The Maple Murders

by Micol Ostow

  The image on the microfiche was blurry and distorted, but if it looked like anything, it looked like an ornate cross dangling from a thick, sturdy chain. A small swatch of … something next to it might have been …

  “And is that …” I reached to the screen, tracing the image with my finger. “The edge of a pocket watch?”

  Jug whistled. “Good eye, Cooper. It definitely could be. A cross and a pocket watch.”

  It was our first clue. I felt a palpable hitch of excitement in my stomach. But it was quickly followed by an overwhelming sense of … overwhelm. Was this just an exercise in futility? Miles to go, I knew. A torn picture of a necklace that might be a cross? Maybe the edge of a pocket watch? Not much to go on. It was a clue, but a cryptic one. We were still basically pushing a boulder uphill.

  Then again, when it came to solving mysteries, our track record was pretty solid.

  “So someone ripped a photo from an old article about the Revels, and what got left behind—”

  “Most likely accidentally,” Jughead put in. “When will the bad guys learn: People with something to hide really ought to take the time to be thorough.”

  “What got left behind,” I continued smoothly, “was this random section of a photo with someone wearing a cross. And maybe someone wearing or holding a pocket watch.” I shook my head. “It’s not much of a lead.” Understatement, thy name is Betty Cooper.

  “Someone religious?” Jughead asked.

  “Plenty of churches nearby,” I pointed out. “Maybe something about the wicked underbelly of this town makes people extra twitchy to pray?”

  “I can’t say it’s had that effect on me, but sure,” Jug said, wry. “What about the nuns? The Sisters? They might be less ‘religious,’ more ‘bat-house crazy,’ but they dress the part.”

  I considered it. A tiny charge of hope fluttered in my throat. But I tried to check myself. “Jughead,” I said, “you know how much I would love it to be the Sisters. After everything they’ve done to Polly, our friends—they should be punished. They deserve so much more blame, more pain than they’ve gotten. But I don’t want to jump to conclusions because of my feelings for the Sisters. We have to be methodical about this.”

  “I can be methodical,” Jughead said. “I can be open-minded. But that doesn’t mean we’re not going to investigate the Sisters. And if they’re guilty? We’ll nail them to the ground.”

  “Sounds good,” I said, “albeit gruesome. But remember, the key word is if.”

  We printed out the best image we could recover from the tiny scrap of a photo and thanked Ms. Dinkle for her help.

  Stepping outside, I squinted against the sudden glare of the sun setting in the distance.

  I blinked.

  I gasped.

  “What is it, Betty?” Jughead asked, his curiosity piqued.

  “Everybody’s favorite little cultist—four o’clock.” I pointed.

  Down the street, to our right, there was Evelyn again. She was huddled with Ethel Muggs, of all people, and they looked to be in intense conversation. “It’s like she’s following us,” Jughead joked.

  “I wouldn’t put it past her, but I doubt that,” I said. “That library was empty. We would have spotted her if she were actually spying on us. And anyway, whatever she and Ethel are talking about, it looks like they’re serious about it. They haven’t even noticed we’re standing here in the first place.”

  “A mystery for another day,” Jughead said, lifting my wrist to glance at my watch. “Speaking of, should we call it a night? I promised my dad I’d be home for a ‘family dinner,’ and if I miss it—”

  “So much for pretending at ‘normal,’ ” I finished.

  He kissed me. “As always, my appetite precedes me.”

  A sudden gust of wind whipped through the trees, and I shivered. “A mystery for another day,” indeed. The bones weren’t going anywhere—and neither were we.

  Archie:

  Still on for a lunchtime rehearsal?

  Josie:

  On my way. You got your guitar?

  Archie:

  Meet you in the music room?

  Josie:

  Yeah, my keyboard is in the closet anyway. Might as well avoid lugging it anywhere if we don’t have to.

  Archie:

  Got it, good call. Heading there now.

