Chapter 01

Randall La Gorce pondered what he had just seen. The dog and his master were so emotionally in tune that the dog had screamed at the exact same time as the teenager. The dog's scream was very… undoglike… almost human. But he had seen such things on internet videos. Animals made unusual noises sometimes.

That didn't change the fact that he had to get a hold of the kids who solved mysteries on YouTube. He, of course, had Velma Dinkley's home address. Dinkley was an uncommon name and the search was easy. On the other hand, even Crystal Cove had plenty of Rogerses and Joneses. He didn't want to show up at someone's home unannounced. The possibility for misunderstanding—sometimes dangerous—were too high when a modern-day American thought his home was being threatened.

But his plans for a polite conversation at a neutral site had just screamed and ran away. This had all looked so easy on paper and now he was running out of ideas to avoid knocking the Dinkley's front door. His last chance was that the sponsor of Velma Dinkley's short-lived original podcast was a museum of sorts on Main Street named the Crystal Cove Spook Museum. Maybe he would find a clue there.

Driving to the address shown on the faded card that he had pulled from the rack in the lobby of his motel brought him to the center of the tourist district. Parking places were in short supply and more time was lost in the search for one. It was the height of their tourist season and, as hokey as the whole 'most haunted city in America' thing was, it seemed to be working. He finally found a space about three blocks down at four dollars per hour (he was beating his expense report to death on this one) and walked to the museum. His shirt was sticking to the entirety of his back before he made it.

Stopping on the sidewalk, he was disappointed. It didn't look like a museum at all. It was a large but simple storefront for what appeared to be a grandiose souvenir stand. But he was running out of options. He was about to push through the door when his eyes focused at the small print on the sign on the door.

Crystal Cove Spook Museum

Angela Dinkley, Proprietor

Dale Dinkley, Curator

Well, at least he had only wasted a few hours before coming here. The door opened in front of him and a herd of tweens wearing a uniform he didn't recognize came barreling out talking loudly and squealing excitedly.

What could be so exciting in a souvenir store?

xXx

The previous summer, Velma had found working at his parent's store to be the height of boredom. Each day had dragged as she stood in the relative isolation of the store with few customers outside of Fred who came in regularly to check out exhibit updates in the "museum". But she had not known Fred then and he had never spoken to her. What would he say? At that time, they had nothing in common.

This year, however, working at the store was a nearly endless supply of anxiety. It turned out that there were now people who were coming to Crystal Cove… TO SEE HER! And The Gang. But she was the one trapped in a storefront on Main Street where she couldn't get away. And, according to her father, she HAD to be nice.

It was not like everyone who walked in the store screamed, stormed her counter, and tried to rip out a lock of her hair as a keepsake. The majority of customers were just trying to keep their kids entertained for an hour and had no clue who Velma was. They assumed she was just another minimum-wage summer worker trying to pay for malted milk shakes and hamburgers for beach dates before school started again in the Fall.

But others, usually in the eleven- to thirteen-year-old range would come crashing toward her and pelting her with rapid fire questions about the channel. This was the part where her father's edict about niceness became especially hard. The kids came in squealing and yelling. The parents were agitated and short-tempered because the kids were screaming. And Velma was trapped at the center of it.

And it was getting worse. There apparently was some sort of teenybopper communication network as word was spreading that they had a captive Velma Dinkley who couldn't run away and had to be nice at the Crystal Cove Spook Museum. Dale had recognized an opportunity and set aside a small corner near the front entrance and surrounded it with noise dampening partitions. This rest area allowed parents a chance to let their kids burn out their energy against someone else's nerves for a while. In this case—Velma's.

She was just finishing up the worst hour of her life. A busload of Junior Chipmunks (or something like that) had just overrun the store and crowded around her, bringing chaos and noise with them. They screamed at her. They screamed at each other. And they just screamed in general. Her mother had come running over when they had first burst in and Velma breathed a sigh of relief that she was about to be protected from the worst of it. But then her mother pulled out the small Chinese-made banners with the official slogan of Crystal Cove on it along with the name of the store. She and Dale bought them for seventeen cents apiece.

"Get Velma's autograph on this official 'Mystery, Incorporated' banner. Each banner is just five dollars!" Nothing on the banner said anything about Mystery, Inc. She then shoved a felt-tip marker in Velma's hand and sold seventeen of the cheap flimsy cloths. Velma signed them all, which seemed like it should be cool but just felt stupid. Then she had divided the mob into groups of six and taken each group on the museum tour. The tours—which usually lasted about ten minutes—took twenty minutes each due to the chaos.

