Cypress Alley

Chapter 2

We stood outside the door, unsure whether to go in or not.

Too late.

Our foster mother is like a dog – a big, scary, ugly dog. She sniffs out everything and everyone without fail. Today was no exception.

"What are you doing here?" she said, evidently struggling to mask her irritation.

"Uh... school was let out early..." Imumbled.

"What?"

"School was let out early," I said, louder

"Why?"

"Uh..." I looked at Eliza. She glanced at me, then back at Ms Hartley.

"The history excursion was cancelled due to a bad situation," Eliza said firmly. Ms Hartley eyed her suspiciously.

"So, what, they just send you home? I'm going to have a word with your teacher."

We stood awkwardly, waiting for orders.

"Get inside."

We scuttled inside like mice and stared uncertainly at the belt hanging on the hook. But Ms Hartley ignored us and walked straight into her room. Relieved, we made to sit down when Ms Hartley stuck her head back out. "You can cook dinner," she said without looking at us. "Then you can – will – go up to your rooms and stay there for the rest of the day.

"Yes, Ms Hartley," Eliza mumbled.

"Now get out of my sight."

We scuttled into the kitchen, shutting the door carefully behind us. We knew the drill. We were supposed to make our daily dinner - a revolting fried salad. We'd played around with the recipe plenty, but there was no way to make it better. We just had to plug our noses and shove it down our throats each night to satisfy our hunger. 

Ms Hartley never eats it, though. Obviously. Her dinner generally consists of doughnuts or toast or sometimes even takeaway. The salad was only our punishment, as the children. Our punishment for not being good enough servants. 

Eliza placed the saucepan onto the stove and turned it on. I began chopping vegetables while Eliza watched intently.

"I wonder what happened to her..." said Eliza, tearing up, but I wasn't sure whether it was because of North or the onions.

"Someone murdered her?" I suggested.

"Well, duh." She rolled her eyes. "But who?"

"How am I supposed to know?"

Just then we heard a shout from outside. "I hear more talking than cooking."

Eliza quickly grabbed the half-chopped onions and slipped them onto the saucepan. We waited as they sizzled. 

"That's better!" Ms Hartley shouted.

"Well, we could find out," Eliza whispers.

"Find out what?"

"Who murdered her."

I step back from the bench-top.

"No no no no no no no no. No way!" I said a bit too loudly.

"Why not?" asked Eliza.

"I don't want to get involved, okay? It's not another one of your silly adventures. This is dangerous. What if this murderer guy finds out that we're snooping and comes after us?"

"How do you know it's a guy?" Eliza asked slowly.

"I don't."

"Exactly! We don't know, so we'll find out." Eliza climbed up onto the benchtop and struck a pose. "Shylock Jones and Ron H. Dotson will solve the case of the North corpse," she declared dramatically.

"The who will solve the what?" 

"I, Shylock Jones, and you, my dear Dotson, will solve the case of the North corpse."

"Seriously?"

"Oh, fine then. You think of something better," she huffed.

"The case of Cypress Alley."

"Damn you and your catchy names, Ron."

"Whatever... don't call me that."

"Too bad Dotson. That's the deal if you want to solve this case!"

"Sure..."

"Come on, be enthusiastic!" 

"Yay," I droned.

"C'mon, you can do better than that."

"Yippee."

Eliza ignored my brilliant attempt at enthusiasm and instead grabbed a notebook from atop the fridge. This isn't the first time she's hidden things around the house for later use. "You never know when you might need something," as she likes to say. I'm just hoping that the calendar will skip the day that Ms Hartley finds out.

"Where did that come from?" I asked cautiously, though I thought I already knew the answer.

"Hartless's room."

"You stole from Ms Hartley again?"

"Oh, you wuss. Of course. You have to do these things to survive," she said matter-of-factly. Pulling a pencil out of her pocket, she drummed her fingers dramatically. "So, what are the facts?"

"That North is dead."

"Great job, Dotson!"

I gawked at her incredulously. If that was a great job, what wasn't? Seeing my look, she giggled. "I'm trying to get you to be enthusiastic. Y'know, get involved." She flipped to the second page of the notebook and drew up a table titled "The Case of Cypress Alley." Jumping off the bench-top, she began to pace the room.

"So we need who, what, when, where, and why."

"Add how."

"Oh yeah. We need to find that out too."

"Yeah, 'cause that's gonna be easy."

"Cheer up, will you?" she said, miffed. "Let's start with who did it?"

"How the hell- "

"Okay, okay, fine. Next question. What happened? North died. North was murdered."

"Where," I said as I chopped the carrots. "In Cypress Alley."

"Yes, Dotson! You're really getting the hang of this."

I made a face at her. "Sure... what's next?"

"When did it happen? I don't think we know that for sure yet, but I think we can guess it was sometime last night since the blood was still wet, agreed?"

"Agreed."

"How did the murder do it? We don't know that yet either."

"Actually...Um, I'm pretty sure there was a stab wound on her neck."

Eliza swiveled around on her heels. "What?"

"There was a stab wound on her neck. Someone had stabbed her with a knife."

"Wow, Dotty, you're better at this than I thought."

"Please don't call me that. It makes me sound like an old lady."

"Fine, but I'm still calling you Dotson."

"Fine."

But we were soon interrupted by a low, dangerously soft voice at the door, accompanied by the the rapping of a belt on the wall.

"I smell burning."