  Unknown Number:

  Everything’s ready. Will keep you posted.

  ARCHIE

  I passed by the auditorium on my way to the music room to meet Josie, and had to take a look inside. Ronnie’d seen it earlier, and she said it was totally crazy and overrun with people doing pageant prep. I’ll admit, I was curious; maybe I wasn’t competing, but it was a fun enough distraction.

  Inside, preparation was in full swing. I guess we weren’t the only ones who had the idea of a lunchtime rehearsal. A bunch of kids were rehearsing for the talent portion, it looked like, and there were plenty milling around doing other pageanty things, like practicing interviews. Fangs was reading from cue cards—Jughead told me he’d given the Serpents “orders” to participate in the pageant, and Fangs had apparently had a blast walking Hot Dog in the Pet Parade—and Peaches ’N Cream kept doing that stage-mom thing of pointing at the corners of her mouth, encouraging him to smile while he read.

  Meanwhile, closer to the stage, Cheryl’s old-school minions, Ginger and Tina, had stuck a long strip of blue painter’s tape to the floor. (I took a second to hope, for their sake, that they had permission to do that, because the new janitor is not kidding around.) They were wearing scary-tall high heels and taking turns walking along the blue line, waving. It looked a little crazy, but hey—I’d never been in a pageant before. Posture probably was important, and also things like knowing how to walk gracefully in fancy, uncomfortable shoes.

  Ginger and Tina had taken a small pot of … Vaseline? … out of one of their bags, and were now making scary, bared-teeth faces while smearing the goop in their mouths. Was this a girl thing? A pageant thing? Or just a plain old weird thing? I’d have to get Veronica’s take the next time I spoke to her.

  Or maybe Josie would know. I checked my phone to see what time it was and realized she’d probably be in the music room by now. I went to find her, hoping she wouldn’t make me ingest any kind of crude oils in the name of victory.

  “Archie!”

  I looked up and realized Ethel Muggs was coming into the auditorium just as I was walking out. She had a Farm T-shirt in her hands.

  Since when is Ethel a Farmie? I’d have to ask Betty. Maybe I missed something.

  “Hey, Ethel,” I said. “Sorry, I was distracted. Didn’t mean to get in your way.”

  “No problem,” she said. “But … you’re not in the pageant, are you? You and your dad are doing the sets, right?”

  “Yeah, we’re just about finished up. Everything’s being stored backstage,” I told her. “All that’s left is a couple of booths to build for the block party.”

  “Cool,” she said. “It should be fun.”

  “Yeah, definitely.” I looked at the time on my phone. “I should actually get going. I’m supposed to be meeting Josie.”

  “Of course, Archie,” Ethel said. She gave me a cryptic little smile, and walked away.

  Something felt off the second I stepped into the music room. The lights were on, but it was empty, and anyone who uses this room regularly knows that we turn off the lights on our way out. It’s a little pet peeve of Ms. Grundy’s replacement.

  The other thing that was strange was that Josie’s keyboard was out and set up, though it wasn’t turned on. She loved that machine. It was perfectly calibrated … and very expensive, and she treated it better than most people treat their friends. She would never have left it out like that and risk someone damaging it, or even stealing it. It was totally not her style. She was more responsible—more anal, but in a good way—than that.

  The room was quiet, still. Even though the lights were on, it felt dark and eerie, and right away, m
y senses went on high alert. I had the feeling that someone had been in here just before me. But only music students had keys to this room … and while I didn’t exactly do an aggressive sweep of the whole building, I hadn’t seen any music students in the auditorium or in the halls on my way here, only a few stray drama kids helping some pageant contestants hem formal dresses and suits for the evening-wear portion of the show.

  I took a deep breath and walked the perimeter of the room for a minute, eyes darting across every surface, even though I couldn’t say what exactly I was looking for. Something, anything out of the ordinary … something to explain why I had the creepiest feeling that I was being watched.

