A Dramatic Disappearance, page 10
The Dweller wore a black shirt and pants and dragged their feet as they entered the class.
“Is that supposed to be me?” Daniel asked.
“Duh,” Charla said. The Cellar Dweller was lugging a Hop-Man tote bag filled with art supplies.
“Yeah, it’s me.” Daniel groaned. “Maybe we should log out?”
“No way,” Charla said. “If you don’t like it, close your eyes.”
“Bah.” Daniel moaned. He pushed the last of his fries aside. “I’m nauseous.”
The Cellar Dweller started a song. “Who’s the hashtag greatest goof? It’s me and here’s the proof!”
They imitated that video of Daniel when he was dressed as Hop-Man, rolling on the floor. Daniel had been funny, but I had to admit, the Cellar Dweller took it up a notch. They rolled in green paint live on camera, instead of using green makeup like Daniel had done before shooting. Daniel was an artist, so the makeup was professional, but I couldn’t stop laughing at the Dweller crawling through paint until they turned froggy green.
Daniel sighed. “I thought people were done making fun of me for that video.”
The Cellar Dweller threw off the paint-covered clothes to reveal a new, clean outfit underneath. They slipped into a costume I didn’t recognize.
“That’s from the musical,” Daniel said. “After Connor was cast, Frances showed me photos online.”
“They’re pretending to be Connor now,” Charla said as she put the pieces together.
“And who has all of Greenfield’s fame?” the Cellar Dweller asked the camera. “An actor who is very lame.”
“That rhyme was very lame,” Charla muttered.
The Dweller did a dance. Daniel thought it was probably from Drop In. But when the Cellar Dweller did the steps, they were goofing around and stumbled off the stage a few times. Once, they toppled into a pile of costumes. They popped up again, this time with a silver feather in their hair.
People all around us began laughing. I raised my head and realized that most of the people in the restaurant were watching the livestream on their own phones.
The Cellar Dweller stripped back down to a basic black outfit. They took a bow for the camera.
“Watch out Daniel, and Connor too. I’m stealing the spotlight because I’m better than you!”
The camera went off and that was the end.
The laughter around us faded.
“I’m retiring,” Daniel said. “Let the Dweller have the glory.”
“They have professional equipment,” Charla said. “It doesn’t mean they have talent.”
“Did you watch the same video as me?” Daniel stared at her. “Whoever that is, they’re super talented.”
“I—”
“Give it a rest, Jessie,” Daniel said. “No compliments. I don’t need a pick-me-up. What I need is to find out who that is.”
There was a crash from across the room.
We all turned to see Mina pounding her fists on her table.
“What’s she so upset about?” Daniel asked in the grumpiest voice I’d ever heard from him. “Did she just get called out in front of the entire town?”
“She must have watched the video too,” I noted. “But I’ve got no idea why she’s so mad about it.” I turned my attention back to my friends. “There are clues we need to process.”
“Clues?” Charla asked. “About what?”
“To find the identity of the Dweller,” I said. “Thanks to that video, we have more clues to help figure it out.”
“I can’t get any closer on the tagging than Greenfield,” Charla said. “So what are you talking about?”
“No windows.” Daniel realized what I meant. As his grumpiness settled, he began to analyze what we’d seen. “Either the stage was blocking the window or there weren’t any at all.”
Charla, who’d been editing Daniel’s videos, said, “If there was a window behind the camera, we’d have seen some kind of glow.” It was dinnertime, but it wasn’t dark out. Not yet. “Peeks of color from the sunset maybe.”
“What kind of room doesn’t have windows?” I asked.
“A bathroom,” Daniel said.
“A closet,” I said.
“A basement,” Charla put in.
I made notes of everything we were saying. “What else?”
“That stage is nagging at me,” Daniel said.
“Me too,” I replied.
“Someone please explain,” Charla said.
“Remember when I went to Frances’s house that first time? There was a small stage in her living room,” I began.
“It was gone when we all were over,” Daniel said.
“And that was about the same time the Cellar Dweller appeared live on a stage,” I finished.
“Oh, yeah, that. Sure. I was thinking about the stage too,” Charla said as if she’d noticed the same thing.
“You’re a bad actor,” Daniel said.
“I know! But I’m good at computer stuff,” Charla said. She opened a browser on her phone and called up the video of the livestream. She went through it slowly, frame by frame, until she reached the part where the Cellar Dweller fell off the stage into a pile of costumes.
“That was classic,” Daniel admitted. “I love physical humor.”
“Look.” Charla zoomed in on the costumes. “The stage wasn’t nagging at me, but this was.”
“A silver feather!” I exclaimed. “Just like the one Topher wore in his weird Abe Lincoln hat the day we saw him at the café.”
Daniel and I both gave her a high five.
“There’s a lot of evidence here that points to Topher,” I said, scrolling through my notes. “Frances also mentioned that Topher and Connor used to practice acting in Topher’s basement.”
“I think we can officially say that Topher Jackson is the Cellar Dweller,” I said.
“Told ya.” Daniel smiled.
“Let’s call Frances. If Topher had something to do with Connor’s disappearance, she’ll want to know.”
