Five days had passed since the cops hauled the crappy couch away to wherever they stored that kind of evidence. They’d told me I’d get the sofa back after the case was solved. I figured that was an excellent reason not to get involved in finding the finger’s owner. But then that threatening interview with Officer Jergen had changed my mind. I could end up in hot water over that stupid thing.
I hadn’t talked with Tom about the hobo napping on the couch yet, so all I had to go on was the souvenir photo on my phone. Tom had taken a snapshot of the disgusting digit right before he’d dunked it into the pickle jar he’d taken from my fridge. Someone at the party ate all my kosher dills and put the empty jar back. Given my guest list, it could have been anybody.
At any rate, a dismembered finger wasn’t the kind of thing you could show just anybody. Thankfully, none of my friends were the prissy type. I was sitting in the corner booth at Water Loo’s watching Goober, Winky and Jorge take turns ogling the gruesome picture on my cell phone screen.
“So, you guys have any ideas about whose finger it could be?”
Goober glanced at the picture again.
“The initials on the ring are W and H. Hmmm. Let me think. Oh! I know! It belongs to old Wanna Humper!”
Winky sucked in a chortle and snorted out a laugh.
“Another good’un, Goober! Mister Wanna Humper, let me introduce you to Anita Mann.”
Goober slapped Winky on the back and they both laughed until tears streamed down their cheeks. I guess rotten minds laugh alike. Jorge either didn’t get the joke or didn’t think it was funny. Being the first cop on the scene of the traffic accident that had killed his wife and kids had maimed the poor guy for life. I handed Jorge my phone. He laid it on the table in front of him, then curled his fingers into binoculars and studied the photo, section by section.
“The guy had money,” Jorge said into the table. His head was still down, his face a few inches from the picture.
“Sure. He had a gold ring,” I said.
Jorge looked up, his half-lit face showing a clarity I’d never seen before.
“He also had a manicure. Trimmed cuticles. Nails buffed to a polished shine.”
“You mean nail,” Winky said.
He snatched the phone away from Jorge.
“It’s only one lousy little finger, compar-do. Looks like his picker, too.”
“That’s gross, Winky!” I said.
“What’s so gross about playin’ guitar?” Winky asked. “Get yore mind outta the gutter, gal.”
***
I left Water Loo’s in a better mood, my faith in my skid row pals renewed. Jorge had given me the first clue for my case. I called Tom with the news.
“Tom, your buddy Jorge came up with something interesting. He said the finger belonged to a guy who took care of himself. It was manicured.”
“Uh huh. Good. Anything else?”
“He and Winky both agreed it was an index finger.”
“Okay. So we’re looking for a guy missing that finger. Right or left?”
Crap! “I don’t know. I didn’t think to ask. Hey, do you want to come by tonight? I want to talk to you about the hobo.”
“Which one? Winky or Goober?”
“Ha ha. The one that was sleeping on the couch. Who helped you load it into your truck.”
“I know. Look, Val. He was just your average derelict. About five-foot eight. Full head of brown hair. Probably mid-forties.”
“Any distinguishing characteristics?”
“Look at you, miss fancy detective.”
“I’m just doing my best to stay off the radar and out of jail. Can you think of anything?”
“Hmm. Well, he had a bunch of tattoos. But who doesn’t nowadays?”
“Remember any of them?”
“Yeah. He had a mermaid tail on his left arm. Her head was on his neck, getting ready to bite him like a vampire. His t-shirt covered up the rest.”
“Are you kidding?”
“Yes.”
“Come on, Tom! This is serious! Don’t you care about me clearing my name?”
“Sure I do. Just trying to lighten you up. Okay. Seriously. He had a scar across his right cheek. And a chipped upper front tooth. Left, I think.”
“What color were his eyes?”
“Not sure.”
“What color are my eyes?”
“Shit brown.”
I didn’t say a word. Tom had hurt my feelings. Again.
“Anyway, I can’t come over tonight, Val. Something’s come up.”
“Okay. Bye.”
