Val Fremden Mystery Box Set 1 Page 27

  Last year, a bulldog-faced woman named Thelma Goldrich called me a tramp and knocked me out cold at Caddy’s beach bar – right before the memorial service for an old beach bum named Tony. That punch in the nose turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to me.

  Long story short, Thelma’s right hook to my poor schnoz set in motion a chain of bizarre events that changed my life forever. I discovered that Justas and Lucille Jolly were not my biological parents. My real parents were a couple of crazy, beer-guzzling, beach-bum hoarders named Tony and Glad Goldrich. They both died within days of each other and named me – their biological, long-lost daughter – as sole heir to their tiny, junk-filled house on the Intracoastal Waterway in St. Petersburg, Florida. Oh yeah. They also left me enough cash to keep me in chocolate bars for a long while to come.

  Good thing, too. At the time I was like, seconds away from being homeless.

  I also found out that my real birthday was December 22nd. But I decided to keep celebrating it on April Fools’ Day, like I had for the last forty-eight years. Given the weird scenario surrounding this particular aspect of my life – correction – given the weird scenario surrounding my whole life in general, it just seemed...well...apropos.

  I’d figured out this twisted story with the help of a cop named Tom Foreman and three washed-up derelicts named Winky, Jorge and Goober. I’d rewarded the three burn-outs with $5,000 each. The cop, well, let’s just say he got something else out of me.

  Chapter One

  THE TREAD-WORN, WHITEWALL tires squealed on the hot asphalt. I shifted into park and climbed out of Shabby Maggie, my 1963 Ford Falcon Sprint convertible. Like me, Maggie was creamy-white and a bit girlie on the outside, but underneath her hood beat a V8 engine that could kick butt with the big boys.

  I’d been cruising along Gulf Boulevard, a block from the beach, when a thought latched onto me like a starving mosquito. I pulled a one-eighty in the middle of the road and made a beeline for the drugstore at the corner of 107th in St. Pete Beach.

  It was my birthday, and I was going to celebrate it in style with a king-sized Mounds candy bar. I knew for a lot of folks, that wouldn’t have sounded like much of a present. But for me it was. I never kept chocolate at my place. It was the only thing I couldn’t be trusted with.

  I high-tailed it inside the store and grabbed a candy bar from a rack by the register. A minute later, I strolled outside with both chunks of delicious, gooey heaven crammed into my mouth like Lucille Ball at that chocolate factory. Distracted by the commingling of chewy coconut and rich, dark chocolate, I didn’t notice someone was in Maggie’s passenger seat until my butt was already wedged halfway in on the driver’s side.

  When I caught sight of her, just inches from me, I totally freaked.

  I jerked back and let out a high-pitched scream that could only be heard by dogs and dolphins. Before my brain could put two-and-two together, I swung my purse at her and busted her square in the face.

  As my pocketbook hit pay-dirt, I had what I called an idioment; an idiotic moment of doomed recognition – like seeing the car keys hanging in the ignition just as you slam the locked door shut. There was no turning back. I’d have to live with the consequences. I sucked in a surprised breath and nearly choked to death on chewed-up coconut.

  “Aaarrrgh! Oh crap!”

  I cringed. My eyes doubled as she flew backwards off the seat and tumbled onto the floorboard. Dressed as she was, no one in the whole world would’ve recognized her except for me. It was Glad – still wearing that plastic Mr. Peanut piggybank she’d been shaking around in the very last time I’d seen her, less than an hour before her botched burial at sea last year. That day, someone had taken Glad from my car in this very same parking lot. Today, they’d returned her. And on my birthday, no less. I wasn’t sure if that qualified as ironic or not, but the timing was definitely weird.

  Whoever Glad’s kidnapper had been, he’d left a hand-written note on the seat. I picked it up. The torn scrap of yellow paper read, “Sorry. Mr. P.”

  I glanced around the parking lot. None of the tourists milling around the place looked like perverts or body snatchers. (Well, maybe one.) I picked Glad up, hugged her to my chest, and set her back on the passenger seat beside me.

  I turned the ignition and smiled.

  It may sound crazy, but over the rumbling of Maggie’s twin glass-pack muffler, I’d swear I heard Glad say:

  “Screw you, Kiddo.”

