interstate. She’s a smart, reserved young woman whose nose is almost always in a book, though she tends to dress like a gal out of a country music video. Strange dichotomy, she is.
But right now smart, reserved Penny struggles to get past Sheriff Phil, swinging her arms and legs, her face almost as red as her hair.
“Penny!” I call out. “What’s wrong?”
“Oh, Cassie, haven’t you heard?” She stops her flailing and straightens her black-rimmed cat-eye glasses, panting from the exertion. “That… that… vulture is building a hotel where the Waverly place used to be.” She looks like she might burst into tears. “How could you, Maximoff? You know the motel means everything to me!”
“You know about that?” I ask, and then immediately regret it, because I just admitted that I knew about it before anyone else.
To my relief, Penny says, “Everyone knows. It’s been all anyone can talk about this morning.”
“Wait, wait,” Dash cuts in. “What do you mean, where it ‘used to be’?”
Penny blinks. “They’re tearing it down right now. Literally, as we speak.”
Behind the bars, Maximoff fakes a look of surprise. “Oh, dear, was that today? I guess I forgot to reschedule the demo
lition.”
Phil and Dash take off for the exit.
“Wait for me!” I call out. Penny rushes behind me.
CHAPTER 10
“Well,” says Phil, “there goes my crime scene.”
The four of us—Phil, Penny, Dash and me—stand at the edge of the Waverly property as two bulldozers and a wrecking ball finish making short work of what used to be a manor house.
On the one hand, I did get to fulfill a bucket-list item by being in a high-speed police chase. I know, usually the police are chasing someone else, not the other way around, but riding at sixty miles an hour behind a police car with its lights flashing and sirens whoop-whooping should totally count.
On the other hand, we didn’t get there soon enough. By the time we pulled up in front of what used to be the Waverly house, it had already been reduced to a giant pile of rubble, save for the northern wall, which we got to see smashed to bits by a very heavy metal ball.
Dash sighs heavily. “Let’s hope there wasn’t anything else in there to find.”
Phil shakes his head angrily. “Well, one thing’s for sure. Maybe we couldn’t find anything on Maximoff for the skull, but this—” He gestures to the wreckage—“this is going down as tampering with evidence.” He storms away and gets back in the cruiser.
“What does that mean?” I ask Dash.
“It means Maximoff is staying put for now.”
“Good,” Penny says harshly. “They’d better keep him in that cage. They don’t want to know what I’ll do to him if I see him out and about.”
“Do you want a ride back to the motel?” Dash asks her.
“No, I need to walk off this anger.” She starts down the road away from us. “Thanks, though.”
“I guess we missed out on our picnic,” I say, for lack of anything better to fill the silence.
“Guess so,” he says. “Come on, let’s head back into town.”
As we drive back toward Miss Miscellanea, Dash asks me, “Who’s Matilda, anyway?”
“I’m not sure. Some woman that Maximoff was involved with a while back.”
“He seemed real angry when you mentioned her.”
“Sure did.” I think of the diamond ring that was in the box with the love note. “I’m betting she broke his heart. Maybe rejected him.”
“That would explain a lot.”
We get back to the shop and Dash comes inside with me. Kodiak goes nuts for about a full minute, but Dash is used to it by now; he ignores the dog as best he can. Mom is nowhere in sight, but thankfully there aren’t any customers in the store.
“I’m back, Mom!” I shout to the back office.
“Be right with you, ma’am, just a minute!” she calls back.
I roll my eyes. “Mom’s grip on reality is becoming more tenuous by the day.”
“Sounds that way,” Dash agrees. “Soon you’ll have to feed her through a tube so she doesn’t forget to eat.”
The door chimes, and Kodiak bolts for the assailant/customer, and I turn to scold him, but we all realize at the same time that it’s Bonnie… and her arms are laden with several plastic containers.
“Good, you’re here!” she says brightly. She dumps the containers onto the glass counter near the register.
“Uh, hey, Bonnie. What you got there?”
“Come see.” Dash and I crowd around her as she starts pulling lids off of each container. Smells waft immediately throughout the store, and I feel those goose bumps rising on my arms again. “I’ve been cooking like a fiend for forty-eight hours. This book, Cassie, I’m telling you, whoever wrote this book is a genius! By god, they’ve thought of everything.” She talks a mile a minute. “Steven and Vic have been my testers, but they’ve eaten so much they were about to pop! They wanted to keep going, but I was afraid I’d kill ‘em both. Here, try this.” She dips a spoon into a bowl of coleslaw and holds it up for me.
I’m not used to being fed, but the thought of that succulent pork from the other day is still fresh in my mind, so I lean in and take a bite. It’s creamy without being soupy; tangy without being tart. The cabbage and carrots have a bit of crunch to them, and there’s something in there—brown sugar, maybe?—giving it a tinge of sweetness.
“I wanna try,” Dash mutters, pouting. Bonnie feeds him a spoonful and I swear, his eyes roll up in his head.
