Lunatic's Game

by Margaret Lashley

  Cherry Manor. Yeah, right.

  No cherry trees grew in Florida, and there were certainly no manors within thirty miles of Point Paradise. In fact, I was pretty sure that, except for the size of the oak trees growing in the front yards, nothing had changed in Cherry Manor since the post WWII boon that had sparked its construction in the first place.

  The Mustang’s engine coughed when I switched off the ignition in front of Vanderhoff’s house. From the sound of it, I needed a new air filter. I made a mental note of it. But right now, the granny who’d gone goofy was at the top of my priority list.

  I climbed out of the car and walked up the plain concrete sidewalk leading to the plain concrete porch of her plain concrete-block house. I rang the bell.

  A lumpy green face appeared in the small window in the front door. It was the same grotesque mask that had caught me off guard that fateful Halloween three decades ago. This time, however, I didn’t crap my coveralls. I decided to count that as a win. After what I’d been through lately, I was ready to pick some low-hanging fruit.

  I waved to Vanderhoff. She opened the door. Dressed in a red turban and a faded muumuu, she could’ve passed for the Grinch’s redneck grandma.

  “Is that you, Mrs. Vanderhoff?” I knew it was, but I was working an official case now, and wanted to follow P.I. protocol: Always establish the identity of individuals before questioning them.

  Vanderhoff’s features shifted indistinguishably underneath the yellowish-green glop on her face. “What are you doing here, Bobbie? My car ain’t broke down.”

  “No, Mrs. Vanderhoff. I’m here helping out Detective Paulson.”

  She eyed the yard behind me. “Where’s Jack Barker?”

  “Vacation.”

  “Oh yeah. How’s he doing?”

  “Fine. Can I come in?”

  “Why?”

  “Just want to ask you a few questions. About those phone calls you’ve been getting.”

  “Oh. Sure. Come on in. Let me wash my face.”

  She ushered me into her living room up to a faded, flower-print couch. I sat down and glanced around. Despite being her neighbor for decades, I’d never actually been inside her house before. I hadn’t had the nerve.

  I laughed to myself.

  What had I been afraid of back when I was a kid? The old lady’s harmless.

  Then I saw it. An ancient porcelain doll in a tattered lace dress. It stared at me from its perch in a chair across the room, like a corpse robbed from a graveyard.

  I swallowed hard and glanced to my left. In a darkened corner sat a curio cabinet stuffed with more dolls. Each of them glared at me from their overcrowded, glass prison.

  A jolt of cold electricity shot down my back.

  Geez! Are these like ... voodoo dolls? Is this how Vanderhoff gets her revenge on the kids who bother her? Oh my lord ... has she got one of me?

  “So what do you want to know?” Vanderhoff asked, startling me so badly I shot up off the couch.

  “Uh ... questions ....” I fumbled for words as I waited for the crawling sensation beneath my red wig to subside. “I hear you told Jack you’ve been getting weird phone calls.”

  I studied Vanderhoff’s face and decided she’d looked better with the avocado mask.

  She sucked her teeth. “Yeah, they’re weird, all right.”

  Vanderhoff stuck a hand in the pocket of her faded muumuu. I braced myself in case evasive action was required. The old lady was crazy. For all I knew, she could’ve been packing a Colt 45—and I didn’t mean malt liquor.

  Her hand emerged holding a TV remote. An odd mixture of relief and disappointment echoed through my gut.

  “Bobbie, you remember that show, The Jetsons?”

  “Yeah.” I straightened my slouching shoulders and shook off the willies. I took out a notepad and pencil from my purse, and remained standing. I was too antsy to sit. “I mean, yes, ma’am.”

  “Well, the guy who keeps calling me sounds like that robot, Rosie. Only if she was a man, you know what I mean?”

  Not really.

  “Sure, Mrs. Vanderhoff. What did the robot say, exactly?”

  The old lady leaned in closer to divulge her confidential information.

  “Beep-beep-beep,” she whispered in my face, delivering a cloud of stale smoker’s breath along with her confession.

  My fingers relaxed around my pencil. “I see. Did you say anything back?”

