Val Fremden Mystery Box Set 1 Read online

  Crossing the bridge over the Intracoastal Waterway put an end to the historic architecture tour. I didn’t mind. The sparkling water lightened my mood, and I blew out a calming sigh. By the time I passed Treasure Island’s kitschy pirate mascot and his booty chest full of oranges, I was feeling good enough to smile again.

  Decked out in a new white sundress that accentuated my figure, I’d pulled out most of the stops to look my best today. I’d told myself it was out of respect for Tony, but I knew that was a lie. Tom would be here to take the boxes, and I’d glammed up for him.

  God help me, I was actually wearing foundation makeup!

  I hoped Tom would get here before my mascara melted. I glanced in the rearview mirror.

  Too late.

  “It’s Val Pal!” shouted beer-bellied Winky from his perch on a bar stool adjacent to the porch railing that framed Caddy’s beach bar. Winky was also decked out in his finest – the same blue, button-up shirt he’d worn at Glad’s service, but with shorts this time. He raised his beer can in my direction and belted out an ear-piercing wolf whistle. “Nice gams, Val!”

  “Nice shirt, Winky,” I replied.

  “What, this old thing?” Winky grinned, looked down and tugged on the front of his shirt with his free hand. His inattention caused him to slosh beer down the side of his shorts.

  “Where’s the rest of the gang?” I asked.

  “Huh?” Winky swatted at the wet spot on his shorts, as if that would make it go away.

  “Goober and Jorge.”

  “Oh. In the john. But Tom’s right behind you.”

  A shiver ran up my spine. I turned around and smiled and the blond cop. “Hey, Tom.”

  “Hi, Val.”

  Tom was dressed in a blue button-down shirt, too, but beyond that, the two men bore no resemblance whatsoever. For starters, Tom’s shirt was ironed. In St. Pete, a handsome man in an ironed shirt was almost as rare a sighting as the mythical skunk ape. I swooned a little.

  “I’ve got the boxes in the car,” I fumbled.

  “Okay. Should we make the transfer now?” Tom shot me a devilishly crooked smile.

  “Sure. I just want to step into the ladies’ room for a minute.”

  “What boxes y’all talkin’ about?” Winky hollered, already halfway to tispy-town.

  “Official business,” Tom said, saving me from having to come up with a lie.

  Winky looked us up and down suspiciously. “Looks purty official to me.”

  Tom turned back to face me and raised his eyebrows an inch. I shrugged and headed toward the restrooms. Unfortunately, the two oval mirrors that hung in the ladies’ room at Caddy’s weren’t into telling nice lies. My mascara had morphed into black, under-eye crescents reminiscent of an NFL quarterback’s. I cringed at the thought that Tom had seen me that way.

  “Aw, hell!” I said, and reached for a paper towel.

  “Watch your mouth!” said a woman in the handicapped stall.

  “Sorry,” I replied.

  The door to the stall flew opened as if it had been kicked by a mule. A short woman as round as a bowling ball waddled out. She studied me for a brief second and said, “Yep, I’d say that about sums it up.”

  “Excuse me?” I asked, dabbing at my eyes and catching glimpses of her reflection in the mirror. The woman had the round head and jowly scowl of a French bulldog. Her white hair was secured in a ponytail pulled so tight to her scalp that at first glance she appeared bald. Her long, albino locks continued to her waist, pinched tight in short sections, making the three-foot-long ponytail resemble a string of white sausages hanging over a fat, rounded shoulder.

  “Sorry. Yep, I’d say that sums up what you are.” The woman sneered back at me in the mirror. Her beady eyes were aflame with menace.

  Caught totally off guard, my mind raced to understand her meaning. In the South, to be called “sorry” was to be labeled as being worthless. Surely that wasn’t what I’d just heard from this stranger?

  “I don’t understand,” I said, “I....”

  “Yeah, women like you never do,” she spat. She turned her nose up like she smelled a fart. “You’re Tony’s girlfriend, aren’t you.”

  It was more an accusation than a question.

  “What?”

