Doggone Disaster Read online

  Six Tricks

  Doggone Disaster

  Book Six 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 the Val Fremden Series

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

  "If you enjoy Janet Evanovich you will love Margaret Lashley!"

  "Her characters are real and full, her situations believable, and her dialogue marvelous."

  "There’s a mystery at the heart of this book – a few of them – that will hook fans of Janet Evanovich and other comic mystery writers."

  “More twists and turns than NASCAR. Beach bums, sane and insane, abound in this high-paced accidental thriller. Sit down, buckle up,hang on for bunches of enjoyment.”

  "Margaret writes with a "smirk" of a Cheshire cat. Fantastic read.”

  "Full of twists and turns as only Margaret Lashley can write!"

  "If you like Anne George's 'Southern Sisters' don't miss

  Margaret Lashley!"

  “The characters are great – so many laugh out loud moments...”

  More Hilarious Val Fremden Mysteries

  by Margaret Lashley

  Absolute Zero

  Glad One

  Two Crazy

  Three Dumb

  What Four

  Five Oh

  Six Tricks

  “I got a dog for my boyfriend. It was a good trade.”

  Val Fremden

  Get your exclusive, members-only copy of:

  “Val’s Top Ten Survival Tips for Starting Over”

  (Tips on surviving midlife only Val herself could come up with!)

  Yours free, just by signing up to the VIP Club!

  Check it out on my website:

  www.margaretlashley.com

  Want to be among the first to read my new-release books absolutely free?

  ­­Email me at [email protected] and ask to apply for a spot in my

  Advance Reader’s Club (ARC) team.

  Contents

  Six Tricks

  Praise for 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 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

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  What’s Next for Val?

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  “I’m too old and set in my ways for this crap,” Laverne said. She rolled her big, bulgy eyes and handed me a Tanqueray and tonic. It was in a highball glass she’d filched from the Flamingo Casino decades ago, back in her Vegas-showgirl days.

  “Tell me about it,” I groused, and took a sip from the glass. The cartoon caricature of a cross-eyed, long-necked pink bird stared back at me. Its expression seemed oddly appropriate. “What are we gonna do?”

  “I don’t know,” Laverne said. “But we better think of something fast. It’s driving me crazy!” The old woman pursed her thin lips, then threw back her horsey head and chugged her Dirty Shirley like a merchant marine at last call. She slammed the glass on the counter and said, “Come with me, Val. I got something to show you.”

  I followed Laverne’s shriveled, brown butt cheeks down the hall toward her bedroom. As I watched her two raisin-like buttocks wobble back and forth, I couldn’t decide which view of the tall, skinny, seventy-something woman in a gold thong bikini was more disconcerting, the front or the back.

  “Get a look at this,” Laverne snarled. She threw open her closet door, spun around to face me, and stabbed a red-lacquered fingernail at the source of her distain. “He’s commandeered nearly half the lower rack!”

  I followed the trajectory of her high-gloss fingertip to a spot about midway down the closet wall. Hanging on the bottom rung of Laverne’s huge walk-in closet were about a dozen diminutive men’s shirts and pants, along with a sweater and a sport jacket. Together, they were eating away at well over a foot of precious closet space. It was a single woman’s worst nightmare. And soon, if Tom had his way, it would be my nightmare, too.

  “Geeze!” I said. “That’s the most disturbing thing I’ve seen since Uncle Jack’s comb-over!”

  Laverne scrunched her red lips into the shape of an inflamed sphincter. “That’s not even the worst of it.”

  “What?” I tore my eyes from the horrific scene. “I mean...how...what?”

  “J.D. doesn’t like me sunbathing,” Laverne complained. “He says it wrinkles my skin. And...you’re not going to believe this.” Laverne stared into my eyes. Her penciled-on eyebrows formed twin pyramids just below her strawberry-blonde curls. “He hates my gold thong, Val!”

  Laverne straightened her back and stuck out her pendulous boobs, clothed only in two woefully inadequate triangles of glittery, gold fabric. “J.D. says it’s not dignified. Can you believe it? If I wanted to be dignified, don’t you think I’d have gone and done it by now? I’d have moved into one of those blasted...what ’cha call ‘em? Anal-retentive communities.”

  “I believe the term is deed restricted communities.”

  “That’s it!” Laverne’s angular eyebrows rounded themselves into McDonald’s arches. “I don’t want to be deed restricted, Val.” She pouted as her shoulders slumped. “I love J.D., but it ain’t worth it if I have to give up myself in the process.”

