Fifty is the New F-Word

by Margaret Lashley

  “Finkerman again,” he said. “Answer it and get it over with, Val. It doesn’t pay to postpone the inevitable.”

  “Ugghh!” I scowled and reached for the receiver. I put it to my ear. “Finkerman?” I got back nothing but dial tone. I smiled smugly. “Oh well. Too bad.”

  Goober grunted out a laugh.

  “Goober, do you think a person’s life is fated by their name?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I was just thinking about something Finkerman told me once. When I asked him why he does what he does for a living. He told me with a name like Ferrol Finkerman, he was doomed to be a jerk.”

  “It’s a theory. But then, how do you explain all the other ambulance chasers?”

  “Huh. Good point.” I sunk back into the couch.

  “Finkerman sucks as a name, sure,” Goober said. “But it’s hard to forget – unlike Gerald Jonohhovitz.

  “Gerald who?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Goober...is that your real name?”

  “Unfortunately, yes.”

  “So you think it’s true? A bad name can scar you for life?”

  “I dunno about scarring, but do I think it can limit your possibilities? Sure.”

  “It doesn’t seem to have affected Sir Henry P. Rockbottom, III, or whatever his name was.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “The guy who built the Sunset Sail-Away Beach Resort.”

  Goober whistled long and low. “Lucky sap. I’d like to see what he’d have accomplished with a name like Goober. I can’t tell you what a positive effect it’s had on my life experience thus far.”

  I laughed. “Then why do you keep it?”

  Goober smiled wistfully beneath his fuzzy moustache. “Because Glad gave it to me.”

  I choked up and nodded. We both sat in silence for a few minutes, until I cleared the cloud of memories with a question.

  “A friend once told me that ‘The Bills of this world will survive.’ What do you think she meant by that?”

  “Easy,” Goober said, and held up two fingers. “There’s only two things you can’t escape in this world. Death and bills.”

  I sighed. “I guess that makes about as much sense as anything does. You hungry? Those Chinese leftovers didn’t last.”

  “I could eat again.”

  “Champ’s Pizza?”

  “Sure,” Goober winked. “I like the name.”

  GOOBER AND I HAD FALLEN asleep to a riveting program on PBS about mollusks on the move. The sound of Tom coming through the door woke both of us.

  “Hey,” I said from the couch. “How did it go?”

  “Mixed bag,” Tom said. “I need a beer. Hey, Goober. You’re free to go now.”

  “Just when it’s getting good?” he joked, and rubbed his eyes.

  “One beer,” he said to Goober. “I’ll catch you up with what I know, then I’m heading to bed. I’m beat.”

  Tom grabbed a couple of beers and joined Goober and me in the living room. He sat beside me on the couch and took a long draw from his beer before he spoke.

  “So? What did you find out?” I asked.

  “The cottage had a professional cleaning job before you were allowed in it, Val.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “The CSI report. They sprayed the cottage with Luminol.”

  “Lumi what?”

  “Luminol. It’s a chemical that makes any traces of blood present glow under a black-light. Anyway, they sprayed the cottage with it, and when they turned off the lights, the room lit up like the Milky Way Galaxy.”

  “But...whatever happened in there had to have happened before Cold Cuts disappeared,” I said.

  “Right,” Tom said. “But on the drive home, it made me think twice about what that maid had said about ‘Freddie doing it again.’”

  “That’s why they kept delaying our check in,” I said, and collapsed into the sofa cushions. “Someone had killed someone in there the night before. Geeze, Tom. What’s going on at that resort?”

  Tom shook his head. “I don’t know. It could be a related homicide or a coincidence. Florida doesn’t have a reputation for craziness for nothing.”

  “Well, on that note, I think I’ll take my leave,” Goober said. “I’ll let you two get some shuteye.” He stood up, then paused. “I’m really sorry about all of this.”

  “Thanks, Goober,” Tom said. “Drive safely.”

  As Goober headed out the door, Tom turned to me. “At least there’s one good development.”

  I perked up. “What’s that?”

