“Well, yes. He’s married to the sister of my writing instructor.”
“Angela Langsbury?”
“Yes. You remembered her name.”
Goober grinned. “How could I forget that?”
“Langsbury says he’s a tightwad. He’s actually staying with her instead of going to a hotel.”
“So we know he’s pathologically cheap.”
“I didn’t say he was pathological.”
“Val, he’s staying with relatives instead of getting a hotel room.”
“Okay. He’s pathological.”
“Has he got any hobbies?”
“Besides destroying the world’s natural beauty?”
“Yeah. We need some guise to contact him.”
“But Goober,” Winky said, “can’t we guys do it ourselves?”
“I mean a reason, Winky. What’s this Amsel guy do for fun?”
“Like I said, he destroys stuff.”
“He smokes cigars,” Winky offered.
“That’s it,” Goober said.
“What’s it?” I asked.
“Our way in. You suspect Amsel’s up to no good. We need a way to learn more about him. So we lure him into our trap with the promise of free cigars.”
Goober’s idea made so much sense it almost shocked me.
“That just might work,” I said.
“Cigar aficionados have a language all their own,” Goober said, his faraway eyes already deep into his scheme. “They would have to be exclusive cigars.”
“Oh! I got this one!” Winky hollered. “I got me a whole box a cigars a feller give me. They’re hand-rolled from Honduras. We could give ‘em to this Amsel feller. No problem.”
“You don’t want them?” I asked.
Winky shot me a look. “You know what Winnie would do if I lit one up? No thanks. I just finally got used to sleepin’ indoors.”
“Good,” Goober said. “Now all we need is his address, and we can personally deliver them.”
“I’m way ahead of you,” I said. I reached into my purse and whipped out the envelope with Angela Langsbury’s address.
“Well done.” Goober grinned like the Cheshire cat. “I do believe, my compadres in arms, that it’s time for another stakeout.”
“We better make it quick,” I said. “We’ve got the luau tomorrow night, then there’s just the weekend before they start tearing Caddy’s down on Monday. Why don’t you stay with me and Tom tonight? That way we can get an early start.”
“Thanks, but I think I’ll go stay with the RV.”
“To keep an eye on your money?” I asked.
“Huh? No. Jezebel’s in there.”
“Jezebel? Who’s Jezebel?”
“My pet lizard, of course.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
“You sure you’ve got room for Goober at your place?” I asked Winky as he dropped me off in my driveway late Thursday afternoon.
“Yep. Enough for Tiny, too. He can park the RV in the yard and head out tomorrow. See you in the morning, Val.”
As I tugged my suitcase up the driveway, I suddenly felt oddly alone after six hours in a hearse with Winky and Goober. But the feeling evaporated when I opened the front door and heard a familiar yip.
“Snogs!”
The tiny pup danced like a crazed dust bunny as I walked over to his cage.
“How are you, sweetie?”
I squatted down to let the dancing doggie out but the doorbell beat me to it. I stood, padded over to the front door and peeked through the hole. Laverne must have missed me, too. She was on my front porch jumping up and down, wringing her hands.
“What’s up?” I asked as I opened the door.
“Oh, Val! You’re home!”
“Yeah. What’s wrong?”
“Randolph’s been missing for three days!”
So it’s true. I really do live in a three-ring circus.
“That’s impossible, Laverne. I’ve only been gone a day and a half.”
“Well, Randolph’s been missing since Tuesday night,” Laverne said, counting the day on a finger. “Yesterday was Wednesday.” She counted another finger. “And today’s Thursday.” The third finger went up. “See? That’s three days, Val.”
“Okay,” I said, giving up on the math lesson. “What happened?”
“Well, after Nancy brought him home Tuesday night, I hosed Randolph down and put him back in his pen. When I got up the next morning, he was gone!”
“You don’t think that Nancy took him, do you?”
“No. Like I said, Randolph ran away on his own.”
“How do you know?”
Laverne cocked her horsey head at me as if to imply I was missing the obvious.
