by B. T. Lord
“What happened after you left?”
“She started stalking me. She’d call me up at all hours, screaming and insulting me. If I didn’t answer the phone, which I stopped doing after a while, she’d leave the most god awful messages, calling me all sorts of obscene names.”
“Did you get the impression she was drinking when this happened? Or perhaps taking drugs?”
“I doubt it. Marcy was allergic to booze. And she was fanatically against drugs. She had a brother who overdosed in the seventies. She never touched the stuff.”
“Do you know if she had a heart condition?”
“She did have a heart murmur.”
Cammie paused, then asked, “Jerry, I know this is going to sound strange. But do you know if Marcy – um – had a fear about being abducted by aliens?”
A loud bellow of laughter erupted through the phone line. “Aliens? Ha! That’s a good one. There was only one thing Marcy was afraid of. And that was me getting away from her. Finally did it, though it took me going all the way to California to do it.”
“When was the last time you spoke to her?”
“Oh, about six months ago. She was ticked that I was late with her alimony check. In fact, I wasn’t late, and I have the certified receipt to prove it. She got it two days later.”
“She tell you that?”
“Hell, no. Marcy wouldn’t apologize even if she was being tortured. I knew she’d gotten it because I checked my balance online and saw that she’d cashed it.”
“Is there anyone else who should be notified of her death?”
“Just me.”
“I’ll have Doc notify you when he’s ready to release the body.”
“Don’t bother. I paid enough while she was alive. I ain’t paying another cent now that she’s dead.”
Taken aback, Cammie had no response to that. Disgusted by Jerry’s behavior, she thanked him tersely for his time and hung up. She then sat back in her chair, deep in thought. If Marcy didn’t drink or take drugs, what had caused the breakdown? Had the divorce completely unhinged her? Or was it as Jace had suggested? A case of chronic loneliness?
Depression seemed to be more like it. If that moldy smell was any indication, she’d stopped taking care of the house, and she’d certainly stopped taking care of herself. Could love really make someone give up completely on themselves?
The thought conjured up a memory that Cammie quickly brushed aside. She leaned over her desk, and rubbed her temples as a headache flared up to match the pain in her shoulder.
“Were you able to reach Mr. Audet?”
Cammie looked up and saw Emmy standing at the door. “Yes I did. And if Marcy went nuts because she still loved him, she’s crazier than I thought.”
“What happened?”
Cammie waved her hand at her. “Never mind.”
“Are you okay?” the young woman asked. “You suddenly don’t look very well. Please don’t get mad, but maybe you kinda overdid it today.”
“I probably did. I’ll just pop a few aspirin and I should be fine.”
“I’ve got something better.” Emmy turned on her heel and hurried away. A few moments later she returned, holding a steaming mug. “Drink this,” she ordered. Cammie took the mug, the aroma of spearmint in her nostrils. “It’s a tea that’s especially made to get rid of pain. I drink it when – well, you know, when it’s that time of the month.”
Cammie shrugged and emptied the mug. She gave it back to Emmy, thanked her and stood up. “Rick and I are heading over to Marcy’s house. Call me if anything comes up.”
“I will.”
As Cammie and Rick left the office, they missed the look of deep concentration cross Emmy’s round cherubic face.
“I’ll take the downstairs, you check upstairs.”
Arriving at Marcy’s house, Cammie was dismayed to find the snow around the residence trampled down by scores of bootprints, despite the police tape.
“People can’t help themselves,” Rick replied when Cammie complained. “Stuff like this doesn’t happen very often around here. They’re bound to be curious. Thank God you knew enough to lock the doors.”
Letting themselves in through the front door, Cammie and Rick slowly stepped over the shattered pieces of tile and ceiling that lay strewn about the entire downstairs. In the light of day, the damage looked worse than it had the night before.
Glancing about, she was once again baffled as to what could make the woman do what she did. Even if she was still angry over the divorce, was that enough to make her go off the deep end and believe she was being attacked by aliens? Could it really be a movie that had triggered her behavior? With Marcy dead, it was going to be more difficult to figure out that little piece of the puzzle.
