Val Fremden Mystery Box Set 1 Page 18

  “What the hell?!” Tom cursed his luck and jumped out of the 4Runner to assess the damage.

  My mother must have heard the commotion. The front door cracked open and a little white-and-tan, mixed breed pooch came shooting out into the yard. It disappeared in the grass, yapping its head off. A second later, the silhouette of my rotund mother in a faded old shirt and worn-out stretch pants appeared on the porch. She made a visor over her eyes with a pudgy hand and peered out at us.

  “Ragmuffin!” she hollered. “Is that you? Y’all come on inside. Don’t you have no sense? It’s too hot to be out this time a day!”

  I popped a breath mint and sighed. “We’re coming!”

  “Ragmuffin?” Tom asked, his right eyebrow up to his hairline.

  “Zip it, copper.” I wasn’t joking.

  Tom and Winky followed me into the house. My mom offered them a seat on a couch even uglier than mine. She carefully positioned her extra-wide derriere, then leaned backward and fell into her worn-out recliner. The whole house smelled faintly of old farts, urine and Jergens hand lotion. A hodgepodge collection Olan Mills family portraits hung on the wood-paneled wall above the sofa like a gallery of the doomed. I was there as well, in my glorious missing-front-tooth stage, along with big-hair prom night and mascara-meltdown college graduation. A few open spaces on the wall between frames offered tell-tale clues to marriages that were no longer to be mentioned.

  “Mom, these are my friends Tom and Winky.”

  Tom nodded and smiled. Winky bowed and curtseyed.

  Unbelievable!

  “Guys, this is my mom, Lucille Jolly.”

  Mom scrunched her face at me. “I ain’t Jolly no more, Val. I’m Short. Since me and Dale got married.”

  “Oops. Sure, Mom. Sorry. This is my mom, Mrs. Short.”

  “Nice to meet y’all,” my mother said. “Would y’all like some sweet tea?”

  “Yes ma’am,” answered Winky before anyone else could speak.

  “Vallie, why don’t you get in there and make us some.”

  Here we go.

  “Sure,” I replied sweetly, then picked my way around mom’s hopelessly cluttered kitchen. Amongst the ruins, I found an ancient, rubber-handled saucepan and a box of Lipton tea. I filled the pan with water from the tap and set it on the stove to boil. Then I pretended to be busy while I eavesdropped on the conversation going on in the living room.

  “Nice place you have here,” said Tom.

  “Thanky, Tom. How do you know my other girl, Val?”

  “We’re both friends of Winky, here.”

  Nice dodge, Tom.

  “Winky. Ain’t you one a them from the Alford clan in Grand Ridge?”

  “No ma’am. But I’m kin to the Jeeters in Graceville.”

  “The Jeeters, huh? I know’d you was from around here. You got good manners, son.”

  I stifled a laugh and nearly busted my nose open again.

  Ouch!

  “Tom, where’s yore family from?”

  “Maryland, ma’am.”

  “You a Yankee?” It was more an accusation than a question.

  “Oh. No, ma’am. I was born in Florida. My family moved from Maryland before I was born.”

  “Hmmm,” mom growled.

  The water started to boil. I dropped in four tea bags and watched the clear water turn to brown sludge. I switched off the burner, then tugged at an old plastic pitcher in the drain board until I could get it out from under a mountain of Cool Whip containers without causing an avalanche. I rinsed the stained interior of the yellow pitcher and scooped a full cup of sugar from a bag on the counter. I poured in the sugar, then the hot, brown brew. I filled the pitcher to the top with tap water and was done. Sweet tea just the way my mother taught me.

  I rinsed out four miss-matched jelly jars, filled them with ice and tea, and carried them out to the living room.

  My mother took a sip and scrunched her upper lip. “Kind of weak, but you never did know how to make good tea, Val.”

  “Sorry, Mom. Where’s Dale?”

  “Already gone to bed. Here, take this for me.” Mom placed something wet in my hand. “It’s my bridge. I don’t like to wear it when I’m drinking tea. Might stain my teeth.”

  I looked down at the u-shaped piece of metal embedded with two false molars. I reset my jaw again. “Where do you want me to put it?”

  “In the bathroom on the toothbrush holder. Don’t you know anything? Oh, I forget. You ain’t been to visit in a long time.”

