Cloud Nine- When Pigs Fly Read online

  “It would be a conflict of interest.”

  “What are you talking about, J.D.?”

  “I sold my house to Progress, Inc.”

  “What?!” I screeched.

  “This Amsel fellow wanted it for a pre-construction office while he builds the place. As soon as my unit is done, I’ll be moving to the Ovation right over there.” J.D. nodded toward the window. “As they say, if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.”

  I picked my jaw up off the floor.

  “J.D., where’s your loyalty?”

  J.D. sighed tiredly. “I don’t get paid for loyalty, Val. I get paid for results. Set up the meetings, and let’s see what we can do to find your pal Goober.”

  Chapter Ten

  After spending the morning dealing with two different attorneys, I thought it was a pretty safe bet the low point for my day had already gone by.

  I was wrong.

  As I walked back to my car, a light-green slip of paper waved at me from my windshield.

  Crap on a cracker!

  Not only did I have a lousy parking ticket – some jerk had reached inside Maggie and stolen my stash of green Tic-Tacs.

  That’s what I get for trusting people enough to leave the convertible top open.

  I jerked opened the driver’s side door and plopped down on the seat. I was so hopping mad I barely felt the molten heat of the red vinyl as it scorched my thighs. I reached down and felt under the seat for Langsbury’s deposition folder.

  Unbelievable! Some dirtbag took it, too!

  For a brief second, I thought about running up and getting another copy from bird-faced Dimson. But I was out of quarters and patience. Besides, the freaking meter patrol vehicle was heading my way. I didn’t need another twenty-five-dollar parking ticket. My good deed to get Langsbury off scot-free had cost me enough already.

  It was time for that chocolate fix.

  I turned the ignition and blew a noisy cloud of blue exhaust in the meter patrolman’s face.

  Look out, Chocolateers. Two dark-chocolate covered cherries are about to meet their fate.

  WHEN I PULLED UP TO my house, I was surprised to see my neighbor Nancy outside – without her binoculars. She was in her front yard, flailing around. She’d either had an aneurism or she was doing jumping jacks. As I cut the engine on Maggie, I could hear her grunting from across the street.

  Oh my lord! She’s doing grunt aerobics!

  Nancy waved jazz hands at me mid-jumping jack. I waved back and checked my gut’s ever-reliable guilt-o-meter.

  Nothing. Not a jot.

  I shot Nancy a grin and climbed out of the car. As the door slammed closed, I heard a hissing sound like a tire going flat.

  “Pssst.”

  The noise was coming from the direction of my neighbor Jake’s house. I looked over the hedge and spotted him. He was kneeling in the grass, waving at me. Jake dropped his hairy handful of dandelions, stood up, and ambled toward me like a bald chimpanzee dressed in a wife-beater t-shirt and shorts.

  “I see Nancy’s given you the ‘Spruce-Up September’ talk,” I said as he approached.

  “Yeah.” Jake nodded in Nancy’s direction. “I decided to pull some weeds and watch the show. I think the old girl’s lost it.”

  I bit my lip and confessed. “I kind of told her there was such a thing as ‘grunt aerobics.’”

  Jake smiled at me like one evil genius to another. “Why?”

  “Don’t ask. Hey, did Laverne talk to you about finding a way to smuggle Randolph out of town?”

  Jake glanced across the street again. “Is that Nancy’s husband?”

  “Uh...no. It’s Laverne’s pig. So, I take it she didn’t talk to you.”

  “No. I think I would’ve remembered that conversation.”

  “Come with me.” I led Jake inside my front door. “I’ll call Laverne. It’s time we got this whole pig thing wrapped up.”

  “Like a pig in a blanket,” Jake joked.

  I shot him some side-eye. “Uh, yeah – no.”

  “WELL, NOW I’VE SEEN everything,” Jake said as he peered over the fence into Laverne’s covert compost pen aka pig pen. “Hi, Randolph.”

  Randolph grunted.

  “Do you think he actually knows his name?” I asked.

  “Sure he does,” Laverne said. “Don’t you, Randolph?”

  Randolph grunted again.