  Tom reached into his breast pocket. “I got your phone back.” He handed me my cellphone. “Apparently, the only people you call are me and Champ’s Pizza. At least I know who my competition is, now.”

  I smiled weakly and grabbed the phone. “Thanks, Tom.”

  “Now I just have one question for you.”

  “What?”

  “Why do you have thirteen text messages on your phone from Ferrol Finkerman?”

  I bit my lip and sighed. “Grab me another beer and I’ll tell you everything.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  I tried to convince Tom that my ankle was better by getting up and limping to the kitchen to make cappuccinos the next morning. He didn’t buy it. When he caught me hobbling around with my cane like an old lady, he scolded me like a naughty puppy.

  “Get back in bed, crazy woman,” he’d demanded playfully, and kissed me on the cheek.

  Any other time, I’d have taken it as foreplay. But my yelping ankle reminded me he wasn’t angling for a tryst.

  “All right. I give up,” I’d said, and set the can of espresso on the counter.

  “You have to learn to let other people take care of you sometimes,” Tom had said. “Now get off that ankle.”

  “Yes, sir,” I’d said, and hobbled back to bed.

  “YOU KNOW I LOVE YOU, don’t you?” Tom asked as he slipped on his loafers and prepared to leave for Sarasota.

  “Yes,” I answered. “Why do you ask?”

  “You have to learn to trust me more. To share your problems with me. Like Finkerman. No more secrets, okay?”

  “Finkerman wasn’t really a secret. I was just waiting for the best time to tell –”

  “I mean it, Val. I’m serious.”

  “Are you saying you don’t have any secrets from me?” I asked, and brushed Tom’s bangs from his forehead.

  “No.”

  “What about Jorge? You took him to a retreat. You didn’t tell me.”

  Tom scrunched his nose. “Oh. I thought I did. With everything else going on, I guess I forgot. How’d you find out?”

  “Winky.”

  Tom’s lips twisted into a wry grin. “Of course. Speaking of your little friend, he should be here any minute.”

  My mouth fell open. “No! You didn’t!”

  Tom smirked. “I did. I need to make sure you lay low today, naughty girl. I need you out of sight and out of the mind of this Detective Stanley guy. From what I hear, he practically foams rabid at the mention of your name.”

  I scowled. “All I did was –”

  Tom took me by the shoulders. “Val, listen to me. No more tricks. No more stakeouts. No more of your amateur investigation stuff. You’re in seriously hot water. And I hate to break it to you, but ‘Valiant Stranger’ doesn’t have the greatest powers of perception.”

  “But –”

  Tom wrapped me in his arms. “Just stay out of trouble today. Promise me?”

  I would have promised Tom if I could have. But I never went looking for trouble. It always seemed to find me all on its own.

  “SO YOU REALLY LIKE the jewelry biz, huh?” I asked as Winky hauled in his box of fishing tackle and plopped it on the kitchen counter.

  “Beats cremating critters, that’s for sure. What’s Tommy Boy up to today?”

  “He’s gonna check on the results of the license plates he gave his friend at the DMV. He’s also going down
to Sarasota. He wants to get a hold of that guy Bill Robo’s employment application from the resort.”

  “Employment application. Now that’s a sight I hope to never see again.”

  I poured a mug of coffee for Winky as he set up his mobile jewelry factory on the kitchen counter. “So, how much did it cost to get into this business? All the tackle and stuff?”

  “Not that much. Old Joe at the Bait and Tackle Shack lets us have first crack at all his clearance stuff. Lets us buy the other stuff wholesale, too.”

  “That’s cool. You know, you sound like a real businessman, Winky.”

  Winky slurped his coffee. “Why shore I do. What else would I sound like?”

  I’d treaded close to his redneck toes, so I changed the subject. “I hear Milly and Vance are thinking about going to Hawaii for their honeymoon.”

  “Yep. Now me, personally? I wouldn’t want to go there myself.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s way across the Specific Ocean, ain’t it?”

  “Uh, yeah. So?”

  “I don’t trust all that water.”

  “But I thought you liked to fish.”

  “Yeah. From the shore.”

