Second-Hand Murder: Book 1 in The Bandit Hills Series

by Blair Merrin

  As I head back in, I feel a soft pressure against my legs. I look down, expecting to see Xerxes, but there’s nothing there. In fact, Xerxes is perched atop the glass counter (that I just cleaned) beside the cash register. I roll my eyes. That happens sometimes—I, or someone else in the store, will feel what is most certainly a cat brushing against them, and then they’ll look down and… no Xerxes. But he’ll be nearby. And staring. (Say it with me now: “That’s Bandit Hills for ya.”)

  Xerxes is a gorgeous Persian—I know, my sense of irony is hilarious—that just kind of showed up one day and never left… probably because Mom started feeding him. He’s almost entirely white except for some brown on his face and ears, and he has these big steely blue eyes. He’s also the largest house cat I’ve ever seen. He weighs in at almost twenty pounds. I’m pretty sure his father was a bobcat.

  I scowl at him, and he stares back at me unblinking. The tip of his tail flicks once, as if to say, “Wasn’t me.”

  I point at him. “Keep it up, buddy. I’ll have you know I have powerful friends in the Chinese food industry—EEP!”

  About a millisecond before I let out a girlish squeal, there’s a crash, and I nearly jump out of my skin. I spin in the direction of the noise to see that one of our storefront mannequins, sporting a wool sweater in anticipation of the changing weather, toppled right over onto his/her featureless face.

  “Sheesh,” I tell the mannequin. “You scared me.”

  I set it upright and examine the four-legged stand on which the lower-appendage-challenged mannequin stands. It’s not wobbly or broken. I have no idea how it fell over. I get a little chill, because whether that’s Bandit Hills for ya or not, I’m alone and it’s dark out and that’s a perfectly natural biological response. Not like I’m scared or anything. No, sir. That is, until Xerxes lets out an unholy screech that I’ve never heard him emit before and leaps about four feet straight in the air, while facing the rear of the store. He lands deftly on the floor and takes off, scooting impossibly beneath a low-slung secondhand sofa.

  “Okay,” I say loud. “That pie is starting to sound really good.”

  I reach behind the counter for the keys when the old rotary phone rings, effectively scaring the bejesus out of me again. I’m so startled that I answer with a curt, “Yeah, what?”

  “Hey, it’s Dash. You okay?”

  “I’m fine. Sorry. What’s up?”

  “Um… yeah.” He sounds hesitant. “Listen, I just talked to Phil. He made a couple calls for us. And… well, the newspaper wasn’t trying to hide anything. Stephanie Marshall’s cause of death is very much unknown. It seems liked she just… stopped living.”

  “People don’t just—” I’m about to tell him that people don’t just “stop living,” but my gaze has drifted down to the glass counter, where we keep watches and jewelry and other high ticket items. Staring up at me is that creepy little voodoo doll… from inside the case. Inside the locked case.

  “Hey, Dash,” I say, trying to keep my voice steady. “I’m going for some pie. Do you want to get some pie?”

  Chapter 4

  I lock up quickly and get into my SUV, a birthday present I gave myself a couple years ago because the store was doing particularly well. As I pilot across town, there’s not a soul in sight. See, there are reasons I close my store at eight p.m., just like there are reasons we don’t wander around after dark. Let’s just say that Bandit Hills is weird enough in the daytime. In fact, if you want an easy way to discern residents from tourists, just look out your window at night. See those people? Yup, tourists.

  As I pull into Tank’s parking lot, I’m immediately grateful for the sight of familiar faces through the bright windows. The diner has been a Bandit Hills staple for decades, though the name and ownership has changed several times. It simultaneously acts as the local watering hole, gossip fountain, water cooler, and tourist attraction. In fact, Tank is such an enterprising fellow that he put in a small gift shop just last year, selling Bandit Hills bumper stickers, keychains, and trinkets. The place is hopping, as it usually is on any given night. I spot Mom and Marla seated on stools at the counter and luckily there’s an empty one right next to them.

  “Oh, hi honey! You decided to come after all,” Mom says brightly.

  “Uh, yeah,” I say. “Pie sounded good. Hi Marla.”

  Marla leans forward and nods once to me, excitement dancing in her eyes, and in that moment I already know that Mom told her about the doll. Don’t get me wrong; I like Marla. It’s just that she’s… well…if I said she was eccentric, that wouldn’t quite do it justice. If I said she was eccentric, even in a place like Bandit Hills, then that might start to paint a picture. Marla June is a fortune-teller—self-proclaimed—and she makes certain that she looks the part at all times. She wears satin scarves tied over her long graying hair, big hoop earrings, way too much eye makeup, and long, flowing colorful dresses. The short version is, she’s not so much the stereotypical gypsy psychic as she is a caricature of one. I can tell Marla is just aching to talk to me, but before she can get a word out April swoops in and saves the moment.

  “Hiya, Cassie,” she says. “What can I getcha?”

  “Hi April. Maybe just a Diet Coke?”

