Hideaway Hospital Murders (22 page)

“
Hey—you called her
Mom
,” said
Macy.

“
Yeah. I guess I’m already
getting used to it,” said Elmo.

“
You can’t wait to tell her
what? About breaking up with Carsie…or about us?”

“
Both. And I can’t remember
the last time I was excited about sharing anything with her. She’s
like the brat who pops your birthday balloons. She always finds a
way to spoil your party. But this time I think it will be
different. I really think she’ll be happy for me. For
us
.”

“
I think so too.” Macy
wanted to scream with delight.

“
Just think about it,
Macy—what it would be like to live in a house without tension. A
house where we all love each other and we’re all happy.”

“
It would be wonderful,”
said Macy.

“
Yes.” He smiled at her.
“Wonderful.”

Chapter
28

Greg had looked down every isle in Wal-Mart,
but could not find Beverly. Cynthia was waiting near her mother’s
car in case she showed up out there.

Finally Greg went to customer service and
asked that Beverly be paged. While he was waiting, he noticed a
display of flashlights and decided to buy two large ones and some
batteries.

There was no response from the page.

By the time he made it back to Beverly’s
car, Cynthia was getting frantic. “Where could she be?”

“
I don’t know.” He handed
Cynthia a flashlight and then clicked his on and began to shine it
in and around the car. Then he checked underneath.

“
Oh. This is not good,” he
said.

“
What?”

“
There’s a set a keys under
here.”

“
Mom’s
keys?”

“
I don’t know.” He
stretched out on the pavement and reached under the car to retrieve
the keys.

“
Are these hers?” He held
them up.

Cynthia reached down and took the keys and
shined her flashlight on them.

“
Yes, these are her keys.
Greg, she must have been kidnapped.”

Greg stood up. “It kinda looks that way. But
why would anyone kidnap her? It doesn’t make any sense.”

Cynthia walked over to one of the cops who
were working the murder scene. Greg followed her.

“
Sir, can you please help
me? I think my mother has been kidnapped,” said Cynthia.

The cop yelled over his shoulder, “Captain,
we’ve got another one over here.”

He turned back to Cynthia. “So, she came
here by herself and her car’s still here, but you can’t find
her?”

“
That’s right,” said
Cynthia.

“
Was somebody else
kidnapped too?” said Greg.

“
Marcia Cleggmore,” said
the cop.

Cynthia and Greg knew who that was.
Everybody knew about the Cleggmores—the wealthiest family in
town.

“
And somebody else is
missing too,” said the cop.

Is that what Beverly would
be to the cops—just another
somebody
? Cynthia
wondered.

The officer took down the information, and
told Cynthia they would be on the lookout for her mother, but she
would need to go down to the station and fill out a formal missing
persons report as well.

Obviously, the cops would use every tool at
their disposal to find Mrs. Cleggmore, Cynthia thought. After that,
they might make an effort to find Beverly.

“
Sorry, ma’am, but I’ve got
to get back,” said the cop. He turned and walked away.

“
Isn’t that the mayor?”
said Greg.

“
Yes,” said Cynthia. “And
look—that’s Alexander Cleggmore talking to him. The only chance of
them finding Mom is if she’s with Marcia Cleggmore.”

“
Wait a second,” said Greg.
“The woman who was murder was stabbed, right?”

“
Yeah, that’s what they
said.”

“
Nancie Jo Gristel was
stabbed to death.”

“
Right…”

“
What if it’s the same
killer? It’s kind of similar.”

“
Yeah. These are older
women, like Nancie Jo,” said Cynthia.

“
Remember that car I saw
yesterday at the copy shop? The one with that bumper sticker I’d
never seen before?”

“
The one you thought might
be the murderer’s car because of what Nancie Jo’s neighbor said?
But there’s something wrong with that man. He probably didn’t know
what he was talking about.”

“
But what if he
did
? What if
that
was
the
murderer’s car?”

“
Even if it was, how does
that help us find Mom?”

“
Maybe the killer paid with
a credit card, or accidentally left something there, or threw
something in the trash.”

“
I don’t know…”

“
Sweetie, right now we
don’t have
any
clues. And
they’re
not doing anything to
find her,” he said, nodding in the direction of the growing crowd
of cops, city officials, and Cleggmores.

Cynthia saw Alexander Cleggmore waving his
arms and yelling at the police chief.

“
Okay, I guess it’s worth a
shot,” said Cynthia. “But won’t the copy shop already be closed?
It’s after 9:00.”

**********

Hadley and his brother were sitting on
Horatio’s back porch staring across the moonlit yard. Occasionally,
Horatio’s hunting dogs would start barking at something, and he
would yell at them. The front and back doors were open. But the
screened doors kept the mosquitoes out. The two had just enjoyed a
delicious Catfish dinner prepared by Horatio’s wife, Alma. They
could hear her in the kitchen washing the dishes.

“
So, you having fun yet,
Ben?” said Horatio.

Hadley’s family called him
Ben. Only the Mobleys referred to him as Hadley, which was
his
last
name. When they were kids, he and Horatio were known as the
Hadley brothers. Or sometimes, the Hadley hucksters, because they
tried to sell everything from pine cones to skeeter hawks to naïve
little kids.

And this one here costs a dime because he’s
so colorful. Just look at him. He’ll fly around you everywhere you
go, eating all the mosquitoes that try to get you. Don’t you hate
it when you’re scratching all night from mosquito bites? Well, you
won’t have to worry about that anymore when you have one of these
pretty mosquito eaters.

“
I’ll let you know when it
starts being fun,” said Hadley with a sly grin.

