by Tess Lake
“Aunt Cass said she’ll make the truth serum for us, but in return, we have to help her with a business opportunity that she won’t discuss,” Luce said.
“So you guys said no?”
“We said we’d think about it. That’s when she gave us a list of ridiculous ingredients and told us we could figure it out,” Molly said. Luce passed me a piece of paper that was covered in our Aunt Cass’s scratchy handwriting.
“The hair of a sixteen-year-old boy, wow,” I said, scanning down the list.
“Yeah, it’s complete bulls—” Molly began before breaking off.
A moment later, the bell over the door jangled and in walked Bella Bing. She was wearing bright orange leggings, a very short skirt, and a loose oversized T-shirt that was studded in glittering gems that surely could not be diamonds (unless that T-shirt was worth a hundred thousand dollars). She had on a pair of gigantic black sunglasses that seemed to swallow her entire face. Following her in was another girl, Bella’s assistant and possibly her handler, Rutendo, Ru for short. She was from Zimbabwe and had skin as black as ink. I had seen her briefly on set after Mattias died, when Bella had rushed off and collapsed into her arms before returning to her trailer. Ru was tall and strong, with flawless skin and green eyes that glimmered like emeralds. I don’t know what she was doing being Bella’s assistant. She should have been working as a model somewhere.
“Molly! Oh my gosh, you look the same!” Bella called out and squealed out loud. She rushed across to the booth with her arms out to hug Molly, who was sitting there with an alarmed look on her face. Bella and Molly were not friends whatsoever. In fact, during the whole boyfriend-stealing situation back in high school, Molly had punched Bella in the face at one point. In return, Bella had wrenched out a clump of Molly’s hair.
Molly pulled herself out of the booth in time for Bella to crash into her with a jingle of gold bracelets, hugging her like she was her last and best friend in the entire world. Ru walked up behind them and then stood with her hands laced in front of her, watching Bella with those brilliant green eyes.
After a moment, they disengaged and Bella pushed her sunglasses up on top of her head.
“It’s so good to see you! It’s been so long.” She looked at Luce and gave her that million-dollar smile.
“Luce, you look simply wonderful. You’re so natural, you don’t need any makeup at all to look good,” Bella said. She turned her brilliant gaze on me as Luce muttered to herself quietly, “But I am wearing makeup.”
“And who are you?” she asked.
Ah, the “pretending I don’t know who you are” game. Well, two of us could play at that.
“It’s Harlow. And you are?”
“Harlow? Oh, you were the pumpkin who fell off the stage!” she said.
In high school, we had all been in a musical that the music teacher, Mr. Jeffries, had written himself. It was essentially a version of 1984 except a group of evil candy bars were in control of society and all the good vegetables were suffering because of it. To describe it as a train wreck would be to insult train wrecks everywhere. In the midst of the big scene, where all of us vegetables were marching on the capital to overthrow the candy bars, I unfortunately slipped on the stage in my giant pumpkin costume and fell off, landing in the music pit. I broke a drum, dented two saxophones, and gave Charlie Wellings a black eye as well as a crippling knee right where it hurts. Bella, who had been the candy bar queen ruling over the whole thing, had thought it was the most hilarious thing ever and for a number of months had called me Pumpkin Girl because of it.
“Yes, that’s right, I fell off the stage. But I’ve done a lot more things since then. For example, I’m working on your film, reporting on everything,” I said, emphasizing the last three words.
“I know you are! I’m the one that got you hired. They were looking for a great local writer and I immediately thought of you,” Bella said.
“You said you didn’t know her,” Luce said. Bella ignored her as though she hadn’t spoken.
She turned to Molly, who was studying Bella like she was some kind of strange alien plant.
“So, do you two work here?”
“We own it,” Molly said.
Bella looked around, taking in the beautiful settings and the complete lack of customers. Then she sighed dramatically.
