Collard Greens and Catfishing

by Kelsey Browning

  She hadn’t been able to bear throwing away the red and gold painted necklace, even after it got wet and stuck to one of her favorite appliquéd shirts, completely ruining the cute pink cow stitched near the neckline. Now, she was extra glad she hadn’t tossed it because it would make her visit to Warner all the more believable. Hopefully, the piece of makeshift jewelry would comfort him and bring back good memories of his deceased wife. That would make Maggie feel slightly less guilty about using the old guy to gain access to the information they needed.

  Before she could ring the buzzer, the front door swung open and out walked Deputy Barnes’ handsome young nephew.

  “Hey there, James,” Sera said brightly. “Visiting someone?”

  “I volunteer in the rec room once a week,” he said with a smile. “What about you?”

  “Stopping by to see Warner Talley.”

  James’ smile dimmed a watt or two. “You realize he doesn’t remember the people who come see him, right?”

  “It’s all about cheering him up in the present,” Maggie broke in. “And speaking of, we’d better get to it.”

  Maggie, Sera and Abby Ruth filed inside, their footsteps squeaking down the sterile linoleum hallway. Sera approached the nurses’ station desk and signed each of their names on the register.

  The blonde nurse with the ponytail smiled when she saw they were visiting Warner. “He’ll be delighted to have visitors. He’s been a little restless now that his son is…unable to visit. The transition from seeing Nash several times a week to not at all has been hard on Mr. Talley.”

  “I’m sure,” Maggie murmured.

  “He doesn’t understand.”

  Abby Ruth said, “We’ll try to be better about coming more often.”

  Where heck had that come from? Was Abby Ruth softening up?

  Abby Ruth leaned her elbows on the counter. “You know, I was wondering if you had a layout of the facility.”

  Maggie winced. Nothing subtle about Abby Ruth.

  “My older sister needs a place like this,” Abby Ruth continued, “and I think having her close by would be nice.”

  The nurse nodded. “Oh, yes. Being near loved ones is so important.” She pulled out a brochure. “Here’s the information about Dogwood Ridge and a little map showing the number of rooms in the facility is printed on the back.” She drew four stars atop some of the units. “These are vacant right now.”

  Abby Ruth held the brochure at arm’s length and waved it in a circle encompassing the other end of the hallway. “What’s in that section of the building?”

  “Mainly our administrative offices and equipment. Mr. Talley’s room is the last patient room on this floor.”

  “Hmm…I was hoping for a first floor room for my sister, but it sounds like you don’t have many.” Abby Ruth tucked the brochure into her back pocket. “I’ll think it over.”

  “The residents here not only get excellent care, but we also offer a shuttle for shopping and a number of enrichment activities. I’m sure your sister would be very happy here. Please let me know if you’d like to set up a tour for her.”

  “I’ll be sure to do that if she shows the slightest interest,” Abby Ruth said.

  “Y’all can go on down to Mr. Talley’s room.” She motioned toward the end of the hall. “I know he’s awake because I poked my head in not five minutes ago.”

  The nurse busied herself behind the desk, and the three of them walked down the hall. “That was easy,” Abby Ruth said from the side of her mouth.

  From Warner’s room, muffled dialogue from the television echoed into the hall. Maggie paused for a few seconds, just to get her courage up. What they were doing felt so sneaky, but it was for a good cause. Plus, she really would be visiting him. That was her job in this mission. She gave a double-knock on his door. “Yoo-hoo. Warner?”

  The old man was sitting in front of the screen watching Family Feud, where Steve Harvey was teasing two ladies with their hands held over the buzzers. Warner looked up as Maggie and the others flooded into his small room. His stare was initially blank, but when it landed on Maggie, his eyes brightened and he reached for her hand. “Melba. You’ve come back. It’s been so long. Did I do something wrong?”

  Sera nudged Maggie forward, so she clasped his hand and leaned in to give him a hug. “You? Do something wrong? Never. It hasn’t been that long,” she tried to reassure him.

  He touched her necklace. “So pretty. So pretty. As pretty as you. I’m glad you’re wearing it and like it too.”

