“Wait a minute. Real parents? I thought you were kidding about your mom.”
“No. It turns out I was adopted, sort of.”
“Really! How did you find out?”
“That’s a long story for another day. I’ll fill you in over drinks sometime.”
“Okay. But do you like them? Your real parents?”
“They’re both dead.”
“Oh. Dating anybody?”
Good old Milly. She was to romance what roads were to Rome. All her conversations led back to men.
“Yes.”
Milly leaned in, her hazel eyes wide and sparkly. “Tell me about him!”
“Here.”
I clicked my phone to a picture of Tom and slid it across the table.
“He’s a cop.”
Milly grabbed my phone like it was a free diamond tiara.
“Woo hoo! What a looker!”
She glanced up at me, her eyes full of mischief.
“Did you meet him in jail?”
“Ha ha,” I said dryly. “Thanks, Milly. Do I look that desperate to you?”
Milly laughed. “No. It’s just that...meeting a nice guy is so... freaking frustrating.”
“Lord knows that’s true. How about you? Dating someone?”
Milly rolled her beautiful, long-lashed eyes.
“No. If I like them, they don’t like me, and vice versa. I signed up on MatchMate last November. It’s been what...five months now online? I’ve gone out with probably fifty guys. All ‘one-hit wonders.’ I tell you what, Val. Chemistry is a witch. A witch who must be obeyed.”
“Geeze. If you can’t get a good guy, Milly, what chance do the rest of us have?”
“Honestly, Val! The cute guys are players. The smart guys are nerds or doughboys. The rest are Duck Dynasty contenders or potential serial killers. My new car’s navigation system took care of the last reason to even need a man anymore. When my Pleasure Pony dildo arrives in the mail, I’m thinking of taking this baby off the market for good.”
I hitched my lip up on one side. “I know it’s bad out there.”
“Bad? Last Saturday I spent all this time and money getting ready for a date. Manicure, pedicure, Brazilian, the works. This jerk showed up in a raggedy-ass Grateful Dead t-shirt and cammo shorts. I wouldn’t have worn that outfit to wash my own car!”
“You don’t wash your own car.”
Milly shot me a look. “That’s beside the point! You know what I did?”
“No. What?”
“I went back to my bedroom and changed into sweats and flip flops. I put my hair in a ponytail, marched my butt back out to the living room and said, ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t realize we were going to clean out your garage.’”
“You left your makeup on?”
“Of course! I’m not that stupid.”
“Okay. Well, what did he say?”
“That’s just it! He didn’t say anything. He thought it was a joke. He laughed!”
I thought about Tom and his ironed jeans and non-Frito toenails.
“Not all men are like that.”
“I sure hope you’re right, Val.”
A metal chair leg scrapped noisily across the concrete floor. The Frito bandito was making his getaway. As he passed us, he smiled and dropped a crinkly scrap of paper on Milly’s side of the table. After he disappeared out the door, Milly poked at the crumpled note with a straw, as if it were contaminated with anthrax. She maneuvered it around until she could see the message scrawled on it. She read it out loud.
“Call me. You won’t regret it. Steve.”
“See? You’re still attracting them like flies, Milly.”
“Yeah. Buttcrack flies.”
Milly’s lips twisted into a tortured pout. She pushed the scrap of paper off the table and watched it fall to the floor. When her eyes met mine again, her mouth had morphed into a devilish grin. She scrunched her head to her shoulders.
“With toenails like his, he’s probably got a foot fetish,” she teased.
The game was on again.
“Eeeww!” “Okay. I’ve got one,” I said. “I wonder if Mr. Fritos comes with his own bean dip.”
“Gross!”
I dropped my voice an octave and leered at Milly. “Drop your drawers my lovely and join me in my hot tub full of bubbling brown goop.”
Milly reached across the booth and slapped me playfully on the shoulder.
“Aauughh! I forgot how good you were at this. You win. I’ll pick up the tab.”
“You don’t have to, Milly. Let me. I’m grateful that you showed up.”