  Vanderhoff shook her turbaned head. “Well, no. I hung up on him. I mean, who knows what ‘beep’ means in robot language? He could’ve been making an obscene phone call for all I know.”

  Right. Robocop’s taken up a new career making perverted robo-calls. Case solved.

  I bit my lip and tried to look serious. Maybe flattery would loosen up the witness. “Yes. Well, that’s certainly one interpretation. And, might I say, you took a very smart approach, hanging up on him.”

  “Thanks, Bobbie.”

  “So, how many times did Robo ... I mean, the robot call?”

  “Three or four times. I wasn’t gonna bother the police, Bobbie. But when he told me to commit a crime, that’s when I called Jack.”

  “A crime?”

  “Yep. After he quit all that beeping business, that deviant motor-mouth demanded I get over to the A&P and steal six bananas.”

  Something inside me went slack. It might’ve been my will to live. “Well, that’s quite specific. And ... did you?”

  “Did I what?”

  “Steal the bananas.”

  Vanderhoff’s eyes doubled in size. “No way! I’m not a dad-burned thief!”

  “Of course not.” I dialed my tone to conciliatory. “I’m sorry. Tell me, why do you think the robot called you, Mrs. Vanderhoff?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe he thought I was easy. There ain’t a lot of eligible bachelorettes here in Point Paradise, as you well know.”

  Okaaaay ....

  I closed my notebook. “Is there anything else you can remember that I should know?”

  Vanderhoff studied me for a moment. “Yes. For the record, I think it was pretty low what that scoundrel, Carl Blanders did to you, honey.”

  “Thanks, Mrs. Vanderhoff.”

  “I mean, dumping you for Candy Vincent after all them years. It ain’t right. After all, you still got some of your looks left.”

  I eyed her sourly. “Thanks.”

  “Candy Vincent is a tramp, if you ask me,” Vanderhoff rambled on. “Who names a kid Candy and expects her to be anything but a tramp? Am I right?”

  “Yes. You’re right. Thanks. And I’m sorry about what’s happened to your niece Mandy.”

  The old woman winced. “You know, that new haircut of yours reminds me of her.”

  Really? Poor Mandy.

  Vanderhoff sighed and reached into the other pocket of her muumuu. My back stiffened. What would she pull out this time? A butcher knife? A doll head? A tub of guacamole?

  Before I could grab her arm to stop her, Vanderhoff pulled out a fist and thrust it at me. I flinched. When I opened my eyes, she’d unfurled her gnarled fingers to reveal a palm-full of green pills.

  “You want a Paxil, honey?” she asked. “It helps. And you sure look like you could use one. I heard you got shot, but your skull was too thick for it to do any real damage.”

  My jaw clamped tight enough to flatten metal.

  I have got to get out of this stupid town!

  “No thanks, Mrs. Vanderhoff. I have to go. But here, let me give you my number in case this guy calls again, or if you think of anything else that might be relevant.”

  I handed her one of my cards. Besides the online course and the fee for the state exam, a set of cheap business cards was the only investment I’d made in my budding P.I. career. I didn’t even have a gun. Nobody I knew offered a lay-a-way program for a Glock, and slingshots were so third century.

  Vanderhoff took the card. “Okay, Bobbie. I’ll stick it on the fridge with one of the magnets Mandy sent me.”

&
nbsp; “Good plan.” As I turned to leave, my footstep caused an oak floorboard in her living room to squeak.

  Vanderhoff grabbed my arm. “Did you hear that?”

  “Hear what?”

  “The floor. It just said my name. Mil-dred. Mil-dred. Didn’t you hear it?”

  I shot Vanderhoff the kind of hope-against-hope smile people in movies offer serial killers on the off chance it’ll persuade them to spare their lives. It was the same doomed smile on the faces of all of those dead-eyed dolls camping out in her living room.

  “Yes, I heard it,” I said. “Mil-dred. Plain as day. You have a good night, now, Mrs. Vanderhoff.”

  I hurried out the front door and nearly slammed it behind me. When I stepped off the porch and glanced back, Vanderhoff was staring at me through that small window in the door like Norman Bates in a red turban.

  Creepy!

