Hideaway Hospital Murders (6 page)

Jane Appletree was the sole owner of the
diner, and had run it by herself since her husband died a few years
earlier. At age 60, she was still a very attractive woman. She took
pride in her appearance, and the long days on her feet helped keep
her thin. She would love to have had Greg for herself if she was a
few years younger. Actually, many years younger, since Greg was
only 34.

“
Yeah, things have been
going great, but—“

“—
what happened?” Jane
frowned.

“
Her mother is moving in
with her.”

“
Oh, no. I’m sorry,
Greg.”

“
No. I think it’s going to
be fine. She’s a very nice lady. We had lunch at her house on
Saturday, and I really liked her.”

“
Well, I wish you luck. I’m
afraid you’re gonna need it.”

**********

“
I won’t hold you for long,
Ernie. I know you have lunch plans. But I just wanted to give you a
heads-up.”

It was Dr. E.J. Edwards’ first day in the
office with Elmo. He had relocated to Coreyville a few months
earlier, but still had only a handful of patients. He knew that
moving into the office with the popular pediatrician would help
bring many new patients to his practice.

“
What’s going
on?”

“
I think my mother has
Alzheimer’s.”

“
Oh, I’m sorry to hear
that. How old is she?”

“
She’s 75. And I don’t know
for sure yet. I sent her over to a geriatric specialist in Dallas
today. He’s an old friend of mine.”

“
What are her
symptoms?”

Elmo described what he had seen Mallie Mae
doing with the hairbrush and the toothpaste.

“
Yeah, definitely some type
of dementia. Might not be AD though. Could be something
treatable.”

“
Well, of course, I’m
hoping for that. But I’m preparing for the worst. And here’s the
thing. If it is Alzheimer’s, I’m probably going to want to take a
leave of absence.”

“
I see.”

“
You think you could handle
all of our patients for a while?”

“
Well, considering how
few
I
have
right now, I’d say ‘yes.’”

“
Good.”

“
But if it is Alzheimer’s
there’s really nothing you can do for her.”

“
I know. There’s no cure.
Only medicines to slow down the process of
deterioration.”

“
But I can understand that
you’d want to spend some extra time with her for a
while.”

“
Actually, I haven’t
spent
any
time with her in
years
.”

“
But don’t you live in the
same house with her?”

“
Yes.”

“
Oh.”

“
I know it sounds awful.
And I guess it is. But you don’t know what she’s put me through.
Every time I get close to her, she starts trying to run my life.
She tried to make me feel like a fool for wanting to be a
pediatrician. She still thinks I was an idiot for not becoming a
neurosurgeon. That was
her
plan for me. And she
is
always
right.

“
And she’s ruined every
chance I’ve ever had with women. She always finds a way to run them
off. Years ago, I was engaged to a wonderful woman. She was a
nurse. But Mallie Mae didn’t like her for whatever reason. And you
would never believe the horrible thing she did to break us up. She
probably doesn’t approve of my current fiancé either. I don’t know,
since I never talk to her.”

“
But now you feel guilty.
Now that she’s probably terminal.”

“
Yeah. Big
time.”

“
But you have to consider
your practice. Already, this morning, I’ve seen how the parents and
the kids love you. Take a few days off if you need to. But don’t
destroy what you’ve worked your whole life to build.”

**********

Carsie and Carnie were finishing a lazy,
late breakfast on the patio.

“
Where did the old lady go
with her nurse this morning?” said Carnie.

“
I don’t know. Mallie Mae
rarely goes anywhere,” said Carsie.

“
Well, I saw them leave in
a black limo.”

“
Really? I can’t imagine
where they went. And I wonder why Macy didn’t just drive the
Mercedes. That’s weird.”

“
Looks like it’s just the
two of us here—alone in the house with Hadley.” Carnie raised one
eyebrow mischievously. “And where is he, anyway? I wanted him to
pour me some more orange juice.” She could get used to a life of
luxury.

“
I don’t know. But I’m
gonna go take a very long bubble bath, Sis.”

Carsie got up from the table and walked
away.

“
You’ll turn into a
prune.”

Carnie went downstairs to her bedroom. She
had been up since 6:00 AM. The Exercise Room was right next to the
Media Room, just a few yards from her bedroom. She had been
working out on one of the machines when she heard a car drive up
to the house. The rooms along the front of the basement were mostly
underground, but had high windows facing the front yard. Carnie had
looked out and seen Macy helping Mallie Mae into the black
limo.

After exercising, she had taken a shower,
made a pot of coffee in the nearby Pub Room, and plopped down in
the Media Room to watch some TV while sipping her coffee. Later,
Carsie had called her cell and invited her to come up for a late
breakfast. The two had sat around in their robes, eating and
talking for an hour or so. Now it was after noon—time to get
dressed.

Carnie did a slow strip tease in the mirror.
What a nice, tight body she had. Not bad for a 29-year-old, she
thought. Any woman would be thrilled to have her body. Or any
man.

She went to the closet, picked out a sexy
outfit and carried it to the bed. But as she walked past the
dresser, she accidentally knocked something off. It was her
favorite perfume. She cringed as it hit the wood floor. But the
bottle didn’t break. It just fell on its side and began to roll.
She noticed that the rolling sound changed as the bottle went
under the bed. As though the flooring under there was
different.

She put her robe back on and knelt down to
retrieve the expensive perfume, which was halfway under the bed.
Once she had picked up the bottle, she ran her hand across the
flooring. It felt the same as the rest of the floor. She knocked on
it. It sounded hollow. Then she tested the floor where she was
sitting. It sounded solid.