“Rules are rules, girlfriend. Speaking of which, there ought to be a law against making someone picture that guy in a hot tub.”
“True enough. I’d be the first to second that motion.”
I DECIDED NOT TO TELL Milly about my predicament with the finger. Not yet, anyway. It’d been so wonderful to see her again. I didn’t wanted to scare her away. Hi! Haven’t seen you in years! You look great! Me? Oh, nothing special. I’m just the main suspect in a human dismemberment case.
After lunch with Milly, Tom had called. He’d wanted to come over tonight. I’d lied and told him I had a headache.
The truth was, I was still hopping mad about him leaving me to deal with the break-in and Officer Jergen all by myself. To top it off, he still hadn’t bought me a birthday present. I’d tried to be a big person about it, but my giant wad of hurt feelings had grown so huge it finally outweighed even my fear of falling victim to another home invasion. I’d acted nonchalant with Tom on the phone, and secretly taken a perverse pleasure in the notion that if I got murdered tonight, it would be his fault. Tom would have to live with the guilt. Forever.
Resentment clotted into a throbbing, grapefruit-sized knot just above my heart. The only thing saving Tom from my wrath was my foolish Southern pride. It was time for a full-on pity party. I poured down more than a couple of TNTs and lined up my adorable garage-sale figurines on a concrete block out in the backyard. I plopped into in a lawn chair and watched the sun disappear. In the fading twilight, I took a hammer and smashed the four porcelain cutie pies into a million dusty bits.
Chapter Fourteen
LAST NIGHT’S “KNICK-knack-give-a-whack” therapy worked. I woke this morning in a better mood. I made myself a cappuccino and basked in soft, sunny memories of a dream I’d had about Glad. She’d been sprawled out in her pink lounge chair in the sugar-white sand next to Caddy’s beach bar, grinning at me from underneath her Gilligan hat, her drawn-on eyebrows arching over black, bug-eyed sunglasses. She got me longing for a nostalgic trip to Sunset Beach. I googled the news. Still nothing about the finger. I guessed the coast was clear.
I slipped on a bathing suit and was halfway out the door when a thought stopped me and shoved me back inside. Crap. I had an appointment with J.D. Fellows at 10:15. Anxiety barged its way inside my mind and shattered my mellow mood like a cheap figurine.
“SO, JUST TO BE CERTAIN I have this correct, a very short man dressed as either George W. Bush or Alfred E. Newman broke into your place in the middle of the night, sat on your bed, and demanded to know where your finger was?”
“Well, when you say it like that, it sounds kind of weird.”
“We don’t say weird here, Val. We say implausible. So, how short was the man?”
I averted my eyes. Even though J.D. Fellows towered above me in his special chair positioned strategically behind his custom mahogany desk, when he’d ushered me into his office, he’d been eye-level with my elbows. Despite the fact that our relationship stretched a bit beyond professional, in his office sanctum Mr. Fellows was all business. His question about the height of the perpetrator sent my political correctness radar skittering off the charts.
“Um...well, first he was on the bed. Then I kicked him. He flew off of it. And then he ran away.”
Mr. Fellows remained silent and stared at me dubiously through the bifocals on the end of his bulbous nose.
�
��It was dark. It was hard to tell.”
“Can you be more specific? Did you perhaps see him near some familiar item by which you could compare his height? A nightstand or doorway, perhaps?”
“Yes. That’s how I knew he was short.”
“Yes, we’ve established that he was short. Now we need to know how short.”
“Um. Exceptionally short. You know what I mean?”
Mr. Fellows raised a sarcastic eyebrow. My face flushed red.
“Short like me, you mean?”
“Um. Yes.”
“And the finger? Do you think it belonged to...the man in the mask?”
“No. It was a full-sized finger.”
“My dear, we ‘short people’ can have full-sized body parts.”
“I...I didn’t mean to imply –”
“You know I practice estate planning, Ms. Fremden. I’m not a defense attorney.”
“Yes, I know.”
“So why did you come to me?”
Crap on a cracker! My carefully steered conversation was careening off a cliff. Mr. Fellows looked like a tea kettle ready to blow.
