by Mintie Das
I feel Dede’s eyes on me. “What you thinking, mami?”
My last conversation with Naomi ended pretty badly but I have no choice—I need her if I want the Aiedeo to make me undead. “You have to help me to talk to Naomi.”
* * *
I sit in front of the Ouija board, staring at the marker. From chanting to long-drawn-out rituals, Dede has tried to teach me several ways to summon the dead throughout my life. It was her way of showing me that I could talk to Laya anytime I wanted. But it never worked when it came to my mother.
Actually, I never really believed it worked at all. However, with this newfound information about me being able to see bhoots, I can’t help but wonder if all those times I messed around with the Ouija board, there really was something supernatural going on. Like every horror film warns, I never played Ouija alone. Always with friends, mostly at slumber parties, and my only rule was that no one could bring up my mom. (It was one thing for me to try to get in touch with her on my own but I wasn’t going to turn her into a parlor game.) But everyone else seemed more than happy to connect with dead relatives so we usually ended up “talking” to someone’s deceased uncle or dead grandma. I always played along, but I figured that it was one of my friends pushing the marker along the board.
Now I’m hoping that maybe I was actually connecting with spirits back then because I’m desperate to speak to Naomi right this minute. Even if she claims to have no memory of her death, maybe I can help her get it back. I don’t know how, but a conversation between us would be a good start.
Dede eyes the Ouija board and then me; my nanny has never been a fan of what she calls the “amateur” way of talking to the dead. I remind her that Lukas said I have to complete my shama before Naomi is buried, and Dede grudgingly admits that Ouija can work in a pinch when you need to find a bhoot in a hurry.
At least, it works if that bhoot actually wants to speak with you. We try to contact Naomi for nearly an hour, but the only response we get is from a recently deceased eighty-six-year-old farmer from Good Hope who’s just passing through.
“Naomi don’t wanna see you,” Dede finally says matter-of-factly.
My bhoot is ghosting me. Great. Obviously, Naomi carried her knack for holding grudges to the afterlife. Although I still don’t even know what it was that I did to piss her off. I feel the life being sucked out of me. Figuratively.
Lukas made it sound like it would be so easy for me to just unlock my powers but it feels like trying to walk again after being paralyzed. No matter how much I need it to happen, I just can’t get anything to work. And I know I have to because there’s no way I’m gonna finish my shama without Naomi. If she knows what’s on the line for me, she’ll help. Right? A tiny lump in my throat tells me not to be so sure.
“Mami.” Dede reaches for my hand and I think she’s about to say something comforting. “Law and Order starting now.”
I look at Dede grimly but I know not to get between her and the TV. Even the reruns. Dede clicks the remote. I hear the familiar sound of the gavel knocking and plan B comes to me.
I still have no idea if the Aiedeo turned me into a bhoot to help me with my shama or to punish me. I tend to think it’s the latter, since, honestly, I don’t know how being dead is a good thing. Except that I’m invisible, which means that I have access to virtually everywhere.
I watch Mr. Big interrogate a perp and realize that my life has become a surreal version of Law & Order: Bhoot World. I kiss my nanny on top of her head. “Dede, I gotta go.”
“Where?” she asks. She doesn’t turn from the TV but she does squeeze my hand.
“The police station,” I say, and I walk straight through the living-room wall and out to the side lawn of my house.
My talk with Dede helped clear a few things up and made me feel loads better. Knowing that I am a temporary bhoot is a massive relief, to say the least. However, realizing the Aiedeo could make this my permanent gig feels like I have this bomb inside me that’s ready to explode. I’m frightened as hell to find this preta, but dying for good is a lot more terrifying.
Sixteen
I’VE NEVER BEEN inside Meadowdale police station before, not because I didn’t deserve to be here on several occasions, but because I’ve never been caught. Marty McClintock is the officer on duty and right now, he’s sitting at his desk eating a meatball sub and playing online poker.
