Charlotte Illes Is Not a Teacher

Book 2: Not a Detective Mysteries

by Katie Siegel

Genres: Coming of Age

Synopsis

The déjà vu is strong for 25-year-old former kid detective Charlotte Illes when she lands back in Frencham Middle School – this time as a substitute teacher with a sideline in sleuthing – in the second zany mystery based on the much-loved TikTok web series from @katiefliesaway.

For fans of “Poker Face,” “Knives Out,” Elle Cosimano’s Finlay Donovan Series, and anyone seeking to satisfy their Harriet the Spy, Encyclopedia Brown, or Nancy Drew nostalgia!

Mention “returning to the scene of a crime,” and people don’t usually picture a middle school. But that’s where kid detective Lottie Illes enjoyed some of her greatest successes, solving mysteries and winning acclaim—before the world of adult responsibilities came crashing in . . .

Twentysomething Charlotte is now back in the classroom, this time as a substitute teacher. However, as much as she’s tried to escape the shadow of her younger self, others haven’t forgotten about Lottie. In fact, a fellow teacher is hoping for help discovering the culprit behind anonymous threats being sent to her and her aunt, who’s running for reelection to the Board of Education. 

At first, Charlotte assumes the messages are a harmless prank. But maybe it’s a good thing she left a detective kit hidden in the band room storage closet all those years ago—just in case. Because the threats are escalating, and it’s clear that untangling mysteries isn’t child’s play anymore . . .
 

Release date: July 23, 2024

Publisher: Kensington Books

Print pages: 320

Sample

“The prosecution may cross-examine.”

Standing, the prosecuting attorney picked up a notepad and a sheaf of papers. She made her way to the witness stand, smiling gently at the man sitting there. Jurors Number Four and Number Five liked it when she smiled. Either that, or they were thinking about how soon they would get to leave. Honestly, they could have been thinking about anything.

The prosecuting attorney was in her late twenties, Indian American, with curly black hair pulled into a thick braid that fell down her back. Her kind smile was enough to distract most people from the determined gleam in her eyes and the confident set of her shoulders.

She placed a piece of paper in front of the witness, tapping it with a finger.

“Mr. Davies, these photos, marked D-7 and D-8—”

The judge peered over the edge of his bench. “Are these in evidence?”

“Yes, Your Honor.”

The judge sat back in his seat.

Returning to the witness, the attorney smiled gently again. “Mr. Davies, do you recognize the location in these photos?”

Mr. Davies examined the photos. “It’s a bus stop.”

“Is this you sitting at the bus stop?” the attorney questioned.

The witness hesitated for an almost imperceptible moment. “Yes, that’s me.”

“Do you remember what you were doing at this bus stop?”

Mr. Davies cracked a grin. “Probably waiting for the bus.”

Low chuckles ran through the jury as the defense attorney dropped his chin to hide a smile. The judge gave a half shrug to himself, as if to say, “He’s not wrong.”

The prosecuting attorney smiled, acquiescing. Her smile tightened as she briefly faced the gallery before addressing the witness again.

“Of course. Do you know where you would’ve been taking the bus to, that day?”

“Objection.” The defense attorney stood. “Your Honor, the photographs aren’t dated. Mr. Davies can’t be expected to—”

“I can rephrase,” the prosecuting attorney said. “Mr. Davies, is this your regular bus stop?”

“Yes.”

“It’s not the closest bus stop to your current residence; were you aware of that?”

Mr. Davies shrugged. “I’m a creature of habit. It’s the stop I’d use at the old house, before Carly kicked me out.” He nodded at the woman sitting at the prosecution’s table, her shoulders tensing when he said her name.

The attorney referenced her pad of paper. “You regularly take the bus to visit your mother at her nursing home, is that correct? Multiple times a week?”

“Yes.”

“I see you’re holding a bouquet of flowers in these photos.” The attorney walked up to the witness stand to point at one of the photos. “Were these for your mother?”

“Yes,” Mr. Davies said with practiced swiftness. He smiled. “Mom loves peonies.”

Okay, Juror Number Four definitely liked that.

“That’s very sweet,” the attorney said, her voice like honey-soaked steel. “And just to confirm, this is the bus stop at the corner of Holmstead Street and Green Street?”

“Yes.”

“We can see that, because the drugstore is right behind you in the photo.”

“Your Honor,” the defense attorney said, not even bothering to stand this time, “I think we’ve established that this is Mr. Davies’s regular bus stop.”

“Are you going anywhere with this, Counselor?” the judge asked.