I clicked off the phone, my heart a jumble of conflicting emotions. Why had Tom treated my situation so casually? Why had he insulted me? Why didn’t he want to come over? Was Tom breaking up with me? Is that why he didn’t buy me a birthday present?
Chapter Eleven
I spread my arms and legs like a starfish across my full-sized bed, lifted up a butt cheek and let one rip. I sank back down into mattress and sighed. It was nice not to have to entertain a one-man audience tonight. I was in a foul mood, and I wanted to enjoy it in peace.
Alone time was definitely underrated. Tom and I had both been married before. I’d found the whole situation grossly overrated. “Til death do us part,” sounded like a terminal sentence. I much preferred Tom’s and my arrangement; “Til space do us need.” Somehow it just…worked.
Sprawled out in my bed alone, I distracted my racing mind by staring at a crime investigation show on TV. I could always count on the narrator’s droning voice to put me to sleep….
I dreamt I was locked up in a facility for the criminally nude. Each of my fellow inmates roamed the hallways in some state of disrobe. Those on the road to recovery from wanton nakedness wore random bits of clothing. One had on a shoe. Another, a floppy hat.
I was seated in a long hallway. A big black guy wearing a single sock walked by. Next came a red-headed woman wearing a bra and panties. She looked at me and shook her head scornfully. An old man wearing a kilt danced a jig and sang a song, the words to which I couldn’t make out. I watched him intently as he passed.
When I turned back around, I discovered a short, thick man standing in the hallway, just two feet away from me. I could see his toenails. They looked like talons. The man’s face was obscured by an eagle mask. It was the only thing he wore besides a single glove…a glove with one missing finger. He tapped me sharply on the shoulder with his left index finger.
“You’re it!” he squealed.
He turned and ran down the hallway, his butt cheeks bouncing with each hard footfall. I tried to chase him, but I couldn’t. I was tied to the chair, completely naked. Apparently, I was incorrigible.
***
I woke suddenly.
“Dammit all to shit!”
I squinted at the clock. The blurry, glowing letters sharpened into 3:13 a.m. I’d forgotten to turn off the clock radio.
“Where the hell is it?”
My sleepy brain began to fire off a few neurons. Wait a minute. You can’t say that word over public airwaves. An ice-cold shot of liquid fear surged through me. I sat up in bed like a rocket.
“Where the hell is it?” demanded a man’s muffled voice from somewhere in the darkness.
I closed my eyes and shook my head. This had to be a dream.
“I said, where the hell is it?”
The voice was louder. Closer. The bottom corner of the mattress sank down. My blood turned to ice water. The clock cast a dim green glow on the shadowy silhouette of someone in dark clothes and a Halloween mask sitting on the bottom corner of my bed.
“I’m not here to hurt you, lady. I’m here to find…. What the…shit! Just tell me. Where’s the goddam finger?”
The finger! “I…I don’t have it. The…cops. They took it.”
My fumbled words sounded strange and far away.
“The cops! Goddam it all to hell!”
The intruder punched the bed with his fist. Like a spectator, I watched, fas
cinated, as my right leg reared back and kicked the man square in the mask with the butt of my heel. He tumbled off the bed in a noisy heap.
“Aaughh! Mother of macaroons! My eye!”
“Get out! Get out of here!”
Screaming used up my last drop of adrenaline-fueled bravado. I backed up against the headboard, yanked my legs into my chest, pulled the covers to my chin and waited in the silence for whatever might come next.
The man gathered himself off the floor with a grunt. He limped out of the dim room, a trail of obscenities following behind him. I sat, frozen in my seated fetal position, until I heard the front door open and shut again. I tried to reach for my phone, but my arm wouldn’t cooperate. By the numbers on the clock, it took eight minutes for my body to start working again. When it finally did, I reached numbly for my cellphone and punched #7. Speed-dial for Tom.
“Tom! Robber…couch…finger!”
“Val? Are you alright?”
“I…I….”
“Just calm down. I’m here. I’m listening. Are you okay?”
The sound of Tom’s voice loosened my tight lungs enough for me to get some air.
