Val Fremden Mystery Box Set 3

by Margaret Lashley

  “That’s great!” I pictured the six red-gold balls of mostly Pomeranian fluff and smiled.

  “Have you and Tom decided on a name for yours yet?”

  I pulled out a chair to sit. “No. It’s so hard. It’s like naming a kid!”

  Milly smirked. “Tell me about it.” Her face suddenly shifted gears. “Oh my lord! Look at that guy,” she whispered. “There ought to be a law against dressing like that. Someone call the fashion police!”

  I looked over at the man in Milly’s crosshairs. He had on a hideous, pineapple-themed Hawaiian shirt, purple-and yellow plaid shorts, and Kermit-green tennis shoes.

  “No way,” I said, shaking my head. “That’s too hideous to not be deliberate, Milly.”

  Milly blanched. “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying I think someone dressed him like that intentionally.”

  “Why?”

  “So no woman would come near him.”

  Milly studied me for a moment.

  “Just a theory, mind you,” I backtracked.

  Milly grinned. “Well, look at you, Miss Detective!” She took another look at the man’s decently attractive face. “You know, it makes sense now. Who do you think did it? His wife?”

  “Most likely. Or his girlfriend.” A thought struck me. Was JD doing the same thing to Laverne? Dressing her in frog suits to keep other men away?

  “What are you thinking now, Sherlock?” Milly stared at me, a smile gracing her pouty lips.

  “Huh? Oh. Sorry. Nothing. Hey, you said you had two fantastic things to report. What’s the second thing?”

  Milly wagged her perfect eyebrows. “Goober came in and quit this morning.”

  My mouth fell open. “What? I’m sorry!”

  “Why?”

  “I recommended him and –”

  Milly reached across the table and touched my hand. “Don’t be sorry, Val. I’m not.”

  I cringed. “Was he that bad?”

  Milly rolled her eyes. “Let’s just say, next time I’ll try my luck with a chimpanzee.”

  “Geeze!”

  “Moving on. How’s the writing going?”

  A scowl flew across my face. “Argh! I hate that question!”

  Milly laughed. “Touch a nerve?”

  “More like stomped on one. I’m telling you, Milly, I feel like I’ve trapped myself in my own jail cell. I’ve been piddling around for a week and what have I got? Exactly squat, that’s what.”

  “Huh. Maybe you should go on that writer’s retreat you told me about.”

  “I don’t have eighteen dollars to waste, much less eighteen-hundred.”

  Milly crinkled her nose. “It’s not a waste, Val. Think of it as an investment in your budding career as a novelist.”

  “I dunno,” I shrugged. “I’ve already blown thirty-five bucks on the class.”

  “Not worth it?”

  “I wouldn’t say that. But it’s got my mind all messed up.”

  “How?”

  “I keep seeing everything as potential plot points and murder scenes.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. Like right now, I’m picturing you with a chopstick jammed in your eye.”

  “That’s twisted.”

  “For a novelist, that’s life.”

  IT WAS AFTER LUNCH, and I was in downtown St. Petersburg, cruising along Fourth Street, in search of inspiration. In other words, instead of writing, I was wasting time. Finally, Southern guilt got the best of me. I sighed, gave in, and swerved over to the far right lane at the corner of First Avenue North.

  As I waited for the light to turn so I could head toward home, I saw Goober come out of the post office on the corner.

  He didn’t notice me.

  I was about to honk when I saw him stop and drop something into the trash bin outside. Suddenly, the hair on my arms pricked up. A predatory thrill shot through me. I was a cat hunting a mouse. No...I was Valliant Stranger, on the trail of the elusive Goober Man!

  Okay, maybe it was a little nutso. But it beat going home to a blank computer screen.

  I hooked a sharp right, barreled across three lanes and glided into a fifteen-minute parking slot. I jumped out of Maggie and sprinted up to the trash can. I shoved in a fist and came up with a handful of envelopes. I stuffed them into my purse and looked up.

  Goober still hadn’t spotted me.

  He ducked into an alley. I hightailed it to the corner he’d disappeared behind and peeked around it like I’d seen cops do in the movies.

  Nothing.

