“Been there, done that,” said Sterling, slapping him on the back. “You walk the walk and talk the talk. Duty calls.”
9
The ordinary two-story frame home dating back to the lumbering days sat on a quiet street four blocks away from the bay. Mildred Hall had been born in the house a few years after the end of WWI, one of the several hundred home deliveries performed by Old Doc Wade over his long career. It was one of the oldest houses in the village.
Ray pulled into the drive, parking behind the Lincoln. He knocked, using the bronze ring in a bronze lion’s mouth. Classical music blasted from the interior. He knocked again more vigorously. The volume dropped and shortly after, the door swung open.
Mildred Hall, in jeans and a blue sweater, was smaller than he remembered, but surprisingly wiry and vital for her years. “Ray Elkins, what brings you to my house? Come in, come in. I’ve just made some tea. Will you have a cup?” Hall didn’t wait for an answer. She just marched off to the kitchen. Ray followed her through the living room and dining room. With the exception of a television, the home was furnished in antiques, mostly original to the house he guessed. The smell of lemon and lavender hung in the air.
“Sit here,” Hall ordered as she placed a second saucer and cup on the kitchen table.” She pulled a knitted rooster off the teapot and filled both cups. “Sugar, honey, a little milk?”
“I’m fine,” said Ray.
“The honey is local. Raw. It’s got pollen in it. Keeps your immune system tuned up. Helps with allergies and hay fever.” Hall halted her rapid-fire delivery and examined Ray for a long moment. “I’m not used to visits from the local constabulary.”
“Vincent Fox,” said Ray, “He’s been missing for several days. Reports of his disappearance ran last night and this morning on the local television news.”
“Oh my, oh my, oh my.” she said, her hands rising to her cheeks. “I don’t have a TV anymore. I just didn’t know. Well, I have one; I mean I keep some African violets on it. When the television people made that change…. Tell me about Vincent. What’s happened to him, do you think?”
“You were with him on Friday, at the casino?”
“That’s true, Saturday too, not at the casino, but I was with him.”
“We need to establish when he was last seen. I think you can help me with that. Tell me your history with Vincent. Then focus on the time you spent with him in recent days. What you did, where you went.” Ray took out a notebook from his coat pocket and flipped the pages slowly until reaching a blank one. Mildred Hall was staring into space. “Start at the beginning, Ms. Hall,” he urged her.
“Well, I met Vincent Fox five or six years ago at the Friends of the Library book sale. I was in charge of the cash box, and he was assigned to help me. After that he called me a couple of times. I think he sort of invited me out. I certainly wasn’t interested. Then he called and wanted to know if I would go to the casino with him. Well, Ray, it’s just up the road, been there for decades, but I’d never made a visit. Turns out, what Vincent really wanted was for me to drive him. Seems his kids had taken his car away, much like mine would like to do,” she said with a scowl. “But, I ended up taking Vincent and his cronies to the casino. Those old boys just loved it, especially the slots. Just toss the chip in and push the button. I tried to explain to them about B.F. Skinner and how they would assuredly never win anything. They weren’t interested. They were paying for the entertainment. I just don’t understand how losing money is entertainment.”
Hall attempted to refill their teacups, but the pot was empty. She went to the sink to fill the kettle, then set it on the stove, a curvy model with chrome, probably one of the first electrics made.
“I can’t say I liked it, though—too much smoke and noise. But I got to wandering around the place and found the blackjack tables. They were off to the side in their own room. It was so much quieter in there. The first few times, I watched. Then, I got a book on how to win at blackjack at the library. It was decent, but it was too sketchy for my taste, so I ordered some others through an interlibrary loan. I spent weeks figuring out the system.”
She turned around to check the kettle. “Oh my, I forgot to turn it on. Let’s see. At first I lost money. Never more than 10 bucks; that was my limit. Boy do I hate to waste money. And then I started winning. Not much. I read about how they keep an eye on you. If you win too much, they ban you. Anyway, after a while it wasn’t fun anymore. But I’d gotten to like spending time with the boys. And they have uncommonly good food there, cheap too. So it just became my social outing of the week. Alas, there are only three of us left now, and I don’t think Tommy Fuller has got much time. Now you say Vincent is missing. I don’t quite understand. What does that mean?”
“Fox has a daughter in Traverse City. You probably know that.”
“Yes.”
“She talks to her father almost every day on the phone. When she was unable to reach him, she drove up to his home. Not finding him, she contacted us.” He paused to make a note. “So you were with Vincent on Friday, and you also saw him on Saturday?”
“Yes, I picked him and Tommy up at the library about 9:45; that’s our usual meeting time. We were at the casino by 10 o’clock. The boys played the slots for a while and then we went to lunch. I told them at lunch I couldn’t stand the place much longer and gave them a half an hour more. Just about the time we were leaving, Vincent hit a big pot. He wanted to stay around and play some more, saying his luck had just changed. I told him not to be a damn fool. He should take his money and get out of there. He wasn’t too happy, but he did what I told him. That was it. I drove them back to the library.”
“How much money did he win?” asked Ray.
“Six thousand dollars in that one pot. I don’t know what he might have won or lost before that.” When the kettle began to whine, she lifted it off the stove and poured the contents over the old tea leaves. “But you know,” she said, “the strangest thing happened. I’d completely forgotten. On the way back Tommy said he wished he had won that big pot. Vincent asked him why and Tommy says he has a friend outside of Miami, one of his war buddies. He says he’d like to see the guy while there was still time. Vincent asked if $4000 would be enough. Tommy said that would be more than enough. So Vincent, who was sitting next to me, counted out four grand and passed the money back to him. Isn’t that extraordinary?”
“Then I asked Tommy how he was going to get to Miami. He said he thought he should fly, but he had no idea how to make a reservation or anything. We went into the library and I used the computer to make a reservation for the next day, Saturday. I used my credit card, and Tommy gave me cash. The next day we met at the library again, and…this is the part I shouldn’t tell you, I drove Tommy and Vincent to the airport.”
Ray looked up. “Why shouldn’t you tell me that?”
“I’ve promised my kids I’d only drive around the village—just to the grocery store, the library, church, and the doctor’s office. They don’t know about the casino, but that’s only up the road a bit. I never get to go to Traverse City. And they’ve got a beautiful new terminal at the airport. After we dropped Tommy off, Vincent and I went to the mall and had some lunch. I tried to do a little shopping at Macy’s, but it’s not the store that Hudson’s was.”
“Then what did you do?”
“We drove home. I took back roads. People drive too fast on M-22, even in the winter.” Hall poured tea into both their cups. It was the color of a sandy lake bottom.
“So when did you last see Vincent Fox?”
“It was some time after 3 o’clock. I dropped him off near the library.”