“Buster!” I yelled. “Bad dog! Come!”
Buster looked up at me. He yipped once, then did that charming smile-and-wink thing he’d done the day we’d met. Like some magical dog in a fairytale, his wink instantly transformed my horror to giddiness. I suddenly had to fight not to burst out laughing. I knelt down and pursed my grinning lips. Buster ran up and leapt into my arms. I stood and surveyed the room full of ruined hairdos and sour faces.
Being a lady from the South, I thought it a prudent moment to beg our leave.
“I’m so sorry about all this, Milly,” I said as she stared at me, dumbfounded. She’d escaped being splattered, but I was pretty certain my name would be as soon as I left. “If you’ll excuse us, we’ll be going.”
I grabbed my purse off a couch and turned toward the door. An unstoppable grin burst across my lips as I yanked open the huge mahogany door, stepped outside and let it shut behind me. I didn’t look back. I couldn’t. I would have fallen on the ground laughing. A dozen highfalutin’ ladies had just been taken down by a pair of lowfalutin’ mutts.
I hugged the sticky little dog to my chest.
“You were a bad, bad boy, Buster,” I said. “And you just made your redneck momma proud.”
Chapter Sixteen
After peeling myself out of my sticky dress and tossing it into the washing machine, I spied an aquarium-sized fishing net hanging on the wall. I’d found it when I’d cleaned out the house last year. Instead of tossing it, I’d hung it on a little hook over the washing machine “just in case.” Just in case of what, I didn’t know. Maybe just in case one day I turned out to be a hoarder like my father, Tony Goldrich.
As I pondered that scary thought, an idea hit me. I grabbed the little net off the hook. I’m not a hoarder. I saved that net for a purpose. And today, it will finally come in handy.
After changing into a jean skirt and sleeveless top, I fixed myself a drink and let Buster out in the backyard. I sprayed him down with the garden hose. He seemed to enjoy his shower, and danced around in the spray, trying to bite the tube of water coming at him. Afterward, he shook himself out and his golden mane glistened in the sunlight.
But I was worried. When I’d wet down Buster’s fur, I could see the outline of his body. After all that kibble this morning, then half a Barkmitzva cake, Buster’s swollen belly looked like it was about to burst. Something had to give, and I needed to be there when it did.
I grabbed the little net and trailed behind Buster as he snooped and sniffed his way around the backyard. First he toddled around the tiki hut, then the fire pit, then along the picket fence between my yard and Laverne’s. Finally, he began to circle around a patch of grass.
“All right, here we go,” I said. “Showtime.” Buster squatted on his haunches and pooped out a respectable load. I caught it up in the little net. “Good boy!” I cheered.
“Dang. Wish I’d thought of that.”
I looked in the direction of the voice. Laverne was standing at the fence wearing a tailored pink blouse and a pair of crisp, white shorts that came almost to her knees. I barely recognized her. Something was off. Way off. Then it hit me. Laverne looked...dignified!
“Uh...what did you say?” I asked.
“Wish I’d thought of that,” Laverne repeated, her red lips pursed with frustration.
“Huh? Wish you’d thought of what, Laverne?”
She nodded toward the net full of dog turds. “For the tuna ‘surprise.’”
“What? This? Ugh! Laverne! No! It’s for...uh...something else.”
Laverne’s bug-eyes got even buggier. “What then?” she asked. “A booby trap? Sabotage?”
Dang. I really had created a monster. “No, Laverne. Buster ate my diamond earrings. I’m trying to...you know...recover them.”
It took Laverne a moment, but she finally figured it out. When she did, she looked disappointed. “Well, could you do me a favor? Keep him out of my yard? Just look at the mess he’s made!”
Laverne stepped sideways and waved a thin, spotted hand dramatically across the vista of her yard, like Vanna White revealing the answer to a puzzle on Wheel of Fortune. I took a gander over the short fence. To my shock, her yard was pockmarked with holes. And Buster was a digger, just like Charmine.