  “I know your kind, tramp. Always lookin’ for a man to latch on to. Well, you can forget it. You ain’t gettin’ a dime of Tony’s money.”

  Oh, no she didn’t!

  That woman had put her fat foot on my last nerve.

  “I’m not after Tony’s money,” I hissed. “And you’d better not be either, you witch.” I threw my mascara-stained paper towel in the waste bin and stormed out the door. The bowling-ball shaped battle-axe waddled after me.

  “I won’t be havin’ a tramp like you insult me!” she screeched.

  I whipped around on my heels, and was startled to see her red, bulldog face just inches from my own. “Who the hell do you think you are?” I asked.

  “I’m Tony’s wife,” she said as her fist smashed into my face.

  The air around me turned red, then black, and I felt myself falling into a hole in the floor.

  Chapter Sixteen

  I CRACKED OPEN MY RIGHT eye. I was lying sort of halfway on the floor of Caddy’s restaurant. Tom was on the floor with me, his back up against a wall. He’d pulled me to his chest and was holding my head up. His legs were sprawled out on the concrete beside mine as he staunched my bloody nose with a handkerchief.

  I’d fantasized about being in Tom’s arms. This scenario wasn’t exactly what I’d pictured.

  “Wad happened?” I asked, and wriggled around to look up at Tom’s face.

  “Seems the jealous wife turned up.” He dabbed tenderly at my throbbing nose with the handkerchief. “Be still for a minute. You okay?”

  The hair on the top of my head stood up. “His wife? The paper sed his wife wad dead!”

  “Newspapers have been known to be inaccurate. Besides, they may have meant Glad.”

  I tried to sit up a bit more. The movement made my nose pulse with pain.

  “Be still!” Tom commanded again, then softened his voice. “Try to think of something else right now. Like maybe yourself?”

  I grabbed the handkerchief from Tom’s hand. “I’m fine. But I’ll be darned if I’m going to let that horrible woman get her hands on Glad’s money. It just wouldn’t be right!”

  Tom laughed. “You’re a feisty one! Why do you care?”

  I stopped being angry for a second and cocked my head. “I don’t know. I...I just do!”

  “Okay, fair enough. Can you stand up?”

  “I think so.”

  Tom put his hands on my waist and hoisted me to my feet. My new sundress looked like a bloody butcher’s apron.

  So much for beachside glamour.

  The three stooges were sitting at a table six feet away, watching intently from their front-row seats.

  “There she is, back on her feet!” Goober quipped. He took off his sunglasses and put up his dukes. “Ready for round two?”

  “Val, you look like one a them there zombie brides on TV,” Winky said, shaking his head.

  Jorge shoved an elbow in Winky’s ribs. “She’s beautiful. She’s always beautiful.” He smiled at me, then quickly looked down at his beer.

  “Well, compared to that other one, sure,” Winky said. “That old woman’s uglier ‘n’ a box a chicken turds.”

  I laughed, causing my nose to explode with fresh pain. I winced and hobbled over to join the gang. Tom helped me onto a stool. I grabbed a handful of paper towels from a roll on the table and handed the cop back his gooey, blood-soaked hanky. He took it without so much as a flinch.

  “So, where did Godzilla go?” I asked, looking around.

  “One of my guys is questioning her now,” Tom said. He pointed a finger at the parking lot. “I figured it would be better if I stayed out of it.”

  I nodded and looked over at the car lot. Bulldog Woman was shaking her fat
finger in a black cop’s face. The cop had his hand on his thigh. Probably where he kept his pepper spray. I secretly hoped he found grounds to hose her with it.

  “Lookit that idjit,” Winky said. “Gaul-dang it, I think Tony would a married me before he got hitched to that ol’ buffalo bag.”

  “Is she really Tony’s wife?” I asked, looking over at Tom.

  “Who knows at this point,” Tom replied. “And I’ve got some more news that doesn’t look good for the home team.”

  “What?”

  Tom reached in his breast pocket and pulled out a small notebook. He thumbed through it. “We ran Glad’s name through public marriage records and got a hit. Actually, we got two hits. Glad was married to Tony Goldrich in 1989. But before that, she was married to a guy named Bobby Munch.”

