Mystery!

by Chantelle Aimée Osman

  “I like what you’re doing so far.” Nathan removed his weight from me and took a step back. “I don’t think I want to visit the creek either, but I know what I do want. Do you wanna get drunk?”

  “Sure.”

  The TV’s unceasing music acted as our backdrop as we drank and plotted our course of action. He eventually helped me outline the facts of the case on the wall, taking care of the timeline and the offhand notes while I focused on suspects and facts. Bud Light acted as our social lubrication, as we exchanged stories and caught each other up on our lives. We ended the night curled up on the couch and crying, remembering Mari.

  I felt safe for the first time in a long time.

  Calvin Helm’s house was a mess, with no distinction between carpet and newspaper. Copper-colored roaches crawled in and out of haphazard pizza boxes and takeout containers.

  It was odd to see a house that embraced ghosts. If I looked hard enough, then I could trace the outlines of faded ghosts floating around the living room. I almost felt bad for them, trapped in this hellish house to watch over Helm.

  Nathan and I sat together on the couch. Coach sat across from us on his recliner, nursing a bottle of Bud Light we had bribed him with. His beer gut and outfit—a stained white shirt with and pajama pants—were in stark contrast with how I remembered him as a child. Seeing him without his blue tracksuit was like seeing a shaved cat.

  Helm was pathetic. I couldn’t even imagine why I’d been afraid of him as a child.

  “I didn’t kill Marian, ya know.” He slurred, staring down me and Nathan with narrowed eyes. “I loved my job and I loved my kids, even though I was tough on ya sometimes.” Nathan leaned forward and handed him another bottle.

  “We’re just trying to find the truth.” It was good that Nathan decided to take over the conversation, because despair froze my entire body in a way that it was hard to speak.

  Coach Helm reclined in his chair, letting himself become one with the leather. “I’m telling ya, like I told the cops thousands of times, I had no fucking reason to kill her.”

  I opened my mouth to speak, but Nathan held me back.

  “Did I have the time to? Sure. Did I have the means to? Sure. But hell—” he waved the unopened bottle of Bud Light, “—anyone could have killed her. What was it? A rock? A rock to the head? That’s a coward’s way out. This shit has ruined my life. Complete and utter bullshit.” Helm had been holding the beer bottle by the neck, which aided him when he brought the bottle down on the table and smashed it.

  All I could think about is how Coach Helm would loom over Mari and me, scolding us and raising his fist as he ranted over how we were too distracted at practice. Scenes of other teachers physically holding him back from fighting another student. Then the principal’s announcement that had Helm been replaced; that was seven days after Mari’s murder.

  The ghosts in his stupid house started to chatter with their eerie voices and distant echoes. “He’s innocent,” they called out.

  “We’ve watched him for his entire life. Dears, he’s absolutely innocent. Look towards the mother, we’ve always said. Look towards the mother.” They were probably grandmothers and aunts of some sort, unwilling to move on from their precious little screw-up. God, they were mostly faded anyway. I didn’t have to listen to this stupid one-hundred-year-old ghosts.

  Nathan couldn’t hold me back this time. “You did it! You did it and you know it and you’re guilty! It had to have been you, Helm.” I snatched a beer bottle from the pack on the table and aimed it at his head. “You’re guilty and you’ve been hiding all these years! There’s a reason you were fired! I hate you!”

  Helm got to his feet. “I tried to help you two kids out. I damn well did. But you can get the hell out of my house. Never come back.”

  I was about to launch myself at Helm, but Nathan picked me up fireman-style. I pounded on his back and screamed, hot tears falling down my face. “You’ll pay for this! I know you did it and you’ll pay for it!”

  “He’d never kill a child,” the echoes called out. “He’s got a nasty temper, sure, but you do too, dear.”

  Nathan carried me out the door and down the dirt path. He didn’t set me down until we got to his car, where he opened the passenger door, put me in the seat, and shut the door.

