Janet McNulty - Mellow Summers 02 - Frogs, Snails, and a Lot of Wails

by Janet McNulty

  I ripped open the note. “For the girl who captured my dreams,” it said. Gagging, I dumped he candy in the trash along with the note.

  “What was that all about?” asked Jackie.

  “You remember that guy I told you about before we left for the Mills home?”

  Jackie nodded.

  “Well, he sent me a candy gram. Even though I told him that I wasn’t interested.”

  “Interested in what?”

  I looked at Greg suddenly realizing that I hadn’t told him about Jeremy. “I ran into this guy on campus and he asked me out. I told him ‘no’.”

  “And you forgot to tell me?”

  “We have been a little busy,” I said. “You know— with the haunted house and everything.”

  “Don’t sweat it,” said Greg chuckling. “I know you wouldn’t cheat on me. So this guy sent you a box of candy? Maybe he’s just persistent.”

  “A little too persistent for my taste,” I said.

  Jackie reached into the trash can and grabbed the note. She read it quickly. “Seems like you have a secret admirer,” she joked.

  I must have been the only one who didn’t find this funny.

  Timothy bent down and picked up the box of candy. He took one and tried to bite into it.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “I love candy. I miss being able to eat it,” he said.

  “But you’re dead.” Immediately I regretted saying that. Timothy got a hurt look on his face and dropped the box back in the garbage. “I didn’t mean—”

  “I may be dead, but I still have feelings,” he snapped. “And just because I wasn’t at the house this afternoon doesn’t mean you can insult me.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I just don’t know what I’m saying right now.”

  “Chinese,” blurted out Jackie.

  We all stared at her. Her outburst came from nowhere.

  “I meant, why don’t we all go get some Chinese food,” she clarified. “I can go get it and bring it back here. It will take about thirty minutes and you two can be alone.”

  “What about me?” asked Timothy.

  “You’re coming with me,” said Jackie.

  She snatched up her keys and purse and went toward the door.

  “Oh, and, don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” she joked as she left. “Tim!”

  Timothy sighed a bit and disappeared. Apparently, even Jackie could intimidate a ghost. Which I found amusing considering her actions within the Pen Mills Estate.

  Thirty minutes later the smell of Chinese food filled the apartment as Jackie arrived with three plastic bags full or it. Greg and I were still seated on the couch engrossed in conversation. Mostly that’s what we do is talk. I think it’s wonderful to have someone you can bare your soul too. But, when the food arrived, my stomach reminded me I hadn’t eaten in hours.

  I leapt over the back of the couch for the food.

  “Whoa, slow down, girl,” said Jackie moving the bags out of reach. “Everyone in the kitchen who wants to eat.”

  I went to the cupboards for some plates. I set the table as everyone took their seats. Timothy stood in a corner eyeing an empty chair. He had made himself visible for everyone. I placed a plate on the table for him. I knew he wouldn’t be able to eat, but I had hoped the gesture would brighten him up.

  Timothy smiled slightly as his face brightened a bit. He sat in the empty chair. To an outsider we would all look rather funny talking to a seemingly empty chair as we ate and laughed.

  “You’ll never guess what happened,” said Jackie.

  “Oh,” I replied.

  “While we were out getting the food, we went past the antique shop. There were cops all around it,” said Jackie.

  “Why?” asked Greg.

  “Apparently a few items had been stolen,” replied Jackie. “Small items mostly and one or two big ones.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. The owner said that a clock dating back to 1703 had been taken along with a desk that was believed to have belonged to Ethan Allen himself. Other jewelry boxes, watches, and buttons had disappeared as well. He said that even a chamber pot had been lifted.”

  “A chamber pot,” said Greg with disbelief.

  “The owner said it was made entirely of silver and had been engraved by Paul Revere himself. He was going to auction it off next week,” said Jackie.

  “Who would want a silver chamber pot?” I asked.

