“But Melvin,” Gable said, “you’ve been at Banner Hill for years. Why start stealing now?”
“Ask him.” Melvin nodding toward Holbrook. “Christmas is coming. He told me this girl he met on line wants him to buy her a boob job.”
“What?” Gable screeched.
“It’s a lie, honey,” Holbrook said. “I ... I was conducting my own investigation into the missing office supplies.”
From the look on her face, Gable wasn’t buying a nickel’s worth of Holbrook’s BS. “No you weren’t. I knew it! You’re a two-timing fleabag!”
“Don’t play dumb, Gable,” I said. “You’re in on it, too. I saw you waiting for him in the parking lot. You drove the getaway vehicle.”
“I ... I didn’t know anything about this, I swear!” Gable choked back a sob and glared at Holbrook. “You told me we were going on a romantic getaway!”
“We’d have made it, too,” Holbrook said, “if you hadn’t crashed the damned car. Why weren’t you wearing your glasses?”
Gable pouted angrily. “You told me I looked sexier without them. And contacts bother my eyes. They make me squint.” She demonstrated, giving us a spot-on impression of Miss Piggy—constipated on macaroni.
“I bet it was a lot easier to sneak supplies past her with her glasses off, eh?” I said to Holbrook.
Holbrook’s shoulders slumped. “Look. I was just trying to cover for my crazy klepto uncle. Melvin kept stealing things. I didn’t want him to lose his room at Banner Hill. I swear I didn’t know what was in the bag.”
“Then why did you take it with you?” I asked.
“Okay. Everybody just hold it,” Daniels barked. “Without more evidence, it’ll be hard to pin charges on any of you. My money’s on Holbrook. Any of you have any other evidence against him?”
“Yes!” I cried out. “He tried to poison me!”
Daniels looked me up and down. Bald and in a hospital gown that barely covered my bottom, I couldn’t blame him for being skeptical.
“Apparently, you survived,” he said. “Got anything else?”
I did. But it was a long shot. “I saw Holbrook stealing money from the collection plate at Bertie’s revival.”
Daniels’ face hardened like quick-setting plaster. He turned his angry eyes to Holbrook. “You dirty scum! Stealing from the Lord!” The cop marched over to Holbrook and slapped a pair of cuffs on him. “You’re going to jail, you lowest-of-the-low!”
“If I may,” Grayson said, raising a finger. “I still think theft is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Holbrook. Officer, we’ve got five vets missing from Banner Hill nursing home.” He grabbed the prescription bottle from Stanley and rattled it. “This prescription is for Charlie Perkins. One of the missing men.”
Daniels shook Holbrook by the collar. “What do you have to say for yourself now?”
Holbrook glared at Grayson. “I want an attorney.”
“Actually, now that I think about it, Ms. Draper, the owner, has been missing for a week, too,” Grayson said. “Holbrook might’ve done something with her, as well.”
Gable spun around and slapped Holbrook hard across the face. “How could you? She’s just a little old lady!”
“Look who’s talking,” Holbrook said. “You said she’s the worst boss you ever had!”
“You work at Banner Hill?” Daniels asked Gable.
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you report the disappearances?”
Gable winced. “Ms. Draper left on vacation with strict orders for me not to call unless the place was burning down, or she’d fire me. And I did report the missing men. I told Officer Holbrook.”
Daniels shot Holbrook a disgusted look. “I think we can all figure out why he didn’t report it.” He shoved Holbrook toward his patrol car. “Didn’t want anybody snooping around Banner Hill, did you, you disgrace to the uniform!”
Daniels shoved Holbrook into the back of his vehicle, slammed the door, and turned to face the rest of us. “All right, you bozos. Let’s go.”
“To the police station?” I asked.
“No. To Banner Hill. I want to see for myself what the hell’s going on there.”
Chapter Sixty-Seven
THE HORIZON WAS TINGING pink as we pulled up on the street in front of Banner Hill in the wee, pre-dawn hours. On the eastern side of the building, I thought I saw a flash of purple light shimmer, fairy-like, then disappear around the corner.
Could that be Old Mildred saying goodbye?
