“It’s the same guy, Val. The one who murdered his mother.”
My jaw went slack. “And now he’s living next door to me.”
Judy nodded solemnly.
“I’m telling you, Judy. He’s burning bodies in his backyard. He’s got to be! He’s been out of the slammer for what? Two weeks? I’ve seen at least two dogs over at his place. Now they’re both missing. And so is Buster, the dog Tom brought home.”
Judy stared at me with eyes as big as plums. “And you’re still staying in your house? Alone?”
“Good thing I don’t have four legs, huh?” I joked nervously.
Judy shook her head. “I doubt his mother did, either.”
I GLANCED AT THE CLOCK on the kitchen wall. It was 9:30 p.m. – old-lady midnight. I set down the rolling pin in my hand and reached for the phone. I almost called Tom again for the eight-millionth time.
It was pitch dark outside. I’d turned on every bulb and checked the locks on every door and window fifteen times. Still, I couldn’t shake the portent of impending doom that hung thick in the air around me. I was at home alone. Utterly alone – with nothing for company except an overactive imagination and a bag full of donuts. Correction; An empty bag that used to be full of donuts.
It also didn’t help that I’d just finished watching The Shining.
“Dumb move,” I muttered to myself. I shut off the TV and walked to the kitchen. I tossed the empty Davies Donuts bag in the bin and stared out the sliding glass doors into the black night. At least there was no storm tonight. And no howling. I breathed a sigh of relief.
Then I spotted them. A pair of red, glowing eyes stared back at me from inside the doghouse Tom had built.
I stifled a scream and scrambled to grab hold of the rolling pin. “Get a grip, Val,” I said, trying to reassure myself. “It’s probably just a possum.” Or an alligator. Or a hideous brain-eating demon from hell!
One of the red eyes blinked. I gulped and grabbed my cellphone. My hands were shaking so badly I dropped the rolling pin. Who could I call? I dialed ‘nine’ with a trembling finger. I looked back out the door. I could have sworn the eyes in the doghouse were bigger! I looked down and stabbed ‘one’ with a jerking finger. I tried to hit ‘one’ again, but I missed and dialed ‘two.’
Crap on a cracker! Fresh panic shot through me. I tried to hit the ‘back’ button, but my hands were nearly paralyzed. A movement outside sent my eyeballs swinging back to the doghouse. The red, glowing eyes were on the move!
A long, low squeal escaped between my lips. The eyes lurched forward and a huge toad hopped out of the dark doghouse into the glow of the porch light. My knees buckled with relief. I put a hand on the sliding door to steady myself and giggled nervously. But another movement outside silenced me like a knife to the throat.
Someone was in my back yard. Digging a hole. And this time, whoever it was, was way too tall to be J.D.
The hair on the top of my head stood on end. I slapped a hand around on the wall until I found the light switch. I turned off the kitchen light and dove to my knees. As my eyes adjusted to the dim porch light, I could make out the silhouette of someone in a dark cape and hood. Whoever it was stopped digging. They put the shovel down and placed something into the hole. I blinked hard, straining to make out what it was. I moved forward on my knees. Pain shot through my kneecap. I winced and held my tongue. When I opened my eyes again, whoever it was had disappeared.
Following the lead of every dimwit in every scary movie I’d ever seen, I cracked open the sliding door and went out to investigate. I crept through the yard, armed with a rolling pin and the garden spade I tripped over on my way out the door. When I got to the area where the digger had been, I saw a fresh hole. It had been filled in.
I should have known better, but I’d already come this far. I dropped to my knees and started digging with the spade like someone under a voodoo spell. About six inches in, by spade hit something that made a hollow sound. I dug around it. It was a wooden box. No! It was a little coffin in a shallow grave!
I pulled the box out of the ground and turned it over. In the moonlight, I saw a little head pop out of the coffin. It sputtered out a horrible, squeaking moan.
Oh, dear lord! This poor creature’s been buried alive!
A twig cracked behind me. I whipped around. The horrible, hooded creature was back! It towered over me, its hideous face a ghostly, greenish shade of death. Snakes twisted in its hair. It reached its bloody claws toward me. I was a goner.
