The Haunting of Riley Watson

by Alexandria Clarke

  Daniel gestured for him to go ahead, and Nick disappeared through the swinging doors. The enticing smell of garlic and olive oil soon floated into the lounge.

  “That wasn’t so hard, was it?” I asked Daniel before attempting to return to Jazmin.

  “Lucia, wait,” he said. “I haven’t asked you about last night yet.”

  I straddled the stool next to his, eyeing the scribbles on his notepad. He flipped to a fresh page. “I figured you didn’t have to. Didn’t we clear things up this morning?”

  “Not exactly,” he said. “I can’t stop thinking about what you said.”

  “Which part?”

  “That you’ve moved a dead body before.”

  My spine went stiffer than the booze on the top shelf. “I told you I didn’t want to talk about it.”

  He shifted into cop mode, all straight shoulders and gruff tone. “And I told you we’re in the midst of a homicide investigation. Every detail matters. What were you doing last night—or this morning if you will—between the hours of ten p.m. and four a.m.?”

  “I was sleeping,” I replied. “You can ask Jazmin. She was with me the entire night.”

  “A culprit can always find at least one friend to back them up.”

  “So I’m a culprit?”

  “That’s not what—”

  A guttural scream from the kitchen interrupted his sentence. I knocked over my bar stool in my haste to get up, beating Daniel to the swinging doors. He ran into my back as we both stormed into the kitchen. The door to the storage freezer was open. Karli sobbed into Matisse’s chest. He cradled her head as carefully as if she were a glass ornament. Nick emerged from the freezer, his cane slipping in the ice on the floor. His face was tinted green, and his lips were pressed together as if he was determinedly holding back vomit.

  “I’m afraid Karli happened upon Tyler’s temporary resting place,” Nick explained, blotting his forehead with his satin pocket square. “His head was a bit uncovered. Detective Hawkins” —he brandished his cane at Daniel— “did it not occur to you to warn us of where you intended to store him?”

  Daniel brushed past Nick to check the freezer himself. I poured three glasses of water and handed them to Nick, Matisse, and Karli. Matisse refused his, instead coaxing Karli into taking a sip.

  “Are you okay?” I asked Nick.

  “I’m afraid not,” he replied, tipping the glass in thanks. “I did the best I could to cover Mr. Watson’s face again, but I imagine the sight will haunt me for years to come. However, I don’t harbor such concern for myself. It’s the poor girl I’m worried about.”

  Violent tremors shook Karli’s entire body no matter how tightly Matisse held her. She verged on hysteria. I tore through the pantry to find a paper bag, crumpled the top of it into a rough circle, and offered it to Karli.

  “Breathe into this,” I said. “Oldest trick in the book, but it helps. I know from experience. Let go of her, Matisse. You’re crowding her.”

  Matisse glared but moved away. Karli put the bag to her mouth and took several deep breaths. Her eyes were bloodshot. It was a good thing she’d only seen the one dead person at King and Queens. If she knew the extent of the situation, she would never be able to handle it.

  “I know it’s hard,” I said to her. “Don’t focus on what you saw. Focus on here and now. Breathe.”

  She locked her eyes on mine, and I tracked the moment she started calming down. A few minutes later, she was able to lower the paper bag and breathe evenly.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  “How did you know what to do?” Matisse asked.

  “I was prone to panic attacks when I was younger,” I told him. “If you don’t want to be incapacitated in a public place, you learn to control them.”

  Daniel emerged from the freezer and shut the door. “Show’s over,” he grumbled. “He’s covered up again. I’m sorry, Miss—what was your name?”

  Matisse stepped in front of Karli. “You’re an ass, Detective.”

  Daniel rested his hand on his gun. “You want to run that by me again?”

  “You should have told everyone you were holding the body in here,” Matisse said, not backing down. “We’re traumatized enough as it is.”

  Daniel waved off Matisse’s accusation. “I don’t have time to be chastised by a kid.”

  Matisse followed him out of the kitchen. “You know I’m right.”

  In the Eagle’s View, everyone except Oliver gathered around the bar, craning their necks to see through the small porthole windows into the kitchen. When we came out, they scattered like bugs. Jazmin took me by the elbow.