  I had stopped crying by the time Nathan opened the driver’s door and slid inside.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  In silence, his eyes focused on the road, and his hands were at ten and two on the steering wheel. His shoulders were visibly stiff and his breathing came out in abrupt huffs.

  “I shouldn’t have lost my temper.”

  “No, you shouldn’t have.” We went over a small pothole. “I don’t think he deserved it anyway.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah, he’s strong. But, he’s right. He didn’t really have a motive.”

  I tried to get a grip on all of the emotions in my head, swallowing down the worst of them and then sorting what remained. Mari’s body had been found in the creek, discovered by a bunch of school children. Nathan and I weren’t around for the discovery. We’d been told she died from blunt force trauma to the head.

  I didn’t say anything.

  “I’m sorry,” Nathan said, folding his hands over his lap. “This must be very rough for you. But I hope you understand why we’re here.”

  I shifted uncomfortably in Mari’s old desk chair, trying to ignore how her room hadn’t changed in the last twelve years. Hell, there was still a stack of books on her desk that I remembered buying with her from the library book sale; in addition to that, the bedspread her mother sat on was the same faded baby blue one with stars. It was like Mari’s room was a time capsule and Nathan and I were disturbing the peace.

  The smell of chocolate chip cookies wafted through the air.

  Belinda Crane dabbed her eyes with a pink handkerchief, managing to dry her tears without smudging the makeup caked onto her face. “It’s, it’s just so hard knowing that my baby girl is gone.” She blew snot and looked up at us expectantly. “Well, uh, while you’re here, why don’t you grab a cookie? It’ll be just like old times.”

  I reluctantly grabbed a cookie off of the warm plate she had set down. It was warm. I bit into it. My mom’s always threatened to kill me, Mari’s voice rang through and I could almost see her on the bed right beside Belinda. She said she’d do it with arsenic or belladonna. That’s why I only eat at school.

  The chocolate chip cookie dropped down to my lap and I resisted the urge to spit it out.

  Nathan shot me a look and continued to speak. “Well, Ms. Belinda—”

  “Call me Belinda, Nathaniel. I’ve known you since you were a baby.”

  “I was just wondering if you had heard anything from Mari, or about her…” He trailed off, fiddling with the end of his red jacket.

  She stood up. “If you’re implying that I killed my own daughter, then you can kindly get out of my house. I know she must have told you two about her little lies, but I’d never threaten to hurt her. Sidney, dear, I wouldn’t poison a cookie.” Belinda continued to wipe her face with the handkerchief, now smudging the mascara. Her eyes flashed with blue rage.

  “No, no, no!” Nathan held up his hands. “I’m not implying that at all. Nothing I said could even point to that! I’m just wondering, if uh, maybe someone like Helm came around to your house to apologize?” His face flushed dark red.

  I leaned back into the wooden chair, staring at the wall. The fuzzy feeling of better days shattered around me when I realized that the pictures on Mari’s pink wall had changed. Gone were Nathan, her, and me smiling at the camera at various locales, instead replaced by Mari and her mother at waterparks. She wasn’t smiling in these pictures.

  “I honestly think Mari’s mom is the one who killed her.” I gestured with my pizza, looking to him for approval. I had stopped walking for just a moment, trying to fit into the flow of conversation.

  Nathan adjusted his baseball cap
so it covered his eyes, although there was no sunlight to hide from. “Yeah, but you said that about Helm too, and a rock to the head isn’t really Belinda’s style.” He stuck his hands in his pockets and looked down, not avoiding my gaze. He kicked at the grass.

  I took another bite of my cold gas station pizza, trying to swallow down the cardboard texture of guilt. Nathan had obviously forgiven me. He wouldn’t have bought me pizza if he was still upset about my outburst. He wouldn’t have driven me to Mari’s gravesite either. I let all of these statements bring me comfort, but the greasy pizza rested uncomfortably in my stomach.

  It was late evening. The air had changed from pleasantly warm to a slight chill that I wasn’t too fond of. It had been about four years since I had visited Mari’s grave. My mother had previously suggested (read: commanded) that I stopped visiting, since it triggered my breakdowns. But what didn’t. One after the other in a row of dominoes.

