SISTERS IN MYSTERY:
The Case of the Missing Scripts
By Al Sarrantonio
Smashwords edition published at Smashwords by Crossroad Press
Copyright 2012 / Al Sarrantonio
Copy-edited by: Patricia Lee Macomber
Cover Design By: David Dodd
Background Images provided by:
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LICENSE NOTES
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OTHER CROSSROAD PRESS BOOKS BY AL SARRANTONIO
Novels:
Campbell Wood
Haydn of Mars – Book I of the Masters of Mars Trilogy
House Haunted
Kitt Peak
Moonbane
October
Queen of Mars – Book III of the Masters of Mars Trilogy
Sebastian of Mars – Book II of the Masters of Mars Trilogy
Skeletons
Summer Cool
Tales From the Crossroad, Vol 1
The Boy With Penny Eyes
The Masters of Mars – The Complete Trilogy
The Worms
Totentanz
West Texas
Collections:
Toybox
Halloween & Other Seasons
Hornets & Others
Unabridged Audiobooks:
Moonbane – Narrated by Kevin Readdean / Toybox - Narrated by Al Dano
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Dedication: To Linda Kristian, Who Believed.
Chapter 1
The Mystery Man
The man in the overcoat looked familiar.
It wasn’t only the fact that he was wearing an overcoat in September that made him stand out — even though, at eight o’clock in the morning, it was at least seventy degrees and would probably hit 80 by the time school let out. There were other things that made him almost recognizable as he rushed down the stairs ahead of Meg, grunting an apology as he moved past, almost knocking her aside. There was his voice, for one thing, low and hoarse, a voice Meg was sure she had heard before. And there was his height — he was tall, but almost too thin, with a pinched face and tight lips. And then there were his sunglasses, and his baseball cap, which was knocked off when he flew through the front door, not ducking low enough, and which he jammed back on his head, pulling the bill low over his eyes as he glanced furtively from side to side before rushing on.
And then there was the fact that he clutched something protectively under his left arm, a large, thick envelope —
“Meg, you’ll be late for school!”
It was her mother’s voice that brought Meg back to Earth, and her older sister Ames, flying past her and out the front door, making a laughing comment about her being “lost in the ozone again.”
Then Josie, the youngest, was past her, lunch bag in hand, and when Biz came down the stairs Meg tried to stop her (if anyone would be interested it would be Biz) but Biz said, “Gotta go!” which left Meg standing alone, still thinking about the man in the overcoat —
“Meg, did you hear me?”
Her mother’s voice was close-by — she had come out of the alcove next to the stairs that served as her office.
“Yes, Mom. Who was—?”
“Off to school — now!”
And Meg was down the stairs and out the door before she could say another word about the man . . .
She continued to think about the man in the overcoat all through History and English and Math. She knew she had seen him before. It was like seeing someone in a place you didn’t expect to see them — you always recognized the mailman when he was delivering mail, but when you saw him in the supermarket, in shorts and sandals and a Hawaiian shirt, he looked familiar but you couldn’t place him. Meg was sure this was something like that. There was something mysterious about him . . .
“Ms. Sheridan, are you with us?”
It was Mrs. Gatley, the Math teacher, who had apparently asked Meg to solve the problem on the blackboard.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Gatley—”
The math teacher merely frowned and called on someone else.
And then later, in French class, she saw the man, on the sidewalk outside the school, hurrying along with his long coat open, still clutching his package under his left arm and wiping his brow with his right hand. He was looking to the left and right as he raced along.
Serves you right for wearing a coat in this heat, Meg thought. And then she added, Who are you?
After French came study period, which she shared with her sister, Biz, in the library, and since there was no mingling or talking allowed, Meg dropped a note in front of Biz’s nose as she passed her, onto the open page of the book Biz was studying. The note read: MEET ME AT THE CAROUSEL!
Chapter 2
Biz the Brain
The carousel was one of Ocean City’s two major landmarks. If you were a seagull heading for the ocean (which of course you’re not!) this is what you’d see below as you flew over Ocean City: first the Manners College Campus, which immediately separated Ocean City from the smaller shore towns around it. The campus was a beautiful sprawl of green, with ivy-covered buildings and a clock tower on the administration building. To either side of it were the town’s main schools, General Hattler High on one side, Duane Fobbins Elementary and Whittman Junior High on the other, and, just in front of the college, serving as an entrance into it, was the Dolphin Arch, an elegant gateway inscribed with the words: “Swiftness and the Desire for Knowledge,” which served as the Manners College motto.