“
You
ought
to be fairly disappointed,
I guess, since I out-fished you.”

“
What are you talking
about? I caught more fish than
you
did,” said
Hadley.

“
But my fish
outweighed
yours.”

“
That don’t count, and you
know it. We’ve never figured the weight. If we had, I would’ve beat
you a lot more often.”

“
Oh, I don’t think so. My
fish have always been bigger.”

“
You turkey. The only
reason you like to take me fishing is so you can tell everybody you
beat me,” said Hadley.

“
Only when I beat you fair
and square.”

Hadley sat up in his chair and glared at
Horatio. “Fair and square?”

Alma walked to the back screened door and
said, “What are y’all arguing about now?”

“
Honey, tell Ben I’m right.
My fish were bigger than his, weren’t they?”

“
How about both of you
little boys just shut up about it.”

Hadley and Horatio looked at each other.
They broke out in laughter.

Alma walked back into the kitchen shaking
her head.

“
Hey, did you bring your
shotgun?” said Horatio.

“
Yeah. It’s in my trunk. I
figured I’d better bring it along just in case.”

“
Good. Let’s go get us some
doves in the morning.”

“
I’m ready, Brother. But
wait a minute. First we gotta set some ground rules. Are we
counting the
number
of birds or the total
weight?” said Hadley.

“
Okay, fine. We’ll go by
the number.”

“
Agreed.”

“
You’re mighty competitive,
ain’t you, Boy.” said Horatio.

“
I’m
competitive?”

They argued until Alma broke it up.

**********

“
They’re closed,” said
Cynthia.

“
But there’s a light on.
And I think I see somebody in there,” said Greg as they pulled up
to Coreyville Copy Shop.

They got out of the car and walked to the
door, and Greg knocked.

The man inside waved his arms and said,
“Sorry—we’re closed.”

“
It’s an emergency,” yelled
Greg.

The man looked perturbed as
he walked to the door. He unlocked it and opened it a few inches,
and said, “So you think you have an
emergency printing job
?”

“
Well, it could be a matter
of life or death,” said Greg.

“
Does this involve
national security?
”
said the man, facetiously.

“
We’re really sorry to
bother, Sir,” said Cynthia. “But my mother has just been kidnapped,
and we think the person who did it might have made some copies
here, or used one of your computers.”

“
When?”

“
Friday, between noon and
1:00,” said Greg. “And it looks like the kidnapper
killed
a woman
tonight, and I think it might be the same one who killed Nancie Jo
Gristel.”

“
Mrs. Gristel and my mother
used to play canasta with a group of ladies every week when I was a
kid,” said the man. “Come on in.”

He let them in and locked the door behind
them. “I’m not sure how much I can help. I don’t remember who came
in around that time. And if they just made copies, I wouldn’t have
any record of their documents,” said the man.

“
Could you check to see if
somebody paid with a credit card?” said Greg.

“
Sure, I can do that.” He
walked behind the counter to the computer and began typing and
clicking. After a few minutes he said, “Let’s see, between 12:00
and 1:00… Nobody paid with a credit card during that period. Just a
few cash payments.”

“
What if they printed
documents from one of those computers?” said Greg, pointing to the
four desktop computers along the back wall. “Are copies of those
documents saved somewhere?”

“
Yeah. They’re saved on the
print server for a week. I’ll check it.” He worked at the computer
a few more minutes and then said, “Here’s something.”

“
Can I see it?” said
Greg.

“
Yeah. Come
around.”

Greg and Cynthia walked behind the counter
and looked over the man’s shoulders. The title of the document
read:

Informed Consent for Participation in a
Clinical Trial

It didn’t make sense to Greg. Why would the
killer be involved in a clinical trial of experimental drugs for
Alzheimer’s disease? Beverly didn’t have Alzheimer’s. But Nancie Jo
Gristel did. Who else? He had just heard of somebody else who had
Alzheimer’s. It was Mallie Mae Mobley. And her son had just taken a
leave of absence from his medical practice.

Then he remembered the nurse at the hospital
the other day. She seemed to know the Mobleys better than she let
on. Maybe he was just grasping at straws. But it might be a clue.
And right now it was the only one they had.

“
Thanks. You’ve been a
great help,” said Greg.

“
I have?” said the
man.

“
Yes, you have.” He turned
to Cynthia. “Let’s go.”

As they got into the car, Cynthia said,
“What’s going on? Where are we going?”

“
To see a
nurse.”

Chapter
29

Macy checked the clock on the instrument
panel as Elmo pulled into the garage. It was 9:34 PM. Their day was
about to end. And what an amazing day it had been. She wished it
could go on until midnight, until tomorrow, until forever. But now
she had to walk Mallie Mae to her room and get her ready for
bed.

Elmo and Macy got out of the car, and Macy
was about to open the back door to wake up Mallie Mae. But Elmo
walked around to her and motioned for her to wait. He looked in the
back seat. Mallie Mae was in a peaceful slumber.

He took Macy in his arms and spoke softly.
“This has been the most wonderful day.”

Macy had so many things to say, but couldn’t
manage to say any of them before Elmo began to lean in to give her
a kiss. Earlier in the evening, when he had kissed her forehead on
the dance floor she had overwhelmed with emotion. This time he was
going for the lips. She wondered if she would literally faint in
his arms.

Realizing she was holding her breath, she
tried to relax and inhale, which only served to fill her lungs with
his marvelous scent and radiate quivers throughout her body. The
few inches of movement from his lips to hers passed in slow
motion—probably because her brain was processing a million thoughts
a second. Every nerve ending stood waiting on high alert.