Hideaway Hospital Murders (3 page)

“
Nice. How about a game of
pool, Sis?” said Carnie.

“
How about a
beer
?”

Carnie grinned. “Even better.”

Carsie led her into the adjoining room.

“
You’ve got your own
bar?”

“
Yep. Take a seat, Young
Lady.”

“
Alright.”

“
What’ll it be?”

“
Let’s see, Barkeep. I
think I’ll have a Bud Light.”

“
Coming up,
Ma’am.”

Carsie grabbed a couple of beers out of the
fridge.

“
Come on. I want to show
you my favorite room.”

“
Let me guess—the
bedroom?”

“
Not yet. We’re waiting
until the honeymoon.”

“
You’re kidding
me.”

Carsie led her through a short hallway into
the Media Room. There were two levels of theater seats facing a
wall at the far end that acted as a screen for the projector
mounted on the ceiling. Carsie pick up a remote and turned it on.
The picture was huge and incredibly clear.

“
Wow. No need to go out to
the movies.”

“
That’s right. Elmo and I
watch a lot of TV and movies down here.”

“
Elmo
?”

“
Yeah. That’s his
nickname.”

“
A doctor named Elmo?
That’s pretty lame, Sis.”

“
No, not really. His real
name is Lilman Raster Mobley.”

“
Ouch. His parents must
have been cruel.”

“
Lilman and Raster were old
family names. But Elmo hated them, so he always went by L.
Mobley—even in first grade. For the first couple of years,
schoolteachers called him Mr. Mobley. The kids didn’t know
what
to call him.
They kind of avoided him—thought he was weird.”

“
I can understand
why.”

“
But then in high school he
got real tall—six-foot-seven. The coach begged him to play
basketball. And he got pretty good at it. So the kids started to
like him. But they still didn’t know what to call him. Then one of
the players came up with ‘Elmo’—from L. Mobley and from the Sesame
Street character. And it stuck. That’s what everybody calls him
now—except his mother. She still calls him Lilman. But it worked
out great since he became a pediatrician. Kids usually hate going
to the doctor. But not if it’s Dr. Elmo.”

“
Dr. Elmo. That’s
hilarious.”

“
Okay, let me show you your
room.”

Carsie took Carnie to the bedroom that was
just off the Pub Room.

“
This is handy,” said
Carnie.

“
Please go easy on the
booze while you’re here.”

“
What do you mean—‘while
I’m here?’ I don’t plan to ever leave.”

Carsie laughed. “Funny.”

But Carnie was not joking.

**********

Macy peeked in, expecting to see Mallie Mae
in her favorite chair. Instead, she was standing at a front window,
staring at the sky. The matriarch spent most of her time in her
bedroom these days. She had everything she needed right there. The
room was spacious and beautifully furnished. And Macy was ready to
jump at her command.

“
Did you finish your lunch,
Mallie Mae?”

The 75-year-old Mallie Mae Mobley loved Macy
like the daughter she never had.

“
Yes, I’m finished. But
tell Hadley the ham was dry.”

“
You know that will hurt
his feelings.”

“
I don’t care. I won’t eat
dry ham. I’ve told him over and over, but he keeps sending me dry
ham.”

“
Yes, Ma’am. I’ll tell
him.

Macy walked over to pick up the tray.

“
What do you think about
Lilman’s fiancé?

“
She a nice young lady, I
suppose.”

“
Macy—tell me what
you
really
think.”

Macy studied Mallie Mae’s face to make sure
she really wanted to hear her opinion. “I’m not crazy about
her.”

“
I think she’s awful—a
crude money-hungry tramp.”

Macy tried not to smile.

Mallie Mae went on. “If there was any way I
could stop this wedding without alienated my son, I would do it in
a heartbeat.”

“
Just tell him how you
feel.”

“
No, no, no. Then he’ll
be
determined
to marry her—and he’ll be mad at me. I wanted him to be a
surgeon, you know. I had planned it since he was a little boy. He
could have been a world-class surgeon.”

Macy had heard this story nearly every day
since she took the job as a personal aide fifteen years earlier,
after Mallie Mae had taken a fall and broken her leg.

Macy had grown up in Kilgore, graduated from
the two-year nursing program at Kilgore College, and joined the
staff at Coreyville General Hospital as a Licensed Vocational
Nurse. Two years later, she had doubled her salary by going to work
for the Mobleys.

She fell in love with Elmo early on, and
dreamed that her life would turn out just like the lives of the
women in her favorite romance novels. Eventually he would fall for
her, and they would get married and live happily ever after. But it
was taking much longer than she had expected. Then Carsie
Slitherstone came into the picture.

Macy started listening to Mallie Mae
again.

“…
so he decided to become a
pediatrician. And there was nothing I could do about it. Maybe if I
hadn’t pushed him so hard to be a surgeon, things would have turned
out differently. He despised me all the way through medical school.
I’m not sure he ever completely forgave me. And I don’t want to do
anything to make him hate me like that again. I don’t think I could
survive it.”

“
So, what can you do to
change his mind?”

“
Nothing. It’s hopeless.
Unless that woman does something to rub him the wrong way. Maybe
this sister of hers will accidentally tip him off to what he’s
getting himself into. From what I understand she’s even worse than
Carsie.”

“
Really?”

“
That’s what I’ve heard.
We’ll see. He stayed single for all these years. At first I thought
he was just being very picky. And I thought that was good. But now
he’s 56 years old. It’s no wonder a lot of people started thinking
he was gay.”

Macy had heard this speech
many times. But it didn’t bother her before, since she always
thought Elmo would marry
her
some day.

Mallie Mae continued.
“Maybe the sister will blurt out something horrible about the
lovely bride’s past. I just hope she does it
before
the wedding.”

