by Etta Faire
I paused. There, in the grainy photos, was a photo of a golden Lab, just like Rex. I squinted at it. He had that same happy-hungry look Rex always had. I couldn’t tell if his nose had a scar on it. But I fished through my purse for my phone to get a quick picture of him and everyone else from that day.
“No pictures,” Hank yelled when he saw me about to take one. He pointed to a sign that said Please don’t touch and no flash photography.
“I wasn’t going to use a flash,” I said.
“That’s just the rules I have. No pictures,” he repeated. He seemed agitated now. He wasn’t expecting Mandy to be here or for me to know things about him. He was hiding something, but I couldn’t tell what.
“Just curious. How did you get the outfit Mandy died in?” I asked.
“Legally,” he replied. His eyes threw daggers at me. He coughed into his closed fist, but his beady eyes never left me. “I think that just about wraps up what I got on Camp Dead Lake. You wanna see some monsters and dolls? Or should we call this a day?”
It hadn’t even been ten minutes. “I told you I’m from Landover. I did not drive all this way for a ten-minute tour that cost me twenty dollars.”
He shrugged and motioned around. “It is what it is.”
“I’m here because Mandy Smalls is trying to figure out her murder,” I said.
“I got no answers for her,” he said. “Or you. Everybody on that set was a jerk. Could have been anyone.”
Jackson hovered over to a row of about six monster heads, most of them versions of Frankenstein. “Just let me know when you need your… distraction.”
“Did the police question you about that night?” I asked.
“Question me? I didn’t kill anyone. Why would they need to question me?” He shook his head.
Mandy looked at the pictures on the wall, at the poster, and at her clothes from that night. The mannequin looked like a sad, lifeless version of her. Blonde hair on faceless white head.
And now, she had to hear how the cops had handled her case. They hadn’t even questioned most people.
I decided it was time he was questioned.
“What time did you leave the Lockes that night? Were you at the bar with everyone else?” I asked.
I flipped on my photo app and brought up the picture I’d taken from Slap Pappy’s. “Who do you remember in this photo?”
“If you don’t leave, I’m calling the cops.”
“But I want the full tour. I paid for the full tour,” I said.
“I don’t remember getting any money.”
I tried not to let my face fall. I couldn’t let the man know he’d just hit me where it hurt the most: my wallet. I stared straight into his squinty eyes. “Is this why they call you Crazy Hank? Because you’d be crazy to steal from a woman who can talk to ghosts. I should warn you, they kind of like throwing things around,” I said, motioning toward his many displays.
Mandy shook her head no. “I’m not destroying this place,” she mumbled.
Crazy Hank laughed so hard, his smoker’s cough lasted a good half a minute. “I don’t believe a word you’re saying now. Ghosts. Well, if Mandy Smalls really is here, she wouldn’t hurt a fly, much less priceless horror memorabilia. The woman loved this stuff.”
“You’re right,” I said, making the man smirk. “But Mandy Smalls isn’t the only ghost here.”
I nodded to my ex, who picked up one of the rubber Frankenstein heads and chucked it across the room. It hit the wall in a sad kind of thud, knocking down a pair of hatchets on its way down. They all plopped to the floor in loud clangs.
Another head bounced over toward the organ sitting in the corner. It let out a few ominous chords when the green head hit the keyboard. Crazy Hank strutted over to it, yelling through coughs that I needed to get out and take my ghosts with me.
Mandy pointed to the third head. “Not that one. Skip that one.” She yelled to Jackson. “It’s from Night of Monsters. Classic.”
Jackson reluctantly skipped over the older-looking Frankenstein head and moved to the next one in line.
While my ex selectively tossed heads around, I pulled out my phone and took pictures of everything Mandy-related. Every photo in the collages got a separate picture. Every angle of the mannequin. I got the poster and the ax, and the rest of the memorabilia, which basically consisted of some signed things from Ned Reinhart and Graham Smalls.
“Don’t worry, I’m not using the flash,” I yelled through the chaos.
Then when I felt like I’d sufficiently gotten my twenty dollars’ worth, I told Hank good bye. I had a lot of questions for him, and about him, but I now knew he wasn’t going to tell me anything.
“Okay, let’s go,” I yelled to my ghosts as I slowly walked to the door.
And just like that, everything went calm again.
Hank’s mouth dropped.
“I hope you learned your lesson not to steal money from a medium,” I said, because I couldn’t think of a better line. I always wanted to say something quippy like they did in the Bruce Willis movies. But those kinds of lines never came to me at the right moment. I’d probably think of something in the car.
I opened the door, knowing full well I was going to have to conduct the rest of my investigation into Hank the hardest way possible.
I was going to have to talk to Dr. Dog.
“I told you heads were gonna roll,” I said, snapping my fingers as I hit my car alarm. “That’s what I should have said.”
“As your former English professor, I must point out that your line’s a bit cliche and that you can do better,” Jackson replied.
I wanted his head to roll back in college, too.
Chapter 15
I Know Your Secret
I had just gotten some tea and was about to go over my notes when I saw Mandy staring aimlessly out the window in the living room later that night.
