A Niceville Paranormal Mystery: Season 1, Episode 5

News to Confuse

Previously in Niceville: Carrie found her friend, Sylvia, dead. It was a secret what all went on, so logically the entire town knew in fifteen minutes.

Season 1: Episode 5

News to Confuse

“Wait. What’s the good news here?” I asked.

“Well, I thought it was good news that I was going to overlook that you assaulted Corey in broad daylight,” he said. 

I saw the edges of his mouth turn up into a grin. He was definitely pulling my leg. He didn’t care one little bit that I smacked that brat with my door. “I guess that makes sense,” I said dryly. “I’ll try my best not to let it happen again. Hope he learned to stay out of the way.”

“That’s all I can ask. Sometimes things get out of hand. I just can’t let you go off and assault the press people…even the really darn annoying ones.”

“Yes, Sir.”

“Now, for other more formal matters we really care about, I have a few things that we really need to talk about.”

“Okay. What’s that?”

He hesitated a second. It was one of those pauses that was clearly for drama. I tried really hard not roll my eyes out loud, if you know what I mean. 

“Did you know that Sylvia was going to seek you out for investigative services?”

“Huh?” I gasped. I was genuinely shocked. I had no idea what he was talking about, but I needed to know what he meant. It could point me in the direction of knowing what happened to her.  

“Or were you already under contract with her?”

“Whatever are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about the stuff we found at Corner Coffee in her office. Tell me what you know about that, Carrie. No need to hold back. We already found it.”

I sighed and rubbed the bridge of my nose. “I would tell you if I knew anything. I don’t know what you are talking about though.”

He chuckled. “Well, I can tell you honestly have no idea. We got to ask it frank and get shock value out of you. The honest reaction told me you weren’t lying. We found a text typed out to you on her phone. She hadn’t sent it. She also had your card on her desk. Seemed weird since you two were friends. I reckoned she wanted to be official about hiring you for some reason.”

“That’s awful. I wish she would have told me sooner what was bothering her. Maybe I could have helped. But now…” I trailed off.

“No. No. No. Don’t be thinking like that. We can’t have you blaming yourself. It could have nothing to do with this. Maybe she had some random something. She should have contacted the police if there was a serious matter at hand,” he said firmly.

“I just can’t help but feel like I missed something big.”

“Well, maybe we all did…” he trailed off. “I mean, after all, as Chief, it’s my responsibility…

“What?” I asked. 

“Give me a second. I’m thinking about something here.”

“Okay…”

He sat there twiddling his thumbs. I could tell he was trying really hard to decide if he was going to say what was on his mind, and I just really hoped he did. He was acting a bit off, so I wanted to know why. After a full thirty seconds to a minute, he let out a really long sigh. It flickered his mustache.

“Okay, I’m going to confide in you about something, but this is a serious police matter. Do you understand?”

“Of course. I won’t breathe a word to anyone.” Or almost anyone. I already planned on telling this entire conversation to Mandy as soon as I got the first chance, so I crossed my fingers under my desk like a child.

“Good girl,” he said.

I felt aggravation roll through me. Did he think I was a puppy? I didn’t feel too bad for crossing my fingers now.

“Now, we are a little on the short staffed side don’t at police department. We could probably use a hand from you on this case. Everyone seems to be coming to you and asking questions, bringing all the latest news, and all that already. Maybe you could just do a little snooping around. I’d pay you that usual rate you ask for if that’s okay?”

I hesitated a second. “Well, can I have an hour or two to think this over? It hit pretty close to home.”

“Oh yeah. Now that I cleared you as the number one suspect, it isn’t a problem for me.”

“Now you wait just a minute, I thought I wasn’t a suspect?”

“Well, I had to say that. You were though. Just for a few hours. Sorry about that.”

I felt my face turn sour. I tried to straighten it out, but I was pretty sure that it just got worse the harder I tried.

“Now, don’t you look like that at me. You were found with her body, early in the morning, all alone. We had to do a little digging. Made perfect sense. Don’t you pretend otherwise.”

I groaned. He wasn’t wrong. “Fine, but I don’t have to be happy about. And lying to me isn’t okay. I need to think about it. And I’ll need to be able to see if Mandy can work with me.”

“All right. Can you call me later and let me know?”

“Fine.”

“Okay, Sweetie,” he said as he stood. “Two more questions.

“Uh-huh?”

“You don’t have any idea at all what she could have needed from you? Not even a little bit? Scorned lover? Bad business? Anything?”

“Nothing that she’d talked to me about. I’ll think on it.”

“And you are one of her closest friends. Can you help us access her security footage? It seems jammed.”

“Probably. We have the same system,” I paused. “Had the same.”

He looked a bit sad for a second, but then just nodded. “Okay, well I’ll await your call. You’d be a huge help on this case, especially with your special talents.” He sauntered his big old butt out of my office like he hadn’t come in, ate my food, and insulted me before asking for my help. What a man!

