Val Fremden Mystery Box Set 1 Read online

  I leaned over the table and studied the article. A picture of Anthony B. Goldrich, Esq., looking decades younger and clean shaven, was, nevertheless, still recognizable as good-old, garbage-man Tony.

  The paper had had a field day with his nasty habit. Below his mugshot was an 8x6, color picture of his living room. Stacks upon stacks of newspapers, garbage bags and beer cans stood heaped in huge piles, like an anti-consumerism display at some hip, modern-art gallery.

  Tony’s “art” had filled every corner of his home, leaving only narrow trails to squeeze through. As morbidly captivating as that picture was, the third shot was the one that really caught my eye. The backyard. Tucked in amongst hills of discarded chairs and doors and god knows what else, sat a vintage Minnie Winnie nearly concealed by junk. My heart pinged.

  Could this be the same RV Glad had used to make her getaway from Bobby all those years ago?

  I grabbed the paper off the table and read the article word for word. A line break in the news column reported with a comical pun not wasted on me that Tony had been dis-covered by a neighbor, dead of an apparent heart attack after being buried under an avalanche of periodicals.

  The article went on to report that Mr. A. B. Goldrich, Esq. had been a lawyer of some repute in Hawesville, Kentucky. He’d moved to St. Petersburg in 1985 and had worked “in maintenance” at Caddy’s since 1988. A will had been found taped to a bathroom mirror at his residence. According to his lawyer, J.D. Fellows, Anthony Goldrich, “Tony” to his friends, had left all his worldly possessions to someone named Thelma G. Goldrich. The will also stipulated he was to be cremated and buried at sea.

  My heart skipped a beat.

  Thelma G. Goldrich. Could the “G” stand for Gladys?

  I needed to find out. And thanks to my new friends in low places, I knew somebody who might be able to help.

  Chapter Nine

  MOST PEOPLE LIVING on the fringe didn’t start out that way. They’d given the world a try and got their spirits crushed. For some, the heartless rat race killed their compassion for anything – including themselves. For others, mindless materialism hollowed them out, making everything seem pointless. But if I had to bet on the number-one reason people gave up and dropped out of normal society, I’d put my money on lost or betrayed love. It’s blown apart more people’s will to keep trying than all other things combined.

  I fell into that last category. So did Jorge.

  After Glad’s memorial service, I’d learned that Jorge pulled his chips off the table after his wife and children were killed in an automobile accident on I-275. I was shocked to find out he’d been a traffic cop back then. He’d also been the first to arrive on the scene. That was all he’d said to me about it. That had been enough. Eight years had passed since that day, but post-traumatic stress disorder, whiskey, and a general lack of will to live had kept him from holding down a steady job ever since.

  Unlike Jorge, whose demise via lost love had come suddenly, mine had crept in so gradually as to be almost imperceptible. Due to inattentiveness, or, I could finally admit, not wanting to see, I’d allowed the tapestry of my love life to unravel. Like a rug slowly stripped bare by a moth, thread by thread, until the pattern was compromised and the beauty threadbare, I’d let both my love and my life erode away until their value was irretrievably lost. When each had become something no longer worth holding on to, I threw them away, along with a good portion of myself.

  Jorge had spoken his few words about his family between lubricating slugs of Mr. Dude 20/20 – hands down the worst rotgut I’d ever tasted. Even though he was no longer either sober or a cop, I was hoping Jorge still had a couple of friends on the force who were.

  I wanted to get a look inside the Minnie Winnie behind Tony’s house. Maybe it was Glad’s old escape vehicle from Bobby. Maybe she’d still been living in it when she died. If it was her RV, maybe there was something inside it that could put an end to the mystery of Glad’s identity. I needed to do it soon, too. I figured it wouldn’t be long before Pinellas County code enforcement came in and hauled away the RV, along with the other mountains of junk that stood as a final testament to Tony’s lifetime obsession with trash.

  I FOUND JORGE IN HIS usual spot. He was drinking in his parked car on a side street north of Water Loo’s. Too gun-shy to go into the dump of a restaurant alone, Goober told me Jorge always waited for backup – namely himself or Winky – to arrive before making his move.