On the way over here, I discovered that I can’t affect solid objects. For example, I could take a massive bite out of Marty’s sandwich, and although I would see it, he wouldn’t notice anything.
I’m pretty impressed with myself at the amount of info I’ve been able to gather in the hour that I’ve been here. I don’t even think I really need to be invisible to access the files; Marty has been so focused on winning back the hundred dollars he lost at the start of the hour, anyone probably could have walked in off the street and sat down at a computer.
I scribble some notes into my pocket notebook. While I subscribe to the notion that the more I know, the better, all this new info I’ve gathered about Naomi’s murder has only served to make this puzzle even more complex. This doesn’t bode well for me, since I’ve got only two days before Naomi’s funeral.
I rifle through the various papers one more time to make sure that I haven’t missed anything.
Naomi’s body was found on the playground of Grant Elementary School. Half of our high school attended Grant until sixth grade, including Naomi and me. It’s located on the other side of town from the Talbert Funeral Home, which makes me wonder what she was doing there.
The official coroner’s report would take weeks, but the police theorized that Naomi died from a single blow to the right side of her head. That’s consistent with the way that Bhoot Naomi looks. They didn’t find a weapon.
The biggest clue so far is that they’d been able to pinpoint the time of death as 7:42 p.m. on Sunday. There was actually a witness on the scene who could verify the time. His name is Carl Bixby and he’s the janitor at Grant Elementary. He was after my time, so I don’t know him. According to his statement, he was inside the school when he heard loud screaming. He thought he heard two voices but he couldn’t make out what they were saying and he couldn’t tell if they were male or female. He went outside to see what the racket was all about and that’s when he saw a figure in a hooded sweatshirt kneeling over a body (later identified as Naomi) lying on the blacktop. He yelled, “What’s going on out there?” and the person ran away. It was dark and raining so Carl didn’t get a good look at the figure and couldn’t say for certain if it was a male or a female.
Knowing when Naomi was killed is major. My belly quivers. Naomi had called me a few times on Sunday. I check my cell phone and see that the third phone call she made to me was at 6:25 p.m. I wonder if I was one of the last people she tried to get in touch with before she was killed and a feeling of guilt sucker-punches me. Why didn’t I just answer? If I had, could I have prevented her murder in some way? Even if Lukas claimed that Naomi’s death was already predetermined, I wonder if my neglect helped guarantee her tragic fate. If I get to go back to my life, I vow never to ignore anyone like I did Naomi.
There was also tearing and bruising around Naomi’s inner thighs and genitals. Police don’t believe she was sexually assaulted at the time of the murder because a preliminary examination indicates that the tearing and bruising were at least several days old.
I steady myself against the desk. Thinking about those final moments in Naomi’s life stirs up a whirl of conflicting emotions. I’m angry, frustrated, and profoundly sad.
What was Naomi doing out at the Grant Elementary School playground on Sunday evening after dark? Did she know her killer or was he a random stranger? I can’t help but think the only reason she would be there was if she was meeting someone. But who, and why there?
I mull all of this over and try to think like a detective—a TV detective. I check the weather report and verify that there was a heavy drizzle that eveni
ng, like Carl claimed. This means that the two people would have had to be shouting pretty loud for Carl to hear them inside the school. The school is in the middle of town and it’s surrounded by family homes. How is it that no one else heard screaming? Unless, of course, Carl is lying and it was just him and Naomi. A shiver runs down my spine. I make a note to go check out Grant Elementary and Bixby.
I keep on reading. An interesting detail is that Naomi’s purse and wallet were found with her but not her phone. What teenage girl goes anywhere without her cell? Did she lose it in the struggle? It hadn’t turned up when the police searched the area. Did the killer take Naomi’s phone with him, and if so, why?
I hear loud talking and whip around to see the police station doors swing open and Sheriff Hopper and two people that I recognize from the school assembly the other day walk in. For a second I duck, then I remember that I’m a bhoot.
