Val Fremden Mystery Box Set 1 Read online

  “Sure,” Jacob said, clinking his plastic cup against mine. “To what?”

  “To what’s to come.”

  Jacob looked at me sharply. “Sure. To what’s to come.”

  “But for now, let’s get back to what has already come and gone, if you don’t mind.”

  Jacob nodded and took a big gulp of tea.

  The thought that Jacob had known Tony and Glad in their youth sent a nostalgic longing washing over me. “Please, Jacob, tell me how Glad and Tony met.”

  “Let’s see,” Jacob began, then cleared his throat. “We were at Duffy’s. Yeah, we were at Duffy’s eating burgers one day when this hot number walked by in a pink sweater and pants cut to her knees. What did they call them? Ah yeah. Pedal pushers. Flowery ones. I remember because she was a sight pretty hard for a man to forget. Blonde, beautiful smile, big bazong... uh. Nice figure, you know? Hourglass.” Jacob grimaced and glanced my way.

  I smiled. “I think I get it.”

  Jacob blew out a breath and his face relaxed.

  “Okay. So I looked over at Tony and he was just staring, open mouthed, like he’d just been hit over the head or something. Guys being guys, I couldn’t let it go. I laughed and grabbed his arm and started waving it like a gorilla. I yelled, ‘You want a hamburger to go with that shake?’ Then I let go of Tony’s arm real quick. Glad turned around and saw Tony with his hand still in the air, staring at her like a deer in the headlights. Ha ha! I’ll never forget it! Glad started walking toward him. I thought Tony was gonna faint! She marched right up to him and said something like, ‘So, handsome, are you going to give me a bite of that burger?’ I know it sounds pretty tame nowadays, but back then that was pretty suggestive talk, if you know what I mean.”

  He looked at me as if waiting for a response. I nodded and he continued.

  “That Tony...he was smitten like a kitten in a mitten. Ha ha! They started dating. Those two together was truly something to see. Glad was like Miracle Grow for Tony. He opened up and bloomed like a rose that summer. I never saw him so happy. He came from a kind of tough family, you know.”

  “No, I didn’t know.”

  “Bunch of highfalutin jerks, if you ask me.”

  Something dark flashed over Jacob’s face, then faded. He shook his head and picked up a Saltine cracker from the plate of fish spread.

  “Glad got pregnant. But if you read that letter, you already know that part. And you know Tony got shipped off to private school. But what you probably don’t know is that Tony wasn’t just a student at that place. He was a prisoner. I know because I was hired to be his guard.”

  I sucked in a deep breath and held it as Jacob absently ground the cracker to dust between his fingers. “His father paid my tuition. I sold my soul for an education. I got one, too. But not the one I’d planned on. Kids today with their hundred-grand student loan payments. God, if only my debt had been just money. I’d trade with one of them in a heartbeat.”

  Jacob looked surprised at the pile of cracker dust on the table. He wiped it away and stared out at the gulf. “I was on the payroll as Tony’s enemy. Reporting back to his father for my next meal ticket.” Jacob blew out a breath and swallowed hard. He looked at me with eyes full of anger and regret, then pursed his lips and pressed on with his confession.

  “Tony wrote Glad every day. He counted on me to mail the letters, but I only mailed the first one. The one you read. I also stole all the letters Glad wrote Tony. It was easy. Tony never suspected me. When he didn’t hear nothing back from her, I watched Tony wither away, wild with guilt and pain and sorrow. His hateful father kept telling me it was for the best. That Tony would get over it.

  “When that took too long, the dirtbag told me to do whatever it took to make Tony get over it. I didn’t know what to do. When Mr. Goldrich realized I didn’t have any natural talent for making people miserable, he gave me some from his ample supply.”

  Jacob stopped for a moment and looked out at the water. “God help me, I tried pretty near all of that devil’s suggestions. I told Tony that Glad had another beau. I told him that when her parents died, Glad confessed to somebody that the baby wasn’t his. When Glad hooked up with that traveling preacher, I told Tony the kid was really that guy’s. I said Glad had been seeing the preacher for months and was using Tony to cover her sins and get a big payoff, because she knew Tony’s family was loaded. Then I told him one thing that wasn’t a lie. I told him Glad had taken her baby and run off with that preacher. A shyster named Bobby Munch.”

