APPLE ROAD: THE CIDER CELLAR DISCOTHEQUE

"So tell me," special agent Mavis Taylor handed her partner Dill Murphy a tray of coffee before getting into the car, "What do you make of our Nancy Drew? Should we arrest her, take her into protective custody or recruit her?"

Twice a week, like clockwork, Cherie Solange showed up at the main library. She read everything available about serial murder. She scoured the newspapers of all the major cities to keep up with developments. She found out that the FBI was looking for a killer who had an Apple Road connection as well as a Hollywood connection. The killer had access to a stretch limousine. His nicknames were as scattered as his victims. A headline in Los Angeles read, "Stretch Strikes Again". On the east coast it was, "Johnny Appleseed Plants Another One".

"She's guilty of something," Dill said with his mouth full.

"What?" Mavis kept her eyes on the library building.

"Boring me to death. Ruining my Saturday nights," Dill inspected his sandwich.

"For someone who collects so much information, she never tries to inject herself...." Mavis stopped short. Cherie Solange exited the library but she wasn't wearing the same clothes she had on when she had entered the library. The skimpy lavender dress was so light that it looked like the evening breeze might blow it off her. She wore gold high heeled sandals that changed her gait.

"I take back what I said," Dill's eyes bugged out.

They followed her to the Cider Cellar Discotheque. She disappeared inside. A limousine pulled up. Gottfried got out and limped around to open the door for Jarvis Heidelbeere and his beautiful date.

"Do you think she's looking to get killed?" Dill asked his partner.

"Maybe she's got disco fever," Mavis shrugged. She had no idea what was wrong with Cherie. It was probably more than one thing.

~ To Be Continued ~

APPLE ROAD: L.A. WOMAN

He used binoculars to watch her leave her tiny studio apartment on West Riverside Drive. She walked towards the freeway overpass where she would get in line for The Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson as she did every Friday afternoon. As usual, she was dressed to impress, hoping that she would catch Johnny's eye and get discovered.

When she arrived at the entrance to the 134 Freeway overpass, he started the engine and drove to the center of the overpass and got out of the limo. He walked towards her carrying a single rose, an envelope embossed with the letters "VIP Pass" and an empty champagne glass.

"Mr. Carson graciously requests your presence at a pre-show party at an undisclosed restaurant across the street from the studio," the limo driver smiled.

She wanted to believe it was really happening. By the time she realized she was being abducted, it was too late.

~ To Be Continued ~

APPLE ROAD: A HOLLYWOOD BUNGALOW

"Gas masks?" Agent Mavis Taylor raised her eyebrows.

"What's in there?" Agent Dillard Murphy asked.

"It's not in the house. It's in the pool," Police Sergeant Alder handed them masks and put on his own and motioned for them to follow him on the stone path to the back yard.

"Gas masks?" Agent Taylor repeated.

"We don't know what we are dealing with and we've been having a vomitous situation with law enforcement officers contaminating the scene with unprecedented volumes of vomit," Sergeant Alder opened the side yard gate. They ran into a man wearing scuba gear who walked past them quickly shaking his head no.

"You can't dive into that thing. That is not a swimming pool anymore. You throw something on top of it, it doesn't sink," the man suddenly began gagging and vomiting, resting one hand on the side of the house to steady himself. He'd been in such a hurry to get out of the backyard that he didn't bother to take off his scuba gear. 

When the trio arrived at the pool area they noted the vomit filled scuba mask that had been abandoned. Nearby was an upside down life saving pole sticking out of the pool like a candle on a very disgusting birthday cake.

"Alright. Let's check out the house and get a hazard team out here to find out what this is," Murphy threw up his arms. He and Taylor did an about face and hurried into the bungalow.

The bungalow belonged to Oscar-winning actress Angie Richards. Back in the day she had been a stunner. Her career was cut short when alcohol got the best of her.

"Let's check this out," Murphy found a name that appeared frequently in Angie's checkbook and arranged a meeting with the woman.

* * * *

"I was her personal assistant up until a month or so after she won the Oscar," Doreen told the FBI agents.

"We noticed her Oscar was not on display at her bungalow. Would you happen to know where she kept it?" Agent Taylor asked her.

"She didn't get to keep it. That was part of the deal," Doreen replied.

"What deal was that?" Agent Taylor asked.

"If she won the Oscar and accepted it without falling off the stage, delivering a drunken speech about Native American Indians, the actors and politicians she had slept with or any other controversy, then Dr. Bramley got to keep the Oscar for services rendered." Doreen explained.

"Dr. Walter Bramley, the psychiatrist?" Taylor asked.

"Yeah, I think that was his name." Doreen nodded.

