Val Fremden Mystery Box Set 3

by Margaret Lashley

  “Uh...sure.” I put my wallet back in my purse. “Hey. You don’t happen to know a locksmith, do you?”

  Charlene eyed me up and down. “Sure do. Woggles can get into darn near anything. What you want opened?”

  “I think I locked my keys in the trunk.”

  “You don’t say. Huh. I’ll give him a ring. He just lives next door, you know.”

  Charlene’s eyes continued their curious scanning as she reached into one of the huge pockets adorning her faded sack dress at hip level. She pulled out a cellphone. It looked as out of place in her hand as a wristwatch on a plesiosaur.

  “You know, you’re lucky,” she said as she tapped the phone screen with a knobby finger. “Cell phone reception’s sketchy around here. You got one of the good spots.”

  “Huh,” I grunted, and forced myself to keep my hands off the moon pies.

  “Woggles,” Charlene said into the phone. “You busy? New gal locked her keys in the trunk. Okay. Good. Bye.”

  Charlene waggled her eyebrows at me and clicked off the phone. “He’ll be right over.”

  A moment later, the RV door flew open and an old man’s grey head poked its way inside like a snake in a coon-skin cap. The varmint’s banded tail hung off Woggles’ furry headpiece and trailed down his long neck like a mangy ponytail.

  But that wasn’t the most disconcerting thing about him.

  Woggles had a lazy eye that was so off-kilter it was hard to nail down where to focus when I looked at him. I smiled at his left eye, only to watch it droop over to one side as if he were trying to glimpse his own ear. I tried the other eye.

  “Hi. I’m Val,” I sputtered.

  “Wally Walters,” he said. “Only you can call me Woggles, on account a my eye.”

  “Oh,” I said, as if I hadn’t noticed.

  Woggles glanced around the RV, but made no attempt to come further inside or to reach out a hand to shake. Instead, he remained sandwiched in the crack in the door, a disembodied head wearing a dead animal for a hat.

  “Nice to meet you, Woggles. So, do you think you can get into my car trunk?”

  An arm snaked its way inside the RV toward his head. In its hand was a dark-red apple. Woggles bit a giant chunk out of it like Quasimodo munching on a crisp, human heart. The hand disappeared out the door again. Woggles chewed with cheeks puffed out like a greedy chipmunk.

  “Sure thang,” he said. Fragments of apple accompanied his words and spewed out across the floor like damp confetti.

  “Woggles, you’re always makin’ a dad-burned mess with them apples,” Charlene scolded. “Why don’t you eat some real food?” She nodded toward the Cheetos on the counter.

  “Charlene,” Woggles said, “my momma tol’ me an apple a day keeps the doctor away. She lived to be ninety-four. I figure at my age, I gotta eat five or six a day to keep them greedy varmints off a’ my hide.”

  The snake arm appeared again, holding the gnawed apple. Woggles focused his good eye on it.

  “These here apples sure beat the heck out of broccoli.” He took another bite, tucked it in his cheek and said, “So, y’all ready to do this?”

  I looked over at Charlene, then back at Woggles. “Sure.”

  Woggles’ head disappeared.

  Charlene pushed the door open. I followed her outside.

  As I walked down the rickety steps, I could see Woggles was already hunched over behind Maggie’s back end. When I rounded the side of the car, it became clear that Woggles’ entire locksmith kit consisted of a wire coat hanger and a crowbar.

  He hung the coat-hanger around his neck and steadied his grip on the crowbar.

  “No!” I yelled. “I mean...wait a minute. I don’t want to...damage the car.”

  Woggles eyed me funny. I think. It was impossible to be sure.

  “Yore purty particular for a gal with a dirty seat.”

  Both of my hands flew to my butt cheeks.

  Woggles smirked and nodded toward my car. He’d been talking about Maggie. I’d forgotten all about the muddy raccoon brawl that had taken place in her front seat last night.

  “Oh. Well, it’s just that...uh...I already called my boyfriend,” I fumbled.

  My hands fidgeted while my ears burned.

  “He’s mailing me the keys. You know, on second thought, if you don’t mind, I’ll just wait for the keys to get here. But thanks anyway for your offer, Woggles. What do I owe you for your time?”