  “Comin’ right up.” April winks. As she’s pouring the soda, she asks me, “How’s the shop doin’?”

  April is Marla’s daughter (that’s right; before she married Tank she was April June. Want to take a guess at her middle name?), and she knew perfectly well that her mother was about to start in on me. April and I have been friends since they moved here from Nashville when we were both ten. She’s a total sweetheart—so much so that prolonged exposure might give you diabetes. Everything about her is freakin’ adorable, from her southern lilt to her fifties-style updo to the little hearts she dots her I’s with. I mean, the woman makes an apron look more stylish than a couture evening gown. And you know, for a moment, sitting there in a busy diner with my mom and my friend, hearing Tank’s boisterous voice above the din as he regales a road-tripping family in the corner with a famous Bandit Hills ghost story (“I feed their bellies and their curiosity,” he likes to say), I actually relax a bit. This is home. There’s nothing to be weirded out about—stranger things have happened.

  But then I say, “The shop is great,” conveniently leaving out the part where the creepy little voodoo doll locked itself in my case somehow.

  “Ma,” I whisper, leaning toward her, “did you move the doll?”

  She looks at me blankly and slowly shakes her head. “No… Last time I saw it, it was sitting in the back office.”

  “Yeah,” I sigh. “That’s what I thought.”

  “So, Cassie,” Marla cuts in loudly, “Julia tells me that you found yourself a voodoo doll today.” Marla says “voodoo doll” the same way I might say “hot fudge sundae” – with great relish.

  “Thanks Mom,” I mutter, and then louder, “Why yes, Marla, we did… if you can call a homemade trinket a ‘voodoo doll.’ Nothing exciting about it.”

  “Is that right?” Marla says. “What about the photograph of the deceased woman?”

  I kick Mom under the counter.

  “You know,” Marla continues, “you should really let me take a look, feel out its energy. I can tell you if it’s inhabited by a dark spirit or not.”

  “Mm-hmm,” is all I say, because there’s no polite way to tell someone that you know that their “psychic reading” room is mechanically rigged so that the table rattles, and the lights are on a timer to mysteriously shut off at the right moment.

  “Mom,” April cuts in, “I’m sure Cassie has had a long day. Why don’t we let her relax a while, huh?” Daughter chiding mother—oh, how the tables turn!

  I mouth “thank you” to April as I feel a hand on my shoulder. It’s Dash, standing behind me, glancing around awkwardly at the lack of available stools.

  “Oh, hey Dash. Thanks for meeting me—”

  “Hello Dashiell!” Mom trills rather loud
ly. “Cassandra, you didn’t tell me you were meeting Dash here!” You ever see that predatory gleam in a lion’s eye as it’s stalking its prey? It turns out that mothers get that same look when their daughters reach my age and are still single.

  “Oh my God, Mom, don’t be weird,” I mutter. “Come on, Dash.”

  I pull him by the arm to a small table nearby, recently vacated and not yet cleared. He sits and props his elbows up. I can tell he hadn’t planned on going out tonight; his sandy hair looks hastily combed and a days’ worth of stubble rests on his chin. The knot of his tie is slack and his shirt is partially untucked. It’s actually a good look for him, sort of a disheveled-chic, but I don’t need to ask to know that it’s not intentional.

  “So what’d you want to talk about?” he asks.

  “Okay…” I tell him what went down, but as I start to explain, I realize how ridiculous I sound. A mannequin fell over. My cat freaked out. But then I get to the part about the doll being in the case, and he bites his lip.

  “Cassie,” he says. “That’s really cool.”

  “No, you nerd, it’s not cool,” I reply.

  “What I mean is, this is like a real case. Like I said, this Stephanie Marshall died of unknown causes—”

  “Which doesn’t make sense, because there’s always a cause,” I finish.

  “Right.” He pauses and purses his lips. “You want me to dig into it further?”

  “Not really,” I answer.

  “Then why’d you call me down here?”

  “I guess…” I pause for a long moment. “I guess I just wanted someone to talk to.” Someone that wasn’t Mom, Marla, or my cat, I think. “Look, I’m sorry that most of your work is boring stuff and that being a private investigator isn’t all subterfuge and intrigue, but I’m not going to make a mountain out of whatever this is, this time.”

  Then I see the hurt expression on his face and I quickly add, “I’m sorry, Dash. I’m just kind of stressed out lately.”

  He shrugs. “It’s okay. I mean, teleporting voodoo doll… who wouldn’t be? That’s Bandit Hills f—”

  I hold up a hand. “Don’t. Don’t say it. I swear I will stab you with a dirty fork.”

  He grins. “…for ya. Ouch!”

  Chapter 5

  The problem with being awoken in the middle of the night by a loud noise is that you don’t actually know what the noise was, because you weren’t awake for it—which, in my book, is worse than just hearing a loud noise in the middle of the night, because at least then you might be able to determine what it was. If that makes sense.

