Ghost of a Gamble (Granny Apples Mystery) (13 page)

“Did Nemo know you were there?” Milo grew alarmed.

“I don’t think so.” Granny started moving around the kitchen. “I tried to stay away and just listen. He was trying to communicate with the men holding Dolly through Laura. It wasn’t going well. So far I’ve only seen two men. Both are kind of on the young side and neither seem too bright.” Granny looked a bit puzzled.

Milo looked at Quinn. “Didn’t you say Laura left her wagon in the company of two men?”

Quinn nodded. “Yes, one young and one older. Of course, the woman who told me that could have been wrong.” He turned to the space where he believed Granny was located. “Granny, can you describe the men with Dolly and Laura?”

Granny gave it more thought, screwing up her face in concentration. “One is a bit pudgy and kind of sloppy. The other one is slim and better groomed, but not by much.” Emma conveyed Granny’s description to Quinn and Tracy.

“The heavy one fits one of the descriptions the woman gave me,” Quinn noted. “Granny, did you see an older man with these guys? Maybe someone in his late forties or early fifties and better dressed?”

“Granny is shaking her head,” Milo reported.

“What is it, Granny?” asked Emma, noting Granny’s confusion.

The ghost shrugged. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think the bigger guy is the same guy who stood behind you in line at Laura’s. You remember, you asked him to hold your place while you went to get something to drink.”

Emma nodded. “When Quinn first described him to me, I thought the same thing.”

“Are you talking about the guy reading the comic book?” asked Quinn.

“Yes,” Emma told him. “Granny recognized him, too. He’s one of the men holding Dolly and Laura.”

“And,” continued Granny, “there’s something mighty familiar about the other guy, too, but I can’t put my finger on it.”

Emma went on alert. “So you think you’ve seen him before?”

“I’m not sure. I keep trying to place him, but can’t. Give me time; I’m sure it will come to me.”

Milo turned to Emma. “Didn’t you say Laura wasn’t aware of her gift to communicate?”

“It sure looked that way to me,” Emma said. “She didn’t seem at all aware that Lenny had spoken through her.”

“Could she have been faking?” asked Quinn.

“Maybe,” admitted Emma. “But if she was, she was very good at it. Scary good.”

“I don’t think she was faking,” commented Granny. “From what I saw today, she does have the gift of being a medium, but isn’t fully aware of it or how to control it.”

In a low voice, Milo conveyed Granny’s words to Tracy and Quinn as she spoke.

“It seemed,” Granny continued, “that it was hit and miss between her and Nemo, like a bad electrical connection. Sometimes she was able to talk to his goons; other times she just stared into space while Nemo jumped up and down yelling at her.”

“Was Laura hearing everything Nemo was saying to her?” asked Emma. “Or was that also spotty?”

“I think she heard him just fine,” said Granny after giving it some thought. “But I’m not sure she knew where it was coming from or what she was supposed to do. Most of the time she sort of cowered in a half-frightened, half-trancelike state. Every now and then she’d say something to the two men that Nemo would tell her, but it was sort of jumbled.”

“That poor girl,” said Tracy after getting the scoop.

Granny screwed up her face in thought. “And there’s something else. Something that might be important.” When Emma and Milo turned their attention to her, she continued, “I think Laura knew I was there, or at least another spirit besides Nemo.”

“But I thought you stayed out of the way,” Milo said.

“I did and I’m sure Nemo didn’t see me. But every now and then, especially when Laura was in a sort of trance, she’d lift her head and her eyes would scan the place. It was weird. She wouldn’t turn her head, just her eyes, and her chin would come up like she was trying to smell something in the air. It reminded me of when Archie sniffs something on the wind. You know how he lifts his head but doesn’t move.”

“Yes,” said Emma, “I know that look.”

“Well, that’s how Laura looked sometimes. Like she was trying to hone in on some sort of scent she was getting.”

“Laura did know you were with me in the wagon,” Emma noted. “Did the men notice anything? Or did Nemo?”

“Not that I could see. They seemed really focused on getting her to be the go-between. They probably just thought it was her weird way of doing her thing.”

