by Etta Faire
“The boat motor? Why?” Somer asked.
Ken and Mandy exchanged a look. “It’s nothing,” she said. “Just an unfortunate accident.”
“One I thought we wanted to forget about,” Ken added.
Then the camera moved to a shot of the back of Mandy’s head with the station wagon in the background. A different woman’s voice said. “Okay, I’m heading home. You crazy kids be safe and have fun, or die trying.”
The Mandy in my living room turned her neck so fast at me I thought I was going to hear it crack. “That did not happen. They changed the script, and cut most of the movie out. I can’t leave. My character is an integral part of the story. I’m in the entire movie.”
She plopped onto the settee, mouth still open. “I must be coming back somewhere along the way,” she said.
“I know they lost a lot of footage the night of your death, and they had to rewrite things and adjust. I’m sorry,” I said as we watched. I shoveled more popcorn into my mouth, happy I didn’t have to share any. The one good thing about watching movies with dead people.
Mandy’s stiff hairdo didn’t move when she shook her head, probably because she was a ghost, but I somehow doubted it moved much in real life either. “They changed everything. I remember it now that I’m watching it. Ken is the killer, but nobody knows that until the end, after he’s killed all the counselors with a hook, and you know, in other ways just to mix it up.”
“Why on earth would he kill everyone with a hook?” I asked.
“He feels guilty about that boating accident we were just talking about. When his character and my character were counselors in our twenties, we tossed a kid overboard to be funny. But the motor on the boat mangled the kid’s hand before he disappeared under the water. We lied and said he jumped overboard.”
She wrung her hands together again. “I don’t even know how much of that storyline even stayed. Graham let Ned take over too much after I died. And, Ned never liked me.”
I circled Ned’s name in my notebook’s list of suspects, licked the popcorn butter from my fingertips, and brought my laptop closer to me so I could search for names while we watched. I was going to have to do as many real-life interviews as I could.
“Why didn’t Ned like you?” I asked.
“Carly doll, please,” Jackson said. “Could you at least pause the movie if you’re going to talk over it?”
“I thought you hated low-budget, b-movies,” I said as I paused it. The girls were setting up their cabin now, in short-shorts and bikini tops, making me realize what my ex liked about it.
Mandy tugged on the ends of her hair. “Ned and I just didn’t see eye to eye on things, that’s all He wanted to churn out sloppy movies, and I wanted things to make sense and be a little deeper.”
I took a few notes then un-paused the movie.
On the screen, one of the camp counselors screamed in the bathroom and Somer and another girl in the room ran to see what was the matter. She held out a blue note that said, “I know what you’re hiding.”
“Is this a joke?” one of the girls asked.
“I didn’t write it,” Somer replied on the screen. “But it has to be a joke. I bet Joe wrote it. He’s always joking around.”
“Yeah, well, it’s not funny, and I’m going to let him know,” a third girl said, leaving to tell him. It was already dark, and we knew what was going to happen next. She heard a noise coming from the woods and marched straight over to it, holding up the blue note and telling Joe he was not funny.
At least now I was pretty sure the threatening notes had only been in the movie. I added that to my own notebook then looked up Graham Smalls’ Wikipedia page on my laptop.
It had a recent picture at the top. He was still a somewhat handsome man with obviously dyed reddish brown hair and a receding hairline. His thin face was leathery and full of wrinkles. I skimmed the article. He had a long list of credits, including Camp Dead Lake.
But, that’s when I saw it, and I gasped. There in the middle of the page was a wedding photo of him and Somer with two grumpy-looking teenagers on either side of the awkward-looking couple. I clicked on it so it took up my whole screen. Mandy was right. Her daughter, Olivia, did look a lot like Somer. Same blonde hair, very similar age.
I read the caption. “Graham and Somer married three months after the incident.”
The incident. Mandy Smalls’s murder had been boiled down to two words: the incident. And the new marriage had come only months after it.
“What is it?” Mandy asked after I’d gasped.
“Nothing,” I said. I tried to click away, wondering if I should hide this news for a while, or show it to her right away. I was never good at things like this.
Jackson and Mandy both rushed over. I decided to just come clean with it, turning the laptop toward them so my ghost friends could see the real horror here.
Mandy’s face froze. Her eyes bulged at the screen.
Screams came from the movie as another blue note was found at Camp Dead Lake.
This one said: You’ll be dead soon.
Chapter 6
You’ll Be Dead Soon
There was no trace of the fun-mom after Mandy saw the wedding photo. No warm smiles that made you think she had a snack in her pocket. No fading out laugh.
Her nostrils flared. “I want to channel now. Right now. I want you to figure this out, and I want Graham in jail. No, I want him dead.”
She counted out her demands on her fingers. “So, we have to figure out how he did it, and find evidence that ties him to the crime…”
I paused the movie. Somer was about to go for a night swim when the blue note was found. She was standing at an angle, the curve of her thin hip jutted out from her bikini. I quickly un-paused the movie for a few seconds until the scene changed to something else, then paused it again.
“I’ll admit this looks bad for Graham,” I said. “But that doesn’t prove he killed you.”
