Three Dumb: Wheelin' & Dealin' (A Val & Pals Humorous Mystery Book 3) Read online

  Three Dumb: Wheelin’ & Dealin’

  by Margaret Lashley

  “They say three’s the charm. But charming isn’t my style.”

  Val Fremden

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  When you’re done reading, don’t forget to check the last page for a sneak peek at the next book in the Val & Pals series: What Four: Family Fruitcake Frenzy:

  Making “home” for the holidays a four-letter word!

  Copyright © 2017 Margaret Lashley

  MargaretLashley.com

  Cover Design by Melinda de Ross

  Formatting by Polgarus Studio

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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  For more information, write to: Zazzy Ideas, Inc. P.O. Box 1113, St. Petersburg, FL 33731

  This book is a work of fiction. While actual places throughout Florida have been used in this book, any resemblance to persons living or dead are purely coincidental. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and in some cases, the names of places have been altered.

  ISBN: 978-0-9985809-5-1

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Excerpt: What Four: Family Fruitcake Frenzy

  Chapter One

  “How could you do it, Tom?”

  I stared into the sea-green eyes of Lieutenant Thomas Foreman, my cop boyfriend. He was in the kitchen drying dishes, as happy as a clam on Prozac. He’d just pulled off a surprise 49th birthday party for me right under my nose, and was swaggering in self-pride about it.

  The festivities had ended just a moment ago, when Laverne, my next-door neighbor and former Vegas showgirl, finally took the hint and wobbled back over to her place on those stork legs of hers. It hadn’t been easy to convince her it was time to go. I’d changed into my pajamas, tidied the couch cushions around her, took the wineglass from her hand, and, when all that failed, resorted to yawning in her face. Laverne never was one for subtlety.

  Tom raised a blond eyebrow on his smug, unforgivably handsome face. “Val, with you on my case, keeping the party under wraps was no piece of cake.”

  He winked and grabbed a glass from the kitchen drain board. His lip curled into a satisfied smile as he wiped the glass dry with a dishcloth, oblivious to my growing rage. I crossed my arms and planted my feet. My mind was made up. I had a right to be pissed, and no one was going to take that away from me.

  “I would hope not, Tom,” I hissed, “as it probably involved forgery on your part.”

  Tom blanched and looked up, surprised at my anger. “Wait a second. You’re not talking about the party?”

  “No! I’m talking about selling my mother’s RV – without even asking me!”

  “Oh…that.”

  Tom grinned at his own cleverness. He obviously didn’t realize how close he was to being strangled to death with that damned dishtowel.

  “Well, that was the tricky part, Val. And you almost caught me. I had to rifle through your silly shoebox filing system to find the title to it. It was still registered in Glad’s name, but I signed it over. Seeing as she’s dead, I didn’t think she’d mind.”

  “Arrgh! Tom, I didn’t mean, ‘How did you do it logistically.’ I meant, ‘How could you do it at all?’ The Minnie Winnie was mine. My mother’s. It was….”

  Tom dropped the cloth on the counter and folded his arms over his chest, mirroring mine.

  “It was a piece of junk, Val. I traded it for the tiki hut. I don’t know why you’re so angry. If you ask me, you got the better half of the deal.”

  I raised my hands in frustration. “You still don’t get it. It was all I had left of Glad – besides the piggybank with her ashes. And Tom, the piggybank was inside the RV.”

  Tom’s face drooped. His arms fell limp to his sides. “Oh. I…I didn’t know.”

  “Well, now you do. Why couldn’t you have just asked me first?”

  Tom bit his lower lip and scrunched his nose. “I don’t know. It sounds lame now, Val. But it would have spoiled the surprise.”

  “And avoided this one.”

  Hot, angry tears rimmed my eyes. Tom winced sympathetically and put his arms around me.

  “I’m sorry, Val. But how in the world did Glad’s piggybank end up in the RV anyhow?”

  I thought back to the drunken night a week and a half ago, when my imagination and half a bottle of gin had convinced me that Tom and my best friend Milly were having an affair. I’d spent a lost night in the old RV, commiserating with my mother’s spirit as she’d stared back at me, wise and all-knowing, through a plastic, holographic monocle….

  My face flushed. I jerked away from Tom’s arms.

  “Look. I don’t have to explain myself to you, Tom. What I need now is to know where I can find the RV and get Glad back.”

  Tom took a step backward and showed me his open palms. “Okay! Take it easy! A buddy at work gave me the name of a junk dealer out in Pinellas Park. I’ve got his card around here somewhere.”

  Tom’s eyes scanned the kitchen counter for the card, then his face registered a thought. He reached toward his right butt cheek and pulled his wallet out of the back pocket of his jeans.

