Val Fremden Mystery Box Set 1

by Margaret Lashley

  Wiping rivulets of rain from my eyes, I fumbled the key into the lock, tumbled inside, did a swan dive across the floor and yanked the computer’s plug out of the socket. About a half-second later, another bolt of lightning filled the apartment with angry, blue noise. The light over the kitchen stove went out. The microwave blurted a long, high-pitched, farewell bleep.

  Great.

  Still, it could have been worse. Much worse.

  I got in the tub and peeled off my sopping clothes. After hanging them on the rod, I towel-dried my hair and slipped into what I’d dubbed my “house dress.” It was a loose-fitting, blue shift I’d found at a thrift store for three bucks. I’d convinced myself it wasn’t a moo-moo. I might’ve been middle aged, but I wasn’t ready to give up yet. My house dress was the feminine equivalent of a guy’s t-shirt and sweats.

  Fair was fair.

  I stumbled to the kitchen, pulled a beer out of the dark fridge, and spent the next ten minutes playing hide-and-seek with my reading glasses. I finally caught them under a pile of unpaid bills on the tiny kitchen table. Fortified with beer and bifocals, I plopped on the living room rug, snuggled my back against the ugly old sofa, and dug further into the shoebox labeled 1945 to 1974.

  By the storm-grey daylight filtering in through the window, I could just make out the pictures of Glad and Bobby Munch together. There was no fancy wedding photo. But given the era and the situation, I didn’t expect to find one. There was, however, a picture of Glad with straight, shoulder-length blonde hair, looking pale but stunning in a matching royal blue jacket and skirt. She was standing next to Bobby Munch, who was in a light-blue suit and tie.

  Bobby was a few inches shorter than Glad. A bit thick in the middle, he sported dark, nearly black hair and long, mutton-chop sideburns. Bobby might have been handsome, and even passed for a close relative of Elvis if not for one thing. His teeth. He was as bucktoothed as a road-flattened jackrabbit. The picture of Glad and him in their dress-up clothes appeared to have been taken in the generic lobby of a church or government building. Both Glad and Bobby looked more distracted than happy. There was no way of telling for sure what the occasion had been.

  My mind went to thoughts of Glad as I had known her, so happy and at home with herself, sprawled out on her beach chair in her Gilligan hat and bug-eyed sunglasses. It was weird to see images of her looking so prim and proper and...pinched. I picked up a photo of her sitting at a picnic table wearing pink pedal pushers and a matching gingham top buttoned up to her neck. Another picture of her outside a white revival tent showed her in a plain, modest dress down to her knees, a sweater over her arms. In every photo she flashed a big, beautiful smile. But on closer inspection, all of her smiles looked identical – and her eyes didn’t reflect a matching happiness.

  They reflected something else.

  Disappointment? Regret? No. It looked more like a faraway...longing.

  By being with Bobby, free-spirited Glad had probably missed out on the hip, free-loving counter culture of the 1960s altogether. I could only imagine how bitter a pill it must have been for her to view that social revolution from within the cage of a forced marriage.

  I put the photos back in their correct date slots and pulled out the only paper filed under 1974. It was a hand-written receipt from William N. Jonson to Gladys K. Munch for the transfer of title to a 1966 Minnie Winnie Winnebago. Clipped to the receipt was a picture of Glad at the beach, standing next to the RV in a bikini that would have made a Bond girl grind her own teeth to dust. Glad had bought the Minnie Winnie off Jonson for a cool hundred bucks. I could just imagine her wheeling that deal.

  That guy never stood a chance!

  The receipt for the RV was dated May 12, 1974. I was recording it in my notebook when the phone rang. It was Jorge. Apparently Lieutenant Foreman worked fast.

  “Val, hola! I got some news. Glad’s mom’s maiden name was Eunice Thelma Alford. She married Roy Gerard Kinsey in 1939. You already know Glad was born April 24, 1945 at Hawesville Memorial in Kentucky. And the letter from Tony to Glad in care of Mrs. H. E. Wannabaker? Turns out she was the wife of Harold Earl Wannabaker. He owned the house on Coolidge Street until he died in 1992. The obit said he was laid to rest next to his beloved wife. So I guess that’s a dead end.”

