Val Fremden Mystery Box Set 3

by Margaret Lashley

  “Uh...okay. You’re not coming?”

  “Only if I spot trouble. I’ll honk or something to let you know if anybody comes back.”

  “Great.”

  “Look, I’ll be right behind you. It’s better if we split up, in case one of us gets...caught.”

  Goober’s stomach gurgled like a fountain of mud.

  “You need to use the toilet, don’t you,” I said.

  “You know what they say about tacos, Val. They’re the ‘beer’ of food. Tasty going down, but they don’t stick around.”

  I weighed my options. I could stay here, or sneak through the backwoods of Florida alone, unarmed, and in the dark. I chose the woods. The odds of being exposed to something lethal seemed smaller.

  “Whatever,” I muttered, and slipped out of the RV and into the night.

  I’D BARELY MADE IT past the ramshackle sign for the Hell’ammo when Goober killed the headlights. I switched on the flashlight.

  Nothing happened.

  I panicked and shook the daylights out of it. A feeble, bluish light blinked on and illuminated a small circle of ground about a foot in front of me.

  Great.

  I stumbled down the road like a drunken bum, wishing more than anything that I had on army boots instead of Dollar Store shower shoes. I tripped over a stick in the road and blew out my left shoe.

  Awesome.

  As I limped along in the dark on one flip-flop, I wondered, did that make me a flip or a flop?

  Heavy rustling in the bushes to my left made me forget all about my lack of proper footwear.

  I squelched a scream and took off running for all I was worth. By the time I reached the end of the lane and saw the dim light emanating from the front window of Winky’s RV, I was as barefoot and out of breath as my cousin Tammy Jeeter that time I caught her behind the barn with Tommy Knocksworth.

  Panting alone in the dark, my breath sounded like an obscene phone call to myself. I crept up to the dilapidated RV and shone the pale, blue light around the front steps. My suitcase was still sitting beside the stairs expectantly, like a stood-up date.

  I grabbed the handle and hauled it toward Maggie. My old Ford Falcon was just where I’d left her.

  Yesterday, I’d loosened the duct tape holding the tarp down on Maggie’s driver’s side. The wind must have blown the tarp up and over. It was folded away from the driver’s seat, but still covered the passenger side. I took a limping step toward the right side of the car to un-tape the other half of the tarp.

  Suddenly, four flashlights flicked on around me like humongous lightning bugs. Above each one, the outline of a hillbilly’s face was caught in the surrounding, yellowish glow.

  “Where you think you’re goin’?” Slim asked.

  In one synchronized motion, he, Stumpy, Elmira and Charlene took a step toward me, tightening the gap between us like mullet net.

  Oh, crap! Now what?

  “Let’s get the witch!” Elmira howled.

  The four took another step forward. I took one back...and stepped on something.

  I looked down and my heart thumped. It was the makeshift broom-crutch thing Goober had made for me. I snatched it up, plastered on my best evil sneer, and shook it at them.

  “Get out of here!” I screeched. “Leave me be, or I’ll cast an evil spell on the lot of you!”

  To my utter amazement, they scattered like a pile of rednecks being chased by Bigfoot.

  “Huh,” I muttered in astonishment. I turned around. Bigfoot was standing two feet away from me.

  Suddenly, the earth came up and hit me in the face.

  WHEN I CAME TO, BIGFOOT had me in his arms, toting me toward Winky’s RV.

  “Let me go!” I screeched, and wrestled with the hairy beast.

  “For cripes sake!” Bigfoot said.

  “You can talk?” I asked, incredulous.

  “Val, it’s me.”

  “Goober?”

  “Who else?”

  “Well, why didn’t you say so?”

  He set me down and laughed. “I guess I didn’t want to ruin it for the others.”

  “I suppose this means going back to Walmart is out of the question,” I said, and fished around in my purse for the keys to Maggie.

  “Yes,” Goober answered. “I’ll meet you at the main road.”

  “Where can we go?” I asked as I tossed my suitcase and duffle bag in the backseat and opened the driver’s side door.

  “I’ve got an idea. Just follow me.” Goober waved and took off jogging down the dirt lane.

