Val Fremden Mystery Box Set 3

by Margaret Lashley

  “Why? I thought you had a string of ideas as long as your arm.”

  “I’m in sales. We have a tendency to, shall I say, enhance assets.”

  “Oh.” I grinned and swished my bottom. “Kind of like how my jeans enhance mine?”

  Judy laughed. “Well, I don’t think I would stretch the truth that far.”

  Chapter Three

  “Wasn’t that the real estate lady?” Laverne asked as she angled her stork legs into Maggie’s passenger seat. In the moonlight, dressed in a light-green pantsuit, she looked like a trans-gender cicada.

  “Yeah. Judy Bloomers. Turns out she’s interested in writing novels, too.”

  “Like I said, everybody’s life’s a book, Val. Only difference is, some books are more open than others.”

  “That’s rather philosophical of you, Laverne. What brought that on?”

  “I dunno. I guess I just can’t figure out how my own story ends.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Laverne’s shoulders heaved as she let out a huge sigh. “There’s no other way to say it, Val. I just can’t picture me growing old with J.D.”

  I gave Laverne a tight smile. “I can’t picture you growing old, period,” I said. “You’re too full of life.”

  Laverne smiled. “Thanks, sugar.”

  “What’s J.D. done? Besides invade your territory, I mean.”

  “Nothing, really,” Laverne confessed. “It’s more what he hasn’t done. Or maybe what he doesn’t do. I dunno, Val. It’s hard to explain. J.D. doesn’t like my Vegas stuff. And he hates my cooking. He thinks my clothes aren’t proper, either. He bought me this pantsuit, you know. Is it just me, or do I look like a lizard’s grandma?”

  I winced.

  “Well?” Laverne asked. “What do you think?”

  I stared into Laverne’s watery eyes.

  “Since you’re asking, Laverne, I think any man who doesn’t appreciate you just the way you are has got no taste at all.”

  “WHY ARE YOU LOOKING at me funny?” Tom asked from his perch on a barstool at my kitchen counter. “Is there something in my hair?”

  He ran a hand through his blond bangs and studied me with his twinkling, sea-green eyes.

  “Oh, no reason,” I said, and sucked in a breath. He’d caught me staring at him absently, imagining a noose around his neck. “Sorry. I was just thinking about the assignment from my writing class.”

  Tom rolled a crisp, white sleeve up his tan, muscled forearm. “So, what’s the assignment?”

  “Uh...I’ve got to think of five unique ways to kill someone.”

  Tom’s eyebrows rose slightly. “I see.” He smirked. “Anything you want to tell me?”

  “What do you mean?” I asked, my voice wavering between guilt and innocence.

  Tom looked down at his beer for a moment. “Me moving in. It’s a big step, I know.” His eyes flashed up at mine playfully. “You’d let me know if you were contemplating homicide, wouldn’t you?”

  I laughed awkwardly. “Don’t be ridiculous!”

  “I don’t mind being ridiculous,” he countered. “But I do mind being dead. If something’s bothering you, let’s talk about it – before things get out of hand.”

  “Okay.”

  “I want you to know, I’m looking at this as an experiment, Val. Me moving in, I mean. What’s done can be undone. I can move out if it’s too much. You don’t have to resort to murder. I’m a policeman. I can take a hint.”

  “Thanks,” I said, and swallowed a lump. “I’ll admit, it’s an adjustment. And there’s something else....”

  I took Tom’s hand.

  “Don’t get this wrong. I’ve been thinking. I want...I want to put a daybed in my office. Just so I can have the option, you know, to sleep somewhere else.”

  Tom’s worried face went slack. “I knew it. Me moving in is too much for you, isn’t it?”

  “No,” I blurted, then backtracked. Tom was right. I needed to be honest if this was going to work. “I mean, maybe...all at once, yes. But Tom, there’s really no other way to do it, is there?”

  “Good thing I kept the moving boxes,” Tom joked bitterly.

  I squeezed his hand.

  “I’m not saying I want you to leave, Tom. Not at all. It’s just...well, with my other relationships, I always felt trapped. Backed into a corner, you know?”