“Geeze. Sorry, Laverne. I had no idea it was that bad. I’ll do my best to keep an eye on him from now on.”
Laverne sighed. “Have you figured out any more ways to give J.D. and Tom the heave ho? I tell you, the tuna surprise thing isn’t working. J.D.’s got a cast-iron stomach. I think he would eat anything – including dog crap – as long as he didn’t have to cook it.”
“No,” I confessed. “Not really.” I studied the holes in her backyard. Something didn’t seem right about them, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. “I guess we could cut the guys up into pieces and bury them in your yard. The holes are already dug.”
“What kind of knives would we need?” Laverne asked.
I couldn’t tell if she was joking or not. But I didn’t have time to think about it. Something else vied for my attention. Buster had come running up to me with a bone in his mouth.
“Where did you get that?” I asked him.
“He came from over there,” Laverne said. “Your other neighbor’s place.”
“You mean the vacant house next door?”
“Dag-nabbit, Val! That’s it!” Laverne practically shouted.
“What’s ‘it’?”
“We could buy that old dump and let the guys live in it! I think I could swing half of it if you could.”
I looked at her like she was nuts. “I don’t have that kind of money, Laverne.”
“I thought you got an inheritance. We’d only need about fifteen grand apiece. I bought my place for $37,500, and it was in pristine condition.”
“Laverne that was what? Twenty years ago?”
“Yeah. So? What are they now, double?”
“Try ten times more expensive. Haven’t you bought anything since 1985?”
“No. Not much, anyway. Why should I? I brought everything I needed with me from Vegas.”
Considering her house was a mausoleum to Elvis, The Rat Pack, and Siegfried and Roy, she wasn’t kidding. “I don’t think we can swing it,” I said.
“Dang it,” Laverne muttered and adjusted the crotch on her white shorts. “I guess it’s just as well. They say the place is haunted, anyway.”
“Haunted? What are you talking about?”
“I thought you knew, Val. Why do you think it’s been vacant all these years? Somebody blew up in there the year before I moved here. I think that’s why I got my place so cheap. Well, that and the fact that your parents had turned your place into a garbage dump.” Laverne bit her lower lip. “No offense.”
I shook my head. “Wait a minute. Someone ‘blew up’ in there?”
“Something like that. Sporadic helium combination, as I recall.”
“Huh?”
Laverne nodded and looked behind me. “Looks like Buster’s making another deposit. Let me know if you’re not gonna use all of it.”
I forced a smile at the strangely undignified, dignified old lady. “Sure. Gotta go.”
I ran over and kept a close eye on Buster. As the second round of poop fell into the net with the first batch, I tried not to think about what I had to do next.
I WAS PANNING THROUGH poop when the phone rang.
“Hello?” a man’s voice said. “I’m calling about the dog in the flyer?”
My heart flinched. “Yes?”
“I think it might be my dog, Pat.”
“What makes you think that?” I asked as I sifted through the last turd. Crap. No diamonds yet.
“Well, because the dog in the flyer looks like Pat?”
“Oh.”
“Can I come over and see the dog? I’m really anxious to get Pat back.”
“You mean...right now? Today?”
“Yes. I can get in my car and leave now.”
�
��Well...” Crap! I can’t let Buster go now. Not until he lets go of the goods! Plus, he looks like a swollen toad. “Um...I’m afraid today isn’t a good day.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, um....I took the dog to a Barkmitzva and um...now they’re all under quarantine.”
“Quarantine?”
“Yeah. There were a lot of dogs there. One had a severe case of Jew...ish...en...vitosis.”
“I’ve never heard of that.”
“It’s very rare. And I think he might have caught it.”
“Did you say ‘he’?”
“Uh...yes.”
“Oh. My dog Pat’s a girl.”
“So Buster’s not your dog,” I said, strangely relieved. “Wrong anatomy.”
“Too bad. Well, if you don’t find anyone to take him, I will.”
That’s odd. “Yeah. Sure. You’ll be the first person I call.”