  “Chamber pots were the equivalent of a toilet back in the days before the flushable toilette. Some of the wealthy had fancy chairs made that would hold the chamber pot. It allowed them to go to the bathroom comfortably,” said Timothy. “I wouldn’t be surprised if a wealthy land owner of the time asked Paul Revere for a silver chamber pot. He was a silversmith and like any artisan of his day he would have engraved it. Some people do like to poop in elegance.”

  We stared at Timothy. I was beginning to grow accustomed to his burst of trivia.

  “Do the cops know who took all that stuff?” asked Greg.

  “No,” said Jackie as she chewed on an eggroll. “The owner said that he had noticed nothing suspicious all day. The only thing out of sorts was a city maintenance worker who was watering the potted plants on the sidewalk.

  “He had locked up his store at the usual time. But about an hour after he had closed up he realized he had forgotten something and went back to get it. That was when he discovered the stuff had been stolen.”

  “That means whoever took it had to have been casing out the place all day and waiting for him to leave,” said Greg.

  ‘It would have been a group of people,” said Timothy. “One person could not have run off with all that stuff.”

  Timothy was right. The crime had to have been committed by a group of thieves. “It sounds like we have a bunch of thieves in our midst,” I said. “Have there been any other break-ins?”

  Everyone shook their heads. Suddenly, I remembered the bracelet we had found at the haunted house. I jumped from my seat and rummaged through my bag looking for it. I brought it back and handed it to Timothy. “We found that at the Pen Mills Estate today. Do you recognize it?”

  Timothy turned it over in his hands studying it. “It looks to be solid gold,” he said. “I’d say that this is a twenty-four Karat gold bracelet. Worth a lot of money.” He gave it back to me.

  “I think there is something weird going on at that place,” I said.

  “The Mills Estate,” said Greg, “That place has been abandoned forever. There was bound to be bits of jewelry left over. It may have belonged to the family that last lived there.”

  Something about Greg’s statement didn’t sound right. He could be correct, but it was too simple of an explanation for me. Jewelry never gets left behind when people move out of a house. And why would that bracelet have been abandoned by a fireplace? Something about that fireplace bothered me. I just couldn’t figure out what.

  “It’s getting late,” I said, “I’m going to bed.” I pecked Greg on the cheek as he left.

  Chapter 5

  I awoke the next morning groggy as ever. I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and began to get dressed. I pulled off my night shirt just in time to hear—

  “Oh, God, flesh. Too much flesh.

  Like lightening, I yanked my shirt back on. “What are you doing here?”

  “We need to solve my murder,” said Timothy.

  “Out of my room,” I said to him. “Rule number one: stay out of my room.”

  “But what about my mystery?”

  “Look,” I say, “I have to work today.”

  “But—”

  I shoved Timothy out my bedroom and slammed the door in his face. How I managed to push a ghost around is beyond me, but at the time I didn’t care. Fuming at the invasion of my privacy, I changed my clothes and went to the kitchen. Quickly, I filled my thermos with coffee and headed out the door.

  When I walked into the Candle Shoppe the smell of donuts filled my n
ostrils. Immediately my stomach reminded me that I had neglected breakfast. I silently told it to shut up. Of course, it didn’t listen to me.

  I went over to the table by the window that had three boxes of donuts. Apparently, Mr. Stilton was trying a new method of getting people to come into the store. Offering free donuts wasn’t a bad idea. A lot of people came in. Most went straight for the food. But a few did wander over to the displays that were strategically placed near the treat. I had to admire Mr. Stilton’s understanding of customers. Give them food and they buy stuff.

  I snatched a jelly donut from a pink, grease covered box. I took a bite allowing the taste of sugary goodness to smother my palate. I’m usually not a big donut person, but considering my stomach was empty, I greatly appreciated this particular donut. I ignored the other customers staring at me as I enjoyed my treat.

  “Mel.” Tammy, a new hire to replace Charlie, ran up to me in a fit. “Those are for the customers.”

  “So, I’m hungry.” My reply sounded ruder than I meant it to.

  “Yeah, well, don’t let Mr. Stilton catch you,” said Tammy.

