Val Fremden Mystery Box Set 3

by Margaret Lashley

  A flash of jealous rage shot through me. While I was gone, Tom had cheated on me with a juicy, big-breasted hen!

  Through the garage door, I heard the familiar sound of Tom’s SUV as it pulled up in the driveway. I scrambled back inside, prepared to launch into a full-blown tirade accusing Tom of committing food adultery. But the tired, worried look on Tom’s face sealed my lips shut.

  From the looks of it, he might have had a day even worse than mine.

  “How was work today?” I asked.

  “Let’s don’t talk shop.” Tom wrapped his arms around me. “I just want to hold you.”

  The warmth of his arms felt like a friendly blanket in a blizzard of strangers.

  “Fine,” I said. “That sounds good to me.”

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  I woke to the sound of grunting.

  Randolph!

  I shot up in bed. Tom was standing in the doorway, a cappuccino in each hand.

  “You snore like a little piglet,” he said with a boyish grin.

  “I do not!”

  “Then who was it doing all that grunting?” He handed me a cup, kissed me on the nose, and slid into bed beside me.

  “Probably Randolph. He’s on the loose, you know.”

  Tom sighed. “Yeah. Laverne told me. No one’s found him yet?”

  “I hope not.”

  Tom’s eyebrow went angular. “Why would you say that?”

  I thought about the pig on the platter with the onion lei around its neck.

  “I dunno. I guess I just like the idea of Randolph running around, wild and free.”

  Tom shot me a skeptical look. “Maybe. But settling down has its creature comforts, don’t you think?”

  I took another sip of cappuccino and sunk into the pillows. “I guess.”

  Tom grinned and raised his cup to his lips. The tired, worried face he wore yesterday had vanished. I was glad of it.

  “You must have had quite a day yesterday,” I said.

  “I could say the same for you.”

  “True enough. Are things going okay at work?”

  “The same as usual. Why?”

  “I dunno. When you got home last night, it looked like you’d had the stuffing knocked out of you. Then you said you didn’t want to talk about it.”

  “Sometimes words aren’t what we need.” Tom reached across me to put his cup on the nightstand. He stayed on his side and looked into my eyes. “Sometimes what we need goes beyond words, Val. That’s when we need each other most.”

  “Oh.”

  Tom’s words touched me deep inside. Almost too deep inside. My upbringing with Lucille had taught me that intimacy was a terrible, double-edged sword. Being with Tom was slowly reprogramming that lesson, but my initial gut-reaction of fear still lingered inside me, whimpering like a beaten puppy.

  It was still painful to let love in.

  “I thought something had gone wrong at work,” I fumbled. “With the case....”

  Tom kissed me. “Yes. I had a bad day yesterday. But mostly because I didn’t sleep much the night before.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you weren’t here. I missed you, Val. Didn’t you miss me?”

  “Of course. It’s just that I was so busy –”

  “It’s Friday. What say we go out tonight, just the two of us?”

  “We can’t, Tom. Tonight’s the luau. At Nancy’s.”

  Tom’s face sagged with disappointment. “Oh. That’s right. Tomorrow, then?”

  “Well, we kind of all planned to meet up at Caddy’s tomorrow night. To celebrate Goober’s return...and Caddy’s last night in business. I’d postpone it, but as you know, Caddy’s won’t be there on Monday.”

  Tom blew out a breath. “Well, Ms. Popularity, let me know when your social calendar frees up.”

  “You’re not mad are you?”

  Tom smiled. “No. Not as long as I’m invited, too.”

  “You’re always welcome, wherever I am.”

  Tom winked. “Good to know.”

  “That includes when I go to visit my mother.”

  Tom laughed. “Darn. I should have known there was a catch in there somewhere.”

  WITH TOM AWAY AT WORK, it was time to put Operation Cigar Takedown into action. That’s the name Winky, Goober and I had come up with for the stakeout we’d planned for today.

  Our mission was to find out if that pig-faced Timothy Amsel had something to do with Greg and Norma’s disappearance. We only had today to do it, and the plan was sketchy, at best.