While Rick checked out the second floor, Cammie entered the kitchen. She looked in the cupboards and saw the usual staple of goods – a bag of sugar, canned goods, two boxes of cereal, old and slightly chipped glass and dishware. There was, however, no sign of liquor. Despite what Jerry had said, two years had passed since he’d seen her. It was entirely possible that despite her allergies, she’d turned to booze or pills to cope with her loneliness and depression. She wondered if Rick would find any medications upstairs in the bathroom, or in Marcy’s bedroom.
Making her way towards the fridge, Cammie felt a thought tugging at her, something she should be noticing. But it was just beyond reach. Experience told her to let it go. When it wanted to be heard, it would push its way forward again.
As she inspected the paltry items in the fridge, she noticed the tea Emmy had given her had done its job. She no longer had a headache, nor did her shoulder ache, and she felt as clear headed as she did before the whole incident with Marcy took place.
She was just finishing her inspection of the fridge and pantry when Rick entered. He was frantically swiping the sleeves of his parka before erupting in a loud sneeze.
“Jeez, Marcy could corner the market on dust.”
“Find anything interesting?” Cammie asked.
“Impossible to tell. The woman was a hoarder. She’s got two bedrooms upstairs filled top to bottom with garbage bags full of crap. I’ve never seen so much junk in my life. One garage sale and she would have been set up for life.” He paused. “I think I know what set her off.”
“You do?” Cammie asked incredulously.
“Sure do. Don’t you smell the mold in the air? Mold is bad for you. I bet it did something to her brain cells. Probably shriveled them up or something. You can’t function if you don’t have enough brain cells. Everybody knows that.”
“Alrighty then,” Cammie replied slowly. “Did you at least find anything interesting on her night stand or medicine cabinet?”
Rick sneezed again. “No on both counts. She had a bottle of aspirin, some toothpaste and toothbrushes that were so nasty, I thought I was going to hurl. The nightstand had a stack of books that haven’t seen a dust cloth since 1865. And before you ask, they weren’t about aliens. They were classics, like Gone With the Wind and Oliver Twist and stuff like that.” Rick shivered as he scratched his neck and cheeks. “God, I hope I don’t get fleas. That upstairs ought to be condemned!”
“If you overlook the debris, it’s cleaner down here. Why don’t you take a look while I check out upstairs.”
“If you don’t return in ten minutes, I’m calling in the SWAT team. Her dust bunnies are the size of a T-Rex.”
Cammie laughed as she turned and made her way upstairs. Rick, however, hadn’t been exaggerating. In the first bedroom, there was no furniture. Just bags of clothing, yarn, old newspapers, dusty books and countless other things piled from floor to ceiling. The bathroom was just as Rick had described. Just the sight of the toothbrushes almost made Cammie hurl as well. Marcy’s bedroom was no better.
How can someone sleep in a place like this?
There was a thin path through the bulging black garbage bags that led from the doorway to the queen size bed. Every corner of the room was taken up
with piles of clothes thrown haphazardly about. The bed and nightstand looked to be from the 70s, scratched and worn from years of use. The air was dead and full of dust, and she soon found herself sneezing as well. Glancing at the bed, she saw the bedsheets were in dire need of a wash.
The atmosphere was suffocating and disheartening. She poked in some of the bags, only to find more clothes. There were, however, no signs of medicine or liquor.
She went back downstairs, meeting up with Rick in the kitchen.
“Man, if I had to live like this, I’d probably be seeing aliens too,” he said as he frantically wiped away dust and cobwebs from his parka. “If this is what love does to people, I’ll stick to my revolving door policy.”
Cammie had long ago given up trying to keep track of Rick’s incredibly busy love life. A relationship in Rick’s eyes was one that lasted more than a week. Yet, despite that, she marveled at his ability to stay friends with all his exes. She couldn’t even relax in the presence of her only ex.