  Woggles shrugged. “Whatever.”

  As I ran inside the RV to grab some money from my purse, I thought about my “emergency” towel. I’d kept the stained-up old towel in Maggie’s trunk “just in case.”

  This morning, I’d found the towel stuck to the Velcro on the bottom of my suitcase like a burr on a dog’s hide. It had tagged along last night as I’d made a mad dash inside before the bush monster got me. I figured it would be perfect for wiping down Maggie’s dirty seats. I grabbed it and my wallet and headed out the door.

  “Thanks for your help,” I said as I slapped a fiver in Woggle’s hand.

  He looked pleased, I think.

  I turned to Charlene for a matching set of eyes to lock onto.

  “Uh...how about you give me that tour now?” I asked, and tossed the old towel into Maggie’s driver’s seat.

  “Be happy to,” she said. “Foller me.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  “I’ve never seen anything like it,” I muttered absently as I stared at the concrete swimming pool. Only its kidney shape remained recognizable from the photos I’d seen of it on the Shell Hammock website.

  Smack dab in the center of the pool’s empty, cracked shell was the rear chassis of a long-bed pickup truck. Whether it had been placed there intentionally or was the result of a drunken miscalculation, I couldn’t say. But the good folks at the Hell’ammo had made the most of it nonetheless.

  While the cab end of the pickup had gone on to some other fate of which I had no knowledge, the truck bed was enjoying its retirement years with new purpose. It had been stripped of its wheels and lined with a blue plastic tarp, patched more times with silver duct tape than I could count.

  A green garden hose snaked its way from around the back of an abandoned Cadillac carcass and into the truck bed. Water poured from it, slowly filling the makeshift swimming pool.

  Sweat trickling down my back made the scene more tempting than I thought possible.

  “The water looks nice and clear,” I offered.

  “Yep,” Charlene said and folded her arms as if she was satisfied with the quality of the workmanship. “Gettin’ her all fixed up for the fish fry tonight.”

  I wiped sweat from my upper lip and glanced longingly at the pool. Then I had second thoughts.

  Surrounding the truck bed, like a gang of shiftless loiterers, was an odd assortment of mismatched chairs, ranging from a couple of bent-legged, metal folding chairs and a wicker rocking chair, to a gut-sprung naugahyde Barcalounger.

  I closed my eyes and tried to convince myself that one of the seats wasn’t an avocado-hued commode.

  “Whad’ya think?” Charlene asked.

  “Nice. I can’t wait to give it a try,” I said, uncertain if I actually meant it or not.

  I diverted my attention to a flat-roofed, concrete-block building that reminded me of a campground toilet. “What’s that building for?”

  “That there’s the clubhouse,” Charlene explained. “Wanna take a peek inside?”

  “Why not.”

  I wasn’t sure if the Hell’ammo was growing on me or if Stockholm Syndrome was taking hold. “Appalled” and “intrigued” were having a fist fight in my gut, and to my surprise, “intrigued” was gaining the upper hand.

  Charlene opened a plain, wood-paneled door that was peeling at the bottom and led me down a hallway past a couple of restrooms labeled Inboards and Outboards.

  At the end of the hall, we entered a thirty-foot square concrete box of a room with no windows. She flicked on a light switch. Against the
far wall was an eight-foot long wooden box. It contained a built-in console TV and a stereo turntable.

  I’d seen one like it in my grandma’s parlor when I was six. She’d been ironing and listening to a radio program. I remembered it quite clearly because it had scared the bejeezus out of me. I’d thought the radio announcer was a man trapped inside that coffin-like box.

  I was still not one-hundred-percent convinced that it wasn’t.

  On top of the 1960’s-era console sat a large, plasma-screen TV and the world’s last functioning eight-track player. The tape at the top of the heap was Pat Boone’s Greatest Hits.

  If all that wasn’t odd enough, what I saw next caused me to inhale sharply.

  Positioned around the room and staring at the black screen like a lost, post-apocalyptic zombie tribe, was a random collection of bucket seats stripped from abandoned vehicles. I thought I recognized the emblem of a late-model Buick and a ‘70s-era Mustang.

