Val Fremden Mystery Box Set 1 Read online

  Chapter Seventeen

  I WAS SOME KIND OF hapless weirdo. I lived in two parallel, yet diametrically opposed dimensions. On one plane of existence, I was just good-old Val Fremden, your typical, late-forties, Caucasian woman. Southern. Brown hair. Average build. College grad. Nothing remarkable about my appearance or intellect. On another plane, I was my alter-ego, Valliant Stranger, an aspiring, bumbling gumshoe wannabe with a cadre of known associates I quite often wished I didn’t know. In the weird, twilight space in between, where these two dimensions collided, lived Glad’s daughter, Thelma Gladys Goldrich – the universe’s favorite victim of circumstances.

  Why in the world did that finger have to end up in my couch?

  I pondered this question and a few more over a Tanqueray and tonic. Was Capone telling the truth? Was the finger Mickie’s? If it was the guitar player’s digit, I was off the hook for potential homicide. But if Capone was truthful about about Mickie, did that mean he was right about Goober, too? Did Goober know more than he was telling? Had Goober actually cut off Mickie’s finger? No. I couldn’t believe that. At least I didn’t want to believe that I could believe that. And now, to top it all off, Tom was acting suspicious. He was the one who’d hauled that ugly-ass couch into my house in the first place. Why would he have done that if he wasn’t in on this whole scheme, too?

  Geeze! Could things get any more complicated?

  The phone rang. “Unknown Caller.” I took a slug of TNT and clicked the green button.

  “Hello?”

  “Ms. Valiant Fremden?”

  My mood went from bad to worse

  “Yes, Officer Jergen.”

  “I’m calling to inform you we found the body.”

  I sat bolt upright, suddenly cold sober.

  “What?”

  “A body has been found in a dumpster near downtown. It’s been deceased for about three weeks, and is missing most of its fingers. It looks like a match. And a possible homicide. Is there anything you would like to add to your statement now, or do I have to call you in for questioning?”

  “I told you already. I didn’t do it. What about the dwarf? The fingerprints?”

  “Analysis of the fingerprints taken at your house yielded no foreign prints. I assume Officer Thomas Foreman was there earlier, assisting with the removal of the finger. That’s why his prints were found. Or do you have another explanation?”

  “No. No other explanation.”

  “Uh huh. I thought as much. I’ll be in touch. Don’t leave town.”

  Officer Jergen clicked off the phone. I poured another drink and picked through my DVDs. I pulled out Sense & Sensibility.

  “You were right about men, Jane. They’re complicated.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  I GUESS FIFTY BUCKS went a long way in the world of the down and out. I’d just finished googling the news and pulling the rest of my hair out when the phone rang.

  “Goober One to Goober Two.”

  “Hey, Goober.”

  “Got Capone and Mickie here behind The Deet. I can hold ‘em if you pay for a pint.”

  “Yes! Sure! Great work, Goober. I’ll be right there.”

  I clicked off the phone and scurried around like a deranged rat. I yanked a clean shirt from the closet and buttoned it, then played hide-and-seek with the house for my favorite jeans. I found them in the dirty-clothes pile. Crap. I glanced around to make sure my mother up in Greenville wasn’t looking. I grabbed the dirty jeans out of the heap and pulled them on. I inched into some flip-flops and was out the door in under a minute.

  I was cruising down Gulf when my phone rang again.

  “Ms. Fremden? This is attorney Marvin Hemingway.”

  “Uh...yes?”

  “Mr. Fellows said you needed representation on a defense case?”

  “Oh! Yes. But no. Not anymore. I think I’ve got this covered.”

  “Yes. Right. Well, keep me in mind –”

  “Look, I’m driving. Thanks for the call, but I’ve got to go. Goodbye.”

  I clicked off the phone and headed east on First Avenue South. I hit the gas, then caught sight of something sticking out of the glovebox. It was the corner of that blasted speeding ticket. I eased off the gas and prayed for the lights to stay green. Of course, I hit every red after that.

  I was waiting for another light to turn green when my favorite radio show came on. The folks at WTFM, “That’s For Me” radio had a hilarious program that replayed drunk-dialing disasters, funked-up phone-ins to the station, and inane, inebriated messages left on people’s answering machines.