  “What happened?” she whispered.

  “Karli found the body,” I muttered. The answer wasn’t quiet enough. Imani, who I hadn’t noticed was standing behind me, overheard it.

  “Are you kidding me?” she said. “Karli, is that true?”

  The tearful bartender nodded, and the rest of the employees mumbled angrily. Daniel, noting the intense change in atmosphere, tried to take control of the issue.

  “It was a simple mistake,” he announced. “Everyone relax. The situation has been handled.”

  “Handled?” Imani repeated. With her spindly legs, she was the same height as Daniel, so his towering bad cop persona had no effect on her. “Detective Hawkins, I mean no disrespect, but you’re not handling anything at all. You’ve penned us up in this bar with no food or drinks, scared the crap out of us with your interrogations, and made us all feel like criminals. You do realize that most of us are innocent, right? Some of us aren’t old enough to be questioned without a parent or guardian present.” She looked over her shoulder at Ari, who ducked her head. “This place is toxic, and I refuse to cooperate until we’re no longer in imminent danger from whoever killed Tyler.”

  Imani’s speech provided the other employees with the gunpowder they needed to stand up for themselves. Matisse planted his feet.

  “I won’t answer any more questions either,” he declared.

  Ari stood too. “Neither will I. I’m seventeen. It’s illegal to ask me anything in the first place.”

  “This whole situation reeks of illegality,” Imani added. “We’re being held against our will—”

  “You are not!” Daniel said.

  “Then let us leave the lounge,” she challenged.

  “I can’t let you do that.”

  “Then you are holding us!”

  “I’m trying to keep everyone safe,” Daniel shouted. “Don’t you see that? There’s only one of me, and I can’t watch everyone at the same time. I want the rest of us to make it out of this alive, just like you, so I’d appreciate it if everyone would let me do my damn job!”

  His declaration echoed through the big dome of the lodge and lobby, silencing everyone else. As he heaved for breath, Imani put her hands up in momentary abeyance.

  “My bad, homie,” she said. “I wasn’t thinking of it from your perspective.”

  Daniel’s shoulders fell, bringing everyone’s fiery temper down with them. “Listen, everyone. I know this is hard. Maybe I’ve handled it poorly, but this is the only way I know how to do it. That being said, we clearly need to take a break. Let’s have an hour to eat lunch and relax.”

  With a few extra hands to help them in the kitchen, Matisse and Karli assembled platters of cold cuts, cheese, and Matisse’s fresh bread for lunch. Karli was calmer when she had a task to take her mind off of everything. As she served Jazmin, Riley, and me, she did so with her usual polite demeanor, but the subtle shake of her hands betrayed her deeper thoughts. Everyone else calmed down once they dug into their food. Daniel slowed his roll to eat with Nick at the bar. They chatted amiably, chuckling once or twice. I was glad of Nick’s inherent charm. He used it wisely. Near the end of the designated lunch hour, a touch of restlessness hit the lounge. No one wanted to return to Daniel’s interrogations now that we were content with the food in our stomachs. Imani and Ari approached our table.

  “Madame Luci
a?” Ari said. “Imani and I were talking, and we were wondering if you’d perform a skit for everyone, like in one of your web shows. It would lighten the mood.”

  I exchanged a glance with Riley, who shrugged, then Jazmin, who grinned.

  “It’s up to you,” Jazmin said.

  In the lounge corner, alone at his own table, Oliver picked at his uneaten sandwich.

  “I don’t think so, girls,” I said. “It would be insensitive considering what’s happened today.”

  “Go ahead,” Oliver said, pushing his plate to the side. It was the first time he’d uttered a word since his confrontation with Nick. “If everyone wants to see it, I don’t mind. It passes the time. I know it’s not real.”

  “I don’t have my materials,” I protested.

  “You don’t need them,” Imani insisted as she drew me from the booth. “Come on. It’ll be fun. You do this all the time, right?”

  “Yeah, but things have changed,” I muttered.

  Jazmin slid out of the booth to rescue me from Imani’s grasp. “Take it easy,” she said in my ear. “This could be fun. You love playing Madame Lucia, remember? Tap into that. I’ll help you.”