She pushed the thought of Jace out of her mind, and stood in the middle of the kitchen.
Once again she felt that prickling at the back of her neck. She knew she was missing something, but what was it? She allowed her eyes to roam around the kitchen once more.
“I can’t imagine being so down on yourself that you can’t even wash your dishes. I mean, it was just her living here. How much effort does it take to wash a plate and a knife and fork?”
That’s it!
Cammie walked up to the sink, and looked at the spot where she’d spied the half-eaten piece of apple pie the night before.
“Rick, did you touch anything here?”
“And risk catching the bubonic plague? Are you kidding? I’m not touching anything in this filthy house. Why?”
“Because last night when I came in here, there was a mug with remnants of some kind of smelly tea in it.” She looked up at Rick. “Now it’s gone.”
CHAPTER FOUR
It was lunchtime. Wrapped up in her deep purple parka, with its matching purple hat and gloves that she’d knitted herself, Emmy stepped out to grab a sandwich at Zee’s.
Emmy was a stickler for matching all her outfits. No matter what color sweater and slacks she wore, she always made sure to have a color coordinated ribbon in her long, light brown hair. She’d worn purple that day because purple always made her happy.
It wasn’t working today.
Deep in thought, she didn’t notice as she walked past Zee’s. And kept on walking. The conscientious part of her fretted that the front desk was unmanned; Cammie and Rick were still out at Marcy’s, and she should be at her desk in case a call came in. Yet a crippling weight of worry settled uneasily on the twenty-two year old’s shoulders that caused her to unconsciously imitate The Day of the Dead as she trudged, zombie-like down Main Street.
Should she have said something? Was it right to say nothing? But if she did say something, could she live with Cammie and Rick’s reaction? Should she even care so much? She was allowed to do what she wanted in her private life. It didn’t interfere with her job. That was a world apart.
Actually, it isn’t. You knowingly brought it into HQ.
Only once, though. It was only once. She hadn’t done it since, nor did she plan to. It had been stupid to do it in the first place, and she wasn’t going to repeat it again.
Emmy sighed, her breath billowing up in swirls around her face. It was hard to accept the news that Marcy was dead. She’d thought of the older woman as the type of individual who would live forever. She’d be like those creatures in the horror movies Emmy loved to watch that grew stronger as they devoured other people’s souls, sucking anyone who came into her orbit of any joy or happiness.
What a terrible thing to think, Emmy scolded herself. She wasn’t a nice person, but she didn’t deserve to die the way she did.
Which brought her to the question she’d grappled with ever since she’d heard the news. Just what happened to Marcy? At least she now knew why the old woman hadn’t shown up last night. Had her sourness and negativity finally driven her bonkers? It wasn’t hard to imagine. Living alone, her hatred of everything feeding in on itself. Despite her cantankerousness, it was still difficult to conceive of Marcy grabbing a rifle and trying to shoot out the neighborhood. Could loneliness do that to a person? Had Marcy been lonely? She must have been to trek out to the meetings every month. She never contributed anything, unless you considered her spiteful remarks as some sort of contribution. And when Emmy thought about it, it frightened her to think that of all people, it was that bullying old woman who made the effort to come to their meetings, no matter how cold or nasty the weather got. What was that saying she’d heard someone on TV say? A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.
Emmy slowed her step as a distressing thought occurred to her. Is that what happened to Marcy? Had she tried something she shouldn’t have tried and paid the consequences? As the sheriff was always telling her, every action has a consequence. In Marcy’s case, the consequences had turned tragic.
Emmy remembered the first time she met Marcy. It was last year at the beginning of autumn, before all that mess with the Sheriff and Jace and Eli Kelley had taken place. Autumn was her favorite time of year, when the leaves burst forth in spectacular colors, and the nights somehow felt magical as the calendar headed towards Halloween.
