As a kid, Chuck was a ghost. He hardly came to our parties and playdates, and if he did show up, he only talked to his stuffed animals. I knew my uncle had treated him poorly, but growing up I’d never witnessed their interactions because Chuck was pretty much inside all the time.
Now I was thinking my uncle had been especially cruel to my cousin behind closed doors. Like Emma had said, Uncle Charlie was more emotionally abusive to Chuck. That also explained why my cousin was so anxious and sensitive, especially when in the presence of my uncle at the Fourth of July party. And after seeing how upset Chuck was at the will reading yesterday, I anticipated that my questions would be hard on him. I wasn’t too pleased he thought so, as well, because he’d requested Marigold sit beside him for “emotional support.” I’d done my research on her, all right, and found that she was no sweet flower. A few months ago, she’d been arrested for vandalizing butcher shops with gasoline.
I turned into historical Hyde Park with its modest 19th-century mansions, and it wasn’t hard spotting Chuck’s place. I pulled up at the brightly colored Mickey Mouse mailbox and parked outside the gray house. When I walked up the red and yellow front steps, I stopped short of his porch.
Holy Mickey. Maybe this was what Annie had meant when she’d said that every day was a Mickey Mouse day for Chuck. Before my eyes was a Mickey couch, a Mickey clock, a Mickey wreath, and a Mickey doormat. Secured to the house was a bronze plaque from the KC Historical Society proclaiming that Walt Disney Lived Here. I rang the Mickey doorbell and “When You Wish Upon a Star” chimed inside.
Marigold whisked the door open wearing a shiny, pink polka-dot dress, black bow, black heels, and furry mouse ears. Her whiskered nose was as black as her tail. In her gloved hands, she was mixing up one of Chuck’s ice cream mouse-tails. The vanilla ice cream was faintly yellow.
“Hi Tori,” she said, like it was normal she was dressed as Minnie Mouse.
“Nice costume,” I said.
“Don’t say that around Chuck,” she warned in a whisper. “His grief’s so bad over his father’s death he needs me to be Minnie twenty-four seven.”
I wasn’t sure what she meant by this, but I thought it better not to ask. Marigold showed me to a living room, or “The Clubhouse” as she called it, with pink couches, children’s books, and display cases holding more Disney memorabilia than a vintage museum.
There was so much to marvel at—a rotary phone, wristwatches, Pez dispensers, guitars, an Elmer Fudd rifle, lunchboxes, a piggy bank—but we continued the amusement park ride into a Goofy-themed yellow kitchen where everything from the table to the napkin holders bore Goofy’s grin. On the kitchen counter was a plastic pill crusher containing a bright yellow powdery substance, the same hue as Chuck’s mouse-tails. Marigold had to be putting this stuff in his drinks.
“What’s that?” I asked, pointing to the container of powder.
“Oh,” said Marigold, raising her drawn-on eyebrows in surprise. “Just a special healing powder.” I moved toward it, but I couldn’t smell anything since it was contained. “This way.”
Marigold pushed open a screen door. I followed her into a weedy, overgrown backyard toward a patio set up like Geppetto’s workshop. At a clunky wooden table, Pinocchio smiled down at me from his highchair.
“Have a seat,” Marigold ordered. “I’ll get Chuck.” She went back inside.
I sat beside Pinocchio and took in my surroundings. There was a princess-themed kiddy pool, a Donald Duck swing, and a red treehouse with cartoon characters waving from its windows, but with the uncut grass and pool sludge, I felt more like I was at Wasteland than Disneyland.
Just then, Chuck stumbled through the door, eyes puffy and red and wearing a black T-shirt, bright red shorts, red suspenders, white gloves, and mouse ears. In his hand was his yellow-tinted mouse-tail concoction with Oreo ears on a whipped cream cloud. He dragged his feet to the table, stinking of booze and body odor.