Directly across the street in front of the arch was The Square, another patch of green, with the town’s first major landmark, the Bandstand, and, flanking The Square, were most of the town’s businesses: an ice cream parlor, a candy store, a seashell shop and the Little Museum (one of Biz’s favorite places), Fox Bookstore, Buddy’s Bakery and various other shops. Across Wave Avenue (still heading for the ocean!) were the Firehouse, police station, the Post Office and the Ocean City Savings Bank.
To the north and south of this area were the various residential streets; on one of these to the south, three healthy blocks from The Square, was the Dolphin Hotel where Meg lived, on Seaglass Avenue.
And then, just behind the post office and police station, in a thick wedge that spread out toward the Atlantic, was the Amusement Pier, bordered by a long midway to the north, and, right in the middle, Ocean City’s other landmark, the beautiful candy-striped top of the Carousel, where Meg now waited for her sister.
If anyone would know who the man in the overcoat was, it would be Biz.
Though she was two years younger than Meg, it was generally thought in the Sheridan family that most of the brains had gone to Biz. All four of the girls read, but it was Biz who always had her face buried in a book. And she was interested in everything — science, history, even Latin — which should have made her a freak but didn’t, because she didn’t come off as a bookworm at all. She liked sports, and television, and movies, and just about everything else. Which, her three sisters often said, made them tired, because Biz seemed to never get tired herself, and seemed to know something about everything.
But she was always late, which at least was a minor flaw. Not that it did Meg any good, since she was sure that Biz would know who the mysterious man was.
There was a temporary barrier around the carousel today, and the sound of men working as the beautiful merry-go-round was cleaned by hand with soap and water. It was one of the largest working carousels in the country, as well as the pride and joy of Ocean City. Soon it would be shut down for the winter, but at least through September it would run at night and on weekends, as the boardwalk stayed open for late-season business. Today after school the boardwalk was almost empty, but already the vendors and shop workers were starting to make their way in, getting ready for the Friday night crowd. In another few hours, after the sun went down and the lights went on, the pier would be as crowded as at the height of the summer season.
Meg was watching the men clean each horse, sponging them down and then rinsing them off with a hose. She was searching for her favorite horse, the one she had nicknamed Winner since she had been riding him the one and only time she was able to grab the brass ring from its slot. Winner was painted cream white with a sky blue saddle, his lips pulled back over his teeth, his deep brown eyes wide with pleasure as if he was really galloping through an open field —
“Hey sis, what’s up?”
Biz’s voice brought her back from that open field, and Meg turned to see her sister, already almost as tall as she was, dismounting her bike with a mildly perplexed look on her face. She was red-haired where Meg was brunette, with a scattering of freckles, and her blue eyes made Meg think of Winner for a second.
“The man in the long coat who checked in late last night, room 23 —” Meg began in a rush.
“Oh, you mean Joel Kulkin, the movie director?” Biz said, matter-of-factly.
“That’s it!” Meg almost hugged her sister.
“He’s here scouting out locations for his new movie,” Biz went on. “There are even rumors that he secretly made a deal with the mayor to shoot the whole movie right here in Ocean City. Very hush-hush. He always does everything that way. Always writes his own movies. Never lets anyone see the script, not even the actors, until it’s time to shoot the film.”
“That must have been the script he was carrying!” Meg said.
Biz shrugged. “You couldn’t pry it out of his hands with a crowbar.” She grinned mischievously. “What’s the matter, Meg — want to be in his movie?”
“No, I just wanted to know who he was. That’s right; he makes all those comedies about kids getting into trouble . . .”
“What are you thinking?” Biz asked. “I can always tell when you’re dreaming something up; you get that faraway look on your face.”
Meg shook her head. “I was just thinking: what a shame there’s no real mystery. You solved it in a flash.”
Biz brightened. “You were hoping Mr. Kulkin was a spy? Or maybe on a secret mission for the president?” She laughed. “Honestly, Meg, you should broaden your reading tastes. All those mystery stories are rotting your brain. The book I was reading in the library today, when you dropped your secret message in front of me, is about jellyfish, all the different kinds. Do you know how many species of jellyfish we have right here in Ocean City?”
Meg was staring past Biz, out over the boardwalk at the water; the tide was high, the waves crashing on the hot beach and the smell of salt water and hot dogs in the air.
“Thinking about jellyfish?” Biz finally said.
“No. Just about how nothing ever happens here.”
