The Mrs Pettigrew she knew might just be a hallucination born of brain damage, but the real woman earned Emily’s empathy. How terrible to be reduced to a pile of items with a series of thieves eager to enrich themselves.
The murder was a game Emily’s mind had played with itself but given the terrible circle of folk surrounding the real Cynthia Pettigrew, it was plausible. With her thoughts mired in troublesome relatives, she moved the cursor onto the coroner’s report and pushed play.
One of the problems with listening to a robot was the even cadence of the words. It was soothing, even on the parts where Emily had to struggle to work out the meaning because the emphasis went on the wrong syllable, producing an entirely different-sounding word.
The hypnotic pull had Emily firmly in its grip when the report came to a section outlining Mrs Pettigrew’s prescription pills. The local doctor had written out the script, and she’d filled them at the Evensbreak Pharmacy.
Emily frowned, the information taking a moment to filter through to her subconscious where it triggered a memory. When the connection came, she sat bolt upright.
Evensbreak Pharmacy was the place where Mrs Pettigrew had told her the pharmacist had been so rude, she’d stopped going.
For a second, Emily paused, wondering if she could place any weight on a hallucination’s speech. Then she remembered the pharmacist herself had verified the situation. She’d explained the deceased woman had chastised her about filling prescriptions for her stepson and never apologised.
The pharmacist had said Mrs Pettigrew wasn’t welcome in the chemist after that.
Emily leaned over and fiddled until she could play the section back. Her ears hadn’t mistaken her. The report stated the pharmacy that filled the prescription was the only place in town that wouldn’t do it.
Listening to it for the third time, Emily began to chew her lip. This time, the information she remembered had come directly from the hallucination’s mouth and nowhere else.
What on earth are all these squiggles? Mrs Pettigrew had said on the first night of their acquaintance. This handwriting is even worse than my GP and Dr Pearson has a famously terrible hand.
Dr Pearson wasn’t the local GP. That was Dr Attica. Emily told the computer to search the yellow pages. It informed her Dr Pearson was based in Christchurch.
She sat back, puzzling over the two facts like they were colourful squares on a Rubik’s cube. How did they fit in with everything else she’d learned about the deceased Mrs Pettigrew? Were they indications of a crime or did they just point to a sloppy investigation?
Evidence. The sergeant had been very clear he wouldn’t take another look at the case without physical evidence. Did the wrong doctor writing a prescription filled at the wrong pharmacy count?
You’re just avoiding thinking about your own position, one part of Emily’s mind insisted. Stop procrastinating and start to think seriously about your future.
Oh, no. Her future hurt far too much for Emily to spend time on right now. She had the computer read the time out to her. Even though a million significant events seemed to have occurred so far today, it assured her it was only three o’clock.
Plenty of time to make a phone call to a doctor, just to check if a certain patient was still registered to their practice.
Emily already knew the privacy act laws would forbid the release of patient information. It didn’t stop her pretending to be someone she wasn’t.
“This is Mrs Pettigrew speaking. I’d like to make an appointment to see Dr Pearson.”
She held her breath, half expecting the receptionist to be suspicious at once. Worse, she might ask a barrage of questions to confirm Emily’s false identity.
“Can you spell your last name?”
No. Emily swallowed hard and channelled the spirit of her days-long hallucination. “Of course, I can spell my last name, dear. Can you bring up my file? I’m on a tight schedule here.”
“Certainly, Mrs Pettigrew.” The receptionist sounded apologetic. “What date and time were you after? Our first free appointment is at ten o’clock tomorrow.”
“Oh, not that early. It’s nothing urgent. In fact, I’m sorry to do this but somebody’s just rung on the door. Can I call you back?”
She clicked the phone off before the receptionist could answer. Her heart beat so hard it made her throat click. A current patient, then. Unless the woman on the phone had been too rushed to check, they hadn’t even crossed Cynthia off their patient list as deceased.
