by Harper Lin
“Tell her the best part,” Bea bubbled.
“They’ve got it priced at five dollars.” My aunt’s eyes danced with giddiness.
“Wow,” I whispered. “That’s a real find. Maybe we should hurry up and get out of here.”
“I think you are right.”
Aunt Astrid shuffled to where Dot was still sitting. With lightning-fast reflexes, she gave the woman a five-dollar bill and hustled outside. I paid for my bookshelf and was happy it fit in Bea’s trunk.
Once we got home, Aunt Astrid, Bea, and I did a quick cleansing spell over our purchases in her backyard. Happy to have gotten rid of any of Niles Freudenfur’s bugaboos, I lugged the bookshelf across the street to my house and propped it in the kitchen. I saw Treacle’s gift on the counter. A lovely gray mouse with pitch-black bug eyes.
“Thank you.” I shuddered.
I decided to lock the front door for the rest of the night. If anyone needed me, they’d see me bright and early at the café in the morning.
I put on my favorite classic movie station and almost squealed with delight when I realized On the Waterfront was on. I quickly took a shower, made myself a bologna sandwich with potato chips and a pickle, and ate it before tackling the bookcase.
As usual, I got sucked into the movie, then the next one was Guys and Dolls. Not a great Marlon Brando movie, but there was no denying how handsome he was. I sat through it and cleaned the bookcase during the singing parts.
I stopped mid-song when I realized there was something strange about this bookcase. The bottom shelf had a fake bottom. And there was something in it.
4
Fake Bottom
“Hey! Wait for me!” I shouted out my front door as Bea started walking to work. I struggled with my sweater, slammed the door shut, and nearly tripped over Treacle, who had snuck out the door before I could close it.
“Be a good boy, and be home before dark.”
“I’ll try,” Treacle replied as he slunk around the side of the house and out of sight.
“You aren’t going to believe what I found.” I panted as I raced up to her. Normally, we didn’t walk together to work. Aunt Astrid owned the Brew-Ha-Ha Café, so she was almost always there first. Bea was up early, making breakfast for Jake and sometimes his partner, Blake Samburg, so she usually moseyed in second.
I liked to wait until the last possible moment to get up. So I almost always brought up the rear. But this time, I was up as early as Bea.
“What?” she asked, yawning.
“That bookshelf from Niles’s estate sale had a fake bottom.”
“What do you mean?”
“There was a secret compartment in it.”
“Please don’t tell me there was a doll in there.” Bea’s eyes were wide.
“No. But I have the feeling it might be equally creepy.” I reached in my bag and pulled out a leather-bound book. “It was wrapped in a towel and stuffed in there with this strange statue that’s at the bottom of my bag.”
“Is this his diary?”
“I just glanced inside, and then I shut it. It is his diary.”
“What does it say?”
“I didn’t read it.” I took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
“Cath, I’m so proud of you,” Bea said, as if she were describing a UFO to the police over the phone. “But that is a little out of character for you. You’re a bit, well, you know.”
“Nosy?”
“I didn’t want to be mean.” Bea grinned.
“Believe me when I tell you that I think it was the hardest thing I ever did.”
“You didn’t read it.”
“Nope.” I folded my lips over my teeth.
“Not a page,” Bea pushed.
“Not really.” I was feeling my resolve start to wane.
“How much of it did you read?” Bea handed it back to me.
“I just read a couple sentences. It freaked me out.” I felt my cheeks blushing.
“Oh my gosh, Cath. You are turning all kinds of shades of red. What on earth did you read?”
“Can we just wait until we get to the café? I don’t want to have to repeat myself.”
“Is it that bad?”
I shrugged.
Bea took my hand, and we finished the last two blocks to the café at a healthy jog. I was winded and very concerned about whether my deodorant was going to hold up when I finally handed the book over to Aunt Astrid. After I told her where I’d found it and that I’d only peeked at it, Aunt Astrid took the book, opened to a random page, and began to read.