  “Wait a minute,” I interjected. “You’re saying Glad had her baby with her when she left with Bobby?”

  “Yeah. She couldn’t bear to give it up.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I’ll get to that.”

  “Okay, Jacob. But tell me now, I’m dying to know. Was it a boy or a girl?”

  Jacob coughed out a cynical laugh. “As bad as I was to Tony back then, I just had to know, too. So I pretended to get chummy with Tony’s father. I asked him if Gladys’ kid had been a boy or a girl. I honestly didn’t think he’d tell me. But I guess up in his golden palace, Glad was nothing to him. As insignificant as a flea. I remember that jerk Goldrich laughed like a demon and told me that Glad had a baby girl. I remember his words exactly. He said, ‘The witch named the little brat Thelma, after her own tramp of a mother.’ His pompous voice still rings in my ears whenever I think about it.”

  Jacob shook his head as if to clear away the lingering remains of the noxious memory. He wiped his eyes with a napkin and sucked in a deep breath, then took a sip of tea and looked me straight in the eyes. What he said next set my own ears to ringing.

  “Tony and Glad’s baby girl. Thelma. She’s the one named in the will. I’d bet on it.”

  A surge of excitement caused my heart to thump. “So where is she, Jacob?”

  His face deflated.

  “I was hoping you could tell me.”

  Chapter Twenty

  MY HEART SANK. JACOB didn’t know any more than I did about the whereabouts of Glad and Tony’s daughter. He couldn’t even tell me whether she was still alive or not.

  “Do you know any more?” he asked.

  “I’ve only got some theories, a few documents and some sketchy clues,” I said. “What do you know, Jacob?” I reached for a cracker and smeared some fish spread on it.

  “What kind of documents?” Jacob asked.

  “Birth notice. A marriage license. Stuff like that.”

  I could tell Jacob wanted to know more. But so did I, and I was buying.

  “How in the world did Tony end up marrying that ponytailed witch?” I asked, then popped the cracker into my mouth so that Jacob was forced to fill the silence.

  Jacob eyed me carefully. “Well, I’m not saying I’m innocent in all this, but all my lies about Glad failed to break Tony’s love for her. Nope. It was the truth that finally did that. When I told Tony about the baby being a girl, and that Glad had named her a combination of his, her, and her mom’s name – Thelma Gladys Goldrich – he got all excited. He told me he was going to escape that prison of a school and get himself back home and marry her. But I had to tell him it was too late. Glad had already up and married Bobby. I’ve never seen anybody shatter like that. Hope I never do again.

  “After I told Tony about the marriage, it was like something just broke inside him. He started drinking, and got busy making some big-ass mistakes of his own. Marrying Thelma Cornish – the one that punched you in the nose – was by far his biggest one. Believe it or not, Thelma kind of looked like Glad back then. Blonde hair, big boobs...uh. And her name...Thelma...Tony said he took it to be some kind of sign.” Jacob shook his head wistfully. “Too bad he didn’t read the fine print. Thelma had a nose for money – and didn’t mind taking one for the cause, if you know what I mean.”

  My mind tried to go there but I slammed on the brakes and thought about kittens playing with yarn balls instead. “I think I get the picture.”

  “Oka
y. Enough said on that,” Jacob said. “At any rate, Thelma acted the part real good. She pretended to love Tony and – here’s the genius part – she pretended to hate Tony’s father. It was a double-whammy combo that swept Tony right off his feet. She fooled Tony into marrying her and signing up for law school, just like his daddy wanted. Funny, the same day Tony told me he was gonna be a lawyer was the same day my tuition money dried up. Heh. I’d been replaced. My services were no longer needed. Tony went off to law school. I went home and got a job selling stoves and TVs. Their sham marriage didn’t last a year. Just long enough for Thelma to get a BMW and a monthly living allowance. Conniving witch.”

  Jacob’s eyes met mine, then he hung his head. “Who am I to talk? I was no better than her. The only saving grace to this whole mess was that, back in the day, Tony never figured out that he was surrounded by his father’s henchmen – me being the main one of them. It would have killed him for sure. He was just too trusting. Too pure of heart to realize what a heel I was.”