“It proves he’s a liar. A liar and a cheat, and a gross old man. What kind of 20-year-old marries a man old enough to be her dad, anyway?”
Now was not a good time to point to myself. Marrying Jackson wasn’t something I was proud of. Like most 19-year-olds, I was not known for my good choices back then. I was naïve and stupid, and I mistook Jackson’s wealth and generosity for love when I married him. I was sure Somer had done the same. Maybe.
I didn’t say any of that to the angry woman in front of me.
“The police knew he was suspicious back then, Mandy,” I said. “From what I saw in your file, he was their top suspect. Him and Somer, both. But they also both had ironclad alibis for the entire night. The police didn’t have enough to arrest them.”
“If we can’t find enough evidence this time, we’ll plant something, or make something up,” she said.
“That’s not how this works,” I told her.
“Why not? It’s not like he played fair. What was his alibi, anyway?” she asked.
The clock ticked softly in the background, something I only noticed when things were awkward and quiet. The movie was paused, and all eyes were on me.
I flipped through the file until I found it. “He and a bunch of other people from the set were all on surveillance cameras at the bar. Then, when he was too drunk to go back to the lake house, he took a cab over to the dorms and stayed with Frederick…”
This set Mandy off again. “You have got to be kidding me. Graham somehow murdered me, then used our son as an alibi?” She turned to Jackson, her eyes fixing on his neck like she wanted to strangle him. “Men are all the same. You drool all over young women. Cheat on your wife. And then, you kill her…”
Jackson shrugged. “I wouldn’t say exactly the same. Two out of three, sure.”
I glared at my ex. I did know all too well what Mandy was going through here, and the mere fact my ex could joke about it was not making me want to jump off the men-are-all-the-same boat.
I checked Graham’s Wikipedia page. “G
ood news,” I said. “He’s still alive, so there’s still time for revenge if he’s guilty.” I read some more. “And he’s not still married to Somer. He and Somer broke up in ’89, then he married again in 2005, and divorced again in 2007.”
“I wonder how many times he cheated on me now. He probably had on all of our films…” Her voice rose and lowered like a crazy person.
“We don’t know he cheated on you,” Jackson said. “Maybe he and Somer were consoling each other after your death, and got together then.”
We both shook our heads at my ex.
“I will find out as much information as I can about his affairs. But his affairs might not have had anything to do with your murder,” I said.
She didn’t hear me. She was too busy planning out his daily schedule in jail and how she was going to be there to haunt him every second of it. “And then, I’m going to shove one of the biggest inmates when Graham walks by him.” She laughed to herself. “That ought to start a nice prison fight.”
She turned back to me. “Let’s channel right now and figure it out.”
I leaned into the couch cushions and briefly thought about it. I wanted nothing more than to help her get revenge on a husband who had cheated on her, but I also knew it shouldn’t happen tonight.
“We’re not channeling tonight,” I finally said, grabbing another handful of popcorn. “You’re too angry. Ghosts shouldn’t channel when they’re angry.”
It was a lie. I’d channeled with many angry ghosts, and it really didn’t make any difference. But, I knew my own judgment was going to be clouded with resentment about my marriage, and I needed to keep an open mind while I relived her last day. We both did.
I went on. “Plus, I like to do research before a channeling. I want to look everyone up, and get to know this case. Then, we’ll look for the clues the police forgot, and nail Graham if he’s guilty.”
I could tell by her smile she liked the “nail Graham” part.
“We’ll channel tomorrow night, if you’ve calmed down,” I said.
I had no idea if I was ready to throw myself into a horror movie that I actually died in. I grew up watching horror movies, and I spent many nights with the light on and a pair of scissors under my pillow, regretting the decision to watch the horror movie. My channelings already mirrored that a little too much. But just like those nights when I was a little girl, I always woke up ready to do it again.
Mandy pointed to the screen where the movie still stood, paused. “I feel like my part was erased. Not just in the movie, but in real life. I was here, and I mattered one day and then, the next day, I was cut out of the picture and forgotten. Nobody but my sister still cares about me. Happy birthday to me.”
She disappeared, and Jackson and I looked at each other a minute.
“She’s going to be a joy to have around for the next few weeks,” he said.
I shot him a look until he disappeared too. My face was still hot from remembering how he’d cheated on me with strippers, how stupid I’d been marrying such a jerk in the first place.
I un-paused the movie and watched in peace as the rest of the teenagers received notes and got slaughtered.
But something stood out.
At one point, the two main female characters went into town for supplies, Bon Jovi girl and the girl with the mullet.
The girls’ car broke down in town and they went inside the local pub to use the phone. I saw a much younger Bob again, saying his famous line through a still-bushy beard. Then the camera panned out to the rest of the locals in the crowd. A large man with a huge face and greasy dark hair was sitting at a table with another couple.
“Camp Red Lake, huh? I’d run if I were you. Never look back,” the sweaty man said.
The woman and man next to him nodded. “Every year, someone sees a guy with a hook for a hand in the bushes over there,” the woman said. She was a cute 30-year-old brunette with a pointy nose. The man next to her had red hair.
