“You don’t say,” I said as Snogs squirmed in my arms, trying to reach the treat. “Are you still up for riding along to the college tonight for your baking class?”
“Shh! Yes,” Laverne whispered. She glanced behind her for a second, then leaned in toward me. Boney fingers covered in rings went up to her mouth, as if she were trying to form a screen against prying eyes.
“I want to surprise Randolph with a new recipe,” she whispered.
I glanced toward the pen, then let out a sigh that could probably be heard in the next county.
“All right, then. Come over around five-thirty.”
“Can we make it five? I need to stop somewhere on the way.”
“Sure.”
Randolph let out a loud grunt. Laverne winced and locked eyes with me. A line of worry trailed across her forehead.
“Val, do you think the college has classes on how to train pigs?”
“I dunno, Laverne. But I guess it wouldn’t hurt to ask.”
I sighed again, and tried to shrug away the niggling feeling that had suddenly taken root in the back of my mind. I’d felt it before. I knew its name well. Or, perhaps it would have been more accurate to say that it knew mine.
It was the feeling of impending calamity.
Chapter Six
“So, what’s this detour you want to make on the way to class?” I asked Laverne as she angled her long, stork-like legs into Maggie and plopped down on the passenger seat like a geriatric grasshopper in a strawberry-blonde wig.
“I need to get some pig chow for Randolph. Animal Attic is having a going-out-of-business sale.”
Laverne snatched a coupon from her purse and waved her trophy at me like the proud bargain hunter she was. “See? I can save fifty percent!”
“I wonder why they’re going out of business,” I said dryly. “I guess there aren’t enough pot-bellied pigs in Pinellas County to make a go of it.”
Laverne’s red lips wilted into a pout. “That’s not very nice, Val. Randolph doesn’t have a pot belly.”
“Sorry, Laverne. You’re right. He’s...uh...pleasantly plump. And juicy.”
Laverne smiled. “That’s right.”
“So, where we headed?”
“Over off Thirty-Fourth and First Avenue South.”
I shifted into reverse. The address sounded familiar, but I couldn’t place it. I backed Maggie out onto the road, shifted gears again, and tooled down Bimini Circle toward Gulf Boulevard.
“So, how did you come up with the name Randolph?” I asked, trying to distract myself from the trickle of sweat crawling down my back. With the top down, even the forty-mile-an-hour breeze wasn’t enough to wick away the heat of an August evening in St. Pete.
Laverne looked up at the sky wistfully. “I called him Randolph because he reminds me of an old boyfriend I had back in Vegas.”
“Let me guess. Was he a pig, too?”
“Sort of,” Laverne grinned. “He was a cop.”
“A policeman? Really?”
I swung Maggie right onto Gulf Boulevard and rumbled past the familiar rows of tacky tourist shops and 1950’s-era mom-and-pop beach motels that lined both sides of the road. As I headed north, peeking out from behind the buildings I caught glimpses of the Gulf of Mexico on my left, and the Intracoastal Waterway on the right.
It was a subtle reminder of our rather precarious geography.
Gulf Boulevard was the main road that straddled a chain of narrow strip islands that outlined the mainland of Florida’s west coast like a crumbly, broken-off pie crust.
Not much more than an overgrown sandbar, the long strip of sand ran north all the way to Clearwater, where its remnants formed Caladesi and Honeymoon islands. The fingers of land stretched south along the coast past Treasure Island and Sunset Beach, before coming to an abrupt end just past St. Pete Beach at a place called Pass-a-Grille. There, it dangled precariously into the open mouth of Tampa Bay. Just to its south was Fort Desoto, a state park boasting a semi-wild stretch of coastline that consistently ranked as one of the most beautiful beaches in the world.
“Yes, Randolph was a policeman,” Laverne said, and stretched her knobby knees. They were so sharp I feared they might cut through her Spandex yoga pants. “Not as handsome as your Tom, of course.”
I would hope not. Especially if he looked like a pig!
“You said Randolph is good company, Laverne. How so?”
“Well, he’s polite, and he never argues.”
“I hear that. But he doesn’t have much of a vocabulary.”
“No, he doesn’t.” Laverne turned and showed me a pout. “As much as I hate to admit it, Val, I got used to having a man about the place. You know, I’d been fine on my own until I met J.D. He kind of filled a hole in me I didn’t realize was empty. You know what I mean?”
My heart pinged with a strange, somewhat unwelcome familiarity.
“Yeah,” I answered. “If you don’t mind me asking, Laverne, why’d you and J.D. break up?”
Laverne sighed. “I don’t mind, honey.”
I waited a beat and rolled my eyes. “So, why’d you break up?”
“Same reason most people do. Irreconcilable differences.”
Laverne sighed and shook her head. “But we all know that’s just a made-up term for plain old, everyday hard-headed stubbornness.”
I glanced over at the idiot savant sitting beside me. Disguised in a sequin-splattered shirt, purple yoga pants and gold high heels, she looked as if she might have escaped from a geriatric mental ward. But I knew better. I smiled and waited for her next words of wisdom.