Chapter
4

“
What did you get?” said
Cynthia.

“
Groundhog Day. It’s one of
my favorite movies.”

Greg closed and locked Cynthia’s front door.
Then he walked over and sat down on the couch next to Cynthia.

“
I don’t think I’ve ever
seen it.”

“
You’re gonna love
it.”

“
Who’s in it? What’s it
about?”

“
It’s about this
egotistical weatherman, played by Bill Murray. He gets stuck in a
time warp. Then he finally realizes he’s gonna keep reliving the
same day over and over again until he gets it right. And it’s got
Andie MacDowell. I love her. I can’t believe you’ve never seen it.
It’s a classic.”

“
Well, it sounds
good.”

Greg loaded the DVD and started up the
movie.

Cynthia had the popcorn ready to go.

They laughed as Phil did everything he could
think of to win Rita’s heart. By the end of the film, they both had
watery eyes.

“
That’s a wonderful movie,”
said Cynthia.

“
I told you.”

“
Hey, I’ll be your Rita and
you can be my Phil.” She was ready for a kiss.

Greg started to kiss her, and then stopped.
“But what if I’d rather be Ned Ryerson?”

“
Shut up and kiss me,
Stupid.”

“
But first, Ned wants to
sell you some insurance.”

“
Ned can go step in a mud
puddle. This is for Phil,” said Cynthia.

She grabbed him by the shoulders and kissed
him hard on the lips. “Still want to be Ned?” she said with a
grin.

Greg pulled her close and started a kiss.
After a few seconds, he was about to pull away when Cynthia took
over for a while. Then Greg again. It went back and forth. He hoped
Cynthia would keep him in check, because he was feeling more out of
control by the second.

It would be different if Cynthia’s mother
were living in the house, he thought. Could they still make out on
the couch like this? Not likely. Beverly could walk in on them at
any moment if she lived there. Greg was committed to having no sex
outside of marriage, but Cynthia’s amazing body and passionate
kissing were tempting him to the limit. He was in danger of going
on autopilot. His body could explain it all to his brain later.

Oh, by the way, Brain, earlier tonight I
took over for you, and made wild, crazy love to Cynthia. She was on
autopilot too. It was great. Hope you didn’t mind. Signed, Your
Body. P.S. I forgot to ask if you wanted to use protection.

Maybe it wouldn’t be such a
bad thing for Cynthia’s mother to move in with her sexy daughter.
But what if he and Cynthia were making out at
his
house?

**********

Macy Golong peeked into Mallie Mae’s room
and was not surprised to see her sleeping. Elmo’s mother rarely
stayed up past 10:00 PM, and it was nearly 11:00. She closed the
door and started to go back to her room across the hall. She was
halfway through a romance novel. But Hadley’s delicious oatmeal
raisin cookies were calling to her.

She walked down the stairs
to the kitchen and put a few cookies on a plate. Then she poured a
glass of milk. She wondered what Elmo was doing. Was he in the
Media Room with Carsie?
Their
Media Room? Before Elmo
and Carsie got together, Elmo and Macy used to spend hours almost
every night in that room. Some nights he had almost kissed
her.

She left her milk and
cookies on the kitchen counter and went down another flight of
stairs, which came out in the Recreation Room. Macy could hear the
sound of the TV coming from Media Room. She tiptoed to the open
doorway and peeked in. There she was—that conniving slut—sitting
where Macy should have been. How could Elmo have replaced her like
that? She thought he had been falling in love with
her
. How could she
have been so wrong? But it could still happen—if that woman would
just go away.

Elmo said, “Yeah. So,
beginning Monday there will be
two
doctors in the office. That
should take a little pressure off. If I need to be out for a day or
two, Dr. Edwards can fill in for me.”

“
Yeah, or if you need to
take off a week for a trip to Hawaii with your beautiful new wife.”
Carsie gave him a sexy smile.

“
That’s right. Dr. Ernie
will take care of everything while I’m gone.”

“
Dr. Ernie?”

“
Yeah. I asked if he would
mind being called ‘Dr. Ernie’. His name is Ernest, but I thought
‘Dr. Ernie’ would fit in well with the Sesame Street theme of my
office.”

“
So the two of you are Drs.
Elmo and Ernie?”

“
Yep.”

“
That’s cute,
Honeypie.”

“
The kids will like
it.”

“
The only thing better
would have been
Bert
and Ernie.”

“
Yeah. But unfortunately,
Baby, my name is not Bert.”

“
No problem. I don’t want
Bert anyway. I want Elmo.”

Carsie threw her leg over Elmo’s lap and
straddled him. She placed her hands on the sides of his head and
snuggled it in between her breasts. Then she began to slide her
body slowly toward and then away from his crotch. And again. And
again.

“
Oh, yeah. I want some
Elmo. And I want it right now.”

Macy had seen more than enough. She would
try to erase that last few seconds from her memory. She and Elmo
would still get together. Somehow.

She had been so busy watching the doctor and
his bride-to-be, that she had not even noticed Carnie, who was
sitting across from her in the dark Pub Room, sipping her Vodka
Tonic. The light from the TV shown through Macy’s flimsy gown.
Carnie had been enjoying the silhouette of her firm, shapely body
standing in the doorway.

Carnie admired a well-toned body—male or
female. She loved the feel of the smooth, tight skin. Sometimes it
made her want to rip off her clothes and have sex. Other times she
just wanted to slash that beautiful skin with a razor blade. Once
she got a taste, her lust for the flesh was ravenous, whether
making love to it…or mutilating it.

She strained her eyes to watch, as Macy
moved out of the light, and became a dark ghost moving across the
room to the stairs. It would be so easy to follow her to her
bedroom…