“I admire the two of you so much. I couldn’t stay in Harlot Bay. I had to find my fortune elsewhere. But the two of you stayed behind and did what you could here. It’s so wonderful,” she said.
Ru, who had been watching all this with a flat, calm expression, whirled towards the door as Will and Ollie arrived. Will had been working, so he was in his somewhat grimy work pants and a dusty tank top that showed off a body sculpted by hauling heavy bags of potting mix and logs around the place. Ollie had come from the library and was wearing a pair of fairly tight black jeans and a shirt with the buttons undone and the collar open.
“Who are these two?” Ru said.
“They’re our boyfriends,” Molly replied.
Bella slinked over to them, becoming a lot more wriggly as she walked.
“Oh my, you are some very handsome boys indeed,” she purred and held out her hand to Will in the “please kiss the back of it” pose. Will glanced across at Luce, whose expression had turned dark as a stormy day.
“Um, hey,” Will muttered and shook Bella’s hand.
She then turned her attention to Ollie, stepping forward and fixing up the collar of his shirt. He stood there bemused while Molly glowered behind Bella.
“That’s better,” Bella said. “I’m Bella Bing and we’re in town making a film. Perhaps we can all go out one day?” she said, blinking at Ollie with her bottomless blue eyes.
“That would be great,” Ollie said and then sidestepped her, moving over to Ru.
“Hi, I’m Ollie. You’re from Zimbabwe, aren’t you?”
Ru nodded and then shook his hand.
“My name is Rutendo, but you can call me Ru. How did you know?” she asked.
Ollie pointed to her wrist.
“I recognize that bracelet right there. I lived in Zimbabwe for six months on a research trip. I was studying how the local libraries could effectively distribute books and information between the various cities and towns. We were also trying to run a pilot traveling library program,” Ollie said.
“Better Books? That was you?” Ru asked, smiling at Ollie.
My goddess, her teeth were perfect.
“That’s the one!” They started talking, but that only lasted for around thirty seconds before Bella declared that she had to leave. She glanced at Ru with an expression of pure jealousy on her face but then pushed it aside, returning to Hollywood movie star “happy to be home amongst real people who don’t wear makeup.”
“Harlow, I think I’m seeing you later. Ru, we must go,” Bella said. Without waiting for a response, she walked out of Traveler. Ru said goodbye to Ollie and followed after her. The moment the door was closed, Molly was in front of him with her arms crossed so tightly in front of her chest it was like she was almost going to squeeze herself to death.
“So you like girls from Zimbabwe, do you?” Molly asked, sarcasm dripping off every word.
“They’re okay. I had a Zimbabwean girlfriend when I was there,” Ollie said, plunging into the quicksand up to his neck. This was obviously not what Molly wanted to hear. She clenched her hands and then stomped her foot on the floor.
“I hate Bella Bing!” she said and then stormed off into the back room.
“Okay… are you ready to go to lunch?” Will asked Luce.
“Yeah, let’s get out of here,” Luce said. She folded up the map and retrieved the list of magical ingredients that we didn’t want Will or Ollie to see, stuffing them under the counter before walking to the back room. I sat in the booth while Will and Ollie stood there awkwardly listening to Luce murmur something to Molly. Since the coffee machine had been stolen, things had been fraught to say the least. It’s
easy to be happy in love when everything is going well, but you really find out what your relationship is made of when something bad happens. Molly and Ollie had been fighting on and off, and as much as I love my cousin, I would say a better description of what was going on was that Molly was starting fights with him.
Luce emerged from the back room with Molly following behind her. Luce said goodbye to all of us and then grabbed Will by the arm and pulled him outside. Molly walked over to Ollie and hugged him tightly.
“I’m sorry about that, I didn’t mean it,” Molly said.
“It’s okay,” Ollie replied. They pulled apart and Molly wiped away a tear.
“I didn’t have time to message you, but I can’t come to lunch. Mom’s coming because we have a big job to do,” Molly said.