  “I love it.” She took a seat in the chair next to his. The man was still talking in rhyme. That sure seemed like a lot of work. “How have you been?”

  “I’m fine. A bit tired. It’s been nice to see Nash. I worry about him. Does he have enough cash?”

  “You raised him right, Warner.” That was a bit of hogwash, but no harm, no foul. “I’m sure he’s fine.”

  “We did it together. We raised him right,” Warner chanted. “You in the day and me by night.”

  “Right.” Maggie figured the best thing she could do is play along with whatever fairy tale was playing in the theater in Warner’s mind. “Have you and Nash had nice visits?”

  “We surely did. Oh, yes indeed. And he even brought a present to me.”

  “A present?”

  Warner nodded. “A surprise, I suppose, because he tucked it away. I found it when he left the other day.” His joints creaked as he rose from his chair and shuffled across the room to the armoire. Reaching above his head, he grasped a small black box and carried it back. “At first, I thought it was a game. But look, it’s a picture frame.”

  He opened the picture frame. Only it wasn’t a picture frame at all. Maggie recognized what it was right away. One side was a keyboard and the other a screen. It was a miniature laptop.

  “You’re saying Nash brought you this?” Maggie shot a look at Sera and Abby Ruth, who were standing like statues near the door. Obviously, they were both happy to let her take the lead on chitchatting with Warner. He had to be mistaken about a visit from his son, since that was impossible. But then again, Warner thought she was Melba, so there was no telling who’d actually given him this little computer.

  “I suppose he’ll bring pictures to tuck inside. Wouldn’t it wonderful to see him with a bride?”

  Yeah, not likely to happen anytime soon. Warner handed her the computer, and she balanced it in her lap. In better times Warner had probably used it for email and other Talley Funeral Home business. “What a thoughtful gift, Warner.” She passed the laptop back to him. “We do have a good boy. He loves you so much.”

  The man beamed with pride. He returned the treasure to its place, then shuffled his way back to his chair. A groan escaped as lowered himself. “I’m very tired today. Can you stay?”

  Abby Ruth shot Maggie a thumbs-up. “We’re gonna just skedaddle, Mags. You cover us. Got it?”

  “Go on,” she said. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  “You’ll text if anyone comes in his room, right?” Sera asked.

  Maggie pulled her phone from her pocket. “All I have to do is hit send.”

  “Let’s hit it,” Abby Ruth said to Sera.

  Within minutes after they left, Maggie watched Warner’s facial skin begin to sag. His eyes looked as if they’d slip down his face if it weren’t for all the folds holding them up. His shaky hands found comfort in the threadbare spot on the arm of his chair.

  “Yes, my friend,” she told him. “Rest. I’ll be right here.” But she doubted he’d remember if she’d been there or not when he awoke.

  His eyes slowly drooped and he was mumbling in a state of dreamland in just moments.

  Maybe his low, nonsensical conversations were how he coped with the loss of his son’s regular visits. Maggie didn’t see her own daughter, Pam, nearly enough. In fact, it had been two weeks since their last phone call, and that was too long.

  Suddenly, Maggie missed Pam like she’d missed her the first time she’d gone
off to Girl Scout camp. I miss my baby girl and my baby girl’s babies. We’re due for a visit. Overdue.

  * * *

  Out in the hallway, Abby cast a quick glance at the nurse’s station to find it mercifully empty. Sera was a better good luck charm than a hundred rabbit’s feet. “Who would’ve thought an old folks’ home could be such a hotbed of criminal activity?” she said to Sera. “If we trace one more baddie to this place, I’m gonna suspect the mob.”

  “Summer Shoals seems awfully small for organized crime.”

  “In here.” Abby Ruth waved Sera toward a door marked with a sign that said Server Room.

  “Oh, hi there,” Sera said brightly.

  Abby Ruth spotted the object of Sera’s cheer, a man with messy, gray-white hair wearing jeans, paisley print suspenders and a bow tie stamped with…computer mice sporting thin black tails.

  Dammit. The plan had been to snoop first and confront only if necessary. If they continued to track down bad guys, flexibility would fast become a critical skill.

