“They’ll be fine.” Jasper made a backhanded wave of assuredness. “Willard took a gun safety class.”
A musical ring-tone emanated from an unseen source. Joni Mitchell’s “Big Yellow Taxi.” “That’s mine.” Lou Ellen reached in her purse. “Hello? Oh, hi, Joline . . . What’s the matter? You sound— . . . Slow down. I can’t understand a word . . . Yeah, uh-huh . . . Hold on a sec.” She covered the phone. “I need to take this somewhere private.”
She headed outside, where the evening air was filled with happy shouts, singing and gunfire.
Willard held up an empty bottle and turned to Coleman. “See if you can hit this.”
“Okay.”
“No, let me throw it first . . .”
It became still inside the cabin as Serge and Jasper sat back in the silence of being drugged by food.
A rapid-fire burst from the Browning level-action rifles echoed across the countryside. A scream. The screen door flew open. Lou Ellen ran inside.
“What is it?” asked Serge. “Who got shot?”
“Nobody.”
“Then why are you shaking?”
She grabbed a chair. “Jasper, it’s Aunt Maybelline who lives in Port Saint Joe.”
“What’s happened to her? Is she okay?”
“We don’t know,” said Lou Ellen. “We can’t get in touch with her.”
Jasper jumped to his feet. “Call the po-lice! Aunt May might’n be lyin’ on the bathroom floor with a busted hip!”
“It’s not like that,” said Lou Ellen. “The guy from the assisted-living service hasn’t let Joline talk to Aunt May in nearly a month. Keeps saying she’s not feeling well.”
“She phone the service office?” asked Jasper.
“She did,” said Lou Ellen. “The man taking care of her quit the company a few weeks ago. He told Joline he’ll just be working with May now.”
Outside: Bang, bang, bang . . .
“Sounds hinky,” said Jasper.
“Joline felt the same way, so she did call the cops. They talked to the guy, and all his professional certificates were up-to-date. They also talked to Aunt May and she told them she was happy . . . But Joline still didn’t feel right, so she went to the bank because she’s joint co-signer on all of May’s accounts. They said she no longer had access to them.”
“Why?”
“All they could say was that new documents had been filed by my aunt, which took Joline’s name off everything.”
Bang, bang, bang. “Yahoo!” Bang, bang, bang . . .
Serge held up a hand for permission to speak. “I hate to be indelicate, but may I inquire as to the state of your aunt’s mental faculties?”
“Early stages of dementia,” said Lou Ellen. “Maybe middle by now.”
Serge nodded with sadness. “Unfortunately, I’ve seen this one too many times before.”
“What are you talking about?”
“It usually starts out on the level,” Serge continued. “But temptation is too great for some people. Whoever this guy is, he probably assessed her condition and started poking around her checkbook and other stuff while she was napping. Then he persuaded your aunt to replace Joline’s name with his on all the accounts, giving him power of attorney, and finally cutting off all contact with her relatives.”
“Then we definitely have to go back to the cops,” said Jasper.
“It’s a little more complicated than that,” said Serge. “If this is playing out like I think, he drafted a bunch of completely legal contracts charging exorbitant fees for services rendered. I’d bet the farm that he’s already cleaned her out.”
“But if that’s true, why is he still there?”
“Why not? If he doesn’t have much drive in life, he’s living there free in a spare bedroom, cashing her Social Security check each month, and propping his feet up on empty cases of Mallomars.”
“And military benefits from her late husband, Homer,” said Lou Ellen.
“Plus I’m sure her life insurance policy has a new beneficiary,” said Serge. “No, going to the authorities isn’t an option. He might end up in jail, but it won’t help recover what’s already been lost.”
“But how can you be so sure of this just from that short phone call?” asked Lou Ellen. “How do you know all the details?”
“Wish it weren’t true, but this is such a common scam in Florida that the authorities have trouble keeping up,” said Serge. “Even worse, they have a harder time prosecuting the cases they do uncover because these lowlifes specifically target the elderly with health issues that make them unreliable on the witness stand. Just when you thought they couldn’t drop the bar any further, this new breed of criminal comes along with no conscience at all. The old, young and weak are the first ones they go after. Call me old school, but when I pick a target . . . well, it’s best just to leave it at that.”
“So what do we do?” asked Willard.
“You don’t do anything,” said Serge. “I’ve got this one.”
Bang, bang, bang. “Yippeeeee!” Bang, bang, bang. BOOM. “Oops.”
The screen door flew open.
Willard and Coleman tumbled inside.
Jasper stood over them. “What in tarnation?”
The pair on the floor just pointed at each other in blame.
Serge walked to the window. “By any chance is there a place nearby that sells propane?”
Chapter 5
The Next Morning
Workers scaled tall ladders again to reach the catwalk along the front of a billboard. Which meant no winners had been picked in last night’s lottery drawing, and the jackpot had rolled over once more. The workers pulled down old numbers and put up new. Most of their signs were in blighted neighborhoods.
Down below, predictable lines snaked out of convenience stores, and TV crews broadcast the excitement across the greater metropolitan area . . .
Just over a decade ago, there were a couple of back-to-back hurricane seasons that made even lifelong Floridians go “Damn.” For the first time ever, the weather service ran out of pre-chosen names for storms, and had to go deep into the Greek alphabet before the year was out.
Now it was lottery season, and it was the same story. Never had the state experienced such a conga line of massive jackpots. It was all about random odds. Right after one massive payout made landfall, nobody would win for several more weeks, and the next jackpot kept gathering force until it reached dizzying wind speed. Then bam! Another winner, and the whole mathematical process began again. Already this season there had been five jackpots with nine or ten digits after the dollar sign. And since the state had increased drawings to twice a week, the fever was constant. Billboard companies loved it.
The last winner came a month ago. The press conference featured balloons and one of those giant checks the size of a door. The Florida State Lottery gleefully introduced its latest mega-jackpot winner, an eighty-year-old woman with a poodle who chose the lump-sum payment.
Viewers at home thinking: It’s always an eighty-year-old with a poodle. What a waste.
Lottery officials lowered the microphone for the diminutive winner: “I’m buying a speedboat.”
Right after an old woman and a poodle named Bubbles set out to sea, the big numbers began ascending again. Lines spilled out of the convenience stores, and regular customers couldn’t buy their Red Bull and vitamin water. TV crews forgot there was other news.