  My yoga breathing was about to get a lot of practice.

  More pictures of unfortunate souls stared at me from cheap brown frames as I walked the sculptured-carpet gauntlet to the bathroom. I thought about dropping mom’s bridgework in the toilet, but her familiar hammer of guilt slammed down on my conscience. I rinsed her dental work and hung it in a hole on the toothbrush holder next to tubes of denture cream and hair tonic, then made my way back to the scene of the crime in progress. Mom was laughing at something.

  “Ha ha ha! Val, are y’all really here to visit some crazy lady in the Chattahoochee nuthouse?”

  I shot an angry look at Tom. He pointed a thumb at Winky. I blew out a deep breath.

  “Yes. Thelma Goldrich. Do you know her, Mom?”

  “Never heard of her. What’s she in for?”

  I shot out an answer before anyone could say a word, leaving Winky’s and Tom’s mouths hanging open like stranded goldfish.

  “She just has spells. Like everybody else around here.”

  My mother nodded knowingly. “Yep. I guess by now all of us has seen the inside of that place from one side or the other.”

  Tom looked at me with eyes as big as fried eggs. I pointed a thumb at my chest and shook my head no. Tom sighed, then laughed out loud with relief. I could almost hear the thud of his good impression of me as it hit the skids.

  “She might be a millionaire,” Winky blurted.

  “Who?” my mother asked.

  “That crazy lady. Thelma. We gonna steal some a her DNA and see if she’s heir to the throne of Goldrich.”

  “You don’t say,” my mother said, leaning in now that the gossip had gotten good. She cocked her ear toward Winky. “How come you don’t already know if it’s her or not?”

  I wanted to stop this train wreck, but it had already traveled too far down the tracks. I resigned myself to my usual role around my mother – horrified spectator.

  “’Cause she up and got herself lost a long time ago, when she was just a baby,” said Winky. He sat up straight, relishing his position as the deliverer of juicy news. “Her folks wat’n rich back then. But they are now. I mean, they was. They’s both dead now. Anyway, it’s what you might call complicated. Val says it’s got to be her. Ain’t nobody else fit the bill.”

  “I’ll be,” my mother said, and sat back in her faded, beige recliner. “A millionaire in a nuthouse. Now that’s a cryin’ shame waste a good money if I ever heard a one.”

  “Amen to that, ma’am.” Winky lowered his head.

  I shot Winky a look. “We don’t know if she’s actually a millionaire – ”

  “Oh well. Enough of that. It’s time for Matlock,” my mother chirped, switching gears as smoothly as a long-distance trucker. “Val, you wanna fix up the guest room for the fellers? You can sleep on the couch when I’m done with my programs.”

  “Sure, Mom.”

  “I think they’s some Jello pudding packs in the fridge if anybody wants one. Val, could you get me a v’niller? If they ain’t no v’niller, I’ll take a butterscotch.”

  “Okay, Mom. Where can I –”

  “Shhh. Program’s startin’. I just love me some Matlock.”

  Mom turned to face the TV, as mesmerized as a lizard caught in the stare of a great blue heron.

  I got Mom her pudding pack and fished around for bedclothes in the overstuffed linen closet full of mismatched sheets and towels. Tom helped me change the sheets on the rickety old full-sized bed in the guestroom.


  “Sorry about the mothball smell,” I said sheepishly. “And the Smurfs.”

  Tom laughed good-naturedly. “I’ve lived through worse. Don’t worry about it, Val. I’ve got relatives, too, you know.” Tom took my hand and tried to kiss me, but I turned my head away. Tom looked puzzled and a bit hurt.

  “Don’t take it wrong, Tom. It’s just that...if this relationship does go somewhere, I don’t want to remember this house as being the first place we kissed.”

  Tom grinned and sighed. “Got it. But I want a raincheck.”

  “Okay.”

  “Promise?”

  “I promise.” I squeezed Tom’s hand, then let it go and walked to the bedroom door.

  “You know, I’ll be happy to take the couch, Val.”

  I turned around in the doorframe and smiled. “I wouldn’t do that to you. I like you too much. Winky? Now he’s another story. He knows how to fend for himself in the land of the skunk ape. Speaking of Winky, where is he?”

