by Elise Sax
I stood in the middle of the forest and inhaled deeply. “Anyone out there?” I asked, softly.
Costello looked up at me with his ears forward in question. But there wasn’t a reply. No specters. No blond girls asking for my help.
When we returned to the house after our walk, the light in the kitchen was on, and Tilly was eating a bowl of oatmeal. She was wearing men’s pajamas and thick socks on her feet. “I don’t know how you go day after day without sleeping,” she said, slipping a spoon into her mouth.
“It’s been years. Maybe my body works differently than others.”
“Maybe science should study you. Like they did with the Elephant Man.”
“I’m not the Elephant Man, Tilly.”
“You’re a little bit like the Elephant Man.”
She was right. I was totally the Elephant Man. I wondered if I could get a part-time job at the circus to pay for the renovations.
“After I check in with Klee, I’m going to visit Faye and see if she has any words of wisdom about the HPA,” I told Tilly, as I put the coffeemaker on.
“You want to kneecap them? I know someone who’ll do it for fifteen dollars and a ticket to a Michael Bublé concert.”
“That seems awfully cheap for a kneecapping.”
Tilly shrugged. “I hear Michael Bublé puts on a helluva concert.”
“Let’s put a pin in the kneecapping for now. First, I’ll see if Faye has any ideas.”
“Suit yourself,” Tilly said, like I was willfully stupid. “A good kneecapping can solve a whole host of problems.”
Chapter 4
For the first time since I met her, Klee’s hair was mussed, and her makeup was smeared. She looked like she just ran a marathon, and she wasn’t happy about it. She was sitting at her desk, her chair turned to the side, her legs wide apart, and her body bent over, as if she was trying to catch her breath.
“I’m a paperboy,” she complained. “I’m a fifty-one-year-old paperboy with a Cadillac and an American Express Gold Card.”
I wished I had an American Express Gold Card. I wondered where Klee got her money. I knew how much she made at the Gazette, and it wasn’t Cadillac kind of pay. I was out of credit cards. They got closed with the nightmare divorce. Now, I was a cash-only woman.
“The houses are built so far apart in Goodnight. Have you ever noticed that?” she asked me, like it was my fault the houses were wide apart.
I nodded, sympathetically. “It sounds like a very difficult job.”
“We need to move to online only. Screw ‘em if they don’t like it,” Klee said. “Why do they read the paper version? Are they trying to torture me? I won’t be tortured!”
Her face turned red, and I half expected smoke to come out of her nose.
“The stack of papers kept growing,” she continued, like she was describing the plot of Saw. “More and more. The stack in the car kept getting bigger instead of smaller. It was like it was cursed. Like the devil.”
She eyed me suspiciously. “Did you get exorcised yet? You want me to call in George to clean you out? Maybe this is all on you. Maybe you’re a Jonah.”
I took a step back. “I’m not a Jonah, Klee. I don’t make stacks of newspapers grow. I don’t have that kind of power.”
She closed one eye and focused the other one on me. “Are you sure about that?”
“How about some coffee? Let me make you some coffee,” I said, smiling and trying not to look like I had demonic forces running through my body.
“I wish I had a doughnut,” she said. “They say sugar is good for times like these. Get me a doughnut. Why didn’t you bring in doughnuts? I was up before dawn, crossing the West, and you couldn’t bother getting me a damned doughnut?”
I swallowed. “I can get you a doughnut. Regular or sprinkles?”
Klee’s face turned hard, and she seemed to stop breathing. “Don’t you think this is a sprinkles day, Matilda? I mean, I can’t believe you felt you needed to ask.”
The door opened, and Silas walked in with a large bakery box. “I brought doughnuts,” he announced in a sing-song voice that I had never heard him use before. “Two dozen sprinkles.” He placed the box on Klee’s desk. “These will go great with coffee.”
He eyed me and gestured frantically for me to go make coffee. I skipped to the back and made a pot of extra strong coffee. When it was done, I poured a cup for Klee, adding three sugars and a lot of cream.