  Jacob’s glass was empty and so was mine. I needed another beer. I thought maybe he could use one, too. I smiled at him sympathetically and picked up his glass.

  “Wanna upgrade to a beer? My treat.”

  “Thanks, Miss. But these days I’m a teetotaler. After going back to Hawesville, I hit the bottle hard. Johnny Walker became my best and only friend. The secrets I’d kept from Tony twisted in my guts like maggots. Nothing I could chase or screw or drink ever came close to making me feel okay about selling out my best friend. Long, boring story short, I hit bottom and went through AA’s Twelve Step Program. My last confession was to Tony. In 1980. Back then, he was just about as hollowed out a shell as I was.”

  I reached over and touched Jacob’s hand. He winced and turned away.

  “Jacob, you don’t have to explain....”

  “Let me,” Jacob cut in. “I’ll just get it out quick. I called Tony up and asked if we could meet. He sounded happy to hear from me. Happy! Can you believe it? I don’t think I ever felt so low in my life. He invited me over to his place. I took him up on the invitation. I sat on his couch and spilled my guts like a slaughtered pig. I asked him to forgive me. He sat there, still as a statue. Didn’t say a word. I begged him to punch me. Kick me. Anything he needed to get it out. But he was too much a gentleman. Honest to god I don’t think he had any anger or love or anything left in him by the time I found him. He just crumpled to the floor and cried. I got on the floor and cried with him. When we both couldn’t cry no more, he just said, ‘Help me find her.’ I vowed I would. It didn’t matter to him that what I found wasn’t pretty.”

  “What do you mean, wasn’t pretty?”

  “What Glad had suffered at the hands of Bobby Munch makes my sorry, self-pitying life look like a fairytale.”

  MY CLOCK RAN OUT JUST when it was getting good. I was desperate to know more, but I had promises to keep – to Jamie and to myself. “I’ll see you in the morning,” I said to Jacob as I dropped him off at his car in the Water Loo’s parking lot.

  “See you back here, 8:30 sharp,” he replied, climbing into his white Prius. The car matched his white t-shirt, belt and tennis shoes.

  All white. A play for purity – or penance, perhaps?

  I waved as he pulled out of the lot and I glanced at my phone.

  Crap.

  It was already 4:30. I needed to get my butt home, write four-hundred and ninety-eight words, and email them to Jamie before she called at 6 p.m. Jacob’s story and the afternoon sun had caused me to sweat through my clothes. I needed a shower, but that was going to have to remain an option for the moment. I hit the gas and Maggie’s mufflers belched out a grey, smoky roar.

  The lights on Central Avenue were kind and I made good time. It was five minutes to 5 p.m. when I pulled into my alley parking spot. I bolted up the stairs. As I fumbled with the key, my phone started buzzing. It was Tom.

  Crap. Crap. Crap. I don’t have time for this!

  “Hi Tom!” I said sweetly into the phone, then changed my tune. “Make it quick. I’m a woman on a mission.”

  “Woah, there, tiger lady. What’s the hurry?”

  “I can’t explain right now. What’s up?”

  “I got the DMV lowdown on the three Thelma G’s. Got time for that?”

  “No. But sure. Let me have it.”

  “Turns out one lives in Chicago. She’s African American. Another is local. Hispanic. The other one Caucasian –”

  “It can only be her, the third one,” I said, cutting Tom off.

  “Why?”

  “Like I said, I can’t explain right now. Where is she?”

  “Well...”

  “What, Tom? I’m begging you, I’m in a hurry!”

  “Slow down, sister! She’s in a hospital for the criminally insane. Chattahoochee State Mental Hospital in North Florida.”

  “Screw off!”

  “I’m serious!”

  Time slowed down as my mind sped forward. “Didn’t you say Bobby was incarcerated nearby up there – at Apalachicola Correctional?”

  “Yes.”

  “Didn’t he go missing or something?”

  “Yep. Right after he was released.”

  “Tom, the hospital and correctional facility are in the same town.”

  “Yeah. Interesting, huh?”

  “I really don’t have time for this right now.”