I opened my mouth to scream, and the world went black.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Something had a hold of my leg, pulling me across my back lawn. I cracked open an eye and shut it again. It was the horrid, hooded demon! I screamed and kicked my leg like a mule. It let go and whirled around, the bulging eyes in its long, putrid-green face bored into mine like a cobra mesmerizing its prey. Its hideous slit of a mouth opened and said,
“Are you all right, honey?”
I blinked in disbelief. Had I been transported to some surreal dimension? Had Winky been right all along and I was being abducted by aliens? I blinked again. My eyes and mind found a bit more focus. Standing over me, wearing an avocado face mask and a hooded bathrobe, was Laverne, her strawberry curls done up in twist rollers.
“Geeze, Laverne! What are you doing out here?”
“Nothing,” she said coyly. “What are you doing out here?”
“I thought you were some kind of hideous demon!”
Laverne wilted. “Do I really look that bad?”
“What? No,” I said, sitting up in the grass. “It’s just.... The coffin! Why did you bury some poor creature in my backyard?”
“Coffin?” Laverne asked, and cocked her horsey green face. Peeking out of the long, hooded robe, she looked like that ghostly creep in Scream – with curlers and red lipstick. “Oh. That’s not a coffin, Val. It’s that dad-burned cuckoo clock of J.D.’s. I figured if you got rid of Tom’s dog, I could get rid of the cuckoo clock. I buried it in your yard to make it look like someone else did it. Like you did with the dog.”
As inanely absurd as her explanation was, I didn’t care at the moment. I was crestfallen. “Laverne, you think I got rid of Buster?”
“Well, didn’t you?”
“No! How could you think such a thing?”
“Well, you thought I killed someone and buried them.”
My pout disappeared along with my self-pity. “Oh my gawd!” I said. “You’re right, Laverne. I’m sorry. Geeze! What a bumbling mess this all is!”
I struggled to my feet. “Come on. Let’s go inside. We’ve got to figure out a way to get rid of Tom and J.D. that doesn’t involve us going to prison.”
“I STILL CAN’T BELIEVE Tom’s cheatin’ on you, Val,” Laverne said. She’d washed off her avocado mask and was enthusiastically helping me belt back a matching set of Tanqueray and tonics.
“And it gets worse,” I said. “I spoke to Judy Bloomer, the real estate lady. The guy next door is the same guy who killed his mother. He’s got a whole graveyard in his backyard, Laverne.”
Laverne drained her cocktail and set it on the counter. “When you think about getting blown to smithereens by your own son, putting up with a cuckoo clock doesn’t seem like such a big deal anymore.”
“Too bad that isn’t Tom’s worst offence.”
Laverne rattled the ice cubes in her glass. “What else has he done? Besides this cheating, I mean.”
“He leaves the toothpaste cap off, okay?” I pouted. I grabbed her glass and went about fixing us another round. “He wants me to quit my job. So I can...stay home and write,” I groused and stabbed at the lime with a knife.
“Monster,” Laverne said, and gave me a sympathetic smile as I poured a generous slug of gin in both glasses.
“Crap, Laverne!” I yelled and slammed the gin bottle on the counter. “I finally meet a man who wants to help me follow my dreams. And now he’s gone and done this!”
; “Well, honey, sounds to me like you got to choose.”
I topped off the glasses with tonic. “Choose?”
“Yeah. Life ain’t always a fairytale. You should know that by now.” Laverne took the drink I offered. “What’s more important to you, Val? Fidelity or having someone who really gets you?”
I bit my lip. “But why should I have to choose just one?”
Laverne shrugged. “Sometimes, we just have to. And you don’t fool me, missy. I know you really care about him.”
“How do you know that?” I asked, and took a sip of my gin and tonic.
“Easy. Because if you didn’t care, you wouldn’t care he was cheating. And it works both ways. If he didn’t care about you, he wouldn’t care about your dreams.”
“My dreams don’t involve another lover,” I said.
“Whose do? Everybody’s dreams are different, Val. And men’s dreams are a lot different than women’s. Lord knows I’ve learned that over the years. How else do you explain cigars?”
