T. Lynn Ocean - Jersey Barnes 03 - Southern Peril

by T. Lynn Ocean

  “Let’s get to the cemetery, for crying out loud,” Spud said.

  Cracker sat against my legs and begged for another muffin. He got one. “Why?” I asked.

  “Just got a feeling,” my father said, “that we ought to go take a look.”

  We finished breakfast, piled in the hearse, and pointed it toward Maplewood Memorial Cemetery. At least it would be one place where people wouldn’t stare at my unusual vehicle.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Think of all these people,” Fran said as we trudged through a shaded, grassy area of the cemetery, looking for the prayer bench. “All the family histories and wonderful stories that rest here.”

  And all the dead bodies. “I’d rather not think about them,” I said. For me, strolling through a cemetery is six short feet shy of a full-fledged necrophobia panic attack. My chest began to constrict and I couldn’t get enough air.

  “Pretend you’re walking through a park, for crying out loud,” Spud said. “You’ll be fine.”

  “What’s wrong with her?” Fran said, as though I weren’t standing right there.

  “She’s got this thing about being around a dead body,” Spud explained.

  Fran launched into a speech about the cycle of life.

  I kept walking. “Can we please just go find the bench?”

  We trekked to the area near a pond and, on the third prayer bench we checked, found one with the correct names on it. It was made from solid marble coral-tone slabs and positioned beneath a giant hardwood. The top was about four feet wide and maybe twenty inches deep. The rectangular base that supported the top of the bench was slightly smaller, and its front panels were engraved with two names, two dates of birth, and two dates of death.

  “Now what?” I said.

  Spud’s mustache moved from side to side. I’d never noticed him moving his mouth before when deep in thought, so it must have been a newly developed habit since the addition of the facial hair. Either that or I’d never before witnessed him deep in thought.

  “Wait here.” Spud made his way to where two men were digging a grave with a small tractor. He spoke to them, his walking cane animated. The one driving the tractor jumped off, and the three men headed to where we waited at the bench.

  “Never heard of kinfolk polishing the urns,” one said as they took positions on either side of the marble top. “Most people put a permanent seal around the panels so you don’t have to worry about them getting dirty. Might want to consider it.”

  My father said something about keeping that in mind. With a three count, the workers lifted the heavy bench seat and set it on the ground. Inside the base were two identical brass urns. The men stood back to wait.

  Spud acted like he was wiping tears from his eyes, and not wanting to be left out, Fran let out a wail and dropped to her knees.

  “Uh, we’ll go finish up what we were doing,” a worker said, retreating. “Let us know when you’re ready for us to put the top back on.”

  Sniffling, Spud nodded at them.

  I rolled my eyes. “Maybe you two ought to join a community theater group.”

  Spud found a handkerchief in his pocket, waved it around in the air just for show, and handed it to Fran. He removed the urns. They, too, were engraved with names. Inside the first urn was a plastic liner of ashes, secured with a ribbon at the top. Spud told Fran to untie it.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  He dismissed my question with the wave of a hand. “You were impatient coming out the womb, and you’re still impatient today, for crying out loud.”

  He’d been there when Mom gave birth, but not while I was growing up? Something to think about later.

  When Fran got the plastic bag untied, Spud dipped three fingers into the ashes, studied them, smelled them, shrugged.

  “Oh, gross.” I nearly turned away, but I didn’t want to make a scene. A lone black man wandered among the graves and stopped at one nearby. I didn’t see a vehicle, and I wondered if he’d walked in. He caught me looking. Seemingly unconcerned, he stooped to clean off the headstone.

  Fran retied the liner and opened the second one. Spud repeated his finger-dipping process and made a face. “Smell this,” he said, and stuck his fingers in front of Fran’s nose.

  She sniffed and made a similar face. “Smells like a dirty ashtray.”

  Spud dug further into the plastic liner and brought up a handful of sand. “Don’t know where your Garland fellow is, but I’m pretty sure this ain’t him.”

  Driving back, I asked my father how he’d known.

  “Timing was too ironic. Death report too clean. And the whole part about dead upon arrival at the hospital?”