“At least now Frances can’t ignore that Topher is involved in this whole situation,” Charla said. She shuddered. “Things are getting real.”
“Exactly,” I said. There was a knot in my belly. We were getting closer to finding out the truth. I crossed my fingers and hoped we didn’t have to call the SWAT team or an ambulance.
With a sense of urgency, I started to dial Frances, only for my phone to start ringing. Frances was calling me. “Hello?” I answered. “I was just about to call you.”
“I’ll admit it,” she said. “I’m worried about Connor now. That new Cellar Dweller video seemed so threatening.”
“We’re pretty sure we know who the Cellar Dweller is.” I told her about Topher.
“I’m so sorry, Jessie. I truly thought that there was no way Topher could be so sneaky and underhanded.” There was a sadness in her voice that quickly flipped to concern. She gave me Topher’s address and said, “Meet me there in ten minutes. We are going to find out where my brother is!”
We paid our bill and hurried out of the restaurant.
Frances was waiting in front of Topher’s house. The instant we arrived, she knocked on his door. It wasn’t a nice knock. It was a fist-slamming pound.
Topher answered. He was wearing a gray sweatshirt and brown pants. I had hoped he would be dressed all in black so we could have yelled, Gotcha!
“Move!” Frances said. “Out of the way!”
We all pushed past him into the hallway. Frances was leading the way, so we didn’t feel like we were intruding. We were just following.
Topher stepped backward to make room for the four of us.
“What’s going on?” he asked. “Is this an ambush?”
Frances pointed at me. “Tell him what you know.”
I was used to revealing the clues, so I laid it all out, right there in the hallway of his house. “We think you’re the Cellar Dweller.”
Topher didn’t react. Not a smile or a frown. He didn’t admit it or deny it.
Daniel jumped in with the first clues: the stage, the feather, the basement.
Frances added, “I lent you my stage!”
Another clue.
Charla then connected the Cellar Dweller to Connor Wright’s disappearance: the threats to close the show, the meeting with Marcia at the café, the director assuring the cast that Topher was taking care of everything.
I finished, saying, “We believe you want Connor out of the musical so you can take his role.”
“I—” Topher was honestly surprised at the accusation. His jaw dropped open as if he was going to defend himself, but he never got the chance because Frances jumped up in his face.
“Where’s my brother?” she demanded to know.
There was a long pause where no one said anything. The silence was broken not by Topher’s admission of guilt but by Charla’s cell phone’s ding.
“It’s the Cellar Dweller.” Charla held up her phone. “He’s live!”
Live? How was that possible? I shook my head. If Topher wasn’t the Cellar Dweller, who was?
Chapter 13
Mask Off
“See? You’re all wrong,” Topher said. He moved to the front door and opened it. “Now please leave.”
We didn’t move.
The video was beginning. The Cellar Dweller was on the stage, which now had a background that looked like wooden slats. And a wooden floor. And a beanbag chair in the corner.
“Is that supposed to be the boxcar?” I muttered aloud.
“You gotta go.” Topher edged us toward the door. He said, “I wish I were the Cellar Dweller. Have you seen his following? I mean, I’d love that kind of fame.”
That made sense. If it were Topher, he’d probably be bragging about it, telling everyone so he could be popular like his friend Connor.
“Get out,” Topher said, pointing outside to the porch. “Leave.”
He was starting to get really aggressive, especially toward Frances, who he’d known for pretty much his whole life.
I stalled, wondering why he was in such a hurry for us to go. I mean, we’d falsely accused him of being the Cellar Dweller and making his best friend disappear, but that didn’t explain why Topher was acting so nervous.
On the screen, a gold-and-brown Bengal cat was sitting on the floor of the stage, much like Watch had in the boxcar with Daniel back before we had gotten mixed up in any of this.
“Looks like I’m the joke again,” Daniel groaned.
“Good art gets imitated,” Charla told him.
“Whatever.” Daniel was sick of the Cellar Dweller. “Get your own act,” he told the person on the screen.
Watch had refused to do the tricks, but the cat was worse. It kept running off the stage.
“My cat, Pippen, would never do dog tricks,” Charla said. “If I tried this act, Pippen would hiss and scratch my arm.”
The third time the Cellar Dweller tried to get the cat to shake hands, the cat decided he was done and dashed out of the room. The Dweller tried to snag him by the tail, but the cat was fast and left the Dweller alone on the empty stage.
The Cellar Dweller was funny about it, breaking into a cat joke.
“Where’d the cat go?”
They paused, then answered, “The meow-seum!”
The answer echoed through the hallway. “Meow. Meow.” I shook my head as the purring continued. It seemed so real! Suddenly, a blur of gold-and-brown fur dashed past us and out the open door.
“That’s Tabby,” Topher said as if nothing unusual had happened. “He’ll come back when he’s hungry.” It was the weakest attempt to smooth over the situation that I’d ever seen.
“That’s the Bengal cat from the Cellar Dweller’s show,” I insisted. This was how we were going to find out the Cellar Dweller’s identity. From a cat!
“Nah,” Topher said. “Lots of cats look alike.”