I shook my head to clear it. After a crazy night with no sleep, I figured I was so tired I was hallucinating. What I’d seen was merely a reflection coming from the lights atop the other patrol car officer Daniels had called in for backup.
I glanced in Bessie’s rearview mirror. Holbrook and Melvin were cuffed in the back of Daniels’ patrol car. Gable had ridden up front with Daniels. Her helmet of brown hair was in tatters.
As for me, Stanley, Grayson, and Earl, after threatening to call out the troops if we did anything suspicious, Daniels had followed behind us as Earl drove his monster truck back to the nursing home.
Earl shifted Bessie into park. A moment later, a pink Cadillac with vanity plates DRAPER1 pulled up in front of us. A scrawny little old lady in a pink knit suit and matching leather pumps climbed out of the driver’s seat.
“What’s going on?” she asked, smoothing her silver, salon-styled hair. She glanced over at the patrol car, still loaded with passengers. “Ms. Gable!” Draper screeched. “What are you doing in a police car? Are you under arrest? You’re fired!”
“But!” Gable said, and scrambled out of the car.
“Now hold on,” Officer Daniels said, coming around the car and taking Draper by the hand. “I don’t believe there’s any call for that. Ms. Gable is just helping me out in an investigation.”
“Oh,” Draper said. Then something clicked inside her brain. Her face puckered. “An investigation?”
“Yes,” Daniels said. “Into five residents who’ve allegedly gone missing at your nursing home. We want to do a formal head count. Match up records with residents—and stolen medications.”
“Someone’s been stealing medical supplies?” Draper’s face snarled like a psychotic Pekinese. She turned and glared at us as we climbed down out of Bessie. “Officer, I know everyone on staff. That man over there is no doctor. And that woman is no resident of Banner Hill!”
Gable cleared her throat and smiled sheepishly at her boss. “Well, Ms. Draper, while you were gone, I—”
“She assisted us in our investigation,” Grayson said. He straightened his shoulders, stepped up to Draper, and showed her his tin P.I. badge.
“Oh,” Draper said. Her snarl faded to a sneer. “I see. Well, thank you. But how did you get involved, Mr.—?”
“Grayson. Nick Grayson. Ironically, we were alerted to the disappearances by the nephew of one of your residents, Melvin Haplets.”
I glanced over at the patrol car. Holbrook’s face went white. “I’m gonna kill that nitwit,” he muttered.
“Melvin Haplets?” Officer Daniels asked. “Isn’t he one of the men I have cuffed?”
“Yes, sir,” Gable said.
Stanley stuck an elbow in my ribs and whispered, “I told you Melvin was crazy.”
“You, Stanley Johnson!” Draper barked, wiping the smirk off Stanley’s face. “Stop horsing around with that man—woman—whatever it is! Get busy helping Officer Daniels. We’re going to search Banner Hill from top to bottom. If we don’t find those missing vets by nine am, I’ll kick all your rotten heads in!”
Chapter Sixty-Eight
AN HOUR LATER, UNDER the eagle-eye command of Tyrannosaurus Draperi, all the residents’ rooms at Banner Hill had been thoroughly searched.
During the raid, two things of note were found. One small cache of dirty magazines under a resident’s mattress, and a tackle box hidden inside Melvin Haplets’ closet. Inside it, he’d stashed away enough Viagra and Preparation H to, well
, I really didn’t want to think about it.
“I leave town for a week, and everything goes to hell,” Draper said, shooting Gable some serious side-eye.
“I’m sorry,” Gable said, looking as if she wanted to disappear behind the reception desk she was standing beside. “I was a fool for love. I didn’t realize Holbrook was just using me for cheap rent and free medical supplies.”
Draper nodded, then walked over and wrapped a scrawny arm around Gable’s plump shoulders. “Aw. There, there, dearie. It happens to the best of us.”
Draper’s soft side took me by surprise. “You’ve been scammed before?” I asked.
She shot me a sour look, then turned and walked down the hallway.
“What a tyrant,” I whispered to Gable and Grayson.
Halfway down the hall, Draper spun around on her pink heels. The look on her face turned my gut to ice-water. “I heard that!”
She took a step toward me. Gable and I both gasped. I expected to be beheaded, or at least court-martialed. But the old lady took a few steps and stopped, then leaned up against a doorframe, as if she’d lost her balance.