  “She’s right,” Jake said. “Pigs are smart. And pretty social. It’s been proven they can learn their names by the time they’re just a few weeks old.”

  “How can they prove that?” I asked. “All a pig can say is ‘oink.’ It’s easy to know your name if it’s the only word your mom can say.”

  Jake sighed and rolled his eyes. “I meant the names humans give them, smarty pants.”

  “So, do you have much experience training pigs?” Laverne asked, as if she were conducting a job interview. “I don’t want Randolph’s feelings hurt. He’s quite a tender little thing.”

  “I bet he is,” I joked.

  Jake ignored my comment. “What do you want him to learn?” he asked Laverne.

  “Mostly that he needs to stay in his pen and not grunt, so Nancy Meyers won’t find him.”

  Jake nodded as he thought it over. “Okay, I think I can help with that.”

  “And I wish he wouldn’t beg for food all the time,” Laverne added. “I worry he’s eating too much. But he always seems so hungry. And he’s so cute, it’s hard to say ‘no’ to him.”

  Jake laughed. “Pigs are masters of deceit, Laverne.”

  Laverne’s doe eyes doubled. “No!”

  “Yep. Actually, they’ve been known to intentionally mislead other pigs away from a feeding spot, just so they can go back and get all the food for themselves.”

  “That’s rather piggish,” I said.

  Jake shook his head at my lame joke. “I’ll work on teaching Randolph to stay put, and reward him for not grunting. In the meantime, you two should figure out a date for him.”

  “You mean like on MatchMate?” Laverne asked. “Or would it be Matchpig? No. I’m sorry. I think he’s much too young to be dating.”

  Jake’s eyes met mine for a moment.

  “Sorry Laverne,” he said. “I wasn’t clear. I meant you should decide on a date for him to go. Randolph’s no pot-bellied pig.”

  “That’s what I told Val,” Laverne said, and crinkled her nose up at me.

  “What I mean is, in a couple of months, he could outweigh us all,” Jake said. “By the end of the year, you could saddle and ride him. Listen, I’ve got a buddy near Ocala who has a petting zoo. Maybe he could take him on.”

  “I’ll have to see it first,” Laverne said, tears welling in her eyes.

  “Of course,” Jake said softly. “How about we start tomorrow.”

  Randolph grunted happily, and we all nodded and agreed to the deal.

  WHILE SNOGS DASHED around the backyard like dryer lint caught in a tornado, I put a call in to my old friend Cold Cuts about the tag numbers for Goober’s RV.

  “I take it that means you haven’t found him yet,” she said.

  “Right.”

  “Well, when Goober picked it up, the tag number was GLAD ONE, but he could have changed it,” she said.

  “GLAD ONE? After my mom? That’s really sweet,” I said.

  “It was the least I could do, seeing as how you let me keep the RV, even though I know it broke your heart a little to lose it.”

  “Thanks.”

  “So, we’re still on for lunch tomorrow?”

  What? Oh, crap! I forgot all about it!

  “Absolutely,” I said. “See you around noon?”

  “Perfect. Gotta go.”

  I hung up and called J.D.

  “Listen, J.D. The tag number for the RV is GLAD ONE. Unless Goober changed it. And I can’t make it tomorrow for the interviews. Something came up. Will Sunday work for you?”

  “Pathetically, yes,” J.D. replied. “Like I said, m
y social calendar is wide open.”

  “Okay, then. My place at ten?”

  “I can’t wait.”

  Chapter Eleven

  “So what did you do today?” Tom asked as he came through the door Friday evening.

  Let’s see...I taught our nosy neighbor grunt aerobics, met with a bird-faced attorney to save my writing instructor’s bikini wax plans, talked with a dwarf about tracking down a missing derelict, got a parking ticket, got robbed, and had a heart-to-heart with Laverne about letting go of a stowaway pig.

  “Nothing much. How about you? Has Greg from Caddy’s shown up?”

  “No. Not yet. But today I decided to take a look into this Tim Amsel guy. You were right. He’s a real piece of work.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He’s built up a pretty bad reputation over the years.”

  “Really? Like what?”