Most ghosts only manifested when they wanted to communicate, so I knew she must have had something on her mind.
And I was hoping it wasn’t that she was mad about me having Jackson toss around rubber heads at a horror movie museum.
“You okay?” I asked, sipping on my tea, allowing the smell of chamomile and honey to soothe a long day.
She wrung her hands together. “It’s just hard, you know, reliving everything. Seeing my old friends in the channeling, and how we’d all changed from college. Seeing that museum with the poster and my outfit from that day… on a mannequin skinnier than me. Darn it. Meeting that crazy fan. It was weird, all of it weird.”
I moved closer to her and sat on the settee. “Yes, that was weird, and I’m adding Crazy Hank to my suspect list. But honestly, it could have been anyone who killed you,” I said.
“That’s the thing. We may never know.”
“We’ll know,” I said. “I promise.”
“It’s not just that. I remember how hard it was to stay with Ruth and Barry when we made the movie, and then come to find out it was all because of that…” She lowered her voice. “Favor.”
Her light blonde hair shimmered in the overhead light in my living room. She turned toward me. Her curled bangs framed sad blue eyes. “At first, after the fire at the babysitting gig so many years ago, we all felt closer, you know? Like we’d survived something bigger than ourselves, like we’d been taken into the very pit of the darkness we wrote about in our horror scripts, and we’d made it out. We were the heroes at the end. We had a secret and a tragedy we shared and we were stronger for it.”
She looked out the window again. “But over time, I realized that was just youth putting a spin on something awful. Guilt ate away at each of our relationships. Ruth put everything into her work because she felt guilty about not remembering the baby that day, about letting her guard down at a job and allowing the house to get destroyed. Ned dropped out of school and spit out bad movie after bad movie, building an empire, distancing himself from the rest of us, probably because he felt guilty for helping to start that fire. Ba
rry too.”
I thought about running to my purse to get my notebook. I would have to remember all of this later.
“And I was no different,” she continued. “I tried way too hard to be the ‘cool mom,’ the mom who looked the other way when the kids had a sip of beer or who went all out for Halloween and PTA carnivals and baking cookies for bake sales… Is it okay for me to admit I hated the PTA?”
She chuckled a little, wiping an eye with the back of her finger like she could still tear up. It was a habit from life. All ghosts had those.
She went on. “But, I lost a piece of myself that day in 1962, when we were all sitting in Ned’s van, trying to form a plan, the house fire burning behind us. We only had about one minute to make that plan, too. We could already hear fire engines off in the distance.
“It changed each of our lives… that plan, that moment, that stupid green carpeted van with the smell of smoke seeping through the doors, where we were screaming at the top of our lungs at each other, pointing fingers… It was chaos. Barry came up with the plan, I don’t know how, but he did, and Graham added in the favor there at the end. It all happened so quick, too quick, I remember thinking I wanted more time to think of something else.”
I eyed my purse from across the room, wondering if it would be rude to get up and get it while she was talking. But her memory was coming back, and I really wanted to take notes on everything she was telling me.
She went on. “Ruth and I walked out of the van to greet the firefighters, and the boys took off. And, in the back of my mind, I knew my life was never going to be the same again. I played a role to the police officers and Barry’s boss, and I knew I was about to play that role for the rest of my life. We all felt it. And filming Camp Dead Lake was a reminder of that. I actually was the mom, returning 20 years later to face my dark secret. I sure found out the hard way I was not the heroine after all. I was just another victim. Or worse, I was cut from the whole dang movie.”
I got up. “It might be time I contacted some of the people from that night, to let them know I’m working the case now, and that I know all about the favor.”
“That sounds dangerous to let them know you know.”
I nodded. It did feel a little like I was about to swat Freddy Krueger with my flashlight.
But I went to the dining room and pulled open my laptop to bring up Facebook. I figured Graham, Ned, and Somer probably all had business pages I could contact them at. And if I couldn’t reach the Lockes on Facebook, I could just return to the house on the lake, the one with the gun sign, and hope that was still their house.
Before I looked up anyone else, though, I found Lilith Gunther again and wrote her first, explaining that I was a medium in Landover who had made contact with her sister, and that I would be solving the case before her birthday. I left the number for my landline, then stared off at my phone, half-expecting her to call me back right away.
It didn’t happen. Not sure why I thought it would. Mediums were seen as crazy people far too much of the time.
Mandy hovered behind me. “She’ll call you,” she said.
I contacted Mandy’s two kids next: Olivia and Frederick.
Mandy dabbed at her eye again with her finger when she saw the photo of Olivia. She was on a hike with three teenage boys.
“My grandchildren,” Mandy said with a smile.
Olivia’s light brown hair had been pulled to the back in a ponytail, wrinkles surrounding her eyes. “It looks like she’s an ad executive in Milwaukee.” I pointed out, reading her occupation.
“Fancy,” Mandy mumbled, almost disappointingly. She straightened her shirt even though it hadn’t shifted, and would never shift. “She was always so good at drawing. Maybe you get to do that as an ad executive. I hope so. What about Frederick?”