“Turn here,” she said.
I hooked a sharp right onto scruffy Thirty-Fourth Street. A block later, I took a left onto First Avenue South. The ugly, run-down buildings blighting the roadside jarred my memory.
That’s it! Ferrol Finkerman’s office is around here somewhere....
Finkerman was the lousy, ambulance-chasing dirtbag attorney who’d plagued me like a starving mosquito with his hair-brained libel suits and thinly-veiled extortion plots. The last thing I needed was to get back on that jerk’s radar screen.
“Do we have to go this way?” I asked.
But by the time the words had left my mouth, it was already a moot question. The dingy strip mall that housed the lout’s office came into view on the right.
As I drove past it, I caught sight of a sign on Finkerman’s door. It read, “We’ve Moved.” A banner above Sultry Sam’s Sex Shoppe next door read, “Going Out of Business.” As we cruised a little further along the strip mall, I spotted a sign posted amongst the litter and weeds between the sidewalk and the asphalt parking lot. It read, “Coming Soon: The Shops of Heron’s Walk.”
It appeared as if the whole strip center was going to be demolished. I guess that was one bit of progress I wasn’t going to complain about.
“There it is, on the left,” Laverne said, and pointed a finger across the street. “Animal Attic.”
I pulled in, parked, and in a self-preservation tactic, waited in the car while Laverne ran in. I was afraid if I went inside, I’d buy another tchotchke for Snogs. He already had a three-foot-tall mountain of toys. But for some reason, he ignored them all in favor of chewing up my shoes.
Go figure.
As I sat in the parking lot, a red tow truck flew by, hauling an obnoxiously yellow Hummer. Ferrol Finkerman drove just such a vehicle. I sat up and tried to get a glimpse of the license plate as it passed. But I was too slow.
Still, I was pretty sure the Hummer belonged to Finkerman. I hoped so, because the thought that there might have been fleets of the blasted things burning up the roads made my nose crinkle in disgust. I tapped a finger on the steering wheel.
Had Finkerman’s Hummer broken down? Or, better yet, had he not made his car payment?
The thought of Finkerman’s Hummer being repo’ed gave me the best smile I’d had in a week.
It was still on my face when the door to Animal Attic flew open, and
Laverne emerged with a hairy ape-man behind her. The bag of pig chow he was toting over his shoulder was almost as big as he was.
“Hi, Jake,” I said. The swarthy guy from New Jersey was my neighbor and a doppelganger for the illusive Missing Link. “I didn’t know you worked here.”
“It fills in the gaps between appointments,” Jake wheezed. “Where you want this?”
“Oh! Hold on.” I jumped out of Maggie and opened the trunk.
Jake dropped the huge sack of chow in. It landed with a thud like a dead body, making Maggie squeak and bounce like a carnival ride.
“You could use some new shocks,” Jake said.
“Speaking of shocks,” I joked, “how’s the dog psychology biz?”
“Slow,” Jake said. “Thus the necessity of this lovely gig.”
“Jake, do you train pigs?” Laverne asked.
“I haven’t,” Jake confessed. “But you know, pigs are pretty smart. Smarter than dogs, for sure. In fact, the only animals smarter are chimps, dolphins and elephants.”
“Well, that explains my ex-husbands,” I quipped.
Jake shot me some side eye, then directed his conversation at Laverne.
“Pigs are trainable, for sure, Laverne. You thinking of getting one?”
“Uh...I...” Laverne stuttered.
“No, Jake,” I said. “That enormous bag of pig chow is for her baking class tonight.”
“I’ll ignore that remark,” Jake said. “So, you’ve got a pig. Indoor or out?”
“Uh...a bit of both?” Laverne said weakly.
“Huh. Good idea. You know, pigs make excellent indoor pets. They don’t have sweat glands like dogs and cats. And they don’t shed. All in all, a pig’s a pretty good choice for a pet.”
Laverne beamed. Then, suddenly, she winced in what appeared to be horror. “Jake, don’t tell Nancy Meyers. She’ll –”
“No need to explain,” Jake said, shaking his head. “Mum’s the word.”
“Who’s Mum?” Laverne asked.
Jake locked eyes with me for a second, then looked back at Laverne. “Uh...nice shirt,” he said.
Laverne giggled and shifted her shoulders, causing the sequined words on her shirt to glitter in the late-afternoon sun.
“Virginia is for Lovers,” Jake read out loud. “Huh. I always thought Virginia was for smoked ham.”
ON THE WAY TO CLASS, I thought about telling Laverne about the clue I’d found in the Skoal tin. But from the worried look on the poor woman’s face, I figured she had enough on her plate dealing with Randolph.
I pulled into the parking lot at St. Pete Community College and killed the ignition. Laverne and I climbed out of the car. I waited for a moment and watched her absently toddle off down the sidewalk toward the scene of her next baking fiasco.
The sun was just beginning to set. The sky was pinkish gray, like the dying ashes of a crushed-out cigarette. The air was almost as hot. The dog days of summer were nearly over, but they were getting in their last humid hassles. In a few days, September would arrive and give us hope – though mostly false – that a cool breeze was just around the corner.