“What is that intoxicating smell?” Mom asks, emerging from the back office. “Oh, hello Bonnie! What do we have here?” She noses between me and the counter to get a closer look. I don’t believe it; the scent of Bonnie’s food actually wrenched Mom away from the computer.
We take turns trying everything that Bonnie brought—the coleslaw, buttermilk biscuits, homemade baked beans, roasted chicken, and, mercifully, more of that savory smoked pork—and for that short period of time, I forget all about the murder and Maximoff and the skull. When the containers are empty (and I mean licked clean—not terribly proud of it, but there it is) I’m stuffed to the gills like I just had Thanksgiving dinner. Strange thing is, I still want more.
I can tell by the disappointment on Dash’s face that he’s thinking the same.
“So?” Bonnie asks, a glint in her eye. “What do you think? Y’all haven’t said a word since you started.”
“It’s amazing,” Dash tells her. “Really, Bonnie, I didn’t know you were so talented.”
“Look, I’m no stranger to the stove,” she says, “but this is the book’s doing. I’m telling you, whoever wrote this has all sorts of tips and tricks that I never would have thought of. Like the pork… see, I always used barbecue sauce, but this here’s a dry rub of—” She stops suddenly. “Well, it’s all in the book.”
“Bonnie,” I offer, “you could make this into a side business. ‘Bonnie’s BBQ’ or something. I’m telling you, this would be a hit. I’d eat there every day.”
“You know, I do have more time on my hands now that Vic’s around…” She thinks about it. “There’s just one thing that’s weird.” She pulls the little leather-bound book out of her back pocket and flips it around. All three of us crowd around her, trying to get a peek at the secrets of the page.
But when she flips it open, I can’t read a single word it says. “What language is that?”
“That’s what I don’t know,” Bonnie says. “Most of it is in English, but there are a bunch of pages in the back that are written in something else. Here, look at this one.” She turns to another page that isn’t even the same alphabet.
“Looks like an Asian language,” Dash offers. “Chinese or something.”
“It’s weird, all right,” Bonnie says. She snaps the book closed and replaces it in her pocket. “I can’t imagine what they say, but if they’re half as good as the rest, I want to know.” She stacks her empty containers. “Listen, I gotta run—I’ve got Steven cranking a spit for me right now, and I’m afraid he’ll eat the whole thing if I don’t watch him—but you want me to bring some more down when I can?”
“Yes.”
“Please.”
“You’d better.” My comment is drowned out by the other two.
“Good. I’ll make y’all my official taste-testers. I can’t have those two boys sluggish and stuffed all the time!” She waves goodbye and heads out the door.
“I need a nap after that,” Dash says.
“No kidding,” I agree. “What were we doing before she came in?”
“Um…” Dash snaps his fingers. “Working on a murder case.”
“Oh, Cassandra,” Mom groans. “Not again!”
“Well, Mom, you’d know about it if you weren’t plugged into the Matrix all day.”
“Speaking of, I really need to get back to the auction. That monkey’s paw is up to a hundred and twelve dollars!”
“Wait, wait. I need you to keep an eye on the store for a little while. I have to go see someone about…” I look around. “That old typewriter we just got in.”
Mom looks skeptical. “Alright, but the auction closes in two hours. You
’d best be back here by then!”
“You got it.”
“I should really get back to my office.” Dash groans with the thought of being mobile. “I’ve been neglecting those other cases; I bet I have a hundred emails waiting. Dinner tonight?” he asks.
“You bet.”
CHAPTER 11
Just seeing the McGee house gives me the creeps. I’ve told Dash a hundred times, it’s not ghosts that freak me out; it’s the living, and old Mrs. McGee proved my point when she turned out to be the one who murdered her poor husband and buried him in the garden. But that’s across the street from my destination.
I can’t help but notice that Mr. Spencer’s front lawn is particularly well-manicured, a vast difference from the last time I saw him. I knock twice on the door and, surprisingly, he answers, instead of shouting through his mail slot like he has in our previous interactions.
“Cassie!” he says jovially. If the front yard was surprising, Mr. Spencer’s appearance is downright shocking; his beard is trimmed close and dyed black. His hair, still streaked with gray, has been cut, coifed and combed. He wears a clean linen shirt, and it even looks like his paunch is smaller. “What can I do for you, dear girl?”
“I have questions,” I tell him.
“Come in, come in.” He leads me inside. His home is immaculate, spotless; though to be fair, last time I saw it, it had been ransacked by a ghost. “Can I get you something? A beverage, or a light snack?”
“Oh, no, thank you.” I imagine I know the source of his sudden turnaround. “How’s Marla June?”
“Oh, she’s spectacular,” Mr. Spencer gushes. Marla is Bandit Hills’ resident psychic, and up until recently, we all thought that she was a phony-baloney cold-reader, but just in the past few months I’d personally witnessed her channel a witch and exorcise two ghosts, one of which was from Mr. Spencer’s home. So I might have accidentally set the two of them up together. “We’re planning a weekend trip to my cabin by the lake,” he tells me dreamily.