The Mysteries of Bell & Whitehouse: Books 1-3 (The Mysteries of Bell & Whitehouse Box Sets)

by Nic Saint

  “Money, of course,” sighed the mayor. “A hundred thousand dollars, unmarked bills, small denominations, to be delivered tomorrow night in Reed Park. I’m to go alone, leave the bag with money behind the statue of Mayor Aldrich, and Moe will be returned to us.” He shook his head, tears streaming down his chubby cheeks. “This is simply too terrible for words.”

  “Did you tell Dad?” asked Alice.

  The mayor shook his head. “The kidnappers were very clear. No police or Moe would die a slow and gruesome death.”

  “Poor Moe,” said Alice, and it was clear that she meant it.

  Felicity, though an animal lover herself, was less swayed by this love for Moe than the others. She’d always found parrots annoying creatures, what with their habit of repeating curse words and not minding where they pooped.

  “A hundred thousand dollars,” repeated Rick, who clearly felt this was a scoop worth pursuing. “Any idea who these people are?”

  “None,” breathed the mayor. “Though obviously they must know their way around Town Hall. They managed to sneak in and out of my office undetected, and take Moe away from me.”

  “Maybe it’s someone who works for you,” suggested Alice. “Someone who knows how much you cherish Moe.”

  “Everybody knows,” he said miserably. “All of Happy Bays knows how much Eve and I love our little pumpkin.”

  As if on cue, the mayor’s wife suddenly appeared in the door. She was looking as downcast as her husband, a handkerchief pressed to her nose, her eyes red-rimmed and obviously under extreme duress.

  She was a rail-thin woman of regal appearance, her long gray hair tied in a bun at the nape of her neck, her face lined but still beautiful.

  “We know what happened, Eve,” said Alice, “but we promise not to tell a soul,” she quickly added when the mayor’s wife’s face fell.

  “Oh, this is all so terrible,” she said. “Have you heard from Mabel?”

  The mayor shook his head. “Nothing.” He turned to his wife. “You should never have accused the poor woman, honey. You know she’s a loyal friend.”

  “I freaked out. She’s the one with access to your office after all.”

  Felicity couldn’t quite follow. “What’s all this about Mabel?”

  The mayor looked up. “She quit. Can you imagine? In this, our darkest hour, my secretary quit.”

  “It’s all my fault,” Eve said. “I accused her of being one of the kidnappers.”

  “What?!” cried Alice and Felicity simultaneously.

  No wonder Mabel had broken down. “She would never do such a thing,” Alice assured her.

  “I know,” sighed the mayor’s wife. “And then she goes and quits on us too.”

  “She’ll be back,” assured the mayor. “She’s the heart and soul of Town Hall. The place just isn’t the same without her.”

  “I wouldn’t be too sure about that,” said Alice. “Mabel Stokely has a stubborn streak. I wouldn’t be surprised if she decides to stick to her decision.”

  The mayor broke down again. “This is all too terrible. First Moe, and now Mabel. This is the worst crisis this office has faced since I became mayor of Happy Bays.”

  “We’ll get them back for you, Ted,” suddenly spoke Felicity. “We’ll get them both back.”

  “Wait, what?!” he cried, then held out a tentative hand. “No, Fee. Don’t you go and do something rash now, you hear? The kidnappers said not to tell a soul.”

  “And we won’t. But that won’t stop us from poking around.”

  “It sure won’t,” agreed Alice. “And trust us, Eve, Ted. We’ll be extremely discreet about the whole thing. Our lips are sealed, right, Fee?”

  “Absolutely.”

  The mayor stared at the two women, visibly aghast, then dropped his head on his blotter. “This is the end! Moe is dead meat.”

  This lack of confidence hurt Felicity’s feelings, but not so much that it deterred her from adding, “Don’t worry, Ted. We’ll have Moe and Mabel back before sunup, or my name isn’t Felicity Bell.”

  “And mine isn’t Alice Whitehouse,” added Alice with raised chin.

  “And mine…” Rick started to say, but was interrupted by another wail from the mayor.

  The man directed a feverish look at his wife, then croaked, “Please kill me now.”