“Well, Val, he took his goggles with him.”
I don’t live in a circus. I live in a looney bin!
“Right. Well, I’m sure he’ll turn up soon. I’ll keep an eye out for him.”
“Thanks Val. Remember, he’ll be the pig in the brown aviator goggles.”
“Got it.”
ABOUT AN HOUR AFTER my chat with Laverne, my doorbell rang again. When I answered it, a strange man was standing at my door. A van was parked in the driveway. As I started to unlock the door, a shiver ran down my spine.
Wait a minute. Is this how Greg and Norma got abducted?
“What do you want?” I yelled through the door.
“Delivery,” he barked back.
“From who?”
“Receipt here says, ‘From Vance with love.’”
I opened the door. “What is it?”
“Follow me.”
I kept a wary distance as we walked to the van. But when the guy opened the door, a new kind of fear gripped me.
Posed on a serving platter with an apple in its mouth was a fully dressed-for-roasting young pig. A lei of onion slices and cherry tomatoes was draped around its neck. A tag clipped to its left ear with a pin had one word on it.
Randolph.
Holy crap on a cracker! Could Vance have gotten his wires crossed?
I shot a look toward Laverne’s house. Thankfully, she wasn’t outside to witness this.
I looked back at the pig. It was the same size and shape as Randolph. But it couldn’t be him.
Could it?
Milly was supposed to tell Vance to deliver a roasting pig to Nancy’s place for a luau for Randolph, the pig in Laverne’s backyard. Could Vance have thought I wanted the pig in Laverne’s backyard to be prepared for the luau?
No. It couldn’t be Randolph.
“Oh. Here,” said the delivery driver. “I think these belong to you.” He reached over and handed me a pair of aviator goggles.
Triple crap on a cracker!
“Where do you want it?” he asked.
“The pig?” I asked, still reeling with shock.
“No. The Goodyear blimp.”
“Hold on a second.”
I ran over to Jake’s place and rang the bell.
“Jake, the pig’s here.”
“Where?”
“In the van.”
“Good. “It’s about time.” He followed me across the lawn.
“There may be a problem, though,” I said as we rounded the side of the van toward its open back-end.
“I hope not, Val. I gotta get that pig in the ground before it’s too late!”
Jake’s words hung in the humid air like a slab of butchered bacon. Laverne was standing on the sidewalk, staring wide-eyed into the back of the van. She turned to face us and saw the goggles in my hand.
A tiny squeak emanated from her open mouth, then she keeled over into the grass.
“Laverne!” I yelled. I dropped the goggles and ran over to her side. I knelt and held her horsey head up, then patted her cheeks, trying to revive her.
“Laverne,” I pleaded into her groggy ear, “it’s not what you think!”
At least, I hope it isn’t!
AFTER GETTING LAVERNE home and set up on the couch with a gla
ss of gin and a promise Randolph was still alive, I left the goggles with her, went home, called J.D., and finally let poor Snogs out for a wee.
I’d already survived my mother, lunch at Taco Schnell, a six-hour trip with Goober and Winky, and possibly being an accomplice to the murder of Laverne’s pet pig. I needed a beer. But when I looked in the fridge all I saw was that kombucha crap and a big bowl of broccoli salad Tom must’ve made for dinner.
“Arrghh!”
After the day I’d just had, no stupid salad was going to cut it.
I was jonesing for some comfort food. What I needed was fried chicken and macaroni ‘n’ cheese flavored ice cream.
Why hasn’t anybody invented that yet?
I slammed the fridge door, then walked into the dining area and pulled the soiled newspapers from Snog’s cage.
Perfect way to end this crappy day.
I headed to the garage to put the papers in the bin. When I opened the lid, what caught my eye set my mouth to watering. It was a takeout box from Tasty-Lickin’ Fried Chicken.
A flash of jealous rage shot through me. While I was gone, Tom had cheated on me with a juicy, big-breasted hen!
