See Something, page 4
Sometimes, when I look at reflective surfaces—any reflective surface—a mirror, a silver tray, an automobile hubcap, a glass-fronted kitchen cabinet—I see things other people don’t see. I’ve learned that I am what’s known as a “scryer.” My friend River North calls me a “gazer.” Whatever this gift or talent or curse is, it usually shows me things I don’t want to see. This was one of those moments.
First came the flashing lights, then the swirling colors that always precede the damned things. There in the glass I saw the man, his eyes wide and frightened, mouth open in a silent scream. These visions don’t usually have sound, but I knew the man was screaming. In water up to his neck, his head thrashed back and forth. I couldn’t see his hands. His mouth was still open when his head sank beneath the water.
Was this the sight that had robbed Jane Doe of her memory?
CHAPTER 5
The vision disappeared as quickly as it had come. Once again, I saw a hazy reflection of Aunt Ibby’s friendly kitchen superimposed on the Jadeite bowls and Bennington custard cups neatly stacked on the shelves behind the glass, but the image of the man in the water remained imprinted on my mind. Did Jane Doe witness the actual happening? Did she actually hear the scream that I’d only glimpsed in a square of ordinary window glass? The thought was chilling.
“Maralee? Are you ready with the vegetables?”
“Coming right up,” I answered, glad for the interruption, placing the steaming bowls of bright green peas and fluffy mashed potatoes onto a tole serving tray, carrying it to the table. Pete completed his near-professional meat-carving job while my aunt placed a full gravy boat and a silver bowl of sparkling mint jelly onto the table.
Aunt Ibby took her usual seat—one of the things we like about round tables, there’s no “head of the table” position. I sat beside Pete. Jane, seated beside my aunt, placed a linen napkin in her lap. “Everything looks so pretty and smells so good,” she said. “Thank you for inviting me.”
The meal was like many others I’d enjoyed with family and friends at this same table. I’d expected that maybe Pete would pursue questioning Jane Doe, but he kept the conversation light. Aunt Ibby pried a little bit—asking Jane if she preferred coffee or tea, and Jane answered immediately, “Coffee, I’m quite sure. Yes. Coffee.” One more fact, but a minor one.
Aunt Ibby pressed on, still on the subject of food. “I’ll start the coffee and pop the peach pie into the microwave for a second or two just to heat it up before I put the ice cream on top. Do you like pie, Jane?”
“I’m pretty sure I do.” This line of questions would get us nowhere. I decided to try a different angle.
“Jane. Do you remember where you slept last night?”
She frowned, then scrunched her eyes together with an exaggerated look of concentration. “I had pajamas on,” she said, opening her eyes. “Pink ones, I think.”
I tried again, thinking about my own unwelcome visions. “Can you visualize the room you slept in?”
The eyes scrunched up again, then flew wide-open. “I can kind of see it, but it doesn’t mean anything.” She shrugged. “I’ve never seen it before.”
“What do you say, Pete?” my aunt asked. “Do you think it will be all right if Jane spends tonight with us?” She looked at her watch. “It’s a little late for you to make other arrangements, isn’t it? Besides, she’s a very nice girl.” She nodded affirmatively at her own statement. “I’m sure of it.”
Pete’s cop face was firmly in place, so I couldn’t tell what he thought about Jane’s niceness or lack of it. He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out his phone, glanced at it, and stood. “Excuse me. I need to take this call.” He stepped out into the back hall, closing the door firmly behind him. O’Ryan, in a display of typical feline curiosity, followed him. It’s an old house, and not particularly soundproof. I could detect a buzz of conversation from the hall, but couldn’t make out the words. If I’d been alone in the kitchen, I definitely would have had my ear to the door. Instead, Jane and I made polite comments about food while my aunt retrieved the warm pie from the microwave and selected a carton of vanilla ice cream from the freezer.