“Yes, Your Honor.” The attorney removed another piece of paper from underneath her notepad. “This is a list of all the buses and their routes, marked D-6, which is already in evidence.”

She put the paper down in front of the witness. “Mr. Davies, according to these routes, do you see that the only bus that goes anywhere near your mother’s nursing home no longer stops at the corner of Holmstead Street and Green Street?”

The courtroom was silent as the witness stared at the piece of paper.

“I . . .” he finally said, glancing over at his attorney before looking back down at the paper, “I . . . is that right?”

“It is,” the prosecuting attorney said. “According to this notice, the route changed soon after you moved out of your wife’s house. But you’ve previously stated that you regularly visit your mother at her nursing home, correct?”

“Y . . . yes.”

The attorney smiled sympathetically at the witness. “Do you see on this paper that this bus does service the stop near your current residence?”

“Yes,” Mr. Davies said, reaching for the life preserver he thought he was being offered. “Yes, that’s the bus stop I use to visit my mother.”

The defense attorney tensed as the judge’s brows raised with curiosity.

“Then, Mr. Davies,” the prosecuting attorney said, angling towards the jury, “what were you doing with those flowers at this bus stop?”

“I . . . I . . .”

The prosecuting attorney finished her questioning soon after, relinquishing the floor to the defense, who made his way to the witness stand.

“Mr. Davies,” the attorney said, “do you know who took these photos?”

The witness hesitated.

“There’s a name . . .” the attorney prompted, pointing at the paper.

Mr. Davies squinted at the print below the photos in front of him. “‘Charlotte Illes,’” he read.

“Do you know Charlotte Illes?”

“No.”

“Were you aware she was taking your photo?”

“Not at the time.”

“Do you know who she is?”

Mr. Davies gave a half shrug. “I think she’s a detective.”

The defense attorney pointed at the photos again. “These photos are a bit blurry.” He flashed a quick grin at the jury. “Any blurrier and I doubt they could’ve been admitted into evidence. Can you read the name of the store behind you in this photo?”

The prosecuting attorney stood. “Your Honor, the witness already confirmed that he recognizes the bus stop in the photos. Ms. Illes’s abilities as an investigator and a photographer aren’t on trial here.”

“The witness has already confirmed the location of the bus stop, Counselor,” the judge said sternly. “Do you have anything else other than this line of questioning?”

The defense attorney hesitated, then squared his shoulders. “No, Your Honor. No further questions.”

“Dick,” muttered a low voice from the back of the gallery.

The defense attorney gestured towards the voice while chuckling tiredly. “Your Honor—”

“Ms. Illes,” the judge said in the direction of the voice, “I won’t warn you again. One more word, and you’ll be escorted out.”

Charlotte Illes held up her hands to indicate apology, slumping down into her seat as the proceedings continued. She hadn’t meant to say that out loud. Well, she had, but she hadn’t meant for anyone to hear. After saying, “Ew,” a little too loudly after Carly Davies described her husband calling her crazy for accusing him of cheating, Charlotte was determined to be on her best behavior. Mainly because she knew Mita wouldn’t be very happy if she got kicked out of the courtroom, and she was a little scared of Mita.

The judge adjourned for the day soon after. Charlotte lingered in the hallway, resting against the wall as she watched the prosecuting attorney speak to her client a few yards away. Susmita Ramachandran was wearing a dark blue sheath dress with a matching blazer, a black shoulder bag dangling from one hand as she put a reassuring hand on Carly Davies’s arm before waving goodbye to the other woman. Her perfectly sculpted eyebrows raised sternly as her gaze landed on Charlotte.

Uh-oh.

“Sorry,” Charlotte said sheepishly, watching Carly Davies leave. “About the ‘dick’ thing.”

Charlotte Illes was once known as Lottie Illes, a precocious child sleuth who was regularly employed by kids and adults alike to solve their mysteries. As she grew older, she felt the need to grow out of detective work to see if she could find other things to be passionate about. Recently, she’d finally come to terms with there not being anything she enjoyed as much as sleuthing, and that maybe she didn’t have to fully leave it in her past.

After coming out of retirement from her kid detective days, Charlotte hadn’t expected her mother and her brother Landon to immediately reach out to everyone they knew, telling them that Charlotte Illes was back in the detective business. In retrospect, she should have seen it coming, but had no idea how far they’d gone until she received the contact information for about a dozen miscellaneous acquaintances requesting her services.