  Great. Now I’m taking advice from Sasquatch.

  I thought about going back inside the RV for my baloney, but I heard muffled voices. I looked down the road in the other direction and saw four flashlight beams heading my way.

  Not again!

  I scrambled into the driver’s seat and smooshed the tarp away that still enveloped half of Maggie. I cranked the engine to life, shifted into reverse, and backed up into the dirt lane.

  The sound of Maggie’s muffler must have stirred up the mob. In the rearview mirror, I could see the lights were bobbing up and down now, drawing nearer by the second.

  Time to make like a tree and leaf....

  I punched the gas. Maggie’s glasspacks roared and echoed off the nearby aluminum abodes. Her tires kicked up an orange cloud of sand, and she fishtailed down the narrow, sandy lane.

  A few seconds later, the lights behind me were getting smaller.

  I sucked in a sigh of relief and reached to adjust the rearview mirror for a better view. My hand hit something swinging from it. I nearly pissed my panties. It was that horrible shrunken head, come to get me again!

  I swatted at the hideous thing and lost control of Maggie. She veered into the overgrowth of bushes. A long, metallic scraping sound set my teeth on edge.

  Oh, crap on a cracker!

  “Sorry, Maggie.”

  I wrestled with the steering wheel until I got her centered back onto the narrow road. I punched the gas.

  As I cleared the exit to the Hell’ammo, Maggie’s headlights lit up the side of Goober’s old RV. He had the Minnie Winnie back on the road and ready to roll.

  Goober waved a hairy arm and took off like a chimp who’d just heisted a banana wagon. I punched the gas and followed him in hot pursuit.

  Right about the time I hit seventy miles an hour, the duct tape on the front passenger side of the car let loose. The silver tarp flew up alongside the car like a ghost. But the tape on the rear panel held tight. The tarp started flapping behind Maggie like a cape.

  A thrill shot through me like a bolt of lightning. I looked up at the night sky full of stars and laughed like a madwoman.

  Look out, world! Here comes the Redneck Avenger!

  SOMEWHERE BEFORE WE hit the main road, the silver tarp came loose in the back and tumbled down the road behind me into the darkness like a dead body in an ill-fitting spacesuit.

  I followed Goober right onto SR 60. It wasn’t long before he turned off and pulled into the last place I would have ever expected.

  The Polk County Police Station.

  I pulled Maggie up alongside the RV.

  “You’ve got to be kidding,” I said as Goober poked his unmasked head out the window.

  “Where else could we be safer?” he asked.

  I sighed. “I guess you’ve got a point there. And I’m way too tired to argue.”

  “Finally, my lucky day.”

  “Hardy har-har.”

  Goober took his hairy Bigfoot hands off the steering wheel and grinned. His gold tooth shone in the moonlight like a bad toothpaste commercial.

  “You look like a wreck, Val. I sure hope you’ve got the energy to take a shower before you hit the sack.”

  “Hey, you’re the one impersonating a skunk ape.”

  Goober shook his bald head.

  “I beg to differ.”

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  “Aww, crap! My phone didn’t charge,” I said as I stumbled o
ut of the tiny bedroom toward the smell of brewing coffee.

  Goober was in the kitchen, shirtless, pouring himself a cup. He turned around to face me and my jaw went slack. Goober had two navels!

  “What the...?” I asked.

  Goober’s smile evaporated. A hand flew down to cover his midsection. “Sorry. I got shot once. Left a terrible scar.”

  “Oh. I...I didn’t know. How did it happen?”

  “I’d rather not say. And Val? Don’t say a word to anyone, okay?”

  “Geeze, Goober. At this rate, I won’t even be able to claim I ever knew you.”

  Goober grinned. “That’s –”

  The thunderous sound of a megaphone pierced the air. Someone bellowed, “Come out with your hands up.”

  Goober and I looked at each other.

  “Not again.”

  “At least you got to have a sip of coffee first,” I whined.

  From between the blinds, I could see Chief Collins standing in the lot. He looked pretty pissed for 7:30 in the morning.

  “Wait a minute,” I said to Goober as he reached for a shirt. “Is this about Woggles...or you?”