“Well. I thought you might know –”
“Look here, Ms. Fremden. Just because I’m a little person doesn’t mean I know every single one of them on the planet! It’s not like there’s a Lollipop Guild of St. Petersburg or something!”
“No! No! I meant...that I thought...you might know...an attorney. To refer me to.”
Mr. Fellows deflated like a leaky balloon.
“Oh. Well. In that case I –”
A voice buzzed over Mr. Fellows’ phone intercom, interrupting him mid-sentence.
“Mr. Fellows! Mr. Greene is on the line. He says it’s an emer –”
Mr. Fellows clicked a button on the phone, silencing the intercom. He reached a hand across the desk in my direction, but didn’t make eye contact. I shook it and let it go.
“I think that will do for today, Ms. Fremden. I will call around for a referral for you. I’m not used to dealing with criminal cases.”
“Thank you.”
“I trust you can see yourself out?”
“Oh. Yes. Of course.”
I wanted to apologize, but feared it would just make things worse. I opened the solid, mahogany door to his posh office and stepped out. As I turned to close the door behind me, I took a last peek at Mr. Fellows. He wasn’t hiding his feelings anymore. He was red-faced angry, and began yelling into the phone. I closed the door behind me carefully, as if to not wake the sleeping baby. But this baby was not only awake. Its diaper needed changing.
I LEFT MR. FELLOWS’ office feeling like I’d stepped in every cow patty in a forty-acre field. Was the whole world angry at me? Out to get me, even? I needed a shoulder to cry on. I didn’t want to wear out my welcome with Milly, but she was the only shoulder I knew of that didn’t reek of sweat and booze. I took a chance and texted her about meeting me for lunch at noon at Ming-Ming’s, my favorite sushi place. I got a text back that read: “Natch!” I grinned, jumped in my old Ford and headed west on Central toward the beach.
I’d just pulled into a parking spot at Ming Ming’s when my phone chirped. I answered it. A familiar, baritone voice was on the line.
“Goober One to Goober Two.”
I groaned.
“Hey Goober. What’s up?”
“I got a fella here says he knows a fella.”
“Okay. And?”
“Says the scar-faced kid is called Capone. Pretty clever, eh?”
“Extraordinarily creative.”
“Don’t be a sourpuss, Val. It’s busker society rules. Never use your real name. We all have our handles – you know. Code names.”
“I get it. So what does this guy know?”
“Liar Lewy? He says Capone hangs out mainly in the area around Seventh and Second. That’s his territory, sore to speak.”
“How did Liar Lewy get his nickname?”
“How the hell should I know?”
“Well, it doesn’t add to his credibility factor.”
“I guess. But that’s what he says.”
“Thanks, Goober. So what’s your code name?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know.”
Goober clicked off the phone. I wasn’t sure if he’d hung up on me or his phone had run out of money. I hauled my sad butt out of my car and took a table inside Ming Ming’s to wait for Milly.
Chapter Fifteen
AS USUAL, MILLY HAD men on her mind. So between bites of Ming Ming’s sushi, I brought up my troubles with Tom.
“I don’t know, Milly. I mean, I like being someone’s partner. But I also like sitting around the house with no pants on. And being able to fart whenever I want to.”
Milly giggled. “Uh oh! Do I detect the shining knight’s armor starting to rust?”
I sighed and my shoulders slumped.
“I dunno. That’s a good question. I mean, we always want what we don’t have, right? You don’t have a relationship and want one. I’ve got one, but now I’m not so sure I want it.”
“It’s the never-ending ‘catch twenty-two’, Val. Don’t get me wrong. I like my single life. But if I was in a relationship...married, I mean...I’d feel so much safer. My future would be secure.”
“You’re kidding, right? I’ve been married three times. There’s no security in it! Not in my experience, anyway. All I ever got out of marriage was a case of emotional schizophrenia.”
“What do you mean?”
“I dunno. I guess I just could never figure out how to stay true to who I was and what I wanted. I always turned into some strange version of whoever the hell I thought they wanted me to be. It drove me nuts!”