  The man smiled, which took him from fashion-challenged geek to geekily handsome. “You must’ve made a wrong turn. This is the IT area. Believe me, no one comes in here by choice. In fact, the only time people enter that door is when something’s wrong.”

  “We’re in the right place,” Abby Ruth told him.

  “Having trouble with the wireless in one of the rooms?” He sprang from his chair and hustled for the door. “If you’ll show me the spot, I’ll have you fixed up in a jif—”

  Without completely thinking it through, Abby Ruth drew her 9mm from the holster at her back.

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa. This stuff might look valuable—” the man waved an arm at the small stash of humming boxes and monitors, “—but most of it’s at least five years old. If you’re hoping to pawn something, you’d be better off stealing hubcaps from the parking lot.”

  “Abby Ruth!” Sera scolded. “There’s no need for that.”

  “I find ammo talks faster than words,” she said. “Besides, a Glock is one of the safest weapons in the world.”

  “I’m sorry about my friend’s impulse-control problem.” Sera patted the man’s arm and gently led him back to his chair. “But we need you to stay here.”

  “Why are you treating him with kid gloves?” Abby Ruth demanded. “We’ve found our guy.”

  “Haven’t you ever heard innocent until proven guilty?”

  “You know,” the man interjected, “usually trials happen at the courthouse. And that’s only after the person’s been arrested for doing something wrong. Which I absolutely haven’t done. By the way, do either of you have ID? I didn’t realize Sheriff Castro had added seniors to his citizen’s arrest program.”

  Abby Ruth speared Sera with a glare. “I should shoot him for that alone.”

  “It’s hard to get information from a dead man,” Sera said with a smile.

  For the first time, the computer guy looked alarmed, with his hands gripping his chair arms. “I…I have grandchildren. They love their poppy and would be very sad if he was gunned down in his own office.”

  “I won’t shoot you unless you do something stupid.” Abby Ruth hooked a rolling chair with her boot toe. She pulled it toward her and sprawled into it. “Besides, in this tiny enclosed space, a gunshot would echo like a bitch. Sera, since he seems to like you, why don’t you try to get the truth out of him?”

  Sera smiled her charm-grown-men-into-trying-yoga smile which encouraged IT Guy to focus on her. “What can you tell us about ThePerfectFit.com?”

  “Um…that it sounds like a shoe sales website?”

  Abby Ruth pushed off, rolling her chair forward to ram his. “Don’t play stupid with us. You’re obviously a smart guy if you work on all this stuff.” She waved a hand at the wall-to-wall racks. “The longer you deny you’re involved, the more likely my finger is to sweat. The more my finger sweats, the more likely it is to slip.”

  “Thought you said the noise would be too loud,” he said.

  “But I didn’t mention I have ear plug implants.”

  He turned to Sera. “Is she for real?”

  “I’d like to say no, but she’s unpredictable.” Sera patted him on the shoulder. “Usually, I can keep her under control. But we really need you to tell us about the website.”

  “Forget the site,” Abby Ruth snapped. “We want to know why you’re stringing women along with these paintball and beekeeping dates.”

  The guy dropped his chin toward his chest and looked at Abby Ruth with an I-was-taking-you-seriously-until-now stare. “Beekeeping?”

  “Yeah,” Abby Ruth said. “You look like that type.”

  “I’ll have you know I’m allergic to all stinging insects. You’d no more find me waltzing around in a bunch of bees than you’d find me letting someone else defrag my hard drive.”

  “Sounds kinda kinky,” Sera said, looking him up and down as though considering his bedroom skills.

  “Besides,” he said, “I was married for over thirty-five years. My wife passed away a couple of years ago, and I haven’t been interested in jumping back into the dating pool. No matter how much my kids have encouraged me. In fact, that’s one reason I work at Dogwood Ridge part-time, to avoid their hovering.”

  “Then why did we trace the IP address for ThePerfectFit.com to here?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “That’s right,” Abby Ruth said. “Someone in this building is the one behind that site. How many men work here?”

  “Well, we have a few nurses, janitors, two doctors who come in to check on their own patients. You’re sure you’re looking for a man?”