“Okay then, thanks. Hope your dog gets well soon.”
“Thanks. I hope you find your Pat.”
I clicked off the phone. Buster ran up, wagging his tail. As I petted him, he dropped another bone at my feet. I didn’t know where he was getting them, and thanks to Laverne’s story about the person blowing up next door, I wasn’t at all sure I wanted to find out.
Chapter Seventeen
By late afternoon, Buster’s considerable efforts had yet to pan out for diamonds. So far, he’d yielded a nickel, a button, a rubber band and my missing hair scrunchie. Yuck! I took the pooch for a walk around the neighborhood, hoping to help move things along. I’m not sure it helped, but I did discover one thing.
Buster had an issue with skateboards.
He and I were almost back to my place when a scrawny, red-headed kid with purple headphones over his ears nearly ran us down with one. I jumped off the sidewalk to get out of his way, but Buster stood his ground. I tugged on the leash, but Buster took a snapping lunge at the kid’s ankle that nearly jerked me off my feet. I had no idea he was so powerful! The kid whizzed by in a blur of Metallica and Teen Spirit, not bothering to slow down. After he rolled past us, he looked back long enough to yell, “Mangy rug rat!”
I could have said the same about him.
“What a jerk!” I said to Buster as I watched the kid disappear down the street. Buster yipped in agreement.
I patted his head and turned back toward my house. A chill ran down my spine. I could have sworn I saw the front door on the vacant house next door close. Were my eyes playing tricks on me? Had I imagined it? I felt a little weirded out about the place ever since Laverne said it was haunted.
Haunted? Naw. That’s not a real thing. Is it? No matter how I tried, I just couldn’t get Laverne’s conversation out of my mind. Can people really just blow up?
I couldn’t stand it anymore. Enquiring minds needed to know. I let Buster out into the backyard and called Judy Bloomers to find out what she knew about the vacant house next door.
“Hello, Judy?”
“Who are you again?” she asked.
“One of the ladies you met at the coffee shop at Publix yesterday.”
“Oh yeah. The dog haters.”
“Look, I don’t hate...ugh. Listen. I was wondering if you could tell me anything about 1333 Bimini Circle.”
“You interested in buying it?”
“Maybe,” I lied.
“Hold on a second.”
I listened as Judy punched some keys on a computer. Then I heard her gasp. “You said 1333 Bimini Circle, right?”
“Yes.”
“Just my luck,” she sneered. “That place has been vacant for over two decades. I finally get a client who’s interested, and it went off the market last week. Dad blast it!”
“It sold? Really? Who bought it?”
“I can’t tell. It should be in public records in the next few days. Why?”
“Well, I live next door.”
“Oh my word! You’re the Thelma and Louise gals, right? If you’re ready to sell, I could move your houses in a heartbeat!”
“Then why did it take so long for the one next door to sell?”
“Well, you know, as a realtor I’m not obligated to divulge this...but seeing’s how you’re such a good client and all, between you and me, the place has a bit of a shady history.”
I bit my lip. “What do you mean?”
“Well, the old lady who owned it died under suspicious circumstances. Everyone says her son killed her. Set her on fire. Human barbecue. He went to prison for murder, you know.”
“What? That’s horrible!” I gasped. “But...Laverne said she thought the lady had died of something like...a sporatic helium combination?”
I listened while Judy laughed for a full minute. I wondered if her polyester pants were up to the challenge of all that wiggling belly flab.
“Thanks, I needed that,” she said, still giggling. “I think your friend meant ‘spontaneous human combustion.’”
“What?”
“Yeah. That’s what the son claimed as his defense during the trial. Said he came home to find his mother Mabel burned to cinders by some freak act of nature. There wasn’t anything left of her but a charred foot, as I recall. But just like that old house itself, nobody bought it.”
“Until now. The house, I mean.”
“Right.”
“I’m curious, Judy. How long did he get?”
“From what I heard, he was sentenced to around twenty years.”
