Three Dumb: Wheelin' & Dealin' (A Val & Pals Humorous Mystery Book 3)

by Margaret Lashley

  “Maybe Nora would help us,” Milly said. “She’s an attorney.”

  “I doubt it,” Cold Cuts said dryly. “Nora’s the one suing us.”

  Milly’s mouth fell open. “What?”

  “Apparently, she’s dissatisfied with our services.”

  “Well, isn’t that what malpractice insurance is for?” I asked.

  “That’s just it,” Cold Cuts explained. “Annie’s legal department shopped Date Busters for liability insurance. No one would touch it. Even Lloyds of London turned us down.”

  “What are you saying?” Milly asked.

  “That we’re out of business,” Cold Cuts said.

  “Damn! So what does that mean for us?” I asked.

  “Clarity,” Cold Cuts replied. “We’ve got the information we need to move on with our lives. We won’t be millionaires today. But tomorrow is another day.”

  ***

  I waved goodbye to Cold Cuts as she drove off in Glad’s old RV. She’d offered to give it back to me, but I’d told her to keep it. She’d been right. Glad wasn’t in there. I turned the tap on the tub and poured in some bath salts. Tom would be over soon. I smiled at the thought of seeing him – of being with him. I wasn’t going to be a billionaire after all. I could use a pair of strong, loving arms to sink into. His would do nicely.

  The phone rang. I shut the water off. It was Milly. A stitch of pain stabbed my heart. She’d been devastated at the news of Date Busters’ demise, and of losing her job – yet again.

  “Milly? Are you okay?”

  “Yes! Oh my god, Val, you won’t believe it!”

  “What? Tell me!”

  “I just got off the phone with Mr. Maas. It turns out, Mrs. Barnes was doing crack in the parking lot!”

  “Shut up!”

  “Ha ha! I know, right? And it gets even crazier! Mr. Maas didn’t order any drug test. Mrs. Barnes must have done it to prank us…or blackmail us for drug money or something. The thing is, she hadn’t planned on us up and quitting over it! Poor old Mr. Maas called me in a panic. He wants me back, Val. He even offered me a raise, and a possible partnership!”

  “That’s amazing, Milly! I’m so happy for you!”

  “Thanks. I knew you would be. And Val? He asked if I needed an assistant. Not a file flunkey, but a real assistant. Want a job?”

  “Wow. Can I think about it?”

  Milly laughed. “Sure, Miss Commitment. Hey, I’ve got to go. Vance is waiting. Talk soon!”

  ***

  I climbed into the tub and thought about what a difference a day could make. And about how we all had our little secrets. Some were worth keeping. Some weren’t. I picked up the phone and made one last call before Tom arrived.

  Nora picked up the phone on the second ring.

  “I want you to drop your suit against Date Busters,” I said.

  “Val? Why should I?” she said with contempt.

  “I’ve got three words for you, Nora. ‘It’s a girl.’”

  “You wouldn’t!”

  “I would.”

  ***

  About a month after Date Busters itself went bust, I was tooling along Gulf Boulevard in Maggie. The top was down and the sky was blue, and everything seemed right with the world. I stopped at a light and glanced over at the cake in the passenger seat beside me. It read: ‘Congratulations, Jorge!’ I was on my way to his house to meet the gang and celebrate his 40th day of sobriety.

  “Hey! Thought I recognized your car. How are you, Maggie?”

  I looked up at the truck idling to my right. Hanging out the window was the cue-ball head of Lefty, the scrapyard guy. He flashed me a toothless smile.

  “I’m doing fine, Lefty. How about you?”

  “Never better. Hey, did you ever find that RV you was lookin’ for?”

  “Yes, thanks. But I never found the piggybank. That’s what I was truly after.”

  Lefty scrunched his tiny eyebrows together. “Huh. It wasn’t no Mr. Peanut bank, was it?”

  My heart skipped a beat. “Yes, it was. What –”

  The light turned green and the car behind me honked. Lefty hollered out the window.

  “Hey Maggie, foller me.”

  My heart revved as I got in the lane behind Lefty’s truck and followed him into a gas station.

  “You got a minute to spare?” he asked as I drove up beside him. “I got somebody I want you to meet.”

  “Uh…I’m on my way to a party.”

  “It’s just around the corner. Won’t take a minute.”

  “Okay.”

  Lefty pulled out of the gas station and turned left at the next block. He took a right and pulled up to a little wooden house with a front yard full of flowers. I pulled in behind him.

  The big hulk of a man got out of his truck and waved his huge hand at me. “This way,” he said. I followed him as he limped through the grass along the side of the house to a fenced backyard. He opened the wooden gate and a small girl around five years old peeked out. She shot me a shy, impish grin.

  “Y’all come on in,” she said, and took a step back. She limped along the garden path just like lame-footed Lefty. I thought she was just mimicking him until I realized her left foot was artificial. The two stopped at a tiny, one-room garden cottage decked out with gingerbread trim. Surrounded by flowers, it looked like something from a magic storybook. When the two turned to face me, I couldn’t help but think of a soft-hearted ogre and a tiny fairy princess.

  “This here’s Sarah,” Lefty said. “She’s a lefty, like me. He wiggled a fat-fingered hand through her light brown hair. “Ain’t that right, Sarah.” Sarah grinned and hid her face in Lefty’s pant leg.

  “Sarah, this here lady is the one what lost your friend, Peanut.”

  “Oh!” The girl’s eyes lit up. She ran into the garden house, slowed down not a whit by her missing limb.

  “It’s congenital,” Lefty said while she was away. “Missing her foot.”

  “Is she your daughter?”

