And now, I’m the unwilling accomplice to a geriatric showgirl harboring a fugitive pig living in a compost bin.
Magnet for the absurd doesn’t even scratch the surface.
“Magnet for the absurd, huh?” I said, and set Snogs down. I wrapped my arms around Tom’s neck and winked. “So that’s why you find me so irresistible.”
Tom laughed. “That’s got to be it.” He winked a sea-green eye at me, then kissed me in a way that removed any lingering doubts about his intentions.
Which, by the way, turned out to be far from absurd. But then again, I’ve always been a sucker for a handsome blond with tight buns....
“DID YOU HEAR THE NEWS about Caddy’s?” Tom asked as he washed up the supper dishes.
“Yeah. That guy Tim Amsel looks like a real scumbag,” I said, and scraped my uneaten broccoli into the garbage can.
“Looks can be deceiving,” Tom joked, and made a bandito mask out of the dish towel.
“Not that deceiving,” I said dryly. “That guy’s so gross he could go under cover in a pig farm – without a disguise.”
Tom didn’t laugh. He dropped the dishtowel from his face and said, “Right,” as if he hadn’t heard me.
“Have you been to Caddy’s lately?” he asked.
I put a clean glass away in the cupboard and closed the door. When I turned back to face him, Tom had his interrogating cop eyes trained on me again.
“I was there today. Why?”
“Nothing. Well...just...I’d rather you didn’t go there again, okay?”
“Why not?”
“The owner, Greg Parsons, has been reported missing.”
Something caught in my throat. “What do you mean, missing?”
“An employee called the station this afternoon. Parsons didn’t come to work as scheduled.”
“So?”
“The employee sounded pretty upset. She said Parsons has never shown up late since she’s been working there. We’re giving him forty-eight hours to turn up before we file an official missing person report.”
“What do you think –?”
“Sorry, Val. That’s all I can tell you right now.”
“I understand. Can you tell me if the employee who called in the report was named Norma?”
Tom looked surprised, then nodded.
I blew out a breath. “Then something’s up for sure, Tom. If Greg was just taking a day off, Norma would have known about it.”
Tom chewed his lip for a moment and said, “Okay. Thanks for the tip.”
“Sure. You know, I –”
“Let’s don’t discuss it anymore, okay?”
“I wasn’t. I was going to say that Goober’s been missing a lot more than forty-eight hours, and nobody’s filed a report on him.”
“He’s a grown man, Val. I’m sure he’s just out having a good time in the old RV. He’ll turn up.”
“I’m sure you’re right,” I said half-heartedly.
I almost told Tom about finding the clue in the Skoal can. But he didn’t seem that interested. Just like Winky, neither guy seemed that concerned about Goober.
Was it a guy thing?
Or was I just being a worry wart?
Chapter Eight
I waited until 9:00 a.m. to call Angela Langsbury back. I wasn’t sure if she was an early-to-bed, early-to-rise kind of woman or not. As skeletal and ghostly pale as she was, she might have slept in a coffin and fed on the blood of students at night, for all I knew.
“Hello?” said a voice only a mother toad could love.
I recognized it immediately.
“Ms. Langsbury? It’s me, Val. You called yesterday?”
“Uh...yeah. Fremden. I guess you know the writing class was cancelled.”
“Yeah.”
“Uh-huh. What do you know about it?”
“About what?” I asked, not wanting to get the tell-all janitor in trouble.
“Never mind. Listen, I need you to provide a deposition for me. As a character witness. Would you be able to do that?”
“Really? Is Victoria suing you?”
“So you do know.”
Crap.
“Uh...a little bit. Listen. The whole hairspray thing? I get that. But nobody in their right mind would believe you stabbed her with a pencil.”
“What?” Langsbury croaked. “I don’t give a flip about that.”
“Then what’s the deposition for?”
“Victoria wants her eighteen hundred bucks back for the murder mystery weekend. I’m a teacher, for crying out loud. I don’t have that kind of money lying around! Besides, I already spent it on a bikini wax and a ticket to Cozumel.”
