The Influencer, page 6
part #10 of Professor Molly Mysteries Series
“I was wondering the same thing! I didn’t know you knew what Howdy Doody looked like.”
“Only cause of that weird hipster t-shirt you have that says it’s Howdy Doody time, whatever that means.”
Emma hoisted herself up and perched on the railing.
“Don’t worry,” she said, “I’m not gonna fall down. I get excellent balance from paddling.”
“I’m still not joining your paddling crew. Nice try though. Okay, about this situation. What should we do? Should we tell her husband about the missed appointment?”
“Not if he’s the reason she’s missing.”
“You don’t trust him.”
“Molly, do you?”
“No, not really. You know this is the first time in his adult life that Donnie’s taken a vacation. He trusted me to hold everything together while he was traveling. Won’t he be surprised when he comes back to a house of chaos and murder.”
“Jandie getting murdered by her husband isn’t your fault, Molly.”
“What if nothing’s changed by the time Donnie and the baby get back, and now poor little Francesca’s living next door to a murderer? Emma, what should I do?”
“What, you’re gonna let him stay here after he murdered his wife?”
“No, of course not. But the only alternative is I’d have to evict a murderer. We’re just going to have to move, that’s all.”
“You should go back inside,” Emma said.
“Yeah, you’re right. I’m being a bad hostess. Wait, what do you mean I should go back inside? Where are you going?”
“I gotta go pick up the mail and check on my idiot brother and my doofus husband.”
“Okay. Well, send them my love. Sounds like they need it.”
Pat and Howdy were still talking when I went back inside. I didn’t have the energy to reinsert myself into the conversation, so I went into my bedroom to check my email. There was a new message from Donnie, with a photo. Donnie was holding Francesca in front of a scaled-down Eiffel Tower. They had made it to Vegas. Francesca was beaming. She looked bigger than when I’d seen her last—was that possible? Donnie was unshaven and looked exhausted.
I missed Donnie and Francesca. I wouldn’t even have minded visiting Donnie’s grandson, Davison Hiapo Keali’i Gonsalves Balusteros (aka Junior). Junior was a little older than Francesca and was technically her nephew. But I was happy to keep my distance from Junior’s father (and my stepson), Davison Gonsalves. Davison had been my student once upon a time. In my years of teaching at Mahina State, I’ve had many wonderful students whom I remember with fondness. Davison is not one of them.
I wrote back telling Donnie I missed them and wished I could be there with them. Now, how much news to share? Donnie had enough to worry about, traveling with the baby. There was no point in telling him things that were just going to stress him out.
“Donnie, our renter disappeared, and we think her husband murdered her! Or maybe a deranged fan did her in. There’s probably hundreds of those skulking around!” No, that wouldn’t do.
CHAPTER 14
DONNIE WOULD WANT TO know whether there had been any hurricane damage. I wrote that the bottom of Uakoko Street had flooded temporarily, but our property was safely out of harm’s way. I told him Pat and Emma had both come to visit, so he didn’t have to worry about my being alone in the house. He would be amused to hear that Harriet Holmes’ husband Nigel had apparently gotten a publisher interested in his memoir about the time he’d spent in prison for protesting a tree-felling scheme in his neighborhood. I sent my sincere love and best wishes to the Davisons, père et fils. I wasn’t sure whether Junior’s mom Tiffany was still in the picture so be on the safe side, I didn’t mention her.
What else? Oh, of course, food. I told him how much I was enjoying all the food from the Drive-Inn that Donnie had left in the freezer. And that the aunties had mobbed me at St. Damien’s yesterday, telling me they couldn’t wait until Donnie’s Drive-Inn reopened so that they could once again walk over and enjoy their after-Mass coffee.
I pressed “send” and was about to go back into the living room and pretend to be a good hostess, when I saw a notification pop up in my in-box.