  I turned and gave her a wink.

  “Nice to see you again, too, Mom.”

  Chapter Two

  OWNING A HOME AGAIN was turning out to be a blessing and a curse. It was nice to be able to fix things up the way I wanted. But dealing with the renovations and repairmen had me cursing under my breath – in German. Scheisse!

  I’d moved into Glad and Tony’s old 1950’s ranch house yesterday. Now, not even twenty-four hours later, the blasted air conditioning had died.

  When I’d been renting, I’d just picked up the phone and said, “Come fix this.” Those days were over. I was the responsible party now. And I didn’t have a clue who to call. The only person I could think of was my next-door neighbor. I’d seen her a few times while I’d been working on the place. She’d waved and seemed friendly.

  What the heck. I’ll introduce myself and see if she knows someone who could fix it....

  I rang her doorbell. I didn’t get a referral. I got an eyeful. The door opened wide, and standing before me was a woman wearing nothing but a pink thong bikini bottom, sparkly stilettos and enough gold necklaces to sink a rowboat. I think Mr. T would have made her an official member of The A Team if it weren’t for one thing.

  She must have been around seventy years old.

  If a geriatric donkey and one of those wrinkly little Shar Pei dogs had a baby, it might have grown up to have a mug just like this woman’s. Her long, horsey face was the color and texture of spray-tanned crepe paper. When she cracked her mouth open and smiled, I half expected her to whinny – or bray. In fact, it was kind of surreal when she spoke instead.

  It was like being trapped inside that old TV show with Mr. Ed’s trashy girlfriend.

  “Howdy, neighbor!”

  The tall, thin woman spoke down at me from her vantage point about a foot above my five-foot-four frame. She thrust out a hand, sending her cadre of necklaces and both boobs swaying. I tried to keep my eyes off the pendulum action.

  “Hi. I’m Val Fremden. Just moved in next door.”

  “Seen you moving in. Nice to meet you. I’m Laverne Cowens.”

  “Uh, I can see you’re busy, Laverne. I don’t want to take up your time. Just wondering if you knew a good air-conditioning repair company?”

  “On the fritz, huh?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, I know a thing or two about air conditioners. Let me see if I can help you out.”

  Before I could object, Laverne turned around and disappeared down the hallway, her shriveled, spray-tanned butt cheeks wobbling around a corner. A moment later she reappeared wearing a sparkly gold beach cover-up. I sighed with relief.

  “Show me that air handler thingy.”

  “Uh, that’s okay. I just need a ref –”

  “Nonsense! What are neighbors for?”

  Laverne closed the front door behind her and shooed me toward my place with a liver-spotted hand spiked with pointy, red fingernails. She followed me across the lawn, high-stepping through the grass with her long, orange legs like a stork through a salad. I led her through my front door and into my small, open-plan living room and kitchen, then down a hall to the closet where the old air handler unit was installed.

  “Nice place you got here.”

  Laverne’s donkey head shifted left and right, causing her gold hoop earrings to jangle underneath her smooth, strawberry-blonde hair cut in a soft, layered bob. Her bug-eyes rolled the full range of their sockets.

  “I like the green paint in the kitchen.”

  “Thanks. Not much to
see at the moment. I’m still putting the place back together.”

  “Glad and Tony did let things get a little rangy around here, that’s for sure.”

  “You knew my parents?”

  “A little. But they mostly kept to themselves. Once in a while, Glad would talk to me over the fence. But not too often. In fact, I didn’t even know they had a daughter until you showed up.”

  “That’s understandable.”

  I thought about explaining how I hadn’t known it myself until a few months ago, but I was in a hurry and wanted to keep on topic. I opened the closet door and hit the light switch. Nothing happened.

  “Huh. The closet light isn’t working,” I muttered absently.

  “Hmmm...but your kitchen light is working,” Laverne remarked. “That’s strange. Are you sure you paid the whole light bill, honey?”

  I snickered. Laverne’s face showed genuine concern.

  “Uh. Yeah, I think so.”

  Laverne cocked her head like a puzzled dog and scrunched her horsey brow. I figured I’d better do something to distract her before she blew a gasket in that worn-out little brain of hers.

  “Uh...I’ll go get a flashlight,” I fumbled.