  “Sounds like it. Got anything else?”

  “Jes. But you’re not gonna like it. There was no record of a baby being born to Gladys Kinsey in 1963, 64 or 65 in Hawesville or any other hospital nearby.”

  “That’s not good.”

  “No. But listen to this. Tom said when he was doing the search he noticed a lot of the records from 1964 were duplicates. He called the city’s records department to ask why. They told Tom that all the Hawesville birth records for the last two months of 1964 had gotten lost. The records had to be recreated by hospital files or the original documents given to the parents.”

  “That’s strange.”

  “Tom thought so, too. He told me to ask you if you knew anyone who would want to get rid of all the records of the baby’s birth.”

  I could think of a few to start. Glad’s parents? Tony’s parents? Tony, perhaps? Maybe even Glad herself...? No, I couldn’t believe that.

  “Not off the bat, Jorge,” I answered. “Thank Lieutenant Foreman for me. I may need a few more favors from him before this is through.”

  “Okay, Val. See you tomorrow?”

  “Sure.”

  Jorge clicked off and I began to ponder the lieutenant’s question.

  Who had the most to lose from the birth of Glad’s baby being made public?

  A mechanical sound jerked through the drooping air. Suddenly, everything electrical in my apartment coughed back to life. The ceiling fan began to spin anemically and the light above the stove flickered on. I padded into the kitchen to check the status of my microwave. Dead as a doornail.

  Dang it.

  After about twenty minutes, the monsoon rain subsided to a drizzle, then petered out completely. I hauled the dead microwave down the wobbly wooden stairs to one of the huge black trashcans that lined the grimy, red-brick alleyway. As I set it down beside the container, I could feel the steam already rising from the old clay bricks like the breath of an underground dragon. Even after a deluge, the respite from the summer heat never lasted long in St. Pete.

  The shoulder-high lid on the waste bin was as big and round as a Hula Hoop. I hoisted it up and peeked inside to discover my microwave was not the only victim of the storm. I wrestled the bulky white box up the side of the trashcan to the lip and pushed it in. I watched it smash into a cheap plastic blender and an ancient metal toaster.

  A sudden thought twisted through my mind, and I slammed the trashcan lid down with all my might. Another of Glad’s lessons echoed in my head.

  It didn’t pay to get too attached to anything.

  I climbed the stairs, grabbed another beer from the fridge and flopped onto the lumpy, old couch. I needed to organize all the information I’d discovered about Glad so far. I started with narrowing down the timeframe of possibility for Glad to have given birth. Tony’s letter had been postmarked December 12. He had asked Glad if it was a boy or a girl. So chances were, the baby was already born by then, but not necessarily. The missing records had included November and December, so Glad’s baby must have been born between November 1 and December 31, 1964, or it would still be in public records.

  Since all the records had disappeared for both months, they must have gone missing at the end of December 1964 or early January 1965. Sometime during Christmas holidays through New Year’s. With everybody potentially on vacation at the time, anyone could have taken the records. But why would they?

  Tony had sent his letter to Glad in care of Mrs. Wannabaker. Why? Glad’s parents had gone on vacation to Florida. Did they take the baby with them? Had they left Glad in the care of Ms. Wannabaker? Was she some kind of midwife? Maybe the head of a place for unwed mothers? Did she work for an adoption agency? The hospital? Was she, herself, adoptin
g Glad’s child?

  And what about this Mrs. D. B. Meyers, Glad’s father’s cousin in Tallahassee. The one Glad’s parents were visiting when they died in the car crash. Could she know something?

  Then there was Tony’s family. It was crystal clear they weren’t thrilled with the situation. They’d sent Tony off to boarding school. Had they done something with the records? Maybe even with the baby? Tony had mentioned his father had influence over the faculty. Was he a big shot in politics or high society? That would offer some pretty good motivation for a cover-up....

  It was all getting way too confusing, with more loose ends than a bowl of spaghetti. I needed someone used to dealing with multiple motives and evidence. Maybe it was time for Jorge to come out of retirement. Or call for backup. I closed my notebook and rubbed my eyes. It was definitely TNT time. I hauled myself up from the couch and headed for the fridge.