Marigold rushed to sit beside him, squeezing his arm with her white-gloved hand. As Chuck’s eyes welled up with fresh tears, he sipped his frosted drink from a plastic Mickey Mouse straw.
“Again, I’m sorry for your loss,” I said.
“Thank you,” he murmured, and wiped his wet eyes on his gloved hand. “It’s been so hard . . . I’m sorry if I cry during our interview.”
“That’s fine, I get it.”
“I’m sorry—” He stopped to sniffle. “I know your dad died too.”
“It’s okay.” I looked into Chuck’s moist, hazy eyes to see if he was only pretending to win me over with his sympathies, but he seemed sincere.
“Why am I so upset, though?” Chuck choked with more emotion. “My father treated the pigs at the slaughterhouse better than me. Why is it so hard to get over a monster?”
“It’s okay, honey,” Marigold said before whispering something into Chuck’s ear that made him twitch.
“I’ll make this interview as brief as I can.” I turned on my phone’s recorder and pulled out my notebook. “Where were you on the night of Memorial Day, the day Luis was found dead at Uncle Charlie’s in Leawood?”
Soon as Chuck’s trembling lips parted, his face scrunched up, and he flung himself on the table to sob.
“We were here,” Marigold answered, rubbing his back. “After his dad’s Memorial Day party, we came home and had a quiet night in, watching a movie.”
“The Lion King,” Chuck wailed.
“Yes, that was it.”
I nodded, noting the movie’s symbolism. “Do you have a surveillance camera to verify you were here?”
“There’s a system.” Marigold pointed to a camera over the patio. “But it only stores data for the past thirty days.”
“That’s too bad,” I said. “Chuck, didn’t you say you’d get me a copy of the restaurant’s finances?”
“Yes, it’s on my desk in the Mickey folder,” he muffled into his sleeve.
“I’ll get it. Have more of your drink, Chuck.” Marigold sprung up from her chair, clicking her heels into the house to fetch the folder.
Seeing that this was possibly my only chance to question my cousin without his answers being monitored, I decided to try a new approach. “Hey Mickey,” I began in a soft voice, “how’s Minnie treating you?”
“Minnie?” he said into his arm, but his voice wasn’t Chuck’s. This was the same strange voice I’d heard Chuck make when he rushed out of the drive-in to watch Uncle Charlie die. This voice was high-pitched, soft, and upbeat like a cartoon character. Then his head sprung up like a cat’s, his tears gone, his smile wide.
I swallowed. Holy Mickey. Now I understood why every day was a Mickey Mouse day for Chuck—he was Mickey Mouse. The only other guy I’d met with multiple personalities was in rehab, and he’d said that he didn’t always remember what his other personalities said or did.
Whether or not Chuck was aware of himself as Mickey, he was definitely not pretending. I didn’t know for sure, but my hunch was Marigold was giving him that special healing powder to alter his personality and control him.
“Why, Minnie’s my nurse,” Chuck exclaimed in that high voice. “She takes great care of me.” He let out a shrill cartoon laugh that made me sit back in my chair.
Though I found this Mickey persona creepy, I didn’t know what else to do but smile back at my cousin like I would a child. “I’m glad she’s treating you well,” I forced myself to say, though I really wanted to confront Marigold for what she was doing to my cousin. “Does she want you to sell Uncle Charlie’s?”
“Oh no.” He shook his head. “Minnie doesn’t want another horrible meat chain. She says they’re the devil’s work, and that we must do all we can to protect the animals and environment.”
“What do you think she’d do if you sold Uncle Charlie’s to Yummy Foods?”
“Me? Oh, I’d never do that.” Chuck was still smiling, but his eyes stared out of their sockets without emotion.
“Right, let me rephrase that,” I said. “What would she do if Chuck sold?”
“That wouldn’t be good for him,” he giggled. “She’d be very angry and punish him.”
“What would she do?”
“I don’t know.” Chuck snapped his suspenders. “Set the kitchen on fire again?”
“Right,” I said, reflecting on her recent arrest. Guess Marigold likes burning shit.
