Chapter 29
The thing that worried me the most—even more than the strange behavior Odelia was displaying in connection with her instructor—was that the Germinator seemed to have disappeared.
“Have you seen the Germinator, Gran?” I asked.
“Hmm?” said Gran. She was still staring at Odelia fussing over the instructor, and clearly didn’t like it one bit. “Who?”
“The Germinator,” I said. “He left the truck and disappeared.”
“Probably around here somewhere,” said Gran, vaguely gesturing in the direction we had come from. “These superheroes work in mysterious ways, their wonders to perform.”
“He’s fine,” said Scarlett. “Just a minor bump on the head.”
“I didn’t even touch him,” said Gran. “Well, not all that much. Just a light tap on the noggin. And anyway, you’d expect an instructor at a police academy to be made of sterner stuff than this guy.”
“I believe he may have sustained a concussion,” said Odelia. “Or maybe his skull was fractured when you hit him.” She looked up and gave her grandmother the kind of look a loving grandchild should never give her beloved grandmother. “Why did you do it, Gran?”
“Because!” said Gran, throwing up her hands. “I mean, the guy was setting off explosions. I just figured he was the terrorist we were looking for.”
“Zeke is not a terrorist,” said Odelia emphatically.
“Zeke, huh?” said Gran. “Funny name for a police academy instructor.”
“Well, for your information, Zeke is very good at what he does. He inspires people to be all they can be.”
“He certainly does that,” Mercedes muttered. She wasn’t a big fan of the man either.
“Oh, there they are,” said Odelia as an ambulance came crashing through the shrubbery and paused right next to Gran’s tank-like vehicle. She waved at the paramedics. “He’s over here!” she yelled. “Man down. Man down!”
“A lot of fuss over nothing,” Gran murmured, earning herself another unfriendly look from her granddaughter.
The paramedics, after briefly inspecting the BearCat, hurried over and knelt down next to the fallen instructor. And since our presence didn’t seem needed anymore, Gran decided to keep combing the grounds for the terrorists, of which she was certain there were many.
“Let’s go,” she said. And when we didn’t immediately jump to attention, she yelled, “All aboard!”
“Where are you going?” asked Odelia.
“Oh, just to find more terrorists,” said Gran.
“Haven’t you caused enough trouble already?” asked Odelia, having planted her hands on her hips and looking very cross indeed. “Maybe you should go home now, Gran. And leave this to the professionals.”
“But I am a professional,” said Gran. “I’m the leader of the Neighborhood Watch.”
“You know what I mean. The police will be here soon, and they won’t like it that you have caused all of this trouble. They might even feel compelled to arrest you. Again.”
The notion of being arrested didn’t seem to hold all that much appeal to Gran, and so she nodded and said, “I know when I’m not wanted.
So I will do as you say, and I will leave.
” But then she pointed a warning finger at her granddaughter.
“But don’t think I will let this go. You have a family, young lady, and you have certain responsibilities toward that family.
And canoodling with your instructors is not a good look. ”
And with that said, she mounted her reinforced steel monstrosity, and so did we.
Odelia stared after us, her mouth agape, and I got the impression that she had never been talked to like that before. But then that’s what Gran is particularly good at: straight talk. And she does it with a certain flair that I cannot but admire.
Others felt the same way, for Mercedes actually complimented Gran on the way she had handled the delicate situation.
“Way to go, Vesta,” she said the moment all the doors were closed—or should I call them hatches?—and we were mobile again. “You told her.”
“I had to,” said Gran. “She seems totally oblivious that this guy is playing her, and so she needed some harsh truths thrown in her face.”
“She won’t like it,” said Scarlett. “In fact, she will hate it. Clearly, she loves that man.”
“Did you see the way she was looking at him and fussing over him?” said Gran. “Of course she loves this man. Even though he is a terrorist.”
“So aren’t we going to look for more terrorists, Gran?” asked Dooley, who seemed to have enjoyed our adventure aboard the armored truck tremendously so far.
“Not for now,” said Gran. “Odelia is right about one thing: if my son finds me here, he will arrest me. I don’t know what I ever did to him, but that boy loves arresting his sweet old mother and throwing her ass in the slammer.
Must be some defect in his personality. Then again, I did always tell him he should go into politics and become the next president of the USA.
Maybe that’s why he likes to needle me, since he knows that he missed out on a great thing when he decided to become a cop and not the next mayor of Hampton Cove. ”
“Well, he did marry the mayor,” said Scarlett. “So there’s that.”
“I guess it’s better than nothing,” Vesta agreed.
“I thought police chief was a prestigious position?” asked Mercedes. “You make it sound as if it’s nothing.”
“Oh, I’m not saying it isn’t prestigious,” said Gran.