  Apparently, no amount of whiskey could help Jorge muster up enough courage to brave a solo run inside – not even to use the toilet. The guys told me Jorge had gotten busted for peeing in the parking lot three or four times already. So far, he’d gotten off with reprimands from sympathetic cops. But nowadays, he parked his Buick stakeout-style down a side street, away from Water Loo’s greasy windows and the waitresses’ prying eyes.

  As I pulled up behind Jorge, a thought dawned on me that I wished hadn’t.

  This is the guy you’re turning to for help, Val? Who’s more pathetic, him or you?

  I blew out a breath and cut the ignition.

  Jorge was busy taking a slug from his pocket rocket when I tapped on the window of his grey-and-Bondo colored Buick.

  “Hola, Jorge, como estas?” I asked through the glass, pretty much using up all the Spanish I knew.

  Jorge came to life like a puppy in a petting zoo.

  “Bien! Y tu?” He jumped out of the ratty Buick and gave me a hug. He smelled of Old Spice and whiskey, but he was steady on his feet. I took it as a good sign.

  We walked into the depressingly dingy, greasy-spoon diner and slid into the usual corner booth. The waitress wiped her hands on her dirty apron and rolled her eyes at us from behind red-framed glasses.

  What’s with the ’tude? We’re paying customers.

  I shot her a look and turned back to Jorge.

  “Jorge, we’ve got to do something about Glad.”

  “What?”

  I wiped sticky coffee rings off the table with a mysteriously damp paper napkin. “I think I found her Minnie Winnie. The one she said she lived in when she first came to St. Pete.”

  “Yeah? So what? She’s dead.”

  I watched the fledgling spark of interest falter in Jorge’s eyes.

  “I know,” I said quickly, hoping to rekindle it. “So is Tony, the garbage guy at Caddy’s. It said in the paper that Tony left everything to Glad in his will.”

  I knew I was taking a leap on my “G” theory, but I didn’t want to complicate things too much for Jorge’s sloshed brain cells. My strategy seemed to work.

  “No chit!”

  Jorge sat up. His mouth formed a smile, then a frown, then a smile, then a frown again. I guess he was trying to decide whether to be sad about Tony or happy about Glad. Then his mouth went slack and he spoke woodenly. “Like I said before, Val. So what? Glad’s dead.”

  Jorge sunk back into the dilapidated booth. His dull eyes followed the plump waitress as she slammed two worn, brown, plastic mugs of coffee down on the table. She rolled her eyes again, plastered on the fakest smile I’d ever seen, and asked the obligatory question, “Will there be anything else?”

  “Not at the moment,” I answered.

  Again with the attitude. WTH?

  I don’t like attitude. I waited tables to pay my way through college, and knew what a pain in the behind customers could be. We weren’t that type. We were nice enough. We just stayed for hours. No big deal most days. Who went to Water Loo’s anyway? Nobody but drunks and dirtbags. We were mostly the former, so I didn’t get why the waitress found us so annoying.

  “All-righty, then,” she said dismissively, then padded off behind the serving station to get busy ignoring us.

  I tried to do as Glad had taught me and shrug off her negative vibe. I turned my attention back to the guy next to me, who was busy spiking his coffee from a pocket flask.

  “Jorge, I know Glad’s dead. But she might have a family somewhere who could use the inheritance, whatever
it might be.”

  I watched Jorge’s expression go from “so what” to “complete shutdown.”

  Crap! I’d gone and used the “f” word – family. A big no-no with Jorge.

  Based on his reaction, I might as well have slapped Jorge in the chops.

  “Sorry! It just slipped out,” I whined, trying to backpedal.

  Jorge turned away from me. He lowered his head and started nodding at some unseen object in the seat beside him. The moment felt surreal, and I felt like a human turd.

  Then I remembered that I’d brought the ex-cop a bribe.

  “Look what I got you!” I squealed with fake delight.

  I held up a green-and-silver can. Jorge stopped nodding at his invisible demons and cocked his ear in my direction.

  “Your favorite!” I teased.

  He ventured a glance my way.

  “Coco Rico!” I said in my best Spanish accent, and wiggled my torso in a mock cha-cha.

  Jorge turned around and smiled tentatively. I handed him the can of coconut-flavored soda and beamed a smile big enough to be seen from an orbiting satellite.