Pete reappeared just as pie and coffee were served. “Chief says we should get the woman examined by a doctor to be sure this memory problem isn’t caused by an injury. Then to answer your question, Ms. Russell, if she checks out okay she can stay here for tonight. No beds available at the shelter. Also, it seems that we already have an ID on John Doe. The manager of the Hawthorne Hotel recognized the artist’s drawing. The man was registered there. Coincidentally, his name is actually John. John Sawtelle from Brookline—just outside Boston.” He sat once again, leaning forward, facing Jane Doe. “Does any of that sound familiar to you, Jane?”
“Not exactly.” The voice was soft, hesitant. “The man in the picture looked familiar to me. I already told Lee that—but you know, that bedroom Lee asked me to visualize—now that you mention it, it looked like a hotel bedroom, not a real person’s room, you know? So, is this John Sawtelle someone I know? Did I stay at the same hotel?”
“We think it’s possible that you were at the Hawthorne Hotel at the same time John Sawtelle was registered there. After dinner I’ll take you down to the station, where we can scan your fingerprints. Doc Egan is in his office tonight and he’ll look you over. If you don’t need any medical treatment we’ll come straight back here.”
Jane looked as though she was about to cry again. Aunt Ibby quickly changed the subject. “A lot of people stay at the Hawthorne,” she said. “It doesn’t mean you know that poor man, and Doctor Egan used to be our family doctor before he became medical examiner. If you do have an injury, he’ll fix you up just fine, and I’ll bet the fingerprints will tell us your name and you’ll remember everything.” She reached over and patted Jane’s hand. “Later tonight a couple of my girlfriends are coming over to watch one of our favorite shows. I’d love for you to meet them.”
“The Angels?” Pete asked, not bothering to hide his smile.
The “Angels”—Aunt Ibby, Betsy Leavitt, and Louisa Abney-Babcock fancy themselves amateur sleuths, with ambitions toward becoming “real detectives.” They actually do have certain detecting skills among them, which have proven useful to law enforcement in the past. Between Betsy’s looks—she’s still modeling professionally at sixty-something; Louisa’s important contacts—she has enormous wealth and a pedigree back to the Mayflower and beyond; and my aunt’s research ability and high-tech aptitude, they have access to people, places, and secrets the FBI and CIA might envy.
“Right,” Aunt Ibby said. “I’m sure you’d like my friends, Jane, and I know they’d love to meet you. We get together sometimes to have a little wine and watch the newest episode of Midsomer Murders. Maralee joins us sometimes, don’t you, dear?”
“I do,” I admitted.
If anyone can pry Jane Doe’s secrets out of her, those three can do it.
Pete must have had the same thought. “That’s a good idea, Ms. Russell. It’ll be good for Jane to have some company around her.”
The pie and ice cream finished, I stood and began to clear the table. Jane Doe had already started to stack the dessert plates and forks neatly. Does that mean she’s well brought-up, or has she worked as a waitress? “More coffee, anyone?” I asked. Jane and my aunt both nodded. Pete paused and fiddled with his phone. I refilled our cups and returned to my seat, realizing that my invisible field-reporter hat was once again firmly in place. How could I frame a question that might jog her memory, but still sound sympathetic to her situation? And what if my recent terrifying vision had shown me exactly what Jane had seen? That might very well be a memory we don’t want to jog. For a long moment we three sipped our coffee in silence while O’Ryan, from across the room, regarded Jane with undisguised cat-interest.
“I do hope you’ll be able to join us this evening, Jane,” my aunt said. “Betsy and Louisa are such interesting women, and besides . . .” She dropped her voice and looked from side to side as though someone might be listening. “The reason we get together for TV-mystery-watching every week is because we share a common interest in solving mysteries. Real mysteries. Isn’t that right, Maralee?”
I had to agree. “Right,” I said.
Aunt Ibby warmed to the subject. “Someday we hope to form our own detective agency, but for now we’re what they call ‘amateur sleuths.’ Maybe, just maybe we can help you get some answers to your own mystery—for instance, why were you sitting on a bench in the common, not even knowing your own name?”
Jane’s eyes suddenly opened wide. “Emily,” she said. “I think maybe my name is Emily.”
CHAPTER 6
“Emily.” Pete tucked his phone into his pocket. “That’s good. You’re beginning to remember things bit by bit, like the cat and the pink pajamas and now your name. That’s really good.”