I follow all three of them down the hallway. My father and Sheriff Hopper are friendly, in that Dad puts up with him because he’s local law enforcement and Hopper thinks Naresh can help him get one of those crime-commentator gigs for the national news networks. Naresh might be able to do that for someone but I doubt he’d waste his contacts on helping out Sheriff Wayne Hopper.
I’ve probably exchanged less than twenty words with Wayne in all the time I’ve known him. Four years ago, when I wore my jet-black hair super-straight and almost to my waist, he commented that I made a “pretty Pocahontas.”
Hopper is a total ignorant blowhard with a serious Dirty Harry complex. He’s been the sheriff here for decades and it doesn’t seem like he’s going anywhere, especially because he’s known to use his influence to help out his “favorites,” most of whom are local star athletes.
I turn from Hopper to the two detectives on the other side of the desk. At least I assume they’re detectives because they’re dressed like cops on any generic basic-cable crime procedural. I grab the guy’s badge and it says Jason Sanborn, FBI, Chicago. The woman’s identification tells me she’s Cameron Alvarez, FBI, Chicago. Alvarez was the detective that had wanted to ask me questions, the one I was supposed to call back.
Hopper tries to engage in some friendly chitchat but Alvarez clearly doesn’t do small talk.
“We’re still trying to find out who the administrators behind Heffers and Hos are.” Alvarez turns to her partner. “Do you want to update Sheriff Hopper?”
“Right.” Sanborn nods. “These kind of anonymous gossip sites have become prevalent throughout the Midwest. They seem to target small to midsize high schools. They are incredibly difficult to take down and have posed many problems for school officials and law enforcement. When they are taken down, similar sites pop up within hours.”
“Sounds like a real problem,” Hopper says.
Sanborn continues. “The site’s administrators remain anonymous, although we’ve got our best guys working on it, so we hope to find out something soon. The posts are made by local high-school kids who don’t take any measures to hide their identity, but we haven’t yet been able to determine who posted the video of Naomi Talbert.”
“We think it might have been posted by the person who filmed it,” Alvarez adds. “Judging by the angle of the camera, it might be that the subjects weren’t aware that they were being taped. Which would mean that the person filming was the only one to know that a tape existed.”
Sanborn pulls a photo out of the folder that Alvarez is holding. “Our techs are still analyzing the video but we were able to enhance this image of a tattoo found on the inner thigh of one of the unidentified males. Does it look familiar to you?”
I lean across the desk until I’m so close that my hair is brushing against Hopper’s four o’clock shadow. I recognize the tattoo immediately because when I saw it the first time, I thought it was the stupidest thing ever. It’s of our MHS mascot pioneer with a baseball thumping like a heartbeat in his chest. Everyone on the entire varsity baseball team got one when they won State last year.
Hopper squints, rubs his chin. “I think I’ve seen somethin’ like that on a couple of the jocks.”
Why is the sheriff being so cagey? I could open up a yearbook right now and point to every single one of the guys who were inked with that ridiculous image.
“To be accurate, all twelve of the varsity baseball players sport this tattoo.” Sanborn crosses his beefy arms. “Despite the fact that most of them are underage.”
Hopper chuckles. “Sounds like a bad case of male bondin’ to me.”
“Sounds like twelve possible suspects to me,” Alvarez counters.
I gulp.
“Suspects?” Hopper leans against his rolling chair. “For showin’ up in some girl’s sex tape?”
“An alleged sex tape is posted online on Saturday.” Alvarez speaks carefully, like she’s holding something back. “The female on that video is found dead on Sunday. You admitted that your team hasn’t come up with any new leads. Certainly, identifying the two males in that video is a good place to start.”
I snatch the folder in her hand but it doesn’t contain anything but the photo. I study it to see if there are any additional clues that I can pick up, but it’s just a close-up of a guy’s inner thigh.
“We suggest you call in the varsity baseball team. We’ll sit in on the questioning,” Sanborn says. His tone is too know-it-all and you can see Hopper almost jerk his entire body forward.