  I bit my lip and looked down. I couldn’t have said it better myself. But maybe my mom, Glad Goldrich, could have. Glad once told me that no one could stop change. And whethe
r a particular change itself was good or bad depended on your perspective. Well, the way I saw it, the changes hurtling toward me and my neighbor Laverne were neither good nor bad. They were downright, gut-flopping terrifying.

  The night of Vance and Milly’s wedding, I thought I’d dodged the bullet and put the whole matrimony debate between me and my boyfriend Tom to rest. When he’d flung our cursed engagement ring in the ocean, I’d thought that meant my troubles were over.

  Boy, had I been wrong.

  Right after he’d tossed the ring, Tom had explained to me that he could live with the way things were...the operative term being live with. He’d told me he wanted us to play house – as in, live together! Crap on a cracker! The way I saw relationships, marriage was just a ceremony. The real work was surviving cohabitation. Misery didn’t love company. Misery was company – if you had no choice in the matter.

  The mere thought of coming home to find Tom in my space every single blasted day for the rest of my life had set my teeth to gnashing. But if there was one consolation – ironic as it was – it was the fact that I wasn’t alone in my dilemma. Laverne was trying to bail her way out of the same sinking boat. Mr. J.D. Fellows, Esq., it seemed, had his eye on moving in with her.

  “You got any ideas how to deal with this catastrophe?” Laverne asked as I stared blankly at the man-infestation slowly taking over her closet.

  “Not a dang clue,” I muttered.

  “Aww, crap,” Laverne said, and slammed the closet door shut.

  BACK HOME, I TIPSILY eyeballed my own bedroom closet. It was half as big as Laverne’s. And Tom was twice the size of J.D. Fellows. I didn’t like the way the math was adding up....

  I heard a light rap on my front door. I closed the closet and padded barefoot down the hall. But before I could answer the door, it opened on its own. Tom strolled in like he owned the place.

  “Hi there, cutie!” he said, and gave me one of his irresistible winks.

  For the first time, Tom’s handsome, blond, sea-green-eyed magic didn’t work on me. It had been rendered powerless by what he carried in his left hand.

  “What have you got in the duffle bag?” I asked, and eyed them both suspiciously.

  “Just a couple of things,” he said, and kissed me on the lips.

  My heart skipped a beat. But not from his kiss.

  Just a couple of things, my behind! Thanks to my earlier pow-wow with Laverne, I knew what this was. It was the first step in Tom’s insidious plan to...to...to what? Invade my space? Take over my life? Destroy my world as I knew it?

  Well, that was the million-dollar question, wasn’t it? Only this time, I didn’t have a million dollars to lose.

  Chapter Two

  For the past two weeks, I’d been pretty much holding down an abandoned fort at the accounting firm of Griffith & Maas. My best friend and boss, Milly Halbert, was gone on her honeymoon to Hawaii with her new husband, Vance Pantski. That had left just me and old man Griffith to totter around the empty place.

  It was the middle of May. Peak tax season was over. That meant there’d been hardly any files to file, and barely a handful of visitors to greet from my post at the reception desk. After making the morning coffee for Mr. Griffith, there wasn’t much else to do except read romance novels and become increasingly disgruntled over the level of romance in my real relationship with Tom.

  Tax season wasn’t the only thing that was over for another year. So was any hope of a good hair day. Over the past week, summer and all its unwelcome humidity had arrived in St. Pete with a vengeance. This morning, as I drove to work with the top down on Shabby Maggie, even the fifty-mile-an-hour breeze swirling around me couldn’t keep the sweat from trickling down my back and running in rivulets right into my butt crack. So much for that fabulous, fresh feeling.

  To try and cope with the heat, I pulled off my pantyhose as soon as I got to work. I put on a pot of coffee for Mr. Griffith, kicked off my heels, and hoisted my bare feet up on my desk, my legs just wide enough apart to allow for air circulation. With nothing else to do at the moment, I decided to re-read a particularly engrossing scene in my book, Love’s Lusty Love. It was about Carlton’s throbbing manhood....

  “Ms. Fremden?”

  I nearly jumped out of my chair. I gasped, slapped my book closed and swung my legs off my desk. My right foot caught on the open file drawer, causing me to lurch forward and knock over my mug of water with my right elbow. I watched as water cascaded over my desk like a tiny tsunami.

  “Ms. Fremden?” repeated the ancient man in a three-piece suit. He stared at me from a most inopportune angle. I squeezed my thighs together.

  “Mr. Griffith!” I yelped. I bolted upright, tossed my book on my desk and kicked the file drawer closed. “Can I help you, sir?”

  “Yes,” he replied in the calm, reassuring tone of a seasoned psych-ward nurse. He removed his thick glasses and wiped them on a handkerchief. “You can help me with three things, actually. First, we’re almost out of coffee creamer.”

