“Little sister?” Regan passed the nip of bourbon over, and I dotted my cider with the last few drops.
“Yup. Little sister.”
“Wait. Is this a mystery?” Linds shifted in the hay next to me. She was holding her cup close, inhaling the appley goodness, her face aglow like we’d just come from a great facial. “What kind? Wait. Was that Poe guy murdered?”
My eyes popped wide, and my head swiveled around like a puppet on a string. “Linds. Jesus fuck, girl.” I grunted through clenched teeth, looking past my tipsy friend to see if anyone else on the hayride heard her, hoping the clip-clop of the horseshoes on the cobblestones along Main Street drowned her out. The wagon was massive, and the couple dozen people sitting or lying in hay, who had been with us all afternoon drinking hard liquor-assisted apple cider and walking through assorted cemeteries and creepy hollows with hosts of gnarled trees, were unlikely to be sober enough to pay attention at the tail end of the ride, right?
I mean, I could barely pay attention at this point, but when Linds speaks, I always feel like I need to be ready for anything, and this anything wasn’t for public consumption.
Until it was…
“Murder? Did you say there was a murder?” A guy probably in his forties, dark hair and glasses, and sporting an orange and black flannel twisted around, sloshing his cider onto the narrow space between Linds and him. “Are you talking about Victor?”
Cat officially out of bag in 3, 2, 1…
He leaned over towards Linds, and I hoped just then Linds would do a Lindsay thing and lean in, let him get a good look at all that cleavage she was sporting and distract him with another endless story about a hay ride she’d once been on with a boyfriend-girlfriend couple she was fucking, or something like that, but we weren’t that lucky.
I felt as much as heard Regan’s giggle. She’d brought the extra bourbon and wasn’t holding back. I was thankful, even if everything was starting to get a little fuzzy. “Ses? You’re up.”
But it was too late. His eyes lit up when he focused on me.
“Hey, aren’t you the chick who was sitting next to him and found him dead? You weren’t even wearing a costume.” He adjusted his tilted glasses and propped himself up on flannel elbows. “Do you even know what that book he has is?”
He didn’t wait a beat for an answer, which was fine since no answer was coming. And yes, I’d been wearing a costume. I was dressed as a hot private investigator from Baltimore, but an undercover one, so I just looked like a hot normie. What did he know?
Apparently, he knew a lot, and immediately, I downshifted into listen mode, which made it easier to keep sipping.
“Presumably Victor found a notebook full of unpublished Poe fiction and poetry, a virtual treasure of literature — even the unfinished stuff would be worth millions to a collector.” He pushed his glasses up — they slid down his nose a little farther with every word. “The real gold mine, though —,” he paused, his voice dropping to a whisper, and I found myself leaning in because suddenly poor Mr. Not Poe sitting dead on the sofa at the end of an innocent haunted pub tour seemed less than innocent, “— the real prize isn’t the poem or prose. It’s the cryptograms and ciphers. They’re all over the manuscript. Some pages are nothing but code, I hear.”
My eyebrows tensed, and I felt the air go out of the room. “Are they etched in gold?” It wasn’t my brightest moment, I admit, and when I saw Linds light up like a jack-o-lantern with a big toothy grin, a little squee emerging from her lips, I realized I was a little slow to the game.
I blame the bourbon. And Regan. Always blame the bartender.
“Cryptograms and ciphers and codes, oh my!” Linds — all of five foot two with curves for days, the girl that the boys noticed for her bounce and her giggles, and the entrepreneur not just a little infamous for the adult site she ran out of the studio she owned in Baltimore — and me, all but forgetting she was, well, a genius — leaned in, almost pushing her boobs into dude’s face. She poured the rest of the bottle of bourbon into said dude’s cup. “Do tell. “I’m a sucker for cryptography.”
I looked at Regan and shrugged. Who knew?
The afternoon had consisted of a long, but fun ride through the frosty, mostly muddy, hinterland around Ravenwood. An afternoon of laughing, the occasional attempt at a singalong or two — whatever one or the other of us could remember some of the words to, and just a relaxing day in the countryside after a tumultuous night in the bar. We’d graciously missed the rain by a few days, but the downshift to cooler weather and the recent rain had delivered a spooky fog through most of the ride. Note: Fog is a must have in hollows. Loved it!
