“Val!” Tom’s voice said. “Are you okay?”
I pulled my dress back down, away from my face, and thanked my Southern upbringing for making sure I’d wore nice panties tonight.
“Yeah, I’m okay.”
“Tell me what’s going on.”
“I don’t know. But that was one huge gust of wind!”
“I didn’t mean the weather,” Tom said. “But you’re right. I don’t think the plastic window flaps are going to help with this storm.”
“Let’s go check the TV weather report.”
Tom and I went up to the bar, where everyone else was already glued to the screen of the old TV mounted on the wall.
A local Tampa Bay news weatherman was talking. He waved his hands around a swirling backdrop that looked eerily like a rendition of Picasso’s starry night.
“...surprise cluster of cyclonic activity reminiscent of the ‘No-Name Storm’ that blew through in March of 1993,” he said.
The screen shifted to two reporters sitting at a news desk. The woman said, “If I recall, it blew ashore in the middle of the night, Chet.”
“Yes,” said the newsman on her left. “Like this one, the No-Name Storm spawned nearly a dozen tornadoes.”
Tornadoes!
“If I remember correctly,” the news woman said, “it brought with it a storm surge of over seven feet in some parts of Pinellas County.”
“That’s right, Mindy,” Chet said. “It packed winds of over a hundred miles an hour. The damage was horrendous. Thousands of homes were destroyed, and nearly fifty folks lost their lives in that storm. I believe that was more than Hugo and Andrew combined.”
Mindy mugged a concerned look for the camera. “You folks inland, thank your lucky stars. You along the coast, batten down the hatches. This may turn out to be another ‘No-Name’ Storm!”
“Should we make a run for it?” I asked Tom.
“I think we should all stay here,” he said. “It’s too dangerous to leave. Tornadoes can pop up anywhere.”
“Oh, great,” Jake said. “Now no one will help me get that pig out of my van.”
“What pig?” Winky asked.
“Rand –,” Jake began.
“Dee,” I said. “Randy.”
Laverne eyed me suspiciously. I knew the jig was up. I pulled the tag out of my purse and handed it to Laverne.
“I was going to save this for later, but....”
Laverne read the tag and smiled brightly. “You found Randolph!” She hugged me, then Jake. “Oh, thank you so much!”
I bit my lip. “Laverne, I’ve got to tell you something. It’s not what you –”
Suddenly, the lights went out. We were plunged into pitch-black darkness.
“Are there any candles?” I heard Tom call out. The bartender produced a flashlight. In the dim halo, I saw him and Tom rifle through the bar shelves as the wind blew and Caddy’s creaked like an old ship caught in a Nor’easter.
“Do you think she’ll hold?” I asked Tom as he found me again. I was huddled together with the rest of the gang under a table wedged into a corner.
“This place is tough,” Tom said. “It’s been here forever. We’ve got as good a chance here as any.”
Just then, the side door blew open. Tom ran over to close it, but I caught a glimpse of something moving in the dark.
“Wait, Tom! Someone’s out there!”
“Where?”
I ran over to him and pointed. “Over there! Oh, no! Watch out!”
Tom and I watched in disbelief as the roof came off J.D.’s house.
“Holy smokes!” Tom called out against the gale.
A few seconds later, a scrawny, weather-beaten woman wearing a black dress and my shoes came tumbling halfway through the door.
“You guys, the tide’s rising!” Finkerman said as we pulled him inside.
As we pushed against the door trying to shut it, the entire third floor of J.D.’s house went airborne. Suddenly, in the dim starlight, I made out a fat, pig-like figure running toward us.
Amsel!
Debris circled around Tim Amsel like Frosty in a snow-globe. What looked to be a large board beaned him on the head. Amsel tripped, grabbed onto the board, and skidded toward us across the sand. He stopped a few yards from the door.
Winky shone a flashlight on him. It was Amsel, all right. He looked like a wet lab rat in his ragged t-shirt and underpants. Through the howling rain, I saw that the plank he’d ridden over on was actually the surfboard-shaped sign from Winnie & Winky’s donut shack.