  The Eagle’s View was full of eager expressions. The mood had shifted for the better in anticipation of my performance. If I didn’t go through with it, the room would fall back into the pall of Tyler’s death.

  “Okay,” I agreed. “Let’s do it. If Oliver’s sure.”

  Oliver gave the thumbs up from his booth then put his head on his arms and presumably fell asleep.

  Jazmin clapped her hands together, a familiar mischievous expression on her face that only I would recognize. She had something up her sleeve. “Let’s get started.”

  We set up a table in the middle of the room so everyone could see. Since all of my psychic accoutrements were in the suite upstairs, we improvised. Jazmin stole the tea lights off the lounge tables and arranged them in a half-moon circle. We organized a pattern of lace doilies and placed a salt lamp from the bar atop them. It wasn’t my usual show of crystals, but the white candles were authentic enough to please my audience.

  “Here we go,” I said, once everything was set up. Everyone but Oliver pulled a chair close to the table. I quickly braided my hair. It wasn’t Madame Lucia’s trademark pink mohawk, but it helped me get into character nonetheless. I cleared my throat, buying time to remember my opening. “Good evening, spiritualists, channelers, and curiosity chasers!” I began. As soon as the words left my mouth, a thrill raced through me. I’d never had a live audience like this before. “Welcome to Madame Lucia’s Parlour for the Dead and Departed, where I, Madame Lucia, connect with the dead and not so departed.”

  Everyone clapped, including Daniel and Nick. Imani and Ari, who were my most devoted fans out of the group, whooped and egged me on.

  I wagged a warning finger at the group. “I must warn you. Mediumship is not for the faint of heart. We must proceed into the spirit realm with the three C’s—”

  “Confidence, candidness, and caution!” chorused Imani and Ari. Everyone else laughed at their dedication.

  “Indeed!” I said, amping up my awful Spanish accent for their benefit. “Confidence, candidness, and caution. If you lack but one of these, who knows what you might bring back from the other realm. Today we’re speaking to—uh—”

  This is where the live performance deviated from my usual script. Normally, Jazmin and I would have set up a teleconference with whatever poor soul wanted Madame Lucia to contact a loved one from beyond the grave, but without a caller, I wasn’t sure what to do.

  “Who should we contact?” I asked the crowd in my normal voice.

  “My grandma!” Imani suggested.

  “Jimmy Hoffa!” called Daniel. I shot him a look, and he shrugged. “What? I want to know what happened to him.”

  “My childhood dog,” Matisse said. “He got hit by a car while I was in college, and I never got to say goodbye to him.”

  “We have a winner!” I said. “Matisse, what was your dog’s name?”

  “Dog.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “I was four when I named him,” he said. “Cut me some slack.”

  I rolled my eyes and brought the accent back. “Fine. Today we’re speaking to Matisse from the King and Queens Ski Lodge and Resort, who is desperate to get in touch with his long lost friend, Dog the dog.”

  Everyone roared with laughter, and I couldn’t help cracking a grin myself. Why hadn’t I done this before? It was totally worth the nerves of standing in front of a crowd.

  “Dog?” I called out, suppressing a giggle. “Oh, Dog the dog! We are here today to bring about your presence in this room. If you’re here with us, give us a sign?”

  Nick barked from the back of the crowd. Everyone looked around in temporary shock then dissolved into more laughter when they realized who was responsible.

  “Hey!” Matisse scolded.

  “Sorry,” Nick called. “I couldn’t help it.”

  “As I was saying,” I went on. “Give us a sign, Dog! Make your presence known!”

  A tinkling crash made everyone jump. A clear glass pitcher had fallen off the table between Jazmin and the others. It hit the floor and shattered. Jazmin leapt out of the way as orange juice rushed toward her shoes.

  “Okay, who did that?” she demanded of the audience.

  No one confessed. Imani and Ari made matching “I’m innocent” gestures. Matisse and Karli were too far away from the table to have moved the pitcher. I decided to go with it.

  “It must be Dog!” I cried. “Give us another sign!”

  “No, no,” said Matisse as he jumped up from his seat. “I changed my mind. I don’t want to do this anymore. I thought it was a joke.”