While she had no interest in taking on “The Case of The Girl I Briefly Made Eye Contact With at the Bar Last Week” or “The Case of What My Son Does In My Basement All Day (Is Charlotte Single?),” she did respond to a request from Mita, Landon’s friend from high school, to help with finding proof of infidelity for a divorce case. It had everything to do with getting her mom and brother to pump the brakes on finding her a mystery to solve, and absolutely nothing to do with the tiny little baby crush she’d had on Mita in high school.

Charlotte had spent two full days following Harry Davies around town before taking photos of him at the bus stop. Unfortunately, she was so busy trying to increase the exposure like her friend Gabe had taught her that she completely forgot to get on the bus so she could continue tailing him.

Fortunately, after thoroughly berating herself for a solid five minutes, she thought to check the bus routes. This allowed her to return to Mita with good news, instead of having to change her name and never show her face in Frencham again.

Mita pulled her bag over one shoulder. “It wasn’t the most professional behavior,” she said, her lips pursed in a suppressed smile as Charlotte walked over to her. “But it’s going pretty well for us, thanks to your bus route knowledge, so I’ll let this one slide.”

“I didn’t just know the bus routes off the top of my head,” Charlotte said modestly. “I looked them up.”

She knew she should’ve stopped there, but against her will, words continued to leave her mouth. “Not that it’d be weird to memorize the bus routes. I’m sure a lot of people do it if they regularly take the bus, but I did have to do a little research. So, yeah. Don’t give me too much credit!”

Mita was staring at her, bemused.

“Just a little . . . peek into my process,” Charlotte finished weakly.

Not exactly sticking the landing, but it’ll do.

“Well, however you did it, it was extremely helpful. Thank you.” They began walking down the hall. “You didn’t have to come in today.”

“I know.” Charlotte shrugged. “I’ve always just solved the mysteries and let other people deal with whatever comes after. Thought it’d be good for me to see the ‘after’ for once.”

“Thoughts?”

“I could never be a lawyer.”

Mita chuckled. “It’s a lot.”

Charlotte sped up to pull open the door at the end of the hall. “You were great, though.”

“Eh, I was fine. Thanks.” Mita breezed past her into the main waiting room of the courthouse. “I shouldn’t have asked what he was doing at the bus stop. I should’ve asked where he was going.”

“No, no, it was good,” Charlotte said, half jogging to catch up with her again. She had put on her nicest sneakers for court, but Mita was still outpacing her in heels. “It put him at ease. And I couldn’t see his attorney’s face, but it probably put him at ease, too. They didn’t see the bus routes thing coming at all.”

“You’re probably right.” Mita smiled at the guard as they passed the security checkpoint and exited the building. “I just don’t like making mistakes like that.”

“Call it a strategy, not a mistake,” Charlotte suggested as they stopped outside. She squinted in the midafternoon sun. “That’s what I do when I play board games with Landon. He believes it every time.”

Mita fished a pair of sunglasses out of her bag and put them on. “Are you sure I can’t pay you for your help?”

Charlotte hesitated. Sure, it would’ve been nice if she was getting paid for the work that she—somewhat reluctantly—enjoyed. But while she had recently allowed herself back into detective work—investigative consulting—she was determined not to let it consume her entire identity like it had when she was a child. And getting paid for it felt like a dangerous step in the direction of making it her entire identity.

So, she shook her head. “It’s just a hobby; I’m not trying to monetize it. Besides, I’m starting my new job next week. Soon I’ll be swimming in it.”

“‘Swimming in it’?” Mita said teasingly.

Charlotte gave her a “you’re right” face. “Wading in it. Dipping a toe in it.”

Mita smiled. “Well, thanks again. Let me know if you ever need me as a reference—I’ll give a glowing review.”

“Just please don’t give me more than two stars on Rate My Detective,” Charlotte said with feigned gravity. “I’m trying to keep my score at a solid three-point-five so I don’t get overwhelmed with emails.”

Mita laughed. “Alright. See you around.”

Charlotte waved as Mita departed down the sidewalk. It wasn’t until she’d disappeared around the corner that Charlotte realized she was still waving.

An almost-perfect interaction, she thought, dropping her hand as she pulled out her phone. Recent texts from her friend Gabe appeared on her screen.

Charlotte typed out a response:

Having been friends with Gabe for upwards of ten years, Charlotte knew “911 emergency” could mean anything from “someone is in the hospital” to “a celebrity I like tweeted something mildly problematic.” Feeling victorious after her interaction with Mita, she headed for her car to drive to the shared apartment of her two best friends.

Charlotte barely got one knock in before the door flew open. Gabe stood on the other side, his brown eyes wide behind round, wire glasses.