Taylor and Murphy returned to the bungalow to see what kind of progress was being made on the pool situation.

"Do you think Angie Richards is at the bottom of that pool?" Sergeant Alder asked the agents.

"God only knows. In the meantime Agent Taylor and I are going back to Appleblossom to re-interview someone who might know," Agent Murphy answered as he took a parting look at the pool. The backyard had become like an archaeological excavation site. There was an eerie atmosphere that reminded Taylor of that movie that had just come out, CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND." She half-expected an alien life form to come out of that pool.

~ To Be Continued ~

APPLE ROAD: THE RAIN SONG | BURNING ALIVE IN HELL

For two and a half months the FBI searched for the torso of Jane Doe One. They never found it. They interviewed almost everyone in the township of Appleblossom and went as far north as the unincorporated hamlet of Lonesome Lake where they located a person of interest with a Hollywood connection, Theodore Embry. Embry was a cousin of a summer blockbuster big wig in Tinsel Town. His could-be-fabulous chalet on the lake was a study in squalor but that wasn't against the law and there was no evidence of foul play.

By April there was only a skeleton crew left behind in Appleblossom. Everyone else was reassigned to the new location in Toluca Lake, California.

No one at Ray Moon's Market and Service Station was considered a person of interest. Ben Baker would have made the list if they could see him now in his trailer on the edge of the apple orchard of St Anthony's Abbey. The snow had melted and the heaviest rains ever came. It was 10:00 in the morning on his day off but he couldn't go trout fishing from his favorite spot on the Apple Road Bridge, so he went to the refrigerator for another six pack of beer. He didn't get up for "a" beer. He grabbed six at a time. He took long drags on his bong and sat around in what passed for his pajamas these days, the uniform shirt stained with the blood of Cherie Solange.

Cherie was in the back office taking orders from Stan Stills, the society page writer. She was fetching stock photos for the piece about the upcoming annual Easter Egg hunt at the abbey. The doctors said she could return to her delivery job but Sam Masterson wanted her to wait one more month. Sam still believed Cherie aspired to be a writer and that she'd been taking writing classes. Craig and Skipper snickered between themselves that it must be hard for her to write with nun-chucks. They kept it as an inside joke between the two of them.

Craig and Skipper were donning their slickers and galoshes.
Skipper walked over to Tina's desk and leaned in towards her to show her he was dead serious. She was looking out her window at the cars in the parking lot. The rain was so heavy that it distorted shapes and made lights crawl like shadows on the wet pavement.

"I mean it, don't call me Skipper anymore. Call me Richard. I'm going back to my given name now. Seriously, Tina is that too much to ask," he noticed her jaw dropped and the blood left her face.

"It's not that big a deal," he frowned. 

Tina stood up like a zombie and looked right through Skipper and let out a high pitched scream. She ran towards the front door. Just as the door squeaked open, she leap upon the him and wrapped her legs around his waist tight.

"Hey, Tina," His voice was horse and deeper than they remembered. Lewis slid her off him gently like hot wax gliding down a candle. He gave nods of recognition to Craig and Skipper. They didn't expect to see him until Christmas, if then.

"Dude," Craig nodded back to his big brother. Lewis didn't look like himself. His face was gaunt and it looked like he hadn't shaved in a week. He'd lost a lot of weight. He was wearing a leather jacket and a white tee shirt that was soaking wet.

"Is Cherie here?" he asked.

"She's in the back office working with Stan," Craig gave his brother a side hug.

"I'll catch up with you tonight, man," Lewis put one arm around Craig, squeezed tight and tugged him in for a quick rib cage bump.

He stopped in front of the glass wall of back office. Her back was to him. She was fishing for something in a file cabinet. He'd never seen her with her hair down. She always wore the braided ponytail. Since she was grounded from jogging, martial arts, her paper route and anything strenuous until her injuries healed, she let her hair hang. It was like a caramel waterfall with flashes of gold and red when it caught the light. Craig called her "Cousin Itt" from the Addam's Family. She had to whip her head to swish it away from her butt every time she sat down so she wouldn't sit on it. 

Cherie felt eyes upon her and turned around. He opened the glass door and walked towards her.

"Cherie, get your things. I have to talk to you," Lewis choked the words out plaintively. He looked like a man in mourning, completely broken in two. A tear rolled down his cheek.

She hesitated. The sound of a toilet flushing broke the silence.

"Come on, baby, don't make me cry in front of Stills," he begged her. Something in her snapped. She put the file Mr. Stills asked for on top of the cabinet, grabbed her purse and threw her coat over her arm instead of stopping to put it on. coat He took other her arm. The file folder slid off the cabinet and the photos fanned out on the floor like the feathers of a peacock in heat. They didn't look back. 