“Well, that’s somethin’ you don’t see every day,” Winky said.
As we watched, Amsel stumbled to his knees, then to his feet. He took a step toward us. Something flew out of the whirlwind hit him square in his fat gut. He collapsed like he’d just caught a football made of lead.
Or, more accurately, of pigskin.
“Randolph!” Laverne cried out.
“Shore is,” Winky said. “And looky there. He had the good sense to wear his goggles.”
“I think Amsel got the wind knocked out of him,” I said. “Looks like he’s gasping for breath.”
“Somebody should resuscitate him,” Tom said. “Besides, Randolph, I mean.”
I shook my head in disbelief. “Nothing in the world could possibly top this.”
Then, as if on cue, something orange came crashing through what was left of Caddy’s porch and proved me wrong, yet again.
Chapter Forty-Three
Pushed up on the rising tide, an orange kayak surfed a huge wave and crash-landed onto what was left of Caddy’s porch. Two bedraggled, weather-worn men tumbled out of it.
I noticed one of the men had boobs.
“Norma!” I screeched. “It’s Norma and Greg!”
Tom and Goober dropped the jabbering, hysterical Amsel in a corner, leaving him to the tender care of the Knick Knack Nazi. Nancy promptly slapped Amsel on an already red cheek and said, “Snap out of it, pansy boy!”
Laverne and J.D. entertained an enthusiastic Randolph with a plate of meringues, while the rest of us helped the waterlogged pair out of the battered kayak.
“What the heck is going on here?” Tom asked.
“First, I need a beer,” Greg said.
“Me, too,” Norma said.
“Me, three,” Tom said. “Welcome back. We’ve been looking for you for a week.”
“WE WERE CAMPING OUT at Fort DeSoto,” Greg explained, after a long slug of beer. He looked over at Norma, who was huddled in a towel. “After all that rain today, we decided to take advantage of the break in the weather and go kayaking this evening. But then this huge storm came up outta nowhere. I’ve never seen anything like it in all my days here. We couldn’t get back to the campsite. It was all we could do to try to stay upright. The winds pushed us all the way here. Right to Caddy’s doorstep.”
“It’s a sign,” Norma said, shaking her head. “We shouldn’t have sold it.”
“You’re right,” Greg said. “But it’s too late, now.”
“Why would you just up and disappear?” I asked. “We’ve all been worried sick about you two.”
“I didn’t know we had,” Greg said. “I just wanted to get away. I turned off my phone. I couldn’t bear the calls from customers anymore. Or the sight of this place, knowing it was going to be demolished.”
“Well, it looks like Mother Nature’s doing the job for you,” Tom said.
“My punishment for being a traitor,” Greg said. “I’m sorry I let you folks down.”
“We thought you’d been murdered,” I said. “Tom found one of those life-alert bracelets you used to wear.”
Greg shook his wrist. The silver bracelet on it jangled. “As you can see, I’ve still got mine. It’s my good luck charm. Besides you, I mean.” He looked over at Norma. They shared a sad smile.
“You can still have this bloody dump, too, if you want it,” Amsel said, marching up in his underpants, red palm prints covering his face. “I’ve h
ad it with this crazy Florida weather. You’re all nuts to live here! Where’s Dimson?”
“Someone brought dim sum?” Goober asked.
A bedraggled woman stumbled in out of the rain, but it wasn’t Dimson.
“Uh...What’s going on here?” she asked.
“Are you Karen?” I said.
“Karen?” Tom asked.
I grimaced. “Mulligan.”
“Yes. I’m Karen. Where’s Dimson?”
“That’s what I want to know,” Goober said.
“It’s Dimson, not dim sum,” I said to Goober. I grabbed Karen by the arm. “Come with me.” I looked over at Tom. “You, too.”
I took a step toward the door, then turned back and said, “Oh. And Finkerman, I’m gonna need my shoes back.”
WE FOUND DIMSON COWERING in a corner of the soggy living room in what was left of the ugly orange house Amsel had bought from J.D. two days prior.
“There she is,” I said to Tom.