  My cellphone chirped with another text. I figured it was from Finkerman, and almost ignored it. But I thought again and hobbled over to the couch. I grabbed the phone from the coffee table. When I read the message, my knees buckled. I sat down on the sofa with a thud.

  “I think I’ll go lay down,” I said to Winky.

  He looked up from his tackle. “You look like a vampire done sucked all the blood outta ya. You need help?”

  “No. I’ll manage.” I hobbled with the cane to my bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed. My fingers trembled so badly I could barely make out the message as I read it again.

  “Having a blast with Bill.” It wasn’t the words, but the picture that accompanied it that had drained the blood from my face. In full color on my cellphone display was a photo of Cold Cuts from the shoulders up. Her neck had been slit from ear to ear.

  Nooooo!!!!!

  The walls of my bedroom suddenly folded in on me. My body boiled with pent-up rage. I wanted to scream and run as fast as I could from here to California. I wanted to punch Bill Robo in the face. But, oddly, I didn’t want to cry. I wanted to be Valliant Stranger.

  I wanted to live up to my name.

  Fueled on by thoughts of revenge, I yanked up the window pane, pushed out the screen, and hobbled as fast as I could over to Shabby Maggie. As I turned the ignition and peeled down the driveway, this time I knew exactly where I was headed.

  Valliant Stranger didn’t have a driver’s license or a credit card, but she had twenty bucks, a cellphone and enough determination to get where she was going, even if Maggie was belching blue smoke and sucking gas faster than a wino in a swimming pool full of Merlot.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  I screeched into the parking lot by the entryway to the Pinellas County Morgue. I hesitated a moment, trying to decide whether to go it alone or call Tom. Deep down, I knew I should call him. But old habits die hard – especially when you’re running on blind panic.

  “Valiant Stranger!” a voice called out. I looked up from chewing off a fingernail. A slim man with a devilish goatee was strolling down the sidewalk in my direction, a huge paper cup of coffee in his hand.

  I spit my chewed nail onto the asphalt. “Darren Dudley! I was just on my way to see you!”

  “Well, it’s my lucky day, then,” the handsome coroner’s clerk said. “I didn’t think I’d ever see you again.” He looked Shabby Maggie up and down and whistled. “Nice bat-mobile, Super Chick!”

  I forgot about my sprained ankle and tried to get out of the car. It reminded me again. “Ouch!”

  “You okay?”

  “Yeah...just...never mind. Listen, Darren, I don’t have a lot of time to chat. I need your help. Have you gotten any new bodies in the morgue in the last three days?”

  Darren shot me a curious grin. “Should I bother to ask why?”

  My eyebrows met in the middle of my forehead. “I’m looking for someone. Thirty-something. Caucasian. Female. Slim build.”

  “That makes two of us,” Darren winked.

  “I’m serious. A friend of mine is missing. Kidnapped...or...worse.”

  Darren’s grin faded. “Oh. Well, come to think of it, I do have a body that could fit that description.”

  My gut fell to my knees. “Look. I just got this text and picture from her. Can you tell me if it’s her?”

  As I punched the message up on my cellphone, Darren came and stood beside the passenger door. He took the phone and studied the picture for a moment. “This can’t be her,” he said.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes. Ruby’s got blue eyes and a nose piercing.”

  “Ruby?”

  “Oh,” Darren laughed. “You know me. That’s what I nicknamed the stiff. Her nose piercing is a ruby. And she’s kinda ugly, while your friend here is hot.”

  “That’s rude even for you, Darren. How can you say that? My friend is dead!” I burst into tears.

  “Now hold on there, Super Girl,” Darren said, his tone softening. “She’s not dead. That’s stage blood.”

  “What?” I said, and looked up from my steering wheel.

  “And see here?” Darren poked at the screenshot. “Her eyes are glistening. Dead eyes don’t do that.”

  “Are you sure? I mean, one hundred percent sure, Darren?”

  “Yep. But even if I wasn’t, there’s one dead giveaway.” Darren grinned mischievously. When I didn’t react, he scrunched his nose and shrugged apologetically. “Sorry, I told you before, working here’s made me...uh...oblivious to subtlety.”