Surely, it was standard for the coroner to inform the doctor of a patient’s death when they were their primary medical caregiver? You could only enrol with one practice at a time. Emily had gone through the process of re-enrolment when she first moved to Pinetar so her medical records would all be accessible to the local doctor here.
A doctor Mrs Pettigrew didn’t usually see had prescribed her a drug she’d never taken before, and she’d filled the script at a pharmacist who wouldn’t serve her.
Suddenly, the suggestion of murder didn’t seem as farfetched, after all.
As Emily laced her hands behind her head and stared at the ceiling, her mind made clicks and connections, trying to fit together all the pieces of the puzzle she’d learned. When her stomach growled the first time, she ignored it, too intent on immersing herself in the new game.
The second time, Peanut joined in with the noise from her stomach, mewling from the kitchen door.
“Okay, kitty. I’ll take a break.” Emily walked through to the kitchen. If she remembered correctly, there was stir fry left over from yesterday. The confrontation with Pete had emptied out her appetite last night but the grumbling signalled its welcome return.
With a start, Emily realised Peanut’s food bowl was already full. She picked it up, along with his water bowl, and frowned, sniffing at the contents. The edge of the food had hardened into spiky shapes.
It was the same brand of cat food, the same flavour. Yesterday, Peanut had eaten half of it before she finished pouring out the can.
“Don’t you like this anymore, Peanut?” She reached out a hand to stroke his back.
Her fingers went straight through his fur.
Emily’s vision darkened as she examined the cat. He nudged up to the edge of the bowl and tried to eat but his head just disappeared into the mess of food.
A ghost. Peanut was a ghost.
“Oh, no.” Emily clutched at the neck of her blouse and spun in a circle, hunting for the physical pet. Maybe this was a mistake. Was she hallucinating again? Had her mind taken the confrontation with the case managers and worked itself into a tizzy?
“Peanut?” she called out as she limped into the hallway.
She checked in the laundry room where his litter tray sat untouched. He wasn’t in the bathroom where a few days before he’d shredded an entire roll of toilet paper for his own amusement.
She was scared to enter her bedroom. The icy tendrils of suspicion that crept down her neck and up over her scalp were bad enough. She didn’t want to turn it into certainty.
But there were no other rooms in the house to check.
Emily stood frozen in the hallway for as long as she could stand. When her legs insisted she move or collapse, she stumbled forward, lurching through the doorway.
The grey cat lay curled up on the bedspread where the morning sun would have shone. Emily lay beside the animal, stroking his cooling fur, her heart breaking into a million pieces while Peanut’s ghost tried to curl into her arms.
Chapter Twenty-One
Emily was still lying on the bed when the doorbell rang. She ignored it.
During the hours that had passed since finding Peanut, she’d fetched a large shoebox and lined it with a quilt he’d spent hours picking stitches out of. His ghost mewled in disappointment as she shut the lid.
Maybe ghost cat had a point. If Peanut wasn’t going to cross over the rainbow bridge, perhaps she should keep the quilt out for his spirit to play with here.
The doo
rbell sounded again. Emily cast a sour glance at the entrance but refused to answer it. The decision was as much in the guest’s benefit as hers. With her current mood, she wouldn’t be great company.
She knew Peanut should be buried soon. Emily was torn over whether to do that herself in her own small backyard or take the cat’s remains back to his owners. She’d feel guilty to keep the cat to herself in death the same way she’d taken him in life, but also couldn’t imagine turning up on the Pettigrew’s doorstep with a cardboard coffin.
To throw her out on her ear would be the kindest response she could imagine.
A knocking came, this time a knuckle on her kitchen window. Emily turned a guilty scowl toward the sound, hoping the net curtains would shield her from prying eyes.
Abraham stood outside the house. The handsome line of his jaw might be the same, but the man’s hair stood on end and, even through the masking curtain, his eyes were clearly bloodshot.
A jolt ran through Emily’s body. Did he know about the cat already? Had it caused him a sleepless night?
