Cloud Nine- When Pigs Fly Read online

  Cloud Nine

  When Pigs Fly

  Book Nine in the Val Fremden Mystery Series

  Margaret Lashley

  Copyright 2018 Margaret Lashley

  MargaretLashley.com

  Cover Design by Melinda de Ross

  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.

  The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  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.

  Praise for Cloud Nine & the Val Fremden Series

  “When I read the first book in this series I loved it. I never expected the rest of the series was going to introduce me to the wackiest, weirdest, most wonderful cast of characters I've ever come across.”

  “A hilarious take on life, love and.....pigs. A story line fit to tickle your funny bone.”

  “This series is a breath of fresh air. Hilarious, exceedingly well crafted, with amazingly quirky, lovable characters.”

  “I’ve loved each book in this wild ride! I hate to see it end.”

  “Hooked like a fish. OMG Margaret Lashley is the best! Val could be Stephanie Plum's double!! Phenomenal writing.”

  "Margaret Lashley is my favorite cozy book writer. She always gives the reader their money's worth."

  "Plan your day around just enjoying every minute. Her characters are so vivid."

  "I find the characters all extremely unique and entertaining. The author is very humorous and has a great imagination for storyline."

  "If you want to kick back and laugh and maybe come away with a simple life lesson I highly recommend you take the journey with Val and her Pals."

  More Hilarious Val Fremden Mysteries

  by Margaret Lashley

  Absolute Zero

  Glad One

  Two Crazy

  Three Dumb

  What Four

  Five Oh

  Six Tricks

  Seven Daze

  Figure Eight

  Cloud Nine

  “WHY IS IT WHENEVER Lady Luck chooses to shine on me, she uses a blowtorch?” Val Fremden

  Contents

  Cloud Nine

  Copyright 2018 Margaret Lashley

  More Praise for Cloud Nine & the Val Fremden Series

  More Hilarious Val Fremden Mysteries

  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 Fiveteen

  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

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  What’s Next for Val?

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  The scrap of paper in my hand was sticky to the touch. No bigger than the kind of note tucked inside a fortune cookie, it could’ve meant nothing at all. Yet, as I studied it, I couldn’t help but think that the fate of a good friend might depend on the single, enigmatic word written upon it.

  PObbLE

  What in the world could that mean?

  An exasperated breath forced its way from my lungs. I read the word again.

  PObbLE

  This has to be a clue. Otherwise, I have pretty much nothing to go on.

  Nearly three weeks had passed since Goober’d rescued me from a mob of enraged campers during a writer’s retreat that had gone horribly wrong.

  No one had heard from him since.

  I’d been the last one to see him alive. According to the law, that may’ve made me a suspect. But, like it or not, I answered to an even higher authority – the Southern Guilt Guidebook. According to it, I was definitely responsible.

  Somehow. Someway....

  I tapped a finger on my desk in the hope that knocking on fake wood laminate would change my luck, or loosen some forgotten detail lodged in the recesses of my addled brain.

  I’ve got to be missing something.

  Eighteen days ago, I’d waved goodbye to my tall, lanky friend in the parking lot of the Polk County Police Station in Lake Wales, Florida, about eighty miles east of St. Pete Beach. As a parting gesture, Goober’d waved back, and, in his uniquely goofy way, waggled his bushy eyebrows at me like a billiard ball infested with brown caterpillars.

  Geeze. It seems like three years have gone by since then.

  As in days past, I wracked my brain again, trying to recall anything suspicious about our last moments together. But try as I might, as far as I could tell, Goober’d given no indication anything weird had been going on. But then again, he’d always been such an odd duck. There was no way for me to be absolutely sure....

  The last thing Goober’d said to me before he’d taken off had actually been a question. He’d asked me if I’d known my way home. He’d offered to let me follow him. In hindsight, I wished I’d taken him up on the offer.

  But I didn’t. Mainly because my access out of the parking lot had been blocked by an old hillbilly woman on a “shopper chopper.”

  Those were the words Charlene had used to describe the strange, customized bike she’d ridden around on. It was a tricycle, actually. Soldered onto the frame where the front wheel used to be was a full-sized grocery-shopping cart. During my stay at that RV park in Lake Wales, I’d seen Charlene use the handy front basket for toting everything from groceries to grannies.

  I could still recall the earnestness on Charlene’s face when she’d pulled that shopper chopper up behind my car and blocked me from backing up. The toilet-tube curlers pinned in her hair had jiggled around her jawline as she’d proffered her heartfelt apology for chasing me around the RV park with a pitchfork.

