Janet McNulty - Mellow Summers 03 - An Apple a Day Keeps Murder Away (7 page)

Sirens screamed a few blocks down.
Sure, now the cops show up.

“You two might want to get out of here,” suggested Tiny.

“OK,” said my aunt as she started to put the car in gear.

“NO!
Out of the car now,” I told my aunt, “I’m driving.”

“Mellow darling, I’m perfectly capable of handling a car,” said Aunt Ethel.

“Now,” I said, firmly.

Relenting, Aunt Ethel stepped out of the car and we switched seats.
I slammed the car into gear and took off. This time, I took the back roads back to my apartment being extra careful to not go above the speed limit or go through any red lights.

“There is some crazy report around town—
Oh,” said Jackie when she saw my face. “So the lunatic driver was your aunt.”

“I do not want to talk about it,” I said clenching my fists.

“Where was Rachel?” asked Jackie.

“Your aunt’s driving could scare a ghost,” said Rachel materializing beside me.

I flopped on the couch exhausted. Aunt Ethel had decided to go for a walk around the neighborhood. She had mumbled something about my driving making her car sick. I thought the entire prospect was laughable. Me, making her car sick.

A knock sounded at the door.

Jackie opened it to reveal a boy standing there with a package. It looked like the one I had received previously.

“Is a Mellow Summers here?” asked the boy.

Grunting, I haul
ed myself off of the couch and went to the entrance. “Who’s it from?”

“I don’t
know,” replied the boy, “Some guy paid me five dollars to deliver this.”

“What did he look like?” I asked.

“Don’t know,” said the boy impatiently. “Look, do you want the box or not?”

“Put i
t there,” I said pointing at the floor.

The boy placed the box down.
If he thought my request was strange, he never said anything.

“Are you sure you don’t know what the guy looked like?” asked Jackie catching on to why I wouldn’t touch the box.

“Yes, I’m certain,” said the boy.
“The man kept his face covered. What does it matter anyway?”

“It doesn’t,” I said closing the door in his face.

I went to the hall closet and grabbed my knit gloves.
I put them on before handling the box. It looked just like the others. These mysterious packages had quickly grown old and I tired of their taunting.

“Jackie, call Calvin,” I said as I opened the package.

She pulled out her cell and dialed his number.
The conversation only lasted a few seconds before she hung up. “He’ll be right over.”

I lifted the
untaped lid. Inside were three bags of apple chips and another note with cut out magazine letters. Not again, I thought to myself.

Once in the Morning. Once in the afternoon. Once in the evening
.

I read the note aloud to everyone in the room. A huge part of me wished that the jerk that kept sending me these notes would choke on the next one. Why all the taunting? What did he hope to achieve. I put the note back in the box and closed the lid. No way was I going to mess with it any more than I needed to.

Right on cue, Calvin knocked on the door.

“Come in,” I called.

He entered and quickly got down to business.
Once again, Calvin had a plastic bag that he wrapped the box in taking extra care to not touch it.

“What is u
p with these cryptic messages?” asked Jackie.

“Most likely they are meant to unnerve you,” replied Calvin.
He tucked the plastic covered package under his arm.

“Well, do they know why
someone is sending them?”

“
No,” said Calvin, “There are no prints on the last two except from those in this room.”

This was ridiculous.
Why was it no one could give me any answers as to who sent these notes? Why was I incapable of remembering anything that had happened to me?

“So we’ve got nothing,” I said.

“Be nice to know what the prosecution has,” commented Jackie.

Rachel’s ear
s perked up at that. She had remained invisible and silent while Calvin was in the room. But now she listened intently as Calvin answered Jackie’s statement.

“That is not going to happen,” he said.
“The D.A. is busy building a case against Mel. All he needs is a body to show up and he will have enough to make an arrest. But until then, and until anything goes to trial we will not know what he has in his case files.”

Now Rachel le
aned forward paying extremely close attention to the conversation.

“Then how are you supposed to come up with a defense?” asked Jackie.
She felt like I did: finding a body was inevitable.

“It is my job to guess accurately exactly what tactics the prosecution will use,” said Calvin.

“Comforting,” mumbled Jackie.

“Don’t worry about anything,” Calvin attempted to reassure us.
“Without a corpse, the D.A. has got nothing. And until then, there is no point in worrying about it. Now, I will leave you girls alone and take this to the police.”

Calvin left without further comments.
I turned to say something to Rachel, but she had gone. Shaking my head, I decided not to worry about it. Rachel had a tendency to come and go as she pleased and did not always remember to tell me anything. I figured she would reappear when she felt she had something.