Stan Stills came out of the restroom and hydroplaned on the photographs, breaking his fall by grabbing the chair from the cartoon drafting table. It was on wheels so he ran with it, knocking over things in his path until the chair hit the wall. 

"Mother Of God!" He shouted after he regained his balance. He bolted out into the front office to find out what was going on.

"Did she ask if she could leave?" Tina was trying to trade outrage for tears.

"Nobody said anything to me," Stills rubbed a patch of fog off the window. "I see! The Battling Burtons are at it again!" 

Indeed, at first it seemed like Cherie and Lewis were at each other's throats in the parking lot in the pouring rain. Cherie's arms were gesturing so much she dropped her coat and purse in a mud puddle. Lewis kept slapping his heart like a love-sick gorilla. When she started to bend down to pick up her things he stopped her and brought her back up and pulled her in for a kiss that lasted so long that Tina couldn't take it anymore. 

"For God's sake!" She stormed off to the restroom.

"Watch out for the shit on the floor, Tina! I almost broke my damn neck," Stills called out but didn't budge from the window. With Tina gone the men could openly stare at the scene.

"Yep, Burton and Taylor are an item again," Stills shook his head.

"Do they even know it's raining? Man, that's some heavy shit," Craig stood there almost unrecognizable and completely covered in his rain gear. 

"You're too young to be watching this, Craig. You should be home watching Shari Lewis and Lamb Chop," Stills ribbed the wide-eyed innocent kid. 

"Huh?" Craig didn't get it.

"Lamb Chop, the sock puppet? Yeah, before your time, kid. Sorry about that. I keep forgetting how damn old I am," Stills sighed. From then on his nickname for Craig was Lamb Chop.

Stan didn't mess with Skipper or Tina. They were both burning alive in the hell of unrequited love and no longer had a sense of humor between the two of them.

"Come on man, we've got deliveries to make, remember," Skipper sighed when the show was over. Cherie and Lewis took off in the tiny green sports car.

~ To Be Continued ~

APPLE ROAD: NO SATISFACTION

"I can assure you, Agent Lagery, that any judgement call made by my staff was made in the best interest of everyone concerned and frankly, I find these questions insulting. Now, if you don't mind, I have meeting I need to get to," hospital administrator, Robert Dockery complained.

"I didn't ask you how you feel. I don't give a rat's ass how you feel. I asked you who authorized the removal of two security guards from Ehbo's room?" Frank Lagery was about to lose his cool.

"If you'd been listening to me instead of trying to throw your weight around here you would have realized by now that in our profession judgement calls are made all the time on an as needed basis. As I already mentioned, at 3:30 in the morning a belligerent alcoholic entered the emergency room and staff requested additional security because the last time this individual came to our facility, which he often does, there was some property damage. For one thing, on the previous occasion a brand new IBM Selectric typewriter was knocked off it's stand and badly damaged. Mr. Ehbo, as you refer to him, had not damaged any property and you yourself said he was no longer considered a risk to himself or others. He wasn't going to hurt anyone and furthermore, at that hour he was sound asleep. We assigned a nurse who was more than qualified to babysit, she was in fact overqualified..." the administrator showed no sign of letting up.

"Shut the fuck up! Scotty, take his fingerprints. I'm going down to the ER and see if I can get the name of the person who ordered the changing of the guard," Agent Lagery was almost out the door when the administrator mouthed off again.

"You most certainly are not taking my fingerprints. That request will have to be submitted to the board of directors at the meeting next month for consideration and you will be advised in writing of their decision," the administrator said dryly.

Lagerly exploded and hurled towards the man like a guided missile, sliding across the administrator's desk and grabbing him by his tie. He pulled the tie until they were nose to nose.

"You ignorant, arrogant, asshole. Those guards were assigned protect that boy. He's dead because of you and your people. You're lucky he doesn't appear to have any family. If he did, they would sue your ass off. By the way, when you get home, if that serial killer is sitting on your living room couch, don't call the police and don't call us, call your babysitter," Lagerly let go of the man's tie and left the room.

"Good cop, bad cop. You are obviously the good cop, eh?" the hospital administrator started in on Agent Scotty Uzer.

"Not tonight. We don't have time for this shit. Mr. Robert Dockery, you have the right to remain silent...." Agent Uzer read him his rights and had him carted away.

Agent Mavis Taylor took the fingerprints of the cleaning lady. Lilly-May Parker was sobbing uncontrollably. She was the last person who saw Ehbo alive other than the person who killed him.

