A chill squirmed through my spine. I sprinted to my car, my nerves half shot. I’d just interviewed my first P.I. subject, and I’d just committed my first P.I. mistake.
I’d lied to the client.
As I tumbled into the driver’s seat of the Mustang, I rationalized that I hadn’t really lied to Vanderhoff. Not completely.
It was true that I hadn’t heard the floorboard squeak “Mil,” but I’d definitely heard it say “dread.” In fact, like a spider with icicles for legs, dread had crawled all the way up my spine and was spinning a frosty web in my brain.
Is this what it’s like to be a P.I.? Geez!
The only reason I even signed up for that stupid course was so I could keep tabs on my dates—if I ever got another one. Never again was I going to be the last one to know someone was cheating on me—and with Candy Vincent, no less!
I reached into my stash of Tootsie Pops and pulled out the last sucker in the bag. It was green. I hated green. What kind of flavor was green?
I unwrapped the sucker and popped it into my mouth anyway—for the same reasons I’d taken this bizarre, hand-me-down assignment from Paulson in the first place.
I was broke. I was angry. And I was out of options.
I snorted out a jaded laugh.
Those three traits seemed to come with the territory for anyone unlucky enough to be trapped in Point Paradise.
A sudden flash of light to my right caught my attention. I looked over to see the lights had gone out in Vanderhoff’s living room. There was nothing more I could do there tonight, so I cranked the engine and tossed the nasty green Tootsie Pop in the Mustang’s ashtray.
Then a weird feeling came over me.
I’d just had my most interesting night in months. The strange encounter with Vanderhoff had left me invigorated, oddly spooked, and feeling a bit in over my head.
Oh my word. Is this what it feels like to be ... alive?
I’d almost forgotten.
I rolled up the car window and pictured the rugged, charming face of Detective Terry Paulson. He’d been the first person in a long time to cut me a break.
With only an intern’s CC license, I wasn’t supposed to work a case without a full-fledged P.I. alongside me. Florida required I obtain two years of on-the-job training before I could I call myself a real private investigator.
I smiled. Paulson’s arrival had been like manna from heaven. I mean, where the hell else was I going to find someone willing to give me a shot?
Paulson had bent the rules by letting me interview Vanderhoff on my own. But in a tiny, nowhere kind of place like Point Paradise, the rules tended to slide when you knew everyone on a first-name basis.
Besides, what could be the harm in me poking around? The worst that could happen was I’d end up having to buy Paulson a cheeseburger—and maybe get myself laid.
But neither of those things were going to happen tonight.
So, with nothing else to go on and nothing else to do, I shifted into drive and pointed the Mustang in the direction of Waldo and the A&P. Somebody was going bananas. Whether it was me or old lady Vanderhoff was still up for debate. As I headed down the road, I had no illusions about my prospects. I was still a pawn in the game of life. But for the first time in ages, I actually felt like playing.
Chapter Nine
THE A&P TURNED OUT to be a bust. No weirdos lurking around, at least not by Florida standards. Everyone had on the right amount of clothing and no one was holding a sign reading “Will Work for Beer.”
I made the most of the trip by picking up a loaf of Wonder bread for toast in the morning, then headed for home.
As I got near the Stop & Shoppe, I thought it might be fun to buzz through, just to make Artie haul his humongous butt off his chair and wait on me. But after scrounging the bottom of my purse to pay for the bread, I didn’t have enough money for a lousy Tootsie Pop. So instead, I settled for flipping him the bird as I cruised past.
In the fading light, I leaned out the window to see if Artie had seen my single-digit salutation. I’d expected to see his familiar scowl hovering above his scraggly soul patch and double chin. Instead, my eyes landed on something even more disturbing.
I blinked.
No. That can’t be.
I slammed on the brakes. And, after executing the fastest three-point turn on record, I zoomed back to the Stop & Shoppe. It was still there.
I hit the brakes, rubbed my eyes, and took another look.
Still there.
