The Coffee Club Mystery

A story of two young detectives who keep a girls’ club together in Washington, D.C.

1

The engraved sign on the brick wall said Bliss Family Estate, but Olivia missed the detail. Walking down the leafy street, Olivia had her nose to a small book of notes.

“Take care to arrive at precisely 10 a.m. Ring the bell. Don’t be late!” Olivia said, reading her notes. “Let your cab driver drop you off at 37th and P. Be sure to say the northbound side of P Street. Walk one hundred steps. Stop. Repeat the code: ‘Dark Roast’ into the voice box.”

Olivia quietly counted her steps. She had gotten out of the taxi cab on the northbound side. She counted steps, then looked up.

“I’m supposed to ring a gate bell here,” said Olivia. She lifted her head and hand, expecting to see an iron gate. Instead, Olivia faced a high brick wall, between the sidewalk and gardens inside. Her hand was raised to the wall, but soon fell. There was no bell. She pushed up her horn-rimmed glasses and straightened up.

“Well, we must have made an error somewhere between here, and 37th and P,” said Olivia to Elle. Elle had gotten off from the taxi cab too, but let her cousin lead the way. Trailing a few steps behind, she had seen Olivia turn to face the garden wall.

Elle laughed. She said, “Olivia, we’re half a block too far. We overshot our steps. By my count, we’re beyond those hundred steps. Besides, we passed a gate right over there,” Elle said. She pointed back along the sidewalk. Taking the lead, Elle walked back toward the gate.

Olivia must have missed a few steps in her count. Besides, her steps were smaller than most. Thick fur boots and knit mittens did not help for mobility either. Olivia turned and followed Elle back to the gate. Along the way, Olivia bent back into her notebook.

“Nota bene:” wrote Olivia with pen in hand. “First, take care counting your steps, even if our steps should be average for girls, aged 12.” Olivia walked slowly, writing simultaneously. “Second, invite Elle to take over navigation next time. This is not the first time I’ve led an expedition astray.”

If her detective business was going to be functional, she had better have a good partnership with Elle. Olivia looked up from her notebook to let Elle know. “Elle, I erred — ” Olivia started to say, after clearing her throat. Batting off the explanation with her hand, Elle pressed the gate button.

“Bliss Residence, may I ask who is calling?” The voice box emitted a British voice, mixed with some radio static. Elle waved at Olivia’s book, indicating her need for the code. Elle stood back to let Olivia read into the voice box.

“Bliss Residence, who is this?” said the box again.

“Dark Roast, please,” said Olivia.

“Excuse me?”

“Dark. Roast. Please!”

Olivia spoke louder, almost to a yell. Her teachers often told her to “Speak up!” in an effort to raise her natural speaking volume. She was quite familiar with this exercise. By this time in her life, she could reach the upper end of her vocal range quite readily.

“Ah, I see. Yes, that’s right. Hold please.”

The voice box buzzed and clicked off. Olivia and Elle stood facing the gate, as the two iron fences slid apart mechanically.

Lions and a Front Door

2

Two iron fence panels opened. Olivia and Elle stood on the Georgetown sidewalk in the winter cold. One held a small notebook and pen, the other a designer tote bag.

“Here we are, Elle. Do you know what this means? The significance of our first case?” said Olivia. Olivia let herself indulge in a moment of sentiment. She had recovered quite quickly from lite embarrassment from her navigation errors.

“We don’t have a case yet, Olivia. But we have come this far,” Elle said. “We still don’t know who or what we’re investigating. But I bet Annabelle Bliss is involved. This is her house, after all,” said Elle.

What would be this mysterious Saturday appointment? How they got here warrants some explanation. Olivia formed a sole proprietorship for detective work just in the last few months. But how did Olivia Oh, age 12, get her first case? She certainly did not expect such rapid response or reception of her new enterprise.

Her business cards read, “Investigations Generally.” The cards listed other details, “Dulles, Virginia.” and “Referrals Only.” Printing only 50 of these first-run cards, she distributed them to her close acquaintances. Cousins Elle, twins Mike and Tim, and her friends from the neighborhood. Olivia began her adventures as a world-class detective in this way. She would one day be one of the greats in all of history, with the likes of Hercules Poirot and Sherlock Holmes. But Olivia Oh needed to start at home, in the suburbs of Northern Virginia.

Olivia received her first referral just a few weeks ago with a cryptic set of instructions. She was asked to arrive in Georgetown on a Saturday. An urgent inquiry came through Elle, who had passed her card on to a friend. Elle attended one of the most prestigious private schools in Georgetown, but the inquiry came from another girls school down the road. Their first prospective client did not want to reveal her name or the matter for investigation.

Instead, an embossed paper invite for a ‘Coffee Club Meeting’ had been passed along to Elle. In whispers between art lessons, Elle heard some instructions to go with the paper invite. Elle, in turn, told Olivia the news on Sunday, their usual meeting point between Sunday school classes in Dulles, Virginia. The two girls, aged 12, made plans to arrive in DC the following Saturday.

Elle Kim wouldn’t stand to be left out. For as much as her cousin Olivia was the brains behind this operation, Olivia had noticeable weaknesses in judgment. And it was only fair to share credit with the referrer of her first case.

This Saturday, Elle was not left out. She was part of this enterprise from the beginning, even if Olivia Oh was principal owner.