  That was when I heard it.

  It was a low sound, quiet. Like the scratching of the mice Dad and I found nesting in our garage that one summer. I almost didn’t hear it.

  Then the scratching morphed into something more human. It was a banging, or a pounding. Like someone knocking their fists on a door. There was only one door in the room other than the one you come in through: the utility closet.

  “Hello?” I called out, hesitant.

  The pounding got louder, more insistent, and now someone was shouting, too. Is that a girl’s voice? I thought maybe.

  “Who’s there?” I called. And whoever they were—why were they locked in a closet?

  The pounding and the shouting from the closet got louder and more frantic. I could tell now, for sure, that it was a girl’s voice. I scrambled to pull out my own keys and open the door.

  “I’m coming,” I called as I rattled the keys in the lock. “I’ve got it! Just step back, I’m gonna open the door.”

  “Archie?” The voice was high and definitely very freaked out. It was also a voice I recognized.

  “Josie?” I fumbled with my keys, stabbing a few wrong ones into the lock in my hurry. The entire set landed on the floor with a loud jangle.

  “Arch, what’s going on out there? Tell me you’ve got the keys! Mine are in here with me, obviously. If you don’t have a set, there’s a pair in the office—”

  “No, no, I have mine, just dropped them. Sorry. I’ve got it now.” I tried again with the lock, going slower this time to be more precise. The key slid in smoothly this time. “Done.” The lock gave with a satisfying click, and I pulled the door open, not sure what to expect.

  “Archie, thank god,” Josie said, rushing out of the closet and throwing her arms around me in a grateful hug. “I don’t have a whole lot of fears, but unfortunately, claustrophobia does top off the short list.” She centered herself and half closed her eyes, taking some deep breaths to calm down. “I thought I’d be in there forever.”

  “It wouldn’t have been forever. We were meeting up, remember?” I thought I was being reassuring.

  Josie was not reassured. Not that I blamed her. Her eyes narrowed. “Archie, it’s a phobia. It is inherently irrational. Not to mention, when that door clicked shut behind me and I realized some … some random freak had locked me in? Yeah, my reasonable train of thought left the station. I mean, what the actual eff?”

  “Seriously. You’re sure someone locked you in? Like, on purpose?” It just seemed so unbelievable … and like she said, random. Unbelievable we got a lot of in Riverdale, but random was slightly less common.

  She leveled me with a perfectly arched eyebrow. “Archie, do you think I did this for kicks and giggles?”

  I shook my head, trying to backtrack. “No, of course not. Sorry, I didn’t mean to imply … It’s just that this is so weird.”

  “You’re telling me. I got here earlier than I thought—I figured you’d be in here, setting up. But, you know, even if I’d known you wouldn’t have been here yet, I wouldn’t have, like, worried about being in here by myself.”

  “I stopped by the auditorium to see what was going on,” I said, suddenly wishing I hadn’t. Would I have made it to the music room to see who had decided to lock Josie up? Would I have been able to stop it?

  “Right, I mean, normally, no big. I had plenty to do while I waited. I’m a big girl, I can take care of myself. Or so I thought.”

  “You can take care of yourself unless someone out there is out to get you. That’s not your fault,” I said, feeling terrible that I hadn’t been able to prevent it. I could see Josie was not only angry, but also, underneath that and the bravado, she was seriously shaken. It was totally understandable.

  “I got the lights going, took out my keyboard, and set it up. Then I went to grab my sheet music from the file cabinet. That was when I heard footsteps.”

  “Footsteps. Anything special about them?”

  She shrugged. “No, they just sounded like regular old footsteps. Not especially heavy or light. I was waiting on you, so the sound of it didn’t exactly spark suspicion. It’s a building, people walk all around it. I called out to you, even, thinking you were here. But obviously, there was no answer.”

  “Right. So then what happened?”