Against all logic, a pair of red, glowing orbs hovered in the darkness about six feet above the roof of the run-down convenience store. I grabbed my cellphone to take a picture. When I looked up again, they were gone.
What the—?
I figured they must’ve been some kind of reflection, so I pulled up under the sagging awning that served as the Stop & Shoppe’s low-rent drive-thru. Artie was busy sawing logs in his executive armchair, his feet up on the counter by the cash register.
The fat bastard had slept through the entire thing.
That figures.
I revved the engine, startling a loud fart out of Artie.
“What?” he grumbled, rubbing his beady eyes. It was uncanny. Artie possessed the same basic body shape and face of a middle-aged manatee.
“You see anything funny this evening?” I asked.
“Funny?” Artie leaned sideways, causing his chair to creak in a way that sounded both painful and precarious.
“Yeah. You know, unusual.”
He scowled. “No.”
I shifted the Mustang into park. The engine sputtered out.
Damn air filter.
I wrapped my fingers around the key and was about to re-restart the ignition when I heard scratching coming from the awning overhead.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Probably rats.” Artie gave a disinterested shrug. “Or tree limbs, maybe. The skinflint owner don’t spend a dime to keep this place up. Just last week I had to—”
“Hush!” I cocked my head toward the ceiling.
“What?” Artie shot me a scowl. “You doing pest control now, Bobbie?”
“Shut up, Artie! Listen!”
The scratching sound continued, traversing the length of the roof awning from the roadside toward the back, where the Stop & Shoppe butted up against the woods.
I got out of the Mustang and sprinted past the end of the awning, then strained to see the rooftop. I couldn’t make out squat in the darkness.
“You got a flashlight?” I yelled at Artie.
His chair squealed. “Sure,” he hollered back. “For six-fifty. You want batteries it’s another four bucks.”
“Ugh.” I shook my head and walked back to the Mustang. As I peeled out of the Stop & Shoppe, I glanced back. No red orbs.
Hospital shooters? Robot phone calls? Now these stupid glowing orbs? What next? Sasquatch in a tutu?
As the Stop & Shoppe disappeared in my rearview mirror, I made a mental note to add a flashlight to my P.I. kit—once I had a P.I. kit.
From the looks of it, I was going to need one.
Either that, or I needed to seriously consider making an appointment with a psychiatrist.
Chapter Ten
MY CELLPHONE RANG. I cracked open an eye and searched around in the tangled bedsheets for it.
“Hello?”
“I’ve got one for you.”
My brain cramped. “What do you want, Earl? I’m still half asleep.”
“It’s nine-thirty.”
“It’s my day off, okay?”
“True mechanics never take a day off.”
“Ugh. I got shot in the head, remember?”
He snorted. “How long you gonna ride that gravy train?”
“Earl, I’m only gonna ask one more time. What do you want?”
“Like I said, Bobbie. I’ve got one for you.”
“Listen. I’m in no mood for one of your dumb jokes.”
“It’s a customer, you dingdo
ng. Unless you don’t want one.”
My brain perked to life at the prospect of a paycheck. I bolted upright in bed. “Oh. What are we looking at?”
“Right now? A guy with a moustache that could win a Groucho Marx contest. And for the record, it’s only me who’s looking at him, Sleeping Beauty.”
“I meant what are we looking at for work, smartass. Flat tire? Oil change? Please say it’s major mechanical failure.”
“I dunno. He walked here.”
I squeezed my cellphone so hard it chirped. “Are you saying he doesn’t have a vehicle? If this is another one of your stupid pranks, Earl, I’m gonna fire you.”
“No prank. The guy needs a tow. I’m thinking it could be worth a few bucks. Should I tell him to get lost? You’ve got better things to do?”
I heard the ka-ching of a cash register—as it tumbled off a cliff. “Don’t let him go anywhere! I’ll be down in three minutes.”
Earl laughed. “I’ll do my best to keep him entertained.”
“No jokes, Earl. Especially that stupid one about the gear shaft. You hear me?”