I squinted and rewound the scene. Those locals seemed very familiar. I pictured the brown-haired woman with a bottle of bleach and a baby shifter on her hip. I pictured the red-haired man by her side in a firefighter uniform, and the thick sweaty man with a veterinarian’s lab coat.
It was a young Dr. Dog with the Winehouses, Shelby’s parents. I almost didn’t recognize any of them because they were all so young.
I made a note to contact them to see what they remembered about the making of the movie. Definitely the Winehouses. I wasn’t sure I was up to seeing Dr. Dog again, Vernon Gleason. My boss called him Dr. Dog because he hit on every woman who came into the veterinary hospital. Jackson called him a knuckle dragger.
We all avoided him.
The movie wrapped up with more blue notes and deaths and the girls escaping in a small motorboat, only to have mullet girl die in the end when the hook-for-a-hand guy jumped out of the water and pulled her under as the motor whirled away. I took notes on all of it.
There were six threatening notes:
You’ll be dead soon
I know what you’re hiding
You’re supposed to protect the kids
She can’t come out because she’s dead
You all go down together
You must pay for your secrets
Why the killer left notes was never really explained, except briefly at the end before the final boat scene. That’s when the sheriff came in and let them know about a 10-year-old kid who had died at the camp in the 1960s after his hand got mangled in a boating accident.
Mandy’s integral part had been cut, and she was right. It would have made more sense the other way.
The movie seemed choppy and thrown together, and the one-star rating was well deserved.
But, much like that 10-year-old kid, Mandy seemed to be out for revenge years later, and it didn’t seem to matter to her if the people who got hooked in the process were actually guilty of throwing her overboard years ago.
I reminded myself that I needed to keep an open mind too, and talk to the Winehouses.
Problem was, I had no idea how I was going to do that without telling them about Mandy and the fact I was helping out Caleb.
Chapter 7
Mum’s the Word
I stopped by the library the next day on my way into work. Mrs. Nebitt smiled from behind the counter when I handed her one of the coffees I was juggling.
She was scanning in a large stack of returned books, which made me wonder who else in Landover came in here besides me.
“What ghost are you researching this time?” she asked. “Do you have another seance coming up?” She raised a thin, gray eyebrow at me.
Mrs. Nebitt liked to think of herself as someone who didn’t bother with gossip, but she was actually the nosiest of us all.
And, I almost slipped up and asked her about Mandy Smalls and the movie, but then I remembered I couldn’t.
“It’s nothing,” I said. “Just a little routine research.”
It was the wrong thing to say. She stopped scanning books and eyed me from the back of her 1990s yellowing computer monitor.
I pretended like I had nothing to hide and went over to the periodicals section.
Her polyester pink outfit swished as she hurried to catch up.
I sat down at the research computer.
She was right behind me. “I just wanted to thank you for all your help with the puppets,” she said, like I was going to believe that was why she was standing behind me right now.
She was referring to the ones we’d just used for a puppet show a couple of weeks ago. She and Paula Henkel, the owner of the bed-and-breakfast, were fighting over who owned them. Lawyers were threatened, but they were able to make a compromise when I solved the puppet master’s case.
“No problem at all,” I replied, waiting for her to leave before I touched the keyboard. “I’m just glad I could help.”
“Me too, me too,” she said. Her hand was on the back of my chair. She blew on the edge of her dri
nk cup, and I caught a whiff of the slow-brewed coffee she loved.
I knew she could wait me out, so I just decided to come clean with it. “Can you keep a secret?” I asked.
“I’m the best in town.”
I didn’t doubt that. I was guessing this library had many secrets buried in its foundation that Mrs. Nebitt was going to take to her grave.
I lowered my voice. “This ghost isn’t going into my book,” I said, like I was actually writing a book. “I’m doing a favor for someone.”
“Who?”
“Just someone in town who wants my help as a medium.”
She made a sweeping motion with her hand to let me know I needed to get up so she could sit down. “This sounds important. I’ll help you with your research,” she said, like I needed her help, or wanted it.
I didn’t budge. “I’ll call you over if I need your help. I’ve got this. The person I’m doing the favor for doesn’t want anyone to know they’ve consulted a medium. In other words, I’ll tell you later.”
That seemed to soften her grimace a little.
“And don’t worry,” I added. “I remember the rule about one microfilm canister at a time.”
She waddled away reluctantly, sipping her coffee. I knew she’d be back. I wondered how much time I had.
I typed Mandy Smalls’s name in first. The Landover Gazette was owned by Jackson’s great aunt at the time of “the incident,” so I knew the reporting was going to be shoddy and opinionated. But I still scribbled down the information on the three articles that the library had involving my client. One was an interview with Mandy before her death. The other two were about the murder.
After checking the library over to make sure Mrs. Nebitt wasn’t watching me, I took my notebook from out of my purse and checked my suspect list.
I looked up Ruth and Barry Locke next, the couple that Mandy and Graham stayed with. I wondered if their family still owned that house, if the kids I encountered yesterday when I smacked into the truck were their grandkids or something.