  “It is a joke,” I insisted. “Didn’t you see the last episode of my show? I was totally exposed.”

  “Then who knocked over the pitcher?”

  When I couldn’t answer, I knew the gag was over. The lighthearted humor had faded from the lounge. Smiles returned to frowns.

  “We have to close the connection,” I said. “If we’re done.”

  “How do we do that?” Matisse asked.

  “Say goodbye to Dog.”

  “Bye, Dog,” he said shortly.

  I dusted my hands and blew out the candles, bringing the fake connection to an end. “Goodbye, Dog.”

  As wisps of smoke wafted across the lounge, the crowd dispersed, separating into solitary groups again. Jazmin helped me put the tea lights back where they belonged.

  “That was a bust,” I said.

  “I don’t know about that,” she replied. “You gave everyone a laugh, and you cemented Madame Lucia’s powers. No one’s going to mess with you now.”

  “Is that why you knocked over the pitcher?”

  She mock-gasped, placing a hand over her heart. “What could you possibly be talking about? It’s preposterous to accuse me of such a crime.”

  “Please,” I scoffed. “We’ve been doing this together for years. I saw you yank on the tablecloth behind your back.”

  “It’s what I do for the production,” Jazmin said. “I didn’t expect everyone to get all up in arms about it. It’s not like they know the lodge is actually haunted. I thought it would be a good way to get the show moving.”

  I placed the last tea light on the table next to Oliver’s. “I’m not blaming you for anything. It was a good idea.”

  She nudged me playfully. “You were in your element. Don’t tell me that wasn’t fun.”

  “It was. I wish it was always like that.”

  “It could be.”

  “Yeah.” I stared wistfully through the windows of the lounge. The snow had started up again, as if there wasn’t enough on the ground already. “If we ever get out of here.”

  13

  Since there was no surefire way to regulate everyone’s nighttime rituals and Daniel needed to get some sleep for himself, he let us all return to our regular rooms at the en
d of the night. He warned us to double lock our doors in case the killer wasn’t done. As we went our separate ways, portioning ourselves off floor by floor, the situation felt more and more surreal. We spent the whole day with each other, laughing and commiserating together. It seemed impossible that one of the people in the Eagle’s View was a murderer. No one came off as threatening, hostile, or out of their mind. Then again, neither had Ted Bundy. Out of everyone in the resort, the person with the shortest temper was Oliver.

  Riley slept in our room, smack in between me and Jazmin like a kid seeking solace in her parents’ bed after a nightmare. Her feet, pressed against my calves no matter how I arranged the blankets, were as cold as the snow on the mountain, but I liked having her where I knew she was safe. She was first to wake up the next morning, bouncing across the bedspread and into the bathroom before Jazmin and I opened our eyes.

  Jazmin buried her face in the pillows. “Tell me yesterday was all a terrible dream. Tell me we’re going to get up today, have breakfast and a cappuccino, and go skiing on the mountain during our all-inclusive stay here.”

  “We’re going to get up, have breakfast and a cappuccino, but we’re not going skiing because I suck at it,” I offered, my voice raspy and low from sleep. “Instead, we’re going to the spa for massages and facials since it’s included in our stay here.”

  “That sounds nice. If only you were telling the truth.”

  I checked the alarm clock. It was too early for the Eagle’s View to be serving breakfast. “How long do you think we have before Daniel—”

  The phone rang, and Jazmin rolled over to answer it. “Hello? Uh-huh. Super. We’ll be down just as soon as we’re properly awake and dressed.” She hung up, the phone rattling against the receiver. “Not long enough. That was our wake up call. He wants everyone in the Eagle’s View in fifteen minutes.”

  “Fifteen minutes? He’s such a guy. He probably rolled out of bed and into the same pair of jeans from yesterday.”

  Jazmin slid out from under the duvet cover, shivering as her bare toes touched the floor. She took my kimono—the one I usually reserved for performances as Madame Lucia—and swung it around her willowy frame. On her, it actually looked like a comfortable yet classy cover-up. On me, it looked like a joke. Jazmin tied it around her waist, put her long copper hair into a messy bun, and went into the conjoined living room and kitchen area. I recognized her purposeful stride. It meant she was up to something.