  To my surprise, there was a faint glow about one hundred paces away. This wasn’t that unusual for a cemetery, but even so my heart skipped a beat.

  Nathan started to speak, but I wasn’t paying any attention. “So, uh, I have something to tell—”

  The blue glow was about a hundred feet away. Mari’s grave was about a hundred feet away.

  I dropped my pizza and started to sprint towards the grave.

  It can’t be her. But what if it is? What if Mari is truly here?

  The ghost turned around—I held my breath—and brushed her wispy hair out of her face, although she was unable to brush away the bewildered expression.

  “Sidney? Sidney? Oh my God, you’re actually here. I didn’t think you’d come to see me after the news.” It was jarring to hear her voice for the first time in twelve years. I wanted to reach out and hug her, but I knew I would only be met with disappointment.

  “You didn’t expect me to visit your grave? I’m finally an adult, and allowed to, and I’m here, of course I’d visit.” I choked on my words somewhat, looking at her expectantly. Ghosts float, so she was finally at my height for the first time in her existence. Her button nose was still the same, although now I could almost see right through her even with the faint light she cast. Her brown eyes and dark skin were now just varying shades of faded blue. Light mist floated off of her body, her essence succumbing to the will of the wind. “Why wouldn’t I?”

  Her eyebrows knitted together and she stared right through me for a couple of seconds. “He…he didn’t tell you, did he?” Her voice in death was slightly twisted and distant. I tried to reconcile my living memory of her with this new dead memory of her.

  Mari. A ghost girl. Forever twelve.

  I stared at my greasy hands, suddenly realizing that I had grown into an adult while my best friend would stay forever a child. It was cruel, in a way.

  “Didn’t tell me what? What is there to tell?” My words came out harsher than I had intended. I wanted to bite back my tongue just so I wouldn’t jeopardize these few moments with my best friend. “Wait, does he know something about how you died? Does he know the killer?”

  “You know the killer, too.” Mari floated over her gravestone, coming face to face with me. “I don’t exactly know how to say this.” She started fiddling with her hair. “Promise not to get mad, all right? He didn’t mean to do it. It was just a giant accident and he was sorry and he said he was so sorry and, Sidney, you don’t know how much he cried when he realized…”

  I glanced back to see the dark form of Nathan loitering about fifty paces behind me.

  “What do you mean—no, you can’t mean that. This is some giant prank.” I stumbled backwards, falling onto my outstretched arms to catch myself. The cold wet grass beneath me felt like a cruel joke in addition to the one my best friends were already playing on me. “Knock it off. Who really killed you?” My voice teetered on the edge of desperation.

  Mari stared at me and looked so sad. My heart physically hurt. “It was an accident,” she repeated, more quietly this time. “He…threw a stone at my head to get my attention and I stumbled. And fell.” She laughed. High pitched and incongruous with what she was saying. “Didn’t you ever wonder why I never showed up?”

  Suddenly, I remembered how infuriating she could be, and wanted to give her a taste of her own medicine. “No.”

  “I was protecting him,” she said. The puzzle pieces connected in my head with a horrifying click.

  “You were protecting a murderer.” I scrambled to my feet, ignoring the shooting pains in my arm. “You protected a murderer. I can’t understand it. I won’t understand it.” Tears clouded my vision and I blinked them back. “You left me alone for twelve years.”

  My fingernails dug into my palms.

  “I was protecting our best friend, Sid.” Her voice wavered. “I-I’ve been watching you, though. I’m so happy. You moved out of this town, Sid. You actually followed through with trying to become a librarian. You have a shot of moving on.”

  I wiped the hot tears away from my face. Six counselors in twelve years, dropping out of college, unable to connect to actual people. And I was the best shot. The silence hung in the air between us, punctuated by the pattering of footsteps.

  “What? You couldn’t lie about who killed you? You just…left me alone? Pfft, I bet you were talking with Nathan this entire time.”

