by Morgana Best
I wondered why such an avid environmentalist would have poisons on her property to begin with. I had always assumed that environmentalists were big on protecting animals, even rats. It seemed strange to me that Melanie didn’t get rid of the stuff, but then again, she had a whole collection of poisons there. Did she even know it was there? Perhaps not. It didn’t seem right that an environmentalist would have a deadly poison collection.
I stared at the half completed file on my computer, trying to concentrate on my work, but I was unable to shake off an uneasy feeling. I rubbed the back of my neck.
Should I call someone? I picked up my phone and thumbed through my contact list. I did not have the slightest idea if Thyme stayed up late. I supposed she might. There was a reason this was called the ‘witching hour’, right?
I finally decided against it. If I had been trying to sleep and someone called at this hour, I would have been irritated. It wouldn’t be right to assume that Thyme was available to chat just to help me shake off the undercurrent of anxiety that was plaguing me. It wasn’t her problem that I was having trouble settling down.
“I know you’re there,” I called up at the ceiling. “What’s going on?”
“Perceptive,” a cold voice stated.
I suppressed a scream. I whirled around to seek out the source of the voice.
“Don’t move,” a menacing yet familiar voice spat.
My heart pounded. I froze, my hands hovering in front of me. There was a woman standing in the doorway leading into the living room, and there was a pistol aimed in my direction. A chill coursed through my veins as I willed my eyes to come into focus.
“Melanie?” I stared at the dark-clad feature. What was Melanie doing in my house? What was she doing with a gun? She was part of all those anti-everything rallies. Why would she have a gun, of all things? “What are you…?”
“Shut up.” The edge in Melanie’s voice sent cold chills down my spine. “Just shut up and tell me what you know.”
I flinched and heard a faint whimper in the back of my throat. What was she talking about? And what was with the crazy eyes? I was afraid to ask what she wanted. I was afraid not to respond. What should I do?
My mind refused to answer. All I could see was a woman pointing a gun at me, spitting out commands and vague demands. She looked like she might even be looking for an excuse to pull the trigger.
“Tell me now,” Melanie snapped.
“What do you want?” I asked timidly. I couldn’t get out of this situation if I didn’t know what Melanie wanted. What could she possibly want from me?
“Tell me what you know.” Melanie enunciated each word slowly, as if she were speaking to a simple mind. Her face contorted in disgust as she kept the weapon trained on me.
“Know?” I blinked at her.
“Don’t play stupid. I saw you at the barn.”
“You did?” I said, and flinched as the woman gave me a scathing sneer.
“Yes, you idiot,” Melanie snapped. She looked nothing like the woman I had been keeping an eye on. Her hand wasn’t wavering on that trigger, despite how long she had been holding it. She looked like she was very comfortable with a weapon, and she looked way too comfortable pointing it at me.
The woman gave a long suffering sigh. “Why couldn’t you keep your nose out of my business? Come to think of it, how do you even know about that particular poison? You can’t tell me some lousy cook actually knows about outdated poisons?”
I shook my head quickly, my throat tight as the woman stared at me with the same compassion as a spider for its prey. As Melanie’s face grew redder, I thought I had better answer her question. “Yes, I did find the Thall-rat in your barn. I didn’t go to the cops, though. No one would believe us anyway, right? We can’t go to the cops without proof. So no one has to…”
“You stupid, stupid little cow.” Melanie snatched my phone from me and flung it at the wall.
“Why did you kill him?” I asked, hoping to distract her. “He was marrying you.”
“He was marrying my land.” Melanie snarled as her finger tightened on the trigger, glaring at me with visible disdain. “He said he’d cleaned up his act. He said that he was going to help me clean up this town. He said that he was an environmentalist now. We talked for hours about new eco-cars and how to bring them to town. A Green Initiative. I thought he understood.”
I nodded as she lowered her hands slightly, hoping that her outpouring would calm her down. “He lied,” I said.
“Yes. I fell for it, too,” Melanie stated in such a calm tone that the hairs on the back of my neck rose in alarm. “Him being a rising environmentalist. Him loving me, I let it all slide. I took it all on faith. Then I saw him sneaking around and kissing Kayleen, the mail lady. I realized he wasn’t as invested in the relationship as I was.”
The woman slowly started to pace the room, keeping the weapon trained on me. “So I looked around for his plans. I was going to break off the engagement and put him out of business with his own project. I was going to let him feel the price of betraying me, but I didn’t find any hybrid cars or reforestation projects. When I looked at his emails, there he was chattering to some people about my land.” She let out a sigh. “He was getting legal advice about how long he’d have to be married to me before he could take a share of my land upon divorce. I’d tell you to remember that, if I thought you were going to be around to take the advice to heart.”
I felt a knot of dread at the woman’s calm assessment.
Melanie gave a rueful smile. “He was already arranging to exploit the coal seam gas on my land. I couldn’t allow him to destroy a whole ecosystem to make a profit. He was killing the planet. Then I found those old poisons in the barn. It was like a sign. Poison the man who was intending to poison the town by allowing coal seam gas. I started off with small doses. I kept hoping that maybe he would have a change of heart and transform before the wedding. And then after a while, I knew he wasn’t going to change. He was just too far gone.”