A movement outside made me glance at the sliding glass door. Buster was scratching to be let in. In his mouth was a bone that looked suspiciously as if it could have come from someone’s barbecued mother.
“Thanks, Judy. I gotta go,” I said, and clicked off the phone.
I STARED IN HORROR at the bone in Buster’s jaws. The house next door had been vacant for two decades. The son had gotten twenty years in prison. It was all too much of a coincidence to be...well...a coincidence.
OMG! Do I have a murderer living next door?
I reached for the handle on the sliding glass door to let Buster in. Suddenly, his ears perked up. He dropped the bone and ran off to the right, toward the once-abandoned house. Is that where he’d found the bone? I jerked open the door and ran after him.
“Leave that alone, Buster!” I screeched.
“I can do what I want. It’s a free country,” a man’s voice yelled back at me.
Shock and surprise double-teamed me and caused me to trip over my own bare feet. I recovered without eating a dirt sandwich, then stood on tiptoe and peeked around like a meerkat, trying to ascertain the source of the voice. Living on the water, noises bounced and echoed, making it hard to be sure. It sounded as if the voice had come from the house next door. Was that possible? After decades of neglect, the yard was so overgrown, I couldn’t make out anything beyond the unkempt bushes bulging through the sagging, chain-link fence.
I looked down at Buster and squealed. He was trying to wriggle his swollen belly through the hole he’d excavated under the chain link fence. I dove to my knees and grabbed him by his hind legs and pulled him back into my yard.
“Naughty boy!” I scolded. I reached over and grabbed a potted plant with my free hand. I dropped it like a plug into the hole. Buster took the opportunity to lick my face with the same tongue that might have just been chewing someone’s final, boney remains.
“Aargh! You’re disgusting, you know that?”
“What did I do?” the same man’s voice asked.
It had come from next door. I yelled back through the hedges, “Sorry. I wasn’t talking to you.”
As I scrambled to my feet with Buster squirming in my arms, the tangled jungle of overgrown bushes began rustling like something out of Jurassic Park. Suddenly, they separated, and a creature peered at me with eyes as black as the hair covering most of its face. I gasped. The guy could’ve been mistaken for the missing link if it weren’t for three things. One, he was carrying a shovel. Two, he was wearing a red Speedo. And three, he had a th
ree-foot-long iguana draped around his neck like a Neanderthal kerchief.
My mouth fell open and I blinked hard. I couldn’t believe my eyes. It wasn’t the shovel or the Speedo or the lizard that knocked me for a loop. It was something else entirely. We stared at each other for a moment. No. It couldn’t be...could it?
It was the jerk from Davie’s Donuts.
“Oh. It’s you,” I said, bristling. “I didn’t recognize you without the hound dog.”
He laughed dryly. “I didn’t recognize you without the custard facial.”
So that’s how it’s gonna be, huh? I shot him a dirty look. “What’s with the iguana cape?”
Ape man petted the iguana’s head. “I like to think he adds to my allure,” he said in a way that left me wondering if he was joking or not.
“Well, given what you’ve got to work with, it certainly couldn’t hurt,” I sneered.
He eyed me up and down, but said nothing. Buster licked my face again. I clenched my jaw in disgust. All of a sudden I remembered something. I could be talking to a murderer! My sarcastic bravado evaporated. But this was no time to show weakness. I could collapse once I’d gotten myself safely back into my house....
“Y...you the...n...new owner?” I stuttered, taking a blind step backward.
The hairy guy stroked the iguana’s tail, but kept his black eyes locked on mine. “No.”
I let out a sigh of relief. My buckling knees straightened. “Oh. So, what are you doing over there?”
“Surveying the property.”
“In a Speedo?”
“Last time I checked, it’s not illegal.” He looked me up and down and licked his lips, giving me a case of the willies.
My own mouth had gone dry. I wanted to say, “Well, it should be,” but thought better of it. “Okay,” was the best I could come up with for a snappy alternative.
“After all, it’s my place,” he said, and grinned at me like that guy in Silence of the Lambs.
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