  Abby Ruth shot a look at Sera. Sera lifted a shoulder. “Don’t ask me. Los Angeles is home to some of the prettiest transvestites in the world. Could be one reason to cover his…or her…face.”

  For whatever reason, Abby Ruth believed IT Guy. Really, if he couldn’t be bothered to match his suspenders to his tie, it was unlikely he’d go to all the trouble to dress up in costumes for his dates. She leaned forward and holstered her gun.

  “But,” he said, “I don’t like this one bit. These computers are my domain. If someone’s messing with my equipment, I should know about it. Now that I’m not looking down a barrel, do you mind if I check for anything out of place?”

  “Be my guest,” Abby Ruth told him.

  He hopped up, sending his rolling chair careening into Abby Ruth’s knees. He hmmed his way through an inspection of every piece of equipment in the office.

  Lord, Abby Ruth hoped Maggie was keeping Warner occupied and the nurses out of his room. The last thing Abby Ruth and Sera needed was for someone to come looking for them.

  “Nothing is out of order here, but…”

  “But what?”

  “It’s not unheard of for someone to piggyback off a wireless network,” he explained. “It’s easy enough to set up a web server. All you’d need is a small computer and—”

  “How small?” Sera asked. “Like a desktop?”

  “Yep, or even one of those slick netbooks.”

  Sera and Abby Ruth locked gazes. “Warner.”

  “That’s just silly,” Sera protested. “He can barely shuffle across the room, much less wage a paintball war.”

  “Are you saying you saw a computer in Warner Talley’s room?” IT Guy asked. “Some of the other residents have their own computers, but Warner does video visitations with his son in the common room.”

  Hmm…she’d have to mention that to Maggie. Skyping Lillian sure would save a lot of time and gas money.

  “Let’s go.” Abby Ruth grabbed IT Guy and yanked him out the door. Half a dozen strides later and the three of them were in Warner’s room, where they found Maggie sitting next to the old guy. He was asleep in his chair, and she was perched on the love seat holding his hand, a sad expression on her face.

  “Mags, where’s that little computer Warner pulled down earlier?”

  “Right there in the armoire.”

&nbs
p; Abby Ruth snatched it out of the piece of furniture and thrust it into IT Guy’s hands. “Do your thing. We need to know what’s on this.”

  He settled onto the love seat next to Maggie, and the butt-shot cushions cratered, sending him sliding into her side. IT Guy put his arm out to catch himself. From Abby Ruth’s vantage point, the whole thing looked like one of those yawn-to-get-your-arm-around-the-girl schticks guys pulled back in her day.

  Maggie and IT Guy made eye contact, then scrambled away from each other to their respective sides of the couch.

  “What’s going on?” Maggie asked while IT Guy bent over the little computer.

  “We’re following up on a hunch,” Abby Ruth told her. “IT Guy here…what is your name, anyway?”

  “Bruce Shellenberger,” he mumbled.

  “Old Bruce here said it would be a snap for someone to steal onto Dogwood Ridge’s network.”

  He glanced up, lasered his gaze onto Abby Ruth. “Not a snap. I said it could be done. You make it sound like I sit around watching cat videos instead of doing my job. I’m diligent about the security here.”

  “I’m sure you are,” she soothed, then turned back to Maggie. “So apparently a superhero mastermind could use his security-busting powers to finagle his way onto the network here.”

  “I’m in,” Bruce declared, squinting at the screen. “You little son-of-a…” He glanced up and flashed Maggie a sheepish smile, “…biscuit-eater.”

  “That sounds like you found something good.”

  “An IIS and a MySQL database.”

  Whatever the hell those were. “And?”

  “We need to find out what’s in that database,” Sera said. “That has to be the backend of the dating site.”

  Maybe they needed to invest some resources into Sera. A few classes and she’d be a whiz at this stuff.

  “If the person has half a brain,” Bruce said, “the database will be password protected.”

  “Ain’t nothing for a stepper,” Abby Ruth said.

  Bruce typed, frowned, mumbled a couple of modified oaths. “Definitely has a password, and he closed the backdoor, so I can’t create another admin account.”