Toil and Trouble: (A Geeks and Things Cozy Mystery Short Story) (Geeks and Things Cozy Mysteries Book 0) (2 page)

CHAPTER THREE

Officer Larkin returned with the paperwork and they gave their statements. Kalina kept an eye out as the paramedics put an oxygen mask over the girl’s nose and mouth and bandaged her chest and head. They loaded her onto the backboard and carted her back to the ambulance.

“I think that does it,” Officer Larkin announced.

“If you need anything else from us, I put my cell phone number down,” Kalina said and pointed to the spot on the form.

“Good, thanks. I know it sounds kind of heartless but do try to enjoy the rest of the festival.”

Kalina gave him a smile and led AJ back to the center of town. They stopped under a streetlight and she pulled out her phone to show him the picture. The ambulance went speeding by them as she pulled up the photo.

“See there”—she pointed to the charms on the bracelet—“I’m not sure what sorority it is, though.”

“Can you make it bigger?”

She zoomed in on the
“


” and AJ pulled out his phone too, to look up what they were. “OK, it looks like there is a sorority that exists with those letters.”

She closed down the photo and pulled up the event page on Facebook, hoping it listed the groups of volunteers. It took some scrolling and flipping through sections of the page but she found it.

“Got it!” She leaned over so AJ could see it, too. “Tours will be given by the sisters of Sigma Beta Epsilon.”

“But they aren’t involved with the maze,” he said.

“That doesn’t mean one of them can’t help us identify the girl.”

“How are we supposed to check if they know her? It’s not like we have a picture or something.”

Kalina gave him a devious grin and tapped her phone screen. He broke out in a matching grin and gave a small fist pump.

“The real issue is going to be figuring out how to get some of them alone to talk to them,” she said and looked around.

The volunteers were all in period dress and not exactly flaunting their Greek Life affiliations. They’d have to get creative. Kalina stepped out into the middle of the street and turned in a slow circle until she spotted a sign pointing to the information area. That was as good a place to start as any. She waved her nephew onward and they made their way to the middle of the town square and booth marked “Information and Tours”. A middle-aged woman sat behind the booth wearing a jacket and fingerless gloves. She flipped through a magazine and only looked up when Kalina’s shadow fell across the page.

“Can I help you?’

“I hope so. We’re looking for the sisters of Sigma Beta Epsilon. We heard they’re giving tours.”

“They’re doing the historical walking tours. The next one starts in five minutes over there. There’s only one more tour after that for the day.”

“Do we have to pay anything?”

“Tours are free.”

“Great, thanks.”

Only a handful of people waited in line by the sign marked “Start”. AJ shoved his hands in his pockets and looked around. The sun had disappeared beyond the horizon. The ghost tours would start soon. She hoped they would still be able to do one of those. The maze was likely out for good since it was an active crime scene.

“Do you think that girl is going to be OK?” AJ whispered as a tall girl in a long dress approached.

“I don’t know. I didn’t get a look at her injury but we can hope.”

She wrapped an arm around his shoulders and squeezed tight. He didn’t pull away like she thought he would. Apparently, happening upon a gravely injured teenage girl had shaken him out of trying to be cool in his aunt’s presence. Their guide came to a stop in front of the small group and forced a smile.

“Hi, everybody. My name is Melody and I’ll be your guide today. Thanks for taking the tour. Let’s get started before it gets too dark and the ghost tours take over.”

The group fell into step behind Melody and Kalina did her best to maneuver to the front of the pack.

“Thanks for doing this,” she said.

Melody tugged at the bonnet strings under her chin and a few tendrils of fiery red hair fell across her cheek. “Sure. We try to give back to the community when we can.”

“We?”

“Oh, my sorority sisters and I. We’ve been helping out with the festival for like five or six years now.”

“What sorority?”

“Sigma Beta Epsilon.”

“It’s nice to know there are some Greek organizations out there who are focused on philanthropy rather than keg parties.”

Melody smiled. “Oh, we aren’t above parties, too.” She waved to a couple of girls wrangling small kids. “Those are some of our pledges. You don’t get to be a tour guide until you’re a fully initiated sister.”

“Interesting. Do you help out in any of the other parts of the festival? Like the Witch’s Maze?”

“Nope. That’s the Kappa Kappa Rho girls.”

“Rival sisterhood?”