We were in Spooksville, USA, after all, and who didn’t love a leisurely, boozy hay ride over some hills and through some woods on a winding road? If Disney was a cement and plastic fantasy facade for kids, Ravenwood was an all-natural adult playground.
The warm apple cider laced with the extra bourbon we’d picked up in one of the shops offered the additional warmth a girl needed, and if Regan was a heavy pour, I wasn’t complaining. Lindsay had been unexpectedly quiet most of the ride, except for the attempts to get everyone singing Beyoncé songs. As for me, well, as much as I really just wanted to close my eyes and catch a few winks, I couldn’t help thinking about my dream the night before and, of course, the dead man slumping over on me at the end of the night.
And then Charlie and her cute little bookstore, and the two pushy dipshits dressed like bathroom accoutrements.
And now, Henry Aimes, all of forty-three, a perpetual bachelor and self-identified math nerd, who immediately fell victim to Lindsay’s figure, the rest of her bourbon, and her ability to discuss cryptography at length. Again, who knew? I glanced at Regan, and she just shrugged. We just let Lindsay go. If there was one thing I’d learned, if her motor was running, get out of the way.
It was all mental note-taking after that, and I vowed to buy Linds a big slice of chocolate cake for dessert after witnessing the most bizarre, cryptographically erotic interrogation imaginable.
“Did she have to rub her boobs all over his face?” Regan was incredulous, but that was the norm. She stood next to me on the cobblestones, the hayride far behind us, the town square in front of us, teaming with people. A bonfire blazed in the center, throwing off insane heat and casting eerie shadows across the surrounding buildings as the sun tucked itself behind the Ravenwood Estate up on the hill. Somewhere in the crowd were Lindsay and Henry, still chatting.
“Did he tell us everything we never wanted to know about Victor and the Poe ciphers?” I glanced around and found no one close enough to hear us. Everyone seemed to be all about the bonfire.
“Did he tell us anything useful? I just tuned it out after the third squee and the third button came undone.” Regan took another drag on the flask she held in her hand and passed it over, her eyes scanning the crowd. She had the traditional Regan scowl going, but I knew she wasn’t angry. She was just being protective. It’s what she did. If anyone got handsy with Linds, or me, Regan would be the one to end it, and neither of us wanted the weekend to go that way. Instead, it looked like it was going another way altogether.
“And now?”
“I got eyes on her,” she said, shoving her hands in her pockets. “He seems harmless, but…”
“Just relax, Marine. Linds is a big girl. She’s working him for information.”
“Well, as long as that’s all he’s gonna give her.”
I laughed. Linds could do what she wanted, but guys did seem to fall in lust with her at first sight. What they never expected was that she had a brain, too. And then, getting rid of them was always a bit of a chore.
“Hey, he told us a lot, I think -- more than anyone in the world needs to know about cryptography and Poe, but he also told us that someone would have been willing to kill Victor over those ciphers. Do you think his sister knew that?” I fingered the flask and took another swig, feeling the burn and the lightheadedness that was coming on. My legs were tingly, and I wasn’t sure if I’d slurred any of that sentence or not, which was a sure sign I was in the slurring stage. Stage 2. Stage 3 was throw up or take all my clothes off, depending on who else was involved. A girl knew these things. Years of practice.
“So, you’re saying it was a murder? Ses, are we really mixed up in another mess? Hanging out with you is dangerous.” She nudged me and reached for the flask, but I danced away, drawing her towards the crowd with a groan.
Lindsay was in there somewhere, in that mish-mash of humanity surrounding the massive blaze, and I wanted to keep my eye on the crowd in case something really was afoot.
All I saw now was dancing and singing, goofy, spooky laughing, people talking to each other in groups, couples, and otherwise a couple hundred people dressed like every sort of weirdo and creature known to man — it was Halloween for adults, after all. It looked fun, but like Regan, I wanted to be sure our own little adult video starlet was safe. Even if Mr. Henry Aimes seemed like a sweetheart, Victor was dead, and we didn’t know what killed him.