“Move out of my way, Christopher!” Frances gave him a look that he’d clearly seen before. “Remember what happened that time you broke my skateboard? If you don’t step aside, this will be a thousand times worse!”
“I’m not scared of you.” Topher tried to block her as she moved toward a door, but it was a half-hearted block. He was truly scared.
“That must be the door to the basement,” I said to Charla and Daniel.
“Wow. I wouldn’t mess with Frances,” Charla said. “I wonder what happened to Topher after her skateboard broke?”
“I don’t want to know,” Daniel said.
We hung back as Frances shoved Topher to the side.
On the screen, the Cellar Dweller looked up, then to the side.
Topher stomped on the floorboards.
The video on Charla’s cell phone went dark.
“I’m going to find out who’s down there and where they’re hiding my brother!” She grabbed the doorknob and pulled.
All the pieces of what we’d learned fell into place. I knew exactly who we’d find in the basement even before we went down there.
“Connor Wright is the Cellar Dweller,” I told Charla and Daniel as we followed Frances does the steps.
It all seemed so obvious now. Connor and Topher had used this basement as a hangout, to practice for shows and have their own space.
“Cellar” meant the basement and Connor was the “Dweller.”
Connor used to hang out here. Frances had said that him disappearing wasn’t unusual. That’s why she hadn’t been too worried.
Topher had reassured Marcia that it was “going to work out” because he knew where Connor was all along. He didn’t want the director, or anyone, to worry because Connor was safe at Topher’s house.
The only question remaining was why Connor had done all this. We were about to find out…
When we entered the basement and found Connor standing on the stage, I watched the expression on Frances’s face. I’d never been in this exact situation, but I knew that look. She was furious at her brother for making her worry. She was happy to have found him safe. And she was ready to kill him for all that he’d put her through.
The instant Frances found Connor, she wanted to hug and strangle him at the same time.
It’s a sibling thing.
“You found me, Franny,” he said.
“Jessie, Daniel, and Charla put the clues together,” she told him. We’d stopped and were standing at the foot of the staircase.
Frances was by the edge of the stage. Her fists were clenched. The air between her and her brother was tense.
“We thought Topher was the Dweller,” I said, feeling a little disappointed we hadn’t figured it all out days ago. We never even suspected that Connor might have disappeared himself.
Topher entered the basement. “I’m honored to have been mistaken for Connor.”
Daniel shook his head in disbelief. He was just putting it all together. “Have you been hiding here since you got to town?”
“Since the night I was supposed to go to the café,” he said. “You’re Jessie, right?”
I nodded.
“Sorry for ditching you, but I needed to get out of the limelight, not move further into it with a newspaper feature.”
“You missed all the praise in the café,” I said. I couldn’t help but notice that Connor had an almost magical charm, just like everyone said. Sure, he was movie-star handsome, but there was also an inviting air that floated around him. It was like this: if I saw him on the street, I’d wonder who he was and want to talk to him.
I shook off the feeling and told Connor, “The whole town loves you.”
“They used to bully me,” Connor said. “And that’s the problem.” He turned to Daniel and said, “This is all your fault, you know.”
“What?” Daniel was shocked. “Uh, if you think I want your role in the musical, you’re way wrong.” He added in a softer voice, because being in front of Connor Wright was pretty intimidating, “I can’t dance or sing.”
“Well, you need to learn!” Connor said. “And I know the greatest teacher!” He pointed at his sister, who had finally unclenched her fists.
“Why are you blaming Daniel?” Frances asked Connor, stepping onto the stage. “He didn’t do anything.”
“I saw his videos online,” Connor explained. Daniel was blushing and struggling not to stare at his feet. “You have so much fun in them. I’d forgotten how great performing can be.” He said to us all, “I made up the Cellar Dweller so I could get back to my roots. I figured that with the mask and the voice changer, no one would be able to recognize me. I’d be able to find out if people liked me for my talent or just because I was famous.”
“You wanted to get back to your roots of being an unemployed actor hanging in Topher’s basement?” Charla asked with a shrug.
“Yes!” Connor declared. “I mean, having a job is good, but I wanted to get back that feeling I used to have…to get back the excitement of acting before I was famous.”
“You’re not that famous,” his sister said.
He laughed and rushed forward to hug her. “I missed you!” He apologized for making her worry.
“You’re a dope,” she said, hugging him back.
Connor said, “Everyone in Greenfield pretends to be my dearest friend, as if they didn’t treat me badly when I was growing up here.”
“I saw how people behaved at the café,” I said. “Ms. Surovsky was the one who pointed out that things might not be as rosy around here as I’d heard.”
Connor said. “I should thank her for being so supportive.”
“Me too,” Topher echoed. “She was the best.”
“I’m sure she’d like to see you both,” I told them.
“Are you going to be in the musical?” Daniel asked Connor. “Drop In needs you.”
“I haven’t decided,” he said. “But you’ve all ruined my side gig.” He brushed a hand toward his stage setup. “I should probably give up the mask now.”
“Please,” Daniel said. “I can’t handle the competition.”
“There will always be competition,” Connor warned him. “You should get used to it.”