She shook her head, following his progress as the man left the kitchen and headed around the back. He wouldn’t get very far—a gate walled off the rear garden. Peanut had been alive yesterday. She was being silly, her emotions overwrought.
The clear sound of somebody vaulting her back gate came to her. Emily rushed to the laundry room, peering through the small window at the same time Abraham cupped his hands around the glass to look in from the other side.
She jumped back, but it was too late. With a groan, Emily unlocked the door and opened it to her unwanted guest.
“Hey there, Miss.” Abraham tipped his hat, then took it off to work the brim between his hands. “I’m sorry to barge in like this, but you’re wanted up at the Pettigrew’s house.”
“Do you know what time it is?” Emily didn’t. She’d lost track completely but guessed it must be seven or later because of the heavy blush of pink tinting the clouds.
“I do,” the man said, shaking his head, “but it doesn’t change anything. Please come to the house.” Perhaps reading the reluctance on Emily’s expression he dropped his voice to a pleading whisper, “There’s someone summoning you there. She won’t leave the rest of us alone. I don’t usually stand for no truck about the afterlife but…”
His voice fell away completely, and he rubbed his eyes. When Abraham took his hand away, they appeared even more bloodshot than before.
“Cynthia Pettigrew is demanding you come up there, at once. She burned it into the grass with bleach. The letters are four feet tall.”
Abraham’s garbled account of what had been happening at the Pettigrew household in the last week didn’t leave Emily very much the wiser. She kept shaking her head, tracking the length of her scar with her fingertips, very much scared this was a newer, stronger hallucination.
If so, somebody would be along soon to lock her up and throw away the key. Time spent in a funny farm might be a respite from the tumultuous events of the past month.
“She never did like it when she couldn’t get her way,” Abraham burst out with just before he pulled the car into the driveway and Emily gasped.
Every window in the house appeared broken. Glass spilled out onto the windowsills and the gravel in front of the brick structure twinkled with hidden dangers. On the upper floors, where the ivy grew thickest, the green ropy strands held dozens of shards prisoner.
“What happened here?” Emily asked as she got out of the car.
In response, Abraham burst into tears. To see a man of such solidity and strength break down sent a jolt of fear plunging straight into Emily’s heart. She gulped and turned her eyes back to the residence.
Curtains were smeared and streaked with dirt and paint. As she rounded the side of the house, taking care with every step, a viscous substance dripped off the flapping kitchen drapes. Blood was her first thought, but closer to, the unmistakable scent of tomato sauce allowed Emily’s heart to settle back into its steady rhythm.
Hilda stood in the middle of the room, wiping her hands on her apron. From where Emily stood her hands looked to be the cleanest things in the room, so assumed the gesture was a compulsion.
“Oh,” the woman said, raising her hand up to her mouth, then dropping back to the apron. “You’re here! I hope you can get her to stop doing this.”
Emily was about to ask what ‘this’ was, then a plate flew out of the cabinet, missed Hilda’s head by a centimetre, and smashed into the far wall.
She hurried around to the door, opening it while Abraham followed along behind her more slowly. “I told you to wait upstairs,” he said to Hilda as he passed her by. “Remember your blood pressure.”
Emily ignored the two of them, focused instead on Mrs Pettigrew who stood in the hallway, waiting, hands on her hips.
“About time, Scarface. I have a score to settle and I need your help to do it.”
When Emily opened her mouth to protest, a vase floated up from the side table near the door and hung in mid-air. Forgetting what she’d meant to say, Emily shook her head instead. “I spent all day today being bullied. I’m not about to accept the same from you.”
The vase floated menacingly for a moment longer, then settled back into place.
From behind Emily came a mewing sound, then Peanut hopped into view. Mrs Pettigrew bent down, gasping in surprised delight, and the cat came running to leap into her arms.