  I sprinted to my car, my nerves half shot. I’d just interviewed my first P.I. subject, and I’d just committed my first P.I. mistake.

  I’d lied to the client.

  As I tumbled into the driver’s seat, I rationalized that I hadn’t really lied to Vanderhoff. Not completely. It was true that I hadn’t heard the floorboard squeak “Mil,” but I’d definitely heard it say “dread.” In fact, like a spider with icicles for legs, dread had crawled all the way up my spine and was spinning a frosty web in my brain.

  Is this what it’s like to be a P.I.? Geeze! The only reason I even signed up for the course was so I wouldn’t be the last to know next time someone was cheating on me.

  I reached into my stash of Tootsie Pops and pulled out the last sucker in the bag. It was green. I hated green. What kind of flavor was green?

  I unwrapped the sucker and popped it into my mouth anyway—for the same reasons I’d taken this bizarre, hand-me-down assignment from Paulson in the first place.

  I was broke. I was bored. I was out of options. And I was teetering on the verge of desperation.

  I snorted a jaded laugh. Those three traits seemed to come with the territory for anyone unlucky enough to be trapped in Point Paradise.

  A flash of light to my right caught my attention. I looked up to see the lights had gone out in Vanderhoff’s living room. There was nothing more I could do from her place tonight, so I cranked the engine and tossed the nasty green Tootsie Pop in the Mustang’s ashtray.

  As pathetic as it was, I’d just had my most interesting Friday night in months. The strange encounter with Vanderhoff had me feeling invigorated, oddly spooked, and a little bit in over my head.

  Oh my word. Is this what it feels like to be ... alive?

  I’d almost forgotten.

  I rolled up the car window and pictured the rugged, charming face of Detective Terry Paulson. He’d been the first person in a long time to cut me a break. With only an intern’s CC license, I wasn’t supposed to work a case without a full-fledged P.I. alongside me. Florida required I get two years of on-the-job training before I could I call myself a real private investigator. Paulson’s arrival had been like manna from heaven. I mean, where the hell else was I going to find someone willing to give me a shot?

  Paulson had bent the rules by letting me interview Vanderhoff on my own. In a tiny, nowhere kind of place like Point Paradise, the rules tended to slide when you knew everyone on a first-name basis.

  Besides, what was the harm in me poking around? The worst that could happen was I’d end up having to buy Paulson a cheeseburger, and maybe get myself laid.

  But neither of those things were going to happen tonight.

  So, with nothing else to go on and nothing else to do, I shifted into drive and pointed the Mustang in the direction of Waldo and the A&P. Somebody was going bananas. Whether it was me or old lady Vanderhoff was still up for debate.

  As I headed down the road, I had no illusions. I was still a pawn in the game of life. But for the first time in ages, I actually felt like playing.

  Chapter Eight

  THE A&P TURNED OUT to be a bust. No weirdos lurking around, other than the usual suspects. I made the most of it by picking up a loaf of Wonder bread for toast in the morning, then headed for home.

  As I got near the Stop & Shoppe, I got the idea it might be fun to buzz through it, just to make Artie haul his humongous butt off his chair and wait on me. But, after scrounging the bottom of my purse to pay for the bread, I didn’t have enough money for a lousy Tootsie Pop. So instead, I settled for flipping him the bird as I cruised on past.

  In the fading light, I leaned my head out the window to see if Artie had caught sight of my single-digit salutation. I expected to see a scowl above a soul patch and a double chin. But my eyes caught sight of something even more disturbing. I blinked.

  No. That can’t be.

  I slammed on the brakes. And, after executing the fastest three-point turn on record, I zoomed back to the Stop & Shoppe. It was still there.

  I hit the brakes, rubbed my eyes, and took another look.

  Still there.

  Against all logic, a pair of red, glowing orbs hovered in the darkness about six feet above the roof of the run-down convenience store. I grabbed my cellphone to take a picture. When I looked up again, they were gone.

  What the—?

  I figured they must’ve been some kind of reflection, so I pulled up under the sagging awning that served as the drive-thru. Artie was busy sawing logs in his office chair by the cash register. He’d slept through the entire thing.