My phone went dead. I jumped out of bed and peeked through the blinds. From the dusty window of my apartment above the mechanic shop, I could see Earl talking to some guy dressed in black. He hadn’t been kidding after all.
I let go of the blinds and made a mad dash for the bathroom. I figured I had no more than three minutes before Earl told that gear-shaft joke and we lost the only customer we’d had in a week. I pulled a T-shirt on over my head, wriggled into my father’s coveralls and humongous work boots, and clomped down the stairs.
I bet the guy’s onboard computer’s on the fritz. They mess up everything.
I considered computers—especially onboard computers—to be the ruination of life as I knew it.
About the same time cars became equipped with them, I’d become equipped with boobs. Dad had given me the boot, and my cousin Earl had gotten the benefit of sopping up all my father’s knowledge—and his time.
With all Dad’s attention on Earl, my mother had finally gotten her chance to make me into a girl. It hadn’t gone well. I guess by then I was too far off the grid.
Mom and Grandma Selma didn’t know what to do with a girl who refused to wear a dress and who tied dolls to fence posts and shot out their eyes for BB-gun practice. After a while, they’d given up on the whole idea of domesticating me. “Don’t bother me and I won’t bother you,” became a routine which lasted until I took off for college.
Even so, when Dad died and Mom up and ran off with Mr. Applewhite, it really threw me for a loop. Given her submissive nature, I didn’t think she had it in her to go rogue.
Mom had left me all alone to run the garage with Earl. I’d have fired the jerk on day one, but I didn’t know anything about those blasted onboard computers.
So my cousin and I had formed our own sort of weird alliance. He’d remained head mechanic at my dad’s shop, and I’d become “the boss”—in other words, the person responsible for dealing with the bills, the customers, and the paperwork. But it was no “don’t bother me and I won’t bother you” relationship.
Just the opposite.
Earl and I bothered the hell out of each other—for sport.
I stumbled to the bottom of the stairs and caught sight of my reflection in the mirror by the door. Nothing like forgetting you’re a bald cyclops to give you a friendly jolt in the morning. Better than a double espresso.
I gasped, fumbled back upstairs, and grabbed my wig. There was no time to fix my face. But, thankfully, nobody expected much in the way of appearance from a mechanic.
Secretly, I considered it one of the best perks of this whole lousy job.
Chapter Eleven
THE DOOR LEADING TO the parking lot squeaked as I pushed it open. An orange streak of late-morning sun hit me across the face, making me wince like a three-eyed vampire.
“This here’s the boss man, Bobbie Drex,” Earl said as I tumbled out the door and shuffled over to them. “Or, as we like to call her, ‘the boy with boobs.’”
So much for establishing myself as the authority figure.
I sneered at Earl. “Did I mention that you’re fired?”
Earl grinned, confident in his irreplaceability. He nodded and deadpanned, “Yeah. Just let me go collect my severance package.”
“It’s hard to find good help nowadays,” I said to the guy with the moustache, extending my hand for a shake.
Anywhere but Florida, the guy would’ve been considered an odd duck. He wore a vintage fedora, which he tipped at me in an old-fashioned gesture of courtesy. As he did, I noticed he also had a knot on his forehead. Unlike mine, however, his was big enough to smuggle a boiled egg inside. His lip was busted as well. I figured he must’ve been in one hell of a bar fight recently.
“Name’s William Knickerbocker,” he said. He winced slightly when he raised his hand to shake mine. “Or as some folks like to call me, ‘the boy without boobs.’”
Everybody’s a smartass.
“How about I call you Bill?” I said dryly.
“That works, too. My vehicle’s about two and a half miles down the road that way.” Bill winced again as he raised his arm to point south down Obsidian Road. “I need a tow and repairs.”
“What are you driving?”
“An RV.”
Ka-ching!
“I think we can help you out with that, Bill. But I’m not sure about you.” I took a furtive glance at his bulging forehead. “What are you? Some kind of professional barroom brawler?”