Melanie’s eyes took on a glassy sheen as she smiled.
A wave of panic washed over me. I took a short breath and squeezed my eyes shut. The others had told me I was a witch. If only I’d learned some spells by now. I opened my eyes when Melanie screamed. In my despair, I had forgotten about the house.
“What’s going on?” Melanie asked frantically. “What is this? Stop!”
The pistol was on the ground, right beside Melanie. The woman was staring around herself, paling as she shoved at an invisible barrier. “Help, somebody,” she begged as she slammed her shoulder into an invisible wall, looking like a mime artist, albeit a noisy one, as she stumbled around in the middle of the room.
Chapter 25
I hurried next door to Camino’s house and banged on the door frantically. After a few moments, the door swung open, revealing my startled neighbor.
I was likely more startled than she was. At first I thought the door had been opened by a giant koala, but then I realized it was Camino after all, dressed in an outsized gray koala onesie, and wearing giant fluffy koala slippers, each with rounded koala ears and a big black nose.
“It’s Melanie, Brant McCallum’s fiancée!” I said, trying not to stare. “The crazy woman just showed up at my house with a gun. She saw me looking around on her property and got spooked. She admitted everything about Brant’s murder, but that was when I thought she was going to kill me,” I said, gasping for air.
“Where is she now? Come inside!” Camino said, motioning for me to enter her home.
“The house has trapped her,” I said, as I followed Koala Camino inside. “She’s sitting in the center of the room with her hands up like she’s stuck there. Luckily, she dropped the gun and I don’t think she can reach it from inside her, err, from inside whatever’s happening to her.”
“Hmm,” Camino said. “We need to get her to confess, but this time she needs to confess to the police.” She left the room momentarily and then returned with a small bottl
e. “This calls for a truth potion.”
“How will we get her to drink it?”
“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” Camino replied. “Will you call Ruprecht and the others? The phone’s right over there,” she said, pointing to an antique desk. “Numbers are in the book.”
“Sure,” I said. I had forgotten about land lines and their lack of access to contacts. I looked up Ruprecht’s number in the book.
“Hello?”
“Oh, Ruprecht!” I screeched, more loudly than I had intended. “We have a problem. Melanie’s in my house right now with a gun. She’s trapped inside, and I’m over at Camino’s. Camino has a truth potion.”
“A truth potion, you say? For what reason?”
I slapped myself on the forehead. “Sorry! Melanie did it! She confessed to murdering Brant McCallum. Camino wants to give her the truth potion so she’ll confess to the police.”
“Yes, I think she has the right idea in mind. I’ll get my granddaughter right away and head to your house,” Ruprecht replied.
“Okay, we’ll meet you there.” I ended the call and then called Thyme. She picked up at once.
“Thyme? Can you come over right now? Melanie was watching us when we were looking through that broken down barn. She showed up with a gun, but the house trapped her inside,” I said without drawing breath. “Camino’s going to give her a truth potion so she’ll confess to the police.”
“I’ll be right there,” Thyme replied, and the phone went silent.
I couldn’t help but smile with relief. It was good to have friends who would back me up.
Camino looked up. “Let’s go!” she said urgently.
By the time we were walking up my front path, Thyme’s car pulled up, followed by Ruprecht and Mint. Joys of living in a small town, I suppose, with one end of town being no more than five minutes from the other.
With that, we entered the house and turned left into the living room. I saw that Melanie hadn’t moved an inch. “Get me out of here!” she yelled, waving her arms around in the air.
“Out of where?” Thyme asked, garnering a look of disapproval from Ruprecht.
“This room or whatever it is! What are you crazy people doing to me? Help! Help!” she yelled, still holding her arms up and slapping at the invisible walls.
“Camino, is it ready?” Ruprecht asked.
Camino nodded and held up the small bottle in her hand.
“Good,” he replied, turning to Melanie. He crouched down beside her and spoke softly. “Melanie, we need you to be calm. What is it that you’re seeing?”
Melanie settled down somewhat. “What am I seeing? You don’t see the huge walls that are slowly trying to crush me?” she wailed.
“I see nothing of the sort,” he remarked. “But this might help,” he added, extending his hand to Camino for the potion. She placed it in his hand gently. Ruprecht uncorked the bottle and looked at Melanie. “Drink this, and everything will be over.”
“You think I’m going to trust you crazy people?” she yelled. “I’m not drinking anything, especially until I’m out of this torture!”
“What torture?” Thyme said. “It’s all in your mind.”
“Don’t tell me what I can see!” the woman snapped angrily.
Just then, I had an idea. “Even though you came here to harm me, we’re not here to hurt you,” I said in a calm tone, although my heart was racing. “Let us help. You seem to be hallucinating, and from what I know, that’s a common occurrence when someone is exposed to too much thallium. This is the antidote. The walls will go away if you drink it.”
Melanie looked down and sighed. After several moments, she glanced back up at me and nodded. “Exposure to thallium? I’ll be free if I trust you and drink that?”
“You’ll be free from this room, yes,” I replied, careful not to make any false promises. I knew that the police wouldn’t allow Melanie to be free in any true sense of the word.