  “Passed out in the back of the 4Runner would be my bet. He found the remainder of your six pack. The rest, as they say, is history.”

  Tom smiled and studied me with those sea-green eyes of his. He looked as out of place in my mom’s house as a wristwatch on a T-Rex. I really did want to kiss him. But not here. This place held too many screwed-up memories. The last thing I wanted was to jinx my chances with him.

  “Good night, Tom.”

  “Good night, Val. Oh, just one more thing.”

  “What?”

  “Was your mother’s last name really Jolly?”

  “Yes. Now you know where I get my love of irony. I inherited it from my mother.”

  “That must be all you inherited. You don’t look anything like her.”

  “Thanks,” I said coyly. “You sure know how to sweet talk a girl.”

  Tom grinned.

  I shut the door behind me, and tried to brand the image of his impish smile and handsome face into my memory banks.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  A VULTURE CIRCLED OVERHEAD. It landed and pecked me on the forehead.

  I groaned and struggled to wake myself, but my limbs felt trapped in an impenetrable cocoon. For a moment, I thought I was on my couch in my apartment. Then I heard a familiar voice, and memories of yesterday came rushing back into my mind like floodwater into a dry riverbed.

  I was at Mom’s house...and an old man named Jacob was trying to kill me!

  I cracked opened my eyes just in time to catch sight of a red blur heading right for my face. Before I could scrounge up enough energy to react, it landed on my forehead.

  “Vallie, wake up.”

  My eyes flew open. Mom was standing over me. She tapped me on the forehead again with a dirty red flyswatter.

  “I’m awake, Mom,” I grumbled.

  “Good. I need you to make the coffee. I got a new can of Maxwell House and I can’t open it a’cause a my author-itis.”

  “Sure, Mom. Gimme a second.”

  I rubbed my eyes and watched the backside of my mother’s pink housecoat disappear into the kitchen. She’d worn that fuzzy, floor-length coat for as long as I could remember. I guess some things never changed...especially when it came to moms.

  I stumbled into the kitchen where she was unloading plastic containers from the refrigerator. It never failed. Whenever I visited Mom, she declared it was a good time to use up the leftovers. But I knew it was just a ploy to get me to wash all her dirty dishes.

  “It’s a good time to use up the leftovers, Vallie, while we got two strappin’ young men here.”

  “Sure, Mom. Everybody loves green fried chicken and fuzzy mashed potatoes.”

  “Don’t get smart with me, young lady.”

  “Just kidding.” I smiled at my mom and her face softened. “Where’s your can opener?”

  Mom turned her head and shook it slowly, gazing at me as if I were a hopeless mental reject.

  “Hangin’ on the wall next to the stove, like always.” She pointed a finger toward the wall, then bent over to retrieve more containers from the refrigerator.

  “Oh.” I yawned. “Where’s Dale? Still sleeping?” I asked in the direction of her large, pink, fuzzy behind.

  “Nope. He run off to IGA to get us some donuts. You gotta get there early or old Tiny McMullen’ll buy the whole store out. I seen him eat three dozen glazed one morning in six minutes. Dale timed him. Tiny’s a donut-eatin’ machine.”

  “Well, hopefully Dale beat him to it this morning. He must have left early to walk there.”

  Mom slowly stood up with a jumble of plastic containers balanced in her hands. She shut the old fridge door with a shift of her ample behind. “Oh no. He drove the golf cart.”

  “Mom, isn’t he blind?”

  “He’s not that blind. Besides, you know I don’t drive no more.”

  Greenville’s mascot, a one-legged Mallard duck named Greenback, had been the straw that finally broke the back on my mother being able to keep her driver’s license. She’d already put a dent in nearly everybody’s car in town. But when mom flattened Greenback the day before Easter last year, the sheriff had confiscated her license and told her she no longer had the privilege to legally drive a car in Jackson County.

  Knowing Dale was blind, the sheriff had informed my mother she could still drive a golf cart. But mom didn’t take to the sheriff’s decision too well. Out of stubborn pigheadedness and pettiness, she refused, and made Dale drive the cart instead.