  “He won’t.”

  “Really, cuz he’s coming this way.”

  I spotted my boss heading in my direction and he did not look happy. Instantly, I crammed the donut into my mouth.

  “Miss Summers.”

  I nodded in response trying to keep from choking on my suddenly not so enjoyable treat. I tried to wipe the frosting off my fingers without attracting too much attention.

  “I need you to get the box of votives from the back and set up a display promoting our spring collection,” he said.

  “OK.” My response sounded more like a guttural noise.

  Mr. Stilton eyed me strangely as though he knew I had a jelly donut in my mouth. “Back to work.” He walked away.

  I grabbed Tammy’s water bottle from her pocket and washed down my donut. Now that my stomach had silenced, though still unsatisfied, I handed Tammy back her water and went to work.

  I spent the morning setting up the spring display with the box of candles. They were quite pretty. The candles were egg shaped and dyed in a variety of bright colors: orange, pink, blue, purple, green, and yellow.

  I added some ribbon and confetti. To me the display looked quite pretty, but Tammy thought it wasn’t girly enough. I couldn’t care less about that. She added a basket with a white bow tied around the handle. Afterward, she scattered some green tinted tinsel making it look like grass.

  I had to admit that her additions did make it much more pleasing to look at. However, my jealousy did not allow me to tell her such a thing. To be honest, the girl got on my nerves.

  “I’m telling you the campus is haunted.”

  The voice attracted my attention. I crept over to where two women talked in what they thought were hushed whispers. I played with some bundles of sage smudging sticks pretending to be busy while I eavesdropped.

  “It’s not haunted,” said the second woman.

  “It is. Look.” The first woman pulled out her phone and brought up a YouTube video. From where I stood, I was unable to get a good look at it.

  “Is this for real?”

  “Yes!”

  “Hey have you heard about the robberies?” asked the second woman.

  “Yeah,” replied the first. “There has been a lot of stuff missing. The jewelry store, the antique shop, and this morning there were cops outside of the computer repair store.”

  “Do they know who’s doing it?”

  “No. The only people that were there were employees and customers. Oh, and a repairman.”

  “Geez. Can’t trust anyone these days.”

  “Yeah.”

  The women walked off and I realized that my attempts to look busy were not succeeding. I walked over to the counter to help customers. I did have to work.

  Finally one o’clock rolled by and I was allowed to take my lunch break. I decided to head to the diner across the street. My stomach growled furiously by then convinced that I had completely forgotten it.

  Suddenly, I remembered that I wanted to look up that video. I pulled out my phone and did a search for a haunting on a Vermont university. Quickly a list of videos popped up. The first one turned out to be dated yesterday. Figuring this was the video those women had discussed earlier I clicked on it. Sure enough the white board in my math class covered the screen. I watched as a marker floated on its own correcting the teacher’s problem. Over a million hits already.

  I glanced across the street and noticed a coffee cup moving on its own. It lifted into the air, tipping as though someone drank from it before settling back on the table. I strolled over to it.

  “Timothy,” I said.

  Timothy materialized before me, his hand wrapped around the Styrofoam cup.

  “What’s up?” I asked.

  “Nothing,” he groaned.

  Uh-oh. A depressed ghost. This couldn’t be good. “I didn’t know ghosts drank coffee,” I said trying to be polite.

  “Ghosts are physically incapable of drinking anything. I’m just doing this to pass the time. I miss coffee.” Timothy stared vacantly at his cup.

  “Hey, you’re famous.” I showed him the video of him writing on the white board. “Over a million hits.”

  “Yay, me.” He sounded really down.

  “Look, about this morning. I shouldn’t have—”

  “Oh, I’m not mad about that. You had every right to kick me out. I should have knocked first.” Timothy lifted the cup again for a pretend sip of coffee.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I don’t think my mystery will be solved,” replied Timothy, “Who am I kidding? You are busy and have a life and I…well. I think I’ll just leave and go away.”