  “Tom, I know you meant well. I don’t mean to sound ungrateful. I mean, what you did with the backyard…the makeover…it’s beautiful. But I’m so mad at you right now I have half a mind to charge you with grand theft.”

  Tom’s tan, cl
ean-shaven face lost the remainder of its usually good-natured, boyish charm.

  “So that’s the thanks I get. Nice one, Val. You know, I put up with a lot from you, but tonight takes the cake. I tell you ‘I love you,’ and you return the favor by telling me you’re going to have me arrested. Not an even swap.”

  A pang of remorse hurtled toward my heart. I knocked it away with a baseball bat.

  “Well, neither was you’re swapping my mother’s RV for a blasted tiki hut!”

  Tom pulled a business card from his wallet and tossed it on the kitchen counter. “I guess it’s true what they say. No good deed goes unpunished.”

  Tom glared at me and pursed his lips. He shook his head and marched out the front door, slamming it behind him. I waited until I heard the engine start and his SUV drive away before I picked up the card. Maybe I should have felt guilty. After all, Tom truly had meant well. But not a single speck of slithering guilt dared crawl near enough to be scalded by my boiling anger. Not this time. I was tired of always paying the tab for others good-intentioned misdeeds.

  Why did everything nice have to come with a shit-smeared string attached?

  I looked down at the business card. It read, “Lefty’s Hauling: We make your troubles disappear!” The bitter irony forced a puff of jaded air through my pinched lips. It was 11 p.m. on a Saturday night. I took a chance and called the number. No one answered. The card stated the business was closed on Sundays. It seemed I was going to have to wait – something I was definitely no good at.

  Chapter Two

  I idled away Sunday morning swinging in my new hammock, going back and forth as to whether I should call Tom and apologize or call Tom and rip him a new one. I should have been ecstatic. Tom had just told me he loved me for the very first time. I’d been contemplating whether to say it back to him when I’d been blindsided by the news he’d gone and traded away my mother for a thatched-roof shack. How could the man have been so insensitive?

  I scowled and looked across the freshly landscaped backyard. It was so gorgeous I nearly forgave Tom again. The comfy, macramé hammock I was swaying in was tied between two palm trees and offered a beautiful view of the sparkling Intracoastal Waterway. A set of six floral-cushioned lawn chairs formed a ring around a circular fire pit made of terracotta-hued pavers. Even the traitorous tiki hut was charming, with its shaggy, conical roof of woven palm fronds. It was all so beautiful – and in need of a lifetime of constant maintenance.

  By 9 a.m., the newly installed plants had already begun to wither in the tropical heat of the sixth day of May. I got out my old garden hose and spent the second half of the morning watering the freshly planted lantana bushes, canna lilies, pygmy date palms and St. Augustine grass. To save work, I took a quick trip to the little Ace Hardware store on Boca Ciega and bought a sprinkler to irrigate the neat swath of newly lain lawn.

  When I got back home, an itchy irritability crawled across my brain. Sweat dripped off my chin as I stood in the glaring sun and fiddled with the new sprinkler. I adjusted the angle to 45 degrees and turned on the tap. Before I could say, “Oh shit!” the hose swelled up like a pregnant snake and blew the sprinkler off the end like a bottle rocket. It slammed into my shin, prompting me to scream all the remaining curse words in my repertoire and dance the one-legged hip-hop. While I was performing my one-woman show, the garden hose, like a heckler in the audience, curled itself upward and, with deadly accuracy, shot a stream of cold water into my obscenity-hurling face. Given the horrid heat, it should have cooled me off. But the cold blast only managed to refresh was my seething anger at Tom.

  This damn landscaping is the gift that keeps on giving. Giving me more chores and responsibilities and ways to sweat my freaking ass off! Thanks a lot, Tom!

  Soaked to the skin, I gave up and lay back down in the hammock. I was drying my clothes and cooling my temper when that freaking jerk Guilty Conscience showed up and tried to convince me that maybe I had been the insensitive one.

  Had I been wrong to grouse about Tom’s beautiful and probably damn-expensive birthday gift? I gave my unwanted visitor an angry glare and a couple of Tanqueray and tonics. The second TNT, along with a Southern dollop of self-righteousness, had just begun to loosen guilt’s whiny stranglehold on me when I heard a familiar voice call my name.

  “Val?”

  So much for enjoying the tranquility of my new backyard.

  Oh geeze! Maybe I really was being an ungrateful sourpuss….

  I took a tentative peek out of the hammock at the nosey, long-legged, horse-faced old woman in a gold bikini.

  “Hi, Laverne.”

  Those two little words transformed Laverne’s hesitant stare into a big grin. She waved at me with ridiculous, child-like enthusiasm.

  “Hiya, sugar! Wasn’t sure if that was you or a hobo. That was a nice party last night. Were you surprised?”