  “He’s had more than a few legal suits over shoddy workmanship on his building projects. And...well, something really odd.”

  “What?”

  “I dunno....” Tom hesitated. “Either it’s a huge coincidence, or something fishy’s going on.”

  “What?”

  “A few years ago, the guy who sold him property for a project down in Boca Raton went missing, too.”

  I sucked in a deep breath. “I don’t get it, Tom. What would be in it for Amsel if the seller disappeared? He already has the property.”

  “Apparently, the guy in Boca owned the property mortgage-free. Amsel worked out a deal with him to provide owner financing.”

  “Why would the owner do that?”

  “Amsel made it worth his while by giving him a pretty decent rate of return on the note.”

  “Is that illegal?”

  “No. Not at all. But the thing is, according to the guy who investigated the case in Boca, the mortgage had an unusual stipulation. It said that if the seller died for any reason, the debt would be erased and the note would be automatically satisfied...like it had been paid in full.”

  “Oh.”

  “Val, do you know if Greg owned Caddy’s outright?”

  “No. You should ask Norma. She’d know.”

  “I can’t. She’s disappeared, too.”

  “What?”

  “The investigators working the case found scuffmarks and footprints in the parking lot at Caddy’s. They said it looked as if there’d been a struggle. That lot’s made of crushed shell. They made some print castings, but they lacked any real defining detail. So far, all they could determine was that they came from two different individuals. One looked like a men’s shoe size twelve. It’s been confirmed that’s the same size Greg wears. The other was slightly smaller. Possibly a man’s size eight or a woman’s size ten walking shoe.”

  “Geeze, Tom. I wonder if those footprints could be Norma’s.”

  Tom came up and rested both hands on my shoulders. “Do me a favor, okay? Keep this under your hat. I really shouldn’t have told you.”

  “Then why did you?”

  Tom looked at me as if I had a bug on my nose. “Because we’re a team, Val. I don’t like keeping secrets from you.”

  My gut guilt-o-meter spun off the charts.

  “Okay,” I said. “I guess there’s something I should tell you, too.”

  “What?”

  “Wait here. I’ll be right back.”

  I slipped out from Tom’s grip and padded to my office. I returned with the slip of paper that had the word PObbLE on it. As I approached him, Tom had a look on his face I’d never seen before.

  I wasn’t sure, but I thought it might have been fear.

  “Uh...here. Look at this,” I said, and handed him the paper.

  Tom looked down at it, let out a breath, then laughed nervously. “You nearly gave me a heart attack, Val.”

  “What? Why?”

  “I thought for a second this was a pregnancy test.”

  I burst out laughing. “No way. If it was, you’d have heard me screaming all the way from your desk at the police station.”

  Tom shook his head. “I have to admit, I’m relieved.”

  “I wouldn’t worry too much about that,” I said. “I think my time for having kids has come and gone.”

  Tom gave me a hug and a kiss, then asked, “So, what is this, then?”

  “I found it inside the Skoal tin hanging from Goober’s dreamcatcher.”

  Tom scrunched his face. “Huh. What does it mean?”

  I shot Tom a look. “If I knew that, I wouldn’t be asking you now, would I Sherlock?”

  Tom grinned. “Fair enough. So, you haven’t heard another word from him? No postcard or anything?”

  “Nope. But while you’re away fishing on Sunday, I’m going with J.D. to interview Jorge and Winky. He wants to see if they can remember anything that might be helpful.”

  “And what’s on the agenda for tomorrow?”

  “Cold Cuts is coming over for lunch. And she’s probably going to have to bring Freddie with her. You know, Bill’s dad.”

  “The crazy, naked fisherman guy?”

  I winked and pulled the trigger on my finger gun. “That’s the one. Care to join us?”

  Tom gritted his teeth. “I’d love to. But I think my SUV needs a good scrubbing.”

  “Wash Maggie, too, and I’ll let you off the hook.”

  Tom grinned. “Deal. So, is this the only clue you’ve got?”

  “Yes, besides some random things I remember Goober saying.”

  “Like what?”