  I couldn’t have been more than ten seconds behind him, but he was gone. I glanced back toward my car. A meter maid with a golf cart and a god complex was giving me the evil eye. The spot Maggie was parked in was marked Post Office Customers Only.

  “Wait! I’m coming!” I yelled at the parking patrol lady as I dashed back to my car.

  I showed her the handful of envelopes. “See? I was at the post office.”

  Her sneer turned to a doubtful glare.

  “I’m leaving, see?” I offered, and climbed into my car. I turned the ignition and my phone started ringing. I waved goodbye to Brunhilda the meter monster and pulled out onto First Avenue, then clicked on the phone.

  “Hello?”

  “Hey, Val. Did you leave your sunglasses at our place?”

  “Oh. Hi Winky. Yeah, I think I did.”

  “I got ‘em here at the donut shop if you want ‘em.”

  “Great. I’m on my way.”

  Chapter Nine

  I pulled into the parking lot at Caddy’s and smugly flashed the attendant my badge.

  “What’s that?” a voice asked from beneath an orange sun visor and a bulbous nose pasted white with zinc oxide.

  “I park for free,” I said.

  “Let me see that.”

  The young guy grabbed the wallet from my hand. “That’s nothing but a toy sheriff’s badge.”

  I swiped the wallet back. “Check with your boss. I’m a donut-shop VIP. It’s in the contract.”

  He took a step back to let me pass. “Okay, lady. If you’re that desperate to save five bucks, go ahead.”

  A snooty smirk crept across my lips. I slapped my wallet closed, rumbled Maggie’s dual glasspacks for good measure, and idled into a parking spot in the crushed-shell lot next to Winky’s red Camaro. The salty aroma of the Gulf of Mexico filled my nostrils, and between wisps of waving sea oats, the sun played on the gentle waves, making the water glisten like acres of diamonds.

  I shook my head softly, lost in admiration for my little spot of heaven on earth. Sugar-white sand. Turquoise water. Near permanent sunshine. Yeah, Sunset Beach had to be one of the most gorgeous places on the planet.

  A seagull cried out in the sky above. I looked up toward the cloudless blue sky. A white squirt of bird poop splattered my windshield, putting an exclamation point on the end of my daydream.

  “Figures.”

  I cut the ignition and checked my face in the rearview mirror. Not as bad as I’d expected. I wiped a smudge of mascara from beneath my left eye and climbed out of Maggie’s red bucket seat. I smoothed the wrinkles creasing the lap of my yellow gingham sundress and flounced by the man in the orange visor, my nose in the air.

  “I know the proprietors,” I said and nodded toward Winnie and Winky’s Bait & Donut Shop.

  My impudent eyes to the sky, I didn’t see the kid’s plastic shovel sticking out of the sand. My sandal caught the handle dead center like a stirrup. My foot hopelessly entangled, I fumbled around like a lame horse until I tripped, lost my balance, and stepped down hard on the cheap shovel. It snapped in half and launched me forward, arms out like Frankenstein.

  I landed in the sand on my hands and knees.

  Geeze! At least I didn’t eat a dirt sandwich.

  As I contemplated my good luck, it ran out. A gust of wind blew my dress up to my waist. I cringed crimson. I hadn’t done laundry in a while and was down to my “Sunday Survival Panties.”
r />   In other words, my bloomers were as holy as the head nun at a moth sanctuary.

  Between the intermittent thumping sounds in my eardrums, I caught pulses of hysterical laughter emanating from the direction of the lot attendant. I scrambled to my feet, dusted myself off, and didn’t look back.

  “HEY, VAL PAL!” I HEARD Winky bellow as I walked up to the little shack formerly known as Old Joe’s Bait and Tackle.

  I grinned.

  Leave it to Winky to get half a million bucks for a place that looks as if it were cobbled together from washed-up debris. One man’s trash was Winky’s treasure.

  “Good lord a mighty, woman!” Winky said, staring at my face. “Ain’t you heard of sunscreen?”

  I shrugged. I knew the red face I sported was only temporary. “It’ll pass,” I said. “How’s biz?”

  “Fair to middlin’.” He shrugged, then laughed. “All right. Purty darn good, to be honest. In fact, Winnie’s done had to go to Davie’s to pick up more donuts. We’re fresh out.”