“Well, this doesn’t surprise me.” Aunt Astrid closed the book.
“Can someone tell me what all the hubbub is?” Bea asked as she made the coffee in the giant silver urn.
“It seems that Niles had a young love interest. A good bit younger.”
“How young?” Bea asked.
“From the sound of it, he was still excited about showing his ID to buy wine at the liquor store,” I said, shrugging.
“That young? Yikes. A May-December romance.” Bea whistled.
“That’s not a May-December romance. That’s more like a BC-AD romance.”
I chuckled at my own comparison. When no one else laughed, I cleared my throat.
“So, which one of us is going to read it and tell the others all the gory details?”
“We can’t read it,” Bea said. “That’s someone’s diary.”
“Normally, I’d agree with you. But that someone is dead. So I don’t see it being any kind of scandal anymore. Go ahead, Aunt Astrid. Crack that sucker open and start reading.” I rubbed my hands together.
“I am going to read it but not out loud.” She gave me a look as though I’d suggested we all wear bikinis to work the next day. “This might help us figure out a few things.”
“Yeah, like why Niles had a room full of dolls.” I looked at Bea.
“Maybe. But I’m thinking it might be helpful in figuring out how he died.”
“Yes. That would be a good thing to figure out too.” I snapped my fingers. “Good thinking, Aunt Astrid.”
I didn’t know what I was expecting, but when Aunt Astrid put the book in her purse and took a seat at her favorite table next to the counter to work on a grocery list for the café, I slouched with disappointment.
“I should have read the whole thing when I had the chance,” I said to Bea.
“No. You did the right thing, Cath,” Bea assured me. “Mom will tell us everything.”
“I know. I just really like gossip.” I couldn’t help but laugh and bump Bea with my hip.
As luck would have it, business at the café was very slow. It started as a cool sunny morning and turned into a cloudy day threatening storms.
So I didn’t say anything when I saw Aunt Astrid retrieve the diary and start reading. It didn’t take long until she read something that troubled her.
“What is it, Mom?” Bea asked.
“I’m starting to feel a great deal differently about Niles,” she admitted.
“Why? What was wrong with him? Aside from the dolls,” I asked.
“According to this, he was pursuing this young man. The one you opened up the page and read about. He details how he followed him, learned his routine, showed up at places where he knew he’d be. It’s crazy.”
I looked at Bea but didn’t say a word. This was a little more than I’d expected.
“In between, he’s writing about a couple of clients who are regulars. He’s speaking horribly of them.”
“Is he a fraud like you thought, Mom?”
“No. Not completely. He did have some psychic ability.” My aunt looked troubled. “But like with anything, too much can make you lose your perspective. I think…”
“What?” I was leaning against the counter, waiting for my aunt to finish her thought.
“Listen to this: I can feel the presence whenever someone comes for a reading now. It’s like an old friend showing up. The trade-off might be a little odd
, but it has worked all this time. I can’t wait to share it with Patrick.”
“What in the world does that mean?” I scratched my head.
“I don’t know.” Aunt Astrid stared at the book. “But that is one of the last entries that makes any sense. A few pages along, you get this: Dirty. Filthy. It was filthy. A disgusting thing that wanted to touch me. But I hid. I hid in that place and liked the dark. It will avenge me. I know it will.”
“That sounds like dementia,” Bea said sadly.
“Maybe. But I’m still convinced that he did a spell wrong and lost his marbles,” Aunt Astrid said. “There could be nothing more than shadows in his house, but he saw monsters because he used rosemary instead of sage or lit a red candle instead of an orange one. Unfortunately, our history has plenty of examples of this. Careless witchcraftery.”
“What does he want avenged?” I asked.
Bea and my aunt shrugged, yet my aunt continued to speak.
“Probably the fact the squirrels were digging in his yard. Like I said, I think he made himself crazy with a spell gone wrong. I’ll bet if we track down this Patrick guy, we might find out something.”