  I sniffed back a tear. “It’s okay. So what makes you sure she’s alive?”

  “This picture is dated from last Halloween.”

  Hope leapt in my heart like a frisky bullfrog. I grabbed the phone from Darren. “What? Really?” I looked at the date. “But why would she send me this picture when she’s missing –”

  “Is she a bit of a prankster?” Darren asked.

  “Huh?”

  “Did she maybe go as a zombie last Halloween? It was a pretty popular theme.”

  “I don’t know.” I stared at the horrific image of Cold Cuts again.

  I don’t know whether to laugh that Cold Cuts is still alive, or kill her myself for putting me through this awful prank!

  Suddenly, another thought swept away my hope. Oh my word! Maybe it wasn’t her prank. Maybe that crazy fisherman guy sent this. Maybe he was just toying with me, and Cold Cuts really was dead.

  “You okay?” Darren asked, interrupting my mental meltdown. “You look, I dunno. Devastated. You need me to drive you home?”

  “Huh? Oh. No thanks, Darren. I really appreciate your help. I...I just need a moment.”

  “What’s your friend’s name?” Darren asked.

  I looked up from the picture forlornly. “Cold Cuts.”

  Darren shot me a sarcastic face. “You’re kidding.”

  When I didn’t react, he backtracked. “Sorry. Listen, I hope she’s all right.” He took the phone from my hand and punched some numbers in it.

  “I created a group text line with my number, yours and Cold Cuts,” he said, handing me back the phone. “That way, if any more photos come in, I can take a look and let you know. Okay?”

  “Okay,” I muttered absently.

  He shrugged apologetically. “Listen, I’ve got to get back to work. I was just on a coffee break.”

  “Yeah. Thanks.”

  I watched Darren disappear behind the doors to the county morgue, then turned the ignition on Maggie. She rattled and coughed a cloud of grey smoke. I prayed that both she and Cold Cuts would somehow hold together long enough to make it back home.

  I PULLED UP TO MY HOUSE and groaned. Tom’s SUV was in the driveway. I’d been caught going AWOL again. Crap on a cracker! For a second I wished it had b
een Finkerman’s yellow Hummer instead. What could I say to Tom that would make this right? I’d gone and broken all the rules he’d laid out just a couple of hours ago.

  It was official. I really was a horrible fiancé.

  I turned off the ignition and tried to brace myself for Tom’s wrath. I was still reeling with shock from the picture of Cold Cuts and the mixed bag of news from Darren. I knew if Tom was in the mood for an argument, it wouldn’t take much to make me crack. As I reached to open my car door, the front door of my house flew open. Tom glared at me and I froze in place. The cold, hard look on his face confirmed my suspicions. He was totally pissed.

  “Did you have any luck with Monty?” I asked as he marched up to the car. My attempt to break the ice didn’t even make a mark in it.

  “No. I never had the chance,” Tom forced between pursed lips. He jerked the handle on my car door and yanked it open. “Couldn’t stay put for two measly hours. Where were you?”

  Goober ambled toward us, instigating a temporary détente. “Well, there she is, Ms. Slippery Snake herself.” He looked me up and down, and smoothed his caterpillar moustache with a thumb and forefinger. He patted Tom on the back. “Looks like she’s back all safe and sound, Tom. I’ll take my leave now and escape the nuclear fallout.”

  “Bye, Goober,” I called after him as he walked down the driveway. I turned to face Tom. He was glaring at me, hopping mad. “Tom –” I began, but didn’t get any further.

  “Save it for the ride to Sarasota,” Tom hissed. He offered a hand to help me onto my feet.

  “Sarasota?”

  “Yes.” Tom helped me to his SUV and opened the door. “I was on the phone with my contact at the Sarasota police station. Apparently, someone ratted us out to Detective Stanley. He cut in on the line while we were talking and ripped me a new one for sticking my nose in his business. Then he suggested for my own sake that I make myself useful and bring you back in for questioning.”

  “Why? I’ve already told him everything I know. Has something changed?”

  “Yes.”

  Tom held my cane as I scrambled into the passenger seat.