by Etta Faire
“Ned was much bigger than we were,” Mandy explained. “Graham practically had to beg him to do Dead Lake with us. He let us know the entire time the movie was beneath him.”
I opened the folder that Caleb had given me to check Ned’s alibi, sifting through the pictures and documents.
I accidentally stopped on the crime-scene photo of Mandy in the storage shed.
I moved it to the back of the photos before she could see it. I didn’t want to see it either. It was too much of a reminder of what I’d soon be going through.
“No,” she said. “Go back.”
I brought the photo back to the front of the stack.
“So that’s it, huh?” she said. “My last photo.” She looked it over, her head to the side. “I look awful. But then, how am I supposed to look, right?” Her nervous laugh faded out again.
“I’m sorry,” Jackson said, surprising me with his empathy. “Carly is going to figure this out, and someone will pay. If they’re already dead, then their reputation will pay.”
She half-smiled at him while I fully smiled. Jackson was a horrible mentor, and he’d been a horrible husband, but he was a pretty good friend sometimes.
“What are the other photos?” she asked. “Maybe something will jog my memory.”
“Your memory will be perfect once we merge energy,” I said, but I spread all the photos out on the table. There were a few closeups of the crime scene where the film had been scattered and torn all over the floor.
In one, a champagne glass stuck out of the mounds of film, pink lip gloss still smudged its rim. I squinted at it. “Did you have champagne that night?” I asked.
She looked at the ceiling. “I don’t remember. Why would I have champagne?”
In the corner of the photograph, there looked to be something brown buried in the film, like a belt, but I could only see the very tip of it, and there was too much film surrounding it to know what it was for sure.
“Are they sure you were strangled by film?” I asked, holding the photo up to the light streaming in from my window.
“I don’t remember anything about that night, honestly. You’d think I’d remember being… strangled at all,” she said.
I pulled the photo back, wondering why I hadn’t noticed it before. In the fuzzy background of the photo, there looked to be a bare foot or a sandal. It probably had not belonged to a police officer, and police officers should have been the only ones in the house when this evidence photo was taken.
Shoddy police work, just like always in this town.
I looked at some of the other photos. Most were taken inside the shack. There was another one of the champagne glass on the floor, a notebook, a pen, and a few photos of the piles of ruined film.
Other photos were of the outside: a fire pit with what looked like a burned reel of film and some half-burned rope in it. There was a torn page from a script in the grass under a hammock, discarded paper plates nearby.
I brought up my phone and opened my internet browser that still had the article from Horror Monthly on its screen. The crime-scene photo of her in the storage shed popped up along with it.
I quickly scrolled down to the article part. This time, Mandy didn’t ask me to go back to the photo so she could see it closer.
Neither one of us needed to see that too closely. We’d soon be living it.
Ten Years Later,
Mandy Smalls’s Murder Still a Mystery:
Small Town Appears to be Hiding Stuff
It was just a normal morning in September when Lilith Gunther got the call that would change her life back in 1987.
“I picked up the phone, and a man identified himself as a police officer from Landover. He asked me if I knew Mandy Smalls, and I said, ‘Well, yeah, she’s my sister,’” Gunther recalls as she sips her tea on the front porch of her modest farmhouse. “He said, ‘Well, she’s been murdered.’ That was it. Just like that. Cold and indifferent. I don’t remember much of our conversation after that. I packed up my bags and went on over to Landover.”
She says when she got there it was chaos.
“My sister had been in the middle of making her latest movie, Camp Dead Lake, when she was murdered. And the police seemed to be having a very hard time telling props from real clues. They were picking up and tagging things that were obviously part of the set, like a hook and some fake blood.
“They also seemed to be a little star-struck. They hadn’t had much of the area taped off, and even the parts that were taped off weren’t taped off for long. They were way too sympathetic to the movie and its budget, how the great Ned Reinhart needed to get filming again, how the Lockes needed their house and their lives back. They allowed the Lockes to retrieve items from their home all the time. The film crew was allowed to film scenes around the investigation. It was highly irregular and downright shady. And nobody cared too much about justice for Mandy.”
She paused to hold up a photo of her sister. Mandy Smalls was a beautiful blonde in her early 40s, famous for her roles in Death Party Sorority House in 1972 and its sequel House of Sorority Killers in 1974.
“I got the impression the police were in over their heads and didn’t know what to do. They wanted this all to go away on its own. The production crew. Mandy’s death. Me. But you can’t pretend something hasn’t happened. That doesn’t solve anything or make it go away. So, I made buttons and flyers, and I started getting the word out about my sister. I wasn’t about to let her be swept under the rug by the bumbling, incompetent Keystone Cops in Landover. Every year on her birthday, I still call and nag the police to do something. Anything. They have not changed much over the years.”
There were pictures included in the article. Mandy in her earlier years, a gorgeous blonde smiling and leaning into her husband on a production set with what looked like a large red demon with horns next to them.
There was also a photo of Graham in a long jacket and loose-fitting pants, one hand in his pocket, the other draped over his face, as he stood with police next to the lake. The Lockes’ house was in the background with police tape around it.
