Short Stories To Tickle Your Funnybone

by Thornhill, Robert

  merriment.

  http://booksbybob.com/lady-justice-and-the-book-club

  CRUISE SHIP MURDERS Volume #11

  Ox and Judy are off to Alaska on a honeymoon cruise and invite Walt and Maggie to tag along. Their peaceful plans are soon shipwrecked by the murder of two fellow passengers.

  The murders appear to be linked to a centuryold legend involving a cache of gold stolen from a prospector and buried by two thieves.

  Their seven day cruise is spent hunting for the gold and eluding the modern day thieves intent on possessing it at any cost.

  Another nail-biting mystery that will have you on the edge of your seat one minute and laughing out loud the next.

  http://booksbybob.com/lady-justice-and-the-cruise-ship

  Welcome Stephanie Plum Fans!

  I'm an old retired guy who lives with his wife, Peg, in Independence, Mo.

  We read a lot.

  A few years ago, a friend turned us on to Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum series and we fell in love. We read all 14 books that were available at the time and laughed till we cried.

  I had never written a book, a blog or anything of substance, but I was so fired up when I finished Fearless Fourteen, I had to do something.

  I went into our office, sat down at my computer and pretended I was Janet. I wrote three chapters and gave them to Peg who had also read all 14 books.

  I heard her laughing and thought that was a good sign. After she finished, she came to the office and said "Janet doesn't need any help. You should write a book of your own. Stop writing Stephanie Plum, develop your OWN characters and plot. I know you can do it."

  So I did, and the Lady Justice mystery/comedy series was born.

  Currently there are eleven novels in the series: Lady Justice Takes a C.R.A.P. City Retiree Action Patrol

  Lady Justice and the Lost Tapes

  Lady Justice Gets Lei'd

  Lady Justice and the Avenging Angels

  Lady Justice and the Sting

  Lady Justice and Dr. Death

  Lady Justice and the Vigilante

  Lady Justice and the Watchers

  Lady Justice and the Candidate

  Lady Justice and the Book Club Murders

  Lady Justice and the Cruise Ship Murders Following are the three Stephanie Plum Chapters that I wrote.

  Please remember ---- I was sixty-six years old and this was the FIRST THING that I had ever written.

  Hope you enjoy them!

  Chapter 1

  It was Christmas time in the Burg. Shopping Malls were decked in holiday tradition; city fathers hung plastic bells from lampposts; miniature elves cavorted on front lawns; shoppers of all ages and descriptions scurried about looking for that perfect gift and, of course, petty crime was on the rise as shoplifters used the bustling crowds to mask their petty thievery. Break and enter complaints flourished as burglars relieved unhappy shoppers of their Christmas treasures from their homes and cars.

  As regrettable as this crime surge may be, it’s kinda good for me. I’m Stephanie Plum and I’m a bounty hunter or, as we put on loan applications, a fugitive apprehension agent. I work for my cousin Vinnie’s Bond Company.

  When a neer-do-well is apprehended by police, they call Vinnie to bond them out of jail until their court date. If the slacker shows up for court Vinnie’s bond is returned and he collects a fee for his services. If he doesn’t appear, he forfeits his bond (meaning Vinnie’s money) unless he can be found and persuaded to return for a court date. That’s where I come in. My job is to find the FTA (failure to appear) and persuade him or her to return to the police station to get a new court date and be rebonded out.

  Sounds pretty simple, doesn’t it. Right! A few FTAs legitimately forget their court dates, but most are adamantly opposed to incarceration and will go to any extremes to avoid the lockup. I’ve been punched, tased, shot at, bombed and generally maimed by these fugitives and if, by chance, I happen to be successful in bringing one to justice, I am paid a percentage of the bond for my trouble.

  In a way, I’m like a real estate agent or a car salesman; they only get paid when they make a sale; I only get paid when I return a scumbag to the police booking desk. Unfortunately, I’m not a real superstar bond apprehension agent. You might say I’m just a shade under mediocre and my income reflects my apprehension shortcomings.

  So here we are. It’s Christmas and I’m broke. I’m driving a yucky brown piece of crap car that barely passed the vehicle inspection and probably wouldn’t have except my cousin Jenny’s husband is a mechanic at the inspection station.

