“Oh, those don’t mean anything,” sung Aunt Ethel, “Their mostly optional.”
Optional? Someone help me, please. I prayed to whatever god in the universe felt sympathetic to my plight.
The car weaved in and out of lanes as my aunt twisted and turned the wheel like one would at the arcade. Suddenly, she jerked the wheel causing the car to do a high speed U-turn. I could imagine what my face looked like as I cringed expecting to hit something at any moment.
We shot down the street before she slammed on the brakes. My aunt did a sharp, right turn onto an alley full of garbage cans. She might have even squashed a few.
“Do you even know where you’re going?”
“Oh don’t worry, dear, I have it all worked out.”
Aunt Ethel hummed merrily to herself as she squealed the tires, doing another right on the main road. She gunned the engine, blowing black smoke out the exhaust. Next thing I knew, we barreled our way through traffic.
“Stop. Stop! STOP!”
Aunt Ethel hit the brakes bringing the car to a halt just before she ran another red light. “Why were you yelling, dear?”
“Red light.” I pointed at the traffic light ahead of us.
“Hey, lady,” yelled the guy driving the car next to us, “Where the hell did you get your license?”
“Oh, my license was revoked years ago,” replied my aunt with an innocent smile. “You don’t really need one. Driving isn’t that difficult. Just point the car and go.”
The man’s face went white. He hit the accelerator and sped off despite the fact that the light remained red.
I stared at her. “Are you serious?”
“Why wouldn’t I be?” The light changed green. Instantly, I felt myself squeezed into the back of my seat as Aunt Ethel hit the gas and zoomed off.
I prayed for a cop to pull us over. No such luck. Why is it when you really want there to be a cop, there isn’t one?
“Oh, pooh. A traffic jam,” said my Aunt. She jerked the wheel again pulling the car onto the sidewalk.
“Driving on the sidewalk is illegal,” I screamed. “There are people there!”
“Don’t worry, dear. They’ll move out of the way.”
More like jump out of the way. People leapt to the left and right in an effort to avoid being hit. Deafening scrapes pierced my ears as the car plowed over chairs and tables. My stomach lurched when she pulled back onto the road.
“The speed limit is thirty-five,” I said.
“That’s just a guideline,” said Aunt Ethel.
I started making my amends to the Almighty. Though not religious, Aunt Ethel’s driving would drive anyone to church.
“Do any of these places look familiar?” asked my aunt.
“No.”
“You need to get out into the sun more, dear,” said Aunt Ethel with concern, “You’re so pale.”
And I wonder why.
Tires squealed as she blew through another red light and made a left turn causing three other cars to come to a screeching halt. Once more we roared down the road at fifty with the wind howling in our ears through the open windows.
“This is so much fun,” sang my aunt.
Fun is not how I’d describe it. I recognized one of Tiny’s favorite hangout spots as we careened down the street.
“Oh, look! Taco Bell is having a special,” said Aunt Ethel.
She whipped the wheel to the left ramming her way into a parking lot. Then, with another jerk of the wheel, my aunt steered the car through the parking lot and out the exit onto the side road between us and the Taco Bell. My stomach lurched as the car flew over the grassy median and into the restaurant’s lot. She swerved, hit the brakes, and pulled neatly into the drive thru.
“May I take your order?” asked the guy on the intercom.
“Yes, I’ll have your five taco special, two churros, and two Sprites,” said Aunt Ethel cheerily.
She pulled the car up to the window with remarkable calmness.
“Don’t worry, dear, I’ll get it,” said Aunt Ethel. She dug through her purse oblivious to the fact that I still held on to the door handle for dear life. She handed the money to the man at the window and took the food.
The roar of a bunch of bikes sounded behind us. Apparently, Tiny and his pals had noticed us as we passed their place. They parked behind us in the drive thru lane. Tiny hopped off his bike and walked toward the driver’s window. “Mel?”
One look inside told him everything. Slowly, I released my death grip on the door handle.
“Oh,” said Tiny.
“Tiny, darling,” said my aunt in her usual peppy voice. “Be a dear and get me some hot sauce.”
He did. “There was a report about a car causing a lot of damage around town. Something about a lunatic driver.”
“I wonder who that could be,” said my aunt.
“I think he referred to us,” I said.
“Preposterous, dear. My driving is perfect,” said Aunt Ethel.
“Uh, you guys do realize that this is a drive thru?” asked the kid in the window. One look from Tiny shut him up. Poor kid. He couldn’t have been more than sixteen.
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.
Chapter 8
“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 hauled 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 it 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 up 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 ears 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 leaned 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.
Chapter 9
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 though 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 all 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.”
Janet McNulty - Mellow Summers 03 - An Apple a Day Keeps Murder Away Page 7