Too much information.
“Oh.”
“So will you do it? Will you give a deposition?”
“For what, exactly?”
“I need you to back me up...you know, confirm that I made it clear in class there wouldn’t be any refunds for the trip. Not for any reason.”
I bit my lip and thought it over. Langsbury had her issues with Victoria. So did I.
I’d never gotten the chance to confront that jerk of a librarian for her part in hurting Laverne. Finkerman had sent Laverne a letter demanding ninety bucks to restore her standing as a good citizen and avoid legal issues arising from an overdue book. The thought that she might be considered a criminal had sent poor Laverne into a tizzy of worry. Helping Langsbury with a deposition could be my chance to even the score with smug-faced Victoria.
I racked my brain trying to recall if I’d heard Langsbury tell the class about her zero-refund policy for the retreat.
“Uh...I’m not sure, Mrs. Langsbury. I’m trying to recall –”
“Oh, come on, Val! Do me a solid, would you? I can’t take this idiocy. Not on top of having my stupid brother-in-law squatting in my guest room. Twit thinks he owns half the planet, but he’s too cheap to spring for a hotel. Just my rotten luck.”
“Well, I –”
I was cut off by the sound of Langsbury yelling at someone. Thankfully, her ire wasn’t aimed at me. Through the receiver I heard her screech, “Tim, if you don’t put out that cigar, I swear I’m gonna kick you all the way back to Chicago!”
What? Wait a minute....
A beat later, a sweet, toady voice said, “So, what do you say, Val? Could you be a love and help an old lady out?”
“Your brother-in-law wouldn’t happen to be Tim Amsel, would it?”
Langsbury blew out a breath. “Unfortunately, yes.”
“Hmmm. Well, you know, I just may remember something about you mentioning a no-refund policy. But to be clear, you’ll owe me one for it.”
“Owe you one what?”
“I’ll let you know later.”
Langsbury groaned. “I don’t like the sound of that. But okay. What the hell. Hey, by the way, you wouldn’t happen to have an extra room to let, would you?”
“Nope. I’m fresh out.”
“Lucky you.”
ON MY WAY OUT THE FRONT door, I turned and waved to Snogs. He returned my gesture with a yip and a pout. Trapped in his cage, poor Snogs looked like an incarcerated teddy bear.
“Sorry,” I cooed as I backed out over the threshold. I grabbed the doorknob and bent over for one last wave to Snogs. As I did, my derriere made contact with something. I whipped around and nearly gasped. My nosy neighbor Nancy Meyers was standing cheek to jowl with me on my porch. I wondered how long she’d been there eavesdropping.
“What are you doing here?” I barked.
“Good morning to you, too,” she said with a huff. She stuck her perpetually upturned nose a little higher in the air and tugged at the hem of her blouse with both hands. “I just wanted to remind you that September starts in a few days.”
“Uh...thanks?” I eyed her up and down with raised eyebrows.
“Fremden! September is Spruce-Up Your Lawn Month! It’s time to weed and feed. And plant winter annuals.”
“Nancy, in case you haven’t noticed, we do
n’t have winter here.”
If I’d actually slapped her across the face, I think Nancy would’ve worn the same expression.
“A green lawn is a keen lawn,” she said. “We don’t want people thinking our neighborhood is full of riff-raff.”
“Define riff-raff.”
Nancy ignored my request and shot me a look that made me seriously suspect that I was exactly the kind of ne’er-do-well to whom she’d been referring.
“You know what I mean,” she said.
“I’ll think about putting in some flowers, okay?”
Nancy shot me a skeptical look and tried to peek through the door into my house. I closed it to a crack, just to tease her.
“Was there something else?” I asked.
“I was just wondering, Fremden. Does your new dog...uh...per chance...grunt?”
My suspicions that Nancy had a screw loose multiplied tenfold. “What?”