Through the garage door, I heard the familiar sound of Tom’s SUV as it pulled up in the driveway. I scrambled back inside, prepared to launch into a full-blown tirade accusing Tom of committing food adultery. But the tired, worried look on Tom’s face sealed my lips shut.
From the looks of it, he might have had a day even worse than mine.
“How was work today?” I asked.
“Let’s don’t talk shop.” Tom wrapped his arms around me. “I just want to hold you.”
The warmth of his arms felt like a friendly blanket in a blizzard of strangers.
“Fine,” I said. “That sounds good to me.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
I woke to the sound of grunting.
Randolph!
I shot up in bed. Tom was standing in the doorway, a cappuccino in each hand.
“You snore like a little piglet,” he said with a boyish grin.
“I do not!”
“Then who was it doing all that grunting?” He handed me a cup, kissed me on the nose, and slid into bed beside me.
“Probably Randolph. He’s on the loose, you know.”
Tom sighed. “Yeah. Laverne told me. No one’s found him yet?”
“I hope not.”
Tom’s eyebrow went angular. “Why would you say that?”
I thought about the pig on the platter with the onion lei around its neck.
“I dunno. I guess I just like the idea of Randolph running around, wild and free.”
Tom shot me a skeptical look. “Maybe. But settling down has its creature comforts, don’t you think?”
I took another sip of cappuccino and sunk into the pillows. “I guess.”
Tom grinned and raised his cup to his lips. The tired, worried face he wore yesterday had vanished. I was glad of it.
“You must have had quite a day yesterday,” I said.
“I could say the same for you.”
“True enough. Are things going okay at work?”
“The same as usual. Why?”
“I dunno. When you got home last night, it looked like you’d had the stuffing knocked out of you. Then you said you didn’t want to talk about it.”
“Sometimes words aren’t what we need.” Tom reached across me to put his cup on the nightstand. He stayed on his side and looked into my eyes. “Sometimes what we need goes beyond words, Val. That’s when we need each other most.”
“Oh.”
Tom’s words touched me deep inside. Almost too deep inside. My upbringing with Lucille had taught me that intimacy was a terrible, double-edged sword. Being with Tom was slowly reprogramming that lesson, but my initial gut-reaction of fear still lingered inside me, whimpering like a beaten puppy.
It was still painful to let love in.
“I thought something had gone wrong at work,” I fumbled. “With the case....”
Tom kissed me. “Yes. I had a bad day yesterday. But mostly because I didn’t sleep much the night before.”
“Why?”
“Because you weren’t here. I missed you, Val. Didn’t you miss me?”
“Of course. It’s just that I was so busy –”
“It’s Friday. What say we go out tonight, just the two of us?”
“We can’t, Tom. Tonight’s the luau. At Nancy’s.”
Tom’s face sagged with disappointment. “Oh. That’s right. Tomorrow, then?”
“Well, we kind of all planned to meet up at Caddy’s tomorrow night. To celebrate Goober’s return...and Caddy’s last night in business. I’d postpone it, but as you know, Caddy’s won’t be there on Monday.”
Tom blew out a breath. “Well, Ms. Popularity, let me know when your social calendar frees up.”
“You’re not mad are you?”
Tom smiled. “No. Not as long as I’m invited, too.”
“You’re always welcome, wherever I am.”
Tom winked. “Good to know.”
“That includes when I go to visit my mother.”
Tom laughed. “Darn. I should have known there was a catch in there somewhere.”
WITH TOM AWAY AT WORK, it was time to put Operation Cigar Takedown into action. That’s the name Winky, Goober and I had come up with for the stakeout we’d planned for today.
Our mission was to find out if that pig-faced Timothy Amsel had something to do with Greg and Norma’s disappearance. We only had today to do it, and the plan was sketchy, at best.
I peeked through the front blinds in the living room to make sure no one was looking. Then I realized it didn’t matter if someone was or not. They wouldn’t know what I was up to.
Stakeouts always made me paranoid.
I grabbed my cellphone and punched speed dial.