That was going to be difficult since nowhere in Niles’s journal did he mention a last name. However, he did give a rather detailed description of the guy. Rather than canvass the neighborhood with sketches of what we thought Patrick might look like, I had a better idea.
“Was there an appointment book?” I looked at Bea. “If Niles was doing readings up to the end, he had to have their appointments written down somewhere. Maybe Jake would know if they had that in the evidence or something.”
“But if it’s in the evidence room, we can’t get to it.” Bea slumped.
“We don’t need the book. We just need Patrick’s last name. Jake might already have the guy on his people-of-interest list,” I said.
“I’ll ask him tonight when he gets home.”
5
Persona
The next morning, Bea was the last one to arrive at the café.
“What happened to you?” I asked while stroking Treacle, who had slunk in through the open back door shortly after we opened.
Kevin Baker, our fabulous and intensely introverted chef, almost always left the back door open so the hot air from the ovens would escape and cool air would come in. Treacle, who roamed the neighborhood daily, would find his way back here when there was nothing more exciting happening in the world. Or if it was raining.
“I was up all night with Jake.”
“Too much information.” I held up my hands. “Bea, we don’t need to know.”
“Climb out of the gutter for a minute if you can,” she squawked. “This has to do with Niles Freudenfur.”
“What did you find out?” Aunt Astrid asked.
Before Bea could say anything, a familiar face entered the café.
“Good morning, ladies.” Tom Warner looked dashing in his police uniform. He walked up to me. “Miss Greenstone. You are looking lovely this morning. Give us a kiss.”
“Are you drunk?” I asked.
Tom and I had been dating for several months.
“No. I’m on duty.” He leaned forward, offering me his cheek, tapping it with his index finger.
I couldn’t resist. His cologne smelled spicy, and his cheek was smooth after shaving. I gave him a quick peck before Bea and my aunt could say anything.
“Good morning, Treacle,” he said, scratching the spoiled cat behind his ears where he especially liked it.
“Hello, Tom. Pull up a chair and stay awhile,” Treacle purred loudly.
“You’ve had enough attention, kitty,” I replied.
I only got a lazy wink in return.
“So what are you doing here so early?” I asked Tom.
“I’ve got a visitor coming to see me, and I’d like you to meet her.”
“Her?”
I’m not a jealous person. Okay, well, I can be but not like a Glenn Close, Fatal Attraction kind of jealous. But when a guy wanted to introduce his girlfriend to a woman, it had better be his mother.
“Why, Miss Greenstone, are you jealous?”
“No. I’ve just been waiting for you to show your weird side, and I’m guessing this is it.” I folded my arms across my chest. “Who is she?”
“My mom.”
“Oh.” I gushed and smiled like an idiot. “I didn’t know.”
“She just got back from travelling through Europe.”
“Wow.” I gasped. “How long was she gone?”
“Almost a year. She was spending a little time in each of her favorite countries. She has some friends over there. Anyway, this is her first stop back in the States, then she is going to visit my sister and brother.”
I tried to calculate in my head how much it would cost to spend a year in Europe, but math was never my strong suit. I settled on it being a lot of money.
“I’d love to meet her,” I said.
“She’s going to love to meet you too,” he said, stepping closer to me again. “Here. I picked you up a little something the other day. I thought you might like it.”
He handed me a box the size of a credit card. I opened it up and started to laugh. It was a little silver witch on a chain. She had green crystal eyes and was riding a broom.
“This is so adorable.” I quickly showed Bea and my aunt.
“Tom, that is really sweet.” Aunt Astrid chuckled. “I’ll take one, also, but I prefer gold.”
“Mine should be in rose gold to go with my hair,” Bea added.
“I’ll see what I can do,” Tom replied, smiling. “Are you free tomorrow evening? We can go for a late dinner.”
“She’s free,” Aunt Astrid answered.