Dimson looked Tom, Karen and me up and down. When she got to our feet, she realized it was me and not Karen who was wearing the shoes from the ladies’ room. Her face went from “smug” to “oh crap” in one-point-five seconds.
“Tom,” I said, “Dimson hired Karen here to videotape her having sex with Amsel. She was going to blackmail Amsel for a hundred grand.”
“That’s preposterous,” Dimson said as she crawled to her feet.
“I’ve got it all on tape.” I patted a square recorder on my chest. “Ladies’-room confession.”
“Arghh!” Dimson growled. “I can’t believe you blew it again, Karen! I had sex with that disgusting pig for nothing. Again!”
“Not for nothing,” Tom said. “I think you’ll get something out of the deal.”
Dimson looked at him, a glimmer of hope in her eyes. “What?”
Tom shrugged. “Probably around five years.”
He reached behind him and pulled out his cuffs. As he slapped them on Dimson’s wrists, Tom said, “You know, Val, I wouldn’t mind having you as a partner.”
I smirked. “I thought we already were.”
Chapter Forty-Four
When the storm cleared that next morning, Caddy’s was a bit worse for wear. But, like the rest of us, it was still standing.
As daylight broke, the side door popped open and old lady Langsbury came stumbling in. I’d alerted her to Amsel’s presence last night. She must’ve lit out for the beach at the crack of dawn. She spotted me in the huddled crowd of damp, hungover folks and shot me a quick nod. Then she headed straight for Amsel, who was curled up in a corner in his tidy whities, sucking his thumb.
The storm had delayed the second half of Plan B. But as it turned out, Langsbury’s timing couldn’t have been better. She gave the folks waking up around me a one-of-a-kind morning show.
“Get up, you lousy ingrate,” Langsbury hissed. She reared back and kicked Amsel on his ample butt.
He rolled over. “What do you want, you old hag?”
“I want my property back.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The quit-claim deed you forged. I want you to sign a new one, or else.”
“Or else what?”
Langsbury reached in her purse and pulled out an industrial-sized can of Aquanet. “Or else I’m gonna make it rain.”
“And I’m going to start an investigation,” Tom said, rising to his feet.
“Okay, already,” Amsel said. “I’ll get one to you next week.”
I nodded at J.D. He got up and dusted off the knees on his Armani pants. “Why wait?” he asked. “I’ve got the forms right here. All we need is your signature.”
“Fine,” Amsel hissed. “I hate Florida.”
“Then you wouldn’t mind signing another document,” J.D. said.
“What for?” Amsel asked, grabbing a pen to sign Langsbury’s quit-claim deed.
“For Caddy’s. Cancelling the deal.” J.D. shot a glance toward Greg. “Does that work for you, Mr. Parsons?”
Greg’s groggy face switched to startled surprise. “Sure, if Amsel’s game, I am.”
“I’m game,” Amsel said. “I never want to see another one of you lousy people again for as long as I live.”
“Well then,” J.D. said, “I think we have come to a meeting of the minds.”
TWO WEEKS HAD PASSED since tropical storm Randy had blown through St. Pete Beach and taken out the hideous orange house J.D. had sold to Amsel. The storm was officially named “Randy” because it had put the kibosh on Randy Towers, once and for all.
With a few repairs, Caddy’s was back in business with Greg and Norma as co-owners. After re-hanging the sign, Winnie & Winkie’s Bait and Donut Shop was none the worse for wear, either. Turns out it’s hard to hurt a concrete block box.
That human leg bone in the Gulf turned out to belong to a pig. But, thankfully, it was nobody we knew personally.
Faced with Finkerman’s sex tape, the audio recording I got on her in the ladies’ room, and the corroborating testimony of her unreliable accomplice, Karen, Darlene Dimson had faked her last legal document and performed her last hanky-panky for profit. She’d done the deed with Amsel twice, hoping for ninety grand. I wouldn’t have done it once for ninety million.
Not wanting to ever set foot in Florida again, Timothy Amsel dropped the charges against Dimson and left town, promising never to return. As an act of good faith, and to avoid further criminal investigation, Amsel donated the lot where J.D.’s house stood to the city, to be designated as a park.