  I WAS AT THE BEACH with Glad. The sun hung lemon-yellow in a crazy purple-blue sky. Glad’s beer can glinted a full spectrum of rainbow colors as we raised our beers to toast. The tinny clink of the aluminum cans morphed into laughter as a boy around four years old wandered by us, a pile of seashells in each hand. He dropped one shell. As he bent over to pick it up, two more fell out of his overstuffed palms. He tried to pick those up, and even more shells tumbled loose from his grip. Glad thought the whole thing was hilarious.

  “See? It ain’t good to hold on to too much,” she said. Glad cackled and sat back in her pink lounge chair. “After a while, memories can get to be like elephants, Val. Better to forget ’em than tote their heavy memories around.”

  “How can you forget when there’s so much pain attached?” I asked.

  Glad laughed and took a swig of beer. “Them’s the best ones to forget. What’cha winnin’ by holding on?”

  “People should suffer for what they do to others.”

  “Have it your way, kiddo. So who’s doin’ the sufferin’?”

  “Me, okay? You happy?”

  “Yes, I’m happy,” she said, beaming at me through smeary red lips. “Are you?”

  I started to speak, but a man came running up the beach with a machinegun, firing at random. He looked right at me and fired. Bam! Bam! Bam!

  The sound of gunfire startled me awake.

  Bam! Bam! Bam! The shots came in rapid fire, like an automatic weapon.

  “What the...?” I grumbled, trying to kick-start my tipsy brain. I ducked my head and crawled off the couch.

  Bam! Bam!

  I snuck a peek through the blinds.

  Boom! Bam! Bam. Bam!

  Flashes of color lit up the sky, taking eerie snapshots of the Vinoy Hotel’s Greek temple of a tower. The rush of adrenaline finally kicked my brain into gear.

  Ah! Fireworks.

  I had totally forgotten it was the Fourth of July. I sat up and sighed, then debated whether to walk the two blocks to the park for a better view of our fine nation’s Independence Day celebration.

  Naw.

  I lay back on the ugly couch and scratched my flabby stomach. I wondered if, somewhere out there, Glad’s son or daughter was celebrating, too.

  I snuggled into the sofa and thought about Glad and all the things I’d been forced to let go of in the last year, including her. It was a long list. But it was just a postscript, really. Since I’d popped out of my mother’s womb I’d created three, maybe four separate lives already. And I’d wiped the slate clean of each of them like yesterday’s blackboard lesson.

  Glad was right. I had learned a lot. And each life had had its value, for sure.

  But boiled down to its essence, I had almost nothing to show for all that living in terms of what could be seen with the naked eye. What had proven worth holding onto so far in my four-and-a-half decades of life had been precious little indeed.

  Geeze. Maybe that was the whole point.

  Chapter Fourteen

  THE NEXT MORNING, I was still spooning with my melancholy memories. I was supposed to meet Jorge and Lieutenant Foreman at Caddy’s at 8 a.m. The clock said I had half an hour to drag my butt out the door. I showered and pulled on my official Florida business attire: flip-flops, a one-piece, tropical-print bathing suit and an aqua skirt that fell mid-thigh. I padded to the kitchen to blow a kiss to my boyfriend, Mr. Coffee.

  “Hey, I love you dude, but variety is the spice of life,” I said to my stoic companion. “Just wanted you to know your services are not required today. I’ll be cheating on you with some strange restaurant brew.”

  Great. Now I’m talking to appliances. I really need to get out more....

  THE DRIVE TO CADDY’S was a straight shot west down Central Avenue that took about twenty minutes. Along the way, I sat back and smiled at the puffy, pink clouds dissipating in the soft, morning sky. Like a pile of fluffy pillows, they offered a soft start to the day, and for the first time in a long while, I felt appreciated and loved by some all-knowing source. A giddy joy traced across my heart. I stepped on the gas. Maggie’s dual glass-packs roared out like thunderous applause.

  The fossilized shells that comprised Caddy’s parking lot made a breakfast-cereal crunch under my tires as I slung Maggie into a space. I spotted Jorge and Lieutenant Foreman standing together by a picnic table in the sand. Each held a cup of coffee in their hands, the sight of which made my stomach gurgle with envy. Jorge spied me and we exchanged quick waves. I studied the men as I walked through the lot in their direction. The sun hung midway in the sky like a melty, red-rubber ball. The friendly pink clouds were gone, and I could smell the salt of the Gulf of Mexico just a hundred yards away.

