“Drugs aren’t just a city thing,” I chided Thistle, using Chief Terry’s line to my benefit.
“I know that,” she said dubiously. “I just can’t see how it would be profitable here. There are not enough people. Plus, this is a closed community. How do they expect to get away with it?”
“Maybe that’s how Chief Terry knows?” Clove said helpfully.
She could have a point. “That’s not something you’re going to be able to hide very long,” I agreed.
“They probably just think we’re a bunch of hicks that are too stupid to figure it out,” Thistle said.
“Probably,” I agreed. Suddenly I remembered the other part of the conversation Chief Terry and I had shared. “Hey, by the way, did you know that our moms used to have a pot field behind the herb garden?”
“No way!”
“Get out!”
“Chief Terry told me. He said he saw it.”
“And he never busted them?”
“That’s probably when they started feeding him three times a week.”
“I thought that was because of the Aunt Tillie situation,” Thistle mused. “It makes sense, though, they always did like to dote on him.”
“I sent him up to the inn for breakfast,” I admitted. “I figured it couldn’t hurt his ego to have them fighting over him. He’s feeling pretty low about the state taking over the investigation.”
“I hope he doesn’t tell them he told you,” Clove said mischievously. “I can’t wait to ask them about their little side endeavor – and I don’t want them to have time to think up a lie.”
“This is all fascinating,” Sophie broke in. “I’m sure the fate of the world rests on whether or not your family used to grow pot in the middle of the woods. If you haven’t forgotten, though, you’ve got two dead people in your living room.”
I turned to Sophie in surprise. She’d seemed so meek at first. I guess she was getting more comfortable in her current situation. Her real personality was coming out to play.
I noticed that Shane was mirroring her disdainful stance – hands on hips – a few feet behind her. I think his crush on Thistle was a thing of memory. She’d probably be relieved.
“Sorry,” I apologized quickly. “I just wanted to tell them before I forgot.”
“Yes, well, your family hijinks are clearly more important than my recent death.” There it was. The typical teenage narcissism. One of the many reasons I was wary about ever having children.
“Hey! Just try to calm down,” Thistle ordered the voices that were invading the guesthouse. “We’re here to help you. We’re not your slaves, though.”
That’s a good way to approach the situation, I thought sarcastically. Shame the ghosts. This should turn out well.
I saw Sophie’s bottom lip start to quiver. Could ghosts cry? I couldn’t see any tears. I got the feeling this was a move she had perfected through life to manipulate her parents. “They can’t see you,” I reminded her.
Sophie’s face immediately went back to the way it had been before. I’d been right. “I forgot,” she said finally. “That doesn’t change the fact that we’re the important thing here, not your family’s drug problems.”
“We don’t have drug problems,” Clove grumbled.
“I say we threaten to put them in rehab,” Thistle suggested. She was as enamored with the new information as I was.
I could see that both Shane and Sophie were starting to get irritated, though, so I shifted my attention back to them.
“What’s the last thing you remember, Sophie?”
Sophie considered the question for a second. “I was shopping.”
“At the mall in Traverse City?”
“Yes.”
“That’s the same place I was taken from,” Shane said suddenly.
Sophie looked surprised. “You lived in Traverse City?” She seemed interested.
“No, Beula.”
Sophie wrinkled her nose delicately. “Oh. That’s all farms, right?”
“So, what’s wrong with a farm?” Now Shane was looking offended.
“Nothing is wrong with farms. They’re just so . . . country.”
“What’s wrong with the country?”
“Well, it’s boring,” Sophie answered honestly.
“You were from Traverse City, not Chicago,” Shane scoffed.
“It’s still better than Beula.”
“Let’s not focus on the merits of the country versus the city right now,” Thistle interrupted them. We were masters at breaking up petty arguments, after all. “Let’s focus on what you remember.”
Sophie looked properly chastised – but Shane was still shooting small glares in her direction when he thought I wasn’t looking. Maybe his crush on Thistle would be returning, after all?
“Did you make it out to the parking lot?” I turned back to Sophie.
“Yeah. I think I was putting stuff in the trunk of the car.”
“Then what happened?”
Sophie looked like she was really concentrating for a few minutes. Whatever thought she was trying to grab on to, though, seemed to be eluding her.
“I don’t know,” she said finally.
“Did you get in the front of the car?”
“I don’t think so. I don’t remember it anyway.”
“Was this yesterday?” Clove asked.
“I don’t know, what day is it today?”
“It’s Tuesday.”
Sophie thought again. “Yeah. Yeah. It was Monday. I remember I went to the mall right after school. I wanted to get a new sweater.”
I looked at the pink, fuzzy monstrosity she was now wearing. I hoped that wasn’t it.
“I guess I’ll never get to wear it now,” she said sadly.
Yeah, that was the real tragedy of this situation, an abandoned sweater.
“So, you’re putting stuff in your trunk. Do you sense someone moving up behind you?”
Sophie shook her head doubtfully. “I honestly don’t know. Everything just gets hazy.”
“Hazy? Or goes black?”
