Page 7 of Be A Detective, They Said. It’ll Be Fun, They Said

I made a gesture with my fingers, zipping my lips and throwing away the key. “Noted. Okay, so we say yes to Naida then? I’d like to offer her at least some hope.”

Marty snickered, tying her glossy blonde hair up in a bun—that meant she was ready to get down to business. “I don’t know if hope’s the right word here, good buddy. This is our third case and we’re not exactly winning awards for best in mystery solving. But I’m all the way in.”

That was fair, but there was nowhere else to go but up, right? So we’d missed an important clue our last go round. We’d missed one in our first, too, but that didn’t mean we couldn’t improve. No one was perfect.

Right? Right?

I figure if I keep telling myself that, manifesting it, it can come true.

Nina held up her phone then, her smile beautiful as always but smug as the day is long. “Told ya Tater Tott could help. We’re in. Are you ready for Neerie’s password for Facebook? Make sure you don’t have any liquids in your mouth.”

I immediately set down my tea. “Ready.”

“Bigfootisreal417&%.”

Marty hadn’t heeded Nina’s warning. She spat her tea across the room when she sputtered a laugh. “I can’t wait to see what groups she’s a part of. Should we don our tinfoil hats before we go poking around?”

After I finished laughing, I had to acknowledge something very important. “You know, we laugh, but did any of us think half of the things we’ve borne witness to were real? Mermaids, unicorns, trolls, sirens, zombies to name but a few. Maybe Bigfoot is real and he’s running around in the woods somewhere with Bigfoot wife and all his Bigfoot babies.”

With that sobering thought, we all set out to scour Neerie’s social media accounts, but before I did, I texted Naida to let her know we were going to try and investigate.

“I’ll take her Twitter account,” Marty offered. “Nina, you check her Facebook, and she has a YouTube channel, too. You take that, Wanda.”

As we got down to the business of digging into Neerie’s online life, the basement became quiet until Nina muttered, “Holy fucksticks…”

My head popped up, eyes grainy from all the sites Neerie had subscribed to on YouTube. It was almost frightening how many there were. Everything from the human government has imposters in high places to the moon landing was a hoax and all the madness in between.

I pinched my temples. I don’t know that I had a lifetime of hours to invest all the sites Neerie was involved in. “What?”

“She was supposed to meet this Facebook group two nights ago. It’s local, all humans. They’re tracking Bigfoot. Remember that crazy shit on the news the other night about some fucking ruckus upstate in the woods, where a bunch of morons with guns were out shooting at something and ended up nailing a guy and his side chick, who were meeting in secret to smash smellies?”

Marty blinked, looking around her desktop. “I do! Did you see the interview his wife gave about how she wished they’d shot his man parts and not just his foot?”

Nina jabbed a lean finger in the air with a laugh. “Yep! That was this group Neerie was in. They got some tip from some dingbat that he’d seen Bigfoot and they were ‘investigating.’ They’re called The Truth Is Out There, and this lunatic thought the guy they literally tripped over was Bigfoot because he said it was dark and the man was huge. When the guy jumped up—buck naked, no less—one of the idiots in the group got trigger happy and shot him. I mean, c’mon. Jesus be some common sense, already. Anyway, Neerie was supposed to meet them that night. She said she’d be there.” She took a screenshot of the comment and sent it to us.

My eyes went wide. “But it doesn’t say anything about whether she showed up?”

Nina shook her glossy dark head. “Nope. But there’s another meeting tonight. One without guns, according to the admin. In fact, it’s clearly stated that there’s gonna be a pat-down to be sure no one else gets capped.”

I knew where this was headed. “I know what you’re thinking, Nina, and I’m thinking you’re bananapants. How are we going to infiltrate this meeting? They’ll know we’re not part of their Facebook group.”

Nina smiled again, leaning back in her chair. “How quickly you forget the Vulcan mind-meld. They’re humans, Wanda. I can get in their fucking heads slicker than snot runs down your face on a cold winter day. Easy-peasy.”

“Lemon squeezy,” Marty said with a nod.

I blew out a breath. “Okay, let’s do it then.”

Marty clapped her hands, her bangle bracelets clacking together. “I love a good undercover job! What should we wear?”

“Clothes,” Nina offered dryly. “It’s not a fashion show, Blondie. It’s a damn meeting of the cuckoos.”

Tottington appeared out of nowhere, his stealth-like movements always giving me pause. He held a slip of paper in his hand, his dark suit perfection, his royal-blue tie against a crisp white shirt immaculate. “Dark Lord, I have more information for you about Mrs. Lincoln.”

Nina held out a hand for him to take, giving it a squeeze. “I can always count on you, Tater, can’t I? Whazzz up?”

He dabbed at her fingers before pulling them away, folding his one arm behind his back. “My contact has hacked into Mrs. Lincoln’s email. As instructed, I skimmed all incoming and outgoing correspondence for the last three months. I shall delve deeper, but this one particular message is pause for thought.”

“I hope it’s from the people she follows on Twitter. Or X. Or whatever it’s called these days,” Marty cooed. “Her DMs are chock to the brim with nutassery from members of this group called Paul McCartney is Dead. They believe that Paul died in 1966 and was replaced with a lookalike because on the infamous cover of Abbey Road, he’s barefoot and all the other Beetles are wearing shoes. They claim his bare feet symbolize death…”

“Well, Here Comes the Sun just took a whole new turn for me,” Nina cackled.

But Tottington cleared his throat. “I’m afraid it’s not quite that outrageous, Mistress. It’s from someone named Will Tempe.”

“Okay, enough with the dramatic pause, Tater. Who’s Will Tempe?”

Tottington squinted at the slip of paper he held. “If I’m reading this correctly, he’s little Tamlin’s biological father, and he claims that if Mrs. Lincoln doesn’t allow him to visit with Tamlin, he’s going to make her life—and I quote—‘a living hell.’”

All our eyes went wide in surprise.

But was it simply an idle threat? Or had he really made Neerie’s life a living hell?

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