“He said it. I saw it,” Ms. Lyons replied solemnly. “And I am positive.”
That was not good. Not good at all.
Not like it would’ve been great if he’d seen someone. But it probably meant it was the beast.
Oh, wow. Just wow. That meant the beast was real. Shelby could say what she wanted about the howling and claw marks, but Mortimer saw something. And was now on his way to the hospital.
Shelby glanced at her watch. “You seem to be home earlier than usual, Ms. Lyons.”
That was right! Bryant said she usually got home around four, and it was barely three thirty. What was she up to? Was she responsible for Mr. Mortimer’s condition?
“I had a dentist appointment and took a half day,” Ms. Lyons stated as she rubbed her jaw.
“Oh, I’m in the process of finding a new dentist. Can you recommend yours?” Shelby asked.
Shelby wasn’t looking for a dentist. She wanted to confirm her alibi. Although that didn’t mean Ms. Lyons couldn’t have come home and done something to Mr. Mortimer.
After Ms. Lyons gave Shelby her dentist’s information, Shelby looked her up and down. “Any other information you’re privy to about the situation?” Shelby quickly glanced at Lestrade.
“Are you referring to this nonsense about ghosts and howling creatures?” Lestrade asked with a snort. It was a very Shelby response. “Holmes, there is no conspiracy here. Mr. Mortimer is an older gentleman. As far as ghosts or howling dogs . . .” She laughed as she shook her head. “They aren’t real.”
Shelby looked taken aback. “Of course they aren’t real. You and I agree on that fact, Detective Lestrade. However, something is afoot here. Mr. Mortimer’s sickness is only the most recent in a string of events.”
“This happens every Halloween. Spikes in ghost sightings. It makes people paranoid.”
“But the letter Barrymore received,” Ms. Lyons said to Lestrade. “There’s been a threat.”
“What threat? You didn’t mention this to me.”
Ms. Lyons filled Lestrade in on the details of the ghost tour, the weird letter yesterday, and even the fact that Shelby’s name was used. Which seemed to amuse her as much as it did Shelby. (Those two were more alike than either would ever admit.) As Ms. Lyons told Lestrade everything, Shelby looked more and more annoyed. She didn’t want Lestrade to be involved. She liked to work alone.
I mean, she didn’t mind working with me. That much. I think.
With her chin, Shelby gestured down the street, where Barrymore was running toward us.
“That’s the owner of the building,” Ms. Lyons told Lestrade.
“What—What—” Barrymore bent down to catch his breath. “I got your message. Is Mr. Mortimer okay?”
Shelby stood super close to Barrymore, stared into his face as she told him about Mr. Mortimer. She was barely a foot away. While everybody else would find this behavior odd, I knew that she was keeping eye contact to see what his reaction would be to everything she was telling him.
Barrymore being a suspect didn’t sit right with me. He mentioned how much work it’d been since the issues started up. It had to have gotten in the way of his schoolwork. I doubted he wanted to manage a haunted building.
Yep, I said it. Haunted. Because it was!
Case in point: Mr. Mortimer was now on the way to the hospital!
Barrymore had the most to lose if people started to move out because of the beast.
The real-life beast, which Mr. Mortimer saw.
How much more proof did we need?
“Is everybody properly caught up?” Shelby said with a yawn after she finished filling in Barrymore.
Barrymore looked like he was going to faint. He leaned against the building. His skin was ashy. “I can’t believe Mr. Mortimer got hurt from all of this.”
We were all quiet for a few beats. Yeah, it was scary. All I knew was that there was no way I was ever stepping foot into that building again.
“Well,” Lestrade said with a sigh like she had better things to do, “why don’t we check out this infamous unit?”
Nope. Not that. Anything but that.
Everybody started heading to the front door, while I couldn’t get my feet to move.
“Come along, Watson,” Shelby said impatiently.
Seriously, this case. I couldn’t believe I was actually going to walk into that unit again.
But at least we had police backup.
I reluctantly began to follow everybody up the stairs.