  That figures.

  I revved the engine, startling him to consciousness. I smiled to myself. Doughboy Artie possessed the same basic size, shape, and personality of a middle-aged walrus.

  “What?” he groused.

  “You see anything funny this evening?”

  “Funny?” Artie leaned sideways, causing his chair to creak in a way that sounded both painful and precarious.

  “Yeah. You know, unusual.”

  He scowled. “No.”

  I shifted the Mustang into park. The engine sputtered out.

  Damn air filter.

  I wrapped my fingers around the key and was about to re-restart the ignition when I heard scratching coming from the awning overhead.

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “Probably rats,” Artie said with a disinterested shrug. “Or tree limbs, maybe. The cheap-ass owner don’t spend a dime to keep this place up. Just last week I had to—”

  “Hush!”

  “What?” Artie shot me a scowl. “You doing pest control now, Bobbie?”

  “Shut up, Artie! Listen!”

  The scratching sound continued, traversing the length of the awning roof from the roadside toward the back, where the Stop & Shoppe butted up against the woods. I got out of my car and sprinted in that direction. Straining to see the rooftop, I couldn’t make out squat in the darkness.

  “You got a flashlight?” I asked Artie.

  His chair squealed. “Sure,” he hollered back. “For six-fifty. You want batteries it’s another four bucks.”

  “Ugh.” I shook my head and climbed back into the Mustang. As I peeled out of the Stop & Shoppe, I glanced back. No red orbs.

  Hospital ghosts? Weird phone calls? Now these stupid glowing orbs? What next? Sasquatch in a tutu?

  As the Stop & Shoppe disappeared in my rearview mirror, I made a mental note to add a flashlight to my P.I. kit—once I had a P.I. kit.

  From the looks of it, I was going to need one.

  Either that, or I needed to seriously consider making an appointment with a psychiatrist.

  Chapter Nine: Saturday

  MY CELLPHONE RANG. I cracked open an eye and searched around in the tangled bedsheets for it.

  “Hello?”

  “I’ve got one for you.”

  My brain cramped. “What do you want, Earl? I’m still half asleep.”

  “It’s nine-thirty.”

  “It’s my day off, okay?”

  “True mechanics never take a day off.”

  “Ugh. I got
shot in the head, remember?”

  He snorted. “How long you gonna ride that gravy train?”

  “Earl, I’m only gonna ask one more time. What do you want?”

  “Like I said, Bobbie. I’ve got one for you.”

  “Listen. I’m in no mood for one of your dumb jokes.”

  “It’s a customer, you dingdong. Unless you don’t want one.”

  My brain perked to life at the prospect of a paycheck. I bolted upright in bed. “Oh. What are we looking at?”

  “Right now? A guy with a moustache that could win a Groucho Marx contest. And for the record, it’s only me who’s looking at him, Sleeping Beauty.”

  “I meant what are we looking at for work, smartass. Flat tire? Oil change? Please say it’s major mechanical failure.”

  “I dunno. He walked here.”

  I squeezed my cellphone so hard it chirped. “Are you saying he doesn’t have a vehicle? If this is another one of your stupid pranks, Earl, I’m gonna fire you.”

  “No prank. The guy needs a tow. I’m thinking it could be worth a few bucks. Should I tell him to get lost? You’ve got better things to do?”

  I heard the ka-ching of a cash register—as it tumbled off a cliff. “Don’t let him go anywhere! I’ll be down in three minutes.”

  Earl laughed. “I’ll do my best to keep him entertained.”

  “No jokes, Earl. Especially that stupid one about the gear shaft. You hear me?”

  My phone went dead. I jumped out of bed and peeked through the blinds. From the dusty window of my apartment above the mechanic shop, I could see Earl talking to some guy dressed in black. He hadn’t been kidding after all.

  I let go of the blinds and made a mad dash for the bathroom. I figured I had no more than three minutes before Earl told that gear shaft joke and we lost the only customer we’d had in a week. I pulled a T-shirt on over my head, wriggled into my father’s coveralls and humongous work boots, and clomped down the stairs.

  I bet it’s the guy’s onboard computer. They mess up everything.