Linds had stuck with Henry Aimes after the ride ended, keeping him talking. I could see what she was doing, and after a nod from me, she was off being herself — unbearably bubbly, undeniably sexy, and the kind of early 20s ditz that every guy in their 40s would throw their back out to impress. Dude knew something, some things, things we needed to know, and what better to extract all the information from him than someone who both giggled and was a master of math?
It had bothered me all night and all day that our ghost tour guy would just drop dead at the end of a show. If it had been part of the script, I could have understood. A fake death, a sudden cry, a performance for the ages, him screaming and pointing at the apparition the rest of us couldn’t see. “It’s Old Man Blackwood come back to take his revenge,” he would have screeched, grabbing his throat or his chest, producing some kind of fake blood or a ghostly blade or both, something theatrical that ended in a spectacular death scene rivaling any high school version of Romeo and Juliet. That would have made a lot of sense, but this…?
This was something else.
Loofah and Soap had been angry at Charlotte, who was probably barely holding it together. I hadn’t bought the bobblehead Poe because I needed something else on my desk at home, and after her revelation, I’d wanted to buy half the store. But Aimes was here for the manuscript, too. And unless there was some secret Poe spy network society that crisscrossed the country, that meant the word was out that Victor had a priceless document, or had claimed he did, and there were people who wanted it. Authenticate it? Buy it? Was it worth enough that someone would kill him for it? We needed to know more, and so, it was time to find our mole and compare notes.
“She’s over there, Ses. Come on,” said Regan, and she grabbed my hand and pulled. She was taller than me, too many inches taller, the bitch, and even in my little, lined hiking boots, now caked with mud from the one pit stop we made near the cemetery, she could see over and through the crowd.
Lindsay was still with Henry, sitting on a log facing the raging fire, her face aglow as we circled, giving her space to do her thing. She cradled her mug, sipping and talking, her eyes all about Mr. Aimes and his knowledge of cryptography. She smiled and laughed and waved her mug under his nose when it was empty. It was a not-exactly-classic interrogation scene, but it was better than anything the North Koreans could do, I was sure of that. Go girl! Henry Aimes was all smiles, and I was sure it wasn’t just the boobs…I mean, booze. The whole mood of the night was joyous, frolicky — if that was a thing, and I glanced around momentarily, hoping to catch a glimpse of another person handing out cider. We had more bourbon, after all.
Regan pulled me around behind our prey and our mole, her eyes sharper than mine because all I could see at that point was a blurry blonde head leaning into the shoulder of an Orioles fan. Then, suddenly, I was yanked down, and felt my teeth rattle when my ass landed on the massive log behind me. I leaned into Regan, mirroring Linds’ lean into Henry Aimes, and I was just about to say something when Regan matter-of-factly shushed me.
“Listen,” she growled.
Listen was as much as I was capable of at the moment, certainly not solving a case or even walking back to the room. Wow, bourbon, wow, bro! I could really feel it in my legs now. Maybe walking straight was off the table, but I could still listen.
“Reddit. Don’t tell me you know all that about cryptography and nothing about Reddit. It’s like the place to go to know things. I mean, besides Penn or Princeton or you know? Did you say you went to Maryland?” Henry was still going, and Lindsay was still driving him. She said something, and he laughed, leaned over and put his arm around her. I felt Regan tense, and suddenly I was alert, trying to sit up, trying to claw through the jello that was muddling my brain.
His voice rang through the din of the party. “Alice, yes. I think they met at a book collector convention, what with his bookstore and all. And I’ve also seen Emily. Emily Sinclair. They were in school together, I think. Art. Something there between them. Some bad business.” Another pause, and then, “No, I couldn’t say. Don’t want to speculate. These kinds of literary circles are very tight, and, well, I would disrespect the passing of my friend, don’t you know.” Another pause, Lindsay saying something, and then I knew that it was time to swoop in when he said, “We could go for a bite. I’m starving. And maybe a drink after?”
“Golly, Mister, I dunno,” said Linds, her voice ringing out. She glanced back, caught my eye, and gave me the look.
My eyes popped wide. Time to go.