***

I was pretty sure I knew what I wanted to do without much thought, but it wasn’t my decision to make all on my own. That’s why I couldn’t answer on the spot. You don’t make big choices that will impact two people all by yourself. Mandy was a part of this. She was, after all, just as important to every investigation as I was. I sat in the back for an extra fifteen minutes. I just needed to get my head back on straight.

Eventually, I crawled out of my thoughts and went back out front to help Mandy man the counter. She definitely didn’t deserve to handle the crazy rush without my help. Professional or not, the people were being absolutely ruthless today. When I slid back into step beside her, I said quietly, “We need to talk when things quiet down. I’m thinking we might want to close up here at around two when the lunch rush is officially over.”

“That works for me. Want me to make a sign for the door and post on socials?”

“Yes, Ma’am,” I said back.

She sauntered off to do her thing, and I guess I did mine too because we survived the end of the lunch rush with little to no damage. There were plenty of nosey customers. Lots of questions about where we were going to be if we weren’t here. We slyly dodged each one.

When we bolted the door at two, I let out a groan that could probably be heard in California. Mandy laughed.

“What?” I huffed at her.

“Dramatic much?”

“No! I thought Mr. Smith was going to lick his napkin before he left. He wanted to make us miserable,” I grumbled.

“I hear ya, but he’s gone now. Let me get us some coffee and a snack. We can go in your office to chat. Go on back there. I’ll meet you in a minute. You look exhausted.”

“Gee, thanks,” I said as I sulked off.

Cue more laughter from behind me. “No problem. You do look terrible!”

I went on in the back and took a seat at my desk. I had to admit, I was getting pretty hungry. The thought of some warm cookies and coffee was enough to perk me up considerably. I knew that Mandy would bring just that with her, but she did even better. She brought cookies and donuts with coffee. When I lit up, she said, “This day called for extra sugary reinforcements.”

I nodded vigorously. 

“Well, what did he want?”

“To accuse me of things. To eat my food. To treat me like a puppy. To ask me for help.”

Mandy had been taking a drink of coffee, but it shot out her nose as she coughed. After several seconds of spluttering, she said, “Come again?”

“You heard me right! He wanted to rule me out as the suspect. Apparently, they found stuff that points to Sylvia wanting to hire me as her investigator for something. He said it was suspicious I was found with the body. Well, then I had no idea about any of the stuff they found, so I was ruled out. Turns out that all that could be bygones if I was useful.”

“Now slowdown,” Mandy said. “What did they find?” 

“I don’t even know what all. My card. A text message, but they will tell me more if I agree to help them. I guess they are short on people. Top secret, that is with the whole town knowing.” I rolled my eyes.

Mandy nodded. I mean, it wasn’t really a secret. Everyone did already know.

We sat there a moment in silence. Mandy tapped her fingers on her coffee cup. “Well, what did you tell him?”

“Well, what do you think? I told him I’d have to think on it and talk to you! I couldn’t make such a big decision without asking you. We’d have a lot of responsibility on our plate.”

She grinned at me. “I never say no to a case. Let’s do it. We owe Sylvia that much.”

“I mean, that’s what I thought too. Are you sure you’re okay with the amount of work we will be taking on? It could be dangerous!”

“What’s life without a little danger?” Mandy said.

“Safe. It’s safe.”

We both laughed. We knew we were way past the point of being safe. Today handed us a dose of insanity. I’d found our friend dead that morning, and by the sound of it, the entire town knew. Unless I was lucky and it was a freak incident from an out of towner, the killer was out there and might already be on my case. Safe wasn’t something I was already. 

“Seems like another case of Carrie in trouble,” Mandy said. 

“Yes, it does.”

“What are we nicknaming this case? You know we have to nickname?”

Mandy and I have a tradition of naming each case. Normally, the names are like Mike Manson’s Mauler (after his dog who bites) or something like that. We air on the side of silly.

I looked down at my coffee cup. My stomach turned sour. My mind wondered back to the morning and the caramel macchiato smell that filled my nose. Sylvia had been there long enough to start the oven, but not get anything in it. She’d made herself, or someone else, a coffee too. There were so many more questions than there were answers at this point. That was my job now, I guess, to find the answers.

“Let’s call the case the Caramel Macchiato Murder,” I said.

She looked at me, no laughter left on her face. The seriousness was setting in. This wasn’t the average type of case that we worked. We were in over our heads, but it was something we had to do. This wasn’t dog bits, cheating spouses, and bad neighbors. It was murder. Mandy deadpanned me. 

“That’s a good idea. You better call Chief and let him know we are in. Not that I expect he’s working too hard. He never does.”

“Okay, he’ll probably need to see you too. We can call him together.”

I reached for my cellphone with the intention of putting it on speaker.