Shelby decided to fill in Lestrade. “I’ve been able to rule out infrasound.”
Lestrade returned that piece of information with a blank stare. (I know, Lestrade, I know . . .) Shelby explained the particulars of infrasound.
“Which has led me to believe that perhaps carbon monoxide poisoning is at play,” Shelby explained. “The popularity of ghost stories soared during Victorian times, not solely from the rise of the periodical press, but due to lighting being provided predominantly by gas lamps. The carbon monoxide they emitted would sometimes provoke hallucinations. It can also cause chills and the paranoid feelings of being watched. Mr. Mortimer is an older individual, so this would affect him sooner than the rest of the residents. There are gas stoves in the apartments. Therefore, carbon monoxide is a clear and reasonable explanation.”
“All the units have carbon monoxide detectors,” Barrymore stated. “It’s the law.”
“It’s the most obvious explanation to the residents’ paranoia,” Shelby replied. “And batteries can go missing.”
Lestrade gave her a thoughtful nod. “Perhaps, but this is most likely a prank, plain and simple.”
Mr. Barrymore unlocked the door to unit 5.
“Let me go in first,” Lestrade said with a nod. She turned the doorknob and then let out a noise of surprise.
“What is it?” Shelby pushed the door open wide.
Okay, so I didn’t think things could get worse with this case. But I was wrong.
Oh, how I was wrong.
My mouth was primed for a scream, but I couldn’t let anything out. If I thought I was scared before, nothing had prepared me for this.
There—in the middle of the living room floor—was a pool of blood.
CHAPTER
19
“Hello, what’s this?” Shelby replied casually.
Yep, there was a pool of blood, yet Shelby was as calm as ever. Although I had to think that secretly she was excited about the prospect of a murder scene.
That was when I noticed that there was also blood splattered on the wall.
Okay, so things could get even more gruesome.
Cool. Cool. Cool.
Shelby began to march over to the bloody pool, but Lestrade held her arm out. “Holmes! You should know better. I can’t have you waltzing around and interfering with a crime scene.”
Shelby laughed. Like, a legit laugh. (That was it: she’d officially lost it.) “This is not a crime scene, Detective Lestrade. Take a deep breath.”
Take a deep breath? Were we supposed to be calm right now? Because there was absolutely nothing remotely okay about what was happening.
Also, why were we still in this apartment with a killer on the loose?
Lestrade looked skeptical, but did take a little sniff. Then a bigger one.
“See?” Shelby said with a grin.
Before Lestrade could reply, Shelby strode over to the pool of blood, knelt down, stuck out her tongue, and then . . .
SHE LICKED IT.
Bryant gagged.
Ms. Lyons let out a gasp.
Mr. Barrymore covered his eyes.
While I couldn’t . . .
I just couldn’t deal with it.
The great Shelby Holmes had just licked blood.
Shelby licked her lip, which was covered in blood. “Oh relax, everybody, it’s corn syrup. I’d recognize the smell anywhere.”
Wait. What?!?!
That meant . . .
It was fake blood
.
“What?” Ms. Lyons said through the hands that were covering her face in disgust.
“It’s fake blood,” I explained to the confused group. Nobody seemed convinced or more at ease. I didn’t blame them.
Shelby was an expert at making fake blood. I didn’t even want to get into how I know that fact.
As with every element of this case, this new fact caused me to wonder WHY?!?!
It was still DISGUSTING.
Shelby got down on her stomach. Her eyes level with the blood. No, it was corn syrup, but it really did look like blood. She sprang back up and circled the pool. She set her backpack down and pulled out a tape ruler. She started measuring the splatters on the wall, the distance between that and the mass on the floor.
“What on earth are you up to, Holmes?” Lestrade asked.
“I’m using the cast-off splatters to calculate the height of the person who left this clue.”
Clue? I guess that mess could be considered a clue. Someone left this here because they wanted us to think that someone—or something—was murdered. If their goal was to freak out the residents (and yours truly): mission accomplished.
Maybe Lestrade was onto something and it was some Halloween prank. So after tomorrow, would it all stop?