A submission had been uploaded to the Business Planning class. I clicked over to see what else had been turned in. Something that would wow our potential donors and compel them to open their wallets, I hoped. Or at least something that would appease Victor Santiago, Lord High Inquisitor of Community Connections or whatever the heck his title was.
The proposed product was a deodorizing spray for pet accidents. Not particularly innovative, but overall a solid business idea.
I read through the outline of the plan. Other than the product name possibly causing Victor Santiago’s monocle to drop into his teacup, it looked fine. In fact, it was quite good. A huge improvement on the student’s previous work, almost as if it were written by a different...
Oh no.
I was already stressed out enough about the Senior Showcase. Now I had to deal with plagiarism on top of everything else.
I downloaded the paper to my computer and uploaded it into the plagiarism checking site. Nothing popped out. I wanted to believe this was the student’s own work, and he had simply been inspired to his highest levels of performance by my exceptional teaching.
Yeah, right. I’m as prone to self-serving bias as the next person, but I’m not delusional.
I had done everything I was supposed to do to avoid plagiarism. Design unique assignments that can’t be found online. Have students turn in consecutive drafts instead of having one big paper due at the end of the semester. But none of it helps if the student is paying someone else to do the assignments.
I called Emma. She didn’t pick up, so I left a message and went through the rest of my email. I hoped by the time I emerged from my bedroom, Howdy would be gone.
Howdy stood up when I entered the living room.
“Thanks so much for your hospitality, Professor Barda,” he said. “I’m going to get going now. Thanks for everything, Mr. Flanagan.”
“I’m gonna call it a day,” Pat said when Howdy was gone.
“Pat, was he waiting for me?”
“Yeah, he didn’t want to be rude and leave without saying goodbye. Okay, good night. Hey, thanks for letting me stay over.”
“I figured your independent weekly wasn’t exactly going to put you up at the Hanohano Hotel,” I said.
“You got that right. They didn’t even cover my plane fare.” Pat yawned and sauntered off to the guest room.
I was still clearing off the coffee table when I heard a sharp knock on the front door, followed by someone jiggling the knob.
“Hang on Emma, I’ll be right there.”
When I opened the door, Emma sped past me and made a beeline to the kitchen. She filled two furikake glasses with wine, and plunked them down on the counter.
“I got your message. So you got an essay mill situation going in your class, ah?”
“Maybe. I was hoping you could help me figure it out, since you’ve dealt with this before. Hey, how’s everything at home? Is your house still standing?”
“Barely. I don’t wanna talk about it. Eh, you don’t know how to repair drywall, do you?”
“Me? Of course not. Pat might, though. Ask him tomorrow, he’s already out for the night.”
“Pat went out? Where? What’s open on Monday night besides the Pair-O-Dice? Oh no Molly, it’s open mic improv night at the Pair-O-Dice. We gotta stop him.”
“I meant he’s ‘out’ as in out like a light. He’s asleep.”
“Oh. Yeah, that makes sense. So what’s the assignment you think is plagiarized?”
I set my laptop on the counter in front of Emma. She squinted at the screen.
“Urine Luck?”
“That’s the product name.”
“Oh, I see. ‘Looking for a solution to smelly household accidents? Urine luck.’ That’s kinda clever.”
Emma sat up and turned to me.
“Almost too clever,” she added.
“Exactly! See what I mean?”
“How’s it compare to the student’s other work?”
“Very different,” I said. “It’s like he vaulted ahead ten grade levels in half a semester. Plus the SWOT analysis is flawless.”
“The what analysis?” Emma asked.
“Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats. SWOT.”
Emma sat back and folded her arms.
“Hmm. Yeah, definitely suspicious. You should have ‘em come into your office and explain it to you.”
“What if it really is his own work, though? It’ll look like I’m falsely accusing him.”
“Eh, you’re letting the Student Retention Office get inside your head now. Know what, I got some pre-meds in my class I can talk to. If there’s anyone who knows more about cheating than your business majors do, it’s the pre-meds. Lemme ask around. Eh, I got some news for you, Molly. Know how come I was able to get over here so fast after you called? I was checking out the house.”