  My apartment is above Miss Miscellanea. It’s a nice place, two bedrooms, one and a half baths, that came with the building. It’s accessible by an outside alley-facing door near the rear of the building—which means that thankfully, I didn’t have to go back into the store when I got home from Tank’s. I had no interest in seeing if the doll was still in the case or not until morning, but you know what they say about best-laid plans.

  I jolt awake and sit upright. There was definitely a noise, and now, nothing but silence. Maybe I dreamed it. I slowly lower my head back down and snake an arm beneath the pillow for support and my fingers brush against something. I pull the photo of Stephanie Marshall out from under my pillow.

  I try to click on the bedside lamp and all I get is a split-second flash as the bulb burns out. I swing my legs out from beneath the blanket to go turn on the overhead light— and I freeze. In the dim moonlight streaming through the window, I can clearly see the voodoo doll, standing atop my dresser on the other side of the room. Well, not actually standing, but propped up against a jewelry box, facing me.

  “Okay,” I say aloud. “That’s mildly alarming.”

  There are definitely a variety of appropriate responses to this situation, which I imagine range from examining the doll to running screaming from the house to saying “screw it” and just burning the whole place to the ground, just to be safe, but I’m from Bandit Hills, born and raised, the biggest advantage of which, is that when I’m pretty sure I’m being haunted, I can skip the whole being-terrified-and-ordering-an-exorcism-to-go stage and am able get right down to brass tacks with whomever, or whatever is trying to get my attention.

  “Alright,” I say to no one in particular. “I’m getting the message here. You want me to see the doll, and the photo. Is that right?”

  For what feels like a long time, silence reigns, so much so that my ears start to ring. Which is why I nearly jump out of my skin when my cell phone tumbles from the nightstand and strikes the hardwood floor.

  “Hey, careful!” I scold the empty room. “Don’t break it.” I pick the phone up and examine it. No harm done.

  Dash answers on the fourth ring, just before his voicemail would pick up.

  “Cassie, what’s wrong?” He sounds groggy. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine. Well, physically.”

  “What does that even mean?”

  “The voodoo doll is staring at me.”

  “What?”

  “I mean, not literally. It’s on top of my dresser, facing my bed. It, uh, definitely wasn’t there before.”

  “Wow,” he says quietly, but I can still hear the excitement in his voice. “Good or bad?”

  The fact that I know exactly what he means with such a vague question concerns me a little. “Not sure yet, but it hasn’t tried to hurt me or anything.”

  I sit on the edge of my bed and look around, as if I might actually see something in the dark room with me.

  “Do you think it could be…?”

  I finish his thought for him. “Stephanie?”

  Before I can even finish speaking the name aloud, I feel my whole body tilt slightly to one side on the soft bed. There’s no depression on the bedspread, but it feels distinctly like someone just sat beside me.

  “I think it’s a safe bet,” I say to Dash.

  “So can I—?”

  “Yes, Dash. I would like to hire you to investigate the death of Stephanie Marshall.”

  There’s a pause, which I imagine is Dash doing some nerdy happy dance in his pajamas.

  “I’m on it,” he says a moment later. “And pro bono. I insist.”

  “In that case, I insist we do it together,” I tell him.

  After I hang up, I take the photo and the voodoo doll and I say out loud, “Listen, I’m just going to put these things in the drawer here for safekeeping. Don’t be offended.” When nothing happens, I assume it’s okay, so I go back to bed. But no matter how used to something you might be, it’s still not entirely comfortable to know that unless you’re a raving lunatic, there’s most likely a ghost somewhere nearby, presumably in your bedroom, and probably watching you.

  I didn’t really sleep that night.

  Chapter 6

  “Alright, so what’s the plan?”

  I rub my hands together in anticipation in the passenger seat of Dash’s vintage ’76 El Dorado. He spent about three years restoring it—and by restoring, I mean paying someone else to do it. As far as I’m aware, Dash’s automobile knowledge is only slightly less limited than my own, which boils down to changing tires and checking the oil.

  “I was thinking we’d head back to my office and do some online research first,” he tells me. “Check into Stephanie’s social media accounts, anything newsworthy that mentions her name. If nothing comes up, we can head to the library; they have digitized copies of all the local papers, and yearbooks from all the local schools. We find out who her friends were, siblings, parents, and then go from there… Why are you looking at me like that?”

  His question is directed at what I hope looks inquisitive, but most likely comes off as a scowl.

  “Online research? The library? That’s the best you got?”

  He takes his eyes off the road for a moment to furrow his brow at me. “What is it that you think I do exactly?”

  I shake my head. I’m well aware that Dash’s occupation isn’t exactly Indiana Jones-esque
adventure, but I thought it’d be something at least a little more interesting than scouring the internet. The midnight blue El Dorado rolls to a stop at a red light.

  “Alright, let’s start at the beginning,” I say. “Stephanie Marshall died of unknown causes.”

  “Right. Phil said there were no injuries, internal or external; no ruptures, aneurysm, or embolism; no virus, no bacteria. Like someone just turned off the lights.”

  “And who did Phil get his information from?”