“I had a dream last night that I was playing the Emcee in Cabaret in high school but couldn’t remember any of my lines, and then I realized the audience was actually an amusement park, and then I got really sad because for some reason I thought I’d be too short to ride any of the rides, even though we all know I’m five-foot-ten on a good day.”

He stared at Charlotte intently. “What do you think that means?”

“Why are you wearing your glasses?” Charlotte replied.

Gabe self-consciously adjusted the frames. “My new job doesn’t give me vision insurance, so I’m conserving my contacts. Do they look okay?”

“Yeah, they look great.”

Gabe was twenty-five, Filipino American, with warm brown skin and dark brown hair that was pushed out of the way as he adjusted his glasses again. He was wearing a burgundy crewneck sweatshirt with the sleeves rolled up, and dark jeans cuffed at the ankles.

He crossed his arms. “What do you think my dream meant?”

“Did you eat anything right before bed?”

“Cheese Danish.”

“I think it meant you had a cheese Danish right before bed. Also, we need to go over the definition of ‘911 emergency.’”

Gabe stepped back to let her enter the apartment.

“That’s not why I texted,” he said, closing the door behind her. “Lucy’s been on her baking stage for two weeks now, and she keeps making me try everything. I feel like I’m on Bake Off.” He shut the door and followed Charlotte into the kitchen. “Seriously. I ate one of her snickerdoodles and almost shook her hand.”

Charlotte stopped, staring at the several plastic containers of baked goods that sat on the counter. “Did she make dinner rolls?” she asked, pointing at one of them.

“It’s pandesal,” Gabe said, peering over her shoulder. “Filipino bread roll. She wanted my mom’s recipe, but my mom never followed a written recipe in her life, so I just copied one I found online. But she didn’t bake anything when she got home from school today.”

“Well, that’s good, right?” Charlotte glanced in the direction of Lucy’s room, lowering her voice. “That means she’s on the last stage.”

Lucy had broken up with her boyfriend Jake a few months before, ending the long-term relationship after realizing she’d been unhappy in it for a while. Having been friends since kindergarten, Charlotte was well-acquainted with Lucy’s post-breakup behaviors. While these behaviors had evolved over the years (Lucy no longer found the need to write letters to the Jonas Brothers in hopes that one of them would be her rebound), Charlotte and Gabe had a pretty clear list of the six stages of Lucy Ortega coping with a breakup.

“That’s the thing,” Gabe said, dropping his voice to a hushed whisper. “She’s not crocheting.”

Charlotte furrowed her brows. “Are you sure?”

“I checked on her earlier. That’s why I texted you. She’s just lying on her bed, listening to my breakup playlist.”

“Stage One?” That wasn’t good. Charlotte couldn’t remember a time when Lucy had regressed to an earlier stage, much less all the way back to the first one. Then again, Jake had been her longest relationship, and even though Lucy had been the one to break it off, the loss had still taken its toll on her. Gabe had reported seven total watches of Anastasia, a new record, before Lucy moved on to looking up plane tickets to Rome.

“And the worst part,” Gabe continued, “is that I can’t hear what songs she’s playing, because she’s listening with earbuds. My playlist is a spectrum. Is she angry-sad? Nostalgic-sad? Horny-sad?” He grabbed Charlotte’s shoulders, shaking her. “I have no idea what her current emotional state is!”

Charlotte grabbed his wrists to stop the shaking. “I’ll handle it.” She turned on her heel and made her way to Lucy’s room, Gabe following close behind.

She knocked gently on the bedroom door. “Hey. It’s me.”

“Come in,” Lucy called from inside.

Charlotte and Gabe peeked into the room. The curtains were closed, with one small lamp on the bedside table bathing the room in a dim yellow glow. Lucy was lying on her bed with her open laptop on her stomach. She was twenty-five, Latina (Argentinian on her mom’s side, Puerto Rican on her dad’s), white, with hazel eyes and straight brown hair, which was currently hidden by the hood of a light pink sweatshirt.

“I didn’t know you were coming over.” She removed an earbud, pointing past them in the direction of the kitchen. “I baked some stuff; please eat it.”

“I saw,” Charlotte said, trying to hide her concern with enthusiasm as she and Gabe entered the room. She sat on the end of the bed, trying to act casual. “What’re you up to?”

“I’m just reading about these Alaska cruises,” Lucy said as Gabe threw himself onto the bed. “I was thinking we could go over winter break.”

“You hate being cold,” Charlotte pointed out.

Gabe mouthed, Stage Four? to Charlotte. Lucy was combining stages. This was uncharted territory.

“Yeah, you’re right.” The glow from the laptop flashed across Lucy’s face as she switched to another tab in her browser. “Italy it is.”