When they finally were corralled and forced out of the store by the two (ONLY TWO?!) chaperones, Velma was shaking. She leaned her head down on the counter and tried to calm her pulse rate through deep breathing.

"Excuse me, Miss Dinkley?"

Velma raised her weary head to see a slightly sweaty but otherwise well-dressed man of about forty standing in front of her.

"May I help you?!" Angie's voice came from across the store. She would throw her daughter to the wolves if they came in the form of a mob of twelve-year-olds. But an older man wanting to speak alone to her just-turned-sixteen daughter? That brought the full force of the maternal instincts. Protect. Protect. Protect.

Sensing immediately that the path to the daughter was through the mother, he turned away from Velma and toward the incoming Angie.

"Yes ma'am. My name is Randall La Gorce. I'm from the National Geographic Society and I was hoping to have a word with your daughter. You are certainly welcome to participate."

Velma's interest was now piqued. "The National Geographic Society?"

He took a step back so that he could turn toward Velma without turning away from her mother. He was good at this. "Yes. We have something of a mystery on our hands and would like to speak with you and your team about some possible assistance."

Velma turned to Angie, "Mrs. Dinkley, can I take a break?" She tried to be formal when they were at work.

Angie smiled but her eyes remained ice cold and locked on La Gorce. "Certainly dear. Why don't you meet with this gentlemen in the parent's sitting area up front?"

Velma had been thinking of going to the small breakroom in the back for more privacy but her mother's plan made more sense. The parent's sitting area gave a semblance of auditory privacy while being easily visible from the front cash register and from the sidewalk through the window. Better safe than sorry.

Velma tried a fake smile. As always, it just felt wrong. "Right this way, Mr. La Gorce."

The store was quiet and there were no parents hiding away from little ADHD-riddled demons. Velma's curiosity couldn't be restrained, and she started the questions before they sat down. "You're here representing the National Geographic Society?"

"Yes. And my family."

As a connoisseur of fine cryptic responses, Velma appreciated this one. She maintained her poise until they were both seated. She tried to think of how business meetings were conducted, "Can I get you anything? Coffee? Tea?" She would have to get help making coffee and she was pretty sure there was no tea. Hopefully he would decline.

"No, thank you. I just ate."

His previous answer was a puzzle that Velma wanted to pick at. "You are an employee of the National Geographic Society?"

"Yes, I am."

"And your family's involvement in this is what?"

"My family's relationship with the society goes back some time—to my great great grandfather, John Oliver La Gorce. He worked with the Society for fifty-four years and even served as president. He explored the world and wrote of many wonderful places and exciting things. He was everything the Society was supposed to be and had only one single blemish on his record."

"And what was that?"

He smiled. "I'm afraid I need to get to that in proper order."

Velma settled in realizing that questions would just slow the process down.

His point made, he continued, "His son Gilbert Grosvenor La Gorce, did not follow in my great great grandfather's footsteps. Nor did my grandfather or my father. But, with amazingly poor timing, I was bitten by the journalism bug and got a degree in Journalism from Northwestern just as the huge leviathans of the media were dying under the attacks of thousands of tiny internet news outlets. Journalism was dying and my dreams of being the next Edward R. Murrow died with them. I finally turned to the National Geographic Society, which is hardly what I pictured as journalism, and hoped that some name recognition might, at least get me a job until something better came along.

"That was sixteen years ago, and the name recognition is really all I have. My general job is being what they call an 'ambassador' but is more like a figurehead. I make press releases and give tours to VIPs and occasionally appear briefly in one of the televised shows so that donors and subscribers might recognize me when I'm plying them for money. But it beats unemployment."

Velma waited silently, hoping that he was about to get to some kind of a point.

And he did, "And right now we have a ghost problem."

She assumed that it was time for her to say something, "A ghost problem? Where?"

"In our headquarters in Washington DC. It's been happening for the last two weeks. The ghost has been harassing tour groups."

"Washington DC is a long way from here. Why come to us? There are similar teams to ours in DC, Baltimore, and Virginia."

"Those teams are not well suited to our desires. They all go into each situation trying to prove that the ghosts are real. We are hoping to expose the charlatan with as little fuss as possible and get on with our business with no more publicity than we have already had."

"You understand that we do a YouTube channel right?"

"Non-Disclosure Agreements would be required. You will not be allowed to film anything. We will have a correspondent with you and they might film just enough to confirm satisfactory efforts on your part."

Velma wasn't into contractual mumbo jumbo and was more focused on the mystery. "Why the tight control?"

He took a deep breath. "The ghost in question is Douglas Chandler."