by Nic Saint
“Look, the guy’s a ghost and he’s really desperate. If we don’t help him out he might be lost forever, and along with him the location of this treasure.”
At the mention of the word treasure she finally looked up, and frowned. “Treasure?” she asked, with the exact same intonation a zombie would use to inquire into the presence of a fresh pair of brains. “What do you mean?”
“What do you think I mean?” I asked, exasperated. “The guy’s got a genuine treasure buried inside some ancient shipwreck. He was supposed to deliver it to Lord Dockland, who was the British governor of New York at the time, probably so he could battle our forefathers better and defeat them.”
“Good thing he never arrived then.”
“I guess so.” I wasn’t well versed in the history of the revolution, even though I’d studied all that stuff in school, of course. But then I’d never paid a lot of attention. Ancient history doesn’t interest me all that much. I’m more into what’s happening right now, if you know what I mean. Like fashion and stuff. The cool things. Edelie probably liked history. She was into old crap.
“What did you say his name was?” she asked now, a flicker of interest appearing in her green eyes. Even though we’re triplets, Edelie and Ernestine and I are nothing alike. I’m blond and blue-eyed and slender, Edie’s red-haired and full-figured, and Stien is dark-haired and tall and thin.
“Captain Hayes Suggur. Good-looking guy, too, if you’re into that whole colonial thing. Personally, he’s not my type.”
“What type?”
"The type that looks like they're ready to fight for queen and country."
“England didn’t have a queen in 1776. King George III was the ruler.”
“Yes, well, whatever,” I said breezily. “He looks very royal, and he says that if we don’t help him get this treasure to Lord Dockland, whoever he is, that he’s doomed to keep roaming the Happy Bays beach forever.”
Edelie frowned. “Dockland. Now there’s a name I’ve never heard before.”
“Neither have I. So why don’t we just google the guy, pick up that treasure and get this over with. A great new mission for Flummox, Inc.”
Edelie put her book down, a major achievement on my part. “I don’t know if this is such a good idea, Strel. We’d be helping the British.”
“Oh, come on. That’s all ancient history. The Brits lost, we won, and this little bit of gold and silver won’t make any difference whatsoever.”
“Still, we’d be aiding and abetting the enemy,” she pointed out dubiously.
“It’s the Brits!” I cried. “Simon Cowell! Victoria Beckham! Colin Firth! William and Kate! They’re hardly the enemy now, are they? We’re even in a special relationship, whatever that means.”
My sister still continued dubiously. “I think we should notify the authorities. Hand this treasure over to them. If there even is a treasure.”
“Why wouldn’t there be? The guy was on the level. I could tell he was.”
“Ghosts can be very deceptive. They can lie and cheat and deceive the living into doing the most horrible things. Are you sure he really is who he says he is? For all we know he could be a pirate who’s out to steal this gold.”
“He didn’t look like a pirate,” I said slowly. Or did he? What did pirates look like, anyway? They weren’t all dressed like Jack Sparrow, were they? Now that I came to think of it, my first impression of the guy had been that he was a pirate, what with all this talk about shipwrecks and treasure chests. But then I shook off the notion. “He was telling me the truth, I’m sure of it.”
And I was. I’m nothing if not a keen judge of character. I’ve seen so many episodes of Project Runway and The Voice that I can pick the winner from the very first episode. Just like I knew Kim Kardashian and Kris Humphries were never going to stay together. I just know these things. It’s a talent.
Edelie shrugged again. “If that’s what you think…” She returned to her book, which was apparently a page-turner. Only I’d never heard of the author. Edgar Allan Poe. Probably one of Stephenie Meyer’s pen names.
“So what about it? When are we going to raise the Titanic?”
“I dunno,” she muttered without looking up, her frown indicating she was already deeply engrossed in the fictional characters of her book again.
“Hey, Edie. Are we going to help the guy out or what?”
“Sure,” she said, flipping a page. “Just ask Stien. She’ll know what to do.”