  “Nice,” I said.

  If I was in prison. In a third-world country.

  Charlene shrugged. “It ain’t much. But it’s paid for.”

  I tilted my head and nodded. “Well, there’s always that.”

  “Thursday’s movie night,” Charlene said. “Gumball Rally.”

  “Oh. What did you play last week?”

  “Gumball Rally.”

  “Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind.”

  As Charlene closed the clubhouse door behind us, I noticed a plastic lawn chair hanging from a tree by two ropes, as if it had been dealt a double helping of vigilante justice.

  “What’s that?”

  “Tree swing,” Charlene said. “Ain’t you never seen one afore?”

  “It’s been a long time.”

  Charlene grinned. “Give her a try.”

  I walked over and inched my butt into the chair. I kicked off backward, but before I even made the arc to descend, the brittle chair cracked in half. Centrifugal force sent me tumbling, butt-first, into the dirt ruts scuffed out by the fools that had dared come before me.

  Charlene came running up, her toilet-tube curlers jiggling.

  “You all right, honey?” she asked.

  I got up and dusted off my behind.

  “Yeah. I’m okay.”

  I shot a perturbed glance at the mangled shards of plastic still swaying on their hangman ropes. “That thing should come with a warning.”

  Charlene’s lip curled upward and tutted. “Well, maybe things have gone a tad ramshackle around here since we lost Woody, our resident handy man.”

  “Right.”

  That explains why my showerhead is a beer can with holes punched in it.

  “How long ago was that?”

  “A month ago Sunday.”

  “Why’d he leave?”

  “The Lord called him home.”

  “Oh. Sorry.”

  Charlene shrugged and adjusted the bobby-pin on a loose toilet roll.

  “It happens.”

  AFTER THE STARS CLEARED from my eyes and my tailbone quit throbbing, Charlene and I continued down the dirt lane.

  At the end of it sat a small trailer surrounded by the largest collection of wind-powered whirly-gig yard art I’d ever seen. A gust of wind sent them all swirling like propellers. I half expected the trailer to lift off and sail away on the world’s tackiest magic carpet.

  One flailing doohickey in particular caught my eye. It was a wooden squirrel whose tail twirled maniacally as its head tipped and appeared to take a bite from a plastic ear of corn.

  I shook my head in wonder.

  What kind of mind does it take to come up with something like that?

  “What are you looking at?” a woman’s voice snarled from inside the darkened trailer.

  I gasped as if I’d been caught red-handed.

  Charlene laughed.

  “Who’s that?” I whispered.

  “Oh, that’s just crabby old Elmira. Don’t pay her no minds. She’s a crafter. Keeps to herself, mostly.”

  “Crafter? As in witchcraft?”

  Charlene shot me a look that made me question my own sanity.

  “What you talkin’ about? Elmira ain’t no witch! She makes new stuff outta old stuff, mostly.”

  “Oh, of course,” I said as if I understood what that meant.

  “Y’all quit starin’!” the voice called out again.

  “Nobody’s lookin’ at you, Elmira,” Charlene called back. “Listen here, Val. I heard it might come up a rain later on this afternoon. If’n it does, we’ll have to move the fish fry to tomorrow. Well, I guess I better be gettin’ back to my chores.”

  “Yeah, me too,” I said, and shook Charlene’s hand. “Thanks for the tour.”

  As I wandered back toward Number Thirteen, I collected an old bucket I found along the way. Back at the RV, I filled it with water and dishwashing soap, then cleaned Maggie’s seats with my “emergency” towel.

  It took a half an hour and two changes of water, but I got the seats looking decent enough. Satisfied with my work, I rinsed the muddy towel and hung it on the makeshift clothesline someone had strung between the RV’s awning and a tree branch. Somehow, the dirty old rag looked right at home.

  Maggie was clean, but with the possibility of more raccoons on the prowl and thunderstorms on the way, I needed to get her sealed up. Problem was, I couldn’t close her convertible top without the keys.

  Dang. What would McGyver do?

  I decided to ransack the RV and see what my options were. It not being much bigger than Maggie, the search didn’t take long.