Shelby closed her eyes, her lips moving. She was doing math in her head. And with all the measurements she just made, I didn’t think it was as simple as one plus one equals two.
She opened her eyes with a smile on her face. “Okay, this person is on the shorter side. By my calculations, they measure at five feet, two inches. Now, we must take into account that said person was most likely not without shoes. So I place their height at anywhere from five feet one to one and a half inches,” she stated with a confident nod.
Lestrade starting writing this down in her tiny notebook. She was listening to Shelby! And believing her! Progress.
I started going through all the people in the building. I didn’t know everybody’s exact heights, but I believe Kaitlin was on the shorter side.
And where was Kaitlin anyway? She usually was home by now, but she was conveniently nowhere to be found.
Scratch what I said before, this was real progress.
Shelby got up from the floor and wiped her hands. “Mr. Barrymore, I recommend cleaning this up as soon as possible. Hopefully the red food dye will not stain the wood. Generally basic soap and water is adequate. However if it stains, you should use a three percent mixture of hydrogen peroxide.”
Mr. Barrymore looked at Shelby in disbelief. Not sure if it was from her constant random knowledge or what happened in one of the apartment units under his nose.
He rubbed his head. “Detective Lestrade, I don’t care what that was, I don’t feel comfortable having tenants in this building anymore. Their safety is my top priority.”
Shelby replied, “There is nothing to worry about. As Detective Lestrade stated, this is all some childish Halloween prank. One done at a very amateur level, if I may add.”
(Mental note: find out ASAP what Shelby had planned for Halloween, since I didn’t want to know what kind of prank she could pull if she thought that was childish.)
Lestrade put her notebook back in her pocket. “Holmes is right, there is nothing to worry about.”
There was a pause between Shelby and Lestrade. I didn’t think either would ever imagine a situation in which they were on the same side.
Freaky indeed.
CHAPTER
20
“Where are you going?” I asked Shelby as she walked past Bryant’s apartment after we left upstairs.
“We have somewhere to be,” she replied as she continued downstairs.
I wasn’t going to argue since I wanted to get as far away from this building as possible. Shelby could say what she wanted about fake blood, but still . . . None of this was adding up.
“Okay, man, I guess, ah . . . ,” I started to say to Bryant, who didn’t look thrilled to be left alone in his apartment. Couldn’t say I blamed him. “We’ll be back.”
“Bryant can come along. We may need him,” Shelby stated.
Whoa.
Bryant was also surprised. “Really?”
“Really,” Shelby replied flatly.
Bryant stood a little taller as he followed us out the building.
Maybe, just maybe they could be friends after all.
“Where are we going?” I asked as we made our way to the subway.
“Brooklyn,” Shelby stated as she held up her phone. There was a photo of Kaitlin with some guy drinking milkshakes.
So Kaitlin was our lead suspect.
We were getting somewhere.
“The benefit with someone like Kaitlin is that she feels the need to share every single detail of her life,” Shelby explained as we got off at the Borough Hall subway stop in Brooklyn. “One look at her social media profiles has led me to several observations. One: she posts a lot of pictures of her boyfriend. Two: she really likes Brooklyn. And three: every Wednesday after school, they go to Brooklyn Farmacy and Soda Fountain.”
“Wait a second,” I began as my brain put two and two together. “That means she has an alibi for what happened with Mr. Mortimer and the blood.”
“Fake blood,” Shelby corrected me. “That could’ve been left anytime. As for Mr. Mortimer, the carbon monoxide would take a while to get into his system.”
“I can’t believe Kaitlin would do this,” Bryant said as he shook his head.
“You do realize that someone in the building is responsible.”
“Yeah, but . . .” Bryant’s shoulder sank as he realized she was right.
We arrived at a corner store that had Farmacy written in large letters on its windows and awning. It also said Soda Fountain, so I guess they had ice cream, too. Once we entered, I thought it looked like we’d stepped back in time to an old-fashioned ice cream shop: mosaic tiles on the floor, leather stools facing an ice cream counter.