Regarding Finkerman, I guess no one is all good or all bad. After all the sand had settled, Winky and Greg offered Finkerman a job cleaning up the grounds around their properties, just like my real dad Tony used to do.
Jorge and Sherryl are expecting twins next March, Winny and Winky a son next April, and Milly and Vance six pups this October. Our little family continues to expand.
With Laverne’s blessing, last week Goober took Randolph for a ride in the RV to visit that friend of Jake’s who had that petting zoo place near Ocala. We haven’t heard from either one of them since.
Meanwhile, J.D. moved into the Ovation downtown. It’s still a toss-up which place they’re going to live in when Laverne and J.D. get back from their honeymoon...but that’s another story altogether.
As far as Tom and I go, well, like he promised, Tom took some time off after the case was closed. We headed down to Sarasota to see Cold Cuts, Bill and Freddie at their Sunset Sail-Away Resort. They were so happy to see us that Bill even let the two of us borrow his boat for an overnight sail.
When we woke up the next morning adrift at sea, Tom and I climbed up on the deck to take in the sunrise.
“Look, Tom. It’s as if the whole horizon is on fire.”
Tom wrapped his arms around me from behind. The wind whispered along with Tom as he said, “Red sky at dawning, sailor take warning.”
“That’s rather ominous,” I quipped.
“It’s just an old fisherman’s saying.”
“Are you an old fisherman?”
Tom laughed. “I’ve been known to be nautical.”
“Have you ever!”
Tom spun me around. “Permission to kiss the captain?”
“Wait. Are you saying I’m the captain?”
Tom shot me a boyish grin. “Everyone’s the captain of their own ship, Val.”
A warm, comforting feeling seeped into my heart, swamping the fear that had reigned there for so long. It felt awkward and strange, but I pushed past it and said, “Well, in that case, permission granted.”
As Tom held me in his arms, the sound of his voice and the touch of his hand soothed the niggling restlessness that had plagued me my entire life.
I realized that my lungs took in the salt air a little easier when I was in his embrace. A calmness...a lightness lifted me. I felt as if I weighed no more than a feather.
I was still me when I was with Tom...but I was also something more.
So
mething intangible.
Something transcendent.
As the sun rose and the breeze tickled my face, I finally realized that there were no mysterious answers to life waiting outside of me, hiding somewhere in the mist waiting for me to discover them. There were no “wrong” or “right” ways to go, either.
There were only experiences waiting to unfold.
And my future was totally up to me.
Looking back on it all now, it had been some kind of miracle that Tom and I had gotten together in the first place.
I turned and looked into Tom’s smiling, sea-green eyes.
An iridescent dragonfly with rainbow wings landed on his shoulder.
My heart smiled.
I was home.
DEAR READER,
Thanks so much for reading Cloud Nine, and the entire Val Fremden Mystery Series. I had so much fun writing it, I hate to see it end.
Many of you have asked why I chose the name Val Fremden for my heroine.
Well, for many reasons, actually.
For one, her first name, Val, is short for Valiant. Perseverance and endurance are traits we all need to get through this life. And Fremden? It means “strangers” in German, and was the last name of her German ex-husband. (Fremder, the singular word for stranger, seemed too, pardon the pun, “strange” to pronounce, so I used the plural form.)
I thought Fremden was the perfect name, because, like many of us, Val sought to find herself in relationships. But after three failed marriages, she realized no one else could do the work for her. At age 45, Val found herself in a fierce battle for belonging. But this time she knew she would never feel at home as long as she remained a stranger to herself.
It’s a tough journey, and one all of us must take – though many of us never finish. Not even in middle age. Not even in old age. Maybe not even in death.
Allowing ourselves the permission to explore our true feelings and desires is rarely given easily. And it’s mostly an internal battle. If we’re wise, we eventually understand that the people who come into our lives are actually our teachers – if we’ll sit up and pay attention to their lessons.
Cloud Nine- When Pigs Fly Page 21