The Mysteries of Max: Books 25-27

Chapter 21

“They tried to cut a hole through the fence, Chief,” said the security guard. He was a burly specimen, even bigger than Alec himself, and the latter was no lightweight by any stretch of the imagination.

The police chief now directed a reproachful look at his mother and her friend.

“What have you got to say for yourself, Ma?”

“We never even managed to get through the fence!” said the Chief’s mother.

“I tried filing but it didn’t work,” Scarlett explained, holding up the nail file she’d used. “And then I tried my nail clippers but they broke.” She gave the security guard a nasty glance. “And those were my best nail clippers.”

The guard shrugged his massive shoulders and walked back to his guard station to raise the barrier for a visitor.

“I can’t even begin to imagine why you would do such a thing,” said Alec as he tapped the ground with an impatient foot.

“Because this is where it all leads, Alec, can’t you see?” said his aged mother. “This is where the mystery will be solved.”

“What mystery?” he asked, mystified.

“Vicky Gardner’s disappearance, and her death twenty years later!”

“First off, I’m pretty sure that the woman we found this morning is not Vicky Gardner.”

“Says you.”

“Unless she found a miracle cure against aging it cannot possibly be her,” said the chief, pinching the bridge of his nose with his index finger and thumb.

“Too bad she’s dead,” said Scarlett. “Just imagine what secrets she could tell. Ooh! I know what happened! She probably found the Rosetta Stone that gives eternal youth!”

“Pretty sure the Rosetta Stone got nothing to do with eternal youth,” said the Chief. “And why did you ask me about Marcia Gardner’s license plate number earlier? You’re not going to break into her place as well, are you?”

“Marcia visited her brother,” said Vesta triumphantly, as if spilling some big secret.

“So? He’s her brother. She’s bound to visit him from time to time.”

“Yeah, but on the same day the body of Vicky turns up? Ya gotta admit, Alec—verrrry suspicious.”

He flung up his arms. “How many times do I have to tell you: it wasn’t Vicky!”

“Yeah, yeah. You keep telling yourself that.”

“If she really did discover the secret of eternal youth,” said Scarlett, “all kinds of bad people were probably after her. One of ‘em must have caught up with her and killed her.”

“So her Rosetta Stone didn’t really work?” asked Vesta.

“Yeah, that’s a conundrum,” Scarlett admitted. Then she directed a beaming smile at Alec. “You’re not going to arrest us, are you, sweetie? You can’t arrest your own mother and her best friend. What are people going to think?” And out of sheer habit, she wiggled her décolletage, making Alec’s blood pressure spike even higher.

“Don’t do that,” said Vesta, placing a hand on her friend’s arm.

“Why not?”

“Cause he’s my son, that’s why. It’s inappropriate.”

“He’s also a man, and we’re fighting for our freedom here, Vesta, so I say anything goes.”

“It all depends whether Garibo’s owners decide to press charges or not,” said Alec, tearing his eyes away from Scarlett’s provocative jiggling. The woman was seventy-five years old but wouldn’t have looked out of place in a louche bordello.

“You told the Gardners about our innocent little excursion?” asked Vesta, horrified.

“The security guard who caught you did.” He glanced up, expecting the big boss of Garibo to turn up at any moment. It wasn’t his finest hour as a small-town cop, he had to admit. When you’re forced to arrest your own mother it’s never a fun time. And he’d been looking forward to a nice quiet evening at home with Charlene, too.

“Did you tell Charlene about the plastic surgery?” asked his mother, as if she’d read his mind, which was entirely possible.

“Yeah, about that—I don’t even understand what you’re talking about. Plastic surgery? Charlene?”

Vesta shrugged. “Someone told me that she was in Fido’s barbershop yesterday and mention was made about a complete makeover. New hair, new clothes… new face.”

“Look, Charlene is my girlfriend now, all right? So I don’t want you to go around spreading your brand of nasty gossip like you usually do.”

Vesta looked shocked, and so did Scarlett. “Nasty gossip? Me?” the old lady gasped. “I would never—”

“Ever!” Scarlett said, leaning forward with intensified jiggling.