“But it’s not as prestigious as a mayor, or a governor.
Or even a senator. And all of those things were within my son’s grasp, but instead he decided to stick around and become a cop.
” She shook her head. “Ungrateful is what I call it. Ungrateful and stubborn. But what can you do?”
“Yeah, that’s the question I kept asking myself when that rupture happened between me and Harley,” said Mercedes. “In the end, I just figured it was silly to hold on to my position. Especially if it meant I would never get to see my son again. Or my grandchildren, if he and Philomena had them.”
We had left the compound area and were cruising back in the direction of Hampton Cove. As we did, we passed plenty of police vehicles, and also ambulances and fire trucks.
“Looks like they’ve got a handle on this,” said Gran, well pleased with the show of force by our local emergency services. “Odelia was right. They don’t need us there. But they need us in town.”
“Where are we going now, Gran?” asked Dooley.
“We’re going to save Marge and Tex’s marriage next,” said Gran.
“And to do that, we need to spy on Marge and find out what she’s up to.
And I’ll tell you right now, this is going to be pretty brutal.
Since Marge is a lot sharper than my son, for instance, she will probably get hip to the fact that we’re following her around. ”
“I will volunteer,” said Mercedes as she stuck up her hand, like a kid in class. “Marge doesn’t know me, does she? So I can spy on her, and she won’t suspect a thing.”
“What you need to do is find out which member of this band she is secretly having an affair with,” said Gran, giving Mercedes her brief. “And then take pictures of the two of them together, preferably kissing or anything that proves that they’re in a relationship.”
“And then what?” asked Scarlett. “How do we break them apart?”
“That,” said Gran, “is something we will have to figure out. For if there’s one thing I know, it is that it’s a lot harder to break up a couple than to form one.”
She dropped Mercedes off near the library, so she could keep a close eye on Marge, and then decided to double back and take a closer look at the third couple we needed to break up: Chase and Marva.
“Okay, what do we know about this Marva person?” she asked.
“Not much,” said Scarlett. “Except that she moved to town a couple of months ago, and immediately your son hired her.”
“Which tells me that Alec is up to something. That, or Marva is playing him for a fool, which is also a distinct possibility.”
“We need to find out everything there is to know about this Marva character,” said Scarlett. “So we can warn Chase that he’s playing with fire.”
“Talking about fire,” said Gran, “have you guys figured out who’s setting Odelia’s house on fire yet?”
We all shook our heads. “Haven’t figured out one thing, Gran,” I said.
“I still think it’s Marge,” said Dooley. “This affair with the band singer must have messed up her brain, and now she’s become an arsonist.”
“Marge needs therapy,” said Harriet. “Because she is not going to stop, you guys. Soon she will be setting fire to all kinds of places, and she might even set fire to an actual person.”
“Oh, no!” said Dooley, who clearly hadn’t expected that. “Poor Marge!”
“Poor whoever she will set on fire,” said Gran.
“Okay, we need to get to the bottom of this arsonist business, and Mercedes is going to do it for us.” She took out her phone and handed it to Scarlett.
“You type,” she said when the other gave her a curious look.
“Tell Mercedes that she needs to figure out if Marge has turned arsonist.”
“And how is she supposed to do that?” asked Scarlett.
“Check her pockets when she’s not looking. Marge always puts her jacket in the staff room. So all Mercedes needs to do is snoop around and empty my daughter’s pockets. The box of matches will appear, and that is all the evidence we need to nab her.”
“Poor Marge,” said Dooley. “She has been hypnotized and doesn’t realize it. Soon she will start to hallucinate, and she will try to murder us at night.”
We all shivered. “Are you for real, Dooley?” asked Clarice.
“Oh, absolutely,” Dooley assured her. “This was in a Discovery Channel documentary about hypnosis. You can make anyone do anything if you put your mind to it.”
“That’s horrible, Dooley,” said Gran. “It means we need to make sure that Marge isn’t under the influence of this person anymore. Any idea how to do that?”
“I think you need to snap your fingers right across her face,” said Dooley. “Really get in there and snap away. That should make her snap out of it.”
“I just hope that this infatuation she has with this band will also go away,” said Gran.
“I have listened to them, and I don’t like their music.
No idea why Marge does. But then I guess the hypnosis is the reason.
Music was the gateway drug that led her to fall for this guy’s ruse.
And now she’s trapped in a downward cycle of ruin and desolation. ”
“Oh, dear,” said Scarlett. “Poor, poor Marge.”
“In fact,” said Gran, leaning a little closer and lowering her voice for effect, “it wouldn’t surprise me if Marge is the one who killed Mercedes’s son so she could get her hands on that guitar.”
We all shared a look. The word picture that Gran had painted was not a fun one!