“Not really. They’re a nice group of girls but we do vie for pledges sometimes. We tend to attract the same types of girls: smart, academic and driven.”

“So how many of you are out in force tonight?”

Melody stopped to point out one of the buildings they were passing before turning back to Kalina. “I think there are five of us”—she counted on her fingers—“me, Ashley, Tania, Mags and Tasha.”

Kalina kept an eye out for other tour leaders and Melody pointed them out as they encountered them. Tania, Mags and Ashley were accounted for. Kalina could see the worry crease Melody’s forehead as she fished her phone from within her petticoats and checked something.

“Weird. Tasha hasn’t checked in with the group text in a few hours. We’re supposed to check in every hour.”

Kalina bit the inside of her lip and brought up the photo of the girl from the maze. “Is this her?”

Melody looked at the photo and stopped short. AJ and one of the other tour participants slammed into her and she went stumbling forward. Kalina reached out a hand and caught her by the elbow to steady her.

“Sorry everyone, we’re going to have to stop the tour. There’s an emergency.” To Kalina’s surprise, Melody kept her voice calm and even.

With some grumbling, the small group dispersed, leaving Kalina and AJ the only ones standing beside their tour guide. Melody took Kalina’s phone and blew up the photo, studying every inch of it before handing it back.

“That’s Tasha. Where was that taken? What happened?”

Kalina glanced around and spotted a free bench outside a hair salon and guided the girl over. AJ stood nearby and stayed quiet. Melody yanked the cap from her head and let her hair fall messily around her shoulders.

“She was found near the maze,” Kalina said in a soft tone.

“Was she OK? She doesn’t look OK in that picture.”

“She was unconscious. But she’s probably at the hospital by now.”

“Did someone call her parents?”

“She didn’t have any ID on her so I don’t think the police know who she is.”

“How do you know all of this?” Melody wiped tears from her cheeks and blew out a long breath.

“We found her. Come on, let’s see if we can find the detective who is leading the investigation. I’m sure he’d be more than happy to know who Tasha is. You might even be able to help retrace her steps so they can figure out what happened.”

“Yeah. Um, OK. She was supposed to be doing the early set of tours. I only came on an hour ago so I just assumed she was fine. She’d been checking in and everything.”

“Was she doing a specific tour route?”

“Um, out by the fields where the maze is. I guess that explains how she got there.”

Kalina nodded mutely and led Melody and AJ off toward the fields. They hadn’t been away from the area very long so she hoped Sergeant Whitman or Officer Larkin would still be around. Luckily, even in the fading evening light, Kalina could spot the tall, lanky form of the sergeant.

“Sergeant Whitman,” she called, ushering Melody ahead of her.

“Yes? Can I help you with something?”

“We spoke a little while ago. I was the one who called for the ambulance. This is Melody. I think she knows who the injured girl is.”

“And how is it she knows about the injured girl in the first place?”

Melody opened her mouth to speak but Kalina cut her off. “I noticed she was wearing a bracelet that belonged to a sorority helping out here at the festival. Melody is in the same sorority.”

“Her name is Tasha … I mean Natasha Fordham. She’s a junior.”

Sergeant Whitman rubbed his chin before motioning for Melody to join him at the table—now vacated by the frat boy—and pulled out a notepad and pen.

“What do we do next?” AJ whispered.

“See if we can find any of the girls from the rival sorority. Melody may be convinced that they’re nice but you never know what someone might do if they really wanted a particular pledge to join their organization.”

CHAPTER FOUR

Kalina’s pulse quickened as they made their way back into the fray. Knowing that there might be a motive behind Tasha’s attack was making her head spin a little. They had a limited window to figure out what really happened before their presence would be questioned. It wasn’t like they could stick around until the next day. After all, the festival was set to end around 9:00—three hours from now—and Kalina had promised to get AJ home before midnight.

“Aunt K., slow down!” AJ called from behind her.

She stopped and waited for him to catch up. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to walk so fast.”

“It’s cool. So how are we supposed to find these Kappa girls?”

“The same way we found Melody. We check to see what parts of the festival they are volunteering with and ask.”

“To Facebook!” said AJ with a dramatic fist pump in the air.

Kalina shook her head at her nephew’s nerdy tendencies and pulled up the event page again and found the information they needed.

“This way. They’re handling the children’s events.”

“Goodie.”

