The Crepes of Wrath: A Story Island Cozy Mystery, #3

Chapter One

Y’all aren’t going to believe this! Ginger rushed back into my living room, looking more excited than I’d seen her since she got one of those makeup doll heads for Christmas when we were ten. I paused The Princess Bride while the other three women in the room turned as one to look at her.

We were in the middle of our NAB (Not-A-Book) Club meeting, and Ginger had walked out on Westley and Buttercup to take a call; we had very few rules, but No Phones During the Movie was one of them. Every month we got together for a lot of food, even more wine, and a movie based on a book, our way of having a book club without being assigned reading between meetings. We all loved to read, but we didn’t much love homework.

Ginger fanned her face with her hands. "You are not going to believe who bought Lorenzo Cruz’s old place on Steinbeck Crescent."

I pressed both my hands to my chest and pitched my voice a couple octaves higher than normal. Netherfield Park is let at last!

Caroline clutched my shoulder. "I hear the new tenant has five thousand a year!"

Anita gasped and turned to my mother. You must get Dennis to call on him!

Ginger—being Ginger—should’ve said something snarky by now to halt our little adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, but it seemed she was too worked up to mind the teasing. "Fine, I’ll tell you. But you won’t believe it. It’s Dash and Mia Madley!"

She grinned, waiting for our exclamations of disbelief, or maybe for us to get the vapors. When she got no reaction at all, she turned to me and grabbed my arm, tugging me off my couch. (This did not please Mr. Tumnus, my beagle, who’d been squished between me and Caroline with his head in my lap.) "Eliza, it’s Dash!"

I would allow that this was very exciting news—if you were Ginger. Dash Madley had been the star of a wildly popular teen drama when we were kids, and he was a lifelong obsession of Ginger’s. (And yes, Dash Madley was the name he chose to put on his SAG card. I had no idea what name he was born with, but honestly, how much worse could it have been?) His wife Mia, née Johanson although she got touchy when people didn’t call her by her married name, had played his main love interest. They’d married shortly after the show’s ten-year run ended, whereupon she quit acting to become a professional Social Media Wife. No kids yet, but they hadn’t given up trying; I knew this because Ginger spoke of it often. She was a bit of a Mia cultist, buying everything the woman endorsed as if it were the Lord Himself telling her it was What Good Families Do.

I quickly explained most of this to my mother, who had no idea who Ginger was talking about. Anita had probably never seen the show either, but being Ginger’s mother-in-law had its perks, and keeping current on the lives of Dash and Mia Madley was surely one of them. (Caroline was our age, and had no doubt absorbed as much Shadow Fangs as the rest of my generation, by osmosis if nothing else.)

Was that Mia on the phone, calling you personally to let you know? I asked Ginger.

No, it was Jewel. She addressed the question matter-of-factly, as if the idea of Mia Madley calling her was not at all silly. But the answer made sense; Jewel’s husband Tony was a realtor. The couple had moved to Story Island the spring before, and Jewel and Ginger had hit it off right away.

"They’re closing in a week! Ginger went on, barely suppressing a squeal. Jewel wasn’t allowed to tell me before, I guess Tony promised to keep it on the down-low. Can you imagine having to keep that a secret?"

She fanned her face again. She was sweating a little, either from agitation or the heat on the back porch where she’d taken Jewel’s call, and of course she would never allow her makeup to run. Her tawny skin never looked anything less than flawless. The woman had been touching up her eyeliner in the recovery room after she gave birth. I wonder why they picked Story?

Rich people love it here, I said with a shrug. Story Island was divided into two parts: the regular-people, full-time side, and the rich-people, part-time side. The island was named after a pirate called Bartholomew Story rather than the common noun, but nevertheless it had long been a favorite retreat of writers, artists, and entertainers, as well as less famous but equally pampered wealthy people.

In fact, it was on the rich-people side that I’d met my ex-husband, no-good muck-wallowing Kingsley Mather, when I was eighteen and he was visiting some friends in their lovely beachside mansion. Apart from being pampered wealthy people themselves, the Mathers were a longstanding political dynasty, and loved rubbing elbows with people who could make substantial donations to their campaigns.