“—never, ever, ever—”

“Never!”

“—ever say a bad word about Charlene, who’s a lovely lady.”

“Absolutely lovely!”

“—with a pretty face she’d do well to save from those plastic surgery vultures.”

“Vultures!” Scarlett darted a quick look at her friend. “Though she could do with a bit of Botox wouldn’t you agree? You’re never too young to try Botox is what I always say.”

“She’s got this nasty groove between her brows,” said Vesta, nodding.

“Botox will clear that right up. Just like that.” Scarlett snapped her fingers to show Alec what she meant.

“Dear Lord,” muttered Alec, and stepped away from the terrible twosome for a moment. And as he did, he saw that his niece and Chase had arrived, and so had a second car, containing Charlene, who’d probably come to see what was taking her boyfriend so long.

They soon joined Alec, giving him looks of commiseration that were a balm to his tortured soul.

“They tried to cut through the fence,” he announced the moment the trio was within earshot. “Armed with a nail file and a pair of clippers. They didn’t get far.”

“But why?” asked Odelia.

“They seem to think that the factory contains some kind of secret that will reveal what happened to Vicky Gardner. Don’t ask.”

Charlene, whose blond curls were glowing in the glare from those halogen lights often used to light up parking lots, gave him a commiserating smile. “Your mother is getting older, honey. Her mind isn’t as sharp as it used to be. That’s just the way it is.”

“My mother isn’t senile,” he grunted. “If anything her mind is sharper than mine.”

“Oh,” said Charlene, frowning. “So how do you explain this, then?”

He saw that Scarlett was right: Charlene did have a groove between her brows.

“I think I might be able to shed some light on Gran’s strange behavior,” said Odelia, and produced an envelope and handed it to her uncle. “Someone delivered this to the house just now.”

Alec opened the envelope and extracted a sheet of paper. On it, there was a single sentence. “A good sleuth has a sweet tooth,” he read, then glanced up at his niece. “I don’t get it,” he admitted.

“I think someone wants to direct us to this factory,” said Chase. “Garibo somehow figures into this mystery surrounding Vicky Gardner’s disappearance, and the death of that young woman.”

“So have you figured out who she is yet?” asked Charlene.

“Nope. But I can tell you one thing with absolute certainty: it’s not Vicky Gardner. That would be physically impossible.”

“Why?” asked Charlene. “If she took great care of herself she could have preserved her youthful good looks.”

He shook his head decidedly. “Vicky Gardner, if she were still alive today, would be Marge’s age.”

“And my age,” said Charlene.

“No one, and I mean no one, looks that good at forty-eight,” said Alec, and immediately saw that he’d probably said the wrong thing, for Charlene’s face fell.

“You mean I don’t look good at forty-eight? I’m too old, is that it?”

“No, that’s not what I meant, darling,” he said immediately, but the damage was done, for Charlene got a cold look in her eyes that he didn’t like to see there. It spelled doom.

“Some people say I haven’t changed a bit,” she argued. “And some even say I look better now than I did twenty years ago.”

“You look great, Charlene,” said Alec. “But not…” He saw the warning look his niece shot him but ignored it. “Not like a twenty-eight-year-old. And that’s only to be expected.”

“Oh,” said Charlene curtly, then closed her mouth with a click, opened it again to say something else, but changed her mind and abruptly turned on her heel and strode off.

“Charlene?” he said. “Where are you going?”

“Home,” she snapped, then added, “My home.”

“But… weren’t you going to stay over at mine tonight?”

She held up a hand. “Not tonight. Or any other night,” she added for good measure.

He watched as she got into her car, and drove off without acknowledging his presence. That groove had deepened, he saw, and that was probably not a good sign.

“What–what just happened?” he finally asked.

“I think you just told your girlfriend that she’s ugly,” said Odelia.

“But I never said that!”

“No, but that’s what she heard.”

He buried his face in his hands. “Can this day be any worse?”

And then, out of the blue, suddenly a large pigeon materialized in the sky and dropped a goodish dollop of doo-doo on his head. And as it flew off, it laughed hysterically.

Yep. He just had to ask, hadn’t he?