She’d heard through the grapevine of a group of women who met once a month, discussing a subject she’d always been interested in. Anxious to learn more, she’d arrived a little late, and had no choice but to sit next to Marcy. She’d seen her around town, but didn’t know her very well. However, sitting down in the last unoccupied seat in the circle, she’d been overcome by the ripe, moldy smell of the woman. She snuck a glance, and almost gagged at the sight of the black dirt under Marcy’s fingernails, and the dingy, food stained blue scarf she wore wrapped around her neck. If she could have found a way to leave without embarrassing herself, she would have run out that very moment.
Marcy glared at the young woman seated next to her. Sensing a fresh new victim, she instantly started in on Emmy’s choice of wardrobe – a maroon sweater, black pants and a black and maroon ribbon in her long hair.
“You trying to be some kind of a human doll with that damned ribbon in your hair? Looks ridiculous. You’re not two years old anymore,” Marcy had snapped.
Emmy didn’t know what to say. Or do. So she did nothing, even as she felt the heat rise up her neck and envelope her face. She peeked at the other ladies, wondering how they’d react to the exchange. She loathed being the center of attention, and this smelly old lady was embarrassing her. But if they’d heard anything, they weren’t admitting to it. No one looked up from what they were doing. No one made a remark. Yet they couldn’t be deaf. The room was too small.
It slowly occurred to Emmy that they were doing what they probably always did when Marcy spoke up. They ignored her. It was safer not to engage. To counter would give the beast more reason to suck her dry of the joyful anticipation she’d felt in coming there that night. She therefore sat quietly, praying Marcy would keep her mouth shut, while wondering if she’d made a mistake in even showing up.
By the end of the evening, she’d softened her resolve never to come back. With the exception of Marcy, she liked these women. They took her in without questions. They listened to her – not that she spoke very much; she was too unsure of herself for that. But when she did tentatively venture to give an opinion, they listened. And didn’t ridicule. They made her feel that what she had to say was important. They treated her like an equal. Just like the Sheriff and Rick. Which brought her right back to her present dilemma.
The temperatures hovered around zero, and it took Emmy a while to realize that, despite her thick gloves and boots, she was frozen through. She looked up to discover, to her surprise, that she was about a mile from HQ, walking through the residential area that backed up to Main Street.
“Oh great,” she said aloud to herself as
she considered the prospect of trudging back. “I’m already freezing.”
There was nothing left to do but turn around, hoping she’d still feel her toes by the time she got back to HQ.
She was about a quarter of the way there when she heard a vehicle coming down the road. A moment later she heard her name called.
“Hey, Emmy! What are you doing way out here?”
Emmy turned and saw two familiar faces looking at her from the rolled down window of a Toyota Camry.
Lydia Costas was 23 years old, a year older than Emmy. She had long, blonde hair that she always kept braided down her back. On top of her head, she wore hats of her own creation. As an avid knitter herself, Emmy quietly winced whenever she saw holes in Lydia’s hats where she’d missed a stitch. Sometimes several stitches. Then there was her choice of colors. Lydia was what Emmy would have regarded as color challenged. If there were any two or three colors that were sure to clash, Lydia would pick them for her hats. Today she was wearing a blinding shade of chartreuse mixed with brown and bright pink.
At least she’ll be easy to find in a blizzard.
Beth Davis was the same age as Lydia. The two had met in nursery school, and become inseparable ever since. They even lived near each other in a small apartment complex Mayor Bill Barnes was instrumental in building to cater to the sportsmen he hoped would flock to Twin Ponds to take advantage of its hunting, fishing and cross country skiing activities. He rented out the apartments by the week, though he allowed some apartments to be rented year round at reasonable prices. Beth and Lydia lived on opposite sides of the complex, but still near enough to walk to each other’s homes when the weather was warm.
Beth was, as usual, wearing her usual monotone colors of black and gray. Emmy surmised it was in keeping with her desire to blend in and not call attention to herself. Where Lydia was gregarious and friendly, Beth was retiring and quiet. It was a shame because if one studied Beth, they’d notice how pretty she really was. With ruddy cheeks and blonde hair that cascaded down her back, she could be more attractive if she carried herself with confidence.