"Miss Parker, I want you to tell me everything you remember about tonight, even if it doesn't seem important at all. Just tell me everything you remember while it is still fresh on your mind," Mavis said in a soothing tone of voice.

"I was in his room off and on all night. I changed his bedding many times. He had accidents. He would have done better if his nurse had time to teach him. He seemed to like the attention when people showed him new things. His nurse was too busy and she kept saying she was supposed to be home, that this was overtime. So I just kept changing the bedding."

"Miss Parker, where did you put the soiled linen?" Mavis asked.

"There is bin in the room. It's still there. I haven't had time to empty it yet," Lily-Mae confessed.

"That's a good thing. We need those linens. You have no idea how much you are helping us." Mavis stuck her head into the room where Agent Dill Murphy was guarding the body.

"Dill, we're gonna need that laundry basket as well as the bedding the boy is currently at rest upon. They may contain evidence of poison or lethal medications." Mavis said to him and then returned her attention to Lily-Mae.

"Please continue. What else do you remember. Did the guards say anything that sticks in your memory, Lily-Mae?" Mavis put her hand on Lily-Mae's hand to comfort her.

"I thought it was awful the way they laughed at him. In a way I was glad when they left. They were making jokes at his expense. They made fun of the way he spoke. I didn't think it was funny. I didn't say anything to them about it but I did tell the boy not to listen to them." Lily-Mae looked ashamed.

"What kind of jokes did they make? What did they say?" Mavis coaxed Lily-Mae.

"One of them said to the other, 'Why are we here? The only thing that boy is a danger to is a sandwich!' That is the type of thing they kept saying. They wanted to go. They didn't want to watch him. They became rude and said they are not baby sitters. The nurse who replaced them was also very upset. She wanted to go home. Her shift was over. She didn't want to watch the boy. She stayed, but she kept finding other things to do that she said she might as well do since she was stuck here. That is when she asked me to watch the boy. I think she was trying to find someone to transfer him to the psychiatric ward. I was happy to watch him. He was a sweet boy, so grateful for any little thing you gave him. I had a candy in my apron. I gave it to him and he rested his face on my hand like I am his best friend."

"You said he passed away while you were in the restroom attached to his room. Did you hear anything, anything at all, Lily-Mae, while you were in that bathroom?" Mavis squeezed her hand softly.

"God have mercy on my soul! It's my fault that boy is dead," Lily-Mae lowered her head and closed her eyes tight.

"What did you hear? Tell me what you heard, Miss Parker." Mavis knew in her gut that this woman knew something.

Miss Parker had seen Dr. Walter Bramley coming towards the room. She saw his distorted reflection in the curved hallway safety mirror. She didn't like him. He was only kind to wealthy people who could afford his fancy marathons at his lodge. He was horrible to people like her. He could ruin your life if he was in a bad mood and you caught his eye.

Lily-Mae didn't leave Ehbo because she had to use the restroom. She ran to hide in the restroom. She didn't have time to close the bathroom door because he would have heard it click. She hid in the darkness behind the door. He could not see her but she saw him kill Ehbo. 

"Miss Parker? Miss Parker? What did you hear when you were in that bathroom?" Mavis urged her to answer.

"I heard footsteps. When I came out of the bathroom no one was there.  Whoever it was had gone away." Parker finally answered. She prayed she made the right decision. She decided that it wouldn't bring Ehbo back and it would put her and her family at risk. She made up her mind to lie.

Mavis dismissed Miss Parker for the time being and joined Agent Dill Murphy in the room guarding Ehbo's body. She walked round and round the room, in and out of the bathroom, turning the lights off and on. She stood by the bed and looked out into the hallway at the curved mirror.

"You don't beg God to have mercy on your soul because you had to go to the bathroom and something bad happened that wasn't your fault while you were gone." Agent Mavis Taylor said to Agent Dill Murphy.

~ To Be Continued ~

APPLE ROAD: RIP EHBO EEE

"Exposure my ass!" FBI section chief Thomas Gra hung up the phone politely enough but swore out loud afterwards. It was obvious to him that the young man did not die from exposure. Gra was furious. He liked the gentle kid who had managed to survive against all odds with absolutely everything going against him. Everything except Cherie Solange. She had damn near killed herself trying not to run over Ehbo. 

"Sir?" Agent Joy Pruitt had been sent to Gra's make shift field office. The door was open. Agents Fletcher Sarras, Dill Murphy, Scotty Uzer, Mavis Taylor and Frank Lagery stumbled in after her nursing steaming paper cups of coffee. None of them had gotten any sleep. All they knew at this point was that there had been another murder.