“A big job? That’s good news,” Ollie said, desperately trying to talk it up. Molly kissed him goodbye and then slumped down in the booth across from me.
“Life sucks,” she said to me.
“It sure does,” I said in support, although I didn’t really feel it personally.
The big job that Molly would be going on with her mother, Ro, was house cleaning. Since Big Pie had burned down, the moms had been reliant on income from Torrent Mansion Bed and Breakfast and from baking out of our home kitchen. Unfortunately, there was simply no substitute for having a bakery in the main street of Harlot Bay. Many of the locals took up the offer to have baked goods delivered daily, but the tourists certainly didn’t know about it, so the simple fact of the matter was they were no longer making enough money to pay off the debt incurred when they’d renovated Torrent Mansion. Aunt Ro had started cleaning houses for locals who needed a bit of help and also for the tourist rentals.
With the collapse of Traveler, Molly had been pulled into going along on these jobs, often leaving Luce to sit alone in the coffee shop for the few random stragglers who came in to buy very ordinary coffee. It was a dark time for Molly and Luce, there was no doubt about it, and it was made worse by the fact that they had gone from such heights to such depths so fast. In the meantime, I’d gone from running my very bad failing online newspaper to working on a movie set and having a boyfriend who was also working on the same movie set. Yes, the movie would be over in a few weeks and then I’d be back to being unemployed or trying to build up my newspaper again, but for now, life was pretty good for me.
I was about to say something else reassuring to Molly when my phone rang. It was Aunt Cass.
“I need to store some things in your office, and you absolutely cannot snoop in them,” Aunt Cass said without bothering to even say hi.
“Why don’t you tell me what you’re planning on storing first?”
“It’s nunya,” Aunt Cass said.
She had played this game before. “Nunya” meant none of your business.
“No, you need to tell me what it is so I know I’m not storing anything illegal in my office,” I said.
“I promise you that it’s not illegal,” Aunt Cass said.
I scoffed at this. Aunt Cass’s definitions of legal and illegal were not based on laws of society, but rather on what she thought she should be allowed to do. She didn’t think powerful fireworks from China should be illegal, and so she pretended they weren’t.
“Tell me it’s not fireworks that are going to explode and burn the building down,” I said.
“It’s definitely not fireworks. Now, will you help me or not?”
I sighed.
“Go ahead, I’m hardly using the office anyway,” I said.
“Thanks,” Aunt Cass said and hung up, but not before I thought I heard her mutter, “sucker.”
“What was that about?” Molly asked.
I told her, but Molly didn’t really seem to have the energy to be interested in it, which was one of the other new changes going on with her. A while ago, Aunt Cass had cursed Molly to say only nice things about her, nearly driving Molly mad. Since then Molly had sworn her revenge was going to be a dish served very cold. With all that had been going on recently, I was starting to think it was a dish that was never going to be served at all. Molly had even found out that Aunt Cass had a secret laboratory under the house when I had inadvertently blabbed it because I was annoyed at Aunt Cass one day. Thus far she hadn’t done anything with the information.
It wasn’t long before Aunt Ro arrived at Traveler and I followed Molly out. She flipped the sign from Open to Closed and then locked up the shop. It was the middle of the day, but there were so few customers that it was safe to leave it locked up until Luce returned. I didn’t want to ask, but I think on some days they were down to making about five dollars for the entire day. It wasn’t even enough to run the air conditioning and refrigerator.
Molly got into Aunt Ro’s car with a glum expression on her face and then sadly waved to me as they drove away. Jack was working today, so there was no lunch date for me, and despite my newfound wealth, courtesy of my current job, I was trying to be very frugal so I wouldn’t slip into dire poverty once this job was over. I returned to my car and drove home.
As soon as I was alone, what Luce had said started playing in my mind.
Had Mattias Matterhorn been murdered?
Chapter 3
Adams was conferencing with his five mouse toys when I got home.
“Are there any questions?” Adams asked.