  I frowned. “Dang. I was hoping to score one of her famous peanut-butter bombs.”

  Winky grinned. “I knowed you was comin’ Val.” He reached underneath the counter. “Here’s your sunglasses, and a bomb. Saved you the last one.”

  “You’re the best,” I said to both him and the donut. My mouth was already salivating.

  Winky watched proudly as I sunk my teeth into the donut and enjoyed the awesome combination of peanut butter, vanilla custard and bacon. I stopped mid-chew.

  “What’s up with your teeth?” I mumbled.

  Winky grinned and puffed out his barrel chest. “Noticed, eh? I done got me a partial.”

  He reached a freckled hand into his mouth and pulled out a pink-plastic and metal doohickey with a fake molar on either end. He held it up to the sunlight for me to examine as if it were the Crown Jewels of Redneckingham.

  My mouthful of donut lost its flavor. “That’s nice,” I muttered. “You can put it back, now.”

  Winky popped his dentures back in his mouth and smiled. “They look all natural-like, don’t ya think?”

  “Sure do.” I grabbed my sunglasses. “Thanks for the donut.”

  “Any time, Val pal.”

  “And thanks for bringing my sunglasses over here to the beach. That was really sweet of you.”

  “T’wern’t nothin’.”

  I turned to leave, then a thought spun me back around. “Oh. Winky, I looked up your place online. Shell Hammock? It looks really nice.”

  “Don’t it, though?” Winky scratched his belly proudly. “Oh! That reminds, me. This here’s for you.” He reached under the counter again and pulled out a key.

  “What’s this?”

  “Why, it’s the key to my place at Shell Hammock, a’course. I made a set fer ever’body. You and Tom is welcome to go for a visit any old time you feel like it.”

  I stared at the key, stunned at Winky’s generosity. “Geeze. Thanks.” He dropped the key into my open hand. “By the way, tell Winnie I’m sorry I missed her.”

  “Will do.”

  I glanced around at the shack again, a tad more impressed. Winky fit this ramshackle old place like a hotdog fit a bun. Anyone else would have dozed the thing. But he was the perfect proprietor for it. In fact, he looked born to play that exact role.

  “I just wanted to say, Winky, you’ve got a really cool place here. I’m happy for you.”

  Winky’s freckled face went slack. “Shucks, Val. Compared to J.D.’s place, this ain’t nothin’ but a hole in the wall.”

  My lips twisted sideways. “J.D.’s place? Where is it, anyway?”

  “Right yonder.” Winky pointed a finger at some sand dunes. Beyond them sat a boxy, un-beachy, totally out-of-place McMansion the color of pumpkin puke.

  “That’s J.D.’s place?” I said, aghast. “How did I not know that?”

  “J.D.’s a modest little feller,” Winky said. “He don’t go ‘round braggin’.”

  I studied Winky and smiled. Besides some badly needed clothing, shelter and teeth, his new-found fortune hadn’t changed him one bit. Thank goodness for that.

  Winky swung a swatter and ended the short life of a fly crawling across the counter. “You know, Val, we business-man types don’t go in fer garish displays a wealth.”

  “Of course not,” I said. “We wouldn’t want that.”

  EVEN AT FIFTEEN MILES an hour, the drive home was passing too quickly. I turned up the radio volume to ‘deafen’ and cruised down Gulf Boulevard slow enough to make the guy’s face behind me turn as red as a baboon’s behind. I eased off the gas and watched a sunburned tourist hobble down the molten sidewalk in ill-fitting, cheap flip-flops.

  Even as paradise loomed all around me, my gut clenched with doom at what awaited me at home.

  A blank computer screen.

  WHEN I FINALLY PULLED up to my house, Laverne was in her front yard, talking to a bubbly washtub full of garden gnomes. I shook my head. That old woman really had a thing for short, German men. I parked and walked over under the pretenses of investigating for potential story inspiration. I tried to convince myself I wasn’t stalling, but by now, even I was no longer buying my own bull. Anything seemed more compelling than writing. If Laverne had been out there clipping her toenails, I’d have still gone over.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “These little guys needed a bath,” Laverne said. She wiped sweat from her brow with a kerchief. “I love my little nomads.”