“Why does that matter?”
“Because if it goes black, maybe you were knocked out from behind?” I was thinking aloud, but everyone seemed to take my musings in and roll them around their minds for a few minutes.
“Don’t they have cameras in the parking lot of the mall?” Clove asked finally.
“I don’t think so,” I said. “I’m sure the cops have already checked into that, though. If there was video of the parking lot, I think we would have heard about it after Shane.”
“They probably went back to the same place because they got away with it the first time,” Thistle said.
“That would be my guess,” Clove agreed.
“Either that or they don’t know the area and they didn’t want to risk getting lost,” I said. “I mean, if they’re tourists, or if they’re just visiting the area, they wouldn’t know all the hot spots. The mall is an easy hunting ground. Teenagers live there. And the mall in Traverse City is marked really well.”
“That’s a good point,” Clove said.
“I don’t care what Chief Terry said,” Thistle said vehemently. “I don’t think it’s someone from the town. It has to be an outsider.”
“I agree,” I said. “I understand why they can’t rule anyone out, though.”
“If it was anyone in this town we’d already know who it is,” Clove argued. “We all spy on each other like we’re in the CIA. If someone in town’s vehicle was seen out by one of the corn mazes, someone would have seen it and even if they didn’t tell the cops, with the gossip mill in Hemlock Cove we’d all already know about it.”
“That means that it has to be a vehicle that doesn’t stand out.”
“And one that’s big enough to hide a body in,” Clove said.
“They could have just put the body in the trunk of a car,” I reminded her.
“Yeah, but that would look suspicious on a parking lot – even if it was aft
er dark. I doubt someone would risk that.”
“So you think that they knocked them out and then carried them to a vehicle and just put them in the backseat?” That seemed risky, too.
“It’s less suspicious then shoving a body in the trunk.”
“Yeah, but what if they woke up? How could they be sure they could control them in the backseat of a car?”
“Maybe they knew they wouldn’t wake up?” I suggested.
“How could they be sure of that?”
“Chloroform.” It was Shane’s voice.
“Huh?”
I had practically forgot that Shane and Sophie were still in the room with us. They seemed to have forgotten their earlier argument – at least for the time being.
“It was chloroform,” Shane said finally.
“You remember?”
“Not who did it. I just remember someone coming up behind me and pressing a cloth to my mouth. It smelled like medicine. I passed out right away. I tried to fight it, but I couldn’t.”
Well, that was something new. He was starting to remember. The question was, would he remember enough to identify the killers before it was too late? Would someone else die before his memory completely returned?
Sixteen
I left Thistle and Clove to entertain our ghostly guests while I showered and got changed for work. It felt like an empty gesture – but there wasn’t much more I could do at this point. Shane was slowly starting to remember. Until he fully remembered, or something sparked Sophie’s memory, we were kind of stuck.
When I went back out in the living room, I noticed Clove had disappeared and Thistle was alone with Sophie and Shane. The two teenage spirits were chattering away about the new season of American Idol – I guess they’d made up and realized pop culture stretched through farmland and urban sprawl to unite them all. Thistle looked like she was ready to throttle them both – even though she couldn’t see them, or touch them. She looked up when I entered the room. “They are not coming to work with us today.”
I sighed. Usually I would argue with her. Given how rough her night was the previous evening, though, I didn’t want to put any undue stress on her. “They can come to work with me. It’s Tuesday. No one will be there.”
Shane and Sophie seemed oblivious to our conversation. They looked over, though, when they sensed that I was staring at them.
“What?”
“You guys are coming to work with me today,” I told them with false brightness. I didn’t want them to think it was a punishment – even though it essentially was just that.
“Why?” Shane whined. “I like the magic shop.”
“Thistle has stuff she needs to get done,” I started with the truth and then swiftly changed tactics. “And I want you guys close to me in case you remember something.” I figured that if I told them Thistle would rather choke them than chatter with them I’d get a teenage meltdown of epic proportions. This way, I was placating their egos – and soothing Thistle’s frazzled nerves at the same time.
“Oh,” Sophie said sagely. “That’s probably a good idea.” Like a typical teenager, she was trying to appear older than she actually was.
I led Sophie and Shane out to my car and ushered them both towards the backseat. As I was driving up the cobblestone driveway, I noticed that Chief Terry’s car was still parked at the inn and smiled to myself. I could just picture the three little dope fiends fawning all over him.
When we got to the office, I led Shane and Sophie in through the back door. They both looked around dubiously – with the disdain that only teenagers can muster. There wasn’t nearly as much to look at – or as many people to watch – in the newspaper offices as Hypnotic. I could already tell it was going to be a long day.
“Do you guys want me to turn the television on for you?”
“Yeah,” Sophie said. “I want to see if I’m on the news.”
Of course she did. I led them into the records room, which was empty, and flicked on the television. I turned it to one of the local news stations and sat down on the couch to watch it with them for a few minutes.
The slim newscaster – with her perfect brown pageboy and flawless Chanel suit – had a fake look of concern plastered on her face when she came back from the commercial break. “Now for the story that seems to be all everyone across the region is talking about.”
