Tom’s left eyebrow arched. “Really? You’ve been tailing someone?”
I smirked. “It’s not you.”
“Oh. Too bad.” Tom pulled me to him. “How about I tail you?”
I shook my head. “You really do need to work on your jokes.”
“Who’s joking?” Tom whispered, and nibbled my neck. “Tell me. Does this ‘tailing’ involve undercover work?”
A rush of desire swept through me. I wrapped my arms around Tom and whispered, “I certainly hope so.”
Chapter Ten
As I watched Tom’s SUV disappear down the drive, my body actually quivered with excitement. Soon, I’d be heading out on my very first writer’s retreat! I wasn’t merely some middle-aged woman escaping to a trailer park in the woods. I was Valiant Stranger – private detective, budding novelist, and...undercover spy.
Oh, yeah!
And I was on special assignment to infiltrate a gang of unsuspecting, lake-loving country folks....
Bring it on!
I crammed a pair of binoculars in my duffle bag along with my laptop. My body quivered again.
Wow! I have a whole week ahead of me. Seven days to hone my detective skills, do as I darn well please, and, hopefully, peck out a short story worth sharing with old lady Langsbury’s writing class next week.
I drained my cappuccino cup and headed for the shower.
After a leisurely breakfast of two blueberry Pop-Tarts and a quick peek on the internet at the latest spy gadgets, I slung my suitcase and duffle bag into Maggie’s trunk and slammed it shut. All I had left to do was lock the front door and leave.
I grabbed my purse off the driver’s seat and rifled through it for my keys. In the process, I pulled out a lipstick, hand lotion and a pack of corn nuts I’d lifted from Winky’s the other night.
No keys.
Geeze! I just had them!
I yanked out a bunch of papers clogging up my purse. They were the envelopes I’d fished out of the trash in front of the post office yesterday.
Oh yeah...
“Making your getaway, I see!” Laverne’s voice rang out.
I jerked my head to the left. The once-glamorous Vegas line dancer was making a beeline for me across the lawn, clutching a plastic container in her hand.
“I brought you some snacks for your trip!” she beamed. “The last of the snickerdoodles!”
“Oh. Wow. You shouldn’t have,” I said. I forced a smile and crammed the envelopes back in my purse. “Thanks, Laverne. But I’ve really got to get going if I want to miss the rush hour traffic.”
Laverne handed me the container of cookies. “So, what are you waiting for?”
A glint of something shiny made me look down. Laverne was wearing gold high heels.
Really? On a random Tuesday morning? For walking across a lawn?
“Uh...I can’t find my keys.”
Laverne cocked her horsey head and pointed a red lacquered fingernail toward Maggie’s rear end. “They’re hanging in the trunk lock, honey.”
Heat thrummed my cheeks. “Oh. Thanks.”
I hung my head, did “the walk of shame” to the trunk and yanked the keys from the lock.
“Have a good trip,” Laverne offered as I slid my butt into the seat.
“Thanks,” I muttered, and forced a smile.
As I pulled out and waved goodbye to Laverne, I felt the rest of my confidence fall away like a dead bug on the windshield. It tumbled into the gutter along the side of the road.
Geeze. What kind of detective am I? Already done in by my own ineptitude...
I glanced at the plastic container of cookies in the passenger seat.
...and I can’t even outrun an old lady in stilettos armed with malicious baked goods.
I ADJUSTED THE REARVIEW mirror and tried again to smile. I was making good time crossing the Howard Frankland Bridge. At least I had that going for me.
Interstate 275 was the main artery connecting St. Petersburg to Tampa, and was notorious for major traffic snarls. But by leaving at 10:00 a.m., I’d timed it just right. Morning rush-hour was winding down and the lunch rush had yet to begin.
The wind had whipped up whitecaps on the open expanse of Tampa Bay. But the breeze wasn’t refreshing – not even at seventy miles an hour with the top down. June was nipping at our heels. And with it came the long, steamy, dog-days of summer. The air, as hot and wet and unappealing as a hassling hound’s breath, was here to stay for a good long while.