“But Chuck won’t change his mind,” my cousin continued as Mickey. “Whenever he’s weak and tempted to be a bad boy, Minnie shakes her finger at him and gives him more medicine. Then he’s good as a golden raisin.”
Just as I’d thought. “So she’s drugging you to turn you into Mickey?” I pointed at his mouse-tail.
“Drugs are so much fun. It makes boring Chuck go away so Mickey Mouse can come out and play.”
“What’s she giving you?” I asked. “What’s the yellow powder?” But before he could answer my question, Marigold opened the screen door, and my neck flushed in heat. I needed to snap him out of being Mickey, though I wasn’t sure how.
“Chuck,” I said in a demanding tone under my breath. “Chuck, Marigold’s coming back.”
Maybe it was being called by his name, or maybe it was the threat of Marigold’s return, but Chuck slumped back into his limp arms like a dropped puppet. Apparently, he could move from Chuck to Mickey, probably by being addressed as such, and I was certain that the drugs he was on were playing a role in his hypnosis.
“Here you go.” Marigold handed me a Mickey Mouse folder and returned to her spot beside Chuck to rub his back and play ventriloquist. “Are you okay, sweetie?” she murmured into his ear. “Here Chuck, drink more.”
“I’m better now that you’re back,” he whimpered in his sad Chuck voice.
As he reached for his tainted drink, I feigned a fake violent sneeze and elbowed his mouse-tail off the table, breaking the glass and splattering ice cream on the patio. “Excuse me,” I said, sniffling. “Sorry about the mess.”
Marigold groaned with annoyance. “It’s okay,” she said, squeezing Chuck’s shoulder. “We’ll just have to make you another one, Chuckie.”
I flipped open the Mickey Mouse folder. Inside were calculations on how much my cousins had withdrawn from the company account each month. In May, the month Luis died, the numbers showed that everyone but Chuck had taken out thousands more than in previous months. Emma had taken an extra twelve thousand, Annie ten, and Teddy a whopping one hundred and sixteen thousand. In June, Teddy even withdrew another one hundred and two thousand. Nothing suspicious here.
I closed the folder and glanced across the table at Chuck, now humming a lullaby. “Chuck,” I said, “is it unusual your siblings withdrew so much money recently, or is there a reason for that?”
“No,” he sniveled. “It’s odd. But when I showed that report to Father, he didn’t care. He told me I was—” Chuck’s face stiffened before he cried, “A bad accountant.”
Watching him break down in tears like this made me feel terrible, especially after knowing he was being drugged by his girlfriend. Maybe my cousin was a killer, or maybe it was Mickey, but I couldn’t help myself. I got up, and, to Marigold’s horror, gave Chuck a firm hug. For a moment, he hung in my arms, crying. Then I released him and returned to my seat.
He sniffled. “Thanks, Tori.”
“You still okay to answer some more questions?” I asked.
“Yes, sorry.”
“No problem. Did Uncle Charlie often dismiss large sums of money being deducted from the company account?”
“That’s what was strange.” Chuck blew his runny nose on his gloves. “He was always afraid people were stealing from him. His own house has more cameras than windows, and he got very angry when money disappeared from the register at the Leawood location.”
“He thought Luis was the thief, right?” I said, recalling the ten thousand dollars hidden in the Mendoza car.
“Yeah, that’s what he claimed, but he never had any proof. Nothing was ever caught on tape. Then I showed him proof his own kids were taking thousands from the company account, and what did he do? He got angry and called me terrible names.”
“Is it possible he asked them to do something and didn’t tell you about it?”
“Of course. It was no secret my father hated me. I wouldn’t be surprised if he had a plan with them and kept me out of it.”
“Why do you think he treated you differently from your siblings?”
“Look at me,” he said. “I’m scrawny and sick. That’s what he’d say before locking me in my tower when I was little. He never hit me, but he wanted me out of his sight because he was ashamed of me. I never cried about it, though, just played with my stuffed animals.”