  I peeked through the front blinds in the living room to make sure no one was looking. Then I realized it didn’t matter if someone was or not. They wouldn’t know what I was up to.

  Stakeouts always made me paranoid.

  I grabbed my cellphone and punched speed dial.

  “The coast is clear,” I said to Goober.

  “Ready when you are,” he replied. “I’ve got the cigars if you’ve got the wheels.”

  “I’m on my way.”

  I gave Snogs one last hug, put him in his cage, and stepped out the door. The coast might have been clear, but the sky wasn’t. It was shrouded in a thick carpet of light-grey clouds. It looked like one huge, soggy mattress in heaven had lost all its stuffing.

  I crept down the driveway and opened the driver’s door on Maggie.

  “Where you going?” Laverne asked.

  My spine straightened like a shot. I turned around to find Laverne on her knees in her front yard. She was kneeling in front of a wash-pan full of apples, placing Randolph’s aviator goggles on top of the heap.

  “That’s rather unusual fall décor,” I said.

  “It’s for Randolph.”

  Laverne’s normally pert strawberry-blonde curls hung limp in the thick air. She brushed a lock from her liver-spotted forehead.

  “I’m hoping to lure him back home,” she said. “He loves apples, you know. Every time I see him with one in his mouth, it reminds me of –”

  “A luau?” I said before I could stop myself.

  “A what?”

  “Uh...the luau tonight. You still going?”

  “Yes. Life goes on, Val.”

  For some more than others.

  “I hope Randolph’s okay,” I said lamely.

  “I know he is,” Laverne said. “I can just feel it right here, in my gut. Can’t you?”

  “Sure.” Maybe later. With a slice of pineapple....

  “Well, I better get going,” I said. “I’m off to see Goober.”

  “Oh! That’s right! Tell him ‘hello and welcome back’ from me. I’m so glad you found him, Val. Now we just need Randolph to come home, and the whole gang’ll be back together again.”

  “Right.” I shot Laverne the best smile I could muster, given the circumstances. Chances were fairly certain that we’d see Randolph again...when Jake pulled him out of the roasting pit in Nancy’s backyard tonight.

  “Okay, I gotta go.”

  “Oh! Wait a second!” Laverne scrambled off her knobby knees. “I saved my old newspapers for you. Well, for Snogs’ cage, I mean.”

  Laverne toddled over to her garage and came back toting a grocery sack full of newspapers. Her thoughtfulness sent my guilt-o-meter into overdrive.

  “Thanks, Laverne.” I took the sack of papers. “I hope Randolph comes home real soon.”

  “Me, too. But what matters most to me is that he finds his forever home.”

  And that it’s not in a barbeque pit.

  I really should be taken out and shot....

  “I knew he couldn’t stay with me forever,” Laverne said. “I just want him to be happy.”

  I smiled at Laverne, and nearly confessed to my role in Randolph’s demise. After all, if I hadn’t told Milly about Randolph being in Laverne’s backyard, then asked for a butchered pig for the luau, this whole miscommunication snafu never would have happened. But I couldn’t bring myself to tell poor Laverne I’d been the one who’d put a hit out on her pe
t pig.

  “Me, too.” I shot her another fake smile. “Thanks for the newspapers. Have a nice day.”

  I put the sack of papers in the backseat, plopped my butt onto the red vinyl, and hit the ignition. As I pulled out of the driveway, I hoped the roar of Maggie’s glass-pack muffler would overpower my guilty conscience by the time I made it to Pinellas Park.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  The yard in front of Winky’s doublewide trailer looked like the scene of a vehicular homicide. The Minnie Winnie’s guts were strung out all over the place, as if she’d been disemboweled by a serial killer wielding a socket wrench.

  Goober was leaning over the hood, a blunt object in his hand. He saw me and straightened to standing. He nodded to greet me, then pointed the pale lamp of a flashlight in my direction.

  A second later, Winky’s head popped out sideways from behind the hood.

  “Val Pal! You here already?”

  “Yes,” I said, and cut the engine. “How’s it going?”

  “Oh, it’s goin’,” Winky said. He looked at Maggie and his lips twitched. “Gee, as much as I love me a stakeout, I can’t go. I got to help Tiny finish up here.”