  “Yeah, we knew that,” I said, daubing my nose.

  “I didn’t know it!” Winky yelled. His eyes darted around suspiciously at the four of us.

  “The problem is,” Tom continued, “there’s no record of the Munch’s ever getting a divorce. So legally, Glad’s marriage to Tony isn’t valid.”

  “Crap!” I said.

  “Unless Bobby died before she married Tony,” Jorge said. Surprised, we all turned to face the shy Hispanic as if he were a talking cat.

  “Right! Good thinking, partner!” Tom beamed at his old friend. “But here’s the thing, Bobby Munch was convicted of felony assault in 1975. While he was in there, the church he’d been working with added embezzlement to his charges. All together, he did twelve years in Apalachicola Correctional Institution. He got out in 1987 and disappeared. He hasn’t been heard from since.”

  “So unless we can prove Glad divorced Bobby or he died before she married Tony, that bulldog-faced witch over there might get her paws on Tony’s estate?” Goober asked.

  “I’ve seen stranger, more unjust things happen,” Tom said.

  Goober whistled and shook his brown, peanut-shaped head.

  “But none of that matters if we find Tony’s heir,” I said, touching my swollen nose tentatively. “The one in his will. Thelma G. Goldrich.”

  “That’s the other fly in this ointment,” said Tom.

  “What do you mean?”

  Tom hitched a thumb in the direction of the parking lot where Bulldog Woman was still arguing with the cop.

  “That woman over there with the mean right hook? Her name is Thelma G. Goldrich.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  HOW COULD A DAY THAT had started with so much promise turn to crap so quickly? I stared at my reflection in the bathroom mirror. My nose looked like an overripe peach. My front right tooth was loose, but still hanging in there. Thankfully, my lip wasn’t busted.

  Count your blessings. That’s what Glad would say. God, I wish she was here to tell me what to do next.

  I’d missed Tony’s memorial service. I figured I was more of a sideshow than a help with my big fat nose and bloody dress. But more than that, I couldn’t bear the sight of that smirking Bulldog Woman’s face for another second. After the cops were done with her, she’d made a beeline right toward me. Goober and Jorge had kept her at bay long enough for Tom to walk me out to my car so I could make my escape. Following Tom’s advice, I’d decided not to press charges...for now. Who knows? Maybe she’d wanted to thank me. But from the evil, self-satisfied grin on her face, I seriously doubted it.

  I was back at my apartment, alone again, without even so much as Glad’s boxes to keep me company. When I’d handed them over to Tom, my heart had begun to throb worse than my nose. Tom had wanted to drive me home, but I’d insisted on going alone.

  To tell the truth, I’d felt ready to burst into a million pieces. A torrent of emotions had swirled around inside me like a tropical storm. Sadness. Anger. Embarrassment. Fear. I wasn’t sure which was going to get me first, but I knew a good cry was coming down on me like a bad case of swine flu. I’d managed to make it home and inside the door before the flood hit. But then I let the dam burst.

  I fell face-first onto my ratty old couch and cried until I passed out.

  BUSTED NOSE. BROKEN dreams. A ruined dress bought with money I couldn’t afford to waste. And worst of all, I’d been made a fool of in front of just about everybody who meant a darn to me. My phone buzzed. It was Tom. I sat up on the couch and debated whether to answer. Then I figured, what the hell. Time wasn’t going to heal this wound anytime soon.

  “Hi, Tom.”

  “Hey, Victory Val.”

  “Ha ha,” I said, unamused.

  “You made it home okay, I see.”

  “Yes. You should have seen the looks I got, too. A woman in a convertible wearing a bloody white dress. Some idiot actually asked me if I was going to a Halloween party. It’s July, for crying out loud.”

  “I’ve learned to never underestimate the stupidity of the general public.”

  I snickered, then winced from the pain shooting through my nose.

  “Okay, enough of that. I thought you could use some good news, Val.”

  “That would be brilliant.”