Laverne smiled weakly and drained her drink. She stood up and gave me a hug. “Well, I better get on back home,” she said. “I’ve got a keep an eye on J.D. or he’ll be out in the backyard again. He sleepwalks, you know.”
I bit my lip. “No. I didn’t know.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
“It’s not what you know – it’s who you know. And first you’ve got to know yourself,” chirped the syrupy DJ on the clock radio. I slapped the snooze button. What I really wanted was to slap whoever’s face had just uttered that optimistic flapdoodle. At least I knew that much about myself.
I sighed, rolled out of bed and stomped to the bathroom. One glance in the vanity mirror and I had a little come-to-bejeezus meeting with myself.
What’s it gonna be, Val? Like Laverne said, relationships take compromise. But a woman on the side? Is Tom worth it?
I stared at my sorry reflection. My hair was a frizzy rat’s nest. I could stand to lose twenty pounds. My jowls were starting to sag like a hound dog. I put on some cheater glasses and studied my face. Growing out of my chin like some alien life form was a black hair about half an inch long! Crapola! Who was I kidding? Compared to Darryl, I looked like the victim of a botched sex-change operation.
Judy was right. Beauty terror is real!
I plucked the hair on my chin and stomped into the kitchen to make a cappuccino. I needed caffeine courage. Today I would have to face the ultimate showdown with Tom. My stomach flopped at the thought. Judging by the sunlight outside, I should have been at work already. I reached for my phone and begged off with a text to Milly. At this low point, I just couldn’t face Milly and her perfect life. She had the perfect button nose. The perfect husband. The perfect wedding ring. The perfect house. Even the perfect dog! No wonder it didn’t like me! At least Buster did. Or had. The thought of never seeing the little Barkmitzva-basher made me burst into tears.
The only perfect thing I had to offer was a perfect mess.
AFTER A GOOD, LONG, hot, ugly cry, I blew my nose and put on my big-girl panties. I finished perking a cappuccino and plopped on a barstool to pull myself together. The clock on the wall read 9:33 a.m. I was supposed to go with Winky to meet Ferrol Finkerman at ten this morning.
Awesome. Can’t wait. But at least when I make promises I keep them.
Thankfully, when that stupid meeting was over, all I’d have left to do was pack a suitcase and drive down to the Sunset Sailaway Resort. To confront my cheating boyfriend. And to tell him I’d lost his earrings and his dog. Oh. And one more thing.
To punch Thomas Foreman right in his big, fat nose!
I took a slurp of cold cappuccino and noticed something lying on the other side of the kitchen counter. It was the notebook the guys and I had used the other night to write down ideas about what might have happened to Buster. I leaned over and drug it toward me. I scanned the list and crossed off J.D. and Laverne. I’d already marked through skateboard kid the other night. If a gator or shark had gotten him, there was nothing I could do about it. I marked through them. Only two scenarios remained on the list. Abduction by aliens or by my psycho next-door neighbor. After what I’d learned about him over the last couple of days, I prayed for alien abduction. Not just for my sake, but for Buster’s, too.
I’d planned on waiting until I had Tom for back-up before I confronted the guy who’d cremated his own mother. But having Tom’s support seemed as unlikely now as getting Buster back within the next three hours. I looked around for the newspaper. I wanted to check the “lost and found pets” column one more time. I couldn’t find it.
Oh yeah. Tom usually brought in the paper. Crap!
I climbed off my stool and cracked open the front door. I was still in my nightgown, so I peeked around to see if the coast was clear. With no one in sight, I tiptoed outside.
Drat! As luck would have it, the paper was at the end of the driveway. I scurried my way alongside Maggie, then bent down and grabbed the newspaper by the plastic bag it was wrapped in. As my head bobbed back up, I spied something hairy out of the corner of my left eye. I nearly fell backward. It was the missing link – naked except for a pair of shorts. And he was headed my way!
Crap on a cracker! All I had to defend myself was a newspaper to swat him with!
I stood and tried to make a run for the front door, but the man was cutting through the grass on a collision course for me. There was no way I was going to make it! He positioned himself between me and my house. I braced myself and held The St. Petersburg Times in a death grip. I was about to club him with it when ape man spoke.