  Reluctantly, I told myself that now was the time to correct my financial woes. Crime was up; FTAs were skipping their court dates at an astounding rate and best of all, most of them were just petty thieves: no rapists or murders or gangbangers. Easy Money! I probably wouldn’t even have to use my pepper spray, stun gun or cuffs and I certainly wouldn’t need my little 38 caliber pistol which mostly stays in my cookie jar.

  As I pulled up to the bond office on Hamilton, I noticed that Lula was already there. Her red Firebird was parked in the prime spot in front of the office. Upon reflection, I decided not to park my heap next to her fine ride, so I drove around back and parked next to the dumpster. Appropriate! Maybe if I’m lucky the trash man will load it up and haul it away.

  Lula is something! In her former life she was a ho. She had been severely beaten and almost killed by a deranged prizefighter.

  As luck would have it, I happened to be nearby and helped save her. Actually, it happened on my balcony, but it wasn’t my fault. Since then, we have become friends. Lula now does filing in Vinnie’s bond office; mostly her nails, but sometimes real files, and on occasion, she is my sidekick as we seek out fugitives. Kinda like Batman and Robin; Roy Rogers and Gabby Hays; Well actually, its more like the Two Stooges.

  I entered the office through the rear door and waved to Connie, our office manager. Connie runs the place. Without her, Vinnie would be up a creek. She puts the FTA files together, searches databases for current information on the perps whereabouts, assigns the files to one of us agents and best of all, signs our checks when we actually bring someone in.

  Connie looked particularly harried this morning and I noticed the stack of file folders on her desk.

  “Busy day?” I said.

  “You gotta be kidding me,” she replied. “I’ve been busting my ass since 7:00 this morning trying to get these files ready to assign.”

  “What have you got?” I asked

  “Mostly small stuff, but there’s a lot of it. Two B&E’s, 3 shoplifters, indecent exposure, and a traffic violation.”

  “Great!” I said. “Sounds like something I can handle.” She handed me a stack of files. “Don’t be shy about assigning files to me for awhile,” I said. “I am sufficiently motivated by the lack of funds in my Christmas savings account and I’ll take as many as I can get.”

  “Glad to hear it,” Connie said. “Because you and Joyce are about it right now.”

  There are 3 bond enforcement agents in our office: myself, Ranger, and Joyce Barnhart. Ranger was my mentor and had taught me the few apprehension techniques that I actually used. He is a Cuban hottie. Besides being an agent for Vinnie, he owns his own security company and has been doing more for himself and less for Vinnie lately. Joyce is my arch enemy. She has been since grade school. She has made my life miserable in so many ways, the worst being getting caught by me, boinking my husband shortly after our honeymoon. Too bad we work in the same company. It doesn’t do much for office morale.

  “OK,” I said, “I’m off. Today is going to be a good day”.

  “Hold on there a minute,” Lula said. “Don’t I even get a Howdy Do? Anyway you gonna need me if you gonna try to get through that big stack.”

  “Sorry Lula, I was just so focused on work. I didn’t mean to ignore you. But don’t you have filing to do?”

  “Wow, I’ve never seen you that focused,” Lula said. “You must really be b
roke. And besides, there ain’t no filing here that can’t wait a couple of hours. Plus, it’s my special time of the month and I’m feeling kinda cranky. It would do me some good to thump on a few of them perverts.”

  “NO thumping,” I said. “These are all just petty thieves and first time offenders. It should be a piece of cake.”

  “Speaking of cake,” Lula said, “ if I can’t thump nobody, maybe we can stop on the way for a bite to eat. Food always helps me get through the cramps. I could sure use one of them breakfast sandwiches, you know, the kind with the big fluffy biscuit with eggs and bacon and cheese inside. Matter of fact, I could probably use two of them.”

  It did sound kinda good. I had overslept this morning and had woofed down a TastyKake and a cup of coffee as I went out the door.

  “Fine by me,” I said, “let’s get rolling. My car is parked out back.”