  Goober sighed and slipped the t-shirt on over his head.

  “I guess we’ll find out soon enough.”

  WE STEPPED OUT OF THE RV with our hands up. Chief Collins blew a whistle, and he and five other cops burst out laughing.

  Neither Goober nor I got the joke.

  “Mornin’, you two!” Chief Collins said. “We were just havin’ some fun. Come on in for some coffee and donuts. We got a confession out of Elmira last night. She called up and told us she did it.”

  “I had a feeling,” I said as I stumbled toward the Chief, still undecided whether I was peeved at him or relieved. “How’d she do it?”

  Chief Collins patted me on the back. “Crushed up apple seeds and put ‘em in old Woggles’ Geritol. She made craft stuff with apples, you know. Saved up the seeds.”

  “I know,” I said. “Wait a minute!” I ran over to Maggie and snatched the shrunken head from the rearview mirror. “She made this, didn’t she?”

  “Yep, I’d imagine,” Chief Collins said as he studied the head. He sniffed it. “Made from a dried-up apple, all right.”

  “What was her motive?” Goober asked.

  “Had a life insurance policy out on him,” Chief Collins explained. “Elmira told me, and I’m paraphrasing here, ‘As old Woggles showed no signs of dying of his own accord, I decided to take it upon myself to speed up the process.’”

  “You don’t say,” Goober said, shaking his head.

  As we entered the station, Detective Rogers stepped up with his clipboard.

  “Coroner’s report confirms it Chief. The dumpster raccoon and Mr. Walters were both poisoned with the same agent.”

  “What does that mean?” I asked.

  Chief Collins smiled. “It means you’re both free to go.”

  AFTER FINISHING OFF two cups of coffee and three donuts each, Goober and I said our adieus to the Polk County Police Department.

  “Can you believe that?” I asked as we stepped out into the parking lot. “Elmira killed him with apple seeds.”

  I studied the shriveled head in my hand. For the first time I noticed the slits that made up its cat-like pupils were actually deadly apple seeds.

  “Sure,” Goober said. “Apple seeds contain amygdalin. When you ingest them, it releases cyanide.”

  The harmless shriveled head in my hand suddenly regained some of its voodoo power. I held it a little further from me.

  “So, why don’t people die from eating apple cores, then?”

  Goober looked up in the sky, as if searching for something.

  “You’d need, I’d say, about a hundred and fifty seeds to kill someone the size of Woggles.”

  I eyed Goober with a mixture of trepidation and respect. “How do you know that?”

  Goober shrugged. “Sorry. That’s part of my ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell,” policy.”

  “Argh!”

  I flung the shrunken head into Maggie’s backseat.

  “Okay. But Goober, what if you ate fewer seeds? Like maybe fifty or something?”

  Goober’s lips twitched to one side.

  “I suppose that’d be enough to cause dizziness and nausea. Maybe a bit of brain damage. Possibly impotency.”

  “Geeze. I wonder. Do you think Elmira’s been poisoning anybody else at the Hell’ammo?”

  Goober snorted. “Who knows? I mean, with that crowd, how could you tell?”

  I smiled. “Right. I guess we should get going.”

  “Okay. You want to follow me back, Val?”

  “No. Don’t worry. I know my way home from here.”

  Goober smiled softly. “I believe you do. Hold on a minute.”

  He climbed inside the RV and came out holding my cellphone.

  “I’m afraid it didn’t charge up much. Use your one phone call wisely.”

  “I will. See you back in St. Pete.”

  “Okay.” Goober hesitated. “How about a hug?”

  “Uh...sure.”

  I hugged Goober tight, then watched as he climbed into the old Minnie Winnie and rattled off out of the parking lot. As he disappeared down SR 60, I clicked on my phone and saw a voicemail from Tom. I played it.

  “Val? Are you all right? I can’t find you. I’m worried sick!”

  My heart flinched.

  Why is Tom so worried? I told him I was with Goober.

  “Val,” Tom’s voice continued, “I have to tell you something about Goober. Call me back, please!”

  My gut sank to my knees. I clicked speed dial for Tom. He answered on the first ring.