“Transient global amnesia,” my aunt, wearing her wise-old-owl face, declared. “Mark my words.”
“What?” Pete, Jane, and I all answered at once.
“Mirage, 1965,” my movie-buff aunt declared. “Gregory Peck played an accountant with transient global amnesia. Great old black-and-white movie. He remembered things bit by bit, just like Jane does.”
Jane/Emily tapped her temple. “Gregory Peck played an accountant?”
“In Mirage he did,” Aunt Ibby said. “Maybe you’ve seen it?”
“I don’t think so. It’s just something about him being an accountant that seems familiar.”
That seemed encouraging. “See? You’re remembering things faster and faster,” my optimistic aunt pointed out. “Not just the cat and the hotel room and the pink pajamas, but certain words mean something to you. I’ll bet by tomorrow your mystery will be solved, just like Gregory’s”
“Let’s get started then,” Pete said. “Do you have a sweater, Jane—er, Emily? It’s getting chilly outside.”
“You can keep calling me Jane if you want to. I’m not positive about the Emily thing. Anyway, I have a pink sweater. I put it in the laundry.”
“It’s a lovely cashmere sweater,” Aunt Ibby said, “but it badly needs dry cleaning. I’m sure Maralee can lend her one for the evening. We can get the sweater cleaned, but I don’t know what to do about the shoes. They’re a total mess. They’re suede, you know, and they have lots of little metal studs on them. They’ve picked up all kinds of mucky stuff.”
“I’ll run up and get her a sweater.” I ducked into the front hall, avoiding even a glance at the damned mirror, hurried upstairs, grabbed a white cardigan, and zoomed back down to where the others waited. “Here you go.” I handed the sweater to Jane, who once again wore a frightened look. “It’s going to be all right,” I told her. “You’ll be back here with us in no time.”
“Could you come with me?” Her voice was thin, tiny. I looked over at Pete, thought about the pile of work in my briefcase, and didn’t answer.
“It might make it a little easier for her, Lee. You can come along if you want to.”
What could I say? I was the one who’d brought her home. “I’ll come with you, Jane. You’ll see. We’ll be back here in no time.”
“Ms. Russell, if you don’t mind,” Pete said, “I’d like to take those shoes along with us to the station.”
“Of course.” My aunt hurried back toward the kitchen and returned quickly with the shoes in a ziplock bag. “They’re pretty nasty, and they were beginning to smell bad,” she apologized, “but here they are.”
It wasn’t exactly “in no time,” but things did move quickly when we got to the police station. The fingerprinting was interesting. They don’t use the fingers-on-the-ink-pad method anymore. They use a scanner. Faster and much less messy. While the tech studied the results of the scan, Pete looked over his shoulder and Jane stood behind Pete, seemingly studying the lettering on a door marked “Forensics.” Doc Egan stepped out of his office a few doors away and greeted me. “Hello there, Lee. Seems as though you turn up like a bright new penny under some pretty dark circumstances. You reporting on the Sawtelle matter?”
I shook my head. “Nope. Not reporting on anything. I’m here for moral support for—um—Jane Doe.” I pointed to Jane. “I guess you’re going to see if you can figure out what happened to her memory.”
“Just checking for head trauma. She a friend of yours?”
“Not exactly. I kind of found her on the common and brought her home to Aunt Ibby.”
He didn’t even look surprised. “She followed me home can I keep her, huh?”
“Pretty much. She seems like a good person. She’s frightened. It must be terrifying to not even remember your own name.”
“We’ll see if we can eliminate a blow to the head anyway, then we’ll take it from there.”
“Aunt Ibby says it’s transient global amnesia.”
He smiled. “Has Ibby been watching General Hospital?”
“Gregory Peck,” I said.
He nodded as though my answer made sense and moved toward where Pete and Jane stood, his hand outstretched. “How do you do, young lady. I’m Doctor Egan. Let’s see if we can figure out what’s going on with you.”
Jane Doe took a step back. Once again, she asked, “Can you come with me, Lee?”
Could I? Do I even want to? I threw a questioning look in Pete’s direction.
“What do you say, Doc?” he asked. “It’s all right with me.”