  Lieutenant Foreman was dressed in a clean, white muscle tee and blue surfing shorts. Definitely off-duty attire. He looked shockingly shiny and brand-new compared to the shorter, slump-shouldered Jorge in his faded Hawaiian shirt and fraying, grey cut-offs. The contrast made me study the cop with fresh eyes. He was actually pretty darn hot!

  “Nice to see you again, Val,” Lieutenant Foreman said. “I’ve never seen you in a bathing suit before.”

  “I have,” said Jorge. His eyes studied the sand. “Plenty of times.”

  “Lucky you,” the cute cop said, never taking his sea-green eyes off me.

  Eye contact with the lieutenant sent a jolt of surprise through me, mixed with something I wasn’t able to define. I’d be the first to admit that life had whittled me into more of a realist than a romantic. I was in pretty decent shape, if you didn’t count my upper arms. And considering my age, I garnered my share of attention from men, albeit most of it unwanted.

  “Thanks for coming out, Lieutenant Foreman,” I said, trying hard to quit making a mental inventory of my body parts. “Why don’t we go for a walk on the beach? I’m afraid Winky might show up if we stay here.”

  “Don’t chew worry, Val,” Jorge said, bobbing his head. “Goober’s got babysitting duty this morning.”

  “Oh. Great!” I said, genuinely relieved. “So, should we sit down or should we walk?”

  “My vote is for a walk,” said the cop. “Please, call me Tom.”

  “Okay, Tom. Looks like you get out to the beach a bit,” I said as the three of us twist-stepped our way through the sugary sand toward the gulf. Tom’s blond hair shone golden in the sun. His smooth skin was a rich, golden brown. Even the hair on his legs and arms was sun-bleached to a glimmering gold.

  “Being a native, it’s in my blood,” he said. His grin activated a fine web of crinkles at the corners of his eyes and mouth.

  “Yeah. Tom’s a native just like us,” said Jorge. He arched his thick, black eyebrows and gave me a rare look directly in the eye.

  “Go figure,” I said. “Three Florida natives in a row. Do we get eggroll with that?”

  Tom flashed me a grin, then turned to scan the shoreline up and down. The tide was coming in. Lazy waves lapped at the sand, making tentative grabs at the coquina and cat’s paw shells stranded by last night’s high tide. “Looks like another perfect day in paradise.”

  �
�Except for the ninety-nine percent humidity,” I replied as the first trickle of sweat worked its way down the center of my back. “I think I’ll test the waters.”

  “Let me hold your shoes,” Tom offered.

  Tom took my flip-flops and our fingers touched briefly, sending a mild tingle up my arm. The sight of this handsome man holding my shoes suddenly seemed very personal. Intimate even. I probably would have blushed if I could’ve remembered how. I wiggled out of my skirt and he held that, too, making something inside me squirm. I sucked in my gut and put my toes in the warm gulf waters.

  Distracted by vanity, suddenly I was sidelined by a blast of seawater from my left. It soaked me from my neck to my waist, causing me to abandon my held-in breath with a gasp.

  I looked to my left. Tom and Jorge were laughing at the culprit. A boy about three years old stood motionless in the water a few feet away. He stared at me wide-eyed, mouth open, still clutching the empty plastic pail he’d used to douse my fledgling flame. I fished around and found a smile for the boy.

  “What’s your name?” I asked.

  “Miguel,” he answered shyly. Then he dropped his pail and ran through foamy seawater in the direction of a Hispanic woman and a dark-haired girl who looked to be about six. They were both wading their way toward shore. “Momma, Momma!” he yelled.

  “No, no Miguel!” the woman cried. She looked up at me. “So sorry!”

  “It’s okay,” I replied.

  “Kids. They’re a blessing and a curse,” the woman said.

  I watched Jorge flinch at the woman’s words, then lower his eyes to the sand. The woman herded her brood up the beach toward a big blue umbrella. Jorge watched them for a moment, then said, “Uh, I don’t feel so good. You guys go on without me. I’ll see you back at Caddy’s.”