by Nic Saint
“Oh, sure,” said Gran. “Just thought I’d ask, just to be on the safe side.”
They’d arrived at the house of one of the youngest lottery winners in the nation’s history, and Odelia thought it didn’t look like the house of a lottery winner at all. It was a modest little villa that seemed to date back to the seventies, and was slightly run down.
They got out and walked up the short drive to the front door, Chase taking out his police badge and Gran putting on her game face, which apparently consisted of her knitting her brows and dragging down the corners of her mouth, giving her a bulldog look. Chase pressed his finger to the buzzer and moments later a mousy-looking woman appeared. She’d obviously been crying, for her eyes were red-rimmed. Unless she’d been peeling onions she was probably upset over her missing son.
“Mrs. Pope?” said Chase, holding up his badge. “My name is Chase Kingsley. I’m with the Hampton Cove Police Department. And this is Odelia Poole, civilian consultant, and Vesta Muffin, um, also a, um, civilian consultant.”
“I’m a private dick,” Gran explained. “But I work with our local boys and girls in blue from time to time. When they’re completely stuck, that’s when they come knocking on my door.”
“Oh,” said the woman, looking a little confused. “Well, come in. One of your colleagues was here yesterday, and told me to wait another twenty-four hours before, um…”
“Yes, I’m very sorry about that,” said Chase. “But it now appears that your son’s disappearance is part of a bigger story. Several people have gone missing now.”
“And a ton of cats,” said Gran, “but we’re not worried about that, cats being cats.”
“Exactly,” said Chase, giving Gran a critical glance. Even though the cop was now accustomed to Odelia accompanying him on his investigations, the addition of her grandmother was a more recent development he still needed to wrap his head around.
They followed Mrs. Pope into the living room and took a seat at the table.
“So can you tell me what happened, Mrs. Pope?” asked Odelia, taking out her trusty little notebook just as Chase took out his.
Gran, meanwhile, seeing her two colleagues armed with pen and paper, seemed annoyed that she wasn’t as well-equipped as they were, so she took out a puzzle book from her purse, a chewed-up pencil, and started scribbling in the margins.
“Well, as I told your colleague yesterday, Elon recently won the lottery, and he hasn’t stopped partying since, buying all of his friends, the old ones and the new ones, drinks at his favorite club, clubbing every night. So I told him the night before last that he couldn’t take the car—I wasn’t going to allow him—since he only got this license last month and he practically totaled one of his cars by driving it into a lamppost last week. Of course he wouldn’t listen, and it was only when his sister Marcie turned it into a bet about the environment that he took his bike…”
She sniffed audibly, and dragged a couple of paper napkins from a dispenser and pressed them to her nose and eyes. A tall man with a distinct stoop had walked in from the kitchen and took a seat next to Mrs. Pope. Judging from the picture frames on the mantel he was the missing boy’s father, and now placed his arm around his wife’s shoulder. He looked pale as a ghost, dark rings under his eyes. “Do you have any news about our boy?” he asked.
“No news, I’m afraid,” said Odelia kindly. “But we’re doing everything we can to find him.”
“So he took his bike, and where did he go?” asked Chase.
“Not far,” said Mr. Pope, clearing his throat. “Just into town. He was going to the Café Baron, for a party in his honor. He’s been partying non-stop since he won the lottery.”
“How much did he win?” asked Gran.
“Um, three hundred and twenty million.”
“Wow, that’s a lot of money.”
“At the rate he’s been spending it, I’m afraid it will be gone soon,” said Mrs. Pope.
“He’s already bought himself a Lamborghini and a Maserati and one of them electric cars,” said Mr. Pope. “A Tesla. And a new house for us, a house for his sister, one for his grandmother, a house for his aunt and uncle, one for his niece, one for his best friend…”
“That’s a lot of houses,” said Chase with a smile.
“He’s obviously trying to spread the wealth around,” Odelia added.