  I padded to the kitchen and grabbed a big black flashlight from the cupboard below the sink. I shone it into the closet. Laverne peeked in and shook her head.

  “Aha! Just what I thought! That’s a Trane!”

  She pointed a shiny red fingernail at the brand name etched into a silver plaque on the air conditioner’s dull, dusty, olive-colored housing.

  “So, what’s the problem? Is that a bad brand?”

  “No. Duh!”

  Laverne shot me a pathetic look. She shook her head softly and pointed at the logo again.

  “See here, Val? It was made for a train, not a house.”

  My mouth fell open. I stared at Laverne like a dead trout in a seafood display case. She smiled back sweetly, like a kindly old schoolteacher. I almost expected her to pat me on the head. She punched me softly on the arm instead.

  “First house, huh, sugar? You’ll get the hang of it.”

  “Wow. Well...uh...thanks, Laverne. Sorry to have bothered you.”

  “No bother at all, honey! Happy to have you around! You just call me any old time you need me.”

  “Thanks. I sure will,” I said as I steered her skinny butt to the door. I meant it, too. Because at that moment in time, I couldn’t conceive of a single scenario where I would ever need her help again.

  THE BUSTED AIR CONDITIONER was just the latest item on a mile-long list of repairs my parents’ dilapidated little house had needed to make it inhabitable again. Just sorting through and hauling away decades of accumulated junk had taken months. Living with Friedrich’s hoarding issues in Germany had prepared me somewhat for the mess, but he’d been an amateur compared to Glad and Tony. Together, they’d accumulated literally tons of garbage. It was everywhere, strewn from the rafters in the attic to the far corners of the backyard. Among their neurotic stash of loot was every magazine printed since 1985, around twenty-million almost-used up toilet paper rolls, fifty million assorted twist ties, bread bags and yogurt cups, a ball of used tinfoil big enough to choke a blue whale, and swollen cans of fruit cocktail and succotash purchased during the Carter administration.

  But the biggest shocker came when I’d unearthed a mummified black-and-white cat in the back bedroom. Squashed nearly flat under an avalanche of Cat Fancier magazines, there was no telling if it had been my parents’ cat or some unfortunate stray. Or worse yet, one of the neighbors’ precious pets. I’d stuffed the dried-up carcass in a Hello Kitty bag I found under the bed, threw it in the dumpster and never said a word to anyone.

  After clearing away the mountains of crap, I’d gotten started on repairs; new roof, plumbing, electric, water heater, etc. It was German déjà vu all over again as I’d watched my bank account drop like the gas tank indicator on a Hummer stretch limousine. Finally, toward the last week of February, I’d seen the light at the end of the repair tunnel and felt it was safe to give my landlord notice. My goal had been to move into my new place before my birthday. But I knew full well that things didn’t always go as planned. After all, I was the middle-aged poster child for how life could suddenly take a U-turn and dive off a cliff. Armed with that knowledge, I’d covered my bases and paid the rent through the end of April.

  As it turned out, that decision had been more money down the drain. But I wasn’t complaining. After scrubbing and painting every room in the house, I’d managed to get the house livable before the end of March. Yesterday, March 31, I’d piled my belongings into the backseat of Maggie and moved from my ratty, closet-sized apartment downtown to my palatial, thousand-square-foot house on the Intracoastal Waterway. I’d owned next to nothing, so the move had only taken one trip.

  I smiled at the idea of never having to go back to that place. Yesterday, I’d tossed my last handful of clothes onto the pile in the backseat and cranked Maggie’s engine to life. My landlord was gone on vacation, so I’d dropped the apartment keys in the mailbox. There’d been no one to wave goodbye to, so as I’d driven away I’d extended my middle finger to the ugly-ass brown couch I’d ‘inherited’ from the last tenant. I’d left its sagging old carcass in the alley, along with my memories of the eighteen months I’d spent there as a lost, friendless, derelict-in-training.

  Fun times.

  Chapter Three

  WITH MY MEAGER BELONGINGS all tucked away in my new place, I was celebrating my good fortune. Tonight I was throwing a birthday-cum-housewarming party. The air conditioner had died, but it was just the first day of April. It wasn’t full-on summer yet in St. Pete. We still had a few good weeks left before the sweltering heat and humidity came and squatted its sweaty, sunburned butt on us and robbed us of our will to live.