  “Jack Hammer here! It’s nine o’clock, friends and fiends! You know what that means – it’s time to get down and dirty with the latest edition of Blurs & Slurs.”

  I turned up the dial. A drunk guy was stammering out a sentence between hiccups.

  “Hello?...(hic)...Is this the...(hic)...What The (bleep) Station?”

  “Yes sir. It certainly is. What can we do you for today?”

  “I gotta...(hic)...boner to pick with you guys.”

  “Sorry sir. We don’t play that way.”

  “Huh? I thought...(hic)...you played anything.”

  “What would you like us to play, sir?”

  “I forget. Hey, is this the...(hic)...International House of Pan-crakes?”

  “Oh, yes it is! What would you like to order?”

  “Bacon. Kevin likes lots of bacon. And Jack Dan –”

  I found a parking spot a block from The Deet and switched off the ignition.

  “What a dope,” I said to the radio.

  I fed the meter with quarters I’d saved from when I used to have to go to a laundromat. Thank goodness I didn’t have to face that sweaty social humiliation anymore. I walked to the alley behind The Deet. Goober, Capone, and a tall, skinny guy with red frizzy hair were passing around a pint of Mad Dog and bickering like three wet hens. It was as if I hadn’t turned the radio off – it was Blurs & Slurs live and in color.

  “You already had four swigs. It’s my turn,” Capone bellowed at Goober.

  “I didn’t realize you could count to four, Capone.”

  “Hand me that bottle,” said the third guy.

  The red-headed guy reached for the bottle of whiskey with his right hand. His left hand was covered in a dirty bandage. He and Goober played tug-of-war for the pint of rotgut. I interrupted their game.

  “Goober? What’s going on?”

  Goober let go of the bottle, sending the frizzy-haired dude careening against the wall of a building. He dropped the whiskey bottle. It shattered on the red bricks.

  “Now look what you’ve done, numbskull!” Capone groused. “You can’t do nothin’ right!”

  Frizzy hair reared back his bandaged hand and was about to whack Capone in the face with it when Goober grabbed his arm.

  “All right, gentlemen! Calm down.”

  Oddly enough, at Goober’s command, the two men straightened up like schoolboys headed for a paddling. I was impressed.

  “Ma’am, this here’s Mickie,” Capone said. “He’s the one missin’ the finger. You got the money?”

  “Yes,” I said. “But first I need some information.”

  “Show me the money, first,” Capone said.

  I sighed. “Sure.”

  I pulled out two twenties and a ten from my wallet and waved them in the air. Capone’s eyes followed them like a kitten watching a feather on a string.

  “Okay,” he said.

  I turned to Mickie. “How did you lose the finger?”

  “Uh...on a saw. I was working construction.”

  “Okay. How did it get into the couch?”

  Mickie looked over at Capone.

  “What’s she talking about? What couch?”

  Goober stepped up to Mickie.

  “Let’s see it,” he demanded.

  Capone and Mickie glanced at each other again.

  “See what?” Mickie asked.

  “Take off the bandage,” Goober
said. “Let’s see it.”

  “I don’t wanna,” Mickey said. “It’s...uh...unsanctified.”

  “Unsanitary, you idiot!” Capone yelled.

  Capone backhanded Mickie’s bicep. Goober lost his patience.

  “Do it now, or I’m gonna knock both of you out cold!”

  I’d never seen peanut head truly angry before. It scared me. If they start a brawl, what the hell am I going to do? I took a step back.

  “Okay, okay,” Capone said. He turned to Mickie. “Just do it.”

  Mickie unraveled his bandage. All five fingers were alive and well.

  “I wasn’t lying,” Capone said. “The guy you want is Mickie. I just couldn’t find him.”

  “So who’s this guy, then?” I asked.

  “Someone who wanted ten bucks.”

  I turned to Goober. “How did you know they were lying?”

  “Come on, Val. Look at the guy. Construction work? That guy couldn’t lift a hammer to nail a fly to the wall.”