  “You go on, Winky,” Tiny’s voice sounded. He stuck his huge head out from behind the hood and grinned at me. “Give me another hour or three, and I think I got this thang up and runnin’.”

  “You sure?” Winky asked.

  “Yep, go on now.”

  Winky let out a hillbilly yell. “Woo hoo! It’s stakeout time!”

  Goober rolled his eyes at me, sighed, and said, “Ya hoo.”

  “WHERE WE HEADED?” GOOBER asked from Maggie’s passenger seat. He’d opened Winky’s box of Honduran cigars and was fiddling with one, wagging his once-bushy eyebrows at me like a plucked Groucho Marx.

  “Put that back!” I’d tried to sound stern, but was betrayed by my own giggling.

  “I thought we’d head to Amsel’s office first,” I said. “It’s Friday morning, so most likely he’s there. If not, we’ll try Langsbury’s place.”

  “Sounds logical,” Goober said. Just then, a sheet of newspaper whirled up in the air from the backseat and wrapped around his bald noggin.

  “Winky, hold down that sack,” I scolded. “That’s your job until we get there, okay?”

  “I’m on it, chief.”

  Winky took my words literally. He tucked the bag of old newspapers under his bum and sat down on top of it.

  Goober pulled the errant sheet of newspaper from his face and began to read it.

  “Looks like they’re having a sale at Mega Shoe Universe Emporium,” he said. “Don’t miss the new Birkenstocks with ultra-grip tread.”

  “Ultra-grip tread?” I said. “What? Are they afraid you’re going to fall of the face of the Earth?”

  “Oh, come on, Val,” Goober whined like a spoiled child. “Can we go? Pretty please? I’ve always wanted to see ultra-grip tread in person.”

  “Ha ha.”

  “Yeah! Can we go?” Winky chimed in from the backseat.

  “It’s on the way,” Goober said with a raised eyebrow and an evil grin.

  “Come on, Val! Pleeeaaasse!” Winky pleaded.

  “You two are a pair of lunatics!” I said, shaking my head. But again, my laughter betrayed my attempt to be serious. When we stopped at a traffic light, I snatched the paper from Goober’s hands.

  “Lemme see that.”

  “Testy,” Goober said.

  I rolled my eyes and looked down at the ad. It showed the picture of a sales clerk standing at a cash register, proudly holding a shoe in each hand. One hand displayed the side view of a shoe so ugly it had to be comfortable. The other hand held the shoe bottom forward to highlight its new ultra-grip sole. The odd pattern of zig-zags and circles looked eerily familiar.

  “This pattern...it looks like the pictures Tom showed me of the footprints they found on the beach at Caddy’s. You know, right after Greg disappeared.”

  I scanned the article. Someone honked behind me. I looked up at the greenlight and hit the gas.

  “How long have they been around?” I asked.

  “Footprints?” Goober asked. “They’re the first clues ever used to investigate a crime. In fact, did you know that the word ‘investigate’ comes from the Latin word for footprint?”

  “No,” I said.

  “It’s true. Footwear impressions are the oldest forensic evidence known to science.”

  “No,” I repeated. “I meant those kind of shoe treads. How long have they been around? Maybe they haven’t sold that many yet. Maybe we could use them somehow to narrow down the possible suspects.”

  “Oh,” Goober said. “There’s that, too.”

  “Yep! There it is!” Winky hollered from the backseat. “Take a right here!”

  I looked over and saw the sign for the shoe store. I hooked a wicked right that sent Winky skidding across the backseat.

  “Sorry,” I said as I pulled into the lot.

  “What fur?” Winky asked, pulling himself together. “That sack a papers give me a good slide. Can we do it again?”

  “Maybe later,” I said, suddenly wondering how my life had come to this. “Come on, you two.”

  Let the festivities begin.

  “YEAH, I SOLD A COUPLE of pairs,” the young clerk from the newspaper clipping said as I held up the hideous purple sandals with the new ultra-grip tread.

  “Any size ten women’s?” I asked.

  “Nope,” the clerk said. “I’m sold out. Besides, I think you take a seven.”