I sighed and resigned myself to it. For the next five months, I’d have to grin and bear the claustrophobic feeling of sunscreen slathered all over my skin, and the tickling annoyance of sweat perpetually trickling down my back.
Fabulous.
As I crossed the high point in the middle of the Howard Frankland Bridge, I pulled off my sunhat and let my hair blow wild and free. The wind seemed to loosen some of my doubts as well, and I allowed myself to smile.
THE GREY, SPIKEY BUILDINGS of downtown Tampa faded in the hot haze as I pulled onto I-4 and headed east. If I stayed on I-4 long enough, I’d end up at Disney World.
When I was a kid, I remembered the land between Tampa and Orlando had been blanketed with mile after mile of citrus groves. At blossom time, their sweet, honey-like fragrance would waft through the air for miles. But as I buzzed by the same stretch of land today, the orange trees were nowhere to be found. They’d been replaced by truck stops, RV dealerships and other assorted industrial blights.
Well, those and, of course, Dinosaur World.
I waved at the strangely orange Tyrannosaurus Rex peeking out over the pine trees on the left of the interstate. A few miles later, I steered Maggie off I-4 toward Plant City. Known at the Winter Strawberry Capital of the World, it wasn’t surprising that the town held an annual strawberry festival around the beginning of March. Strawberry season was long gone for the year, but that was okay by me. That meant fewer tourists.
Besides, I knew a place where I could still get a strawberry shake. Parksdale Farmer’s Market.
I took a small detour down Route 92 and blew my lunch calories on one of the most delectable treats imaginable – besides Minneola tangelos. When it was my turn up to bat at the counter, I thought about ordering a strawberry shortcake, too, but changed my mind. As I glanced around at the market stalls crammed with strawberry jams and jellies, I realized nearly everybody milling about the place was as thick and round and reddish-pink as the contents of the plastic cup I was rapidly sucking empty through a straw.
I needed to leave before I succumbed to the dark side....
THE COOLNESS OF THE strawberry shake felt good sandwiched between my thighs. I picked it up, sucked on the straw, and took a right on SR 39. The view immediately switched to a pastoral palette. Acre upon acre of dry, dun-colored grass was punctuated only by thirsty-looking cows kneeling in the shade of huge, centuries-old oaks with bark as rough as an alligator’s hide.
At the junction to SR 60, I hooked a left and headed toward Bartow.
The seat of Polk County, Bartow was home to a handful of car dealerships and a whole mess of ugly – compliments of wanton phosphate strip-mining. As I passed yet another rusty silo, I wondered if maybe the city founders should change the phrase county “seat” to “butt-crack.”
I blew through Bartow with the top still down on Maggie, and stayed on SR 60 all the way to my journey’s end – Lake Wales.
The small town of Lake Wales was home to around fifteen-thousand average souls and two unique roadside attractions. One was Spook Hill, a gravity hill that created the optical illusion that your car was rolling uphill.
The other was Bok Tower Gardens. Built in the 1920s, the two-hundred-and-five-foot “singing” tower was an impressive landmark that stuck out above the trees like an old lion’s tooth.
Bok Tower “sang” thanks to something called carillon bells. I’d never seen them, but I’d heard them on many occasion. They produced a throaty, flute-like sound that formed hauntingly beautiful melo
dies for the folks strolling around the garden’s two-hundred and fifty acres. Personally, my favorite time to visit was in March, when the azaleas were in bloom.
I passed by the sign for Bok Tower Gardens and stopped for gas. A skinny man in a light-blue shirt walked up and nodded. An embroidered patch on his pocket spelled out Billy Bob.
Of course it did.
“Fill her up,” I said.
“Ungh.” Billy Bob grunted in a way that seemed to require the involvement of his entire torso. He looked me up and down as I climbed out of Maggie, and grunted again.
Uncertain if Billy Bob had recently escaped from a zoo or insane asylum, I scurried in to use the restroom and pay my tab. The guy at the register looked just like Billy Bob. But my eagle-sharp detective eye noticed the patch on his pocket read, “Jim Bob.”
“Let me guess,” I said. “Billy Bob’s your brother.”
“Ungh,” Jim Bob grunted and eyed me with appreciation. “Good lookin’ and smart.”