  CRAP, CRAP, CRAP! Now I had nothing to prove my innocence – and no attorney either! Where could I go from here? I climbed in Maggie and was halfway back to the beach when I realized I’d forgotten to go to Chocolateers. Boy, I really was in deep. I glanced over to my left as I passed my favorite restaurant. I forgot all about fingers and chocolate and possible jail time. In the parking lot of Ming Ming’s, sidled up next to Tom’s silver 4Runner, was Milly’s red BMW.

  Chapter Nineteen

  I NEARLY LOST CONTROL of Maggie. What were Tom and Milly doing together? WTF? Was it just a coincidence – or were they having an affair? It took all the strength I could muster not to turn Maggie around, go flatten their tires with a butcher knife, then march into Ming Ming’s and knock their feeble heads together like two rotten coconuts. What the hell was going on, here?

  When it came to confrontation, I talked a good game. Safe within my own thoughts, I could devise of all kinds of dastardly ways to exact my revenge. But in the end, I never did any of them. I’d learned a long time ago there was no real joy in it. Besides, what if this really was just an innocent coincidence? I’d have made a jerk of myself. And even if it wasn’t, what right did I have to interfere? Tom and I weren’t engaged. We never even discussed monogamy. I guess I’d just assumed....

  Aunt Patsy’s snippy, self-righteous voice filled my head. “When you assume you make an ass out of u and me.”

  Screw that!

  I hit the brakes, did a one-eighty in the middle of Central Avenue and set my sights on a whole new kind of investigation. But the closer I got to Ming-Ming’s, the more my rage turned to uncertainty. By the time I’d driven the six blocks back to the restaurant, my self-righteousness had lost most of its steam. I settled on a sensible stakeout instead of a crap-slinging showdown. I turned left and parked a block away, on the opposite side of Central. I crept back and crouched behind a car parked at the laundromat across the street. Peeking out from behind the rusty bumper of an old Ford Bronco, I had a clear view of Ming Ming’s. I crouched down and rehearsed my interrogation lines.

  I didn’t get much practice. A minute later, Tom and Milly came out, all insipid grins and giggles. Tom pressed something into Milly’s hand and kissed her on the cheek. She laughed. He opened her car door for her and she climbed in. Tom walked around the back of her Beemer to his 4Runner and fiddled with the door. A strange thumping sound filled my ears and everything turned red. My mind melted into a pile of infuriated mush.

  I jumped up from behind the Bronco. I drew in a big breath in preparation of projecting a stream of obscenities across the road. But before I could make a sound, my phone rang.

  Was it Tom – the lying, cheating jerk himself?

  I shut my hang-dog mouth and squatted back down behind the car. I squirmed with anger like a trapped weasel as I fished around for my phone. I couldn’t make out the caller I.D. All I could see was stars.

  “Yes? Who is this?”

  “Goober One to Goober Two.”

  Crap! “What do you want?”

  “Hello to you, too Miss Manners.”

  “Sorry. Look, Goober, I’m kinda busy. What’s up?”

  “Too busy to meet the real fingerless freak?”

  “What? Another one? Does Capone have them lined up in the bushes? I don’t have time for another wild goose chase.”

  “It’s not. This is the guy.”

  “How do you know it’s the right Mickie this time?”

  “Let’s just say, ‘I checked.’”

  As I pondered that for a second, a loud voice rang out behind me.

  “Lady, what are you doing?”

  I turned to see an obese black woman in a tight pink dress eying me like I was Lizzie Borden. She held her cellphone in her hand like a weapon.

  “Get away from my car or I’m calling the police!”

  I stood up just in time to see Tom’s silver 4Runner driving away. Milly’s car was already gone.

  Crap!

  “I’m leaving, okay? Geeze!”

  I brushed off my knees. The woman kicked the air.

  “Go on, now. Git!”

  I took a few jogging steps in the direction of my car and put the phone to my ear.

  “Goober? Are you still there?”

  “Yeah. And I thought I led a weird life.”

  I WAS BACK AT OLD NORTHEAST Pizza, springing bail for Goober, Capone, and if peanut-head was right, the real fingerless Mickie. He was short fellow, not any taller than me, with a mangy grey ponytail that hung like a faded, weather-worn rope halfway down his back. Apparently, Mickie was in the habit of losing body parts. His once-handsome face was now punctuated with a gold front tooth, a goatee to match the rat tail, and a patch over his left eye. He, Goober and Capone were busy chewing mouthfuls of pizza when I walked in. Goober gave me a salute. I nodded back.