“I keep hearing grunts,” she said. “Is that new mutt of yours a grunter?”
I shut the door behind me. The click of the lock was followed by a distinct grunt.
“There it is again!” Nancy said.
I glanced toward Laverne’s place. A pink snout was sticking out from behind a Koonti palm.
Oh, crap on a cracker!
“It was me,” I lied.
“You?” Nancy’s piggish nose wiggled in dismay. If I hadn’t been under duress, the irony would have made me burst out laughing.
“It sounded like it came from –” Nancy started to turn and look toward the Laverne’s place. I shot out a hand, put a palm on her puffy cheek, and firmly guided her face back toward me.
“Haven’t you heard about the new craze?” I asked, scrambling to come up with an idea on the fly. “It’s like...uh...laughter yoga, see? But it’s called grunt aerobics.”
Nancy stared at me blankly. “Grunt aerobics?”
“Yes. You see...uh...you grunt while you’re working out. You should try it. It uh...builds lung capacity and...uh...wards off influenza.”
To drive my lie home, I smiled, did a jumping jack, and grunted. “See?”
Nancy nodded approvingly. “Grunt aerobics. Very interesting.”
I glanced over at the bushes by Laverne’s place. Randolph was staring at us, open-mouthed, as if we were looney-tunes.
I shook my head softly.
Tom’s right. I am totally a magnet for the absurd.
I INSTRUCTED NANCY in the fine art of grunt aerobics as I led her back across the street and to her own front door. She hung on every detail, and only let me go after I promised to fertilize my lawn by the upcoming weekend.
Before Nancy’d interrupted me, I’d been on my way to see Langsbury’s attorney to give my deposition. I glanced down at my cellphone.
Crap! I should’ve already been there by now!
I made my excuses with Nancy, sprinted back across the road, jumped inside Maggie, hit the ignition, and reversed down the driveway like Mario Andretti. As I shifted into drive, I set my sights on Gulf Boulevard and punched Laverne’s number on speed dial.
“Laverne! You’re pig’s out!”
“Randolph?”
“Uh...yes! Do you have any other pigs I don’t know about?”
“No.”
“Laverne, the point is, I saw Randolph in the bushes between our houses. Go get him and put him back in his pen, quick! Nancy Meyers almost saw him!”
“Oh, no!”
“And when you’re done, go and talk to Jake. Maybe he can help you figure out what to do with Randolph. I can’t help now. I’m on my way to meet an attorney.”
“You’re not suing me over Randolph, are you?”
“What? Geeze Louise!”
“Laverne.”
“Yes, I know! I mean...no! I’m not suing you. I’ve got to go see someone about something else.”
“If it’s J.D., tell him I miss him.”
“It’s not J.D.”
“Oh.”
“Listen, Laverne. I don’t think you understand the urgency here. You need to get Randolph back in his pen before Nancy turns him into a backyard barbeque.”
“Randolph likes barbeque.”
“He’ll be on the spit.”
“That’s gross, Val. Randolph doesn’t slobber.”
I closed my eyes, took a deep breath to calm myself, and waited for the traffic on Gulf Boulevard to clear so I could hang a right.
“Laverne?” I asked, when my jaw had unclenched sufficiently that I could form words again.
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to insult Randolph. But if he wanders around loose, he could get hit by a bus.”
A loud gasp came across the receiver.
The line went dead.
Either Laverne finally got the message, or she’d been hit by a bus herself.
Chapter Nine
As I motored east on Central Avenue toward downtown St. Petersburg, it struck me just how much the skyline had changed in the past five years. When I’d left for Germany, St. Pete had still been a sleepy little tourist town – the kind that attracted what we jokingly referred to as “newlyweds and nearly deads.”
Back then, the neglected city parks had been crammed with hordes of seniors languishing away on green benches, earning St. Pete the unenviable moniker of “God’s waiting room.” But as I drove into town today, I could see St. Pete had switched gears. Big time. In fact, it had stretched its cosmopolitan wings far enough to garner the envy of Tampa, its larger – if not somewhat lackluster – cousin across the bay.