I clicked away from the article and pulled up the picture that I took at the bar of the crew. Then went back to the article, comparing the two. Graham’s outfit in the photo was the same one he was wearing in the photo in the article, confirming the bar photo was from that night.
I’d have to check in the channeling, but maybe this photo could help me determine who had alibis and who didn’t. Maybe there was a clue in there somewhere.
I read over Lilith’s harsh words again. “Bumbling, incompetent Keystone cops.”
No wonder Caleb wasn’t in any hurry to figure out Mandy’s case and had given me the job.
He wanted me to fail.
The Landover Police Department had been insulted, and they weren’t going to help anyone who’d done that to them. In fact, giving the case to the “crazy medium who stole the Bowman’s inheritance” was probably Caleb’s way of punishing Lilith and me both.
Little did he know that only made me more determined to figure out Mandy’s murder.
And I was no longer going to do it with my hands tied behind my back. I no longer cared about the scrapbook as much as I cared about helping Mandy.
Caleb and the rest of the police department may have been trying to save face or make things go away for the last thirty years, but that was going to end.
I mentally felt myself lifting my freak flag to new heights. I was going to figure out this case and not care how any of us looked in the process.
“Are you ladies ready to channel to that night?” Jackson asked.
Mandy and I both nodded a little too enthusiastically.
Chapter 10
1987
I wrapped myself in the soft throw blanket I always kept in the living room even during the summer and plopped onto the couch.
Mandy was hovering in front of me, rolling her head back and forth then her shoulders, like she was warming up for a marathon or some
thing. She stretched her hands high above her head and mumbled something as she moved them down.
Peck of pickled peppers. Peck of pickled peppers…
I was hoping this was an acting exercise, and not a habit I was about to pick up in the channeling.
The soft ticking of my clock morphed with her mumbling. I let all the noises fade into the back of my mind, waiting patiently for my ghost client to finish warming up. She was bending at the waist now.
Jackson appeared by the settee and rolled his eyes at her exercises.
“All you really have to do is stay still and be quiet,” I finally told her, my eye on the time. “I’ll do the rest.”
She stopped moving and stared at me, hands on her hips.
I closed my eyes and took one deep breath after another, trying not to think about pickled peppers. I concentrated on the ticking of my clock again, pulling Mandy’s energy into my own, a little more with every breath, every tick, like we were already one with time. We just needed to be one with space, too.
She gasped when we merged.
Every ghost felt different to me. Some were rough like sandpaper. Some were more like whispers. Others felt so different it was like wearing a pair of tight-fitting gloves the entire time.
Mandy was high energy.
Her breathing was faster than mine. Her lungs seemed to work better. She took deeper breaths, which might have been from the acting techniques. Who knew? She had a bounce in her step, and I could feel that we were moving very quickly, downhill. A breeze blew over us, the smell of leaves and lake water along with it.
The sound of my clock turned to laughter and chatter. People were talking about scenes and marks, and hoping things would go smoothly this time. We were carrying something close to our chest. Guessing by the way we were cupping it, I could tell it was a small stack of papers.
I opened my eyes to what had to have been the backyard of the Lockes’ home. Landover Lake was straight ahead of us. A lone motorboat buzzed by in the background. About fifteen young people were standing around an archery target, bows and arrows lay on the ground around them.
“Somer, did you get the new pages?” I asked, my lips sticking together with a coat of lip gloss that felt more like Elmer’s glue, but I figured I’d get used to it.
A tall, thin woman with blonde hair that I recognized from the photo in the bar turned when we said that.
Her hair blew in the breeze. She was leaning against a tree, three young men around her. A yellow, checkered, flannel shirt barely covered her high-cut bikini. It was the same bikini I remembered from the movie.
She was stunning.
“Ooooh, I can’t stand her,” Mandy said to me in our head. “Disgusting. Going after a married man old enough to be her father.”
I stopped the memory. “Okay, this is going to be hard,” I said to the ghost. “But it’s important that we just relive it without judging it too much. Whatever happened has already happened. We’re here to figure it out.”
I un-paused the memory as we handed Somer a stapled packet of about 15 pages.
“More changes? Seriously?” Somer said, her voice drawn out like a teenager asked to vacuum. She flipped through the papers but didn’t really look at them. “Between you and Ned, things change like every five minutes.”
“There are only a few minor changes this time.” Mandy pointed to the paper. “I just don’t think your character needs to be crying and running from nothing, in a bikini, when she finds her friend hooked to the archery target. She would be stronger.”
Somer pulled on one of her blonde strands. “You should check with Graham…” The boys next to her in shorts and Duran Duran haircuts laughed when she said that.
“I don’t need to check with Graham,” Mandy said. “I am the executive producer on this project. I am half of Toppletree, and we don’t make ‘women in peril, teen slasher’ movies. Uh-uh. We told Ned that from the get-go. We’ve never once had a woman’s group boycotting our theaters like Ned…” Mandy’s voice cracked a little, and we lowered it as a squatty, dark-haired man with wild hair and a bushy mustache strutted over to us.
