Val Fremden Mystery Box Set 3

by Margaret Lashley

  I jammed Maggie into park in the middle of the street, jerked open the door and bolted out to join the maniacal chase. As I ran toward the unfolding disaster, something bounced up and down in the breast pocket of my shirt.

  It was one of Winnie’s peanut-butter bombs. I’d filched it from J.D.’s sackful while he was otherwise indisposed.

  Wait a minute! I’m packing a pig lure!

  I pulled the donut from my pocket and waved it in the air. Randolph’s little snout went up. He stopped dead in his tracks, sniffed the air again and locked in on me. Laverne took a flying leap at him, but Randolph scrambled away just in time, and made a beeline right for me.

  Great, Val. Now what?

  Before I could answer that burning question, Randolph plowed into my shin and bowled me over in the middle of my lawn like a lone nine pin.

  “Arrggghh!” I bellowed as I tumbled sideways onto the ground.

  Randolph pounced on the donut. I pounced on him.

  “You got him!” Laverne screeched. She added to her announcements of the obvious with the classic, “Don’t let him go!”

  “I wasn’t planning on it,” I grunted as I wrestled with Randolph in the grass, trying to maintain a grip on his round, porcine belly.

  Laverne was panting like a chicken in a hot house as she skittered to a stop next to me. Her gold high heels glinted in the grass mere inches from my face.

  High heels? Again? Really, Laverne?

  “Why is he wearing goggles?” I asked, for lack of a better conversation starter. The effort caused me to nearly lose my grip on Randolph. I squirmed around until I was lying on the lawn sideways, spooning with a squealing pig in spectacles.

  “He likes goggles,” Laverne said with a proud grin.

  She looked up and spotted Nancy heading toward us. Laverne’s doe eyes doubled in size. “Oh Val! Now Nancy’s gonna make me get rid of him!”

  As if on cue, Nancy’s ugly, mannish feet in ugly, mannish sandals appeared in my peripheral vision.

  “Hush, Laverne,” I said. “Let me do the talking.”

  “What’s going on here?” Nancy demanded. “This is against every city ordinance in the book! You can’t have a pig here!”

  “Darn. You found out,” I said, trying to look cheerfully outsmarted while lying in the grass with my arms around a pig. “It was supposed to be a surprise...for you.”

  I rolled over and pulled Randolph onto my lap. To my surprise, he grunted and nestled there peacefully. Maybe the sugar from the donut had kicked in and given him some kind of high.

  Nancy eyed me suspiciously. “A surprise? For me? What are you talking about, Fremden?”

  “Why, Spiff-Up September, of course,” I said, trying to buy myself time to come up with a better lie.

  “Spruce-Up September,” Nancy corrected. “What about it?”

  “Well...,” I looked to Laverne and Jake for help, but from the expressions on their faces, I was totally on my own. “We...uh...we all thought we’d celebrate it with a...with a...Hawaiian-style luau.”

  I shot my sketchy, less-than-dynamic duo a look. “Didn’t we?”

  Laverne and Jake looked at me, then nodded at Nancy as their gaping mouths morphed into weak smiles.

  “That’s right,” Jake said, apparently snapping into coherence. He hung his head dramatically. “But now the pig-roast surprise is ruined.”

  “Pig roast?” Laverne gasped. She gulped and stared at me wide-eyed.

  I looked into Laverne’s eyes, shook my head almost imperceptibly, then turned to Nancy.

  “You were going to be the surprise guest of honor, Nancy. Laverne was raising the pig herself so we could have the best meat available. But if you don’t want a luau in your honor, we’ll get rid of the pig today.”

  Nancy looked as if she’d just swallowed a bratwurst whole. “Oh,” she coughed. “Well, there’s no need to be hasty.”

  “No, you’re right,” I said, and made a show of petting Randolph, who grunted contentedly. “Let’s forget the whole thing.”

  “No!” Nancy nearly shouted. “I mean, when were you planning on having this...surprise luau?”

  “Uh...Tues –” I began, but Jake shook his head. “I mean Thurs –” Laverne shook her head. “Friday?” Both of my accomplices nodded.

  “Friday night,” I said.