  In her defense, she had thought I’d killed her sister’s 94-year-old boyfriend, Woggles with
a Tupperware container full of Laverne’s snickerdoodles. It was a fair assumption, given Laverne’s history with baked goods.

  At any rate, Charlene’s apology had delayed my leaving, and had put me about ten minutes behind Goober. In theory, I should’ve caught up with him before he reached the on-ramp for I-4. But I never saw him again. He’d simply vanished somewhere along State Road 60.

  The thing was, he should’ve been easy to spot.

  Goober’d been behind the wheel of a 1966 Minnie Winnie. The old RV used to belong to Glad, my biological mom. It was a hard target to miss. Still, compared to today’s huge RVs, the thing wasn’t much bigger than a tin can. I guess that made the fact that Goober’d left his strange clue inside another tin can kind of fitting.

  I looked at it again.

  PObbLE

  I set the slip of paper on my desk and leaned back in my chair. My eyes shifted up toward the dreamcatcher hanging in the window of my home office. It’d been a parting gift from Goober.

  Looking at the hideous thing now, I wondered if maybe it’d been more of a parting shot.

  The crude, makeshift contraption was nothing more than a cheap, wire clothes hanger that’d been hand-bent into a warped circle. A pair of hot-pink thong panties stretched across the width of the circle like a frilly Mercedes logo. If that weren’t low-rent enough, the folk artist/deviant who’d concocted it had used fishing line to tie three aluminum cans to the bottom half. Two Pabst Blue Ribbon cans and a Skoal tobacco tin dangled from the dreamcatcher like garbage snagged in a spider’s web.

  Definitely not the classiest gift I’ve ever gotten.

  If the dreamcatcher had come from anyone else, I’d have thrown it in the trash. But it was from Goober. And now, it was all I had left of him.

  Five days ago, when I’d first attempted to hang it in my office window, it had fallen out of my hands and crashed onto the terrazzo floor. The impact had dented the beer cans, and caused the Skoal tin to burst open. That’s how I’d found the puzzling message within. It’d been duct-taped to the inside of the tobacco lid.

  I took one last look at the sticky scrap of paper.

  PObbLE

  I sighed and placed it back inside my desk drawer.

  Goober had called the hideous window decoration a “redneck dreamcatcher.”

  Now, all I had to do was catch a redneck with it.

  Chapter Two

  My world had changed significantly since I’d found that cryptic note inside the Skoal tin.

  For one, Tom, my boyfriend, had instigated a “healthy eating plan” that seemed to be based mainly on broccoli and its nasty cruciferous cousins. As a result, I’d been forced to stuff my face with tortilla chips and ice cream while he was away at work. As a result of that, I’d gained three pounds. As a result of that, I’d pummeled two figurines to smithereens with my “Hammer of Justice.”

  The other major change going on was more furry than frustrating. My life as I’d known it had been taken over by one small, fuzzy, four-legged canine named Sir Albert Snoggles, III.

  Tom had named the little Pomeranian mix after a favorite dog from his childhood. I hadn’t been too keen on the moniker myself. Not only was the name gross, it was actually longer than the poor little dog it was meant for!

  Still, I’d had no choice in the matter. I’d lost a wager with Tom that had cost me a great deal – though, in hindsight, most of that was just hard-headed pride.

  Tom had bet me I couldn’t go a month without using my Hammer of Justice to pulverize tacky figurines. If I’d managed to control my addiction, Tom had pledged to get rid of his horrid, plaid Barcalounger. And when I said horrid, I meant horrid with a capital “H.” Never in the history of upholstery had a chair so ugly been manufactured and allowed to live. The eyesore was so disgusting that it’d not only destroyed my living room décor – I’d have bet money that in another week it would have begun to cause my eyes to bleed.

  Well, long story short, as I said before, I’d lost the bet. But then I found out I’d been hoodwinked by Tom and our friends. It hadn’t been a fair wager. So to even the score, I’d taken out my hammer and exacted my own brand of justice on his Barcalounger.

  That hadn’t been a fair fight either. When I was done with it, that poor chair hadn’t had a leg left to stand on.

  So, as a consolation prize, I’d consented to allowing Tom to name the puppy Sir Albert Snoggles, III.

  Looking back on it now, it was a pretty fair trade.

  Unlike Tom’s hideous chair, the puppy’s name had begun to grow on me. In fact, the fluffy white ball with a grey patch on one foot and the tips of both ears had quickly become my constant companion. Snoggles seemed quite content to lay in the cozy dog bed by my desk as I pecked away at my keyboard for hours on end. To my surprise, I, in return, was quite content to have his company.

  “I THINK OLD LANGSBURY will like this one,” I said as I typed “The End” on my latest short story. I saved the file and snapped my laptop closed. “It’s time for a treat.”