"Twenty minutes ago Ehbo Eee was murdered in his bed. Pruitt, I want you to interview Cherie Solange again. She knows something," Gra tapped the photo of Cherie that was tacked to his bulletin board next to a photo of Ehbo, the new Jane Doe's head and everyone else who was on the scene at the rest stop the night before.

"Yes, sir," Pruitt nodded and began studying the photos on the board.

"I want the rest of you to get the hell on out of here and take that hospital apart. Interview everyone who was in that hospital or anywhere in the vicinity of that hospital last night. Detective Dorsey is with Ehbo's body now. Secure and transfer the body immediately. Agent Dill Murphy, you are to stay with said body until the transport is completed. Someone murdered that young man. I want to know how that happened. I do not want to hear that he's been cremated or misplaced." Chief Gra stood back and waited for one of them to say something.

"That coat," Agent Taylor's jaw dropped.

"Damn straight that God-awful coat!" Gra knew Taylor would be the first to see it. Ehbo was taken in wearing a coat that was evidence in a case that had gone cold.

"Wait a minute. That torso with the coat belongs to the cold case head? Where was I when this happened?" Agent Dill Murphy fired in disbelief.

"If we had the coat, how in the hell did that kid get a hold of it?" Agent Fletcher Sarras asked at the same time as Murphy and Uzer.

"When did we get the torso?" Uzer blurted.

"When did we get these photos!" Taylor pointed at the blow ups of the Polaroids that Cherie Solange had anonymously mailed to the authorities.

"We don't have the cold case torso. The torso we have is fresh. We do have confirmation that the same weapon was used in both decapitations, so our cold case is hot again. We've had the coat since last night. The photos were given to us by Homicide Detective Dennis Dorsey who received them from an anonymous source via the US Postal Service. Agents Brown, Le Teil and Braisse are in the field now with flashlights searching for the torso. They are using the rest stop as a temporary command post. The head we found in the San Andres Forest north of Los Angeles goes with the torso we are looking for here today east of the Mississippi. That my friends is too much space. Find out who sent those photos but first secure Ehbo's body. The person who wanted him dead no doubt wants him gone and that's not going to happen. Ehbo knows who killed both Jane Does and he's going to tell us because we are going to protect him a hell of a lot better than whoever was supposed to be protecting him last night."

~ To Be Continued ~

APPLE ROAD: THE DEATH OF DAVID BRAMLEY

The public was advised that the man in custody was not the serial killer and the public should still exercise reasonable caution. They called him Ehbo because that is what he called himself and it didn't take long to figure out "Eee" meant "Eat". Ehbo wanted to eat and that was pretty much all he cared about. He was docile. He was no longer a suspect. 

Ehbo was a victim of long term abuse and neglect, yet his demeanor suggested someone had loved him, fed him, led him by the arm and kept him from running to traffic. There was no way he could survive on his own. The head he was keeping in the newspaper stand probably belonged to a fellow victim, probably the one who had looked after him. Ehbo was probably hoping the head would magically come back to life and start taking care of him again.

The forest ranger had another name for the picnic raiding pair, "Yogi Bear and Boo-Boo". Ranger John Reznik had not actually seen them but had received multiple complaints from hikers and tourists about their food being stolen. They knew it wasn't an animal. The footprints were human. Sandwiches disappeared but the picnic baskets where left where they found them. 

The reports of stolen food dwindled. That was probably when the woman was murdered and Ehbo was left on his own. The coat Ehbo was wearing did not belong to the woman he was traveling with.

Dr. Walter Bramley walked down the empty hospital hallway. He came and went unnoticed because of his status at the facility. The next time when he reminded his wife that their son was dead, he would be telling the truth. It was a pity he had to do what he just did. 

When Marina escaped with David in tow, Dr. Bramley couldn't very well call the police. He would not be able to explain away the older scars. He'd done things to them that would cost him his medical license. No one needed to know that Ebho Eee was David Bramley. Marina certainly would never be identified. 

Dr. Bramley spent a reasonable amount of time looking for them and then gave up before he attracted suspicion. He avoided panic and compartmentalized the little breach by fantasizing that perhaps Marina found her way to some sleepy village in Mexico where she and David could live out their ridiculous little lives. She would be satisfied with escape. She wouldn't dare go to the authorities. Marina knew what he was capable of, but as it was now, he wished that whoever had killed Marina had bothered to kill Davy as well so he didn't have to get his hands dirty. 

The medication caused heart failure and it would be assumed Ehbo's death was due to long term exposure to the elements.

Bramley regreted that plucky Cherie Solange was staying at a different hospital where he didn't have rights to practice. Boy would he like to pay that young lady a visit.

~ To Be Continued ~