  Without my morning coffee, I couldn’t think of a response anywhere approaching appropriate for her sending poor, blind Dale out on the loose, so I kept my mouth shut and turned my attention to opening the can of Maxwell House. I watched the can slowly twirl along with the tinny grinding of the can opener, then click to a stop. I threw the metal disk in the garbage and scrounged around in the cupboards for a coffee filter. Soon, the aroma of fresh-brewed coffee filled mom’s dirty, dated kitchen.

  “I love that smell,” Mom said. She’d taken her place at the head of the table and prepared herself to be waited on by me.

  “Me too,” I said. I poured us both a cup and sat to her left.

  “Where’s my Bailey’s creamer?”

  “Ooops. I’ll get it.”

  I was poking around the inside of the fridge for the creamer when Tom came in the kitchen. He strutted around, making a grand appearance in his white t-shirt, white tennis shoes and socks, and a pair of Bermuda shorts held up with a white, woman’s belt that could have wrapped around his body at least twice.

  “Good morning, ladies,” he said, grinning proudly. “Remind you of anybody?”

  Mom grunted and looked back down at the paper. She was reading the comics, or as she liked to call them, “The funny papers.” Everyone in the family knew it was against the law to disturb her during this important quality time.

  I wasn’t amused by Tom’s foolery either. “Definitely not funny,” I replied. “Jacob could have killed me! Just for that, you can get your own coffee.”

  Tom looked crestfallen. “Hey! I was just trying to make you feel better, Val.” He twirled around. “See? I’m harmless.”

  “The joke’s not working, Tom. Drop it.”

  “Ouch! Okay. I can see you’re not a morning person.”

  “Nope.”

  “Duly noted.”

  The living room door flew open. Winky and Dale tromped in together, laughing like old buddies. Each displayed telltale signs of premature donut devouring. Mom caught sight of the white powder around their mouths and lost track of her good mood.

  “Y’all didn’t eat my cream-filled, now, did yer? Or my cruller?”

  Winky and Dale jerked back and shriveled up like schoolboys caught peeping in the girls’ locker room.

  “I...I don’t think so...” Dale stumbled. The Coke-bottle-thick lenses of his glasses made his eyes look twice as big, and doubly terrified. He opened the donut box and groped around inside. “Nope! Here’s your cruller!” Dale held up a glaze
d donut that looked like a little tractor tire. I guess he could feel the tread on it.

  “Good,” Mom barked. “Now where’s the cream-filled?”

  Winky licked his lips and made a beeline for the door, leaving Dale holding the bag...or, more accurately, the box.

  “Now ain’t that just great,” Mom grumbled. “I can’t rely on nobody fer nothin’ around here. Sometimes I feel like I’m livin’ with a bunch a Charlie Browns. Ever’body’s a Charlie Brown. Charlie Brown! Charlie Brown! Charlie Brown!”

  Tom ducked his head like a whipped dog and turned back to face the kitchen counter. As he poured himself a cup of coffee, I leaned over and whispered in his ear. “Better Charlie Brown than Hagar the Horrible.”

  Tom shook his head and blew out a breath. “I don’t know how you survived it here.”

  “Who said I survived?”

  Tom smiled. “I did.”

  I smiled back. “Just for that, you can have my cruller.”

  WINKY HID OUT IN THE 4Runner all morning. I guess he was smarter than I gave him credit for. I’d snuck him a cup of coffee and another donut when Mom wasn’t looking. He was all sugared up and raring to go when Tom and I loaded up for the trip to Chattahoochee State Hospital. We planned on heading over to meet Thelma G. Goldrich and then hightail it back to St. Petersburg. Tom turned the ignition. The 4Runner sputtered, belched and died.

  “So much for our great escape,” I said.

  While Tom poked around under the hood, I went back in the house and asked Mom who we could call to take a look at the vehicle.

  “Tiny McMullen, a course. Number’s on the fridge. But don’t let on that Dale got the big box a donuts this mornin’.”

  I called the number and a man answered on the fifth ring. “Yellow?”

  “Is this Tiny McMullen?”

  “Yes ma’am. What can I do you fer?”

  “Our 4Runner won’t start. Can you come take a look at it?”

  “Sure thing. Where you at?”

  “Greenville.”

  “That your silver 4Runner over at Dale’s?”

  “Uh...yes.”

  “Be there in a sec. I just live across the street.”

  “Oh. Thanks.”