“The coast is clear,” I said to Goober.
“Ready when you are,” he replied. “I’ve got the cigars if you’ve got the wheels.”
“I’m on my way.”
I gave Snogs one last hug, put him in his cage, and stepped out the door. The coast might have been clear, but the sky wasn’t. It was shrouded in a thick carpet of light-grey clouds. It looked like one huge, soggy mattress in heaven had lost all its stuffing.
I crept down the driveway and opened the driver’s door on Maggie.
“Where you going?” Laverne asked.
My spine straightened like a shot. I turned around to find Laverne on her knees in her front yard. She was kneeling in front of a wash-pan full of apples, placing Randolph’s aviator goggles on top of the heap.
“That’s rather unusual fall décor,” I said.
“It’s for Randolph.”
Laverne’s normally pert strawberry-blonde curls hung limp in the thick air. She brushed a lock from her liver-spotted forehead.
“I’m hoping to lure him back home,” she said. “He loves apples, you know. Every time I see him with one in his mouth, it reminds me of –”
“A luau?” I said before I could stop myself.
“A what?”
“Uh...the luau tonight. You still going?”
“Yes. Life goes on, Val.”
For some more than others.
“I hope Randolph’s okay,” I said lamely.
“I know he is,” Laverne said. “I can just feel it right here, in my gut. Can’t you?”
“Sure.” Maybe later. With a slice of pineapple....
“Well, I better get going,” I said. “I’m off to see Goober.”
“Oh! That’s right! Tell him ‘hello and welcome back’ from me. I’m so glad you found him, Val. Now we just need Randolph to come home, and the whole gang’ll be back together again.”
“Right.” I shot Laverne the best smile I could muster, given the circumstances. Chances were fairly certain that we’d see Randolph again...when Jake pulled him out of the roasting pit in Nancy’s backyard tonight.
“Ok
ay, I gotta go.”
“Oh! Wait a second!” Laverne scrambled off her knobby knees. “I saved my old newspapers for you. Well, for Snogs’ cage, I mean.”
Laverne toddled over to her garage and came back toting a grocery sack full of newspapers. Her thoughtfulness sent my guilt-o-meter into overdrive.
“Thanks, Laverne.” I took the sack of papers. “I hope Randolph comes home real soon.”
“Me, too. But what matters most to me is that he finds his forever home.”
And that it’s not in a barbeque pit.
I really should be taken out and shot....
“I knew he couldn’t stay with me forever,” Laverne said. “I just want him to be happy.”
I smiled at Laverne, and nearly confessed to my role in Randolph’s demise. After all, if I hadn’t told Milly about Randolph being in Laverne’s backyard, then asked for a butchered pig for the luau, this whole miscommunication snafu never would have happened. But I couldn’t bring myself to tell poor Laverne I’d been the one who’d put a hit out on her pet pig.
“Me, too.” I shot her another fake smile. “Thanks for the newspapers. Have a nice day.”
I put the sack of papers in the backseat, plopped my butt onto the red vinyl, and hit the ignition. As I pulled out of the driveway, I hoped the roar of Maggie’s glass-pack muffler would overpower my guilty conscience by the time I made it to Pinellas Park.
Chapter Thirty-Five
The yard in front of Winky’s doublewide trailer looked like the scene of a vehicular homicide. The Minnie Winnie’s guts were strung out all over the place, as if she’d been disemboweled by a serial killer wielding a socket wrench.
Goober was leaning over the hood, a blunt object in his hand. He saw me and straightened to standing. He nodded to greet me, then pointed the pale lamp of a flashlight in my direction.
A second later, Winky’s head popped out sideways from behind the hood.
“Val Pal! You here already?”
“Yes,” I said, and cut the engine. “How’s it going?”
“Oh, it’s goin’,” Winky said. He looked at Maggie and his lips twitched. “Gee, as much as I love me a stakeout, I can’t go. I got to help Tiny finish up here.”
Cloud Nine- When Pigs Fly Page 17