He grinned. “No. But it’s amazing how often I end up looking like one.” He touched his forehead. “This is just your typical head-against-the-windshield goose egg.”
My eyebrows ticked up a notch. “You were in an accident?”
“Yeah. I think I hit a deer or something.”
“A deer, you say.” I exchanged a knowing glance with Earl. Venison beat an empty stomach any day of the week, even if it was road kill. It was fine, as long as you got there quick enough.
“What about you?” Knickerbocker asked, his eyes on the red knot between my eyes. “Where’d you get that beaut?”
“Oh. I, uh ....”
“She just had her demons exorcized,” Earl quipped.
Knickerbocker’s left eyebrow shot up. I looked past him at Earl. He was behind Knickerbocker, his face twisted into an idiotic expression aimed at making me lose my composure. I clenched my jaw to squelch the burning desire to kick Earl where the sun don’t shine.
“Earl, darling?” I said between my teeth, “When you’re done having a seizure, could you please give Bill here a lift back to his vehicle? Hook it up to Bessie and tow it back.”
Earl’s face switched to his normal, easy-going grin. I hated how easily he could shift gears.
“Yes, boss man.” He moseyed toward the garage’s only working service bay.
Bill blanched. “Bessie? You’re going to pull my RV with a cow?”
I smirked. “Not exactly.”
The sound of an angry diesel engine thundered from inside the service bay.
I nodded toward the garage. “That’s Bessie.”
Knickerbocker turned around just as a huge, black, four-wheel-drive monster truck emerged from the bay. Equipped with a 540-horsepower Hemi engine and tractor tires taller than me, Bessie could yank Godzilla out of Tokyo.
Earl steered the massive truck out of the garage and idled it next to Bill and me. “Hop in,” he said to Knickerbocker.
“You wouldn’t happen to have a stepladder, would you?” Bill asked.
“Fresh out.” I patted my pockets. “Earl, Bill here said he hit a deer. Be sure and check that out.”
Earl winked. “Yes, boss man.”
Knickerbocker reached over his head to open Bessie’s passenger door. He grunted as he hauled his tall, lanky body inside the cab. The effort made him wince and lick the seam on his busted lip.
He closed the door and Earl hit the g
as, tearing another pothole in the crumbling asphalt parking lot. The pair disappeared past the flashing yellow light and down Obsidian Road.
Once they were out of sight, I slipped into the garage, unfastened the padlock on the electrical box, and flipped over a few breakers. A couple of overhead lights blinked on, and an air compressor began to hum.
I smiled to myself. I didn’t care if Knickerbocker was a tourist, a weirdo, or even an escapee from nearby Stark Prison.
We were flat broke.
With any luck, the repairs on his busted vehicle would generate enough money to pay last month’s light bill before they cut off the juice.
Chapter Twelve
FROM MY APARTMENT ABOVE the garage, I spotted Bessie passing underneath the flashing yellow light at the intersection. Hitched to the monster truck’s rear was the most dilapidated hunk of junk I’d seen since my last trip to the Waldo antiques center.
Crap. So much for hitting the motherlode. I guess I’m gonna need Detective Paulson’s twenty bucks after all.
As I watched Earl ease the rusty, algae-covered hulk of an RV into the service bay, I punched a number into my cell phone.
“Paulson? It’s Bobbie Drex here with a case update.”
“Well, don’t you sound all official-like?” he crooned. “Let me guess. Vanderhoff’s got early-onset Alzheimer’s?”
“Good one. No. I think there may be more to it than that. I drove by the A&P last night. There was some weird guy hanging out in the parking lot in a yellow Volkswagen Beetle.”
It was a lie. There hadn’t been so much as an alley cat roaming the parking lot. But if my mother had taught me anything, it was that if you gave someone enough detail, you could make anything sound plausible. Besides, it was for a good cause. I was so broke twenty bucks would’ve doubled my net worth.
“Really? A yellow Volkswagen?” Paulson asked. The news seemed to catch him off guard. “Did you get a license plate number?”
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