“He’s a good boy,” his mother agreed, taking another tissue from the box and pressing it to her nose. “Other kids would probably buy themselves a fancy condo and go and live with some supermodel celebrity influencer they met at a party but not my Elon.”
“Only problem is, he’s too nice—too kind,” said his father.
“Elon has a good heart—that’s how we raised him.”
“So he’s been buying gifts for all of his friends, and suddenly he’s found so many new friends it’s hard to keep up. The money’s been flowing like water, and I think that must be what happened. One of his new friends must have decided to take advantage of our boy’s generosity and must have wanted more than Elon was willing to give. So they must have gotten into a fight and…”
“Don’t say that, Mike,” said the boy’s mother. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”
“You should talk to those boys,” said Mike. “They’ll be able to tell you what happened.”
“What do you think happened, Mrs. Pope?” asked Odelia.
“I think Elon had one too many, and rode his bike into a ditch and that’s where he still is.”
“Even if that were true, he would have woken up by now,” said her husband.
“Not if he hit his head. You need to send out a search party, Detective Kingsley.”
“We already tried that, though, didn’t we, Marcia?” said the husband.
“Tried what?” asked Odelia.
“We called all of his friends, and according to everyone we spoke to the last place Elon was seen was the Café Baron. So we walked the distance from the club back to the house… checking all the ditches… and…” She sniffed.
“And nothing,” said Mike. “Not a trace of him anywhere along that stretch of road.”
Odelia nodded as she jotted down a note.
“Please find my boy,” said Marcia. “He’s a good boy, with a big heart. If he’s in a ditch somewhere, we need to find him before… before…” She broke down in tears.
Once they were outside again, Gran said, “Poor woman. I can’t imagine what it must be like to have your son suddenly go missing like that.”
“Your son has suddenly gone missing,” Chase pointed out.
“No, he hasn’t. Alec is probably off somewhere on a toot. Or maybe he met that Tracy Sting he likes so much and they’re off to the Adirondacks again, just like the last time.”
“He wouldn’t do that without letting us know,” said Odelia.
“Like hell he wouldn’t. You don’t know Alec.”
“Actually, we do,” Chase pointed out.
“That’s my theory and I’m sticking to it,” said Gran stubbornly.
“So has the officer who was here yesterday retraced Elon’s steps?” asked Odelia.
“Yeah, she did this morning, but found no trace of him, just like Mike and Marcia said.”
“So weird,” said Odelia, “for a bunch of people all to go missing around the same time.”
“You know what this is, right?” said Gran as they filed back into Chase’s pickup.
“No, I don’t,” said Chase. “But I’m sure you will enlighten us.” He was not a big fan of Gran’s crazy theories.
“Aliens,” said Gran as she buckled up. “Aliens must have come down and landed in that terrible storm we had the other night, and we all know what those aliens are like.”
“Um, no, we don’t,” said Chase tentatively.
“They kidnap people! That’s what they do. Abduct them in their big spaceships so they can do all kinds of weird experiments. And they must have decided one wasn’t enough, so they kidnapped the August kid, too.
Mark my words. It’s those nasty aliens.”
As interesting as Gran’s theory might be, though, Odelia thought something else was going on here, and she was convinced her uncle Alec had been taken, too.
And not by aliens. Or by Tracy Sting.
Chapter 24
“I don’t care what you say, I’m not sleeping next to that woman again,” said Tex.
“You don’t have to sleep with her,” said Marge as she peeled another potato. “If you make peace with her she can go back to her room, and Odelia can have her house back.”
“Make peace with her! Easier said than done. How do you suggest I pull off a miracle like that?”
“You need to figure out some kind of compromise, Tex.”
They were in the kitchen, and Marge was glad that Odelia and Chase had decided to take her mother along for their investigation so she and Tex could have this little chat.
“Look, you have to dig a little deeper. Try to figure out what’s really going on here.”
“What’s going on is that your mother hates her job. She wants to stay home and watch TV instead of being cooped up in that office handling my patients all day long.”