  Chapter 8

  “So, what do you think?”

  They were back in the van, and Rick had opened his notebook, a frown creasing his brow. “I think that Moe must be one special parrot to earn himself so much affection from his owner.”

  “He is a special parrot,” stated Alice. “He talks, remember, Fee?”

  Rick shrugged. “All parrots talk. That’s just what they do.”

  “No, but Moe really talks. Like a human. It’s uncanny.”

  “Remember that time we were granted an audience with the mayor?” Felicity asked. “And Moe called me a birdbrain?”

  “Yeah, pretty ironic.”

  Rick held up his hand. “Wait. You were granted an audience?”

  Felicity hesitated. “Well, we got a commendation.”

  “For removing the most poop from Happy Bays’s sidewalks than any other team. We were top poop scoopers two years in a row, weren’t we, Fee?”

  “We were,” acknowledged Felicity, remembering distinctly how she’d told Alice never to share this little tidbit with her boyfriend.

  Rick’s eyebrows shot up. “Top poop scooper of the year, huh? Wow, that’s…quite an achievement.”

  “Two years in a row,” continued Alice blithely. “You see, the streets used to be literally littered with poop, so the mayor started the poop scooper program and asked all citizens to chip in. We all formed teams and spread out to rid the town of poop. I still have my medals.”

  Rick’s eyes were smiling when he turned to Felicity. “And you, Fee? Do you still have your top poop scooper medals?”

  She gave him a malevolent glare. “I do. Dog poop is a serious issue in this town, Rick, didn’t you know?”

  “Oh, I do know,” he said without a trace of humor. “About as great a disaster as has ever befallen mankind. In fact I think I see a big turd right there. He pointed to a massive pile in the gutter, not ten feet from the van. It glistened in the light from the streetlamp. Alice squinted at the turd, and nodded, grim-faced. “Mrs. Evergreen’s bulldog. If I’ve told her once I’ve told her a million times. And still she persists.”

  Like a woman on a mission, she stepped from the vehicle, and stalked over to inspect the piece of excrement. Rick watched her descend upon the pile of dog crap with a look of surprise on his face.

  “Now you started something,” Felicity muttered. “You do know she’s the head of the Neighborhood Watch Committee, right? And that one of their holy tasks is clearing the streets of Happy Bays of all turds, great or small?”

  “I…guess I didn’t realize just how seriously she took this task.”

  They watched as Alice, a determined look on her face, rang the bell of a house a few doors down from the turd, and when a woman appeared started gesticulating wildly, talking fast and furiously.

  The woman appeared unperturbed.

  “This has been going on for so long,” commented Felicity. “I think Mrs. Evergreen does it on purpose, simply to spite the committee.”

  “Small-town life,” murmured Rick, “never ceases to amaze me.”

  “It will,” said Felicity. “Anyway, could we return to the main topic?”

  With some effort, Rick drew his eyes away from the sight of Alice scolding the large woman. “Right. You said Moe the Parrot talks?”

  “He does. And not like any ordinary parrot either. It’s almost as if he’s got a mind of his own. Which is probably why the mayor and his wife like him so much.” And why she disliked him so much, she thought. Both times she and Alice had been received in the mayor’s office, the bird had called her a birdbrain, and Alice a doofus. The mayor had apologized profusely, but it was obvious he seemed to d
erive some sort of perverse pleasure from the bird’s predilection for childish insults.

  Whoever had kidnapped Moe had bitten off more than they could chew. That bird wouldn’t take this lying down, and he’d probably filled his abductors’ ears with plenty of vituperation by now.

  “We really need to talk to Mabel,” she said. “She was acting very strangely, and not just because of Moe either.”

  She told Rick what had happened that afternoon, and he agreed that trouble at the nuclear plant was very serious business indeed. “A crack? Did she really say that there was a crack in the nuclear plant?”

  “She did. I don’t think she meant to, though. She was so upset it slipped out.”

  “I think you’re right. That parrot is the least of our worries if the nuclear plant is crumbling to dust. If that thing blows, the whole island is going to be a nuclear wasteland. And you and I and everyone here in Happy Bays are going to die a pretty gruesome death.”