And there, in the very back, Kaitlin was cozied up to the guy in the picture, who I presumed was her boyfriend. He had straight black hair to his shoulders and tanned skin. His arm was draped around Kaitlin, and they were lost in conversation. They didn’t see us come in.
“First things first,” Shelby stated as she walked over to the counter and examined the menu.
“You want anything?” Bryant offered.
“Nah, man, I’m okay.” I didn’t know how anybody could have an appetite after seeing that scene that was staged. Plus, I was getting suspicious that we might be here more for the sugar than the suspects.
As I looked at the other customers, I saw giant sundaes and milkshakes everywhere. Shelby turned around with a huge smile on her face, holding a gigantic sundae with two hands. It was as big as her head. Her actual head, not her head like her ego. Because, then that thing would be the size of the Empire State Building.
“Can you believe they asked me if I wanted a half size?” Shelby said with a snort. The sundae included a huge brownie topped with two scoops of ice cream, hot fudge, whipped cream, and even more chocolate. Because that was what Shelby needed in her life.
No lie, that thing could probably feed an entire army or one Shelby Holmes.
Bryant was not far behind Shelby. He had a milkshake in a tall glass topped with whipped cream.
He took a sip. “So good.” He handed his glass out to me. “It’s peanut butter. You want a sip?”
“No thanks.” I was pretty sure I was going to need extra insulin tonight solely from being in this place.
“Oh, right.” Bryant looked down at his sugar-filled glass. “Sorry. I could, um . . .”
“It’s fine.” At this point I was used to people—particularly one redheaded partner—stuffing sweets in their face. I was more of a pizza-and-chips guy anyway.
That didn’t mean I wasn’t agitated. “Ah, so are we going to talk to Kaitlin?”
Come on, guys! Eyes on the prize!
Shelby nodded. “Now, Bryant, the most i
mportant thing is to pay attention to every detail when we talk to them. You know Kaitlin better than Watson and I do, so if she does something—a small gesture, an unusual tic—make note of it. There is no detail too small when interrogating someone.”
“Got it,” Bryant said. He gave me a small, genuine smile as we approached Kaitlin and her boyfriend. The two of them were at a large round table that sat six, but were squished so close together there was plenty of room for us to join them.
“Celebrating something?” Shelby said as she sat down next to Kaitlin’s boyfriend.
Kaitlin looked up, surprised. “What—? Why are you—? Did my mom send you?” She fiddled with her long auburn hair, a slight blush spread on her cheeks.
“This place looked so delicious on your profile,” Shelby remarked as she scooped up a big spoonful of ice cream.
“What’s going on, babe?” the guy said as he looked at us, confused. “Do you know these kids?”
“Hey, man, I’m John,” Bryant said as he held out his hand. “I live in Kaitlin’s building.”
“Hey, dude,” the boyfriend said with a nod. “I’m Antonio. Kaitlin’s been telling me about all that crazy stuff going on.”
“Really?” Shelby leaned closer to Antonio. “What exactly has she been saying? I haven’t experienced it firsthand yet and can hardly believe such tall tales.”
“And you are?” Antonio asked as Shelby moved her chair even closer to him.
“They’re friends of Bryant’s. And are very nosy,” Kaitlin said, narrowing her eyes.
Huh. Paranoid, Kaitlin? She knew we were there to help investigate. Funny she would leave that detail out. Not like Kaitlin was much for details, but maybe that was her cover. She pretended to not remember who we were or that she was really into her phone, but maybe that was what she wanted us to think.
Her phone wasn’t out now. She only seemed to have eyes for her boyfriend.
Who lived in Brooklyn.
The things people do for love.
A pang erupted in my stomach as I thought about what Mom would be willing to do for her new boyfriend. Would we move again? Did the guy have kids? Would I have to go from being an only child to having stepsiblings? There was a time I wanted to have a brother or sister, but now . . . I couldn’t handle any more changes.
The Great Shelby Holmes and the Haunted Hound Page 9