  I sat up in the hammock and smiled despite my lousy mood. Laverne had been cutting roses in her backyard. She had a handful of blooms in one hand, a clipper in the other. Her strawberry blonde curls peeked out from under a floppy white hat tied with a gold ribbon. Her boobs hung halfway to her navel, supported by two small, triangular patches of gold fabric attached to a pair of dangerously thin strings that didn’t look up to the task.

  This is the side of Florida no one warns you about.

  I snickered to myself. “Yes, I actually was surprised.”

  Laverne shot me a sly grin. “So…looks like Tom wasn’t boinkin’ Milly after all.”

  I studied Laverne’s face with new intensity. “No. You were right. But you knew all along, didn’t you?”

  Laverne winked and showed me her perfect, pearly dentures. “Like I’ve said before, growing up in Vegas, I learned how to keep a secret. Have you had any lunch yet, sugar?”

  I held up my empty glass. “Does Tanqueray count?”

  “Only in Vegas. How about joining me for a Skinny Dip?”

  The thought made me lose my appetite. “Uh…no thanks.”

  “Come on. I’ve got chicken cacciatore and veggie lasagna. Only 300 calories each. I hate to eat alone.”

  “Oh. Um…okay.”

  “Good girl! I’ll break out the microwave!”

  I crawled out of the hammock, walked past the fire pit and straddled the low picket fence separating Laverne’s and my backyards. With a liver-spotted hand spiked with long, red gel nails, Laverne ushered me into her home-sweet-home-away-from-Vegas. I looked up at the red acrylic clock made of dice mounted on the wall above her white Formica kitchen cabinets. It was already half-past the white cube with a one on it.

  “I didn’t realize it was so late,” I said.

  “I got used to eating lunch late, in-between show times,” Laverne replied. “Funny, it’s been thirty years since I last kicked a leg up on stage. Seems like not more than three or four decades ago.”

  In the short time I’d known her, I’d learned better than to try to improve Laverne’s math skills. I shrugged in agreement, took a seat on a barstool and watched as she fished around in the freezer and pulled out two small, rectangular cartons.

  “Yeah. Time flies, Laverne.”

  “It sure does. Pick your poison.”

  Laverne held up two blue-and-white boxes labeled Skinny Dip Cuisine. One had a picture of chicken cacciatore, complete with mint sprig. The image of a gooey, delicious-looking hunk of lasagna was displayed on the other.

  “I’ll have the lasagna, thanks.”

  “One lasagna, coming up!”

  Laverne popped the whole, unopened carton into the microwave and set the timer for five minutes. I kept my mouth shut as the oven hummed. The off-centered box circled around lopsided, catching corners and shifting around haphazardly like a drunken sailor on a merry-go-round.

  “Speaking of time, sugar, what are you going to do with yourself now that you’re all settled into your house?”

  “I don’t know. Water my new lawn, I guess.”

  “Gosh, it sure is pretty. Te
a?”

  “Sure. Thanks.”

  I looked over and grimaced. Unwittingly, I’d chosen a front-row seat to the shriveled-butt-cheeks show, starring Laverne Cowens. She bent over in front of me and pulled a pitcher out of the fridge. They really should put an age limit on thong bikinis.

  The microwave dinged. Laverne sprang into action like a trained chimp. She flung open a drawer and grabbed a lime-green oven mitt with a clown’s face on it, probably lifted from Circus-Circus. She shoved it onto her right hand, then reached into the microwave and yanked the swollen, slightly charred carton of lasagna out onto the counter. A second later, she placed the luckless box of chicken cacciatore in the oven, clicked the door shut and pushed the button, setting off the next carousel ride of the doomed.

  “You should take a class down at the college, like I do.”

  Laverne yanked off the oven mitt and poured tea into two tall, thin glasses. Each had the words “El Cortez Casino” etched in red above a fan of colorful playing cards.

  “Really? What classes have you taken?”

  She handed me a glass of tea. I took a sip.

  Laverne straightened her shoulders proudly. “Well, I don’t mean to brag, but I just finished a cooking course on international cuisine.”

  Brown liquid invaded my lungs, making it impossible to breathe. I tried to cough up the tea with my mouth closed. My effort resulted in a deep, rattling howl reminiscent of an asthmatic dog trapped in a well.

  “Oh my goodness, honey! Are you all right?”

  “Yes, just…drank…wrong.”

  The bell on the microwave tolled, announcing the death of another Skinny Dip. Laverne turned her attention to the seared carton. She pulled it from the microwave, stabbed through one end of it with a knife and cussed like a sailor when steam shot out and turned her index finger as pink as bubblegum. I smirked, despite my close brush with a Lipton-inspired death. Laverne sucked her index finger as she sawed open one end of each carton with a knife, then dumped the two cardboard meal trays onto the counter.