“Here you go, Klee,” I said. She was on her third doughnut, and she was almost back to her put-together self that I was used to.
“You better get Jack back in here fast,” Klee threatened. I didn’t know if she was speaking to Silas or me. “If not, I may take my husband up on his idea to see the country in an RV.”
“You would hate that, Klee,” Silas said. “You would be bored to tears.”
“I would love it because it would spite you,” she said to me. “Get Jack back in here.” She waved me over to her desk and handed me a paper with notes on it. “Here you go, Matilda. Your next assignment in the Most Prominent People series. Adele.”
“My Adele?” I asked.
“Yes. It shouldn’t be hard. Skip the part about her killing her husband, though. Steer her to the nice stuff. Get a few recipes from her, too. That will bring in the readers.”
Silas made a noise like a strangled cow. “Now we’re doing recipes? We’re an inch away from being the Ladies Circular.”
I took the paper, grabbed my purse, and hightailed it out of the office. If Klee quit, that would be the end of the Gazette. I could feel my blood pressure rise at the thought.
Hopping into my Altima, I drove the short distance to Goodnight UFOs, the store owned by Faye and her husband Norton. The shop was housed in a corner building by the Plaza. The bottom floor was the shop, which sold everything that had to do with space creatures, and Faye and Norton lived on the second floor. There was a giant UFO on the roof that spun around and lit up at night.
I parked in the parking lot behind the shop and walked in through the back door. The shop was filled with customers. It always surprised me how much business there was in aliens. Folks came in from all over to shop at Goodnight UFOs, especially after its biggest competitor closed down in Roswell. If Mabel and Rocco were smart, they would ditch all of their schemes to put Goodnight on the map and focus on aliens. More aliens would definitely bring in the tourists.
I found Faye standing at the cash register up front. Norton was sitting in a recliner next to her. He was engaging two customers, regaling them with the story of how the Martians built their canals until a group from a nearby galaxy destroyed them and captured the Martians to use for slave labor on their home planet.
Faye smiled when she saw me, and I hugged her. “I heard. You all right?” she asked me.
“You heard about what?” The list was so long. It was difficult to guess what she had heard.
“The Historical Preservation Association.”
“That’s why I’m here. I was wondering if you could talk to them, convince them to leave me alone.”
I held my breath, waiting for the answer and hoping it would be positive. But her face turned down in a frown, and she shook her head sadly. “I tried, Matilda. I told them that just as soon as Norton gets better, I would tackle their list. But they’re not like normal people. They’re scary.”
“Like Andromedan Stormtroopers. Very unpleasant folks,” Norton said.
“And they think they’re sexy,” one of the customers added. “The HPA, not the Andromeda Stormtroopers.”
“They do?” Norton asked.
“I do have an idea for you,” Faye told me. “It’s not optimal, but…”
“I’ll take it. If it fixes my problems, I say yes.”
“Okay, but don’t blame me, later. I know a guy. A carpenter. He’s slightly eccentric.”
I laughed. “Name one person in Goodnight who isn’t eccentric.”
“I’m not eccentric,” Norton said, handing a
customer a Venutian Invasion Alarm to look at.
“That’s true,” Faye said. “He’s the most normal guy I’ve ever met.”
Faye promised to call the eccentric carpenter for me, and I left through the front door. The diner was across the Plaza and a nice short walk. Since it was a cold morning, people were bundled up, steam exiting their noses as they breathed.
Halfway across the Plaza, I got the creepy feeling that I was being followed. I turned around and saw a black van driving ever so slowly behind me. The windows were tinted, but Our Lady of Misery was written on the side of the van in peeling painted letters.
I sighed and slapped my forehead. Holy crap, I had my own exorcist chaperones. Either that, or they were planning on abducting me and dragging me away to tie me to a bed and dig the demons out of me.