“Are you all right?” I called out, sprinting toward her. Grayson and Earl followed right behind me.
“Hush!” Draper hissed. She pressed her dangly old ear against the door and sniffed. “Humph!” she grunted, then stepped back and tried the handle. It was locked.
She turned and stared at the three of us like we were useless lumps. “Stanley!” she screeched. “Unlock this closet door at once!”
I realized Stanley was nowhere to be found—unless ....
Crap! Draper’s caught Stanley “rearranging the supply closet!”
“Grayson, do something,” I said, hoping my eyes conveyed what my lips could not.
“Allow me,” Grayson said, ignoring me. He pulled a tool from his pocket and quickly picked the lock. “Step aside, ma’am. This may not be what you think it is.”
Draper laughed cynically. “You think I was born yesterday?”
“No, ma’am,” Earl said. “I’d say at least a good eighty or a hundred years ago.”
Draper glared at Earl, then pushed Grayson out of the way. She flung open the door. “Aha! Just what I thought!” she said.
We all stuck our noses in for a peek. But what we saw wasn’t just what I’d been thinking.
Not by a longshot.
Chapter Sixty-Nine
THROUGH A THIN VEIL of marijuana smoke, I made out the wild eyes, dirty faces, and singed hair of three half-starved old men. Dressed in filthy clothes, they must’ve been held prisoner in the supply closet for days—if not weeks!
“This is Stanley’s work,” Draper said. “It has to be. He had the key—and the stash.”
“Stanley?” one of the three men asked, then laughed. “No, man, we’re waitin’ for Vlad.”
Grayson’s green eyes grew wide. “Vlad the Impaler?”
The three homeless-looking guys exchanged glances, then nearly rolled on the floor laughing.
“No, man. Vlad the Inhaler.”
The three men broke into another round of giggles.
“Hey!” the third man called out. “You guys got any munchies? I’m starving!”
Officer Daniels came running up. He took one look in the closet and blanched. “What’s going on here?”
“Looks like we found three of the missing men,” Grayson said. “But two are still unaccounted for.”
Daniels stared at the men. “Who did this to you? Who has a key to this room?”
“Oh! Oh!” one of the old men grunted and held up his hand. “I do! I do!”
TRYING TO INTERVIEW the three stoned old geezers was like trying to pop corn without a lid. New kernels of truth kept springing up when and where we least expected them.
After feeding the men spam omelets and plenty of weak coffee, their story began to emerge, bit by bit, like a dismembered corpse from a bog.
“Let me get this straight,” Officer Daniels said. “Nobody did anything to you?”
“No, man,” Larry Meeks said, scrambled eggs trapped in his scraggly beard. “We all went to Oldstock.”
“Oldstock?” Daniels asked.
“Yeah,” Harry Donovan said. His bloodshot eyes gleamed with fond memories. “It was wild.”
“What’s Oldstock?” I asked.
“Oh, oh!” Charlie Perkins grunted. “I know this one!”
Harry and Larry smiled and nodded. “You tell ’em, Charlie.”
Charlie beamed at us with eyes so dilated they appeared solid black. “Oldstock was a dream,” he said. “Every band from the ‘60s was there. Well, everybody that’s still alive, that is.”
“Oldstock,” Earl said. “I heard of that. It’s the remake of that hippy fest, Woodstock.”
“Right,” Larry said. “About the only thing that’s changed is the price of admission. We had to sell our plasma to get enough money for tickets.”
Grayson and I exchanged glances. That explained the anemia and sapped energy.
“Yeah, but it was worth it,” Charlie said.
“Right on, man.” Larry fist-pumped the air. “That was our music.”
“Your music?” I asked.
“The music we all fought together with during Vietnam,” Harry said.
“So you all served together?” Grayson asked.
“Yeah,” Harry said. “Back in 1960 when we joined, there weren’t even a thousand troops deployed in that blamed old second Indochina war.” He sighed. “Even fewer came back. Those of us who did, well, we kept in touch over the years. As our wives died, we all moved to Florida and ended up here at Banner Hill.”