I clicked on his profile. His cover photo was of him and his dad working out with kettle bells. Graham still looked good, despite his age, and I quickly scrolled down, so Mandy wouldn’t see him.
“Says here Frederick’s a producer and a director like his dad. They’ve brought Toppletree back.”
“W-what?” She stuttered. “That’s wonderful, wonderful news. Isn’t it?” Her voice stuck on her words.
Fortunately, we couldn’t see too much of their Facebook pages, or we would have been looking through pictures all night, with Mandy growing more and more upset about things.
I sent both of her kids a quick message, letting them know I was working their mother’s case, then clicked away and found Graham next.
He was using the same photo he had on his Wikipedia page, the one where the wisps of dyed reddish brown hair barely covered his bald spots.
I typed out a cryptic, blue-note message in all caps: I KNOW YOUR SECRET. I KNOW ABOUT THE FAVOR.
I turned to Mandy, and we both laughed. Then, I erased it, even though I actually liked it.
My real message was a little lighter. “Hi. My name is Carly, and I’m a medium working your late wife’s case over in Landover. I’ve made contact with her ghost, and she mentioned something about a favor from 1962. Please contact me. I’d like to go over some things with you. Thanks!”
Mandy hovered behind me, reading over my shoulder as I typed, her chin resting on her fist. “You don’t beat around the bush, do you? You’re brave.”
By now, I knew Mandy did beat around the bush, so I was pretty sure she was really calling me stupid. But, I still hit the send button then wrote out similar messages to Ned, Barry, and Ruth.
Mandy watched as each profile was brought up, shaking her head at Ned’s half-face profile picture that was supposed to be artsy. Somer still looked good in her 50s. Her hair was darker now, and she’d obviously had some work done. Barry didn’t have a picture. It was the default dark silhouette one that Facebook puts up when you don’t have a photo, and Ruth’s “renowned child psychologist” page looked like it hadn’t been updated in years.
“So you just hit the ‘send message’ button and you’ve sent them a message?” she asked, over and over again.
I nodded for the tenth time.
“And you’re sure they’ll get them?” she asked.
I shrugged.
I don’t think Mandy blinked for a full minute looking at the profiles, not that ghosts needed to blink. But, I could tell seeing what the suspects looked like today hadn’t made this any easier for her. And it was about to get even harder.
I took a long sip of my now-cold tea and brought up a new tab on my internet browser. It was time to find information about that fire and the mysterious woman who died in it.
Chapter 16
Roles
My searches on Google didn’t bring up much. I tried several variations of “60s fire Landover Lake death” to no avail.
“I need a name. Can you remember the woman’s name? What was Ruth’s maiden name? Your maiden name?”
Mandy hovered away from me and into the living room. She shook her head, but her hair didn’t shift. “I don’t know,” she snapped. “Ruth and I met in college. We were roommates at the dorm, so I should know this, but she married Barry so quickly after we graduated. I only know her as Locke. I can only remember Locke. My maiden name started with an M, I think. It’s embarrassing how much of myself I lost to my marriage. A marriage that apparently hadn’t meant much to my husband.”
I took another sip of my tea and let the woman rant. I knew she was extra upset after seeing everyone’s profiles on Facebook. They still had lives they were enjoying.
She went on. “Crazy Hank was right. He was right. I let Graham take over too much, not just the scripts and the movies and the finances. I lost myself in my marriage and I ended up dead.”
She stared at my ceiling as she went on. “I used to be so shy in high school, the girl with the braces and the bad curl job. My parents couldn’t afford things like clothes, and salons, and Landover University. I had to work my way through the university, every night as a waitress at the diner. Every dime I made went to tuition or room a
nd board, and I was still the girl with the bad hair and bad clothes because I had no extra money and no clue on how to change. Graham was so handsome. Golden strawberry blonde hair that fell all over the place.”
She motioned to her own head as she recalled it. “I remember how Ruth helped me. She was my roommate and, eventually, she let me borrow her clothes, cool ones. Short dresses and tighter pants. She taught me how to straighten my unruly hair and stop with the curlers already. She even cut my hair into what I called the ‘Ruth,’ cropped in the back, longish in the front. A pixie.”
“Like a reverse mullet,” I said.
She half-chuckled. “It was the rage in the 60s, even before Twiggy made the cut famous. Graham asked me out at the beginning of my second semester, and I could not believe it. I thought my life was perfect. Ruth didn’t really like him. We were all part of the theater club, theater majors at the time. Ruth told me flat out she didn’t think Graham was going anywhere and I could do better. She was right. Or maybe, I was the one not going anywhere.”
She looked out the window at the bushes that were never going to change in my yard and the fireflies flickering around them in the summer evening light. Like tiny bits of life shimmering in a pit of death.
“McClusky,” she finally said after a minute of staring. “My maiden name was McClusky. Ruth’s was Farrow.”
I typed them both into my Google search along with the fire keywords, and an article from the spring of 1962 came up.