Greg walked through the door with Aunt Ethel.
He gave me a quick kiss, but made sure not to make it too long in front of my aunt who stood with her lips pursed. She still had not completely accepted my choice of a boyfriend. Eventually, she would either get over it, or just stop coming around. I had no preference.

“I saw Calvin leave,” said Greg
. “Is anything wrong?”

“Just another one of those mysterious packages with a strange note and no name,” I said.

“Any idea who is sending them?” he asked.

“No.”

“Another one?” Aunt Ethel stared at me as though I had betrayed her. “How many of them have there been?”

“Three,” I answered.
“But it doesn’t matter. Whoever sent them is very good at not leaving any marks of identification.”

“How can you say it doesn’t matter?” asked Aunt Ethel.

“Because the only way this is going to end is if I can get my memory back,” I replied.

“Have either of you heard the news?” asked Greg, changing the subject.

“What news?” asked Jackie.

“Some student at the college seems to have gone missing.
He’s been missing for over a week and no one has seen him.”

“Who?”

“Name’s Byron. He was taking summer courses to finish his psychology degree,” said Greg. “Then one day he disappeared. Anyway, the police refuse to file a missing person’s report since he is over 20 and could have just run off. He’s done it before. But his girlfriend is very worried about him.”

Guess we’re not living in a safe world anymore,” I said.

“I got it!”

We all turned toward Aunt Ethel whose exclamation came without warning and surprised us all.
It had nothing to do with what we talked about and I don’t think she had been listening to us anyway.

“Got what?” I asked her.

“I know how to get your memory back,” said Aunt Ethel.

“Please tell me it doesn’t involve another car trip,” I groaned.

“Oh, dear, don’t be so melodramatic,” Aunt Ethel waved my concerns away. “A hypnotist. That is what you need.”

“No,” I said.
I had no desire to see a shrink, a hypnotist, or anyone of that nature.

“Come on,
Mellow darling,” pleaded my aunt, “Nothing else has worked despite my best efforts.”

Best efforts?
So far her best efforts involved me twisting into a pretzel or doing sixty down a sidewalk. I think I’ll pass.

“Look,” I said, “I really don’t want to—”

“Perhaps, your aunt is right, Mel,” interrupted Greg. “Nothing you’ve tried has worked.”

I hated the whole idea.
“But—”

“You’ve gone to various places and nothing has come back to you,” said Greg, “I’ve read up on hypnosis.
Sometime it does help people remember what their subconscious refuses to remember.”

“Fine,” I relented, still hating the idea.

“Excellent,” said Aunt Ethel, “There is a guy here who does public shows where he puts people under. However, considering the nature of your memory loss, I’ve arranged for us to meet with him privately in the morning.”

I
felt grossly outnumbered. I resigned myself to the fact that I would be the guinea pig of a hypnotist. I just hoped it worked. Nothing else had and I hated the feeling of having a hole where my memory should be.

Morning arrived faster than I wanted.
Aunt Ethel burst into Jackie and I’s room.

“Wake up, sleepy heads,” she sang as
she ripped the covers off of us.

Why is it people are so cheerful in the morning?
And the earlier it is the more cheerful they are.

Jackie and I crawled out of bread, dressed
, and headed for the kitchen. The table was covered in food. Aunt Ethel had been busy in the kitchen. She managed to cook up a huge breakfast of pancakes and sausage. She had even cleaned up the kitchen and washed the dishes. Everything had a citrus smell to it.

“Eat up,” she said, “We have a big day ahead of us.”

That woman was way too perky.

Knowing we weren’t going to get out of it, Jackie and I dug in.
We each had a big helping of pancakes and sausage. Aunt Ethel brought over a dish with homemade syrup. I had never thought of my aunt as a cook, but the food tasted delicious.

Once we had finished and cleared the table, Aunt Ethel shoved us out the door.
Rachel still hadn’t shown up. She must have been busy wherever she was.

We took Jackie’s car to the hypnotist’s office.
My aunt was not allowed anywhere near the driver’s seat.

“Oh really.
My driving isn’t that bad,” she said as we told her to get in the passenger seat.

Ten AM rolled by as we parked the car and headed up to the hypnotist’s office.
Greg met us down there. He had already picked a chair in the waiting room and brightened when we showed up.

The hypnotist’s name was Dr. Carver and he had it plastered on a big name plate that hung on the door to his office.

“I’m telling you,” came a voice in the hallway behind us as we entered Dr. Carver’s office, “I saw it move on its own. That copy machine was copying files by itself.”