  “Val! Are you okay?”

  “Yes, I’m fine. Don’t worry. I’ve been cleared of all charges.”

  I waited for him to say more, but he didn’t. I looked at my phone. It had blacked out. The battery was dead.

  Crap!

  I slipped the phone into my purse and climbed into Maggie’s driver’s seat. I cranked the engine, shifted into reverse, and began to back out of the slot.

  Suddenly, a pinched face shrouded in toilet-paper tubes was standing beside the car.

  “Mornin’ Val,” Charlene said. She looked guiltier than a member of Weight Watchers nabbed at an all-you-can-eat barbeque.

  “I’m sorry about accusing you of killin’ Woggles,” Charlene confessed. “Turns out it was my own sister givin’ Woggles them apples. All the while he thought they was healthy, she was poisonin’ him! Shame on Elmira! Woggles was the best man there ever was. And she killed him! What am I supposed to do now?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “But take my advice.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Don’t eat or drink anything she might offer you.”

  Charlene nodded, and I pulled out of the lot. As I turned onto SR 60, she climbed back onto her shopper chopper and waved.

  I waved back.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  On the drive back to St. Petersburg, I kept thinking about Goober and hoping I’d catch sight of the old RV rumbling west down I-275. I never did.

  What did Tom want to tell me about him? He wasn’t dying, was he? I thought about the hug he’d planted on me as we parted, and shivered in the ninety-four degree heat.

  As I crossed the Howard Frankland Bridge back into Pinellas County, my thoughts turned to Elmira. I wondered if they’d apprehended her already, and if she was sitting on the cot in my old holding cell this very moment.

  Before I knew it, I pulled up to my little, flat-roofed nothing of a house. It shone like a palace in my eyes. When Tom came bursting out the front door, it felt like the sweetest home there ever was.

  “Val!” Tom yelled as I shifted into park. “You’re okay!”

  “Yes, of course,” I said, unfastening my seat belt. “I told you so over the phone. I’ve been cleared of all charges.”

  Tom opened my car door and pulled me out. He squeezed me tightly to hi
s chest.

  “That wasn’t what I was worried about. When we were talking, your phone cut out...I thought...Goober....”

  I pushed back from Tom’s embrace.

  “What’s happened to Goober? Is he all right?”

  The fading worry in Tom’s eyes resurged.

  “Is he all right? Val, when I couldn’t reach you or Goober, I tried to do a background search on him. He didn’t come up on any database we searched. Val, there’s no such person as Gerald Jonohhovitz!”

  “That can’t be right, Tom. Maybe you just spelled his name wrong. It’s a mouthful, you know.”

  Tom’s face registered a hint of relief.

  “You’re probably right. Anyway, it doesn’t matter now. You’re home. You’re safe. I missed you, you know.”

  I grinned. “I can tell. I missed you, too.”

  “Welcome home,” Tom whispered, and planted a kiss on my lips. “Here, let me grab your luggage.”

  He leaned over Maggie’s frame, reached in the backseat and pulled out my suitcase.

  “What’s this?” he asked. Tom was holding Goober’s redneck dreamcatcher up in the air for the whole neighborhood to see.

  Goober!

  I snatched it out of Tom’s hands. “A bad joke.”

  I grabbed my purse from the passenger seat and hid the dreamcatcher behind it as best I could as I made for the front door. A sudden thought, however, made me stop and turn around.

  “Hey, Tom, can a raccoon die from eating apples?”

  Tom looked up from examining the side of Maggie.

  “I dunno. Geeze, Val, that’s a nasty scrape.”

  “I know. Tom, the whole ride home, I kept thinking about how Woggles died. Something doesn’t seem right. I hate to say it...” I looked over toward Laverne’s house, then walked back to the car and lowered my voice. “But I’m not convinced Elmira did it. I don’t want to see an innocent woman take the fall for killing Woggles if it was...Laverne’s cookies that –”

  “Val!” Tom interjected. “Bad cooking never actually killed anyone...no one that I know of, anyway. Let’s wait for the coroner’s report before we jump to any conclusions, okay?”