Biz laughed. “Nothing ever happens anywhere, according to you. Want to come to the library with me? I have to get some books for a report.”
Meg shook her head. “See you later at home—”
A loud voice interrupted Meg: “Two of the four!”
They turned to see Mrs. Chernowski, who ran a bed and breakfast two doors down from their parents’ hotel, the Dolphin, beaming down at them.
“And where are the other two Little Women?” Mrs. Chernowski said, laughing. She had an annoying laugh, like a braying donkey. “Ames, Meg, Biz and Josie — the Little Women!” Her laugh was even worse when she carried it through what she said.
Meg said hello politely, and Biz smiled.
“That’s what you get when your Dad’s an English Professor at Manners,” Biz explained. “Though they didn’t actually name us exactly after the girls in Little Women — Josie instead of Jo, for instance.”
“Close enough!” Mrs. Chernowski guffawed. “Say hello to your mother!” she said, and then she turned to inspect the work on the carousel, which was just about finished, before moving on.
Biz put a hand on Meg’s shoulder. “Cheer up, sis, there’s plenty of mystery around you. Like why any boy would like Ames, or why Josie won’t eat peas, or why Mrs. Chernowski has any boarders at all, with that laugh of hers—”
“See you later, Biz,” Meg said glumly.
Biz squeezed her sister’s shoulder, shrugged, and left on her bike for the library.
The work was done on the carousel, and the workers were taking the barrier down. Meg still couldn’t spot Winner, until suddenly the lights on the merry-go-round blinked on, throwing the newly-cleaned horses into candy-colored brightness, and the carousel began to move. There was Winner — he had been facing Meg all along, his teeth bared, front paws clawing at the air as he moved up and down, as if he could fly. He moved past her, gleaming blue and cream, and then was lost to sight.
When her eyes left Winner, Meg saw something that startled her — the director, Joel Kulkin, racing frantically along the boardwalk, his topcoat open, his sunglasses and baseball cap gone, looking wildly from side to side as if he had lost something.
The thick envelope was gone from under his arm.
Chapter 3
Finally, a mystery
Meg followed Joel Kulkin for more than an hour, as he searched frantically for what must have been his new movie script, and then she lost him when he went into the House of Mirrors on the Amusement Pier. For a moment Meg thought the director had spotted her, and was trying to lose her, but it was obvious that he had been in the mirror house before and was retracing his steps of the afternoon. Meg thought she could keep track of him — she had learned long ago the trick of looking at the floor in the mirror house, which would always show you the real path rather than a false, mirrored one — but Joel Kulkin must have known the same trick because he was in and out of the House of Mirrors in no time, pushing into a crowd on the boardwalk as Meg emerged behind him. It was then that she was unable to locate him.
Finally, after a thirty minute fruitless search, she went home, disgusted with herself.
She thought that by that time the police or at least the director’s private detectives would be swarming all over the Dolphin Hotel, but there was only Mom in her alcove office, taking a reservation on the telephone in a calm voice, and the booming sound of Dad’s voice out in the backyard, tending the evening’s meal. Friday night in-season was always barbecue night at the Dolphin Hotel, the odor of hot dogs and steaks was indistinguishable from the smells Meg had recently identified out on the boardwalk.
Her mother hung up the phone as Meg passed, turning immediately to the computer screen on her desk. The weird light made her face glow.
“Did Mr. Kulkin come in?” Meg asked innocently.
“Little while ago,” her mother said, distracted. “We’ll be eating dinner in about twenty minutes, so wash up soon. You can help serve outside.”
“He look . . . agitated or anything?”
“Who?” her mother said, and then she turned to face Meg. “Your father? Of course not. He hasn’t had an agitated minute since we bought this hotel, has he?” She smiled her I’m-only-kidding smile.
“I mean Mr. Kulkin.”
Her mother had gone back to staring at the computer screen. “We’ll have to move the Bentley party into room 19 on the 18th to put the Carlitos in adjoining rooms . . .”
“Mom?”
“Mr. Kulkin? I didn’t notice. He tramped right up to his room.” She continued to stare at the screen.
“Is he having dinner?”
“Yes, but in his room. He’s on a working vacation or something...”
Meg’s hope brightened. “Can I bring it to him?”
“Who?” Her mother’s face was now so close to the monitor screen that Meg thought she might melt right into it. “Bergers on the 20th of October for Foliage Weekend . . .”
“Can I serve Mr. Kulkin dinner in his room?”
“Of course. Just clear it with your father, and Ames.”