I paid with cash and decided to skip the washroom.
As I drove away, I clicked my cellphone for a map of the vicinity. According to TripAdvisor, there were thirty-four things to “do” in Lake Wales. But from what I’d seen so far, I wasn’t convinced there were thirty-four “do”-able men in all of Polk County combined.
I CHECKED THE ADDRESS on my cellphone again and shook my head. This couldn’t be right.
I’d driven through Lake Wales and past miles of cow pastures and palmetto scrubland. The only signs of civilization I’d seen since the Walmart plaza had been a pair of abandoned phosphate silos and a couple of old wooden shacks with caved-in tin roofs that looked as if they’d been hit by meteors at least a decade ago.
The sun was fading to the west, spewing beams of orange and red into the thin, blue horizon.
Not good.
A shiver ran down my spine, despite the heat. Had I somehow accidently driven onto the set of Road Warriors?
I was about to turn around when I spied the only sign of human habitation I’d seen for miles. It was an old man selling boiled peanuts by the side of the road.
I pulled over and approached the leather-skinned old man. He was sitting in a cheap, plastic chair and appeared to be harboring a fugitive watermelon inside the waistband of his dirty overalls.
“Excuse me, sir, would you happen to know where Shell Hammock is?”
“Yep,” he said, and swirled a huge, slotted spoon around in a cauldron of tea-colored water.
“Great,” I said. “Could you tell me where it is?”
The man adjusted his ball cap and lifted the spoon out of the water. He plucked a couple of boiled peanuts from the heap mounded up in the spoon.
“You done found it, young lady,” he said, and handed me the peanuts. My Southern upbringing forced me to take them out of politeness. They felt warm and moist and round in my hand, like a pair of fresh cat turds.
“I don’t understand,” I said, and cursed myself for spending an hour sorting through the Red Box videos when I’d stopped to get groceries in Lake Wales. I’d wasted precious time. Now the sky was pinkish purple and beginning to close in around me. Nightfall was coming.
If I didn’t find this place soon, I’d be out of fingernails to chew off.
The old man dumped the rest of the peanuts back in the cauldron and pointed the empty spoon toward the entrance to a dirt road about thirty feet away. It looked more like a cave than a road, thanks to the canopy of scrub oaks overhanging it as if their aim in life was to swallow it whole.
“Sign’s right there.”
I squinted at the dark opening in the scrub. About fifteen feet above the dirt, tucked amongst the tree limbs, was an old wooden sign that spanned the width of the road like a beat-up banner. The sign read, “hell ammo.”
“That says hell ammo,” I said.
The old man laughed, revealing his lack of a proper dental plan.
“I forget sometimes,” he said. “Yeah, lost a few letters awhile back. Now, I guess, we’re the Hell’ammo.”
He grinned, but I guess my expression made him realize I needed a little more convincing.
“You know,” he said, and aimed his spoon at me like a rifle. “Like ‘The Alamo.’ Minus the guns.”
As if on cue, a gunshot blast rang out. I flinched and bit my lip to keep from screaming as the sound echoed across the road and disappeared into the thicket of palmettoes and scrub oaks.
The old man shrugged. “Okay, with the guns.”
My spine arched involuntarily. The whole scenario felt so wrong on so many levels I didn’t know where to begin. But Valiant Stranger whispered in my ear.
If you’re going to be a professional writer, Val, you can’t go running home like a crybaby at every little potentially lethal discharge of a deadly firearm.
I took a deep breath, set my jaw and stepped forward. I reached out my hand.
“Hi. I’m Val. What’s your name?”
I got another glimpse of the guy’s woefully inadequate dental care. “Stumpy,” he said. “Pleased to meet you.”
Stumpy? Great. Nothing good ever came from a nickname that implied missing body parts.
He stuck out a handful of short, blunt fingers.
“Oh! On account of your fingers?” I blurted, relieved that all his digits were intact, even though they were rather...abbreviated.
“Huh?”
Stumpy looked at his calloused hand as if he’d never seen it before.
“Naw. Used to make statues out a cypress stumps. Sold ‘em by the side of the road ‘til I got too old for it. That’s when I switched to peanuts.”