  “I was just thinking I should come out of the closet and see who was there … when the door slammed shut. I called out—I think I said something sort of pointless like, ‘Hey!’ I ran to try the doorknob, but it just rattled. That was when I realized I was locked in.”

  I frowned. Super shady. But also not super big on helpful details. “Anything else?”

  She sighed. “One thing. And it’s sketchy. After I yelled out, while I was still struggling with the door? I heard laughing. Like whoever was on the other side was pretty pleased with herself.”

  “Herself,” I said, catching the meaning behind the word. “So you think it was a girl?”

  “It sounded that way,” she said. She had a far-off look in her eyes like she was replaying the whole thing over again in her brain. “I don’t know for sure. I mean, I can’t possibly, right?”

  I shook my head. I had no idea.

  “You know,” she said, looking helpless and stressed, “under different circumstances, I’d try to just write it off, to tell myself I was being paranoid, that it must have been a mistake. But mistakes don’t ignore you when you pound on the door. And they don’t giggle.”

  “No, they don’t,” I agreed. “I think you’re right not to write this one off as a mistake.”

  “But, Archie,” she said, her brown eyes wide, “if it wasn’t a mistake … what was it? Who did that to me?”

  I only wished I had an answer.

  Edgar Evernever:

  Is everything on track?

  Evelyn:

  So I’m told by my source.

  Edgar Evernever:

  Wonderful. And I’m so thankful to you, dear, for your part in making sure this all runs smoothly.

  Evelyn:

  Of course. We’re all working toward a common goal, after all. Many become one.

  Edgar Evernever:

  Exactly.

  Reggie:

  Yo—wanna bum a ride in a sick set of wheels after school?

  Archie:

  Sure, but can you drop me at Pop’s? I’m meeting my dad there to load up some of the Cocktails and Canapes setup for Friday. We’ve gotta move it from Pop’s to Town Hall.

  Reggie:

  No prob.

  Archie:

  What’s the deal with the car?

  Reggie:

  Oh, you’ll see.

  VERONICA

  After classes, Betty and Jughead were off to do more sleuthing—Betty had texted that she was headed to talk to her mom in a Hail Mary attempt to wrench any small morsel of information about the history of the Revels. So it was the perfect opportunity to squeeze in some pageant prep with Kevin. And it seemed that the entire student body agreed with us. Students were descending on the high school auditorium after classes to cram in as much Royal Maple interview prep as possible.

  We grabbed some snacks from the vending machine and stepped outside for some fresh air while we waited for at least some of the pageant crush to die down.

  “Remind me why we’re determined to fight through the thr
ongs?” I asked him. “You know we could totally skip out for a quick order of onion rings instead of this substandard subsistence.” I waved my sad little cellophane bag at him. “The gym will still be here in thirty minutes.”

  “Time is money.” He laughed, seeing my face. “Okay, never mind. But practice makes perfect,” Kevin said, sipping a cola from a glass bottle. “And while perfection is an unrealistic standard reinforced by the deeply curated experience of being a member of our social media–driven ‘influencer culture’ ”—he made the little air quotes as he spoke—“I’d still really like to aim for it. If we leave campus, the chance that we’ll come back dwindles. They’ve done studies.”

  “Who?” I demanded.

  He shrugged. “Someone, somewhere, has definitely done that study. Don’t make me do research. Anyway, what can I say?” He gave me a sheepish smile. “I’m a type A with a strong need for validation. Positive reinforcement is my drug of choice.”

  “Well, lucky for you, my dear,” I told him, “your manager—”

  “I like to think of you as more of a mentor,” he interjected.

  “Whatever suits your fancy,” I said. “Our priority today is getting you pitch-perfect ready with your interview responses.”

  “Best day ever,” Kevin said, practically singing.

  I laughed. Kevin’s enthusiasm for … well, pageantry was kind of infectious, I had to admit.

  And speaking of pageantry … “What is that?” I pointed to a sleek silver convertible cruising toward us from the student parking lot.