I sighed exaggeratedly. If Edelie was a tough nut to crack, Ernestine would be even harder to convince that we needed to help out this Hayes Suggur guy. We might be in the protection and security business these days, but apparently that didn’t mean helping old ghosts retrieve treasure chests.
And as I clumped down the stairs, I wondered if I’d been rash to agree to help the captain. But then again, he was a man in need, and wasn’t that what Flummox, Inc was all about? Now if only I could convince Ernestine to come on board…
When I didn’t find her holed up in her room, I descended another flight of stairs and hollered, “Stien! Where are you?!” The echo reverberated through the house, but of Ernestine there was no sign. Our place in Brooklyn is small compared to the manor Gran bought not so long ago. It used to belong to a family of murderers, which lends it a certain gloomy atmosphere, in spite of the fact that Gran has done her best to breathe some life into the place.
I breezed into the living room and through the French windows into the garden, where I was sure to find Gran. Lately Ernestine had taken up gardening. She used to be into legal stuff, wanting to become the next best thing since Ally McBeal—before she went and married Harrison Ford—Ally McBeal, I mean, not Ernestine, who’s not married to Harrison Ford. I wish!
“Stien!” I yelled as I walked into the garden. “Show yourself!”
I thought I heard a voice coming from the bottom of the garden so I sped in that direction, only to come face to face with an elderly man with drooping white whiskers, staring at me as if seeing me for the first time, which it was.
“Hello, there,” I said, curiously. “And who might you be?”
Ever since moving to Happy Bays, people I’d never seen before kept popping up all over the place. It was what they did out here in the country: taking a gander at the newcomers and what they’d done with the place.
“Eh?” the guy asked.
I stared at his mustache. It was one of those walrus mustaches you don’t see so often nowadays. Hipsters might be going nuts about beards, but they hadn’t discovered the walrus mustache yet. It was only a matter of time.
The man’s eyes were a pale blue, and he now stood blinking at me with a kindly smile on his face, peering at me through half-moon spectacles. If they ever did a reboot of the Harry Potter franchise, he’d be a great Dumbledore. Minus the ridiculously long beard, of course. And the funny robe.
"Who are you?" I repeated, never one for beating around the bush.
“Oh, right. I, um, my name is Gresham Seeming.”
“Estrella Flummox. I live here.”
“Of course, of course,” he said with a light chuckle. “Cassie told me all about you, and your two sisters of course.”
“Is that right?”
“I’m your next-door neighbor,” he said, holding out his hand in greeting.
I shook it. “Nice to finally meet you,” I said, and I wasn’t lying. We’d already met everyone in town, but hadn’t met our close neighbors yet. The sprawling domain Hartford Manor was built on was neighbored by even more sprawling domains with even grander mansions, one of which belonged to a widower, one to a banker, and yet another one to a millionaire. They all seemed very shy people, for I’d yet to come face to face with any of them. All I knew about the millionaire was that he’d made his millions in the fashion industry, and I’d vowed to meet him at some point and find out all about him. I’d already asked around to know if his name happened to be Kardashian, but hadn’t received confirmation, so the jury was still o
ut.
This man, Gresham Seeming, was the widower. Which was great, for Gran was a widow, so they could chat about widowy stuff, I guess.
“Cassie invited me over for brunch,” he said, “and how could I refuse?”
“Do you live in that big house all by yourself?” I asked. I’d walked past his gate once or twice, and looked down the winding drive which led to a mansion that looked easily twice as big as Hartford Manor.
He chuckled. “Yes, as a matter of fact I do, though luckily I don’t have to take care of the upkeep. I have a housekeeper who handles all of that stuff.”
“Then you must be pretty loaded,” I said before I could check myself. Gresham didn’t seem to be bothered; he laughed heartily.
“Yes, you might say I’m pretty rich,” he said. His eyes flickered. “Just like your grandmother, huh?” Already I could see what was going on here. This guy was a rich widower. Gran was a rich widow. It was obvious the guy was sniffing around, curious to find out if Gran was the marrying kind.