“Yes. I think so. Just…freaked…out.”
“What happened?”
“Someone broke in!”
“What!”
The full force of what had just happened hit me like a punch to the gut. My hands began to shake. My throat felt dry and stretched. I dropped the phone. My fingers were stiff and clumsy as uncooperative as I fumbled to pick it up again.
“Val? Val? Are you there?”
“Yes…”
“Is he still in the house?” Tom’s voice was restrained panic.
“No.”
I heard Tom let out a big breath.
“Okay. Good. Stay calm. Did he hurt you?”
“No.”
Another big sigh of relief from Tom.
“Did he steal your purse? Cash?”
“No. He wanted the finger.”
“What? You said he was after the finger?”
“Yeah. I told him the cops had it. He got mad and punched the bed. I…I kicked him and he left. Oh, Tom, please, can you come over?”
“I’m sorry, Val.” Tom’s voice shifted to professional detachment. “But this is getting into serious territory. As much as I hate to say it, you’re going to have to report this to Hans Jergen. He’s probably going to do a crime-scene investigation.”
“Can’t you come anyway? Just to be here with me?”
“I want to, believe me. But my presence wouldn’t help your case.”
“What do you mean? Why not?”
“I told you, just trust me on this, please.”
“Wait a minute! My case?”
***
“So let me get this straight, Ms. Fremden,” Officer Jergen said dryly.
He stood in my kitchen, his left ankle crossed over his right, and shook his condescending head scornfully at his police report.
“A man broke into your house last night and asked where your finger was.”
“Yes. Well…no.”
I was still in my bathrobe, my hair tangled, my face strained with shock.
“I don’t think it was my finger he wanted. I think he was after the other finger.”
Officer Jergen looked up from his report, his ice-water eyes pierced me with suspicion.
“Did he ask specifically about a severed finger?”
“Um…no, but what else could he have meant?”
I looked around my little house. Two cops were milling around. My beautiful, fresh paint job was being covered in black splotches of fingerprint dusting powder.
“Ms. Fremden, pay attention,” Officer Jergen scolded. “You say this man was about four feet tall, wore a George W. Bush mask, and spoke mainly in obscenities.”
“It could have been an Alfred E. Neumann mask…the Mad Magazine kid? It was dark.”
Officer Jergen scribbled on his report. “Noted. Then you kicked him in the face and he ran away.”
“Exactly.”
“Ms. Fremden, we have found no evidence of forced entry. No evidence of a struggle, either. In fact, no evidence at all to corroborate your story. Right now, it’s just hearsay…your testimony against a theoretical…trick-or-treater. Tell me, do you take prescription medication of any kind?”
My bleary eyes showed their bloodshot whites. “What? No!”
“Do you take any other types of drugs, legal or illegal?”
“No!”
“An almost empty pint of Tanqueray gin was found in your freezer. Were you drinking last night?”
“Well, I had a nightcap. A Tanqueray and tonic. But that doesn’t mean I –”
“Ms. Fremden, given the gravity of human dismemberment cases, defendants have been known to concoct cover stories to point law enforcement down blind alleyways.”
“But I didn’t –”
Officer Jergen cut me off again. His icy eyes shone hot with disgust and contempt.
“I have to say, a cussing, finger-thieving, dwarf president of the United States is one of the more imaginative stories I’ve heard in a while.”
Jergen coughed out a cynical laugh and shook his head.
“Mother of macaroons? That’s a good one.”
I stared into his cold, humorless face. “But it’s the truth!”
“According to you, Ms. Fremden, But I don’t believe it. Who would? I was going to let this case go. But in light of these events, I’m more convinced than ever that you’re hiding something. If you’re going to lie, at least try to do it well. I suggest you tell your absurd story to someone who has a vested interest in believing it.”
“What do you mean?”
“Ms. Fremden, I suggest you hire an attorney.”
Chapter Twelve
Shit! Shit! And double shit! Just when I thought my life was getting back on track, I go and get the finger from the universe. And I need an attorney – again. Geeze!