  Up on the top shelf of the bedroom closet, I found my solution. I covered Maggie up with a gunmetal-grey tarp, and duct-taped it to her side panels. I had no idea whether McGyver would have done the same thing, but I felt pretty confident that my neighbors would approve.

  I stood back and admired my handiwork as I twirled the roll of duct tape in my hand like a fancy gunfighter in an old Western.

  I was Valliant Stranger. And I was ready for anything.

  Chapter Fourteen

  What a difference a dessert could make.

  After a sensible salad for lunch, I had a rendezvous with a romance novel and five banana moon pies. They’d proven just the ticket to help dissolve my anger and disappointment with Tom.

  So what if Tom didn’t drop everything and run to my rescue with my car keys? I was making do just fine without his help, thank you very much.

  The comingling of sugar and grease in my gut had created the perfect salve to soothe my savage beast. So much so that, by late afternoon, I felt fairly certain that I could check Tom’s text messages without spewing black thoughts into the world like an exploding oil rig.

  My cellphone was still tucked safely inside the zipped pocket of my purse, despite my throttling the poor handbag until it had spilled its guts on the dinette table. I pulled the phone out and clicked “Tom.”

  The first text from him read: “Where do you keep your spare keys?”

  Fifteen-thousand pounds of pressure per square inch bore down upon my molars. I snatched another moon pie out of the box.

  “Really, Tom?” I growled as I tore open the cellophane wrapper. “They’re on the freakin’ key hanger beside the back door. You know, that place where we hang all the keys?”

  I took a savage bite of moon pie, severing it in half. As my teeth pulverized the crumbly, sticky goodness, I took a moment to contemplate the male species in general.

  What is it with men, anyway? They have no problem finding your hidden stash of candy in a shoebox in the closet, but they can’t locate a set of keys hanging right in front of their noses?

  I clicked on the second text. A jet of air streamed from my pursed lips.

  It simply read: “Val?” The third read: “Hello?” The fourth: “Are you there?” The fifth: “I’m serious.” The sixth: “Are you okay?”

  I plopped down in the dinette booth and swept aside the spilled contents of my purse with a wave of my forearm. Elbows on the t
able, my fingers pecked out a reply text: “The keys are on the key rack by garage door, Boy Wonder.”

  I sucked the moon pie dregs from between my teeth and backspaced over “Boy Wonder.” As I did, my elbow bumped my laptop. The screen blinked back to life. I’d forgotten to turn the dang thing off.

  Crap! My files!

  I dropped my phone and grabbed the computer. After punching in the code to unlock the screen, it opened onto the short-story I’d named The Snickerdoodle Murders. I scanned through the document. It appeared to be intact.

  Whew!

  I hit “save,” closed the file and turned off the computer.

  The clock above the stove read 4:38. I suddenly became aware of its loud ticking. It echoed through my tin-can abode, seeming to make each second pass slower. I drummed my nails on the laminate tabletop.

  What should I do now? Take another stroll around the banana plantation?

  I glanced at the collapsed carcass of my emptied purse. It lay in the booth beside me like a gutted fish. I grabbed it and stuck my wallet inside the pocket designated for it. My hairbrush went into the pocket beside that. I scrounged my lipstick and pens from the opposite bench and dutifully clipped them in place in the loops provided.

  The sight of everything looking all neat and tidy caused a ridiculous, smug feeling of accomplishment to shoot through me. I scoffed at myself.

  So much pride over nothing. This must be how a man feels that one time he actually replaces the empty toilet roll.

  I reached for my tube of hand lotion. Something shiny and metallic glinted from underneath the heap of papers and crumpled old receipts littering the table. My heart flinched.

  My keys!

  My hand lurched into the pile of papers. Something stung me like a bee.

  “Yow!”

  I jerked my hand back. At the end of my middle finger, a crimson drop of blood glistened. My mind scrambled.

  Snake!

  My butt was out of that booth faster than a spider on a space shuttle.

  I jettisoned across the kitchen and grabbed a wooden spoon hanging on the wall by the stove. Staying out of striking distance, I leaned over and stuck the spoon under the papers and flipped them over.