Good luck with that, I thought. Gran notoriously had sworn off romance when her husband died, and devoted her life to bringing up my sisters and me after our parents died. Now, at an age when most people start to think about retirement and going on a cruise with their better half, she was busier than ever, gardening away to her heart's content, and had no plans to link her lot to any man, rich or otherwise, no matter how charming he might be.
“Have you seen my sister?” I asked. “She’s tall and wears glasses.”
“Oh, sure. She’s over there,” he said, pointing in the direction of the rhododendrons. “She’s helping out your grandmother.”
Gresham was right, for as he joined me we soon came upon Gran and Stien, busily snipping away at the rhododendrons, their motions very much in sync, like a pair of synchronized swimmers. Now that I came to think of it, Gran looked a little like Esther Williams, though I’d never seen her swim.
“Hey there, honey,” said Gran when she spotted me. “Can you find Edelie and tell her that Sam’s been trying to reach her all morning?”
“Sam Barkley?” I asked.
“That’s right. That nice NYPD Detective keeps calling and I keep telling him Edie will call back but she never does. One day we’re probably going to find her buried beneath a stack of books, starved to death, the poor thing.”
She snipped a twig from the bush, accentuating her displeasure with my sister. I didn’t think Edelie was at risk of starving to death. She was by far the most well-nourished of the three of us. “So why didn’t Sam try Edie’s cell?”
“No idea, honey. I’m just the messenger here. Nobody tells me anything.”
“I got a call from Spear Boodle yesterday,” Ernestine said, apropos of nothing.
“The lawyer?” I asked.
“That’s the one.” A sudden blush had crept up her cheeks. I remembered Spear. He was the lawyer she used to work for. He’d helped us out on occasion, and it wasn’t a great secret that Ernestine had the hots for him.
“What did he want?” asked Gran, obviously not as fond of lawyers as Ernestine was.
“Oh, he just called for a chat,” she said innocently.
Spear worked for his father at one of those big New York law firms, but kept a house in The Hamptons as well. He'd taken Stien out on a date a few times, and it was my impression things were really hotting up between those two, as they were between Edelie and her NYPD detective. I was the only one who wasn't hooked up yet, and I liked to keep it that way, to be honest. I was much too young to get serious about a guy, and so were my sisters, for that matter, but that wasn't the way they saw it, apparently.
"Lovely flowers, Cassie," said Gresham Seeming now. I could see that in his eyes the love light burned. Even though he said ‘flowers', what he really meant was ‘Cassie.' Love, as I'd already figured, was very strong in this one.
“Thanks,” said Gran primly, not a sign of the love light in her eyes. “Will you be a dear and fetch me those garden shears?” She pointed vaguely in the direction of the shed, and Gresham instantly pottered off, a man on a mission.
“I think he likes you, Gran,” I said.
Ernestine grinned. “Loves you, more like.”
“Yeah, you’ve got yourself a genuine admirer,” I said. “A very rich admirer,” I added with a wink.
Gran’s lips pursed even more. “It’s always nice to get along with one’s neighbors,” she said. “No matter what their intentions might be.”
“His intentions are obvious from a mile away,” said Ernestine. “Or why else would he be sniffing around here all the time?”
“Because he’s got nothing else to do,” said Gran. “He’s all alone in that big house of his, poor man, with nobody to keep him company. I’m just grateful I can help alleviate some of his loneliness.”
“I don’t think it’s his loneliness he wants you to alleviate,” Stien said.
“Yeah, I think the horny old goat is looking for some nookie,” I added.
“Strel! Enough of that!” Gran exclaimed. “Show some respect for the poor old man.”
“Well, he’s certainly not poor,” I said. “He told me so himself.”
“Doesn’t he have any relatives?” asked Ernestine.
“His wife died childless, and he’s been alone ever since. Never remarried, and he doesn’t have brothers or sisters, so no nieces or nephews either. All he has are some distant relatives over in England as far as I can tell.”