  She shuffled uncomfortably in her seat. “We better go on over there now. Though I doubt Mabel will talk. She seems to think Mark’s involved somehow.”

  “Her husband Mark? He can’t be. How old is that plant? Thirty years? It’s simply decay, honey, and lack of maintenance. Those things are supposed to be fully monitored at all times, but what with cutbacks and all…” His voice trailed off. “What’s she doing now?”

  Felicity frowned as she watched Alice scoop up the turd with her hand, and hurl it at Mrs. Evergreen. The woman, visibly dismayed at being pelted with her own dog’s poop, screeched loudly as the sticky muck connected with her person. Alice, always an ace at pitching, had hit her smack dab in the center of her chest, and Mrs. Evergreen now stood wailing like a fire engine.

  As she watched Alice race back to the van, she started up the trusty old beast. “I think we better get out of here before this gets out of hand.”

  “I think it’s too late for that,” said Rick. He gestured to the woman, who was giving chase, and throwing the dog poop in Alice’s direction.

  Flecks of the stuff hit the van’s window, and Felicity cursed under her breath. She’d just cleaned the van that weekend. “Oh, Alice…”

  “Go go go!” Alice yelled as she yanked open the sliding door and hurled herself inside, like Bruce Willis on one of his Die Hard missions.

  Just before she managed to slam the door shut, a big chunk of poo hit her in the back of the head.

  “Did you see that?!” she cried enthusiastically as the van peeled away from the curb. “I got her good this time, didn’t I? That’ll teach her!”

  When the stench reached Felicity’s nostrils, she felt her stomach go weak. What was it today? First that awful muffin, and now this?

  “Why don’t we make a detour to the house?” she suggested. Whatever was going on with Moe and the power plant could wait. First they needed to hose down Alice.

  Chapter 9

  Felicity steered the bakery van through the night, the stench of Alice’s excremental episode quickly giving way to more disconcerting thoughts about recent events. The fact that the mayor’s parrot had been kidnapped was of no real concern to her. Though she was a great lover of animals, she and Moe had never really seen eye to beady eye, and if someone had found a way of monetizing the mayor’s fondness for the creature, so be it. What worried her more was the strange behavior of Mabel Stokely and the fact that the power plant might be flawed, even cracked.

  She’d never been a witness to the kind of devastation the inhabitants of Chernobyl and Fukushima had been subjected to, but she could well imagine how this would affect Happy Bays. If that nuclear plant collapsed, or exploded, or melted, or whatever it was that nuclear plants did, whatever was going on with Moe was small potatoes in comparison.

  They’d finally reached Stanwyck Street 41, home to herself, Alice, and their respective beaus Rick and Reece, and she parked the van behind her aunt Bettina’s Dodge. “I hope Mark wants to talk to us.”

  “Mark. Isn’t he the one who’s always on television?” asked Rick.

  “Yep. That’s him.”

  “He has one of those comforting faces,” remarked Alice. “You know the kind. Where you see the man’s face and you go: Oh, everything’s gonna be all right.”

  “That’s why they pick guys like him,” said Rick. “He probably doesn’t know the first thing about nuclear energy—just reads it off his teleprompter.”

  Felicity shook her head. “Not Mark Stokely. He really knows his stuff. He’s an engineer. Graduated top of his class.”

  “Engineer, huh? That’s weird. Usually these people are glorified photo models.” Since Rick was holding his nose between thumb and forefinger, his speech was slightly nasal.

  They hopped from the van, and Felicity decided to leave the doors open so the stench of Alice’s extra luggage could disperse. No amount of Little Trees would eradicate that particular reek. And as Alice ran into the house for a quick shower, she leaned against the hood of the van, arms akimbo, and stared at Rick thoughtfully. “Alice told me she’s getting fed up with Reece’s behavior. What do you think about our roommate?”

  “Well…” Rick scuffed his toe on the asphalt. He was clearly weighing his words. “He’s a really nice guy, but I do get the impression that it’s been a long time since he’s lived with anyone. If in fact he ever did.”