“You do have to admit, Elle, that this is a promising start! Who knows, this might be a case filled with intrigue, high society, and greed or jealousy!” said Olivia.

“Let’s see Olivia. Play it cool inside, okay? This ‘Coffee Club Meeting’ is probably run by Logan School girls. They don’t miss a beat!” said Elle. Olivia closed her notebook and placed it under her arm. She followed Elle up the stairs flanked by lion sculptures. The front door opened and the Bliss family butler stood in the doorway.

“Dark Roast, please,” said the girls quietly.

“Yes, yes. Come right in, we’ve been expecting you.”

Roll Call and Discrepancies

3

“Order, order!” Side conversations around a long dining room table quieted. A dozen teenage girls turned to the front of the room.

“I call Coffee Club Meeting session No. 424 to order. Thank you all for coming today. Leia, would you proceed with roll call?” said Annabelle Bliss, from the head of the table. Leia stood up and read through a logbook.

“Annabelle, chair.” “Present.”

“Margie, party plans.” “Present.”

“Emily, membership.” “Present.”

“Kara, events.” “Present.”

“Eve, events.” “Present.” “And we are adding you to the membership subcommittee.”

The roll call continued. Halfway through, the girls started noticing two new guests sitting along the wall. Elle looked perfectly comfortable in the setting. In fact, this was her natural habitat, with her own set of sterling silver jewelry, the season’s designer pullover, and freshly glossed nail polish. Elle attended the Abbey School, which had acculturated her for this kind of place.

Olivia, however, felt out of place. “Would they guess I’m an investigator?” she thought. “Do they think I’m intruding?” she asked herself. She made sure not to open her notebook, or hold her pen. Olivia lived in the outer suburbs in Dulles, Virginia. Her friends did not have the same accoutrements of life downtown. Her parents were not vacationing in exotic places or speaking to large audiences or writing books on a bestseller list. Still, Olivia had the sharp wit and powers of observation that were needed by someone here in the Coffee Club Meeting.

“We’ve reached quorum today, with 10 of 12 members,” said Annabelle. “The Gupta sisters are absent, on an extended stay in New Delhi. They write that, ‘The menu for the spring meeting looks delightful. Please proceed with an order for two dozen Earl Gray macarons.’” The girls around the table nodded their heads in agreement.

“Before moving on to the next item,” said Annabelle, motioning to Olivia to stand up, “I’d like to introduce to you two guest members to our Coffee Club.”

Olivia stood up. She could see the members of the club with a clearer view. A trio of volleyball players sat in the far corner. Annabelle’s cousin, Leia, who was not yet a member, served as visiting secretary. Leia would need to wait until Kara retired her seat in the fall.

“Hello, I’m Olivia. This is my cousin Elle. We’re glad to be here — ,” said Olivia. Olivia winged her response, because she had not even met Annabelle yet. The Bliss family butler had ushered them into the dining room straight away, since the meeting had already begun when they arrived.

“ — Yes, Olivia and Elle, who many of you may know at Abbey School, are here today to take notes. They are considering how to start their own societies. They want to syndicate our model.” Annabelle said.

The explanation was new to Olivia, but the girls did not seem to notice. Many of them did notice Olivia’s generic outfit and mismatched tennis shoes, but that was neither here nor there. Olivia’s main concern was to go undetected as a detective.

Annabelle continued. “There has been some controversy, not a small amount actually, of late,” said Annabelle. Annabelle looked over to Emily and Eve of the membership subcommittee. “There seems to be — ”

“Discrepancies!” said Emily, standing to her feet. “Important discrepancies.”

Emily continued, “We’re concerned about how seats are passed along. You see, the 1994 amendment to the bylaws state — ”

“ — I thought we operated off the ’96 amendments,” said Prima piping up from the volleyball trio at the far end of the table.

“The ’94 amendments are incorporated into the ’96 amendments, Prima,” said Emily, shooting a glance. Prima lifted her chin in response, and turned to whisper to her sister Presha.

“As I was saying, when one member rescinds her seat, from ‘reasons of inability or unavailability of duties of membership,’ she ‘automatically forfeits her claim to the benefits and privileges of the Club,’” said Emily, reading from her notes. Emily continued, “This situation in membership status is most often seen in ‘three consecutive absences from general session.’”

Olivia thought to herself, “There’s so much more where that came from,” and took note not to mess with future litigator Emily.

To finish her case, Emily said, “Any candidates proposed by that delinquent member will be rendered moot, due to their lapsed membership status.”

“And this matters, why?” said Prima, who had clashed with Emily before. Prima readily assumed a role of opposing counsel. Prima and Presha had little patience to deal with Emily and Eve’s petty subcommittee issues. But, the adversarial process, even in doubles, was always more fun with competent opponents. Prima and Presha’s subcommittee on finance had little controversy. They were managing just fine without controversy, since they kept club assets in a low-fee hedge fund with steady returns. While they appeared to be volleyball jocks, Prima and Presha had an enormous capacity for reading Wikipedia on travel days.

Emily started to lean in for a reply. She was ready for a rally. She could parry just fine with Prima and Presha. But just as Emily wanted to spar with their opposition, she was interrupted.

“Just because I’ve missed three meetings does not mean I intend to forfeit my seat!” said Bea, the dancer with a slender figure and bunned hair.