  “Hot date?”

  I smiled despite myself. “Something like that. Meet you for lunch tomorrow? Ming Ming’s?”

  “Roger that.”

  I clicked off.

  Roger that. Great. Now he’s stealing my romantic lines.

  I sat down at the computer and opened the file named Double Booty. I forced myself to type despite the fact that my hands were shaking like a woman on the lam.

  I TOOK A BITE OF FISH taco and listened to Jamie over the phone as she read through my story synopsis. From her vantage point in New York, she couldn’t see that I was at the Taco Bus on Central Avenue. She also couldn’t see the odd dozen or so people milling about in line, waiting to place their orders.

  For the uninitiated, the Taco Bus restaurant really was in a bus. It was also painted the same hideous orange as the local Pinellas County school buses. Originally a food truck, it was now permanently parked on Central Avenue in front of a plain-Jane, single-story concrete block building painted the same scholastic shade of rusted-out dreams.

  After Taco Bus caught on with locals and tourists alike, it expanded its main kitchen into the ugly building behind the bus. Customers ate their tacos and burritos on dark-green, metal-mesh tables under the shade of big, beach-style umbrellas. Or they opted for dining in a carport-like area tacked onto the right side of the building. Like a lot of hole-in-the-wall places, the Taco Bus put out some seriously good food. It even earned a spot on that TV show, Diners, Drive-ins and Dives, though I’m not sure which of the three categories best described it.

  As I ate my taco, I became mesmerized by the sight of an enormous black man in blue overalls shoving a whole burrito in his mouth. A tinny beeping in my ear made me realize Jamie was yelling into the phone, saying my name over and over.

  “Val? Val? You still there, Val?”

  I detected bad news woven into her tired, pinched voice.

  “Yeah, I’m here.”

  “I don’t know about this synopsis, Val. It needs work. Major work.”

  “What’s wrong with it?”

  “It just doesn’t seem plausible.”

  “But Jamie, it’s all based on true events!”

  Jamie’s voice morphed into a sneer. “That’s the rub about writing fiction, Val. Unlike real life, fiction’s got to make sense.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  ALL I NEEDED WAS A miracle. One teeny-tiny bit of inspiration. I stared blankly at my blasted book synopsis.

  Double Booty. Ha! Double Doody was more like it.

  Even my morning walk and canoodle with Mr. Coffee had done nothing to raise my
enthusiasm. The only bright spot was that it was Saturday. I still had today and tomorrow to come up with something good for Jamie. But working on it would have to wait a bit longer. I was running late for a date with an angry, alcoholic, neat freak old enough to be my father.

  It was the best offer I’d had in a while.

  JACOB WAS WAITING FOR me in the parking lot when I pulled up to Water Loo’s. He saw me and waved through the squeaky-clean window pane of his Prius. He climbed out of the car, shut the door, tested the handle to make sure it was locked, then ambled over my way.

  “Mind if we go somewhere else?” he asked, holding his hands open and to his sides in what looked like a weird truce gesture, just like the day before.

  “No problem,” I said. “Don’t like it here?”

  “Not my favorite. Do you know anyplace with a good cup of joe?”

  “Starbucks?”

  “I’d rather not. I don’t know what all the fuss is about. That stuff tastes like burnt plastic to me.”

  “We’ve got options. Get in.”

  Jacob smiled and buckled himself in tight. “Your car. She’s a real beauty.”

  “My Maggie? Yeah, she sure is. You seem like a man who appreciates the classics, Jacob. How about we go to a real, honest-to-goodness diner for breakfast?”

  “That’s the best idea I’ve heard all day.”

  I maneuvered Maggie onto a southbound lane of Gulf Boulevard in the direction of Corey Avenue and Gayle’s Diner. Jacob and I sat silent for the ride, enjoying the relative coolness of the early morning breeze on our faces. A few minutes later, we were sitting across from each other in a cozy booth for two, a waitress filling our white ceramic cups to the brim with piping hot java. Jacob took a tentative sip from the steaming mug.

  “Ahhh, now that’s what I call a good cup a joe!”

  “Glad you like it, Jacob. And I want to thank you. Breakfast is on me today.”

  “Thank me? For what?”