No-good and muck-wallowing though he was, I couldn’t be too bitter about the twelve years I’d spent with Kingsley, four as his girlfriend and twice as many as his wife. He’d left me a pretty wealthy person myself, although not as pampered as some. I helped my parents with their children’s bookshop, but I could’ve gotten away without ever working again if I’d wanted to. My divorce settlement included an agreement to never publicly discuss Kingsley or his less politically palatable activities, a concession that cost him a small fortune, and I was a wise investor but not a particularly big spender. I was pretty well set up.

I know Dash was filming something in Wilmington over the summer, said Ginger, but they’ve never been here, that I know of. She looked around at us, wide-eyed. Do you think they came incognito at some point?

She seemed disturbed by the thought of being so misinformed of their movements, so I assured her that if Dash Madley had been within a five-mile radius of her, she would’ve felt it. Tony’s office was in Trueport, on the mainland. Maybe he’d only shown them pictures of what they were buying. They’d probably already heard all about Story from fellow fabulous people who summered here.

Ginger pursed her lips at me; she knew when I was laughing at her on the inside. How are you not more excited about this?

I might’ve asked her how she wasn’t less excited about it. We weren’t fourteen anymore. But her son Sebastian was eleven months old, and had just started toddling. I hadn’t seen Ginger anything other than exhausted since her last trimester. It was nice to see that old Ginger energy. So I lied, and insisted that I was very excited.

Which, of course, she saw right through. She pointed at me. "You’re lying. But you will be excited, when I tell you the rest."

I raised my brows. There’s more?

Well, it’s not for sure, but Jewel said Tony told her that Mia mentioned something about an extended housewarming gathering. As in, they might have guests coming to stay for a while.

Guests! Caroline popped off the couch, as if these were her guests and she needed to prepare this very minute. We must ask Mr. Madley to host a ball!

Ginger sniffed, superior and above our mockery. "I guess you guys don’t know that most of the cast of Shadow Fangs is still close."

"How could we have missed something so significant," my mother muttered.

Ginger pretended not to hear. Mia posts pictures of them all the time, visiting each other. It’s very possible that they’re the friends who are coming. There could be half a dozen original fangers on Story Island!

"Then they must definitely host a ball." Caroline curtseyed to an imaginary partner, then did a couple of graceful twirls. She probably wouldn’t have considered it a compliment if she knew it, but Caroline, with her slender frame and lithe limbs, always made me think of trees. Give her some mossy makeup and a bottle of green hair dye, and she could’ve passed for one of the dryads in the children’s fantasies we sold at The Seven Ravens.

Anita gave her starstruck daughter-in-law a slightly disapproving look. Let’s hope you’re wrong, and their friends are ordinary lawyers or accountants or something. I was looking forward to a little peace and quiet, now that the summer people are leaving.

Ginger dismissed that with a wave. You don’t get millions of likes on pictures of accountants. Mia will keep this house quiet until she’s ready to show it off, and then she’ll make a spectacle of it, like she does with everything.

Oh goodie, Anita said flatly. A spectacle.

Personally, I was with her on that one. Shadow Fangs had been off the air for years now, but it’d had a rebirth of late. Dash Madley was enjoying a comeback playing the perfect family man Ginger was so certain he was in real life, and Shadow Fangs was on the same streaming service as his new show. Countless women were recapturing their youth by renewing their addiction to the shadow world, while a whole new generation of fangers (a charming term used for both the Shadow Fangs characters and their fans) got their first taste of it.

The last thing we needed was a bunch of teens (or adults) running around Story Island cosplaying as vampires, werewolves, and ghouls, laying flowers and vials of blood on Dash and Mia’s doorstep. It might get especially annoying for my boyfriend Flynn, who was a captain in the Department of Public Safety. Public Safety officers had to serve as the island’s police, firemen, and EMTs all at once, so they were already a tad bit busy. Vials of blood certainly weren’t going to improve their lives any.

Ginger caught me in a sigh, and glared at me like I’d just betrayed her. I tried to recover with an enthusiastic smile directed first at her, then at my mother. This could be good for business. We need to get some of those books in. Maybe make a new display. The TV show had spawned a spinoff YA book series, the rare phenomenon that went in that direction rather than the other way around.