  “Yeah?”

  “It’s all pretty perspicuous, really,” my father said.

  I knew it to be a calendar word and waited for the definition.

  “That means clear-cut,” Fran said from the backseat.

  Spud slid on a pair of mirrored aviation-style sunglasses. “First off, all the ground surrounding Argo’s is loaded with grass and shrubbery. If a man took a fall off a ladder anywhere around that building, he might have hurt himself something bad. But a lethal fall? Only if he broke his neck or had a head injury.”

  His mustache worked. “Second of all, let’s say he was hurt that bad. The medics never would’ve moved him. They would have radioed for a chopper to carry him to the nearest trauma center.”

  Fran reached through the hearse’s dividing window to pat Spud’s shoulder. “That’s right, sweetie. Wilmington’s trauma center is a level two. He’d need a level one center for a cracked-open head.”

  I eyed her in the rearview.

  She withdrew her arm to shrug. “Seniors know these things.”

  “And third off,” Spud continued, “the report said Garland was fixing a floodlight on the side of the building. There ain’t no floodlights on the side of the building. When we were coming up from the marina, the place was all lit up. All the floodlights on the building were attached to the corners.”

  I chewed on that for the remainder of the drive to the Block. Spud was right. Somebody wanted to make it look like Garland was dead. And the most likely suspect was Uncle Sam himself. Who else could pull off a fake death in Wilmington, North Carolina—including medical examiner collaboration and a signed death certificate? Had it been the DEA? Was Brad in on it? And if Garland was alive, where was he?

  TWENTY-FIVE

  The next best thing to burglarizing the Divine Image Group’s office, I figured, would be to schedule an appointment and mosey around. Since I’ve got all the fake body parts I want, Fran volunteered to be the patient. She was supposed to say that she wanted noninvasive options to look younger and complain about a pulled back muscle to see if they’d write her a scrip for pain pills, just for the asking.

  I played the role of Fran’s daughter and chauffeur. And Spud decided to tag along, because his poker pals were volunteering at an NAB fund-raising car wash.

  “Ain’t no way I’m gonna spend my day washing cars when I’m not even allowed to drive one, for crying out loud,” he said for the third or fourth time as my hearse traversed Wilmington’s streets. After the state of North Carolina deemed Spud too visually impaired to drive, he became obsessed with getting rid of his car. When he couldn’t sell it, he tried to collect on the insurance money by sinking it, burning it, and paying someone to steal it. When all his plans failed, he had an epiphany: Keep the Chrysler so other people could tote him around in it. That’s when a stolen garbage truck driven by a crazy woman plowed into it while the car was parked outside the Block.

  We arrived ten minutes early for Fran’s appointment and stepped into an uncluttered, inviting reception area. It was the kind of waiting room that opened directly to the front-desk gal, with a basic floor-to-waist counter separating us. No tiny sliding window to shut out the offending patients. There was also a single-cup brew coffee machine and a beverage cooler with bottled water and fruit juices. Two flat-screen televisions on t
he walls. And current magazines.

  “You want me to work up a diversion once Frannie gets back there?” Spud asked. “Then you can slip behind the counter and take a look-see.”

  “Let’s hold off on that for now, Spud. This is a passive recon effort.”

  He grumbled something about being bored. “All the magazines are foo-foo. I should’ve brought the Star-News.”

  Five minutes and he’d gotten bored. I wondered how he ever managed a stakeout back in the day. Like a kid spotting a new toy, Spud found the coffeemaker and brewed three cups before a beaming nurse with perfect skin called Fran’s name.

  “I’m off for a walk,” my father said. “See what’s around here.”

  “It’s mostly all medical buildings, Spud.”

  He waved his cane. “Well, then, maybe I’ll find a urologist. At least they have decent magazines in their waiting rooms.”