Carnie’s curiosity was revved up to a
cat-like pitch. She didn’t know what she expected to find, but she
could think of nothing else until she found it. She pushed with all
her might until the heavy bed broke free and started to slide. She
managed to move it over against the wall.

Carnie knocked on the floor in several
place, identifying the hollow-sounding area. Then she went to her
suitcase and pulled out a Bowie knife, and began to search for
cracks in the seams of the flooring, near the edge of the hollow
rectangle.

Finally, she found one. She dug the knife
down into it and began to pry. She saw movement. Not much—but
enough to convince her that she was looking at a secret door.
Something was hidden down there. Something forbidden. She had to
find out what it was.

After nearly an hour, she got the door
opened just a crack and worked her fingers inside. She yanked on it
with all her might, until every muscle in her well-toned body
ached. Then she heard a ripping sound, as it flew up and open. The
musty odor enveloped her body, and she fell away from the opening
and started coughing. She grabbed a towel from the bathroom,
covered her mouth and nose, and cautiously inched her way to the
large hole in the floor.

All she could see was the top of a
staircase, leading down into the creepy darkness.

Chapter
8

Carnie stood with the towel
over her mouth and nose, looking down into the large opening in her
bedroom floor. Well, it wasn’t
her
bedroom. It was a guest
bedroom in the home of her sister’s fiancé. Maybe even
he
didn’t know about
this secret underground place.

She just
had
to see what was
down there. So, she pulled the towel away from her face a little,
took a sniff, and decided she could bear the musty odor. Then she
took off her robe and threw on some shorts, a shirt, and tennis
shoes for her journey into the unknown.

There appeared to be a light switch near the
bottom of the stairs. Hopefully the lights down there would work.
Just as she was about to take the first step down, her cell phone
rang and startled her. She went to the dresser and picked it
up.

“
Hello?”

“
Hey, Sis. Are you going to
the Longview Mall with me?”

“
Uh, no, I don’t think
so.”

“
Ah, come on, Carnie—Elmo
loaned me a credit card, and it doesn’t even have a limit. We can
go crazy. How can you resist that?”

“
It’s just that my
stomach’s feeling a little queasy.”

“
I’m sorry. You need some
Pepto-Bismol?”

“
No. I’ll be okay. I just
need to lie down for a while.”

“
Okay. Hope you feel
better. I’ll buy you something.”

“
Thanks. Have fun. But take
it easy. If you come home with a couple of mink coats, he may have
second thoughts about marrying you.”

“
Yeah, yeah. See you
later.”

Carnie put the phone in her pocket and began
to walk down the stairs, half expecting a spider or a snake to
attack her. She could cut the beating heart right out of a man’s
chest without flinching. But crawling critters gave her the
creeps.

When she reached the switch, she flipped it,
and lights came on. At the foot of the stairs was a wall. She made
a U-turn and walked back past the staircase through a long hallway,
and then to the left through a doorway.

“
You’re kidding me,” she
said to herself.

It was a laboratory, complete with Bunsen
burners, test tubes, etc. There was a blackboard with some formulas
written on it, and a few journals. Carnie picked one up, and
thumbed through it, but couldn’t make sense of the scientific
jargon. She hadn’t been in a room like this since high school
chemistry, which she had flunked.

Across the room was a closed door. One of
those large doors like they use on exterior walls. She twisted the
knob, and pushed the door open with her foot. It was just a
bathroom. A very large bathroom. She flipped on the light and stuck
her head in the door. But when she looked to the right, she saw a
woman looking back at her. She gasped and yanked her head out of
the room.

“
Hello?”

No answer.

Somebody was living down there, doing who
knows what—underneath her as she slept. She should have brought her
gun down with her, she thought.

She peeked in—and felt silly when she
realized she had been scared by her own reflection. There was a
full-length mirror on the wall. It was huge—she figured about six
or seven feet tall and three feet wide.

So, why did the good doctor have a secret
laboratory in his house? She couldn’t wait to show it to Carsie. It
was just weird.

She pulled her cell phone out of her pocket
and dialed.

“
You’re not gonna believe
what I found under the basement.”

“
Dead bodies?”

“
What? No. It’s another
basement. There’s a lower basement under the regular basement.
Weird huh?”

“
What’s down
there?”

“
Some kind of science lab
and a big bathroom with a huge mirror.”

“
Is Carsie with
you?”

“
No, she’s gone to the
mall. There was a secret passageway underneath my bed. I had to
work like crazy to get it open.”

“
That’s strange. But don’t
get distracted. It’s just a few more days until the
wedding.”

“
Yes, Ma’am. And our plan
is working out perfectly. Nothing can stop us now.”

**********

Dr. Mobley’s office hours were 8:30 AM to
5:00 PM. At least that’s what it said on the door. But there was
usually a frantic parent or two, calling about their Johnny or
Susie and a high fever, and could the doctor please work them in
today. And, of course, Elmo would never turn them away. On a
typical day, he got home at around 7:00 PM.

So, Carsie had been surprised when he had
called her to set up an early dinner. They had agreed to meet at
Johnny Caces Seafood & Steakhouse in Longview at 6:00 PM.

“
How did you get away so
early?”

“
Dr. Edwards took my last
couple of appointments.”

“
Oh, yeah—your new
partner.”

Once the waiter had taken their order,
Carsie said, “Why couldn’t I invite Carnie? She loves this
place.”

“
Because we need to talk
about something important—just the two of us.”

“
Okay.” She was concerned
about the tone of Elmo’s voice. This could only be bad news, she
thought.

“
Did you notice that Mallie
Mae and Macy were gone today?”