The Phantom of Oz, Installment #5
Hello! Welcome to Installment #5 of my weekly serialization of The Phantom of Oz. If you missed earlier chapters, you can read Installment #1 here, Installment #2 here, Installment #3 here, or Installment #4 here
Before we get started, I wanted to thank all of you who send me photos, etc. that make you think of me. They truly warm my heart…
Even though—okay, especially when— those pics are corpse-adjacent. Thanks to Drew Templeton for the cartoon, and to Erin Pawlus, who snapped a photo of this book cover at Strand Books in NYC (no, neither of us have read the book yet).
Oh, and I’ll be sending out my regular monthly email newsletter soon —the one filled with silliness, murder, and a smidge of book news (but no installments of Phantom). Keep an eye on your inboxes!
And now, on to The Phantom of Oz. Happy reading, and check out the video at the end of the newsletter for fun with my friends!
Chapter 5 (Part One)
The Singular, But Veracious Story of the Ghost
“Olive-y!” My brother opened the door to his group home before I’d even rung the bell. “I can’t believe you were at that theater last night. Are you okay? I was so...” His eyes filled with tears. “So afraid.”
“I’m fine.” I hugged Cody tight. I’d called him last night after the accident, even though it was late. I told him I was okay then, but he wanted to see me this morning, probably just to make sure. My sweet baby brother.
I let him go and stepped into the house, carrying a white paper bag that smelled wonderfully yeasty. Stu, Cody’s best friend, was glued to the TV in the front room, where Babette’s now-viral selfie was front and center. I held up my bag. “Ba-gels,” I said in a sing-song voice.
Stu jumped up. Don’t know it if was me or my bagel-scented bag. Stu liked me, but he loved bagels. “Olive-y!” It was Cody who’d christened me with the combo of Olive and Ivy, but all the guys at his group home called me that. “And bagels! Enough for me?”
“Of course.” I took the bag into the kitchen and set it on the table. One of the guys who worked there came in, probably lured by the smell. “Okay for everyone to have one?” I asked.
“Sure, but just one apiece.” He looked at Stu, who had that chubby figure you see on a lot of folks with Down syndrome. Cody sat down at the table next to Stu. His disability wasn’t obvious to the casual observer: brain injury didn’t always show on the outside.
“Did you see the chandelier fall?” asked Stu.
“Yeah.” I told them what happened, keeping any emotions under check so I wouldn’t upset Cody. A couple other guys who lived there wandered in while I was telling the story, so it took a while since I had to keep circling back.
“Did you see the Lady in White?” Excitement replaced Cody’s fear. “Do you think she tried to kill you?”
“How do you know about her?” I asked.
“From that Ghost Hunt show.”
“Did you guys get cable?” I looked at the group home employee, who shook his head.
“I watched it at Uncle Bob’s,” Cody said.
That surprised me even more than the possibility of cable TV at the notoriously underfunded group home. Uncle Bob usually steered clear of the spiritual realm, plus he had a pet peeve about reality TV shows. Probably just being nice to Cody.
But that didn’t mean I’d let him off the hook. “I hear you’re quite the reality TV fan now,” I said at Duda Detectives’ office, an hour and two bagels later.
“No way,” Uncle Bob mumbled, his mouth full of the onion bagel I’d saved for him.
“So you don’t watch Ghost Hunt?” I sat down at my “desk,” a wooden TV tray under the office’s one window.
“Um...well...Bette likes it.” Bette was my uncle’s long-distance girlfriend, and an investigative journalist. At the moment she was in Nogales, Mexico covering border issues.
“Huh. Cody didn’t say anything about Bette being there.”
“Sometimes I watch it even when she’s not around. Just so we can talk about it. You know.” Uncle Bob’s cheeks flushed pink. Not sure if he blushed because he was admitting he watched a reality TV show about ghosts or because of the mention of Bette, but it was damn cute.
My phone buzzed—a text. I looked at it and dashed off an answer. “So what can you tell me about the Lady in White?” I asked my uncle.
“Are you pulling my chain?”
“No.” I’d already looked up the Lady on the internet, but the information I found was meant to be creepy, not informational. “I’m serious. Everyone’s talking about how she might be involved in last night’s accident.”
Uncle Bob swallowed. “Yeah. About that...I...Are you...”
Like most members of my family, Uncle Bob had a tough time dealing with anything emotional. It didn’t mean he didn’t love me.
“It was scary, but I’m fine.” Another text came in. I gave it the same answer. “The only one who was hurt was the Wicked Witch of the East. She’s got a pretty bad concussion and a broken leg. It’s really a miracle no one was killed. Maybe the ghost was looking out for us. You know, that one you’re going to tell me about.”
“I think I created a monster.”
“What?”
“You weren’t this obnoxious before getting into the PI biz.”
“Yes, I was. Don’t you remember how I got that first camp counselor job?” When I was sixteen, my mom and dad put me onboard a bus after I told them I had a summer job at an arts camp. I didn’t, at least not until I showed up on the camp director’s doorstep with my school and community theater acting résumé and two months’ worth of luggage. “And you can’t distract me right now. The Lady in White’s story, please.”
Watch next week for Installment #6, Part Two of Chapter 5, The Singular, But Veracious Story of the Ghost
And, fun with my friends! Join me at Tesla City Stories’ live vintage radio comedy/drama, Friday Nov. 21st, where I’ll be helping with the captioning (yes, there’s open captioning!)