  He ambled out the door with one of his cups of coffee, leaving me alone in the reception area, except for one woman and a pharmaceutical sales rep. I studied the area behind the counter. Two telephones, a single desktop computer, bins of samples, a brochure rack, a green plant, and not much else. No sliding file drawers with patient records and no cluttering signage. The phone chimed and the receptionist smiled when she answered, just like in the television commercials. She changed computer screens to key in an appointment, and when she hung up, she flipped through an appointment book and wrote something down. Apparently, they kept a manual backup of the doctors’ schedules.

  The reception counter was built in an L shape, and the left side was a glass retail display stocked with skin products. Overall, a pleasing environment. Even the air smelled good, tinged with aromas of peach and citrus.

  I asked the nurse if I could join “my mother.”

  “Sure,” she said. “Patient room three. The door is open. Dr. Haines will be in to see her in just a minute.”

  The building was larger than I’d expected, with several treatment rooms, two consultation rooms, and an outpatient surgery area that appeared to be shared with an adjacent medical building. Another single computer sat inside an open workstation, but I still didn’t see anything that resembled hard copies of patient files.

  I went back to the main reception area, found a Coastal Living magazine, and read about the in-vogue vacation spots. Places I, too, could visit if I were retired as planned. There were also recipes I could try and home-decorating ideas I could incorporate, if I had the time. With a sigh, I closed the magazine and checked my watch. It had been almost an hour, and like Spud, I’d grown bored. I also wondered what could possibly be taking Fran so long to ask for pain pills. I was about to check on her when she emerged, escorted out by a nurse. She had huge lips—Fran, that is. And a wide-eyed expression.

  “Hi, sweetie,” she said, her “s” sounding thick. “I’m all set. Where’s Spud?”

  I couldn’t stop staring at her lips. “He, uh, he went for a walk.”

  The nurse gave Fran a stack of patient brochures and an ice pack. “This will help keep the swelling down, Miss Cutter. Five minutes on and five off, for the next hour. You look beautiful!”

  Fran said good-bye with a hug and promised to bring one of her famous lemon pies to her follow-up appointment. We left to search for my father, Fran gripping her ice pack and me carrying her purse and patient brochures. The weather was mild and I’d parked in shade, so Fran decided to stretch out in the bodymobile while I looked for Spud. His brand-new cell phone, Fran told me, was in her purse. He didn’t like to carry it, she said. Too clunky in his pocket.

  I scanned the immediate area, thinking that Spud’s arthritis would have prevented him from walking too far. No restaurants or sports bars were in sight. He had to be sitting in one of the doctor’s waiting rooms. I went from building to building. The fourth was a cosmetic dentistry clinic. I asked someone in a pink smock if she’d seen an elderly man walking with a cane.

  “Big white mustache, yellow shirt with parrots all over it?” she asked. That described Spud, sporting another of his new cruisewear shirts.

  “When did you see him?”

  “Oh, he’s almost finished,” she said. “He should be right out.”

  Before I could inquire as to what he was almost finished with, Spud emerged.

  “Hey, kid,” he said. And showed me a row of teeth that were the color of white paint. The glossy, bright white kind that goes on interior crown molding and window frames. “You like ’em?”

  I looked at Pink Smock, eyebrows as high as I could manage.

  “That’s the great thing about laser whitening—immediate results,” she said. “Doesn’t he look ten years younger?”

  “Twenty,” Spud said. And remembered to smile.

  When we got back to the hearse, a woman stood next to it, peering in the backseat, cell phone out. She wore a pair of boxy, jet black wraparound sunglasses that fit over her regular glasses.

  I asked if I could help her.

  “I’m trying to call the police, but I can’t see a darned thing! My eyes are dilated.” She shoved the phone at me. “Here. Dial 911.”

  “May I ask why you need the police?”

  She pointed at Fran, stretched out in the rear of the hearse. “I don’t think that woman is breathing! And it looks like she’s hurt. Like maybe somebody has hit her in the mouth!”

  Keep in mind that the back of my hearse is similar to a limo. Leather seats. Sound system. Compartments for ice and drinks—and weapons. Normally, people can’t see through the windows, but Fran had rolled down all the tinted glass before she fell asleep. Head back and huge mouth hanging open, she did look sort of, well, dead. I handed the woman’s cell phone back to her.