  Lefty shook his round, bald head. “Niece.”

  “Here he is,” Sarah said. She held up the bank. Mr. Peanut’s holographic monocle shifted to wink at me.

  “Sarah found old Peanut here when her daddy Karl fixed the engine on that RV of yours. She’s always finding stuff, ain’t you?”

  “Yessir. Peanut is my best friend,” Sarah said.

  The tiny girl looked up at me with beautiful, brown doe eyes. I wondered if her ears were pointed under that long, silky hair.

  “He is?” I asked. “You know what, Sarah? Peanut is very wise. If you ask for advice, he’ll help you see clear through to your own heart.”

  Sarah looked at the plastic piggybank in wonder. “Wow!”

  “Sarah, what did you do with the sand that was inside Peanut?”

  She looked confused for a second, then brightened. “You mean the magic fairy dust?”

  “Yes. That’s what I meant.”

  “Daddy helped me put it in the garden. We planted seeds in it. They came up real pretty. Wanna see?”

  A needle of pain began to stitch in my heart. “Yes, please, show me.”

  Sarah grabbed Peanut tight and took me by the hand. She squealed with delight and tugged me along the garden path to a patch of brilliant, yellow daisies.

  “Right there, where the golden flowers are,” she pointed. “That’s where we put the fairy dust.”

  “They’re beautiful,” I said, as the needle stitched away in my heart. But it was a good pain. As if the stitches were closing an old wound.

  A green and purple dragonfly buzzed by me. I turned to Sarah and the insect landed on Peanut’s top hat. The little girl giggled like water running over a brook.

  “Look, it’s an angel!” she laughed.

  My throat tightened, forcing me to whisper. “Yes. An angel.”

  My fingers found the dragonfly pendant around my neck. As I touched it, the tiny iridescent creature flitted away into the clear blue sky.

  “Goodbye,
Glad” I whispered.

  I’m happy for you. Fly free.

  Thanks for Reading Three Dumb!

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  Ready for more Val?

  Where does Val Fremden go from here? Home for the holidays!

  Turn the page to take a Sneak Peek at Book Five:

  What Four: Family Fruitcake Frenzy. It’s due out this holiday season.

  Thank you, and happy reading!

  All my best,

  Margaret

  Chapter One: What Four: Family Fruitcake Frenzy

  For folks who lived in the sub-tropical, lower half of Florida, the holidays always arrived without warning. There were no harbingers like a chilly breeze or autumn leaves. Hell, there’s no autumn at all. Instead, like a mugger, one day when we least expected it, Saint Nick ran up behind us, kicked us in the gut, and left us reeling with dread.

  ***

  It was a glorious day. I’d played hooky from my job at Griffith & Maas and gone to Sunset Beach. Afterward, I’d tooled down Central Avenue and stopped at Chocolateers for my usual fix – a couple of chocolate-covered cherries. Yes. All was right in my little world.

  I still had some time to kill, so I took a pleasure drive along the waterfront with the top down on Maggie, my 1963 Ford Falcon Sprint convertible.

  That’s when I got clobbered.

  Idling at the corner of 4th Avenue and Beach Drive, I stared, slack jawed, at a handful of sweaty men clad in shorts and t-shirts. They toiled like ants on an open stretch of green grass, assembling the huge, metal ribcage of St. Pete’s traditional nod to the season – a fifty-foot tall artificial Christmas tree.

  It may as well have been a fifty-foot tall effigy of my mother’s scowling face.

  A chill ran down my spine that had nothing to do with the weather. In less than two weeks, I’d be obliged to keep a promise I’d made months ago in a moment of sniveling weakness. I’d be going home for the holidays.

  A horn honked behind me. I made a hasty left on Beach Drive toward Vinoy Park. As I did, an old, familiar knot gripped my stomach. Its name was Lucille Jolly. Lucille was my adoptive mother – a fact I’d discovered less than two years ago. Up until then, I thought she’d been the real thing. I had to confess, I’d felt more relieved than surprised when I’d found out I hadn’t come from her gene pool.

  I supposed everyone had a love-hate relationship with their mother. Since I’d only known Glad Goldrich, my real mother, for six weeks before she died, we’d never gotten around to the hate part. But on that score, Lucille and I’d had nearly fifty years of dutiful practice.

  Suddenly sapped of energy, I lost steam and drove slowly along the road bordering the park. Huge oaks offered welcome shade to benches and walkways and flowerbeds abloom with cherry-red and snow-white begonias. I pulled into a parking spot and sighed. Even in December the equatorial sunlight danced like diamonds on the wide, open expanse of Tampa Bay.

  The mere thought of having to spend time with Lucille had drained me like a twice-flushed toilet bowl. The woman knew my buttons and how to push them. Hell, she should’ve. She’d pretty much installed every single one of them. Like a snowball in Florida, I didn’t have a chance in hell against her impenetrable, maternal powers.

  My cellphone buzzed and startled me out of my melancholy malaise. It was my cop boyfriend, Tom.

  “Hey you!” he said cheerily. “What ’cha doing?”

  “Thinking of running away and joining the circus.”

  He laughed. “Sorry, Val. You’re not weird enough.”

  “Tell that to Lucille.”

  “Uh oh. Already getting antsy about the trip?”

  “How’d you guess?”

  “Val, it’s just for a week. It’s the holidays. Family is family. You’re stuck with them, whether you like it or not.”

  “Don’t remind me.”

  “Hey. I’m going with you. It’ll be fun.”

  I smiled cynically to myself. Tom had no idea what he was in for. But at least I wouldn’t be alone this year.

  “Yeah, Tom. I’m sure it’s gonna be a blast.”

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  Margaret