I sped up, settling into a jog. The van followed me at a snail’s pace. I was getting scared, visualizing being tied to a bed, throwing up pea soup. Looking back at the van, I wasn’t paying attention to where I was going, and I knocked into Mabel, sending a metal box that she was holding into the air and crashing onto the ground.
I held onto her for balance and security. “Thank goodness,” I told her. “The exorcists are after me.”
I watched as the van slowly rolled past me. I guessed whatever nefarious plans they had for me were thwarted with Mabel around.
“You better not have broken my Pooper Basket,” Mabel said, pushing away from me.
I helped her pick up the metal box. Pooper Basket. Keep our town clean! was written on it. Scanning the Plaza, I saw Rocco attaching the same kind of metal box to a post.
“What is this?” I asked Mabel.
“Good. Get out your reporter’s notebook and take notes. This is important.”
I took out my reporter’s notebook because it wasn’t smart to defy her. She was an imposing woman. Besides, I was supposed to be taking up the slack at the paper, and Klee would be happy if I came back with an extra article.
I clicked my pen. “Shoot. Go ahead and lay it on me, Mabel.”
“Did you know that Santa Fe doesn’t have any Pooper Baskets?” she asked me and smiled.
I jotted down the information about Santa Fe. “What’s a Pooper Basket?” I asked.
Mabel cleared her throat and gestured wildly while she spoke. “It’s a town’s salvation. It’s the difference between living in a dump and living in a fashion-forward town. One of the most livable towns in America. One of the most desirable towns in America. You know, better than Santa Fe. Write that down. Better than Santa Fe.”
I wrote it down. “How does the Pooper Basket work?”
Mabel showed me a roll of plastic bags. “These will be hanging off every Pooper Basket. Free and no charge. Every dog owner can get a plastic bag, clean up after their dogs’ poop and toss it in the Pooper Basket. We’re putting up two hundred of them in the town center. And the plastic bags are biodegradable. Our poop bags won’t kill any sea turtles. Write that down.”
I wrote it down. “I didn’t know that Goodnight had a dog poop problem. Most of the dogs are outside of the city center, and most of the population is rural.”
Mabel rolled her eyes. “This is for the tourists. We’re the dog-friendly town for tourists. Genius, right?”
I looked around. Rocco was still trying to attach a Pooper Basket to the post, but he couldn’t get the hang of his power screwdriver. There were a few people walking around and a couple of cars, but there wasn’t one dog and no sign of a dog poop problem.
“Genius,” I repeated.
“And I don’t want Goodnight to be known for you know what.”
“What? Death?” I asked.
“No. The other thing.”
I clicked my pen and tossed it in my purse. I didn’t want to know what the other thing was. I had enough information for a short article about Pooper Baskets, and now I wanted another cup of coffee.
Saying goodbye to Mabel, I took a quick look around for marauding exorcists. Seeing nothing, I walked the rest of the way to the diner. Inside, there was an unusual lull in business.
“Matilda!” Adele called when I entered. “Isn’t this weird? You’re my only customer. Morris went home for a couple hours because he loves bees.”
I had no idea what that meant.
“I’m closing up for a little while,” she said. “You want to go with me on a quick errand?”
“Sure. Do you have any coffee ready I could gulp down before we go?”
Adele gave me a quick hug and told me to sit in the first booth. She brought me a cup of coffee and a cherry Danish and sat across from me.
“You’re a wonderful woman,” I told her, biting into the Danish.
“Food is better than sex,” Adele said. “A cup of coffee and Danish in the morning is much better than a quickie. I never liked sex in the morning, anyway. How about you?”
Sheesh. More sex talk. There was a lot of it going around, but I wasn’t getting any. I took a sip of my coffee. “How did we get on this conversation?”
“I don’t know. There’s been an uptick on sex talk in the diner. I guess it’s on people’s minds these days for some reason. I even heard something from Inga, if you can believe that.”
“Inga?”