He’d arranged his five mice in a semicircle in front of him on the kitchen floor. He looked at the much loved and well-chewed brown mouse at the end of the line.
“Yes, George, we’re well aware of the cheese shortages, and we’re working to rectify them as soon as possible. Anyone else? No? Okay, have a good week, everybody,” he said.
“Everything okay?” I asked as I dropped my bag on the table.
“It’s not easy being the boss,” Adams said and then swiped at George, sending him bouncing across the floor to end up underneath the sofa.
I scratched Adams behind the ears and made myself a quick lunch of leftovers that I had snagged from the main kitchen this morning. I could have gone down to the main part of the house for lunch, but the last time that had happened, Mom and Aunt Freya had made me help package up the cookies they were delivering around town, and I had work to do.
Aunt Freya’s car was gone, so I knew only Mom was down there at the moment, still probably cooking frantically in the kitchen.
I piled my plate high with cold leftover pork belly and some roast vegetables and then sat down at the kitchen table and opened my laptop. While I ate, I continued my Talica Moore research. Shortly after Hendrick Gresso had tried to burn down the mansion with me and teenage witches inside it, there had been somewhat of a breakthrough, or so I thought, with John Smith, my ghostly client I was trying to help move on. He’d approached me in the park, where I’d been having a picnic with Jack, and seemed to think I was a woman named Talica Moore. He clearly had a crush or was perhaps in love with her. Then he had asked me why he couldn’t move and told me that he was cold before losing the memory. He’d seen Jack coming back with ice creams and said something about “It’s happening again, I see,” before forgetting everything entirely.
I’d been researching Talica Moore on and off since then but I hadn’t progressed very far. So far I’d only found a few references to Talica Moore online. One was the name of a dancing girl from the 1920s who had a minor role in some films. The next was a pulp writer, and that reference was a single sentence on an old website that looked like it had been built a hundred years ago. The last two were modern references: a nurse who lived in Florida, and a reference on a German website that I couldn’t understand. I was down to trawling the depths of the Internet, now searching for anyone named Talica at all. Thus far I hadn’t found anything that might connect to John Smith. It seemed unlikely that he would know a dancing girl who had gotten her start in New York and then had gone to Hollywood before disappearing into history. As for the author, there was no trace of any of her books or really anything about her whatsoever.<
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I eventually moved off Talica Moore and resumed my search for deaths where the male victim was caught underground or somehow killed in a confined space. My working hypotheses was that John Smith had been trapped somewhere and had died down there, hence his “I’m cold and I can’t move.”
There were quite a few cases scattered all across the country. There were always people digging for gold or other precious things. Focusing on Harlot Bay, I’d come up with three possible deaths that matched the description.
One was out on Truer Island, where a group of wannabe treasure hunters had dug down under the old Fort Scratchley and then the roof had collapsed in on them. There were three men, none of them named John Smith, but two of them had been stuck there for a number of days before finally dying of starvation and thirst.
The next one was a man who had been killed during the original construction of the ice-skating rink. Part of a wall had collapsed in, trapping him in one of the old rooms that had been left buried underground. He had suffocated to death.
The third one was an old skeleton found in one of the houses up in the rich district of town. He’d been found in the basement in a room that had been locked from the inside.
For all these cases, I was reaching the limit of what the Internet could provide me with. Once I had some time, I was planning on asking Ollie to help me look into these deaths and see if I could get access to any archives the library might have in regard to them. I also had to follow up with Sheriff Hardy. Our police force and sheriff’s department were housed in the same building, and they were both very slowly making the switch over from an entirely paper-based system to a digital one. They had about two warehouses full of boxes dating back to practically the beginning of the town. There were old case files, land transfer documents, and anything else that had washed up at the sheriff’s office or police department. Some of it was cataloged, so it was likely I might be able to find some information on the men who had died in each of these three separate incidents. Then I’d be able to talk to John Smith and see if any of the details prompted a memory from him.