  “What are the damages?” I asked the tattooed pizza guy.

  “Ten-fifty.”

  “Here’s fifteen. Could you add a slice to it? I’m starving. Plain cheese, please.”

  “No problem.”

  The pizza guy put a slice on a wooden paddle, shuffled over to the pizza oven and slid it in. I turned my attention to the trio of derelicts in front of me. Mickie held out his four-fingered hand, the stump where his index finger used to be was still red and scabby. I shook his hand and tried not to retch.

  Great. I have to eat pizza with this hand.

  “I’m Mickie,” he said. “I hear you found my finger.”

  “See? I told you I’d find the right guy,” Capone sneered. “Where’s my fifty?”

  “Shut up Capone,” Goober said. “You’ll get your money when my friend here’s satisfied this guy’s the real deal.”

  Capone eyed Goober, then looked at his paper plate.

  “You gonna eat that crust?”

  Capone reached for it. Goober swatted his hand away. Capone scowled and got up off his stool. He stuck a finger in the coin return of the pin-ball machine next to his chair. It was empty. His face soured again and he plopped back down on his stool and sighed.

  “Yes, Mickie, it looks like I did find your finger. I’m curious – how did you lose it?”

  Mickie eyed me warily.

  “I didn’t. Somebody took it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Somebody cut it off.”

  “Why would they do that?”

  “I dunno. Maybe I owed ‘em money. I got a few debts outstanding.”

  “Like you, lady,” Capone groused. “You owe me fifty bucks.”

  Goober swatted Capone on the back of the head.

  “But why would they take your finger? It’s not worth anything – is it?”

  Mickie eyed me with curiosity, then concern.

  “It was for the ring. They couldn’t get it off.... Hey! Wait a minute. It was you!”

  “Me? What are you talking about?”

  “You did it. You and your boyfriend. You jerks rolled me when I was drunk. You put a sack over my head.
I couldn’t see your face. But I’d recognize your voice anywhere. You told him to do it!”

  “Do what?”

  “To cut my dang finger off!”

  “What? You’re wrong! You’ve got the wrong person, Mickie. I’m trying to –”

  “Trying to what? Get my gold tooth next? Stay the hell away from me!”

  Mickie jerked to standing and ran out of the pizza place, his ratty ponytail trailing in the air behind him. Goober and I stared at each other, stunned. Capone held out his hand.

  “Harummm.”

  I placed two twenties and a ten in his dirty little palm.

  “Here’s your pizza,” the tattooed guy said.

  Capone shoved his money into his filthy jeans and eyed the slice.

  “You gonna eat that, lady?”

  THE SKY WAS FALLING. I went home and hid under my bed. No matter which guy the finger belonged to, I was totally screwed.

  Chapter Twenty

  SOMETHING CRAWLED ACROSS my face. I shot upright and smacked my head, hard.

  “Ouch!”

  In the grey twilight, swarms of dragonflies thronged around me. My head pounded and my mouth tasted of dust. A plastic, monocle-wearing peanut grinned at me from under its black top hat. I sat up in the booth on one elbow and touched the tender bump on my forehead. I scowled at my two assailants, an overhead kitchen cabinet and an empty bottle of Tanqueray. I’d spent the night with them and Glad in her old RV.

  I vaguely recalled getting home yesterday – then the memories came flooding back like a clogged toilet. A crazy man was after me for cutting off his finger. A crazy girlfriend was after my lying boyfriend. A crazy-mean policeman was after me for murder. And I’d been crazy enough to think getting plastered would solve everything.

  I sat up and grunted as I reached down to the scuffed linoleum floor. I picked up Mr. Peanut. Hot tears sprang from my eyes and thumped onto his monocle eye, making it appear as if he were crying, too.

  “I miss you, Glad.”

  A tear rolled down Mr. Peanut’s pitted cheek. I held the bank to my chest and whispered to my dear, departed mom.