  “Five days from now,” Nancy said. “Well, I guess it won’t be too much against the rules to keep the pig a few more days. And since it’s not a surprise anymore, I have a most excellent idea. Why don’t we have the luau at my place? I just got the shuffleboard court resurfaced and put new cushions on the patio furniture.”

  Nancy eyed us like a drill sergeant. No one dared speak.

  “It is settled then,” she said. “My place. Eighteen-hundred hours. Sharp.”

  “That’s a lot of hours!” Laverne said.

  “She means six o’clock,” I said, then looked to Nancy for confirmation.

  “Precisely,” Nancy said. “So it is our plan, ja?”

  I gave Jake and Laverne a hard stare. “Sure,” I said. “We’d all be happy with that.”

  I didn’t see how we were in any position to argue. Me especially, since I was sitting cross-legged on the ground with my arms wrapped around the belly of a pig wearing aviator goggles.

  Besides, with any luck, the luau would never happen anyway.

  TOM CAME HOME FROM his fishing expedition empty handed – except for a sackful of Big Bobby’s barbeque. It smelled like hog heaven. And, because it wasn’t on our healthy menu, it had me salivating like one of Pavlov’s mangy dogs.

  The thought of a meal without broccoli in it made my soul smile. I kissed Tom on the lips as he walked into the kitchen, and snatched the bag from his hands.

  “Sorry, no fish,” Tom said.

  “We’ll make do,” I quipped, and opened the bag.

  Tom touched my arm.

  “Val. I did catch something. And it’s kind of concerning.”

  “What? The flu?” I joked, my mind blurred by thoughts of juicy spare ribs.

  “No. This.”

  I turned to make a joke, but stopped when I saw the concern on Tom’s face.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  Tom set a clear plastic baggie on the counter. Inside was what looked to be a man’s silver I.D. bracelet. I noticed a red Caduceus medical symbol etched into the left side of the smooth name plate.

  “It’s a life-alert bracelet,” Tom said. “I snagged it trolling the bottom for flounder.”

  “I guess that’s better than an old boot,” I said.

  Tom’s face went deadly serious. “Val, I could have pulled up an arm with it. This bracelet was around someone’s wrist at some point. It has saw marks on it. Like someone’s been dismembered. A dead body could be out there in the Gulf right now.”

  The thought made my nose crinkle. “Maybe, but I doubt it.”

  “What? Why?”

  “I think those twinkling green eyes of yours may finally need some cheater glasses, Tom. That’s a novelty bracelet.”

  “What do you mean, novelty?” Tom asked, and picked up the baggie.

  I handed him the eyeglasses I bought off a rack at a drugstore. “Take a closer look at the medical symbol. The staff has two L’s wrapped around it instead of snakes. The L’s stand for ‘loser.’ The script on the bracelet says, ‘Notify authorities in case this person ever gets a life.’”

  Tom shook his head. “You’re right. It’s a joke bracelet.”

  “Don’t tell me you’ve never seen one?”

  Tom shook his head. “I haven’t.”

  “You need to get out more. They’re all over eBay. It’s a favorite tourist joke at Caddy’s. Whenever he gets in one of his joking moods, Greg pulls this prank where he –”

  I stopped myself mid-sentence and stared at Tom.

  “Greg!” I grabbed the bag from Tom’s hand. “Oh my word! This could be Greg’s! He wore it a lot. It was like his standing joke.”

&nb
sp; Tom’s eyes locked on mine. “And now he could be lying in a watery grave.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  “When was the last time anyone saw Greg?” I asked Tom as he got ready for work. As usual, Monday morning had struck too early yet again.

  “Not since early Thursday morning,” he answered, and checked the fastener on his gun holster. “Parsons closed the bar down at two. The bartender working that night said he left around two-thirty. He was supposed to return for the afternoon shift around three that afternoon, but he never showed up.”

  “That’s what Norma told me, too. I mean, that Greg was supposed to be in at three o’clock. And now you say no one can find her, either.”

  I eyed the baggie still on the kitchen counter. “What are you going to do with the bracelet?”

  “Well, with Greg’s case upgraded to a missing person report on Saturday, I’ll file the bracelet as potential evidence.”