The only lawyer I knew in Florida was J.D. Fellows, my dead parents’ estate attorney. When the last cop left my place at 9:30 a.m., I called Mr. Fellows’ office and made an appointment with his secretary for 10:15 the next morning. After I hung up, I got out a sponge and a bucket of water and went to work on the fingerprint dust encircling my walls like a dirty bathtub ring.
At least there was one thing I could always count. Ty D Bol. After an hour or so, I’d removed most of the fingerprint powder. But the fragile, shaky feeling that had enveloped me in the wee hours of the night still clung to my back like a cold, damp rag. For the first time since leaving Germany, I felt unsafe. Worst of all, I wasn’t sure which man was the most to blame for it – the masked intruder, hateful Officer Jergen, or my fair-weather boyfriend who didn’t come to my rescue.
There was only one sure-fire way to lift my mood when it was this low. I showered, pulled on a pair of jeans and a tank top, turned the ignition on Maggie and headed in the direction of Chocolateers.
***
It was Wednesday morning all over again. I was still savoring the sickly-sweet aftertaste of cherry cordial and dark chocolate when I spied a familiar silhouette heading toward me. This time, it was hard not to notice Goober. He sashayed down the sidewalk on Central Avenue with his freshly patched-up moon-lander stroller. Twist-tied to the front of it was a makeshift cardboard sign that read: Über-Dog Royal Pet Services.
Long, lanky Goober dressed for his new career in an oversized blue t-shirt, black cut-off shorts, purple tights and orange Converse high-top sneakers. On top of his shiny bald head, positioned at a rakish angle, was a Burger King crown with a bone-shaped doggie treat dangling from the front-most spike.
I didn’t even cringe. A worrisome thought crossed my mind. Maybe this is my new normal.
“How’s the new job going, Goober?”
The mustachioed king of the canines shrugged.
“Actually, as they say in the biz, Val, pretty doggone shitty. I think people may be more persnickety about the
ir pooches than they are about their own kids.”
“You could be right. Yesterday I saw a poodle in a stroller wearing a freaking rhinestone tiara. The owner gave her a sip of Evian from her own water bottle.”
Goober lifted his crown and wiped the sweat from his bald head. He eyed me suspiciously.
“Chocolateers again? Okay, now I’m worried. You alright, Val?”
I hung my head a little and smiled wistfully.
“I’ve been better.”
“What’s up?”
“I’ve got a mean cop on my ass.”
Goober’s eyebrows shot up an inch. He leered at me and started to say something, but I cut him off.
“And I don’t mean Tom.”
Goober’s eyebrows returned to normal. He held out his hand for me to shake.
“Oh. Well in that case, let me officially welcome you to the club.”
***
Before I left, I gave Goober the lowdown on Tom’s description of the alley hobo. No one had risen immediately to the top of his beer-soaked mind, but he’d said he’d keep an eye out for a guy with a scarred cheek and a chipped tooth. I also gave Goober my phone number and ten dollars to top off his pay-as-you-go cell phone so we could keep in touch. It was the first time I’d given one of the three derelicts my phone number. I hoped I wouldn’t live to regret it.
I passed a garage sale sign on my way home. It triggered another one of Valliant Stranger’s weaknesses. Maggie squealed as I hooked a hard right and followed the yellow, hand-drawn signs to a tiny little purple cottage with a detached garage almost as big as the house itself. The garage door was open and lined with tables and bookshelves heaped with junk. A chubby redheaded woman sat in a lawn chair in the driveway. She had a money belt around her waist, a clear-green plastic visor on her head, and a bag of Cheetos in her hand.
I felt like Gretel being lured into her gingerbread garage. Still, I couldn’t fight my natural instinct to thrift shop.
“Howdy. Lookin’ for anything in particular?” the lady asked as I walked up the drive.
“Not really. Nice setup you’ve got here.”
“Thanks. Keeps me outta trouble and in Cheetos. Want some?”
Val & Pals Boxed Set: Volumes 1,2 & the Prequel (Val & Pals Humorous Mystery Series) Page 55