“Checking out what house?” I asked.
“I think you need more wine. I’m just gonna bring the box over.”
“Emma, I’m not even done with the glass you just gave me. What house? What is going on?”
Emma plunked the wine box on the counter and hitched herself up onto the bar stool next to me.
“I got back here about an hour ago.”
“You’ve been here the whole time?” I asked.
“Yeah. I noticed Edward Ladd’s big stupid overcompensating truck wasn’t there. So I figured I’d go inside and check it out.”
“Inside the rental unit? That’s breaking and entering!”
“No it’s not,” Emma retorted. “You’re the owner, you have something in your contract that lets you go inside any time, right?”
“Well, yeah, I do. But you went in, not me.”
“So you gave me permission.”
“Emma, I did not—”
“I was acting on your behalf to check on the well-being of the occupants.”
I should have been angry at Emma for going into the house without permission. But I was too curious to be mad.
“Whatever. Where did he go? Do you think he went out to look for Jandie?”
Emma shrugged.
“Maybe he went out to check where he hid the body.”
“So what did you find?” I asked.
Emma took an infuriatingly long draught of wine.
“Her bed was messy.”
“Is that unusual?” I asked.
“It is for Jandie. On camera it’s always perfect.”
Emma handed me her phone. The screen showed a photo from Jandie Brand’s account. Pink-and-white ruffled throw pillows were perfectly placed on a smooth, sugar-pink bedspread. The window framed a sunny day outside, and the soft-focus background filter was cranked up so far that the graveyard in the background looked like a gauzy meadow.
“You know,” I said, “it’s possible that in real life her room doesn’t always look as perfect as it does on camera. Emma, what would you have said if someone walked in and caught you snooping around Jandie’s bedroom?”
“I woulda told ‘em you authorized me to be there.”
“Great. So aside from a messy bed, did you actually find anything?”
“Nah, but I wasn’t in there that long. I was just seeing if there was something obvious, like a dead body in the freezer or something. Eh, thanks for not getting too mad about it.”
I set down my empty wine glass.
“No, Emma, you bring up a good point. I am allowed to go in and inspect the unit. It’s in the contract. Maybe I should go have a look.”
“Whoa, wait, Molly, what?”
I slid off the chair and stood tall, quickly grabbing the edge of the counter for balance. I had skipped dinner, so two glasses of wine may have packed more of a punch than usual. I wasn’t afraid at all. In fact I was brimming with courage and curiosity.
“I’m going, Emma. You can’t stop me.”
“Hey, don’t go without me.” Emma drained her glass and followed me out to the cold, dark yard.
CHAPTER 15
THE CHILLY NIGHT AIR had a sobering effect. By the time we were at the door of the rental unit I wanted to turn around and go back home. But I couldn’t, not with Emma right there.
The floor plan of the rental unit was a scaled-down, mirror image of the main house. Which meant the carport was to my left...this was so confusing.
“Emma, you should take the lead,” I said. “You already did the, you know. Reconsaponce...responkabonk...pre-looking.”
“Reconnaissance?” Emma said.
“Yes! That’s what I said.”
Maybe the cold night air hadn’t been that sobering after all.
I followed Emma as she moved seemingly at random from one spot to the next, opening drawers, sticking her arm down between the bed and the wall, and crawling along the baseboard.
“Emma,” I said, “you’re like a human Roomba. Just bouncing around.”
“The Roomba algorithm works,” Emma retorted, from underneath the bed. As she was backing out, she kicked over a wastebasket. I righted it, thankful that it was empty. Then I saw a hot pink sticky note stuck to the inside. I quickly plucked the piece of paper from the wastebasket and pocketed it. Realizing I had just touched a stranger’s garbage, I ducked into the bathroom and washed my hands for a solid sixty seconds.