“Uh-huh,” Hopper says. He shoots both Alvarez and Sanborn a look saying there’s no way that’s happening. “This ain’t the city. This is a small town and everyone’s already pointin’ fingers on who done what to Naomi Talbert. Anyone I even bring in on questionin’ is gonna have to deal with a lot of whisperin’ behind his back. So you can bet that I’m not gonna bring the entire baseball team in just ’cause some guy had sex with a pretty gal and there happened to be a camera on.”
“It’s not a request, Sheriff,” Alvarez responds. She’s clenching her fists so tightly that her knuckles are white.
“Well, as far as I’m concerned, Detective Al-va-rez,” Hopper says, scowling, “you’re my guest on this investigation.”
Alvarez squares her shoulders and looks Hopper in the eye. “Oh, that’s right. We haven’t apprised you of all of the newest developments from our end. As of this morning, we’ve been given full mandate to take over this investigation if we see any signs of neglect or incompetence. I would say not bringing in the baseball players would be evidence of both.”
You can practically see the steam blowing out of Hopper’s ears. He doesn’t say anything to Alvarez or Sanborn. Instead, he picks up the outdated phone on his desk and presses a button. “Marty, get the MHS varsity baseball team in here tomorrow.”
The two detectives nod at Hopper smugly before taking off. I sit there on the sheriff’s desk half stunned. Holy Batman! I try to process everything that I’ve just heard. I had a hunch that the sex tape might have something to do with the murder but I didn’t think anyone from school was in it. Truthfully, I hadn’t watched it since the first day, but I just assumed the guys were from the local college. Naomi always hung out there, and threesomes seemed on an advanced level beyond high school. But what did I know? Hopper is right. The town’s gossip mill will be on fire once people find out every member of the entire varsity baseball team is being questioned. I tap my claws against Hopper’s desk. I’m on a literal deadline and can’t wait until tomorrow. I need to find out some answers now and I know just where to get them.
Seventeen
I CROSS SETH RUMLEY’S NAME off my list. After going to the principal’s office and getting a copy of our yearbook, I have spent practically the entire afternoon searching through the phones, backpacks, and lockers of all the varsity baseball players. Out of the twelve guys that had the tattoos, only two had graduated, so most of last year’s team is still at MHS.
I slip Seth’s phone back into his pocket and sit down at the empty desk next to him. He’s the last guy on my list. There’s a chance that m
aybe one of the baseball players that’s now in college could be one of the guys in the video but I doubt it. I don’t know what I’m looking for exactly—a note saying I killed Naomi, maybe—but so far, my snooping has turned up diddly-squat. Except some juicy gossip if it’s really news that Marc McMillan and Tara Sullivan had sex on home base and then he posted photos of her newly enhanced size DD chest on the team’s secret message group. Prick.
The bell rings and I walk out into the hallway with everyone else. Standing here as my classmates whiz by is weird. I usually try so hard to blend in, and now I’m actually invisible. In some ways, it’s not that different. I see everyone talking, laughing, joking, flirting, whispering, and doing all the other usual high-school stuff and I feel as much of an outsider as I always do. It’s just that in my current state, I don’t even have to try to fit in. Nor do I need to kid myself that it’s actually possible.
I see Naomi’s boyfriend, Trent, walk by. Naomi and Trent were Meadowdale’s very own royalty. The absurdly photogenic pair represented the very best of the white-hetero-high-school-sweethearts mythology that small towns like this feed on.
He has big, dark circles under his sky-blue eyes and his usually suntanned skin is pale. Once I started striking out with the baseball team, I widened my search to include a few more guys, and one of them is Trent.
After all, Trent had a better motive than anyone, since he probably went ballistic when he saw that sex video. Maybe he’s the other guy in it, but so far, there’s no news to suggest that, which means he must have been super-pissed at Naomi for cheating on him. Now that I think of it, didn’t Collette mention seeing them fighting after Friday’s football game? I didn’t find anything interesting when I went through Trent’s things but that doesn’t make him innocent.