  “It sounds kind of crazy, but Goober got a junk-mail letter from the AARP. I remember him saying it was a signal that it was time to move on. I dunno, Tom. It was almost like he was some kind of fugitive, and getting the AARP notice meant his location and identity had been uncovered.”

  “Hmmm.” Tom placed his index finger over his upper lip like a moustache. “That’s interesting. I mean, if he actually was on the run, the AARP thing could have been taken as a sign he’d been discovered. You know, those marketing companies have better tracking systems than NASA and the FBI combined.”

  I crinkled my nose. “I’m serious, Tom.”

  “So am I.”

  “You said Goober’s name wasn’t in your databases. Do you think Gerald Jonohhovitz could be an alias? That maybe Goober’s some kind of spy or something?”

  “I doubt it, Val. It’s probably just a misspelling. Sorry, but I just can’t picture Goober having enough brain cells to work for the CIA.”

  “Did you know Goober has two navels?”

  Tom looked at me funny. “What?”

  “You know how he never takes his shirt off, even to go swimming?”

  “Uh...yeah, now that you mention it.”

  “I saw his belly once. When we were hiding out from those crazy RVers in Lake Wales. It looked like he had two navels, Tom. When I asked him about it, he said he was shot in stomach. That it was scars.”

  “Well, that’s more plausible than him being a space alien,” Tom quipped.

  I punched Tom on the arm. “I’m trying to be serious, here. It would mean Goober was working in some kind of profession that could get him shot!”

  “Geeze! Take it easy, Val. Or it could have just been another one of his ludicrous stories.”

  I hated to admit it, but Tom had a point.

  “Don’t worry so much, Val. Like I said before, I think Goober’s just off doing his thing. He’ll turn up soon.”

  “I hope so.”

  I slumped onto a barstool at the kitchen counter. Tom came up behind me and wrapped his arms around me.

  “I tell you what,” he said. “As soon as I find Greg and get this case solved, I’ll take some time off and we’ll follow up on whatever clues you and J.D. dig up on Sunday.”

  “You’d do that?” I asked, squirming around to face him.

  “Of course. Like I said, we’re a team. Now, how about dinner. Are you hungry? I got the stuff to make broccoli and broiled pork chops.”

 
; Pork! I should tell Tom about Randolph!

  “Well, I do have one more thing –”

  “Don’t tell me. You’d rather have the pork chops fried. But frying isn’t good for us. How about a drink before dinner?”

  “Sure. But I wanted to –”

  “Try this,” Tom said, and pulled a bottle from the fridge. He twisted off the cap and handed it to me.

  As he disappeared behind the fridge to grab a bottle for himself, I took a sip. The horrid taste nearly made me spurt my mouthful of drink through my nose.

  “What is this?” I asked.

  “Kombucha,” Tom said. “It’s supposed to be good for you.”

  I looked at the label. It described the drink as “Green tea fermented with a symbiotic colony of bacteria and yeast.”

  Tom closed the fridge, opened his bottle and asked, “How is it?”

  “Tastes just like the description on the label,” I said cheerfully. “Go on, take a big slug. I can’t wait for you to try it yourself.”

  Chapter Twelve

  “Hey there,” Tom said.

  I cracked open a bleary eye. I was still face-down in bed, not wanting the day to start. But the aroma of a freshly brewed cappuccino gave me just enough incentive to roll over.

  Seeing Tom with his hair still tousled from sleep was almost enough to make me smile. The sight of two coffee cups in his hand pushed my lips over the edge.

  “Hey,” I squeaked in my morning voice. “Look at you –”

  Before I could finish my sentence, I was assaulted by a wet, pink worm. It was attached to the mouth of a wriggling clump of fluff.

  “Snoggles wanted to say good morning, too,” Tom said with a grin.

  “Ugh!” I groaned playfully and sat up in bed. “I just got used to having one man around the house. I don’t think I can take two morning people at once.”

  “Here, maybe this will help.” Tom handed me a cappuccino. Before I could stop him, Snogs licked the milky foam dripping from the side of my cup.

  “See how handy he is?” Tom joked. He picked up Snogs and held him to his chest. “Come on, pup. Let’s go.”