“The woman who looks like a bag lady,” Adele said. “She was here yesterday, selling jewelry made of coal. Speaking of Inga, that’s where I’m going. I’m picking up a bunch of jewelry from her. The other pieces sold fast. Morris needs a new oven, and I’m hoping my share of the jewelry profits will help me buy it.”
I stuffed the last of the Danish into my mouth and washed it down with the last of the coffee. “Good. I’ll interview you on the way.”
“Interview me about what?”
“You’re a prominent person. I’m asking background questions for a series of articles we’re going to put out.”
Adele locked the diner, and we walked to Inga’s place, which was only a few blocks away from the Plaza. On the way, we passed Rocco and Mabel, who were putting up more Pooper Baskets. They had already put up about a dozen of them around the Plaza. Half of them were crooked or hanging on one side.
Adele was surprisingly excited about being named one of the most prominent people in Goodnight. She spoke quickly about herself, like she was dying to get it all out. As Klee had told me, Adele launched into the scandalous stories of her past, but I steered her back to stories of how she opened Goodnight Diner and became an independent and fabulous woman.
“It wasn’t all wine and roses,” she told me. “I learned pretty quickly not to serve any kind of experimental food. I’ll never forget the quinoa catastrophe of 2010. And don’t get me started about kale. Don’t ever try to feed kale to a man from Goodnight.”
“Did you always want to own a diner?” I asked her.
“Yes, after I gave up on my Disney On Ice dreams. Weak ankles, you see.”
“Bummer,” I said.
“Here we are,” Adele said and pointed up at the three-story building in front of us. It was an old western building with a typical façade, which made the three stories look like four. The building badly needed a paint job, and the windows were dirty. For the most part, the building looked uninhabited. “She’s on the third floor. The two open windows, I think.”
I looked up. The open windows were tall and narrow and the tail of a curtain billowed out from one of them.
Adele took a deep breath. “I hope she’s in a good mood. I’ve never been to her place. It can’t be that bad, can it?”
“Well, it’s probably not Versailles, but I doubt she’ll eat us or anything.”
We went inside and climbed the three flights of stairs. The inside of the building was even more rundown than the exterior. When we got to the third floor, there were two doors. One had Inga Mueller painted on it in faded red paint. The door was slightly ajar, but Adele knocked on it, anyway.
“Inga?” she called. “It’s Adele. I’ve come for the jewelry. Remember? Inga? Are you in
?”
She knocked a little harder, and the door creaked open. A smell wafted out that made me crinkle my nose. Dirt, mildew, and probably worse. Adele looked at me, as if she was asking my permission to walk inside. I nodded, and she took a step inside the apartment. I followed her in.
Inga’s apartment looked just like Alibaba’s cave, if Alibaba collected trash. There was stuff piled high in every direction. It appeared that Inga had tried to leave a clear pathway through the apartment, but even that was covered with a thick layer of crap.
“Inga? It’s Adele,” Adele called. There wasn’t a sound in the apartment, not even the sound of rats running around, which was a welcome relief. There was so much stuff in the place that it was hard to figure out what exactly Inga was hoarding. “It’s like a lifetime of stuff,” Adele whispered to me. “We’ll have to take a shower after. Don’t forget to use antibacterial soap.”
I didn’t have antibacterial soap. I had lavender soap that my friend Gladie had given me as a going away present, but I was down to my last bar because Silas and Tilly were using it up.
“I don’t think she’s here,” I told Adele.
“I think you’re right,” she said. “I want to get out of here, anyway.”
A chill went up my spine, and I got a familiar feeling of dread.
“Just a minute,” I told Adele, grabbing her arm. “I have a feeling.”
“A good feeling?”
“A feeling I get when…Never mind. It’s probably nothing. But let’s check it out.”
I tugged Adele around a six-foot-tall stack of trash, and there we found Inga.
She was on her knees with her arms resting at her sides. Her head was face first in a bucket, and she wasn’t moving.
Chapter 5
Adele sucked in air through her front teeth. “What’s she doing?”
“She’s not breathing,” I said, staring at Inga’s unmoving back.