We covered the rest of the small dwelling quickly but didn’t find anything out of place. Jandie had a reflector set up next to the window in the third bedroom, so she was probably using that as her photo studio.
“See?” I said to Emma. “She doesn’t even sleep here. That bed is just a prop. This room is her photo studio.”
“Maybe she does sleep here,” Emma retorted. “You don’t know where Jandie sleeps.”
I went over to the bed and knocked on it. It was hard, and made a hollow sound. I lifted up the pink bedspread to expose plywood.
“So she sleeps on plywood,” Emma retorted. “That’s not a crime. What’s your point?”
“I forget.”
We looked through the rest of the house, paying particular attention to the freezer (which contained a half-empty carton of strawberry cheesecake ice cream and nothing else).
Finally we decided we had conducted as thorough a search as possible under the circumstances and decided to head back to the main house.
“So what do you think?” I asked Emma as we squelched across the wet lawn. The rain was starting up again, so we walked faster.
“Nothing really looked out of place,” Emma said. “Although we can’t be sure that nothing’s missing, cause we don’t know what was there before.”
“Well, there were no suspicious odors or loose floorboards,” I said. “That’s something.”
“Eh Molly, what if the husband doesn’t come back? What if they’re both missing? What about your rent?”
“They paid the six-month lease in advance,” I said.
“Aha! Now I’m thinking maybe you whacked ‘em.”
“Hilarious.”
Did they have two cars or just one?” Emma asked.
“I’ve only ever seen the big black truck that the husband drives. I think Jandie takes the Sampan when she needs to go somewhere.”
“Oh yeah, that’s right. She get a lotta posts with her riding in the Sampan.”
When we got back to my house Pat was awake, relaxing in the living room and drinking coffee.
“If you want to know anything about their private life, you could just ask Howdy,” Pat said.
“What?” Emma said.
“Howdy Howell. The reporter. He’s interviewed them a few times now. He’d be happy to talk to you.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked innocently.
“I’m talking about your tenants, whose house you two were just snooping around in.”
“Shame on you spying on us!” Emma said.
“I wasn’t spying. I saw you through the window, coming out of their front door.”
“I’m the landlady,” I said. “I have the right to inspect the house. It’s in the contract.”
“What were you looking for anyway?”
“Jandie,” Emma said.
“What, you mean you were looking for her dead body?”
“No,” Emma said
“Maybe,” I said at the same time. “Oh! Pat. I just remembered something I was wondering about. Why did Tedd Ladd stop drawing? He was doing his cartoon, he was super popular, and then he just stopped. He never explained why.”
“I asked Howdy the same thing,” Pat said. Emma and I plunked down on either side of him on the couch.
“And then?” Emma prompted him.
“Probably just grief,” Pat said. “It happened around when his first wife passed away.”
“His first wife died, ah?” Emma stood and went to the front window. Outside, sheets of rain, illuminated by my porch light, glinted in the dark. “So was it really grief? Or guilt?”
CHAPTER 16
“LADD’S FIRST WIFE DIED of cancer.” Pat got up from the couch and went into the kitchen to fix himself a cup of coffee. “But sure, Emma, accuse a grieving widower of murder.”
“I hope they’re not on the road right now,” I said. “Pitch dark, hard rain. Not a good combination.”
Our rural island had few streetlights, and the ones we did have were deliberately kept dim to minimize any light pollution that might interfere with the telescopes.
“I have Jandie’s cell phone number,” I said. “Should I call her?”
“You have her cell number?” Emma whirled around to glare at me. “How come you never called her when she went missing?”
“Sorry, I didn’t think of it. Okay, I’m calling her now.”
I dialed Jandie’s number, but I got an “all circuits are busy” message. Same thing on the second try.
“I should have tried her phone before,” I said. “I think I should call the police. Her husband said he was going to, but I don’t trust him. If they yell at me for being a nuisance, fine. I’d rather that than know I could’ve done something and didn’t.”