  Tom looked at me, the sparkle gone from his eyes. “How is our situation any different? I honestly don’t know how to make it work for you, Val.”

  My heart flinched.

  “I think I felt trapped before because I didn’t have any...options. Having this daybed thing...I don’t know if I’ll ever even use it, Tom. But it would be there. As an option. Don’t you see?”

  “No. Not really.” Tom slumped over his barstool.

  I got up and inched myself closer to him, until his inner thighs brushed against the sides of my waist. My hands squeezed his shoulders and I looked into his eyes.

  “That way, every night when I climb into bed with you, it’ll be a choice, Tom, not an obligation. Can you understand that? It’s not that I don’t want to be with you. I just don’t want to have no option but to have to be with you.”

  I’d never seen Tom’s face so dead serious.

  “I get what this is all about,” he said.

  I gulped. “You do?”

  Tom grinned and grabbed me around the waist. “You just want me to haul away that horrible guest bed, don’t you?” He pulled me to him. “I’m nothing to you but a hunk of meat. Free labor. Muscle power.”

  I grinned through grateful tears and kissed him on the lips.

  “Guilty as charged, officer.”

  I hugged him to me and whispered, “Thanks for getting it.” I pulled away just enough to give him a lusty leer. “And, just so you know, I really like your muscle power.”

  Tom kissed me again, sending a jolt of electricity all the way to my knees. He brushed my hair from my eyes and whispered in my ear.

  “Just so you know, I’m available right now. For a free demonstration. If you want, that is.”

  I grinned and kissed him hard on the lips.

  “You know I never could resist a bargain.”

  “I’M STARVING,” I SAID, and sat up in bed. The clock read 10:13 p.m. “With class and everything, I forgot to eat dinner. You want a baloney sandwich?”

  Tom sat up on his elbow and grinned at me. “I thought you already served me one.”

  “Har har. I’m serious. The woman’s name really is Angela Langsbury.”

  Tom shook his head. “I should have known. I gotta hand it to you, Val. Weird follows you wherever you go.”

  I smirked. “So I guess that means you’re coming to the kitchen with me, then?”

  Tom snorted with laughter. “I guess so.”

  He sat up in bed beside me. “Wanna know a secret?”

  “Sure.”

  He nuzzled my neck. “I’d rather be weird with you than normal with anyone else.”

  I pushed him away. “Such a schmoozer. I knew there was some reason I kept you around.”

  I bit Tom lightly on the nose, then scampered out of his arms and down the hallway to the kitchen. I was slapping mustard on white bread when he ambled in, barefoot in boxers. I almost whistled. For a man his age, Tom still had it going on. Not quite a six-pack, but I never could handle more than three in a row.

  “Got any pickles to go with that sandwich, ma’am?” he asked, and smoothed back his golden bangs.

  I bit my lip. “Nope. Fresh out.”

  “You sure?”

  “Absolutely, positively, without a shadow of a doubt.”

  “Okay, then. Glass of milk to go with it?”

  “Coming right up.”

  I handed Tom a sandwich. He lifted the bread and inspected the baloney.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  Tom shot me a smirk. “I worked a homicide once where a woman put a foot-long piece of string in her husband’s san
dwich. He choked to death on it.”

  “Oh! That’s good!” I plopped my sandwich onto the counter and ran toward my office.

  “Good?!” Tom called after me. “Where are you going?”

  “To write that down,” I called back as I scribbled in my notepad. “And to put pickles on the grocery list!”

  I wrote down “pickles” and padded back to the living room. “Want to make steaks for dinner tomorrow?”

  “Can’t.” Tom took a bite of his sandwich. “We’ve got that thing at Winky’s, remember?”

  “Oh yeah,” I muttered. “The cookout at the redneck corral.”

  Tom shook his head. “I still can’t believe he got half a million bucks for Old Joe’s Bait Shack.”

  “It’ll be interesting to see what he’s done with his windfall.”

  “Yeah. I bet he’s not eating baloney tonight.”

  I grinned. “I wouldn’t bet on it. So, Mister Detective, you got any more interesting ways to die you can tell me about?”