“No, that’s where you’re wrong. Vesta loves to socialize, and she loves being a doctor’s assistant. It gives her prestige, and she enjoys being in the thick of things.”
“But she wants to watch her shows. Says sitting at that desk is killing her. Too boring. Unless Scarlett Canyon drops by, of course,” he added with a grin, “to spice things up.”
“Why don’t we buy her a tablet computer? That way she can watch all the shows she wants, and surf the web, or play computer games, and it won’t set us back two thousand bucks.”
Tex tapped the table. “She seems to have her mind set on this foldable phone.”
“I think that’s just her opening bid. Pretty sure she’ll settle for a brand-new iPad.”
“How about a second-hand iPad?”
“Tex,” said Marge warningly.
“Look, what she should be doing is work,” he said, as he sniffed at a sausage he’d taken from the fridge. “She should be greeting my patients and answering the phone. What will people think when my receptionist is watching Days of Our Lives and General Hospital all day long? Word will spread and soon people will stop coming.”
“They won’t stop coming because you’re the only decent doctor in town.”
“There are other towns, honey, and there’s the clinic. People don’t have to come to me, you know. They can take their hernias and their ingrowing toenails to Denby Jennsen over in Happy Bays, or Cary Horsfield in Hampton Keys. And once I’ve lost all my patients, then what? We’ll have to sell the house and move to a town where nobody knows me or my lousy reputation and start all over again. Or take over an existing practice in Utah or Colorado or Alaska or work for another doctor as his apprentice. I’m too old to be an apprentice, Marge—or to start all over again from scratch.”
“Oh, don’t be such a drama queen,” said Marge as she put the pot with the potatoes on the stove. It was a Berghoff pot, one of a set she was very fond of.
“I’m not being a drama queen! Remember what she did today? Got into a fight with Scarlett over a sausage! A stupid sausage!”
Marge cast a quick glance at the sausage her husband was waving. “Oh, there’s that Duffer. I knew we had one left.”
“Yeah, I keep them at the back of the fridge where Vesta won’t find them. She’s like a rabid dog when she sees them. Attacks without provocation. Just like her crazy friend.”
“I don’t think she’ll like it when you call Scarlett her friend, honey,” said Marge as she glanced out the kitchen window into the backyard. Odd that the cats were nowhere to be found. Usually around dinner time you couldn’t keep them away, as there was always something that fell off the table when their family sat down for dinner. She remembered Vesta’s words about that hunger strike. Knowing her cats they wouldn’t last a day without food. She smiled and took the pork chops from the fridge. They’d be back soon.
“What’s the deal between those two anyway?” asked Tex as he cut a slice off the Duffer and took a bite.
“Oh, you know,” said Marge.
“I know what happened way back when,” he said. “But why are they still at each other’s throats? Your dad is long gone, so there’s no reason for them to be enemies.”
“Vesta likes to hold a grudge. And so does Scarlett. She’s not the innocent bystander in this.”
“So maybe you should try and negotiate a truce?”
She made a scoffing sound. “No way. I don’t want to be torn limb from limb by a pack of rabid old ladies. They’re vicious.”
“And don’t I know it,” he said, massaging his ankle.
“You wanna know what I think? I think they like this feud. It adds spice to their lives.” She moved over to where her husband sat and put a slice of Duffer into her mouth. The meat simply melted on her tongue. “Oh, my God. What do they put in these things?”
“Delicious, huh?”
“Incredible.”
“At least the Duffers managed to put this town on the map.”
“You know?” she said, suddenly feeling magnanimous. “Why don’t we give my mother exactly what she wants?”
“You mean, buy her one of those foldable smartphones?”
“Yeah. I mean, why not? She’s getting on, and she won’t be with us forever. And it’s not as if we can’t afford one, right?”
“Right,” said Tex dubiously. He put another piece of Duffer into his mouth. “I guess we could always sell her old phone, and then add a little extra and buy her a new one.”