“See, I knew everyone would be talking about me,” Sophie said brightly.
“The small hamlet of Hemlock Cove has been shocked not once, but twice this week with the gruesome discovery of two teenagers in different corn mazes within the confines of the small town. The bodies of Shane Haskell and Sophie Maxwell were found less than ten miles from one another – but the two teenagers were much farther apart in life than they were in death.
“Shane Haskell was a seventeen-year-old who came from Beula, a small farming community. He and his mother lived a comfortable, but quiet life.
“Sophie Maxwell, though, she came from an upper-middle-class home. The daughter of a city councilman, Maxwell was actively involved with her church and community.”
I turned to Sophie in surprise. “Your father is a councilman?”
“Shhh.” She waved me off. She was engrossed with watching the steady stream of pictures flashing across the television. Apparently she was voted queen of a few dances.
“No one can know what these two young people went through in their final minutes, the terror they must have felt. Police aren’t releasing a lot of details. Shane Haskell’s autopsy is expected to be released this afternoon. Sophie Maxwell’s autopsy might not be available for days.
“The only thing we do know is that the hearts of both teens were removed – and they weren’t found at the scene of the crimes. We also know that they both disappeared from the same mall – just a few days apart.
“Many people in the area are pointing a finger at Hemlock Cove – a town that has been known for absolutely nothing in decades – which turned itself into a haunted town years ago as a way to brand itself as a tourist destination.
“I know I’m not alone when I wonder: Did Hemlock Cove want something like this to happen? Is that why they embraced the occult?”
I jumped to my feet in angry determination and switched the television off. “That is just ridiculous.”
“Hey! I was watching that!” Sophie’s whine was going to get old pretty quickly.
“You’ll get over it,” I grumbled.
“They got me on television quick,” Sophie said proudly.
“You had your identification with you,” I said. “Shane didn’t.”
“My dad probably sent out a press release, too,” Sophie said bitterly. She was back to being petulant and pouty. Man, she could turn it on when she wanted to.
“Why would he do that?”
“He sends out a press release when he crosses the road and looks both ways.”
I looked at her sympathetically. I kept reminding myself that she was just a teenage girl. She didn’t mean to be annoying. It is just part of the teenage DNA makeup. They can’t help it. “He likes attention, huh?”
“I’m sure that this just sealed his re-election.”
“I’m sure he misses you, Sophie.”
“Oh, I’m sure he does, too. I was his biggest tax write off.”
I didn’t know what to say to Sophie. Not only had she been brutally murdered, but she apparently had parental issues, as well. And these aren’t the normal parental issues people have – you know, like when you’re mom drops you off for kindergarten without putting on a bra – but actual, serious issues.
“Well, your Aunt Tillie has totally let herself go.” Another voice just joined the conversation.
I turned to see Edith had entered the building. I was actually relieved to see her. I was worried she would disappear forever once I helped her rediscover the town. “You went and saw Aunt Tillie?”
“I did. She wasn’t very happy to see me.”
“I bet.”
“She started accusing me of trying to sleep with your Uncle Calvin.”
“I know. She thinks you were hot for him.”
“Do you remember your Uncle Calvin?” Edith had a dubious look on her pinched white face.
“No, he died before I was born.”
“Well, he was no prize.”
“From all the stories I heard, he was a great man.” I actually had heard that. No one I had ever met had a bad thing to say about Uncle Calvin. Most people actually used the term “angel” when referring to him, in fact.
“Oh, he was very nice, but you have to question the sanity of anyone that would marry your Aunt Tillie.”
She had a point.
“So, what did you and Aunt Tillie talk about?” I was guessing it wasn’t warm memories from the past.
“Not much. She wasn’t in a very good mood, like I said. You were right, though, haunting her is fun.”
Uh-oh. “You didn’t tell her that I sent you up there did you?” I heard a slight hitch in my voice when I asked the question. Was that fear?
Edith looked uncomfortable. “I might have mentioned you thought it would be a good idea.”
Crap. “She’s going to curse me now, I just know it.” Yup, that was fear coursing through my veins.
“Curse you?” Edith looked confused. I couldn’t blame her.
“It wouldn’t be the first time. When I was ten, she made it so my shoes were incapable of staying tied. I spent three straight days tripping. I ruined two pairs of jeans and three pairs of tights. I had to wear sandals for a month straight -- even when it snowed. It was terrible. . . and cold.”
“Maybe you just didn’t know how to tie your shoes right?” Shane offered helpfully. “I didn’t learn until I was seven.”
“I learned how to tie my shoes when I was five,” I protested. “Plus, she made me weed the garden every weekend – for free – to lift the curse.”
“She always was a mean old witch.” Edith was back on the Aunt Tillie hate train. I was glad I wasn’t travelling alone.
“I don’t think being a witch has anything to do with it,” I said breezily. “I think it’s more that she’s a bitch.”
“I can’t wait to meet her,” Sophie said excitedly her blues eyes were sparkling with undisguised anticipation.
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