  “He did,” she confirmed. “When he first flew out to LA to audition, he shacked up with several other hopefuls for a while. Though I think he’s the only one who actually made it big from that troupe.”

  “He’s been bugging me somewhat,” Rick finally confessed.

  She grinned. “Spit it out, honey.”

  He sighed, and stretched his arms over his head. “You want the truth? I don’t mind that he strews his dirty socks around for us to find, or that he never clears the table, or washes the dishes. I mean, we all know that men are basically slobs, so that’s a given. But what I do mind is that he borrows my AC/DC CDs and my David Lynch DVDs and refuses to return them. And when I find them wedged behind the sofa cushions, they’re full of scratches.

  “And I also mind that he borrows my shirts and just stuffs them under the mattress. Last week I found my Evil Dead shirt, smeared with strawberry jam, at the bottom of the laundry hamper.” He shrugged. “Those are just a few of Reece’s favorite faults.”

  Felicity, who’d been listening patiently, had felt her eyebrows rise precipitously throughout this long and detailed harangue. She felt for her man, for she knew just how fond Rick was of his AC/DC CDs, his David Lynch DVDs, and his Evil Dead shirts. Whereas every other human being had long since exchanged his CD collection for Spotify or Apple Music and his DVDs for Netflix or Amazon Prime, Rick was a traditionalist.

  “I think we should stage an intervention,” she finally said, “before this gets out of hand. Alice basically told me the same story. How she always has to clean up after the guy, and how he seems to expect to be waited upon, as if we’re his servants or something.”

  “He is a movie star,” said Rick, spreading his arms. “What did you expect?”

  “I expected him to be more like you and me.”

  “Well, that’s the difference between us mere mortals and a godlike creature like Reece Hudson. He probably feels that we’re put on this planet to serve him.”

  “Next time he’s home we will talk.”

  “Where is he, by the way?”

  “LA. Flew out this morning. His team is prepping a new project that should put him right back on top of the Hollywood food chain.”

  Reece had walked away from a huge movie franchise, wanting to star in smaller pictures from now on, even shoot a movie in Happy Bays. But when push came to shove, and his agent had pointed out how much money he would be losing by pulling out of Crunch Time 4, he’d had an abrupt change of heart, and had decided he was too young to put his career on hold. So Crunch Time 4 was a go again.

  “I have the distinct impression we won’t be seeing much more of him, actually. Once his n
ext movie starts filming he’ll be gone for weeks, and then there’re premieres, and a press tour, and by that time I’m pretty sure he’ll have forgotten all about us.”

  “Poor Alice,” said Rick with a shake of the head. “She’s really head over heels in love with the guy.”

  “What guy?” asked Alice, hopping from the house, looking as fresh-faced as ever, and smelling like a rose.

  “We were talking about our roommate,” explained Rick. “And listing a number of complaints that need addressing.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Join the line.”

  “Ah, well, that’s a movie star for you,” said Felicity, getting into the van again. “Now let’s see Mabel about a parrot and a nuclear plant.”

  “Sounds like a comedy routine,” grinned Rick, and joined her.

  Chapter 10

  Alice, who’d been thinking about her boyfriend, was the last one to hop on board. She had a harder time switching topics, as her next words revealed. “I’m sorry to say that Reece turned out much harder to live with than I thought. But then again, I never lived with a boyfriend before. None of my relationships ever made it past the introductory stages.”

  “You lived with me long enough,” Felicity pointed out, “so I know the problem doesn’t lie with you, honey. It’s Reece who seems to have a hard time sharing his space and playing nice with others.”

  “Yeah, he does have a problem cohabiting,” Alice mused. Then she threw up her hands. “Oh, well. After tonight he won’t bother us again.”

  Felicity frowned. “Tonight? What do you mean? Did something happen that you haven’t told us about?”

  Alice gave her a bright smile. “I just broke up with Reece.”

  Both Rick and Felicity turned abruptly, which led the van to bop into the wrong lane for a moment. “What?!”

  She nodded fiercely while Felicity yanked the steering wheel, and returned to her own lane. “Yep. I checked my email just now, and discovered that Reece has gotten back together with Dorothy Valour.”