Gabe put the loose earbud in his ear as Charlotte cleared her throat.

“Hey, I was thinking,” Charlotte said. “Why don’t we go out tonight?”

“What?” Gabe asked, incredulous.

Charlotte shot him a glare, then realized, as he quickly removed the earbud like it had shocked him, that he hadn’t even been listening to her.

Lucy wrinkled her nose. “I don’t know,” she said. “I was thinking I might take a bath tonight. Maybe watch Anastasia.” She perked up, as if suddenly remembering something. “Hey, what’re those triangle cookies that your mom makes?”

Charlotte narrowed her eyes at the sudden shift to the topic of Evelyn Hartman’s baking. “Hamantaschen?”

“Yeah! Do you need those anytime soon?”

“Well, Purim is in March, so . . . not for five more months.”

Lucy made a disappointed tsk sound. “I’ve been running out of things to bake. Thought that might be nice to try.”

“You’re still baking?” Charlotte asked tentatively. “Don’t you think it’s time to move on to something else, like . . . crocheting?”

“Oh,” Lucy said knowingly. “My stages of coping.” She closed her laptop and put it on the bed next to her as she sat up. “You know, I feel like I’ve grown out of all that. Now I just do whatever I feel like doing, for as long as I need.”

“And you really think you need to watch Anastasia for the eighth time this month?” Gabe asked.

Lucy’s glare didn’t have quite the intensity of Charlotte’s, but nevertheless, Gabe raised his hands in surrender. “It’s a great film,” he said weakly. “Love that little bat guy.”

“Well,” Charlotte said, “if you feel like you’ve grown out of your coping mechanisms, maybe it’s time to make new ones.”

“Maybe,” Lucy admitted. She pulled her knees to her chest. “But I don’t know if I’m ready to go out.”

“You don’t have to talk to anyone,” Charlotte offered. “We’ll just go hang.”

“I’ll be your boyfriend if a guy won’t leave you alone,” Gabe added, rolling off the bed and jumping to his feet as he pointed at his imaginary opponent. “I’ll be like, ‘Hey, that’s my woman. Back off, bro.’”

Charlotte shared an amused look with Lucy. “Please. I need to hear him talk like that to a real human person.”

Gabe looked insulted. “That kind of guy only respects other guys who act super possessive!” He crossed his arms with a huff. “I don’t need to explain my character work to you.”

Lucy hesitated, then smiled. “Okay, I’ll go.” She shooed them away. “Now go eat some cookies.”

Charlotte turned to leave, holding out a fist close to her chest. Gabe bumped it, and they both headed out of the room.

“That wasn’t subtle!” Lucy called after them.

“What was she listening to?” Charlotte asked quietly once they’d returned to the kitchen. “If she’s horny-sad, just lie to me.”

“It’s worse than I thought,” Gabe replied grimly, popping open a container of cookies. “It wasn’t even my playlist.”

Present Day

The Blob was a Frencham establishment whose reputation varied greatly, depending on the age of the person you asked about it.

Those under the age of twenty-one spent years talking about the day they could walk under the bar’s multicolored neon sign into the enticing unknown. Many tried to gain entry with false identification, which always quickly joined the display of fake IDs on the wall just inside the door.

Young people would gather outside on the eve of a friend’s twenty-first birthday, counting down the final seconds to midnight and cheering as the birthday person proudly displayed their ID to the bouncer. Even people who went away for college would travel home to Frencham for their twenty-first, just so they could have their first (in some cases, first legal) bar experience at The Blob.

Those between the ages of twenty-one and twenty-three would describe the bar as “Fine,” “Okay,” “There.” It was a decent enough place to go the night before Thanksgiving if you needed to get out of the house, as long as you didn’t mind running into half of your high school graduating class.

After twenty-three, the disappointment of teenage expectations not being met eventually faded, and The Blob became a pretty nice place to spend the evening. Sure, it didn’t have a mechanical bull or topless waitstaff (a favorite tall tale of Nate Horowitz, who spent half of sophomore year insisting that his brother managed to sneak him in), but it had twenty-five-dollar margarita pitchers and played listenable music.

The Blob also wasn’t actually named The Blob. It had a name that someone could definitely figure out if they cared enough to find out. Most locals just called it “The Bar.” But, because of its abstract neon sign that vaguely resembled an amoeba, Charlotte, Lucy, and Gabe had dubbed it, “The Blob.”

“Okay, what about him?” Gabe suggested, peering over his shoulder. “He seems like he probably respects women.”

T. . .