Emma got up and started clearing the table, more to have something to do while she gave the situation consideration. “The police said they were going to look into locating the mobile home and will check out Laura Crawford to see if she’s really missing. Of course, all of us know she is.”

“So what are we going to do about it?” asked Granny, her hands on her narrow hips. “Sit around and drink tea like a bunch of old farts?”

As soon as Milo translated the words, Quinn nearly shot the iced tea in his mouth across the table. “Good God,” he said, wiping the front of his shirt and his chin with a napkin, “that ghost has an attitude.”

“You don’t know the half of it,” said Emma. “But Granny is right. We need to get out there and find Dolly and Laura.”

“Y
OU
know,” Quinn said, “the police are right. Looking for that mobile home will be like looking for a needle in a haystack. From Granny’s description, it could be in a very small town or settlement. There are lots of those throughout the Southwest, mostly inhabited by people who want to be left alone.”

Emma knew it was going to be a big task. “I keep hoping Granny will notice something that will give us a clue. I know she’s trying very hard. I told her to snoop around for any mail and see if she could read an address.”

“Granny can read?”

“Yes, but not very well. She had limited schooling as a girl. Then there’s the whole ghost distortion thing. Often even words on paper won’t make sense to a ghost, even if they are well educated.” Emma smiled. “Granny actually practices her reading with my mother.”

Quinn glanced over at Emma. They were in her SUV and he was driving. Emma wanted to be free to concentrate in case any ghosts popped up. “You’re kidding?”

“Not at all. Sometimes when my mother is reading the paper or a magazine, Granny will ask to read along with her and help her sound out words. My mother can’t see Granny, but she hears her plain as day.”

“Granny’s pretty amazing.”

“That she is,” Emma agreed. “According to Milo, it’s very unusual for a ghost to integrate itself into a family’s day-to-day life the way Granny does. He thinks that’s why she’s not as confused as most spirits who interact with the living. Still, she has her limitations. It’s hard to imagine my life without her anymore. Even my father said that recently. He can’t see or hear her, but he knows when she’s around. Sometimes he’ll carry on a conversation with her through my mother.” Emma laughed. “My poor mother had to be the go between when Granny was first learning about football, which she loves dearly.”

The GPS in the vehicle alerted them that their destination was just ahead on the right. Before leaving Dolly’s, they had decided on a plan of action. Granny would stick with Dolly and try to find more clues to her location. Emma and Quinn would check out the rest home where Nemo was living and anything else they could find to help them piece together the players.

Milo and Tracy would stay close to Dolly’s house and research and contact other local mediums who might have been contacted by Nemo or his people to see if they could identify who was actually in charge of this scheme. The two young men watching Dolly and Laura were obviously not the brains of the outfit. Emma’s money was on the well-dressed man who had showed up at Laura’s wagon. Tracy was also going to do more research about the Lucky Buck Casino robbery and Nelson Morehouse. Milo decided to go through his mother’s things looking for something that might connect her to Nemo.

“I’m very puzzled by Nemo’s appearance here at Dolly’s,” Milo had said shortly before they each went off to their assignments.

“Why, darling?” Tracy had asked. “He knew Dolly.”

“Yes, but generally ghosts cannot connect randomly to places they’ve never been or people they’re never met or had close contact with,” Milo explained. “But Nemo showed up here like he owned the place.”

“Milo’s right,” confirmed Emma. “If Lenny hadn’t connected with me here when I arrived, he could not have found me at Laura’s or my hotel. Lenny told me that Nemo had been in contact with Dolly over the years, but didn’t say if he’d been to this house specifically.”

Milo looked puzzled. “We know Nemo knew Dolly, but she wasn’t here at the time he popped in. He must have been here before, to the house, when he was alive.”

“How long has your mother lived here?” asked Quinn.

Milo did some math in his head. “I bought this place for her when I had my first big bestseller. That had to be about eight or nine years ago. No.” He paused. “It was actually just over ten years ago. They had just built this complex. She’d been living in a small apartment near downtown for a number of years and I felt the area was getting unsafe.”

“Depending on his health,” said Emma, “Nemo might not have been incapacitated for the past ten years. He might have visited here during that time.”