  He took the can, nodded and cracked the tab.

  “Salute,” he said solemnly, then slung his head back and took a deep draught.

  As he did, I could see three small crosses tattooed like a necklace into the crease where Jorge’s neck met his chest. One cross for his dead wife, two for his kids, I presumed.

  Jorge was a broken man, but as far as I could tell, he still enjoyed a few simple pleasures. Coco Rico and whiskey appeared to be the main two. As I studied Jorge, his blue-black wavy hair reminded me of a dark, tempestuous sea. A reflection of his tormented soul, perhaps. Winky’s sudden arrival saved me from diving in too deep.

  “Thar’s my peeps!” the stubby redneck crooned, swaggering shirtless over to the booth like a bulldog pimp. Winky’s chest was almost hairless, but he made up for it in freckles. In fact, the rusty orange spots looked as if they might overtake his skin completely one day.

  As I studied the constellation of freckles that held Winky together, the plump waitress with a black bob and a bad attitude came running over with a spare shirt. Winky puffed up like a movie star.

  “This here fine establishment keeps a few extra shirts on hand for us lackadaisical beach fellers.”

  “When you gonna learn?” chided the chubby little hash slinger. She held up a huge yellow tee shirt that probably belonged to Big Bird from Sesame Street before he lost it in a drunken brawl. The arms of the young waitress were as tight as sausage casings and as white as alabaster. The contrast was striking against her black hair and red glasses.

  “No shirt, no service, Winky,” she cooed. “You know the rules.”

  “Yes ma’am,” Winky said almost shyly. He winked salaciously at the waitress and took the wilted shirt with a dainty pinch of fingers.

  Redneck etiquette? Rednetiquette!

  The waitress upped the ante on his wink with a slightly naughty, deeply dimpled smile.

  Interesting.

  “You got somethin’ against clothes?” Jorge asked as he grudgingly slid over to make room for Winky’s pudgy and, most likely, freckled butt.

  “At least I can still park in the parkin’ lot, Peemeister,” Winky shot back.

  Jorge opened his mouth to say something, but I wanted to nip this dogfight in the bud.

  “Did you hear about Tony?” I blurted at Winky.

  “Yep. Pummeled by a pile a pornos, I bet. All in all not a bad way for a feller to go.”

  “Since when do you read the paper, Winky?” I asked, incredulous.

  “Thay’s a lot you don’t know about me, Val. Still waters run deep, don’t cha know.”

  “I got chore still waters right here,” Jorge said, grabbing his crotch.

  “I bet you do...,” Winky shot back. He tried to stand up, but was thwarted by the lack of maneuvering space between the booth, the table and his impressive beer belly.

  “Knock it off, guys!” I said, exasperated. I tried again to shift their focus. “Winky, did you see the picture of the backyard? There’s a Minnie Winnie in all that junk. I think it may be Glad’s. We might have a chance to find out more about her. Who she really was. If she had a fa.... If she had friends. Aren’t you guys curious at all?”

  “Sure. Tell us more.”

  The baritone voice from overhead belonged to Goober. He’d snuck up on us during our enthralling intellectual exchange.

  “I want to get inside that Minnie Winnie,” I began.

  “Me too!” Winky hollered, cutting me off mid-sentence. He laughed like a deranged woodpecker while Jorge and Goober snickered and exchanged high-fives.

  “What? I don’t get it,” I said, not bothering to hide my annoyance.

  What am I doing here? When did I sign up to be the butt-end of a joke for a booth full of bums?

  Goober edged into the booth beside me, absorbing me into his mushroom cloud of body odor. He picked up a spoon and used it as a pointer. He seemed to have a thing for spoons.

  “See that waitress over there? Chubby one with the red specs?”

  I scowled and took a glance. “Yes.”

  “Name’s Winnie.”

  Goober laughed and elbowed me in the ribs.

  “Ah. Good one,” I said, and nodded at Winky. “You’d like to be inside...ha ha. I get it. Very funny.”

  Winky scrunched up his freckled face like a naughty kid and grinned.

  I faked a smile and tried for a third time to herd the hapless hobos toward my own topic of interest.

  “Like I said, I want to get into that RV, maybe even inside the house.”