  “Gnomes.”

  “Sure. They all have names. This one’s Jed.” Laverne held up a fat little figure with a red stocking cap and a shovel over one shoulder.

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  “Huh?” Laverne cocked her horsey head like a curious puppy. “How’s the writin –”

  “Don’t ask,” I blurted angrily.

  Laverne shrunk back a bit.

  “Sorry. It’s going slower than I’d hoped.”

  “Oh. Sorry to hear that.” Laverne scrubbed Jed’s face with a brush. “Maybe you need to clean the dust out of your eyes.” Laverne held up Jed for my inspection. His expression looked surprisingly crazed.

  I recoiled slightly. “What do you mean?”

  “Get yourself a fresh perspective, honey. Hey, why don’t you go on that writer’s retreat you’ve been talking about?”

  “I’m not made of money – like J.D.,” I grumbled. “I just saw his place on the beach.”

  Laverne studied me with her bulgy pug eyes. Her left eyebrow angled upward. “Ugly as homemade sin, am I right?”

  My own eyebrows crept up slightly. “Uh...yeah.”

  Laverne grinned and dunked Jed underwater and held him there like a wanton serial killer. “Our places are so much nicer, don’t you think?”

  I looked at her house, then mine. The knot in my stomach eased. “You’re right, Laverne. Our places have character. You know, now that I’m thinking about it, even Winky’s trailer has more soul than J.D.’s slapped-together box on the beach.”

  Laverne exposed her full set of dentures to the midday sun. “There you go.’” She pulled Jed from the water. I sucked in a sympathetic breath.

  “Laverne, did you know Winky has another place? A little trailer-cabin thing in the woods. He just gave me the key and said I could go any time.”

  “Well, there you have it!” Laverne said, and set Jed in the grass to dry. “What are you waiting for?”

  “Huh?”

  “There’s your writer’s retreat, Val.”

  My jaw went slack. “Oh my word. You’re right, Laverne. Thanks for the idea.”

  “My pleasure, honey.” Laverne fished around in the tub, grabbed a gnome pushing a wheelbarrow, and began to briskly scrub his butt.

  I STARED AT MY COMPUTER screen. My wrist was red and my jelly-bean jar was half empty. Apparently, inspiration only came when it darn well felt like it.

  “Screw it,” I muttered and reached for my phone.

  I calle
d Winky and booked his place at Shell Hammock. Then I started packing my bags. I was almost done when Tom came through the front door.

  “Val? You home?” he called out.

  I padded down the hall to meet him. “I’m here. But not for long.”

  Tom kissed me before the second half of my greeting registered. He looked at me sideways. “Not long? What are you talking about?”

  I blew out a breath. “I’m frustrated, Tom. For some reason, I’m just not able to write at home. There are too many... distractions.”

  “You mean like me?”

  My mouth twisted to one side. “I wish I could blame it on you. But you’re not even home while I should be writing.”

  Tom’s brow furrowed. “Then what is it?”

  I thought about telling Tom about the evil pickles in the fridge. Or the jelly beans that kept jumping into my mouth. But I really saw no point in giving him any more reasons to question my sanity.

  “I need a change of scenery. For inspiration.”

  “You mean that writer’s retreat thing?”

  “No. Something better. Come here. I’ll show you.”

  I led Tom into my office and googled Shell Hammock. “Winky has a place here. He said we can go anytime.”

  “Wow. This place looks great,” Tom said as I flipped through the pictures. I could tell he was impressed, especially when he saw the sign for the blueberry pancake breakfast. “But how will it be any different from being here?”

  “I dunno,” I whined. “Maybe it’ll make me feel like a real writer. And if I’m going to take a writer’s retreat, I need to do it now.”

  “Why?”

  “I had lunch with Milly today. She said our puppy will be ready to come home in two weeks. So if I’m gonna do this, now’s the time.”

  “What about your writing class?” Tom asked.

  “I can get the notes from Judy.” I sounded like a kid whining for a new bicycle. “I’ve got this week’s assignment done. Actually, I’ve got six unusual ways to kill someone. And I peeked ahead at next assignment. It’s to tail someone. And I’m already working on that, too, sort of....”