  “Potential evidence?”

  “It’s a novelty bracelet Val. Like you said, they made millions of them.”

  “But....” I argued.

  “Don’t worry. I’m still sending it over to forensics. Maybe the lab can find DNA or fingerprints on it. But I wouldn’t hold my breath. It’s not likely, given that it’s been swimming around in saltwater for who knows how long.”

  I bit my lip and frowned. “Right.”

  “Okay. I gotta go,” Tom said. He kissed me goodbye, stuck a foot out the front door, then turned around. “Oh. With the bracelet and everything, I forgot to ask you. How’d it go yesterday with J.D. and your search for Goober?”

  I tried not grimace at the thought of J.D. taking a dump in a casserole dish. I decided a short, one-word answer would suffice.

  “Crappy.”

  “Well, try not to get in too much trouble today, okay? I’ve got enough on my plate with Parsons and now the Jeen case.”

  “Jeen?”

  “That’s Norma’s last name.”

  “Oh.”

  Tom shot me a mock smug look. “Finally, something you didn’t know already. Listen, I really gotta go. Don’t forget to walk Snogs.”

  “I won’t.”

  At the sound of his name, Snogs came flying at us like a harpoon made from a dust cloth. Tom lifted him up and set him in my arms.

  “You watch out for her, you hear me, Snogs?”

  I laughed, kissed Tom again and closed the door. As the lock clicked into place, something pinged in my brain. I jerked open the door and called after Tom.

  “Hey. Wait a minute. You called him Snogs! I thought you hated that name.”

  Tom pondered my words for a moment, then winked a sea-green eye at me.

  “Huh. What do you know? I guess it kind of grew on me after all. Kind ‘a like someone else I know.”

  I RANG UP GALLWORTH & Haney and got the snotty blonde receptionist.

  “Hi. I was just calling to see if I could stop by and sign another copy of the deposition for Angela Langsbury.”

  “No,” the woman huffed. “Your services are no longer needed. Ms. Dimson has acquired everything she needs, and is, in fact, headed to court as we speak.”

  Well, la-tee-da. I guess I’m too late for her again. Too bad.

  “Well, good for her,” I said, and hung up the phone. I felt more relieved than guilty. I had one less thing on my to-do list for today, and no longer having to go to Dimson’s office lowered the dress code for the day significantly. My planned dress and heels got demoted to sandals, a jean skirt and a comfy t-shirt. As far as I was concerned, the whole thing was a win-win.

  I got dressed, grabbed my purse, and tiptoed guiltily by Snogs in his cage. As I closed the front door behind me, a glint of sunlight caught my eye. It was arcing off one of the beer cans dangling from Goober’s dreamcatcher hanging in my office window.

  I bit my lip. I knew I should have been writing. But since class had been cancelled last Thursday, I hadn’t touched my computer. Besides, right now I had a more important mission. Goober was still missing, and I needed to track him down.

  The only useful clues I had were the post office box number Freddie helped me figure out, and the address on the postcard Goober’d sent me. Goober once told me he’d been a sociology teacher, but that info was pretty much useless. It could have been a fabrication. And I had no desire to search the entire US public and private school systems on the off chance they’d hired a nutty professor with a walrus moustache. Besides, who could even say what name he would have given them.

  No. Right now, it was better to focus on the post office box clue. My plan for today was to head downtown and check it out. As I walked to my car, I waved to Nancy, who was in her front yard, jogging in place with weights in her hands.

  That woman is a grunting aerobics machine!

  “I see you’re at it again,” I called out.

  “I (grunt) want to be in top shape for the (grunt) luau pool party!” she called from across the street. “I ordered (grunt) enough flowers so everyone can get laid.”

  My brain screeched to a halt.

  What?

  “Oh,” I said. “Hawaiian leis, right.”

  I climbed into Maggie, hit the ignition, and wondered how long it had been since Nancy had gotten...a ring of flowers placed around her neck.

  “I’D LIKE TO ENQUIRE about the owner of post office box number 3799,” I said to the postman behind the service counter at the downtown post office.

  He eyed me suspiciously. “What exactly do you want to know?”