I guess that could be a bright side, said Anita.

For me too, maybe. Caroline grabbed one of her peach hand pies from the plate balanced on the mantel. (The coffee table would never do; they had to be kept out of Mr. Tumnus’s reach.) "Shadow Fangs press will bring teens. She held the pie up before taking a bite, then said, through a mouthful of luscious fruit and buttery crust, Teens like pie."

Of course they did. Who didn’t like pie? We were especially fond of it here on Story Island; Caroline owned the local pie shop, and nobody made a flakier crust than she did.

What do you need a bright side for? Ginger asked with a huff. Dash Madley is all the bright side any of us need.

Anita arched a brow. I’ll be sure to tell my son you said so.

Ginger snickered. Are you kidding me? Darren will be begging me to distract Dash so he can take a shot at Mia.

You do know that most actors playing teenagers aren’t actually teenagers, right? Caroline sat down on the floor to finish her pie, folding her long legs beneath her. Dash and Mia are probably ten years older than you and Darren.

Doesn’t matter, said Ginger. Mia Johanson was Darren’s first love, and first love is forever.

So it would seem, I said, judging by the way you’ve stalked Dash through the years.

I knew the descent of any number of Shadow Fangs cast members on our little island would be good for all the local businesses. And with summer winding down, an unexpected surge would be welcome to most. Selfishly, I couldn’t help thinking I’d have preferred that peace and quiet Anita mentioned, but I guessed I wasn’t going to get it.

That was maybe the most accurate guess I ever guessed.

All of Ginger’s hopes and dreams came true: Dash and Mia closed on the mansion at the top of Steinbeck Crescent a week later, and took possession of it in person a few days after that. The following week, they were joined by three more members of the Shadow Fangs cast. But it was September before Ginger got her first live sighting of Dash Madley.

That same day, the world got its last live sighting of his wife.

Chapter Two

The Madleys had been in town for eleven days, and Ginger had been stalking them on every single one.

She spent her days outside with Sebastian in a stroller, pacing Bard Street—the main street through town—and the southern and western beaches, back and forth all the way up to the lighthouse and back down again. When she wasn’t walking, she divided her time fairly evenly between her friend Jewel’s Crepe Escape, my Seven Ravens, Joe’s Coffee (which broke the pattern by not belonging to a Joe), and Caroline’s 3.14.

Her reasoning was that they had to come into town sometime. I pointed out that they probably had people to get their supplies. And that between their house having a behemoth pool, and Faulkner Beach being steps from their back stairs, there was really no reason for them to venture off the eastern side of the island at all.

Ginger huffed all of that away. "Well I can’t just hang out at Faulkner Beach all day like some kind of creep." She didn’t seem to see any irony there.

Since she couldn’t be talked out of it, I did what any proper best friend would do: any time I could get away from The Seven Ravens, I took Mr. Tumnus outside and walked with her. The weather was still hot, but not August hot, and Tumnus was thrilled with this arrangement.

One of the best—or worst, according to a vocal minority—things about Story Island was that with a few obvious exceptions, cars were not allowed there. But the streets were wide enough to accommodate emergency vehicles and delivery trucks, which meant plenty of space for us regular folks traveling by golf cart, bike, or foot. You could walk around town without feeling claustrophobic even in the summertime, and it was especially nice once the summer people were gone.

As they were on that Labor Day, day eleven of Ginger’s new career. There wasn’t a part-timer in sight. There were also no cosplaying teens, or flowers or fan art or vials of blood—yet. According to Ginger, Mia had posted about her new beach house the day before, so it was only a matter of time.

We were taking a water break—or a napping break, in Sebastian’s case—at a picnic table at the closest point between Twain Beach, Warren Beach, and Bard Street. Ginger reckoned that meant she could keep an eye on all three. Personally, I thought it spread her eyes too thin, and that she wouldn’t be able to watch any of them effectively. Ginger would’ve been horrible at stakeouts.

But it paid off for her today. All five of her glamorous prey came strolling up Twain Beach toward town, laughing and chatting, looking beautiful and expensive. Ginger grabbed my hand, but appeared to be speechless. They were too far away for her to go charging over to