  “It turns out Bulldog Breath is not Thelma G. Goldrich. She’s G. Thelma Goldrich.”

  “So?”

  “That may be enough to delay her claim on Tony’s estate.”

  “Oh,” I said without enthusiasm.

  “I know it’s not much, but it could buy us some time with the lawyers. Especially if we can come up with a reasonable doubt that Tony’s house and stuff really belongs to someone else.”

  “How much time?”

  “I don’t know. But we have to do something fast. I caught her snooping around Tony’s house when I went to put the boxes back.”

  “What!” My blood pressure soared and pounded on my nose.

  “I was in uniform. I don’t think she recognized me. I told her the house was under surveillance and that no one was allowed on the property without a court order.”

  “Is that true?”

  “Technically, no.”

  “You lied?”

  “It was for a good cause. Besides, it’s kind of true. If there is another heir, she has no business poking around the place. I’m really starting to dislike this woman as much as you, Val. It’s obvious she’s no Miss Congeniality. But why do you seem so sure she isn’t Tony’s real heir?”

  “Tom, you saw her in action! I can’t imagine Tony leaving that woman a pile of his own excrement, much less his estate! If I was him, I’d have burned the place down before I gave it to her!”

  “Since you put it so eloquently, I’ll concede your point, Val. But the slight name difference could have just been a clerical error. Do you really think Glad and Tony’s child could be this mysterious Thelma G. Goldrich?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Let’s just say I have a gut feeling.”

  I heard Tom blow a sharp breath through his nose. “I guess that just leaves one option.”

  “What’s that?”

  “We’ve got to find Thelma G. Goldrich, and fast.”

  “No crap, Sherlock. Got any ideas?”

  Tom laughed. “We can start with the three hits that came up on the DMV.”

  “But Tom, if Glad’s baby was adopted, it might not even have that name.”

  “I know, Val. But it’s all we’ve got at the moment. It’s still possible that one of them is the heir. We might as well start with the obvious and rule things out from there. And, like I said, if we’re going to put Bulldog Woman on a leash, we need to throw a bone into the works, and pronto.”

  “Now look who’s being eloquent.”

  “What can I say, you bring out the best in me.”

  A tingly feeling shot through me.

  Tom and I were flirting!

  It was time to slide into my usual motif operandi and set about sabotaging myself. “Me, bring out someone’s best? That’s a first!” I snorted.

  “I guess you just never barked up the right tree before.”

  “So now I’m a
dog, too?”

  Please, please, shut the hell up, Val!

  “That’s not what I meant....”

  “All right, enough with the canine crap. How do we get these other Thelmas into the catfight?”

  “So, now we’re into cats, are we?”

  “Meow.”

  God, I’m such a jerk!

  “I’d say we need to call these women and tell them they may be heir to a fortune. Whether it’s true or not, who knows. But that ought to get their attention.”

  The last comment did it. Tom was back to business.

  Satisfied with yourself, Val?

  “I guess all we need now are the phone numbers, Tom.”

  “I’m on it.”

  “Call me when you’ve got them. I’ll do the dirty work.”

  “Okay.”

  “And Tom? Thank you for your help. I mean it.”

  “My pleasure, Val. Sleep on your back tonight. Goodnight.”

  “What?”

  “Your nose.”

  I’d forgotten all about it.

  “Okay. Roger that. Goodnight, Tom.”

  Roger that? Seriously? I really am a jerk!

  Chapter Eighteen

  I WOKE UP THE NEXT morning with the left side of my face stuck to my pillow. I winced and stumbled to the bathroom mirror for a look. During the night, blood had drained from my nostrils down the left side of my face, leaving two paths like dark-brown slug trails that crossed my cheek and disappeared into my matted hair.

  Ugh!

  I reached for the shower dial, turned it all the way to the left and waited for steam to fill the air.

  I’D JUST STEPPED OUT of the shower and was toweling off when the phone starting ringing. I checked the number and cringed. I took a deep breath and clicked the green answer button.

  “Hi Jamie!” I said, in a tone ridiculously cheerful for a naked woman of my age and build. “You’re up early!”