  “No,” I said. “I meant, have you sold any size tens to other customers?”

  “Inquiring minds want to know,” Goober said, and waggled his eyebrows. The makeup I’d applied in the parking lot to hide the purple surgery marks on his bald head didn’t do a very good job. But, alas, I didn’t have a ski cap in the trunk.

  “Out-quiring minds want to know, too,” Winky joked.

  I scrunched my face at them. “Can it, guys.”

  “Who are you people, anyway?” the clerk asked.

  “The Mod Squad, okay?”

  My answer went over his way-too-young head.

  “Look,” he said. “When it comes to customer confidentiality, especially women with feet that big –”

  “We’re private investigators,” I said. “We’re on the trail of a potential double homicide. Are you going to cooperate or what?”

  I flashed him the tin badge Winky had given me for being a Donut Shack VIP. It was amazing how often that stupid thing came in handy.

  “You don’t look like officers,” the clerk balked.

  “Of course we don’t!” I said. “We’re undercover.”

  The clerk looked at Winky. “That’s the best disguise I’ve ever seen.”

  Winky beamed. “Thanky. I made it myself.”

  “Okay,” the clerk said. “I sold both pairs of size tens on Monday, the first day they came out. A woman bought one of them. The other I sold to somebody I thought was a man, but turned out to be a woman.”

  “That’s weird,” I said. “How did you know she was a woman?”

  “Well, when I saw her name on the credit card, I almost called the cops. But then she showed me her ID, and man, that dude was a lady.”

  “You remember her name?”

  “Yeah. It was hard to forget. Norma something or other. You know. Like that movie star.”

  “Norma Jeen?”

  “Yeah. That’s it.”

  My heart sunk. “Crap.”

  “Looks like Norma’s our culprit,” Goober said.

  “Yeah.” I sighed and turned to the clerk. “So, what did the other woman look like?”

  “I dunno,” he shrugged. “Like you, I guess.”

  “Like me?”

  “Yeah. You know, all you middle-aged women look alike to me.”

  “Thanks,” I said through clenched jaws. I handed him my card. “If you remember anything else, call me.”

  Chapter Thirt
y-Six

  I found a parking spot on First Avenue South and shifted Maggie into it. I set the gear to park and said, “Okay. Time-out is over.”

  Winky and Goober unfolded their hands from their laps and opened their mouths for the first time since leaving the blasted shoe emporium and its twerp of a clerk.

  “Feeling better?” Goober asked.

  “Don’t push it,” I said. “Where’s the cigars?”

  “I’ve got ‘em right here.” Goober reached under his seat and pulled out the box.

  “Okay,” I said. “This is how it’s gonna go down. They already know me, so Goober, you’re gonna go up there and pretend to be the City of St. Pete Cigar Club president or some such hooey. Give Amsel the cigars and invite him to Caddy’s tomorrow night for a final blow-out party. Then, if you can, try to get a look at Darlene Dimson and ascertain her foot size. Got it?”

  “Yes, chief,” Goober saluted. “What was the name of their offices again?”

  “Gallworth & Haney.”

  “Got it. Gallworth & Hooey.”

  I shut my eyes and took a deep breath. When I opened them again, Goober was ambling down the sidewalk wearing jeans, a t-shirt, my floppy pink sun hat, and a blue blazer of Tom’s that I’d scrounged from Maggie’s trunk. Suddenly, I noticed the peanut-headed ding-dong was still wearing his red Converse tennis shoes. The problem was, they matched his ridiculous outfit perfectly.

  I slapped myself on the forehead.

  “This is your best idea yet,” Winky said, causing what was left of my confidence to drain out of me like water from a cracked flowerpot.

  I lay my head on Maggie’s steering wheel and resigned myself to my fate.

  “I DON’T THINK DIMSON did it,” Goober said as he climbed into the passenger seat ten minutes later.

  “Why not?” I asked. I glanced around and was relieved to see he wasn’t being chased by security guards.

  “That shoe clerk guy said she looked like you. But sorry, Val. Darlene Dimson is one lady who’s hard to forget.”

  “Right,” I said. “Who could forget that stupid bun of hers? So, how big would you figure her feet were?”