“If it will make you feel better, Lee may certainly join us. This won’t take long, and I promise it won’t hurt a bit. Step into my office.” He led us down a short hall and opened the door marked MEDICAL EXAMINER while Pete, with the plastic-wrapped shoes, walked toward the door marked EVIDENCE ROOM.
The doctor’s statement had been true. It didn’t take long and didn’t appear to hurt. He took her blood pressure and temperature with some pretty fancy-looking equipment, took her pulse the old-fashioned way, fingers on her wrist, checking his watch. He ran his hands over her skull, pressed her temples and behind her ears. “I don’t see any bruising.” He shone a flashlight into her eyes one at a time, then used a different light to look into her ears, all the while asking questions. “Are you dizzy at all? Is your vision clouded? Any ringing in your ears? Headache? Can you remember anything at all?”
Jane told him about the few things she’d told us, about the cat and the pajamas and the name Emily. “Sometimes it’s just a word that seems to mean something to me,” she said. “This whole thing is so weird and strange. I don’t like it.”
Doc has a good bedside manner. I remembered how kind and caring he’d always been with me and Aunt Ibby anytime we’d consulted him. Jane’s vital signs and answers to questions apparently meant she didn’t have a head injury, and after about fifteen minutes we were back in the hall where Pete waited.
“All clear?” he asked.
“I think we can rule out head trauma as a cause of the problem for now,” the doctor reported, “and since she’s beginning to remember a few things, it’s probably a temporary condition.” He shook Jane’s hand again. “I think you’ll be fine, young lady. However, if you develop a headache, blurred vision, ringing in your ears, we’ll set you up for some scans. Don’t you hesitate to call if you need me. Ibby has my private number.” He winked at me. “Tell your aunt her diagnosis is quite possibly correct.” He shook his head. “Gregory Peck, indeed.”
“The doctor says it’s a temporary condition. That’s a relief. But if I didn’t hit my head, what made my memory disappear?”
You saw a man being murdered.
Getting her memory back was going to be traumatic for sure. I put on a happy face. “Aunt Ibby will be anxious to know what Doc Egan said. Can we leave now, Pete?”
“No problem,” he said. “I’ll drop you two off and come back here to tie up some loose ends.” We three climbed back into Pete’s car and headed for home.
As we rounded the corner to Washington Square, Jane Doe pressed her face against the window. “That’s the Salem Common,” she said. She pointed. “And that’s where you found me, Lee.” Stacia’s bench was barely visible in the dim glow of streetlamps. We turned onto Winter Street and Pete parked in front of the house.
“Look, Jane,” I said. “There’s O’Ryan in the window waiting for us.”
“Just like before,” she said. “It seems like a long time ago.” It seemed that way to me too.
I unlocked the front door. O’Ryan gave us each an enthusiastic greeting. Aunt Ibby was right behind him in the foyer, concern in her voice. “What did the doctor say? Are you all right, Jane?” We gave her the good news about Jane’s condition and I repeated Doc’s confirmation of her movie-inspired diagnosis.
“Good. Then that’s settled. Maralee, why don’t you show Jane the second-floor guest room. Fix her up with pajamas and toothbrush and such. The girls will be here at around nine thirty. We’ll meet in the living room.”
I knew I had some serious work to do on my presentation for Mr. Doan, and stopping to watch a TV show certainly hadn’t been in my plan. He’d be expecting some sort of proposal to share with the sales force by noon tomorrow. But between Pete’s “Keep an eye on her” and my aunt’s confidence in the Angels’ mystery-solving abilities, I’d have to rearrange my priorities.
“No problem,” I said, in as agreeable a tone as I could manage. “May I use your office for a while this evening, Aunt Ibby? I have a little homework to do. Your printer is better than mine, and I’d like to use your spiral-binding machine.” I wouldn’t have the artwork until tomorrow sometime, but I knew from experience that a spiral-bound report along with a promise of a PowerPoint presentation to come—even if the project wasn’t completely thought out—would make a good impression on Bruce Doan.
“A spiral binder? My goodness. You must have a very complete home office, Ms. Russell. I’d love to see it.”