My mouth sharpened into corners of rage. So that was why Chuck had only talked to his stuffed animals as a kid. My uncle was verbally abusing and physically neglecting his son. I was so livid with my uncle that I’d have killed him myself if he wasn’t already dead.
“Was Mickey in the tower with you?” I asked.
Chuck nodded. “Yes, he was my best friend. I was locked up there with him every day for years, like Sleeping Beauty, but awake.” Tears ran down his cheeks, and he wiped them again with his glove, sniffling. “Sorry for all the crying, but since Dad died, all the tears I kept inside are coming out whenever I think of him. I couldn’t cry before this, you know.”
“It’s okay to cry, sweetie.” Marigold stroked his arm. “Remember you’re my little mouse, and I’ll always love you.”
Since I was upsetting Chuck by talking about his father, I returned to the jaw-dropping financial statements. “Do you know why your siblings withdrew so much money?”
“I don’t know for sure, and I never asked them about it,” he said. “But I think it has to do with the Yummy Foods deal, since it was finally in the works at the time.”
My eyebrow ticked up. “What do you mean ‘finally’? Didn’t Yummy Foods make an offer this month? These withdrawals are from May, over a month ago.”
“The offer came at the end of June, but the discussion was on the table for well over a year because Yummy Foods wasn’t sure which KC barbecue joint they wanted to buy. This past May, though, an executive from Yummy Foods visited a few places, and Uncle Charlie’s won the bid.”
This executive had to be the same person Annie was wining and dining into the early morning hours, on the night Luis died. Another possible suspect. “Do you know the name of this executive?” I asked.
“I don’t remember,” Chuck said. “He had a foreign last name.”
“Okay, I’ll try to find out.” I looked at my notebook for my next question. “Speaking of Yummy Foods, why don’t you want to sell?”
Chuck turned to Marigold for permission to speak. She nodded her consent, and he answered like he was a monotone recording, “It’s not morally right. It would be a franchise that sells cheap, unethically produced meat. In fact, now that my father’s gone, I’m thinking about shutting down Uncle Charlie’s.”
I sat still, stunned by this news. Chuck was now trying to do what I’d always wanted to do and shut down Uncle Charlie’s. Except that this wasn’t his idea. It belonged to Marigold, who was gazing into his eyes and smiling with approval.
“You have a good soul and care about the welfare of the animals, air, and planet,” she said, and planted a kiss on his black nose.
“But I wouldn’t have become a better man without you,” he replied.
I cleared my throat to remind them I was still there. “What about your siblings?” I said. “Why do they want to sell or not sell?”
“Teddy and Annie want money,” Chuck said. “And Emma’s passionate about barbecue.”
“Can I give my opinion?” Marigold interrupted, and, not waiting for my response, began, “Teddy’s a self-entitled jerk, Annie’s a greedy capitalist, and Emma’s morals are as deep as that pool of slime.” Marigold pointed to the kiddy pool of green sludge. “Just think of all the meat she’s cooked. She feeds people the suffering of animals for a living. People like her don’t deserve to breathe.”
Chuck winced. “Don’t talk like that about my family. They have their faults, but—”
“Why not?” Marigold smacked the table. “Don’t defend them. When have they ever treated you with respect? And here you are, upset about your father when he was the worst of them all. You should be celebrating that he’s dead.”
First came the shakes, then Chuck dropped his head into his arms to howl out a hurricane of snot, drool, and tears.
“We must stop,” Marigold declared, rising to her feet. “Chuck’s too upset to answer any more questions.”
“Maybe you should give him more medicine?” I raised an eyebrow at Marigold as I slid the Mickey Mouse folder into my bag.
Through clenched teeth, she hissed at Chuck before narrowing her eyes on me so tight I couldn’t see them. “Allow me to show you the way out.”
I followed her lead back into the house. When I looked at the kitchen counter, the pill crusher with the yellow powder was gone.