  “Why?” Goober asked.

  “Tony left all his stuff to a woman named Thelma G. Goldrich. I think that could be Glad.”

  “It’s a long shot,” Jorge said, straightening up in his seat. “Why would he leave everything to a dead woman?”

  Interest and something approaching coherency appeared on Jorge’s face. Impressive, considering how pickled his brain must have been.

  “He probably made the will before Glad died and didn’t have time to change it,” I offered.

  “Maybe,” Jorge said. “I dunno. But if you think it’s worth looking into, Val, I’m pretty sure I can get my friend Tommy to get us the address. Maybe let us in the house, too. We’re still tight. His brother married my cousin Mercedes. Tommy’s a lieutenant now, so he can pretty much do what he wants without a lot of other guys breathing down his neck.”

  “Great! Call him,” I said.

  “I don’t have a phone.”

  “Use mine.”

  I fished around in my purse and handed Jorge my cellphone. He punched in Tommy’s number from memory. His friend on the force didn’t need any arm twisting. A minute or so later Jorge clicked off the phone and smiled.

  “He’s checking on the address. Then he’s on his way.”

  We had just enough time to pay the bill and offer up a “Screw you, kiddo” toast to Glad before Jorge’s friend Lieutenant Tom Foreman pulled into the parking lot. I piled into his squad car along with the stooges and headed off to commit my first official crime – breaking and entering.

  Chapter Ten

  ON THE RIDE OVER TO Tony’s place, I found myself wedged between Jorge and Goober in the backseat of a cop car. Winky’d called shotgun, so he got to ride upfront with Lieutenant Foreman. Apparently those were stooge rules. I made a mental note of it for next time.

  We headed south on Gulf Boulevard past a line of 1950s era, pastel-colored hotels and motels situated just yards from the road since it had been widened to four lanes. Crammed together cheek to jowl, the small, two-and-three story mom-and-pop establishments obscured any trace of the stunning beach that lay just on the other side. In fact, the only hint we were near the gulf at all came from the carnival parade of sunburned, hungover tourists stumbling along the sidewalk in too-tight bathing suits and too-late sun hats.

  As we passed the bumblebee-striped Bilmar hote
l, Jorge and Goober began discussing whether or not Winky could be trusted inside Tony’s house. Sandwiched between the two, I had no alternative but to eavesdrop like a nosy ping-pong ball.

  “He’ll mess things up for sure,” Jorge whispered to Goober. “You remember what he did at Kat’s New Year’s party.”

  Jorge put his mouth to my ear. I got the heebie-jeebies as he whispered, “He went through that poor lady’s drawers and came out wearing her leopard print bra like a pair of earmuffs.”

  “Point taken,” Goober said under his breath. “I’ll never forget the scene at Sea Hag’s. Who knew so many toilet rolls could fit down somebody’s pants?”

  “Or at Hal’s funeral when he...”

  “Oh god. Don’t even say it,” Goober said, cutting Jorge off. “Nothing’s sacred to Winky. Not even the dead. Better leave his butt in the car.”

  “How we gonna do that?” asked Jorge. “The boy’s got a fuse as short as his Johnson.”

  “Leave that to me,” Goober said. He closed one eye and tapped his bald noggin with his right index finger. “Hey Winky!” Goober yelled across to the front seat.

  Winky’s head popped around to face us, tongue out like an eager, ginger-haired pug.

  “We need you to keep an eye out for Tony’s nosy neighbor while we search the place,” Goober explained like a military strategist. “Tony told me she looks spot-on-a-match like Pamela Anderson. Likes to prance around half-naked in front of her windows. Even sunbathes topless sometimes in the front yard. We don’t want her poking around, messing up our plans.”

  “I’m on it, chief!” Winky shot back. He made a thumbs-up next to his right ear. “You can count on me!”

  I took a sideways glance at the peanut-headed commander in chief.

  Maybe Goober wasn’t such a dummy after all.

  The squad car turned east off Gulf Boulevard into the low-key, red-brick entry to Bahia Shores, one of the first subdivisions built on the strip island in the 1950s. Officer Foreman drove slowly along the curvy streets with kitsch names like Bikini Way and Bali Hi Court before finding Bimini Circle.