  She frowned and crossed her arms. “I was…afraid of getting anyone else in trouble. I didn’t want to be a bother. If you and Nathan were happy, then I was happy. And, no, Sid, how could you think that of me? You’re the first person I’ve really spoken to in twelve years. Of course it would be you.”

  I scoffed.

  “I only appeared to Nathan yesterday. I wanted him to tell you…Sid, I just wanted to talk to you again. I’m angry at him for not telling you. You have to believe me.” The broken expression on face was enough to melt my heart.

  I felt a hand on my shoulder and I turned to find Nathan behind me.

  Adrenaline shot through my veins. I sprinted away, as fast as I could go. I couldn’t be anywhere near him. In the same cemetery, the same state. The burning in my lungs didn’t exist, just the need to get away. My best friend is a murderer, my other best friend is dead, and I’m a fuck-up.

  “Sidney! Sidney! Come back!” Mari’s shouts were lost to the wind.

  Then Nathan was right behind me. Foolishly, I had assumed that I would be able to outrun him. One foot after the other, trying not to fall. I managed to evade the gravestones, but being careful slowed me down. Fire started to burn in my lungs, but I had to keep going. I was up against a baseball player.

  I wanted nothing more than to stop.

  “The investigation was a shitty way to tell you—” His voice was breathless.” Sidney, I’m sorry—”

  I slowed to a jog. Nathan wasn’t expecting it. He couldn’t stop in time, sliding in the wet grass. He ran into me full force. I lost my already unsteady footing, and fell backwards, knocking the air out of my lungs. I wanted to scream, to cry, to shout.

  But I couldn’t. Pain shot through my head. I closed my eyes, letting the warm blood pool beneath me in direct contrast to the cool air.

  “Sidney! No, no, no. Sidney? Sidney, please. Not again, please. God.”

  With both of my best friends weeping over me, my awareness slowly slipped away, and I was finally numb.

  Back to TOC

  Bargaining Chip

  Daniel Myers

  Audrey’s first clue that she was in serious trouble was the Here Comes Dr. Spectral video playing on the screen. Being arrested and left alone in an interrogation room for three hours told her there was a potential problem, but the Dr. Spectral show played exclusively on the DaisyVid network.

  She suspected the police contractors weren’t real Zigmund and Evans employees when they arrested her. A Z&E cop would have taken one look at the words “Grade 11” on her company badge and wished her a good day. There were exceptions of course. Professional courtesy didn’t extend to major crimes like murder or cor
porate espionage, but minor acts of vandalism were usually a fine-and-release matter. There were eight major corporations that had contracts for police services in the region, and the only one that had a marketing agreement with DaisyVid was Panoptico. This was especially bad since Panoptico was Z&E’s biggest competitor.

  Still, she knew the procedure. HR devoted a full day every year to resisting corporate investigation. By law a company had to report the arrest of any personnel to their respective employer within twenty-four hours. In fact, because of fear of reprisals, the average time was significantly less. All she had to do was wait things out until a Z&E advocate showed up to handle the negotiations.

  After fifteen minutes of watching Dr. Spectral in his Spectrothopter chasing Malbogons around various world landmarks, Audrey wasn’t sure she would last. Someone at Panoptico had to be getting some serious kickbacks for making their employees watch that crap. She was saved from further mind numbing when a Yellow-tie entered the room.

  He sat down in the chair on the opposite side of the table, turned off the vid with his personal remote, and then smiled at her in a way that was probably supposed to be friendly. Clipped to the left lapel of his jacket was a Panoptico security badge.

  “Audrey Zipperer? Ident number ZE92551436?” he asked.

  “Yes.” That was a safe one to answer; they’d already confiscated her ID.

  “I’m Leonard Finney, senior interrogation specialist. Before we start, I have to inform you that this meeting is being recorded for customer-service purposes.”

  Audrey just nodded. It was all standard so far.

  “I’m also required to ask if you’d like to make a statement before you are transferred to the holding facility at our headquarters in Juárez.”