“I see,” I said, not really wanting to. “Well, do you know a fellow named Junior Whitehead? I’m supposed to let him know when I’ve arrived.”
“Yeah. I know him purty good.”
I waited a beat.
“So, can you tell me where I might find him?”
“You’re lookin’ at him, darlin’.”
My gut fell four inches.
“Oh. Well, uh...you see, my friend Winky owns number thirteen –”
“I know all about it, hon,” Stumpy said. “Just go straight on in. Take your first left, then a right at the clubhouse, then right on Possum Place. Then another right on Lonesome Pine. You’ll see it. Last trailer on the left.”
“Uh...thanks, mister....uh, Stumpy.” I walked back to Maggie, turned the ignition, and drove slowly past Stumpy and his cauldron of drowned legumes.
Stumpy leered with bloodshot eyes as I passed by.
“Nice car you got there,” he said.
I thought I heard a banjo playing. I gambled a glance in the rearview mirror. Nope. Stumpy was merely waving slowly at me with his stunted hand.
No. That wasn’t creepy at all....
The dirt road was so dark I had to switch on my headlights. I followed Stumpy’s directions to the letter. They led me through the entire trailer park on a windy loop that ended back where I’d begun. I looked around. Number thirteen was the first trailer on the left as you came in off the main road.
Stumpy’d just sent me on my first Polk County wild goose chase.
I scowled and pulled Maggie up beside the little trailer. As I reached to open the car door, a familiar face loomed at me in the twilight.
“Have a nice trip?” Stumpy asked.
“Nice one,” I managed to squeak as my heart thumped in my throat.
Stumpy grinned. “Aw. Don’t take it personal. ‘Round here, a feller’s got to provide his own entertainment. I was just funnin’ ya.”
Stumpy reached toward me. I flinched. In his hand was a moist paper bag.
“Here, have a sack of peanuts on me.”
“Thanks.” I took the paper bag. My face flushed with heat.
“Listen here,” Stumpy said, leaning in a tad too close for comfort. “We’re havin’ us a big fish fry tomorrow tonight. Come ‘round and meet the other folks.”
“Okay, thanks. But right now, I better get these groceri
es inside before it gets too dark.”
“Yep. Don’t want to be out after dark around here,” he said, and ambled off down the road.
I took a look at my new home for the week. Number thirteen wasn’t a bona fide trailer. It was a pull-behind RV propped up on flat tires and cinder blocks. What had I done?
You can do this, Valliant Stranger.
I steeled myself, climbed out of the car and unlocked Maggie’s trunk. I threaded the grocery sack handles up my forearms and set my suitcase on the ground.
Something rustled in the dark bushes nearby.
The hair on the top of my head stood up like a sinner at a church revival.
Adrenaline shot through my veins. The rush sent me scurrying like a wild-woman for the RV. I fumbled the door open with the key Winky had given me and threw the groceries inside. Against my own will, I made a mad dash back for my suitcase and duffle bag.
I jerked them both out of the trunk and nearly tripped over my suitcase as I slammed Maggie’s trunk. I grabbed it and my duffle and skedaddled into the RV like a hobo catching the last freight train out of Dodge.
Once inside, I jerked the deadbolt in place with trembling hands and wondered out loud.
“Geeze, Louise, Val. What have you gotten yourself into this time?”
Chapter Eleven
I was swimming at Sunset Beach with a school of shiny, silver fishes. We were giggling as we waggled our tails on the way to a party. I was wearing a tiara, because, of course, I was a mermaid princess....
All of a sudden, a strange network of strings surrounded us. My scaly friends and I huddled into a ball of confusion. I felt a tug. Then another. Upward we went, inch by inch, as the net drug us to the surface. I could see the sun – and I realized I couldn’t breathe!
We tumbled together into a vat...and spiraled down a dark, grey tube like water down a drain. At the end of the tube, I saw my new home. It was a sardine can. I squeezed myself inside it and lay there like cordwood alongside my companions. A squirting sound made me look up. A big glob of yellow grease splattered over us like a transparent, oily blanket.
Val Fremden Mystery Box Set 3 Page 7