“Thanks, Mom!”
Meg was off like a rocket, leaving her mother scowling at the computer screen: “Too many people, not enough rooms . . .”
Chapter 4
Ames the Tyrant
Dad would be no problem, but Ames of course would be. Meg’s sister Amy had a nose for trouble like a bloodhound, and liked to periodically remind her three sisters that she was not only the oldest of the four, but that that fact somehow entitled her to know everything, always be right, and pretty much do as she pleased. As soon as she heard Meg’s proposal to bring Mr. Kulkin his dinner, which ordinarily would have been Ames’s job, her ears perked up.
“Why?” she asked, lowering the magazine she had been reading as she lay on her bed. She was surrounded by stuffed animals, “reminders of her childhood,” she liked to say theatrically, though Meg, and especially Biz, who went right to the heart of everything, thought she just didn’t want to grow up.
“I just thought I’d help you out,” Meg replied, knowing instantly that it had been the wrong thing to say.
Now Ames lowered the magazine all the way. “Why?”
There was nothing to do but tell Ames the whole story, since she’d get it out of her sister sooner or later, so Meg jumped into the tale at the beginning and told it all the way through.
When the story was finished, Ames asked incredulously, “You think Mr. Kulkin lost his new movie script, just because you saw him walking around without it?”
“Well . . .”
“Are you out of your mind? Maybe he just gave it to somebody. Maybe he came back here and left it in his room, then went out again. Did you think of those possibilities, or the twenty-eight others which might have happened?”
“It just seems to fit in with his personality. The long coat—”
“Yipes! Maybe the man is just prone to feeling cold. Why do you care, anyway?”
“Because it’s a mystery!”
“What mystery? A man with an overcoat with or without an envelope — where’s the mystery in that?”
“But don’t you see? If he really did lose the script, or, better yet, it was stolen, that would be a real mystery! Right here in Ocean City! And it would need someone to solve it!”
“And that would be you, I suppose?” Shaking her head in wonder, Ames picked up her magazine and pretended to read it.
“Why not?”
Ames lowered the magazine quickly. “Who do you think you are — Sherlock Holmes? Or maybe ‘Meg-lock Holmes’!” She snorted a laugh.
“I didn’t expect you to understand. Only Biz understands.”
“Because she’s as daffy as you! Only daffier, because of that egg-shaped head of hers. Does that make her Dr. Watson? She reads too much, and you dream too much. Only I am the mature sister in this family.”
“What about Josie?” Meg added glumly.
“She’s only ten. She doesn’t count. When you’re sixteen in two years maybe you’ll understand.”
Ames raised the magazine to her eyes again, and waved her hand in queenly dismissal. “You may go.”
“So can I bring Mr. Kulkin his dinner or not?”
“Be my guest.” The magazine lowered again, and Ames was grinning. This was what Meg had been waiting for all along. “It will cost you, of course.”
Meg sighed. “All right — what do you want?”
“You’ll do all the in-room weekend serving for the next week — no, month.”
“Two weeks. Dinner only.”
“Breakfast, lunch and dinner.”
“Breakfast and dinner.”
“Deal.”
The magazine went up again, and Ames settled herself with a sigh into her nest of stuffed animals. “Nice doing business with you, Meg. Isn’t that Dad calling I hear?”
Indeed, Dad was calling Ames to come get the serving platters for those guests taking their dinners in their rooms.
“She’ll be right down!” Ames called out, failing to stifle a titter at the end.
As Meg left the room her sister called after her, still laughing, “And good luck, Meg-lock!”
Chapter 5
The dinner mystery
To Meg’s frustration, Mr. Kulkin was last on the list.
There were three other deliveries that had to be made before Mr. Kulkin could be served. First there were the Sullivans in room 4, who always took their meals in their room — or, rather, on the balcony which fronted their room, which had a beautiful view of the bright lights of the boardwalk, three blocks away, and the sparkling Atlantic Ocean beyond it. They were perennial guests who stayed from the first of August till the last day of September; Mr. Sullivan, who was a retired science teacher, had a telescope which he set up on the balcony, and which, Ames had claimed (of course) that he used to spy on people with, but which he actually studied the stars with, especially after the amusement pier lights dimmed at midnight, leaving the night sky clear and visible. Before midnight he studied the moon, and had once insisted that Meg study through the telescope, which she had, marveling at the hundreds of craters visible.