“As much as I hate to intrude on her privacy, I think I need to have a look through my mother’s things. Who knows? Maybe I’ll find another birth certificate.” Milo shook his head in frustration. “Maybe this one will say I’m Nemo’s son.”

When they pulled into the parking lot of the Desert Sun Nursing Home, Quinn asked Emma, “So do you have a plan, or are you hoping they will simply spill their guts to you about a possible murder victim?”

“Not sure yet,” Emma told him.

After the police left, she’d written up her own notes using her iPad, jotting down key information that came out during the police questioning, before she forgot it. She consulted those notes before getting out of the SUV.

“I think I’ll start by asking for Frankie Varga.”

“That was Nemo’s nurse, wasn’t it?”

“Yes,” she answered, “or caretaker. Either way, he might have been the last person to see Dolly. It might be best to focus on Dolly’s disappearance rather than Nemo’s death.”

“Lead the way,” Quinn told her.

The front door of Desert Sun opened onto a very large area with a couple of sofas and chairs. A few patients were in the lobby, some in wheelchairs, some using canes to shuffle around. Through a wide door just off the lobby, Emma spied a large room with tables and more chairs and sofas. Babble from a daytime talk show drifted into the lobby from the room, and Emma caught the voice of her ex-husband. She wrinkled her nose in distaste.

In spite of the facility being clean and cheerfully decorated, the smell of slow-moving time hung over it like a waiting shroud. It was a very nice and upscale place as rest homes went, but in the end it was still a place where people came to wait out the end of their lives. Its occupants were people who were no longer able to care for themselves, or who had no one able to care for them at home, whether due to the extent of their illnesses or by default. Several of the patients in the lobby eyed them with interest. She and Quinn were new faces—two bright sparks to their otherwise dull day. Emma smiled at them and approached the large semicircular reception desk.

A thick brown woman with short salt-and-pepper hair manned the reception desk. She was dressed in maroon scrubs that were a little snug across her ample chest. Glasses perched precariously on the end of her nose as she paged through a magazine. Her name tag read
Gloria
.

“All visitors must sign in.” Without looking up, Gloria tapped a clipboard resting on the counter.

“We’re not here to see a patient,” Emma told her. “We’d like to see Frankie Varga.”

Gloria looked up, giving Emma her full attention. “Frankie isn’t working today. Can someone else help you?”

“Is there someone here now who was on duty last night?” From the corner of her eye, Emma saw Quinn go over to one of the old men in a wheelchair who’d been watching them.

“Is there a problem?” asked Gloria.

“We’re looking for a woman who was here visiting someone last night.” From her bag, Emma produced a photo of Dolly. It was a recent photo similar to one of the ones Milo gave the police.

Gloria pushed her glasses farther up her nose and looked the photo over. “Isn’t that the woman the police are looking for?”

“Yes, I’m a friend of her son’s and we’re double-checking every place she might have gone yesterday.”

“They told us about it when we started the day shift this morning.” Her eyes went from the photo to Emma’s face and clouded with caution. “She was here visiting old man Morehouse, wasn’t she?”

“Yes, she was,” Emma answered, wondering how much the facility had disclosed to their staff. Had they mentioned they thought Nemo had been murdered, or that Dolly was a suspect? “Have you ever seen her before? Maybe visiting him another time?”

Gloria studied the photo again. “Can’t say I have.”

When Gloria made no move to ask someone else or to offer any further assistance, Emma asked, “Is there someone here now who was on duty last night? Maybe they remember seeing her.”

“No one here now would have been here last night.”

“I understand Mr. Morehouse passed away last night?” Emma hadn’t wanted to bring up Nemo, but she needed to find a way to scale Gloria’s formidable wall.

“Yes, he did.”

Emma waited for more explanation, but got none. “I know he was very old and sick.”

“Yes, he was. Like most of the guests here.”

“Did he have many visitors?” Emma asked, not giving up. “Family members maybe or other friends like Dolly? Maybe one of them can help us find her.”

“You really should talk to the police about this, Ms. . . . I didn’t catch your name.”