“Sure,” said
another man leading the first one to the office next door.

That office belonged to a psychiatrist, Dr. Ellsworth.

“I mean it,” pleaded the first. “I’m not crazy. The machine operated itself. The files arranged themselves. No one was there!”

The man was pushed through the door to Dr. Ellsworth
’s office. Poor guy, I thought. Must be losing his mind if he thinks office equipment can operate themselves.

We continued into Dr. Carver’s office and signed in with the secretary.
She pointed us to the chairs.

“What’s going on?” asked Greg.

“Some guy outside thought he saw a copy machine copy files on its own,” said Jackie.

Greg muttered something about the man being nuts.

Suddenly, I thought of Rachel.
Where had she gone?

“Hey,” said Rachel popping in beside me as th
ough she had heard my unspoken question.

“Where’ve you been?
” I said.

“I had things to do,” said Rachel, “Calvin talking about the case files yesterday gave me an idea.”

“So where did you go?”

“I went to Mr. Harrow’s office last night and broke into his filing cabinet.
I pulled out the file he had on you and made some copies. Then I decided to rearrange a few things. It’ll take him over a week to sort it all out with his secretary out sick.”

She pulled out a manila folder and handed it to me.
I quickly took it and rifled through the pages.

“This is a
ll he has on the case,” said Rachel. “Poor janitor caught me making copies, but all he saw was a copy machine working itself.”

My head shot up.
“What’d you say?”

“Poor guy is being accused of having a nervous breakdown,” continued Rachel.
“He’s next door.”

I didn’t say anything.
What could I say? Instead, I looked through the pages of the file trying to make sense of it.

Rachel droned on as I read through
everything. “They found two different blood types on your shirt. One was type O and the other was type AB.”

That got my attention.
In the blood bank, Jackie and I found a bunch of type O blood missing.

“And it turned out that you had a drug in your system that causes temporary memory loss,” continued Rachel.
“However, Mr. Harrow believes that you administered it to yourself as a way of trying to establish your innocence. Also the motel room was checked out in your name and paid in cash.”

“Convenient,” I said.

“Miss Summers,” said the secretary, “The doctor will see you now.”

I stood up with my entourage.
“Rachel,” I whispered, “Do you think you can do something to help that janitor?”

“Like what?”

I gave her a pleading look.

“Oh
, all right,” relented Rachel. “I’ll see what I can do.” She vanished.

We all went into Dr. Carver’s office.
He had a nice place. It was warmly decorated with plants and paintings. The design was to create a warm and inviting atmosphere where people would feel very comfortable relaxing in.

“Miss Summers,” said the ma
n seated in an office chair. “I am Dr. Carver.”

I shook his hand.
He proceeded to introduce himself to the rest of my party. Next he directed me to the couch to sit on, while everyone else went to some chairs on the far end of the room.

“Have you ever been hypnotized before?” asked Dr. Carver.

“No,” I replied.

“OK.
What I want you to do is relax and let me guide you. Are you ready?”

I nodded.
My nerves kicked in as I immediately felt afraid of what I might remember.

Dr. Carver pulled out an old pocket watch.
“I want you to concentrate on this and on my voice.” He swung the watch back and forth slowly. I stared at it. Within seconds, I was out.

“Now, I want you to go back to the last moment you
remember before you disappeared,” Dr. Carver’s voice drifted in my mind.

Instantly, images of going to my car popped in my mind.
Then, I remembered someone talking to me about the blood drive. Before I knew it I was at the blood bank with my sleeve rolled up and a needle in my arm.

“What did you do after that?”
Dr. Carver’s voice echoed through mind.

I was back at my car and about to put the key in the lock when a white cloth covered my mouth and nose.
I struggled. Suddenly, I woke up in a strange room with my hands and feet tied up. I remembered working the ropes loose but the sounds of heavy boots stopped me. A masked man entered the dingy room I was in.

The scene in my mind changed.
Instantly I found myself transported to the motel bathroom struggling with a man whose face I could not see. I ripped off one of his buttons with the engraving of a star on it. My face stung. Once again a white cloth covered my mouth and nose and I blacked out.

“Mel?
Mel?” Dr. Carver’s voice broke through my mind. It was insistent and worried. “Mel, when I count to three you will wake up. One. Two. Three.”

I woke up in
Dr. Carver’s office. I had no memory of what had happened much less of having actually spoken. He stared at me with a worried expression on his face. I glanced over at my aunt, Jackie, and Greg and they had the same expression.

“What happened?” I asked.