  Tom smirked coyly. “Maybe. But it’ll cost you.”

  “What?”

  “How about a kiss per story.”

  “Wow,” I said. “That sounds like a deal to me.”

  While we finished our sandwiches, Tom told me about a man who stabbed his partner with an icicle he’d fashioned in his freezer and carried with him in an Igloo cooler. The evidence had melted at the crime scene, but investigators were able to figure it out thanks to a bag of frozen cherries in the perp’s freezer. They’d found cherry juice in the guy’s fridge, in the cooler, and around the stab holes on the victim’s shirt. Of course, I’d padded to my office and written it down in my notebook.

  After our snack, as I brushed my teeth, I wondered about all the other ingenious methods people had devised over the centuries to do-in their partners.

  The phrase, “The Kiss of Death” popped into my mind. I grinned, rinsed my mouth out, and applied a thick coat of imaginary, poison-laced lipstick.

  I padded down the hall and climbed into bed next to Tom.

  “Good night, dearest,” I cooed, and planted a cyanide smacker on his lips.

  Chapter Four

  I grunted as I yanked the scratchy old sheets off the saggy, pee-stained mattress in my new office. It lay limp and stiff across the old box springs like a dead body.

  At my request, Tom and one of his cop pals had hauled the dilapidated bed into the second bedroom last year. It had been my hope that its inhospitable lumps and pokey springs would ward away houseguests. But I’d found out the hard way that when you live near the beach, people were willing to put up with darn near anything for a free overnight stay.

  “Are you sure you don’t want me to haul this thing to the dump?” Tom asked.

  He tapped a finger on the doorframe to my makeshift office. Fresh from the shower, he looked quite arresting in his crisply pressed police uniform.

  “Nah. I’ll order a daybed from Fred’s Furniture. I’m pretty sure when they deliver it, they’ll pick up the old mattress and dump it for free.”

  “Have it your way, murder-mystery gal,” Tom quipped, and kissed me lightly on the lips.

  He eyed the nasty mattress and crinkled his nose. “Just don’t make me wake up dead with my body wrapped up in that thing like an old sausage roll.”

  I grinned. “A pig in a blanket? Way too obvious, Lieutenant.”

  Tom laughed. “Yeah. But you were thinking about it, weren’t you?”

  I rolled my eyes to one side. “I plead the Fifth.”

  Tom hugged me to his chest. “I’ll let you off for bad behavior this time. But only because I’ve gotta go or I’ll be late for work.”

  Tom kissed me goodbye at the front door. I waved, then watched through the blinds as he maneuvered his silver 4Runner down the driveway. I sighed and turned back to face the silent living room. I was alone again – with nothing for company but a blank computer screen and an empty fridge.

  A tinge of panic shot through me. What was I going to do now?

  I know! I can dust the ceiling! Yes, it’s no good trying to write with dirty ceilings!

  My brain was incorrigible.

  I GRITTED MY TEETH and padded to the bathroom. As I reached for my toothbrush, I noticed Tom’s hanging there beside mine in the black ceramic holder built into the wall. Its midnight-black hue was an odd, but rather interesting contrast to the rest of the flamingo-pink wall tiles. The 1950s must have been a pretty daring time – for color combos, anyway.

  Suddenly, a flashback, like a snippet of an old film, played before my eyes. It was a recollection of the very first time I’d seen this bathroom.

  It had been almost four years ago to the day. It was summertime. The house had been closed up after my father Tony’s death, and the place had been steamy-hot and claustrophobic. I was sticky and sweaty from clawing my way through a maze of heaped-up debris that had clogged the living room and hallway leading to the bathroom....

  My skin pricked at the vivid memory.

  I’d been wearing a sundress and sandals that day, but oh, how I’d wished I’d had on a hazmat suit. I snickered at the thought of Goober and Jorge rifling through the house along with me. I’d only known the guys for a few days back then, but I’d already learned enough about Winky to trust the other guys’ instincts to leave him in the patrol car with Tom while we committed our unauthorized search of the place.

  Oh, my gosh! Tom! That day was the very first time he’d ever met me!