Ruprecht sat patiently in his crouched position, with the potion still extended to the woman. She seemed to be thinking about her options, but as they had run out, she finally took the bottle from his hand and gulped it down.
Camino turned to Thyme and whispered in her ear. “Give it a few minutes to work before you call the police, please.”
“Sure thing,” she replied.
Ruprecht took the empty bottle from the woman when she had finished it, and stood back up. “It shouldn’t take long to kick in,” he said to us. “Then we can call the authorities.”
Melanie stood up, a look of disgust on her face. “You’re calling the cops?”
“Of course we are. What else would we do with a murderer?” Camino asked her.
“Are you serious?” the woman said. “Just because I killed my fiancé and then tried to kill Amelia, you’re going to label me like that?” As the words left her lips, Melanie’s face contorted into a sour look, like she had tasted a dozen lemons all at once. “Why did I say that? What is going on?” she asked, a look of horror draining the color from her face.
“Perhaps your guilty conscience is finally catching up with you,” Thyme said.
“So, now what?” I asked Ruprecht.
“Now, we just wait,” he said. “Thyme, you can call the police now.”
Melanie was still watching the others, but as the realization that she was caught kicked in, she seemed to give up. She collapsed back to the ground and sighed. “I was only doing what was best for the environment,” she whispered.
At that moment, there was a loud knock on the front door and Ruprecht went to answer it. He returned with Sergeant Greer and a still-smiling Constable Stevens.
“How did you get here so soon?” I asked them. “Thyme was calling you right now.”
“Alder Vervain called us,” Sergeant Greer said. “He said a woman went into your house with a gun.”
I saw Camino and Mint give each other a significant look, and then they both fixed me with a hard stare. I tried to look blank. “Well, good that you got here so fast,” I said to the cops. I did not want the others to know that I had met Alder Vervain. They sure were acting weird about that man. I’d have to find out why. Actually, I’d like to know how Alder Vervain saw Melanie enter my house. Was he watching my house? And if so, why?
The police officers wasted no time talking to Melanie. “My name is Sergeant Greer and this is Constable Stevens. I have been told that you have something you’d like to confess. Is this true?”
Melanie slowly pulled herself up from the ground, and looked at the officer intently. “Well, of course I don’t want to confess,” she replied.
I shot Camino a quick glance, but she just winked at me. “What did you do to Brant McCallum?” Camino asked her.
“I killed the smug jerk, but he deserved it!” she said, the anger rising in her voice.
Both the police officers immediately gasped. “Are you admitting to your fiancé’s murder?”
“It sure seems like that’s what I’m doing, doesn’t it?” she said, shaking her head emphatically.
Greer and Stevens exchanged glances. “You are not obliged to say or do anything unless you wish to do so, but whatever you say or do may be used in evidence. Do you understand?” he asked Melanie.
“I understand,” she snapped, clamping her hand over her mouth.
Greer pulled a small notepad from his pocket and began scribbling in it. “Can you explain to me what you did to Brant McCallum, please?”
“When I found out that he was using me and seeing another woman, I lost it. I began poisoning him with small amounts of Thall-rat. It’s a type of rat poison that contains thallium,” Melanie said, no emotion or remorse apparent in her voice. “It was banned in Australia in the 1950s, but I found some in my old barn. I read that one gram mixed in food would kill in two weeks. The symptoms look like many other diseases, so it’s hard to detect.”
The two police officers looked at each other and nodded. Stevens was still smiling widely.
“I didn’t want to!” she screamed. “The only reason I came here was because Amelia Spelled found out about the old rat poison and was going to turn me in. I saw her out at my land today. I tried to kill her, but then the walls started closing in around me! The house trapped me! I didn’t want to confess, but I had to!”
Sergeant Greer couldn’t resist sniggering, despite his apparent best efforts. “Excuse me? The house trapped you here and made you confess?” he asked, clearly in disbelief.
Melanie looked around the room with terror in her eyes. “Yes, that’s exactly what happened!”
Chapter 26
I couldn’t believe my ears. “What did you say to me?” I asked, placing my hands on my hip. I was standing behind the counter, turned toward Thyme. A line was forming behind the counter.
“You heard me, lady,” Thyme said, not backing down.
I took a step forward. “Did you tell your boss that she isn’t allowed in the kitchen?”
“I did,” Thyme said with a laugh. She turned and reached into the case beside me, selecting a cupcake for the next customer in line. She boxed it up and handed it over, while I took an offered credit card and ran it through the machine.
“Well, we’re out of double chocolate,” I went on. “And we both know you’re faster out here, so let me have a go at the baking. I think by now I can get the hang of it.”
“You would think so,” Thyme said, chuckling, “but we can’t risk setting the place on fire, as much as you’d like to see Craig.”
I laughed. Did I want to see Craig? Well, yes, I supposed I did. Still, I couldn’t get Alder Vervain out of my mind. Logically, I figured I was only attracted to him as he was mysterious, whereas Craig was sweet and dependable.
“I haven’t set out all the ingredients,” Thyme said, concern apparent in her voice.