  As I reached for a jellybean to reward myself, I realized someone else in the room had misinterpreted my meaning.

  Snoggles perked up, dashed from his bed, and yipped and danced beside my right shin, twirling around on his tiny back legs like a furry ballerina.

  “Uh-oh. I’ve gone and said the “T” word. I guess I’d better get you a treat, too, or you’ll think I never keep my promises.”

  Snoggles yipped again. I tousled his fuzzy head.

  “Come on, then. Off to the kitchen.”

  I padded over to the cabinets and opened the cupboard above the refrigerator. In the meantime, Snoggles bided his time impatiently by tearing up a sheet of newspaper on the floor and running around with it like a deranged squirrel.

  “Snoggs! You’re supposed to be pee-peeing on that – not tearing it to shreds!”

  At the mention of his name, the pup changed directions and headed right for me, dragging the newspaper with him like a hobo security blanket.

  I bent over and put Snoggles’ treat on the floor.

  “Here you go.”

  The pup dropped the soggy patch of newsprint in his mouth and dove for the little, bone-shaped treat.

  As he slurped it up, I grabbed the chewed section of The St. Petersburg Times he’d been dragging around. I was about to throw it in the trash when a photo caught my eye. It was the slightly damp image of a greasy-looking, ham-fisted man puffing on a cigar. He was shaking hands with the mayor.

  “Just what we need. Another stupid land developer,” I said to Snoggles.

  As I tossed the paper in the bin, the words Sunset Beach caught my eye. My gut flopped. I grabbed the crumpled scrap of newsprint out of the trash, spread it out on the kitchen counter and smoothed it with my hands.

  I read the article word for word.

  It was bad news all around.

  According to the article, the guy holding the cigar was one Timothy “Tim” Amsel from Chicago. He was working with the city, trying to gain permission for new construction on Sunset Beach. Next to his chummy photo with the mayor was a rendering of the project being proposed by his company, Progress, Inc.

  My eyes nearly fell out of my skull.

  It was another ugly, boxy, high-rise condo tower. Worse still, Progress, Inc. was proposing to build it right on the spot where Caddy’s now stood. If approved, the project, Randy Towers, would spell the end of my favorite beach bar, as well as the donut shack run by my good friends Winky and Winnie.

  I grabbed a pen and drew a Snidely Whiplash moustache on the pig-faced jerk from Chicago.

  To me, so-called “progress” could be a downright scoundrel.

  It might as well look like one, too.

  Chapter Three

  The whitewall tires of my 1963 Ford Falcon convertible made a peanut-brittle crunch as they rolled across the crushed-shell parking lot next to Caddy’s beach bar on Sunset Beach. It was mid-morning, late August, and already hot as blue blazes. But I, for one, found th
e heat comforting. Unlike hideous condo towers, the sauna-like weather belonged in Florida.

  I shifted Maggie into park, hauled my butt out of her red vinyl bucket seat, and looked past half an acre of sand to the sparkling Gulf of Mexico beyond. I took a long, calming breath and tried to savor the sights, sounds and smells of the little slice of heaven surrounding me.

  The gentle Gulf breeze in my hair. The warm, soft sand beneath my feet. The reedy whisper of the sea oats. The clean freshness of the salt air....

  Sunset Beach meant more to me than to most. It had been my port in the storm when I’d washed ashore five years ago, broke, friendless, and shattered by another failed attempt at love. Sunset Beach had been, in a word, my haven. Its unspoiled beauty had been a salve to my mind and heart, and had slowly helped heal the wounds inflicted by a more complicated world.

  A walk along its gently lapping shoreline never ceased to calm my frayed nerves. It had been unfailing at delivering solace when I’d felt out of sorts.

  And now it was slated for demolition.

  Like so many beaches on Florida’s west coast, Sunset Beach offered a wide, flat strip of sand as fine and white as cane sugar. At its edge, the wide expanse of the Gulf of Mexico beckoned, glimmering in the sun like liquid turquoise.

  When I’d first arrived back in St. Petersburg, I’d sought the sanctuary of the beach because it was free. Unlike man, Mother Nature wasn’t motivated by profit. Left to her own devices, she’d never charged an entrance fee. As far as I could tell, she’d always seemed content with gratitude as her sole reward.

  I took another deep breath of salt air and closed my eyes, letting the breeze twirl my hair into curls that tickled my face.

  Of all the places I’d ever been in the world, Sunset Beach was where I’d felt most at home. It had provided the therapy I’d needed to find my feet again. It was also where I’d found the new friends who’d slowly morphed into my makeshift family.