  I smiled. Fine, upstanding, irreproachable Lieutenant Thomas Foreman had been the picture of professionalism that day. Polite, but stoic. In conversation, he’d remained all business, despite the fact that, technically, he was aiding and abetting a break-in to help out his buddy Jorge.

  And me.

  Oh, geeze! That day...I never really thought about it until now...but Tom...oh my word! He must have thought I was just some random, crazy woman committing a burglary with a bunch of hobos!

  I shook my head. How in the world did the two of us ever get from there to here?

  It had to have been some kind of freaking miracle.

  I shook my head and stared at Tom’s toothbrush hanging next to mine. A weird rush of Deja-vu swept over me. Again, I was transported back four years in time to the moment I’d discovered Glad’s toothbrush hanging next to Tony’s. It was then I’d realized there was more to her story than had first met the eye....

  I opened the medicine cabinet, half expecting to see Glad’s red lipstick and denture cream inside. But they weren’t. Tom’s razor and shaving cream had taken their place. They stared back at me, reminding me that everything had a way of coming back around full circle. Tom and I had replaced Tony and Glad...in this same space...just a different time.

  Tom and I were a continuation of the age-old saga that had begun when the first pair of humans drew breath. We were just a man and a woman trying to find a way to make our lives work, together.

  Glad had her Tony. I have my Tom.

  I closed the medicine cabinet. “Tom is my Tony,” I said to the woman staring back from the mirror.

  And I hope he always will be.

  I nodded at my reflection – a silent recognition of the wish I’d just made – and switched off the light.

  Now, I just need to figure out a way to kill him.

  Or someone like him. For my class project, of course.

  I padded back to my home office and plopped my butt in the desk chair. I turned on the computer, opened a file, and began to type.

  Five Unique Ways to Kill Someone.

  1) Icicle.

  2) String in sandwich.

  3) Poisoned lipstick.

  4) Mattress roll-up.

  5) Ty-D-Bol?

  My stomach growled. I was out of pickles and ideas.

  But at least I’d made a start.

  WHAT DO YOU FEED A hungry redneck? I pondered as I wandered the aisles of Publix, my small, neighborhood, beach-themed grocery store.

  I picked up a ca
n of Vienna sausages and studied it.

  What exactly are “meat by-products” anyway?

  “Comparison shopping?” a familiar voice sounded behind me.

  I turned to find Judy Bloomers ogling me. Her right index finger was busy twirling a lock of “secret” black hair hidden underneath her otherwise frazzled, bleached-blonde bird’s nest.

  “Nope. Going to a redneck cookout. Hey. Wait a minute. Are you following me? First writing class. Now the grocery store....”

  Judy adjusted the girdle-tight elastic on the waistband of her sky-blue polyester slacks. “Tailing someone is next week’s assignment. And for the record, I was in class before you got there. In fact, I believe I beat you by a solid week.”

  I nodded my concession. “Fair enough. Have you got your five ways to kill someone yet?”

  Judy’s pouty lip twitched. “Three. You?”

  “Four and a half. Hey. Do you think you could kill someone with Ty-D-Bol?”

  Judy smirked. “With or without the new scrubbing bubbles?”

  I snorted. “What are you doing here, anyway? You don’t look like you’re shopping.”

  “Good observation,” Judy said. “But wrong conclusion. I am shopping. Shopping for leads.”

  “Leads?”

  “Sure. Every place is good for finding real estate leads. At least, that’s what my broker says.”

  Judy picked up a can of pickled herring, realized what it was and crinkled her nose. She put it back on the shelf and shrugged.

  “That’s kind of why I took the class. To scope out the students. I didn’t know the class would be so small.”

  “Huh. Any prospects?”

  Judy grinned. “Clarice, the redhead, has been living alone in the same apartment since 1987. Victoria, the other lady, defers all major decisions to her husband, and he’s wedged into his house like an ornery hermit crab. Old lady Langsbury’s too cranky to consider. But Jeff’s got potential. He’s a Millennial, you know. Probably doesn’t even own a car. But right about now, his parents may be reaching their critical desperation threshold and could consider buying him a cheap condo.”