Dr. Carver pulled out a digital recorder. He had taped the entire session in case it could be used in court as part of my defense. He pressed play. My voice blared out of the small speaker filling the room. It sounded shrill and frightened. It didn’t even sound like me. He pressed the stop button and the room fell silent.

“I still don’t remember anything,” I said.

“That’s all right,” answered Dr. Carver. “But what I have on here indicates that you were kidnapped and held against your will someplace. Perhaps with a few more sessions, we might be able to uncover everything that happened.”

“I don’t know if I want to,” I said.

“Well, that is enough for today,” said Dr. Carver. “Perhaps you would like to schedule another session later in the week?”

I told him
that I would think about it. My underarms sweated profusely from the tension in my stomach.

Dr. Carver said good-bye and gave me his card saying that I could call him whenever I needed to.

We walked out into the hall.
Rachel leaned against the wall for us all to see her. “So,” she said, “How’d it go?”

“It’s all a bit jumbled,” said Jackie.
“But it sounds like someone kidnapped her.”

Rachel’s eyes flared with anger.
I had never thought of a ghost getting angry before. “If I get my hands on him—”

“Rachel, it’s OK,” I said.
“What happened with the janitor?”

“A little R and R and he’ll be back at work,” said Rachel.
“As for the psychiatrist, he’s going on a three week vacation. Maybe even a little longer than that.”

At first I felt like asking her what she had done, but thought better of it.
Rachel was Rachel.

We left the doctor’s office and went out in the midday sun.
Jackie wanted to go shopping. Actually, she just wanted to go anywhere that had air conditioning so as to get out of the summer heat. It had already hit a hundred and the humidity was unbearable.

We ultimately decided on going into a department store.
It was one of those places that had everything: housewares, clothes, children’s stuff. Greg had to go to work which left just us girls.

Upon entering the store, Jackie immediately headed for the clothing section.
I joined her. I had no desire to look at sheets and towels with my Aunt Ethel. She always pulled them out of their plastic wrap and spread them on the floor so she could get a really good look at them.

Jackie and I had fun just trying on different outfits.
After a while though I began to get hungry and told her I wanted to get some lunch. She agreed.

Suddenly, I became aware of just how quiet the store had gotten.
Rachel stood in the main aisle trying on a hat. Actually, she seemed to be modeling it. She walked down the aisle and did an elegant turn before walking in the other direction all the while humming to herself. The problem was, the hat appeared to be floating through the air on its own and humming on its own. Rachel remained oblivious to the crowd she attracted. I noticed someone pull out their cell phone and begin recording. Here came another YouTube video.

Finally, Rachel stopped and looked around.
A sheepish expression filled her face as she said, “Oops.”

I motioned for her to follow me, but tried to not be seen by those watching her.
Rachel took her hat off, went over to a saleslady and handed it to her. “Here you go,” she said as she walked off. The poor woman almost jumped out of her skin. To her, the hat appeared to move and speak on its own.

We grabbed Aunt Ethel and dragged her away from, “The greatest sale ever.”
She had an armful of flannel blankets with dogs on them. I seized them from her and put them aside; snatched her arm and dragged her out of there. I don’t think I will ever understand my aunt. On the way out, I thought I noticed someone watching us. Once again the man kept his face covered. I pointed him out to Jackie, but she sloughed it off as my imagination. Outside the summer heat smacked us and undid whatever cooling effects the indoors had on us.

“Mel?”

I turned around. Jeremy stood on the sidewalk behind us. He wore a button up shirt and slacks with a name tag that indicated he volunteered at the blood bank.

“Jeremy?”
I couldn’t believe I had just run into him. “What are you doing here?” I asked.

“Just running some errands,” he replied, “I thought that was you.”

“I thought you had left town.” The coldness in my voice put him off guard. I didn’t mean to be rude.

“No, I never left,” he said.
“It’s just we parted on bad terms and take a completely different set of courses at the university.”

He stared at my aunt.
Quickly, I introduced them. Aunt Ethel pursed her lips in that usual manner of hers that indicates she didn’t like him. I don’t think she ever liked anybody outside of the family.

“How have you been?” I asked him in an effort to be nice.

“Oh, well,” he said. He seemed very different from when I had last seen him. “I keep busy with my summer classes and volunteer work. You?”

“OK.”
Something gnawed at me, but I couldn’t figure out what it was. “I need to go.”

Jeremy left
. Jackie, Aunt Ethel, and I remained alone on the sidewalk. Rachel had disappeared again. I remained confused about the entire incident. It seemed odd.

“I don’t like him,” said Aunt Ethel in a curt manner.