  “Hold on there, girlfriend,” Lula said. “You don’t expect me to go riding around town in that brown turd of yours, do you? In my previous profession, I was a well respected ho. I got a reputation to uphold. It’s degrading to be seen in that thing. What if I see someone I know?”

  “Well,” I replied, “we can certainly take your pristine Firebird, as long as you don’t mind our fugitives peeing or puking in your back seat.”

  After a long pause Lula replied, “Hmmmm, maybe we should take your car. If I see someone I know, I’ll just hunker down in the seat so I won’t be noticed.”

  Sure. Making Lula’s 200 pounds, bright orange hair and fluorescent green tube top unnoticed would be a cinch.

  So off we went. Two professional bond apprehension agents out to save the city. But, of course, first things first, and we headed to the McDonald’s drive through.

  I pulled into the drive-through lane and inched my way closer to the order speakerphone. As I rolled the window down, a muffled voice came from the speaker “Mlunth drsjp?” Having been here before, I figured that was speakerease for “May I take your order?”

  “Yes,” I yelled into the speaker, “we’d like three breakfast biscuits with egg, bacon and cheese and two large coffees.”

  “Tufshk leabn,” came the reply.

  “Oh yeah,” Lula said, “give me one of them little crispy potato cakes, too.”

  “Beavun yusfh,” was all I heard.

  I saw the amount of the bill registered on the digital readout by the speaker and it looked about right, so I pulled through to the pickup window. The window flew open. I looked up and “YIKES!” The girl at the window looked like she had lost a fight with a nail gun. Each ear was pierced three times, each hole adorned with large hoop earrings. There was a stud bar through her eyebrow, a diamond stud on her left nostril, and two studs protruding from her lower lip. When she opened her mouth to speak, her tongue flopped out sporting a stud the size of a pea.

  “No wonder the girl can’t talk,” Lula said. “Her mouth’s stapled shut.”

  I handed her a ten and tried not to think about the fact that the food I was about to eat had been prepared by a practitioner of self mutilation.

  I pulled out of the line and out into traffic. Lula was opening the sack of goodies and distributing the food when I heard her exclaim, “Oh crap! That little bitch put sausage on my biscuit instead of bacon. I don’t want no sausage. I want bacon.”

  I thought about having to sit through the line and talking to studface again and I said, “Sorry about that. But we gotta get moving. How about you eat your biscuit with just egg and cheese and maybe we can get a bacon cheeseburger for lunch.”

  “Dumb bitch,” Lula murmured. “Now this sandwich reminds me of one of my customers when I was a ho. The dude was all eggs and no meat.” She flopped the greasy sausage patty on a napkin on the dashboard.

  Lula had finished distributing the food and placed my coffee in the lone cup holder on the console. She had just taken the lid off of her cup when a black SUV swerved in front of us and hit its brakes. I jammed on my brakes to avoid running into its rear end, causing Lula’s hot coffee to pour into lap.

  “Oh God,” Lula shrieked. “I’ve scalded my twat and ruined my skirt. I don’t believe this.”

  The SUV and I came to a stop. The door of the SUV flew open and Joyce Barnhart marched up to Lula’s window. Lula was frantically trying to sop up hot coffee from her private parts when Joyce banged on her window.

  “You!” Lula screamed. “I shoulda known only a dumb bitch like you would pull a stunt like that.”

  “Pipe down fatty,” Joyce sneered. “I need to talk to you,” she said to me.

  Oh oh! The one thing you absolutely don’t want to do is call Lula fat. She can take almost any verbal abuse except that. I saw that look in her eye and I figured she was getting as hot as the coffee in her lap.

  “What do you want, Joyce? We’ve got work to do,” I said.

  “That’s the problem. You have work and I don’t. You came into the office this morning and cherry picked all the good FTA files. I have nothing to do till Connie gets new files ready to go. Now give me half of those files and I’ll be on my way.”

  One thing about Joyce: she always wants to look the part of the TV bounty hunter. She wears tight leather pants and an even tighter leather button front top with most of the buttons undone. I hate to admit it, but she does have a great bod. Her boobs are about two sizes bigger than mine and with the aid of a push-up bra, her ample cleavage spills out the front of the leather blouse. It was this bosom at that very moment that was inches from an infuriated Lula’s face. “You ain’t getting no files, bitch,” Lula roared, “but you can have this.” With one quick sweep, she grabbed the greasy sausage patty off the dash and stuffed it in the crack of Joyce’s cleavage.