Milly eyed me playfully with her sparkling hazel eyes.
“I can see that.”
“Ha ha. Anyway, sorry for the tirade.”
“Don’t be. Val, you’re like the black widow spider of relationships.”
“Eeew. What do you mean?”
“Nothing is wasted. When you’re done with a man, you eat him alive.”
“Gee. Thanks.”
“No, I mean it in a good way. You dissect him. Digest him. Get all that you can out of the relationship. Learning wise, I mean. Not like me. I just keep repeating the same mistakes.”
“You and me both, sister. I feel like I haven’t learned squat. I’m more like the earthworm of relationships.”
“What?”
“I can’t tell which end is up and I keep digging new holes for myself.”
Milly laughed.
“At least they’re new holes.”
I smiled sarcastically.
“So tell me, Milly. What’s your latest mistake?”
Milly’s eyes brightened.
“I call him refrigerator man.”
“Cold?”
“Not exactly.”
“Square?”
“No. Just the usual. Clueless.”
“Okay. Spill it.”
Milly leaned in, her eyes sparkling. She lived for moments like this.
“I met him at a bar. We danced. He was short, but kind of cute, you know? So I gave him my number. He texted me, asking I was busy the next evening. I texted back I was free. He texted the word ‘good’ back, but by five the next afternoon, I still hadn’t heard a word.”
I shook my head in girlfriend sympathy. I knew what came next couldn’t be good.
“Typical.”
“Right? So I thought, forget this crap. I called a girlfriend and we went to dinner. So, it’s half past seven and I’m halfway through my salad when this guy pings me. One word. ‘Wazzup.’ Then he sends me a picture of his freaking refrigerator!”
“Huh?”
“Exactly! I text back that I’m out with someone. He texts the word ‘Later’ and I never hear from him again. W-T-F, Val. What’s up with that?”
“All I can say is, count your blessings, Milly. You nipped this jerk in the bud. It usually takes me seven to fifteen years to figure out a guy’s
a total jerk-wad.”
Milly shrugged. “I guess you’re right.”
Milly’s eyes glanced to the right. I could almost see the lightbulb go off over her head.
“There ought to be a law against a man parting his hair down the middle.”
My eyes followed hers. Seated against the wall was a skinny guy in his fifties. He wore blue jeans and a red, silky-looking shirt emblazoned with a long-stemmed white rose design that wrapped around his ribcage and bloomed on his left breast pocket. He was busy studying a Ming Ming’s menu through a pair of red bifocals. A greying mop of wavy hair parted in the middle hung down in his eyes. It looked like a geriatric Pekinese was taking a nap on his noggin.
“Do you think it’s a wig?” I whispered.
“Gawd! I hope so!”
We both giggled. The game was on, and I was at bat.
“Hey. The seventies called. They want their shirt back!” I sniggered.
“Hasn’t he ever seen like...a fashion magazine?”
“Or have a friend who’s seen a fashion magazine?”
We were on a roll. Milly cupped her hands into a megaphone.
“Hey mister. Did you pay for that haircut or were you ambushed by a three-year-old chimpanzee?”
Tea shot through my nose. I ducked down and Milly snorted. I grabbed a napkin and held it over my nose and mouth as we both giggled and grunted and tried to regain our composure. When I could breathe again, I took my turn.
“Okay, okay. I got one. Hey dude! Are you related to Willie Nelson? ’Cause it’s definitely time to get –”
“On the road again!” we exclaimed together.
We couldn’t fight the tsunami and fell out, swamped with laughter. In the middle of our giggling fit, Milly knocked over her jasmine tea. The warm, brown liquid spilled across the table like an unfortunate bowel elimination and collected in puddles on the floor. I wiped tears of laughter from my eyes with my napkin, then bent over to sop up the spilled tea. As I did, I knocked heads with Pekinese man.
“Ouch!” I cried out.
The man jerked back and rubbed his head.
Val Fremden Mystery Box Set 1 Page 33