  My party guests for the evening included the regular gang, Goober, Winky, Jorge, my parents’ estate attorney J.D. Fellows, and, of course, my boyfriend Tom. Earlier today, when I’d realized I was the only woman attending, I’d thought about inviting Laverne from next door. But given her low IQ and clothing-optional lifestyle, I’d decided she’d been too sketchy.

  Now that it was almost party time, I was revisiting the thought. Laverne too sketchy for this crowd? I laughed under my breath. A spoon-sucking peanut head, a crazy, freckle-faced redneck, a Latin lager lout, a barnacle-sized barrister, and a cop with whom I’m committing crimes of passion...and I’m worried about Laverne being too sketchy?

  I checked the fridge. It mirrored my guest list. The usual suspects. A cheese tray. Carrots and celery. Ranch dip. Chicken wings. A case of Fosters. Tonic and lime. I made a mental note to work on my lineup – of both food and friends.

  A cool blast hit my face when I opened the freezer. I clunked three ice cubes into a highball glass. Next to the ice-cube trays, a half-gallon, emerald-green jug of Tanqueray stood frosty and alone except for the company of two frozen, chicken potpies. The pies were my “going-out insurance.” I hated pot pies. Tom despised them even more than I did. Whenever he came over and asked what was for dinner, I’d pull out the pot pies. He’d take one look and say, “Let’s eat out.” I’d put the disgusting things back in the freezer, and they and I would live to fight another day. Like Rita’s booze bottles back in Germany, my pot pies were “only for looking.”

  I poured a shot of gin into my glass of ice and rummaged around the fridge for the lime and tonic. It was getting close to six. The party was in half an hour. Just enough time to get a quick shower and a TNT buzz....

  THE DOORBELL RANG AT 6:30 on the dot. I pinned back my damp hair and thanked my stars that I was almost dressed. I pulled a light sweater on over my tank top and jeans and padded barefoot to the front door.

  “Hey there, Val Pal!” bellowed Winky as I opened the door.

  To my surprise, the short, ginger-haired redneck wore pants that reached all the way to his bare feet. Stretched over his freckled beer belly was a clean Hawaiian shir
t – with all its buttons. And – be still my heart – a brown tweed sport jacket! Compared to Winky’s normal raggedy attire, this qualified as a tuxedo. His effort made me smile.

  “You ‘member Winnie?” Winky hooked a thumb to his left and a short, pudgy girl with black hair and red glasses stepped into view.

  “Oh! Sure. From Water Loo’s. Nice to see you again, Winnie.”

  “You, too, Val.” Her brow furrowed. “You don’t mind I came along, do you?”

  “Oh. No! Not at all! You’re more than welcome. I could use a girl to talk to. Come on in!”

  “Thanks!”

  Winnie showed her teeth, making her puffy cheeks rise like hot biscuits. Her eyes squeezed into curving slits like an Asian Buddha. Combined with her short-cropped, jet-black bob and bangs, she made the perfect Japanese anime character. I stepped aside to let the pair enter, then hooked Winky by the arm as he tried to pass by.

  “Are you two together?”

  Winky grinned like a poorly carved Jack-o’-lantern.

  “Yep. Shackin’ up for nearly a month now. Good thing, too. I got tired of campin’ in the woods all by my lonesome.”

  “I thought you and Goober –”

  “Nope. He took the money you give him and got hisself a place downtown – near your old ‘partment, I think.”

  “Oh. Well...congratulations. On Winnie, I mean. She’s really cute.”

  Winky puffed himself up.

  “Hey now, Val. Keep yore facts straight. Winnie’s got the car and the job. I’m the one’s got the looks.”

  My head wagged involuntarily from side to side. I wasn’t sure if Winky was joking or really thought himself a prize. With men, you never could tell.

  “Right.”

  Winky grinned and slapped me on the back. “Dang straight! Got any beer?”

  “In the fridge –”

  Winky took off like a future train wreck, my words trailing behind him like piss in the wind. Winnie followed after him at a slightly slower pace. I turned to face the door again and saw tall, lean Goober standing there, wagging his bushy eyebrows at me. He lifted his Rays baseball cap from his bald pate and set it back again. The act of a true, Florida gentleman.