“Good kitty,” she whispered, her throat choking with emotion, then turned her attention back to Emily. “I suppose I should be angry with you for not taking better care of him.” Mrs Pettigrew raised one eyebrow, tilting her head to one side.
“I tried,” Emily began to say, then the ghost wrinkled her nose and laughed.
“I know you loved him, too. He just got a bit old.”
“Unlike you.” Emily stared at Mrs Pettigrew’s face, consumed with love for her pet this time, unlike the façade of indifference she often presented. “I thought you were make-believe.”
“Well, perhaps I am. If so, I’d like to be ten years younger and ten pounds lighter.” The ghost smoothed her hands over the lean lines of her body. “Can you get your hallucination to do that?”
“I don’t think so.” Emily smiled. “And there’s no chance I could dream up a phantasm that throws so many plates.”
Peanut mewled to be let down and Mrs Pettigrew released him, eyes tracking him as he scampered to the stairs and placed his paws on the first riser.
Emily watched the two of them together and emotion stirred within her. For so long, the shards in her skull had been nothing but a nuisance. Now, she felt the potential for a different outcome altogether.
What had Pete said to her at work that first day? You do the best with what you have.
Emily didn’t have the ability to read and write, and soon she might not be able to move around under her own steam. But she did have a lesion in her brain that opened a window into an entirely different world. As much as she’d tried to shut it or hope it would go away, she now viewed it in a new light.
She spun on her heel, spreading her arms wide. “I’ll need a few more people to gather here if I’m to rid this house of your terrible ghost.” She winked at Mrs Pettigrew, who offered her a smile of pleasure back.
“First off, I require the services of this town’s finest medium, Crystal Dreaming. She’s the only one who can assist me with understanding the spirit’s intention. Someone needs to take me to her at once.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
A huddle of reporters continued to crush up against Crystal’s front door, eager for a short phrase or a quick snap. Emily sat in the car, happy to let Abraham face their probing questions and intrusive cameras while she slumped in the back seat.
After a few minutes, Crystal walked out, shielding her face with a newspaper. Perhaps not the best choice of cover considering it held her picture with a headline above it condemning her as a fraud. Still, the contents of the article didn’t keep h
er from reaching the car and fumbling with the door handle. Emily reached over to let her in, and the medium collapsed into the passenger seat, panting from the effort.
“What’s going on?” The expression of concern on Crystal’s face dragged Emily close to tears.
She’d written this woman off, yet, in the midst of personal and professional upheaval, Crystal was only worried for her.
“The ghost is back,” Emily said as Abraham started the car and reversed out of the crowd of reporters. “And this time she’s throwing a lot of stuff about.”
“A poltergeist?” Crystal’s face lit up with enthusiasm. “I’ve seen one before but not very powerful. She’s actually lifting physical objects up?”
“She’s pelting them at our heads,” Abraham said in a gravelly voice, betraying too little sleep. “We were just about at our wit's end, then she demanded to talk to Ms Curtis. Mr Pettigrew fled to his company office and Gregory’s cowering in the back of his wardrobe, afraid to come out.”
“Leaving you and Hilda to deal with her?” Crystal sat back with pursed lips destroying her usually cheerful countenance. “I hope that man has offered to give you both a raise.”
Abraham snorted with something near delight. “Good one. As soon as he’s caught up with our back pay, I’m sure that’ll be top of his mind.”
“He’s not paying you?”
“Mr Pettigrew’s not paying anybody right now. He’s scrambling just to keep the electricity turned on.”
Abraham pulled the car over to the side of the road and turned back to Emily. “I won’t lie. Part of the reason I contacted you when the writing on the lawn appeared was selfishness. If she destroys any more of that house, then he won’t be able to sell. If he can’t turn that property into cash, I’m going to be out of pocket. Two staff employed on a personal basis aren’t going to have a look-in at money once the rest of his debtors make their claims.”
“He’s selling the property?” Emily shook her head, puzzled. She hadn’t noticed any signs out in front.
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