  Joyce pulled away from the window fishing between her boobs for the greasy sausage.

  “Oops, we better get out of here,” I said, and I shoved the car into reverse and peeled away leaving Joyce on the side of the road screaming and shaking her fist. As we drove away, I grinned at Lula. She grinned back and we did a high five.

  *** It was time to get to work. I checked the mirror to make sure Joyce wasn’t following and pulled to the curb to look at our first file. The FTA was Winnie Taggert, a single woman with a history of shoplifting busts. I thought the next statistic had to be a misprint. It said she weighed 300 pounds. Her M. O. was to wear loose baggy clothing under which she would hide her pilfered merchandise. This last time she was nailed at the Piggy Wiggley she was caught with a slab of bacon tucked under each breast. “WOW!”

  Winnie lived in a small apartment on the second floor of a dingy walk-up. The front door opened into a foyer with apartment doors on each side and a staircase directly in the middle led to the second floor. Lula and I decided that her being a single woman with a history of smalltime busts, she would know how the system worked and would cooperate with us. We decided that the direct approach would be best.

  I got my bounty hunter gear out of the back seat; pepper spray clipped to my belt, stun gun in my pocket and cuffs looped over the back of my pants. As we walked up the sidewalk, I happened to notice a UPS truck parked a few spaces ahead of us. The driver was loading some heavy packages on a two-wheeled dolly to deliver around the neighborhood. He smiled and waved and I waved back

  We entered the foyer and climbed the steps.

  We stopped at the door of apartment 2-B and knocked.

  “Whadda you want?” came from within.

  “My name is Stephanie Plum. I’m a bond enforcement agent. Winnie, you missed your court date and I need to take you down to the station to get another court date and get rebonded.”

  “Screw you and the horse you rode in on,” she yelled. --- So much for cooperation.

  I looked at Lula. We rolled our eyes and thought, “Here we go again.”

  I tried the doorknob and was surprised to find it unlocked. I cautiously pushed the door open and stepped aside. On a previous bust we had been greeted with a blast from a shotgun. See, we were learning.


  I peered around the corner and there was Winnie, all 300 pounds of her, sitting in a recliner with a giant size bag of Dorito chips and a diet coke. Go figure.

  I entered the room with Lula right behind me.

  “Listen Winnie,” I said. “You know the system. You know what’s going on. You know we have to take you back to the station. How about we just get it over with.”

  “How about you take a flying leap out that window over there,” she replied with a sneer.

  I could sense that this was not going well. What a surprise. “Well Winnie, here’s the thing. We’ve got to take you in. It’s our job. We can either do it the easy way or the hard way. It’s your choice.”

  “You can try and do it any damn way you want, but I ain’t going nowhere,” she said as she stuffed a handful of Doritos in her mouth.

  I had noticed Lula start to bristle and I figured her time of the month was starting to kick in. “Put that bag of chips down. Quit stuffing your face and get your fat ass out of that chair,” she yelled.

  “You’re one to talk,” Winnie yelled back. “Your ass ain’t so petite either.”

  “What you talking about?” Lula fumed. “I just happen to be a full figured woman. You just FAT.”

  I could see this was going nowhere fast. I knew we could get the cuffs on Winnie, but if she refused to get up on her own, there was no way Lula and I could lift her. As I was pondering our situation, I glanced out the window and saw the UPS driver returning to his truck with his empty dolly. A light bulb went on in my head and I made an executive decision. I whipped out my stun gun, flipped it on, walked over to Winnie and gave her the shock of her life. She slumped in her chair and the bag of Doritos fell to the floor.

  “That’s a damn waste of good chips,” Lula remarked. “Now what?”

  I pulled the cuffs from my pocket and tossed them to Lula. “You cuff her and I’ll be right back.”

  I took the steps to the first floor two at a time. I didn’t want to miss the UPS guy. He was just getting in his truck when I waved him down.