“Emma. Emma Whitecastle.” Emma said her name quickly, hoping it wouldn’t be linked to the man’s voice coming from the TV in the other room. “Like I said, I’m a friend of Ms. Meskiel’s son and I’m helping search for her. Any help would be very, very appreciated.”

“Well, Emma, you really should speak with our director. His name is Gene Garby. We were told any questions should be directed to him or to the police. He’s not here right now, but will be back this afternoon.” Gloria reached over and plucked a business card from a card holder on the desk. “Here’s his card. But call and make an appointment first. He’s in charge of a couple of facilities so he’s very busy.”

“Thank you,” Emma told her, taking the card and looking at it. “Is Mr. Garby any relation to Detective Howard Garby? He’s with the Las Vegas Police Department.”

Gloria shrugged. “Don’t know. But I do know that Mr. Garby is a local. He grew up in Boulder City.” Gloria gave Emma a meaningful look from over the upper rim of her glasses, which had slipped down her nose again. “And I do hope you find that woman.”

Emma wasn’t sure if the look said,
Find her safe and sound
, or
Find her because she’s a killer
. Either way, Emma was sure Gloria knew more, much more, than she was letting on.

Emma pulled out one of her own business cards and jotted her cell number on the back. She placed it on the counter and pushed it toward Gloria. “If anything turns up, please give me a call.”

Gloria started to pick it up. “I’ll pass this along to Mr. Garby.”

Emma gave Gloria her own significant look. “No, that’s for
you
.”

Gloria picked up the card and read both the front and the back. She jerked her head in the direction of the other room. “You related to that buffoon on the TV?”

“Not anymore.”

Emma’s comment caused a sly smile to cross Gloria’s face. She tucked the card into her pocket and went back to her magazine without another word.

Quinn was now chatting up an old woman sitting on one of the sofas by the front door. Emma went over to them. In front of the woman was a walker with yellow tennis balls on the back two legs. Dressed in a floral dress with her white hair impeccably done, the frail woman looked like a colorful and delicate hummingbird taking a break from a feeder. Quinn was all charm as he asked her questions and all ears as he listened.

“This is my friend Emma,” Quinn told her in a break in the conversation. “Emma, this is my new friend Claudine Houser.”

Claudine smiled at Emma, showing a very nice set of false teeth behind her pale pink lipstick. “Why, you’re pretty as a picture.”

Usually Emma took compliments about her looks in stride, but the genuine and old-fashioned comment from Claudine made Emma blush like a schoolgirl.

“Thank you, Claudine,” Emma responded. “You’re looking lovely yourself. Are you waiting for someone?”

“My son,” she answered with a big smile. “Today’s my ninety-third birthday. He’s going to pick me up and take me to dinner.”

“Why, happy birthday!” remarked Quinn. “But isn’t it a little early for dinner?”

“Not when you’re my age. Nor his. Edward is seventy himself. Wouldn’t be surprised if one day soon he and I are sitting here side by side. If he ever got ill, that hussy wife of his would slap him in here without a second thought.” Claudine closed one eye and gave them both a knowing nod. “She’s his fourth, you know. And a lot younger. After his money, if you ask me. Frankly, my favorite was number two. Her name was Susan. They divorced after seven years because he couldn’t keep it in his pants.”

Emma raised a questioning brow in Quinn’s direction. He winked at her in response.

“Claudine,” Quinn said, guiding the woman back to their previous conversation. “Tell Emma what you told me about Nemo.”

Emma sat in a chair next to Claudine and encouraged the woman with a warm smile.

Claudine leaned toward Emma and whispered, “Good riddance to bad rubbish is what I say. I remember Nemo when he was all high and mighty and running around with those mobsters back in the day. Quite the big shot. Thought he was still a big shot when he came here.”

“Did you actually know Nemo back in the sixties or just through the news?” As Emma asked the question, a hazy apparition started to appear off to the side of Claudine.

Emma turned her head and saw a few more spirits materializing. They were hovering near various patients. She hadn’t noticed them when she came in. It must have taken time for the ghosts to feel comfortable enough to show themselves to her. One old man, nearly as bent as the cane he was using, shuffled along mumbling. Next to him floated the spirit of an elderly woman. The woman looked at Emma and gave her a friendly wave.