Then there were the Musgraves in room 14, and their friend Mrs. Kotzwinkle in room 15, adjoining suites with a door between them. Tonight the Musgraves were Mrs. Kotzwinkle’s guests, so the delivery was to room 15. Mrs. Kotzwinkle always said, “So sorry we can’t join the others downstairs, but we simply enjoy one another’s company too much up here!” To which the Musgraves always laughed.
And then, finally, it was time to bring dinner to Mr. Kulkin.
Meg was, by this time, thoroughly tired of the smell of hot dogs, strip steak, and corn, and wondered if she would possibly want to eat any of it later — but these thoughts were overcome by the excitement of furthering her investigation.
Which made it even more frustrating when there was no answer to her knock on Mr. Kulkin’s door.
Meg waited the prescribed ten seconds, counting them off in her head, and then knocked again. This time she said, “Mr. Kulkin, I’m here with your dinner!”
There was still no answer.
She repeated the exercise, still to no avail.
Sorely disappointed, Meg was about to turn away, tray in hand, when she noticed that Mr. Kulkin’s door was ajar.
Now, entering a room without a guest’s permission, except to change the linens at the required hour, which never varied, was strictly forbidden, and Meg knew this. But it occurred to her there might be a loophole here in that rule. After all, hadn’t Mr. Kulkin specifically asked to have dinner in his room? And the room wasn’t locked, was it? If the door had been locked, these thoughts never would have entered Meg’s head, but since the law was fuzzy here, then perhaps she should open the door, leave Mr. Kulkin’s dinner for him, and at the same time see what there was to see . . .
She was saved from this tussle with her conscience by Biz, who came bounding up the stairs at that moment and down the hallway, pigtails flying. Inevitably, she had a book in one hand, and a half-finished ear of corn in the other. She planted herself between Meg and Mr. Kulkin’s door.
“Where have you been?” Biz asked. “That Kulkin fellow showed up in the backyard. He’s talking to some other fellow who’s not staying here. When Dad asked him if you should leave his dinner in his room he just nodded and kept talking to this other man — hey!”
Meg nudged her aside with the edge of the tray in a flash, pushing open the door to Mr. Kulkin’s room and stepping in.
She turned to urge Biz in behind her, but her younger sister was already walking away, staring into the book she held open in one hand while finishing the corn she held in the other.
“So much for my Watson,” Meg mumbled.
She put the breakfast tray on the small table under the window and turned her attention to the room.
There was no clutter. Mr. Kulkin was a neat — or secretive — guest. The clothes closet was closed, the drawers in the dresser pushed in, no luggage visible. There was no clothing draped over the back of the reading chair, or the straight-backed chair of the desk. There was no laptop computer, only an old-fashioned typewriter, empty of paper, on the desk. Next to the typewriter was a neat stack of paper, the top sheet unmarked. There were no scribblings on the pad next to the telephone which the Dolphin Hotel provided its guests. Meg lifted the pad and tilted it under the desk lamp, looking for impressions left by the pressings of a torn-off message (she had learned this from the detective novels she read), but the paper was smooth and white.
The waste basket next to the desk held only one thing — a large empty envelope, just like the one Meg had seen Mr. Kulkin carrying under his arm.
“Oh, no.”
Her heart sank — so he had come back here before going to the Amusement Pier after all, just as Ames had guessed, after either giving his script to someone or, after returning to his room, putting it in a safe, secret place. If the envelope was here it meant the script wasn’t lost, or stolen.
When she had seen him at the Amusement Pier, and followed him into the House of Mirrors, he must have been searching for something else.
Maybe a contact lens, or his car keys.
Or nothing at all — maybe he was just weird, or liked to look at the ground.
There was no mystery after all.
“Rats.”
Dejected, Meg shuffled to the window, lifted the aluminum heat covers from Mr. Kulkin’s plates which had kept the food warm. The room looked out on the backyard, which was illuminated by lanterns strung from poles, which roped off the dining area. She could hear chatter through the screen, and saw Dad, with his silly chef’s hat, still working over his gas grill. Behind him, in two neat rows, were picnic tables occupied by guests. The food line by Dad was short; dinner was almost over.
Off beyond the line of strung lights, almost in shadow, she saw Mr. Kulkin and a much shorter man waving their arms.
Mr. Kulkin looked very agitated.
Probably upset about his lost contact lens, Meg thought.
Plate covers in hand, she turned from the window.
When she passed the desk, she stopped.
Bending down over the waste basket, she took a good look at the large envelope.
There was writing on one side.
SECOND COPY, it read, in neat printing.