“What did he do before he retired?” I asked, genuinely interested now.
“He was into computer software I think. Not that I understand the first thing of what he told me. Something about artificial intelligence and all that.”
“Yeah, he was quite the genius,” said Ernestine, busily dethorning a thorny bush, sticking out her tongue from the exertion. Her hair was mussed and her glasses were askew. It actually became her. She used to look all prim and proper back in the day when she wanted to become a legal beagle. Country life definitely agreed with her, as did Spear Boodle’s attentions.
“A genius, huh?” I asked, darting a quick look at Gresham, who came pottering back, holding up a pair of garden shears and looking triumphant.
“He’s one of the founders of the artificial intelligence program at MIT,” Ernestine said. “Just google him. He’s even got a Wikipedia page.”
“You don’t say,” I said, staring at the genius who now hove into view, frantically waving the shears.
“Found them, Cassie!” he announced happily. “I found your shears!”
He looked more like a hobbit than a genius, I thought. But then Albert Einstein had also looked pretty funky. Never judge a genius by his whiskers.
“We need to talk, Ernestine,” I told my sister now.
She didn’t even look up. “Oh? What about?”
“I think I just found our next client.”
This time she did look up. We were still in the early stages of our business, so the clients weren’t exactly knocking down our door. Quite the opposite, actually, especially since one of our very first clients had killed herself mere days after she’d hired us. Stories like that spread pretty fast.
Ernestine clambered down from the ladder and joined me. “A client, huh? Where did you find him? Happy Bays?”
“Not exactly,” I said. I didn’t want to talk about Hayes Suggur in front of Gresham. Or Gran, for that matter. Our grandmother was still not fully on board with the concept of her granddaughters engaging in a dangerous pastime like the personal security and protection business. She preferred we found regular jobs. Like the ones we’d held before. And were fired from.
Gran gave me a sideways glance. “A client?” she asked. I could hear from the tone of her voice she wasn’t happy. I don’t know how she does it, but I swear that sometimes Gran knows things before they’ve happened. But then she’s an accomplished witch, of course, with quite a few tricks up her sleeve.
“Yes,” I said. “Just a small job. Nothing special.�
��
She sniffed loudly at this, but didn’t say anything. But before we turned away to take a stroll in the garden and discuss this new opportunity, she said, “Be very careful, Estrella. Not everything is what it seems.”
And with these mysterious words, she snatched the garden shears from Gresham’s hands and started snipping away furiously, as was her habit.
Chapter 3
Cassie watched her granddaughters leave with a kindling eye. She didn’t appreciate they went off discussing their affairs out of earshot, though she understood why, of course. For some strange reason they believed she didn’t fully endorse their new business venture. Rubbish, of course. She wanted her girls to succeed as much as the next grandparent, and become outrageously successful and happy in the process. Only she didn’t think Flummox, Inc was the easy ticket to fame and fortune they seemed to think it was.
For one thing, the triplets had a habit of overestimating their knack for business and underestimating the work involved. More often than not, when let loose upon an unsuspecting world, the girls created more havoc than the world could handle, and when clients placed their trust in them, things often ended in disaster, which was not the way to get that coveted repeat business.
She sighed deeply. The job of a parent—or grandparent, as in her case—was often hard, she found. She could give advice and warn them until she was blue in the face, but at the end of the day all she could do was stand back and allow them to make mistake after mistake and watch them flounder.
“Do you need a hand up there?” asked Gresham now, and she gave him a grateful smile from her perch on top of the ladder. He was a sweet, kind man.
“No, that’s all right. I can manage.”
"I know a thing or two about gardening too, you know," he now announced. "The only reason I hired a gardener was that I didn't have time, but my thumbs are as green as they come!" He gave her two thumbs up to prove his point.
“I believe you. Me, I simply love gardening. It soothes me.” And put her mind off her granddaughters for a precious few hours.