“We haven’t been properly introduced,” he said and held out a hairy hand. “I’m Jake –”
“Johnson,” I interrupted. My voice shook with fear and adrenaline. “I know who you are.”
He let his unshaken hand fall. “So you really did remember me from the donut shop.”
“Uh huh.”
“And you are?”
“Val Fremden.”
He smiled, revealing a beautiful set of white teeth. “Buster’s mom. Speaking of which, how’s he doing? I haven’t seen him around the past couple of days.”
Is that some kind of sick joke? “He’s been...indisposed.”
Jake’s eyes looked genuinely sorrowful. “Oh. I’m sorry to hear that.” He reached into the pocket of his shorts. “Take this,” he said. A hairy paw jerked toward me. I flinched in horror, expecting a knife, or maybe a body part.
In his palm was a baggie full of brown wafers.
“I make my own special doggy biscuits,” he said. “They should perk Buster right up.”
I stared at the cookies with dread. Were they made from real dogs? Or maybe his “special” ingredient was cyanide....
He pressed the bag of biscuits into my hand as I stood motionless, helpless, paralyzed with fear. He eyed me intently.
“I sense you’re filled with a deep-seated distrust of strangers,” he said. “But there’s more to it than that. Hmmm....”
That’s an extremely odd thing to say to someone. I stared at the biscuits, afraid to look into his primitive, animal face.
“Val pal!” I heard Winky holler. “You ready to go?”
His voice snapped me out of my trance. I looked up and saw the blue van parked a few yards away in the street. “I...uh...gotta go,” I said to Jake. I turned and took off toward the old Dodge van, flung open the door and climbed into the passenger seat.
“What’s goin’ on here, Val?” Winky asked. “Did that ape feller show you his banana?”
“What?” I whispered, hoarse with fear. I looked over. Jake the ape had disappeared.
Winky threw up a hand. “What you do in yore spare time is yore business, Val.” He eyed me up and down. “You gonna wear that? I don’t think it’s legal. Less’n we’re goin’ to Walmarts.”
I looked down. I was still in my nightgown, still holding the baggie of dog biscuits. I flung the baggie on the floorboard and opened the van door. “Give me five minut
es.”
WHEN I GOT BACK TO the van, Winky was eating the last biscuit in the baggie. I opened my mouth to object, but then thought better of it. If the dog treats really were laced with cyanide, there was nothing I could do about it now.
Winky read my face wrong and handed me the last half of a bitten biscuit. “Sorry. You want it?”
“No thanks. Winky, you really shouldn’t have eaten those.”
“I thought they was waitin’ snacks.”
“You’re right. They are.” Now we just have to wait and see if they do you in.
THE BISCUITS WEREN’T lethal after all. Winky was still alive and kicking when we pulled into the lot at Finkerman’s. Unsurprisingly, one of Finkerman’s clients was in the middle of being busted and hauled away in the parking lot. A police car was angled over three parking spots, its lights flashing. The cop’s K-9 partner was waiting patiently for him in the backseat of it while the suspect was being shackled on the hood with a set of handcuffs.
“Why I Suwannee,” Winky said as we climbed out of the van.
“Typical,” I said. “Finkerman’s clientele are cheats and personal injury scammers.”
Winky nodded toward the dog in the squad car. “What do you think he done?”
“Maybe he ate too many biscuits,” I sneered.
Winky’s eyes widened and he rubbed his stomach. Then he made a visor with his hand to shade his face from the cop. I grabbed his arm and led him through the front door of Finkerman’s office. A woman who looked as if she’d been sucking on a Pine-Sol-flavored lollipop asked, “May I help you?”
“We’re here about....” I began, then looked over at Winky. He still had his hand over his face. I slapped it down. “Winky!” I turned back to the sour-faced woman. “We’re here about....” I turned back to Winky. “Ugh! What’s your name again?”
“Wallace J. Winchly,” a voice sounded. A pasty-faced, frizzy-headed, bean-pole of a man in a cheap suit walked into the lobby carrying a cardboard box full of mangled fishing tackle. “Your consolation prizes.”
Doggone Disaster Page 17