  “Fran, wake up.” I reached through the window and shook her. “I found Spud. We’re ready to go.”

  Fran stirred and her eyes popped open.

  The woman gasped. “Wh-why is she in a hearse?”

  “Why not, for crying out loud,” Spud said. After a beat, he thought to show off his newly lasered teeth and aimed them at the Good Samaritan.

  Fran sat up and stuck her puffy lips out the window. “Give me a kiss, baby!”

  The woman hustled away, much faster than a senior citizen with dilated eyes should be walking through a busy parking lot.

  “Did Dr. Haines give you any drugs?” I asked Fran once we were on the road, cruising back to the Block. She and my father had chosen to ride in the back. They wanted to be chauffeured.

  “No, nothing,” Fran said. “I tried my best to get him to pull out that prescription pad, but he said that ibuprofen would work fine.”

  I eyed her in my rearview. “You were supposed to be getting a consultation.”

  “We consulted,” Fran said. “Then I got my wrinkles Botoxed.” She fluffed her hair. “And he filled in my marionette lines and plumped up my lips. He’s such a nice man. And I look fabulous!”

  “Me too,” Spud said. And smiled. “We both look fabulous, for crying out loud.”

  Jersey Barnes and crew, supersleuths in action. We hadn’t gleaned much intel about the Divine Image Group. But Fran and Spud had shaved years off their appearances. And I’d managed to grab the Divine Group’s appointment book. It wasn’t a completely wasted trip.

  TWENTY-SIX

  Morgan was waiting when we pulled open the Block’s oversize warehouse-style garage doors, and he came in with the sunlight. I was helping to fill ice bins, open the registers, and prep the bar—and hadn’t been expecting him.

  “Morgan,” I said. “Good to see that you’re getting out and about in Wilmington! You here for an early lunch?”

  He positioned himself on a bar stool. “Just coffee, please. I don’t usually eat anything until midday.”

  I poured his coffee, and he explained that he was trying to cut back on the amount of time he spent at work. I could “listen” between the lines. Translation: He knew eavesdropping to be wrong in so many different ways, but the craving to do so remained strong. Cutting
back on his work hours was Morgan’s way of staying away from the temptation as much as possible.

  “So anyway,” he went on, “I got a visitor’s guide and I’ve been checking out all the attractions around here. I feel like a tourist.”

  “Smart move on your part,” I said. “Get out there. Meet people. Have fun.”

  Morgan sipped from his coffee cup, frowned, smelled the brew, frowned again.

  I sat beside him. “Something wrong?”

  He asked what type of coffee we were using. I told him.

  He took another sip. “The coffee has a bitter, almost metallic aftertaste. When’s the last time you cleaned your brewer?”

  “Huh?” I didn’t know you were supposed to clean a coffee machine, other than the pot. Ox normally made sure that type of thing got done.

  Morgan laughed. “It’s very simple. After you close tonight, run a cycle of half white vinegar and half water through the brewer. Then flush it out with two cycles of plain water. Need to do that once a month to keep the flavor of the coffee from getting spoiled by mineral deposits.”

  I gave him a light punch on the shoulder. “You’re a natural at this restaurant stuff!”

  “I’m told I have a perceptive palate.” He grinned. “The chef asks me to taste his new creations.”

  “That’s excellent, Morgan. When the DEA finishes their investigation and all that mess is behind you, you might love your new life as restaurateur.”

  “You could be right.” He forced down some coffee. “Speaking of the dope police, any new developments?”

  I gave Morgan a vague update. “You need to be careful until this is all over. Stay aware of what’s going on around you. I don’t think you’re in any danger, but you still need to be on alert. Call me the instant you sense anything fishy.”

  “Ready to implement the ‘free lunch’ plan?” he asked.

  I nodded. It was a good idea. It could work. Determined to help, Morgan had come up with the idea to open Argo’s for an invitation-only lunch. All of his regulars were invited. It would be Morgan’s way of saying thanks for the patronage and continued support after his father’s passing. He’d purposely scheduled it when the doctors could attend, and we’d be recording them to have something for leverage if needed.