The Investigators, Inc. Mountain Cabin Murder Mystery. Chapter 1. Picnic.

Today we are having our big Anniversary Picnic celebration! It is a beautiful day, sunny and not too hot, so the games can be played without anyone fainting in the heat. Hopefully anyway. Even the Black Wolves crashed the party with the help of our ghosts and the invisible blankets that we can cover the vans with, which makes them harder to see. They are not perfect, but the Wolves arrived very early when there is less chance of being observed anyway. I think there is enough food available for twice the number of people here, even with our biggest eaters in attendance.

The big boys wowed everyone with their feats of strength and Rock won the competition, although Bear came in a fairly close second. Rock even lifted 6 of our girls at one time! He might have been able to do 7 but they all fell before she climbed to the top. He challenged anyone to beat him and he would be their servant for a whole month. The other big boys tried but failed. So I said that I would try and everyone had a good laugh. However, I planned this out carefully beforehand and I lifted 8! They were all of our ghosts who can make themselves light when they want.

Rock complained that I cheated but Mandar, our judge, said that the rules were clear and had not been broken, since each of the ghosts are women. The look on Rock’s face was priceless! However, I told Rock he didn’t need to be my servant since I preferred having good service. He was much relieved, until he realized what I had said. There was a pie eating contest too, but in this one it was a timed event to see who could eat their pie the quickest. Surprisingly, Rock lost this one to Oskar.

Although Rock can outeat anyone, he is not fast. By the end of the day everyone was thoroughly tired but we had a fantastic time! Mandar left for home with some leftovers, cake and donuts. We all went to bed early that night and the next day we had another leaders meeting and their picks for junior leaders were handed in to me and I approved all of them. There was one bigger change, Jazzy asked to be the junior leader and Hannah is now the leader. I think it will work out good this way. This is the home team and also the team that trains any new people that join us.

Jennifer and Friskie will be the ghosts that stay at home most of the time now, though I will switch them around now and then. Two days later Mandar was back at our chateau, arriving just in time for some fresh donuts. He has the time memorized so he knows when they will be ready and at their best. He was a bit off today though which is definitely not like him at all and he just sat for a few minutes drinking coffee and munching on his donuts. I could tell that something was wrong even without sensing trouble. Jennifer picks up on things a lot better than I do and she knew that there was something terribly wrong and that danger was not far away.

But we have learned to just wait until Mandar is ready to speak, otherwise he gets upset. “Well, my good man,” he said finally, “it’s time we had a talk.” “Would you like to come to my office?” I asked. “No, I most certainly would not!” he exclaimed, “Your office is on the fourth floor and you have no elevator in this antiquated place of yours,” he said firmly, “mine is not a body for walking up four flights of stairs! We will have our meeting here in the library like civilized folks should do. Please tell all these giggling women to leave so we may discuss matters of great importance.”

I asked everyone to leave, except Jennifer, Kat, Celestine and Cristy. “Now, my good man,” he began, “I need your assistance. You will be paid for this, of course, but you must start working immediately, lives are at stake here! My secretary’s daughter and some of her friends have gone off to some cabin in the mountains for a two week vacation. Why they insisted on doing this is beyond comprehension, but off they went. The second night at this cabin one of them was murdered! Now they are all frightened, which is only natural and they need you to help them.”

“Why don’t they leave?” I asked. “Because someone took the battery from each van,” he said, “so there is no way for them to leave, no way at all. And there is no electricity in that primitive cabin, so their phones are nearly without power and soon they will not be able to communicate!” “Why didn’t they bring some power banks along?” I asked. “They thought there was electricity at that place,” he said, somewhat annoyed by my question. “We will have to bring some with us,” I said to Jennifer.

“What do you mean “we”?” she asked, “You are not going anywhere.” “But I need to go this time,” I said, “this is for Mandar.” “Absolutely!” exclaimed Mandar, “Steve must go this time, why, it’s imperative!” Jennifer just gave Mandar a very stern look. “Steve is staying at home!” she insisted, “You are not sending him out on some dangerous case! We’ll pick the right team to go and check on things and get those women out to safety.” Mandar was getting more red by the second, so I jumped in to try and calm him down. “How many rooms are available for our girls?” I asked.

“They said there is lots of room for 40 or 50 people,” he said, “perhaps even more.” “That’s a rather large cabin,” I said. “Well, it’s actually an old mountain hotel of some sort,” he said, “it’s kind of run down, but these young ladies thought it would be a fun getaway for them. Instead, it turned into a nightmare. But you must find out who killed that young woman, you must!” “We will do our best Mandar,” I said, “likely someone was using that old place for some criminal activity of some sort and they didn’t want these young ladies getting in their way.”

“But why kill one of them?” he asked, “Wouldn’t it be easier to just tell them to leave?” “Then they might go to the police,” I said, “this way these people can stop them and get rid of them completely. But we will get them out of there quickly before any others are murdered.” “Good, good,” said Mandar, “now, I must be going, call Richard and he will tell you how to find that mountain cabin.” Then off he went on another of his business trips. “I think we will send Misty’s Sneakers and Sky’s Bad Girls on this one,” I said, “unless you have other thoughts.”

“No, that sounds like good choices to me,” she said smiling. So I called Misty and Sky and told them to get their teams ready to leave within 30 minutes. I also said to take their cats with them as well. “I will take Snow with me,” I said to Jennifer. She just looked at me. “Right, I won’t take Snow,” I said. She continued looking at me. “Because I’m not going,” I said slowly. The teams arrived at the old hotel about 14 hours later, at midnight…

To Be Continued. ©2026 Steve McLeod.