He was wearing a Ramones t-shirt and a pair of Doc Martens. Leather bracelets peeked out from his soft brown jacket, a hoop earring in one ear.
He snatched the pages from Somer. “Just do it the way I wrote it,” he said.
“Give that back to her.” Mandy demanded.
Ned’s eyes were cold and dark. “When Graham begged me to put my name on this movie, I told him I’d only do it if I had complete control.”
Mandy shook her head. I could feel the hair on the back of our neck standing at attention, and it wasn’t just the hairspray. “That didn’t happen.”
“Ask Graham. You’re broke. He begged.”
More people were gathered around us now, pretending not to listen, while being close enough to hear everything.
“That’s really funny,” Mandy said, her voice quivering again. She looked around at the young faces staring at her with pity. “I’m sure he just said that so you’d come onboard. He told me you were coming on for old times’ sake.”
Ned pinched the brow of his nose. He was barely listening.
Mandy went on. “And… and I said that was fine as long as you… didn’t take over.” She stiffened her back and got control over her words again. “Toppletree has a solid reputation. We don’t churn out junk films where girls run around half naked, doing dumb stuff until they get murdered.”
Ned gripped the papers tighter. His knuckles turned a little pinker. “You didn’t seem to mind making half-naked movies back when you were young enough to star in them,” he said, leaning into us so close I could smell his woodsy aftershave. “If there’s a reason for a young girl to be in a movie, then there’s a reason for that girl to be naked. But I’ll settle for half-naked.”
The crowd of young people giggled a little at the boldness of the director. Some gasped. But I could tell, they were all in awe of him.
He went on. “And junk films, as you call them, are where the money’s at.” He pulled up his sleeves, revealing a Rolex on his wrist.
He tapped his watch, then ripped up the pages and threw them by Mandy’s feet. She picked them up before they could blow into the lake.
“Let’s go, Somer. And anyone else in the scene,” he said, motioning toward the girl with the mullet and the Duran Duran boys.
Somer emerged from the group of young people. She was no longer in the flannel shirt, just the bikini. Only now, she was carrying a bow and a pair of archery gloves, a quiver full of arrows hung over her bare shoulder. She definitely looked the part of the heroine in the movie. Tough. I could see why Mandy was fighting for her character to be as tough as she looked.
Ned turned back toward the group. “Let’s see if we can make another woman’s group cry.”
Nervous laughter came from the crowd of people.
He raised his bushy eyebrows. “Because the more upset I make ‘em, the more money they make me.”
He turned and left.
Mandy talked to me in our head. “I know what you’re thinking. It could have been Ned.”
“It could have been,” I replied. “It could also have been Somer or the girl with the mullet.”
“Hannah,” she said.
“Yes, it could have been Hannah. It could’ve been anyone here,” I said. “We’re just going to take down clues at this point and see what happens.”
In the channeling, Mandy strutted back up the hill. Our jeans felt tighter than modern-day jeans, stiffer, like the fabric had almost no give to it. Her t-shirt felt the same way. We couldn’t breathe right, move right.
We opened the backdoor. The air was thick and stagnant in the sunroom, even though a ceiling fan spun noisily over puffy, white, oversized couches and the kind of solid wood coffee table that probably took three men to move.
Mandy yanked the sliding glass door open and entered the main part of the house. I could tell she was looking for her husban
d to have this out with him.
“I wasn’t exactly making friends,” she said to me. “Ned and I never really were friends. Not in college. Not afterwards. Graham followed his old friend’s career like a drooling puppy. He always said things like ‘Ned’s a sell-out, printing out money.’ He made it sound like it was a bad thing, but I could also tell he wanted to be printing out money too.”
“Graham,” Mandy yelled for her husband as she rushed through the dining room into the living room.
The Lockes’ house was spacious, but cluttered with horror props and papers. There were more leather couches in the living room, this time with pale pink and green accent pillows. A large wooden media cabinet held a modest-sized TV.
Mandy’s shoulders drooped as she went back over to the kitchen where props and makeup sat all along the dark granite countertops. Three large plastic bags labeled “sheep’s blood” were laying next to a hook and a fake hatchet. A typewriter was on the dining room table. Mandy tossed her stacks of papers next to it and went to look through the kitchen cabinets, rummaging around rice cakes and whole-wheat cracker boxes until she found some Pringles.
She closed the cabinet, shocked to see a slender woman in her 40s with short dark hair and understated makeup staring at us.
“Ruth, you scared me,” Mandy said to the woman. “I was looking for Graham.”
Ruth’s eyes went to the Pringles can.
Mandy popped the lid off and held it out for her friend.
Ruth was dressed in a pair of bright orange dolphin shorts and a black tank top with a thin yellow terrycloth headband wrapped around her head. “I just finished a kale smoothie, so I’m full. Plus, those’ll kill you. You know that, right? I told Barry not to buy them,” she said, then reached into the can and pulled out a small stack of about four chips. “They are good, though.”