It wasn’t hard to find the Kappa girls. Unlike the Sigma girls, they could get away with being in jeans and T-shirts with their Greek affiliation emblazoned on them. A pretty girl with caramel skin and tightly curled hair approached them.

“Are you here to pick someone up?” she asked.

“No, actually we were hoping to talk to you and your sorority sisters about something.”

The girl pressed her lips into a straight line. “That sounds serious.”

“Not really. My niece is heading to college soon and I promised her I’d scope out some of the sororities to see what they’re like.”

“Well, if you can hang around for like fifteen minutes, we should be ready to pack up and we can probably talk to you then.”

“Sure thing.”

The girl walked away to tend to a little boy digging in the dirt by himself. AJ leaned on the edge of the barrel that had once held a collection of apples for bobbing.

“I can’t believe you lied to her!”

“I couldn’t tell her we’re investigating a girl being attacked, especially if they could potentially be involved.”

“You really think they’re going to talk to us?”

“I think so.”

“I hope the cops figure out what’s going on, too. I mean even if we solve the case, we can’t do anything to whoever hurt Tasha.”

“I know. We’ll figure it out. Just be patient, kiddo.”

The tips of his ears burned bright red when one of the sorority sisters walked by and gave a little giggle at his pet name. “Could you maybe not call me that? It’s embarrassing.”

Kalina couldn’t help but laugh too. “They are so out your league. Not to mention it would be illegal.”

Time passed quickly and soon the last of the kids had been retrieved by their parents or older siblings and Kalina and AJ were left with the sisters of Kappa Kappa Rho. In an effort to keep up the charade that she was interested in assessing the sororities, Kalina approached the girl she’d talk to earlier and helped gather chairs and stack them beside the picnic tables.

“So you’re getting a jump on things, huh?” the girl said.

“Yeah.”

‘I’m Amber, by the way.”

“Nice to meet you.”

“Why don’t you tell me about your niece?”

“Well, she’s curious about Greek Life but shy. And she didn’t want to come today so I figured, since so many of the activities were run by sororities, I’d take a look. So what kind of girls are your target pledges?”

“Oh, we want girls who are smart and academically minded.”

“That sounds like Sigma Beta Epsilon.”

“We do tend to attract the same girls. We usually end up splitting them each pledge class.”

Kalina nodded. “What would you say is the biggest difference between your organizations?”

“I think they do more national-level philanthropy work and we focus more on community. A lot of our sisters are going into the education field so we do a lot of tutoring for elementary school kids. It’s a lot of fun.”

“Sounds it.” Kalina looked around in search of AJ. “This may sound a little weird but is there any tension between you guys over specific pledges?”

“Not really. I mean it’s really up to the pledges to decide which organization to join.”

“So they never get rejected?”

“They could be asked to de-pledge if their grades slip or if they reveal sisterhood secrets to people who aren’t supposed to know them.”

“Has that ever happened since you’ve been a member?”

“With us, not very often. I thought I heard that one of the girls pledging Sigma Beta got kicked out but I’m not sure what for. You’d have to ask one of them.”

“Thanks. You’ve been really helpful.”

She finally spotted her nephew chatting with a young girl not wearing sorority letters. She looked a little like Tasha from where Kalina stood. She tried to brush off the thought and waved to get his attention. They needed to find Melody and ask a few more questions.

“Oh, one more question,” Kalina said as AJ jogged over to join her.

“Sure,” Amber said and shoved her hands in her pockets.

“Was anyone from your sorority working out by the maze today?”

“We weren’t running it. One of the frats was doing that. But I think a couple of the girls were out that way in the afternoon just to take a break.” Amber glanced around and pointed out a couple people, including the girl AJ had been talking to. “Elena and Jocelyn were there.”

“Thanks.”

Amber gave them both a smile and headed off to deal with corralling the rest of her sisters. AJ’s cheeks were flushed and he clutched his phone tightly to his chest.

“What happened?” Kalina asked.

“I got that girl Jocelyn’s number. She’s a pledge.”

“And did you find anything else out about her?”

“She’s a sophomore and is really hoping she gets inducted.”

“Anything that might help us figure out who went after Tasha.”

“Oh”—his cheeks burned brighter—“not really.”

“Come on, Romeo.”

“Don’t you want to see if she saw anything?” AJ asked when they turned and headed away from the group.

“I want to ask Melody a couple more questions first. But, yeah, I think talking to Jocelyn is a good idea when we’re done.”