Marge sat down on her husband’s lap and gave him a kiss. “And then you will finally be able to sleep with your wife again.”
“Finally,” he said with a smile.
She returned the smile. “You’re the best hubby in the whole wide world, have I ever told you that? And I’m a very lucky girl.”
“You’ve told me, but it never hurts to hear it again,” said Tex, then took another slice and tore it into two pieces, popped one into his mouth and the other one into Marge’s.
“Oh, my God,” she murmured, and gave him another kiss, then lingered. “The house is ours, hubby,” she said hoarsely. “The kids are away, my mom is away, and so are the cats.”
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking, wifey?”
She giggled, and then Mr. and Mrs. Poole were scooting up the stairs.
Chase drove the car into town, and they happened to pass by the Duffer Store. A mass of people had gathered on the sidewalk, and they were shouting something.
“What’s going on over there?” asked Chase.
“Disgruntled customers, probably,” said Odelia.
“Let’s check it out,” said Chase as he parked across the road. He got out and rolled his shoulders, then marched in the direction of the protestors.
“I love it when he does that, don’t you?” said Gran.
“Does what?” asked Odelia, wondering what was up with all this Duffer mania.
“He assumes the cop stance.”
“The cop stance?” said Odelia with a laugh.
“Sure! He straightens his shoulders, lifts his chin, plasters this fierce expression on his face and dives right in. The cop stance! Just like putting on the uniform. And then when he gets home at night, he takes it off, drapes it across the back of the chair and he’s Chase Kingsley again, son, husband… father.”
“I never thought about it like that,” said Odelia, though she had to admit there was some truth to what her grandmother was saying.
“All cops do that,” said Gran, as if she was the world expert on cops. “It’s a part they play, a role they assume, and like any actor they slip in and out of it. Like Robert de Niro or Al Pacino. They become the mobsters they’re playing, and Chase becomes the cop.”
“Well, I don’t think he sees it that way,” said Odelia, “but he probably does have to project a certain autho
rity when he approaches a mob scene like that.”
The commotion was still in full swing, and she now wondered if Chase needed backup.
“It’s because they ran out of Duffers,” said Gran.
“Yeah, I know. I interviewed Colin Duffer this afternoon. They should have fresh Duffers soon. They’ve been working on an entirely new production facility.”
“Great. I like my Duffers.”
“Everybody likes their Duffers.” Except for her, though now that she’d tasted one she agreed they were pretty yummy.
Chase came walking back to the car again. His hair was a little mussed, his cheeks were flushed, and he had a hunted look in his eyes. When he dropped down in the driver’s seat he blew out a deep breath. “These people are crazy.”
“What’s going on?” asked Odelia.
“They’re picketing the Duffer Store!”
“And what are their demands?”
“Duffers!” he said as he started up the car. “The Duffer Store ran out of Duffers and they’re not happy. I managed to get in and talk to Colin Duffer and he told me that if this keeps up he will have to close down the store. He asked me to get rid of these protestors. Arrest them if I have to.”
“Oh, my God!” said Odelia. “No way.”
“Yeah, I told him to talk to the Mayor. Though the best thing he can do is close up for now and get cracking on a fresh batch of Duffers. That’s the only thing that’s going to make those people go away. But he says that if he closes now he might never reopen.”
“He’s got a point,” said Odelia. “People may be clamoring for Duffers now, but next month there will be some new thing, and Duffers will be the last thing people want.”
“I don’t think so,” said Chase. “These sausages are pretty popular.”
“Tell me about it,” said Gran, who’d taken her half-eaten Duffer out of her purse again and now took a big bite.
Suddenly, there was a shout outside, and Odelia saw how a woman stood looking in through the car window at Gran’s Duffer.
“SHE’S GOT A DUFFER!” the woman screamed. Immediately the rest of the mob crossed the street, and they all converged on the car, pounding the windows to get in.