“But where are the other two men?” Grayson asked. “Tom Hallen and Joe Plank?”
“Vlad’s got Tommy,” Larry said.
“Vlad. You mentioned him,” Grayson said. “I thought you were joking.”
“No. Vlad’s real, man,” Harry said. “He’s our weed connection.”
“He drove us to the Greyhound station so we could catch a bus to the concert,” Larry said. “We got back early this morning. He could only hold three of us in his Smart car. We’re waiting for him to drop off Tommy, now.”
“Yeah,” Harry said. “He’s runnin’ late, man.”
Larry’s Jitterbug phone rang. “Hey, that’s Vlad now. Says he’s at the front door with Tommy. Somebody should go get him.”
“Oh! I will! I will!” Charlie said.
THE EERIE PURPLE LIGHT emanating from the dashboard of the Smart car proved that Vlad wasn’t an alien or a ghost.
He was a Lyft driver.
As Tommy Hallen climbed out of the passenger seat, his buddies cheered and slapped him on the back. Grayson tapped on the driver’s side window and waved a twenty at the man inside. He rolled down the pane of glass.
“I’m curious,” Grayson said. “Why do people call you Vlad?”
“Because that’s my name,” he said in a thick, Eastern European accent. “Vladmir Popescu. I’m from Romania.”
“Interesting,” Grayson said. “Mind if I show you a video?”
“Sorry, man. I only drive.”
“No. I mean, I want to find out if you ever gave this guy a ride.”
Vlad shrugged. “Okay, fine.”
Grayson opened his laptop and played Vlad the mysterious audio of Albert Balls arguing with a woman over too-big a swig of alcohol. Then of his feet in checkered tennis shoes.
“I recognize the voice,” Vlad said. “That’s Al, all right. I usually give him a ride when I pass by the plasma center. But that night, he wouldn’t get in. I told him it was his last chance, but ....”
“Ah. Thanks,” Grayson said. “That explains everything but the disappearance of—”
“Hold up a minute, Larry said, looking over Grayson’s shoulder at his laptop. Grayson had paused the video on the last few seconds, when Balls’ face had appeared. “That guy in the video. He’s the jerk who stole my Viagra and took off with Joe and that chick from the band!�
��
The four old geezers exchanged teary eyed glances. “Good old Joe,” Harry said.
“Good old Joe,” the men repeated. Then they saluted and said in unison, “Another soldier who went down rockin’.”
Grayson’s cheek dimpled. He turned to me and whispered, “I guess there are worse ways to go.”
Chapter Seventy
AFTER TAKING OUR TESTIMONIES, Officer Daniels and his colleague released us on our own recognizance. Left to our own devices, we went straight to Topless Tacos for one last meal before we left town.
“Gros orteil,” Grayson said out of nowhere, after we sat down at our favorite table.
We all looked up from our menus.
“Where?” Earl asked. “Is that somethin’ new on the menu?”
Grayson’s cheek dimpled. “In a way, yes.” His eyes shifted to mine. “It’s French for ‘big toe.’”
“I don’t get it,” Earl said.
“That’s what Draper’s sister died from,” I said, cutting Grayson off before he could say more. “Mildred choked to death on a big toe.”
“I heard Old Mildred choked on a clove of garlic,” Stanley said. “That’s why Draper won’t allow it in the kitchen.”
“Huh,” I grunted. “Either way, that could explains why Draper instigated the tooth fairy patrol.”
“So, is Old Mildred real or not?” Earl asked.
“Doubtful,” Grayson said.
“Then maybe I don’t need this after all,” Stanley said.
He pulled out the little voodoo pouch he kept in his hip pocket. He studied it for a moment, then looked up at me. “Where’d you hear that Mildred choked on a big toe?”
“From Sampson, the night janitor,” I said.
Stanley’s eyes grew wide. “I’ve heard of him. He used to work at Banner Hill.”
“Used to?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Stanley said. “Until he died last year.”
Grayson and I locked eyes for a moment, then Grayson reached over and grabbed the amulet from Stanley’s hand. He untied the string and emptied it onto the table.
Moth Busters, Dr. Prepper, Oral Robbers: Freaky Florida Mystery Adventures 1, 2 & 3 Page 64