But, like the handful of ancient seniors yet inhabiting the city’s low-rent housing towers, other remnants of St. Pete’s past still clung desperately to life.
The few thrift stores and junk shops still able to find venues had moved six to ten blocks further west down Central Avenue. Most now split the rent by sharing space with local artists and three-table coffee shops. Familiar restaurants, once the only choices among a handful of offerings, now faced so much competition they’d been forced to spruce up their menus and service or their tables remained empty throughout the day.
I checked the address I’d written down. I’d been right. The offices of Angela Langsbury’s attorneys were in one of the smattering of old, gray skyscrapers that stuck out around downtown like a hobo’s remaining rotten teeth. Constructed mostly in the 1960s, the dull, uninspired buildings didn’t have enough ambition to stretch much beyond ten stories. As a result, they were quickly being overrun and dwarfed by the dozen or so posh new condo towers currently under various stages of construction.
I took a good look at the skyline and tried to memorize it. As fast as the city was changing, it would never look exactly this way again. The snapshot taken in my mind, I set my sights on a new goal – finding a parking space.
My run-in with Nancy, combined with an impromptu lesson in grunt aerobics, had set me back about fifteen minutes. Downtown was an easy, straight shot east from the beach on First Avenue South. I’d made good time. The trip had taken less than twenty minutes. Unfortunately, finding a parking spot added ten more. By the time I reached the offices of Gallworth & Haney, I was nearly half an hour late.
“Hi, I’m Val Fremden,” I said to the receptionist as I burst through the door. “I have an appointment with Ms...uh...Dimdum.”
“Ms. Dimson was expecting you,” the receptionist said.
As I studied the face of the irritatingly attractive young woman, I had a feeling the raised eyebrow she was shooting at her computer screen was actually meant for me.
“Right. Sorry. I ran into traffic.”
“Have a seat,” the stunning blonde said sourly, as if she found my mere presence somehow disgusting.
I waited on a couch and pretended to read magazines for nearly twenty minutes. But lifestyles of the rich and ridiculous didn’t interest me. I fiddled with my phone, but didn’t have anyone in particular to call or text. In comparison to the portraits of the posh people lining the waiting room wa
lls, my life, I realized, was kind of mediocre.
Geeze. Maybe even sub-par....
The oppressive ostentatiousness of the room pressed down on me until it became unbearable.
I stood up to leave.
As I did, a buzzer sounded. A tinny voice came over a speaker in the ceiling.
“Ms. Dimson will see you now.”
The receptionist’s pretty but unpleasant face popped in the doorframe. Her pert, perfect lips parted and said, “Follow me.”
I trailed behind the slim, beautifully dressed woman feeling like a slob who’d just crawled out of a dumpster. She led me down a hall and stopped in front of a door with a gold-plated nameplate. Etched in it was the name Darlene Dimson.
The receptionist rapped quickly three times, opened the door, and without another word, left me to fend for myself.
I took a tentative peek inside and nearly gasped. Darlene Dimson was one formidable-looking woman. Scary, even. She was thin and pale. Her narrow face featured a long, pointed nose offset by a pair of dark, sunken eyes like a raven’s. Atop her head sat a mass of blood-red hair, fashioned in a knot that reminded me of a cinnamon bun. Or maybe a huge blood clot.
“Hello? Ms. Dimson?” I said. “Thanks so much for rearranging your schedule to see me.”
“Right,” she said sourly. “Come in. Let’s not waste any more time, shall we?”
No doubt she was ticked off about my being late. I tried to make nice by complimenting the picture of a halfway decent-looking man in a silver frame on her desk.
“Who’s the handsome guy?” I asked.
Dimson looked me up and down with those black, sunken bird eyes. “Timothy Amsel.”
“Mr. Amsel has a son?”
Val Fremden Mystery Box Set 3 Page 42