I lurched up, Lindsay’s signal to swoop in for an extraction going off like a firework. I felt Regan’s tight grip on my upper arm as I staggered, the world tilting this way, then that. Not fair. She’d definitely had more of the bourbon than me. She dragged me along, her sure grip and sure step pulling me around the cozy couple, until we were face-to-face with the two of them, Linds unsnuggling herself from under his gangly arm, still smiling her happy little drunk smile, me grinning ear to ear like I’d just had the best piece of molten lava cake in the universe, and Regan uncharacteristically all song and dance.
“There you are,” she said. “Oh Lindsay, we’ve been looking all over for you.”
“Thanks, mister,” I chimed in. “What a pal! You found our girl, and I thought I was going to have to go to the lost and found. Told her not to have the cider.”
Henry looked up at us like a puppy that couldn’t quite figure out what you were trying to say. At the same time, Regan leaned down and somehow pulled Lindsay out of the grip of dude-man-bro and into my arms while also ensuring that I didn’t fall back into the towering inferno that was currently melting the Chapstick in my back pocket.
Linds smiled her best smile, and I smiled back, arms around her. Regan’s arms enveloping us both. The fire spinning, twisting away to the left. The voice of someone. A guy I was sure we’d just met, calling out in the night as we drifted drifted drifted.
I didn’t remember getting in bed, but when I opened my eyes, the room was as black as night. I licked dry lips, thanked the bartending gods I was in my mid-20s and hangovers weren’t really a thing yet. Rolling over onto my back, I sighed and wondered what time it was, and if there was a midnight snack here at this particular BNB.
It was just then that I thought I could see Mr. Not Poe’s face above me, with stringy black hair, a slender mustache, and yellowing teeth from smoking too much. He looked so serene on the couch, just a man sleeping after a long night of oratory.
“Sorry, Victor,” I said, suddenly feeling a sense of failure. The guy had been sitting right there dead, and I hadn’t even realized it. Had anyone? And how had it happened? It couldn’t have been a murder, could it? But then, where was the manuscript? If Charlotte didn’t know…
Suddenly, his eyes popped open, his mouth moving, spewing figures, numbers, letters, a long line of characters that danced across the room and burned themselves into wood, some wood, a board, a table, the table, the one, the one in the tavern where the Blackwoods lived and died, where Not Poe fell.
His words echoed in my mind as I slipped away into the land of dreams.
In shadows deep, where ink-stained quills reside,
Family ties unlock, secrets to confide.
With Poe's gaze on oversized tomes,
Raven's Quill reveals hidden homes.
Author’s Notes: You know, at first I didn’t think this was going to be a paranormal mystery. And then, as I was writing the first couple of episodes, I realized it would be much more fun to include a ghost. What a better partner for Sesame and her besties than the ghost of the person who’d gotten murdered in the first place?
And the ciphers? I can’t remember when that idea popped into my head. It would be enough for an unpublished Poe manuscript to be priceless, but including the ciphers, the poems that you’ll see are actually riddles, and other clues would play into Lindsay’s talents.
Lindsay is an enigma, and we meet her for the first time in Sesame’s debut novel, which I’m writing right now. She’s Baltimore’s porn sweetheart, but she’s much more than a pretty face and set of curves. As I was writing the first draft of the third novel, I realized that Lindsay would be one of those fantastic people you sometimes meet — someone who fits the bill of the phrase “Don’t judge a book by its cover.” So, in revising the first novel, I went back and introduced this idea so I could pay it off later.
Regan, for her part, we also meet in the first novel, although both she and Lindsay play minimal parts. But that story sets up this trio of friends who always manage to run into some kind of trouble — like Angela Lansbury in ‘Murder, She Wrote.’ Where Lindsay is a fountain of words, Regan is stoic and a little intimidating.
And Sesame, well, she’s just a girl trying to be a detective, and we’re learning how to solve mysteries and beat the bad guys together.
I’m hope you’re enjoying the story so far. We’ve still got a long way to go, and there will be so many little twists and turns before we get there.
Go on to episode 4 below:
Sip, Swallow & Scream
Welcome back to Sip, Swallow & Scream, where a fun little Halloween weekend for the girls is ruined by murder, one amateur sleuth, Sesame Swallow, can’t help herself but try to solve. Read Part 1 here, Part 2 here and Part 3 here. 14 parts in total leading up to Halloween!