  “Uh...I’d like to know if the owner left instructions or perhaps another key? You see, I’ve...uh...lost mine.”

  “Oh. Sure, lady. Hold on.”

  The tired-looking clerk came back and slapped a form on the counter between us. “You’ll need to fill this out. In triplicate.”

  “Um...okay. I’ll just do it over there,” I said, and pointed toward the narrow strip of counter designed for patrons to rest their elbows and packages on while they waited in line.

  “Fine,” he said dryly. “It’ll probably take a couple of weeks to process the information. In the meantime, I just thought I’d let you know that falsifying federal documents is an offense punishable by fines, imprisonment, or both.”

  Something in my throat collapsed.

  “Right,” I croaked. “Thank you, sir. Is it okay if I...uh...take these with me and fill them out at home?”

  The clerk peered over his bifocals and sighed. “Sure. Knock yourself out.”

  I backed out of the post office like a wanted criminal. As soon as I made it out alive, I ran to my car, jumped in it, and called Winky.

  “What are you doing right now?” I asked.

  “Uh...usin’ the toilet.”

  “Ugh! Call me back when you’re done!”

  “Naw. It’s all over but the paperwork.” I heard a toilet flush. “What can I do you for?”

  “I want to keep an eye on the post office and see if anybody comes to check Goober’s box.”

  “You mean like a stakeout?” he asked, his voice rising at the end.

  “No.”

  “Dang.”

  “Well, I mean, yeah. Like a stakeout.”

  “When?”

  “Right now.”

  “All right!” Winky cheered. “Listen, Val, I ain’t got no car. It’s in the shop. But I can take a beach trolley. Be there in half an hour, give or take an hour.”

  “Okay,” I sighed. “I’ve got another stop to make anyway. Meet you at the post office at say, eleven o’clock?”

  “Eleven o’clock.”

  “Yes.”

  “Eleven o’clock,” Winky repeated.

  “Why do you keep saying that?”

  “‘Cause you told me to say eleven o’clock.”

  Maybe this isn’t such a good idea after all....

  “Listen, Winky, why don’t we just –”

  “Hold up a second. Here you go, mister trolley man.”

  “You’re already on a trolley?”


  “Yep.”

  No turning back now.

  “Okay. See you soon.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  I was parked across the street from the post office in downtown St. Pete, waiting on Winky to arrive by trolley. I was wiping the sweat from my upper lip when I spied Angela Langsbury in my rearview mirror. She was hobbling down the street, her arm in a sling, her neck in a brace. I jumped out of Maggie and ran over to check on her.

  “Geeze, Mrs. Langsbury,” I said, taking her arm. “I didn’t realize you’d gotten injured in that scuffle.”

  Langsbury stopped limping and rolled her eyes at me. “I’m not, Fremden. It was Dimson’s idea for me to wear this getup. Said it would garner sympathy with the judge.”

  “Oh.” I let go of her arm.

  “Thanks for the deposition, kid. Between these stupid props and your testimony, I got off the hook for the eighteen hundred bucks.” Langsbury chuckled to herself. “You should’ve seen Victoria’s flabbergasted face. Priceless.”

  “Uh...But I didn’t –”

  “Pretty clever of you, too, saying I’d even offered Victoria an early-bird discount. Gave the whole thing a ring of authenticity.”

  How ironic, considering there was nothing authentic about it.

  Langsbury tugged at the fake neck brace. “Yeah, I’d say you got the makings of a great fiction writer, kid.”

  “Uh...thanks.”

  Dimson had forged my deposition, but I couldn’t see any reason to argue the point now. If I told Langsbury it wasn’t me, she’d no longer owe me a favor. I wasn’t ready to let that go. I might need it before all this business with her slimy brother-in-law was over. Langsbury might be off the hook with Victoria, but Timothy Amsel wasn’t off my hook. Not by a long shot.

  “Glad I could help out, Mrs. Langsbury. I was wondering, how well do you know Timothy Amsel?”

  “Better than I care too.”

  “Do you think he’s capable of doing something...uh...untoward?”

  Langsbury’s beady eyes gleamed. “Absolutely. You know something, don’t you! Tell me!”