“Totally free,” Bea added.
“That sounds fine.” I was smiling so much my cheeks were hurting.
“We’ll pick you up here around seven.” He kissed me again on the cheek and hurried out of the café after kissing Aunt Astrid and Bea on the cheeks as well.
“Meeting the mom? This is getting serious.” Aunt Astrid stood from her table. “What do you think, Bea?”
“When Jake asked me to meet his mom, I knew he felt the same way about me that I felt about him. But meeting mothers can be tricky.” She blinked.
“How many mothers have you met, Bea?” I teased.
“It’s not tricky,” Aunt Astrid said soothingly. “Just be yourself. Sometimes the mothers are more nervous meeting you than you know. This is so exciting. Bea, what do you say we get this place looking extra special nice for our future in-laws.”
“Aunt Astrid, aren’t you jumping the gun a little bit? I don’t know if I want to get married. Besides, no one has even said the “M” word until now, and it was me, so it doesn’t count.”
“We aren’t worried about you. It’s about making us look good,” Bea interrupted. “Mom, what do you say we break out those Fourth of July decorations? It’s never too early in the summer for red, white, and blue.”
“You are going to decorate this whole place just for this one woman?”
“No. Our patrons will like it. Won’t you?” Bea asked a fellow sitting by himself in the corner with the newspaper in front of him.
He nodded.
“See?” Bea bustled to the back of the café, where all our holiday decorations were kept. Within minutes, she was back, dropping one large box on an empty table. Before I could say anything else, she disappeared then reappeared with another box.
“That should do, Bea,” Aunt Astrid said as she walked over to the table. They opened the box and began rifling through the patriotic knickknacks while I stood back.
It was sweet of them to go through all this for me. I looked down at the charm Tom had given me. As I took it out of the box and fastened it around my neck, I couldn’t help but think something wasn’t right. This wasn’t how I expected things to unfold.
“Oh, I love this guy!” Bea squealed and held up a rustic-looking overweight Uncle Sam.
&n
bsp; It was cute. I smiled. But I couldn’t shake what I was feeling.
“Are you okay?” Treacle asked.
“I don’t know,” I replied. “Maybe I’m just surprised. I wasn’t expecting to meet the parent today. Especially when Niles Freudenfur is still dead and it may or may not be a murder. Am I selfish for wishing this were happening any other day than this one?”
“I don’t think so. I just hope she likes cats.”
“Deal-breaker if she doesn’t.”
I stroked my cat’s shiny black fur for a second then went to help Bea hang some metallic streamers from the ceiling. They looked like fireworks.
“So what did Jake tell you about Niles?” I asked, happy to get the attention off me.
“I almost forgot.” Bea shook her head. “As it turns out, Niles died almost two weeks ago. The police department had been keeping it under wraps as they tried to search for a next of kin. Turns out Niles had a sister.”
Aunt Astrid gasped. “Was she from around here?”
“Nope. Lives all the way in Maryland. Said that she and Niles had a falling out because of his lifestyle.”
“His preferring-younger-men lifestyle?” I asked.
“No.” Bea looked down at me from the stepstool she was balancing on. “Because of his occult lifestyle. She said he had this idea of being the next Aleister Crowley.”
“Of all the people to model your life after, he picks that con man?” I snickered.
“That explains quite a bit.” Aunt Astrid was placing the fat Uncle Sam statue next to the register. “Crowley created the persona so there was no way for anyone to argue he was doing the whole satanic thing wrong. Niles really followed that formula, except…”
“Except what?” Bea carefully came down from the stool so I could climb up.
“Except he wasn’t interested in a ‘religion.’ Niles was all about the money.”
“How do you know that?” I asked.
“From what you said Lawanda told you about his deposits at the bank.”
“That isn’t all.” Bea put her hands on her hips. “The police went through the house long before the estate-sale people did. They collected several books written by Niles, and according to Jake…”