  Suddenly, I felt terrible for him. I had been a bit rude and all he wanted was his murder solved. “Don’t talk like that,” I said.

  A group of guys walked past. They stared at me as though I had lost my mind, which probably wasn’t far from the truth. I smiled awkwardly which just made me appear even more insane. Way to go, Mel.

  “Timothy,” I said, “We’ll solve your murder. But there seems to be another mystery going on here. Remember Jackie talking about the break-ins last night? Well, the computer shop was broken into this morning.”

  “Really?” His eyes lit up with excitement.

  “Yeah. Perhaps you could hang around the cops and learn what they know.”

  Timothy vanished. His coffee cup clunked on the pavement. I didn’t expect him to learn much, but it would give him something to do. Besides, who knows? Maybe we’d solve a bunch of robberies as well as a murder.

  My lunch hour had ended and I still didn’t manage to grab something to eat. Ignoring the pangs of hunger, I strolled back to the Candle Shoppe to finish my shift. A part of me envied Jackie a bit for having the day off.

  The moment I walked through the door the pungent smell of peppermint hit me. This wasn’t the pleasing hint of peppermint. This was the candy cane factory, everything reeked of peppermint.

  “I fixed it!” Tammy had run up to me with a broad smile on her face jabbering about fixing something.

  “What,” I replied.

  “I fixed your display,” said Tammy.

  Fixed it? I didn’t think there was anything wrong with the candle display I did earlier that morning. Tammy grabbed my arm and dragged me to the table I had set up. I guess she thought her few additions weren’t enough.

  Now a huge white piece of cardboard sat behind the basket of candles. On it was some picture of what looked like a purple monster spewing green vomit. Tammy informed me that it was really the Easter Bunny. On the board and all over the table lay peppermint candies. She had glued peppermint candy everywhere. No wonder the place reeked of the stuff.

  I couldn’t believe what I saw. She took what was a simple display of our spring collection and turned it into a cross between Christmas and Easter and God knows what else. The entire thing looked awful. And d
id I mention the smell?

  I was not the only person who hated the new display. Customers ran away from it probably to get away from the aroma. Besides the fact that Tammy’s artwork looked like a science experiment gone wrong.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “I thought your work needed something. It was OK, but this really adds to it.” Tammy’s excitement unnerved me. She was a sweet girl, but tended to just do things without thinking.

  “You guys you—Wow!” Mr. Stilton had walked up wondering where we were. He jumped when he noticed Tammy’s addition to the spring display.

  “You like it?” asked Tammy.

  Tammy had a way of thinking that everyone approved of her work, even when the opposite couldn’t have been truer. By the expression on Mr. Stilton’s face, it was obvious that he hated it.

  “What happened here?” he asked.

  “I thought Mel’s work was a bit bland, so I spiced it up.” Tammy’s enthusiasm wore on me. She spiced it up alright. It couldn’t be any spicier even if she had glued Jalapeno’s all over the place.

  “Tammy,” said Mr. Stilton, “Next time, let the person I assign the work to, do it.”

  “Oh, right,” said Tammy. “I guess my artistic ability can be a bit overpowering.”

  Overpowering was right. Artistic? Hardly.

  “How was lunch?”

  In answer to my boss’ question, my stomach released an extremely loud growl. It was so loud that several customers glanced in my direction. Way to go stomach. I tried to look normal, but my attempts failed.

  “You didn’t eat?”

  “I had a few errands to run,” I said.

  Mr. Stilton pointed me in the direction of the donuts. “There are still a couple left. Help yourself.”

  I smiled at him in appreciation. There were exactly two donuts left. They were the raisin filled kind that no one ever seems to want. They didn’t look appetizing and the fact that they had gone dry and crusty made them even less so.

  Movement outside caught my attention. A city employee moseyed around picking up bits of garbage. But that isn’t what made me study him. Despite the normalcy of his movements, something about him didn’t seem right. He lingered in front of the store window even though he had gotten all of the trash. His eyes kept darting toward the cash register, which made me a bit nervous.