  “Oh. I’ll pick some up tonight, sir.”

  “Good. Second, Milly called. She won’t be coming in this morning after all. She said she needed one more day off to take care of something ‘important.’ So I guess the mothballs will have to wait for me for one more day, eh?” Mr. Griffith chuckled as he put his glasses back on, but the distant look that accompanied his faded smile seemed incongruent. He lingered by my desk. “Honeymooners, eh?”

  “Yes, sir,” I answered. I smiled at the old man who’d won my admiration the first day I’d met him. It was, of course, in this very same office. Last year, Milly had proffered me for an open position at the accounting firm. But it was Mr. Griffith who’d approved my hiring – against all odds in the known universe.

  Due to mitigating circumstances probably not beyond my control, I’d shown up for my interview with him late, half-drunk, and inappropriately dressed. Then I’d proceeded to let go of a long, squeaky fart that couldn’t be explained away by leather seat cushions. To his credit, Mr. Griffith had borne it all without a hint of disdain or disgust.

  Looking back on it now, there was something to be said for setting the bar low at the very beginning. By comparison, everything I’d done since had been deemed by Mr. Griffith as nearly miraculous.

  “And the third thing, Mr. Griffith?” I asked.

  “That third thing...what was it now?” Mr. Griffith reached a skeletal, nearly mummified hand across my desk and picked up my book. “Love’s Lusty Love,” he read aloud. He looked me in the eye and my face grew hot.

  Mr. Griffith smiled. “How about that Carlton, eh? One of my favorites.”

  I grinned. “And you, Mr. Griffith, are one of mine.”

  He smiled and chuckled softly. Then he touched a forefinger to his gray temple, turned, and wandered slowly back to the brown-paneled box of an office where he’d spent the better part of the last forty-five years.

  I shook my head in wonder. Dressed in a formal business suit, I couldn’t fathom how the old man survived the heat – especially when he insisted on setting the thermostat to eighty degrees. But I didn’t ponder the thought long. I had other things pressing on my mind. As soon as Mr. Griffith rounded the corner and headed down the hallway, I grabbed my cellphone and punched speed dial. Then I waited impatiently until Milly finally picked up.

  “Why aren’t you coming in today?” I teased. “Too sore to walk?”

  “Who is this?”

  “Milly! It’s me.”

  “Val,” Milly said absently. “Hey.”

  “How’s married life treating you?”

  “Oh,” Milly said, practically swooning. “Hawaii was like heaven!”

  “So, you two are still getting along?”

  “What? Yeah. Why?”

  “No reason.” I should have been happier for Milly. But I found her response more irritating than anything else. Some people like Milly and Vance just seemed to click together. Why did I always have to clack?

  “Val, I hav
e some exciting news!”

  “You’re pregnant,” I joked.

  “What? No. But almost! While we were in Hawaii, Vance and I decided to adopt!”

  “Adopt what? A native lifestyle? Cannibalism?”

  “What?” The perturbed tone in Milly’s voice hinted that she no longer missed me as much as she had a moment ago. “No, Val. A little girl.”

  My gut hit the floor. “You’re kidding!”

  “No. And I want you to come by and meet her tonight.”

  “Wait a minute. You’ve already got her?”

  “Yes. She’s six months old. She’s an orphan, Val. We found her in Hawaii. And since no one....” Milly paused. I heard a baby cry out in the background. “Listen, I’ll fill you in with the details. Come by tonight and meet her! Her name is Charmine. Val, she’s so adorable. She’s changed my whole world!”

  Stunned, all I could manage to say was, “What time?”

  “Make it early. Six-thirty? Charmine needs her sleep.”

  I clicked off the phone. A kid? I ran down a mental list of my friends who had children, and came up with exactly zilch. No one I knew had a kid.

  Crap! What was I supposed to do with a kid?

  WITH NOTHING ELSE TO do, I surrendered again to Carlton’s mating call. I read a few more chapters and went to lunch. After lunch, I read a couple more. The next time I looked up, Mr. Griffith was at my desk, telling me it was time to call it a day. I grabbed my purse and my book and followed him out the door. I was in my car when I realized I’d forgotten to call Tom with the news.

  “A baby girl?” he said, incredulous.

  “Yes. Can you believe it?”

  “No. Not really,” he said. “Wow...what did Vance say?”

  “Haven’t talked to him. I guess we’ll find out tonight.”

  “See you at home, then,” Tom said. “Bye.” He clicked off.

  See me at home? What did he mean by home? My home? His home? Our home?