As I walked toward my classroom, I swiped at a trail of sweat tickling the back of my neck.
“Hot one, tonight,” said a guy wheeling a janitor’s cart.
“Sure is.”
I reached for the doorknob to my classroom and spotted a hastily-scrawled note taped to the door. It read, “Mystery Writing for Fun & Profit has been cancelled until further notice.”
What?
I called after the janitor guy.
“Hey! Sir! Do you know anything about this?”
The guy turned his head. “What’s that?”
“My writing class is cancelled. Do you know why?”
“Uh...yeah. But I’m not allowed to say.”
The know-it-all grin on his face sent my imagination spinning. I had to know what he knew.
“I’ll give you five bucks,” I said.
The guy’s grin broadened. “Twenty.”
I dug through my wallet. “I’ve got thirteen bucks.”
“Deal.”
I handed over the cash. He stuffed it in the shirt pocket of his blue janitor uniform.
“So, what do you want to know?” he asked.
“Well...for starters, is Angela Langsbury okay?”
“You mean the old lady who teaches the class?”
“Yes.”
An image of the scrawny old woman flashed in my mind. Her stiff, brown helmet of lacquered, dandruff-raining hair. Translucent skin the color of skim milk. A wrinkly face permanently stuck in sarcastic mode.
“That lady’s one tough old bird,” the janitor said. “She actually came out on top.”
“On top? On top of what?” I asked.
“The big blowout. At that murder-mystery thingy they had in Orlando over the weekend.”
My eyebrows met my hairline. “Blowout? Was there an explosion? Was anyone injured?”
“No bombs. More like a catfight, from what I read.”
“Read?”
The janitor looked around and put his index finger to his lips. “Yeah. Well, I kind of, you know, accidently saw the HR file on the, uh, incident.”
“Oh my word! Tell me everything you know!”
The guy grinned. “Apparently, sometime during that retreat thing, Langsbury got fed up with this woman named Victoria and hauled off and sprayed her in the face with a can of Aquanet hairspray.”
“She what?!”
“Yeah. In the report, Langsbury was quoted as saying ‘Make it rain,” right before she blasted her.
As I waited for the janitor to stop laughing, I tried my best not to succumb to a giggling fit myself.
“The hairspray kind a temporarily blinded that Victoria woman,” he said between wheezy chuckles. “But she came out swinging anyway. She tried to punch Langsbury out, but ended up smashing some other gal’s nose instead.”
“Clarice’s?” I asked.
“That’s the one!” the janitor said, and laughed.
“What else?”
The janitor looked up to the ashen sky for a moment and sucked in a breath.
“Well, there was something else about someone getting stabbed with a pencil. Can’t remember exactly who did what. But I think one of the gals filed charges.”
“Charges?”
“Yeah. Sorry, but that’s as far as I got. The HR lady came back in her office so I dropped the file like a hot potato. I don’t wanna get fired, you know.”
“Geeze,” I muttered.
“Yeah.” The janitor chuckled. “Who would’ve thought that old Langsbury could put up such a fight? She must weigh all of eighty pounds.”
“Yeah. Who’d have thought? Thanks for the info.”
“No problem. Have a good one.” The janitor turned and continued on his route, pushing his cart down the open corridor.
I went back to the parking lot and plopped down in Maggie’s driver’s seat. I tried to envision Langsbury duking it out with Victoria. The thought of scrawny, ancient, bad-tempered Angela Langsbury chasing after bottle-blonde Victoria with a can of Aquanet made my lips curl with pleasure.
Victoria was no friend of mine. I didn’t like her attitude or the company she kept. Somewhere in her fifties, Victoria always wore the dark-framed glasses and condescending expression of a snotty librarian. It was only later that I’d found out she actually was a librarian. That’s when I’d also discovered she’d supplied that lowlife Finkerman with the names of folks with overdue library books. He’d used that intel to extort money from these folks to “clear their good names.”
Poor Laverne had been one of their victims.
What a couple of scumbags.
I pictured Langsbury trapping Victoria in a corner somewhere and hosing her smug face down with hairspray until it ran down the lenses of her eyeglasses like thick, gooey rain.
For the second time that evening, a warm, satisfying, and slightly evil grin spre
ad across my lips.
Good for you, Langsbury. Good for you.
Chapter Seven
“How was class?” Tom asked as I came through the front door. My answer was drowned out by the yips of a love-starved puppy.
“Snogs!”
I picked up the wriggling bundle of fluff and got a kiss on either cheek by both of my cute guys.
“Snogs?” Tom asked and made a sour face. “Were you calling the dog or blowing your nose?”
“What do you mean?”
“Snogs sounds gross. Like phlegm.”
“Excuse me?” I said playfully. “Grosser than Sir Albert Snoggles, III? I don’t think so!”
Tom grinned. “Okay. I’ll let you have that one.” He repeated his question. “So tell me, what did you do in class?”
I detected a tinge of persistence in Tom’s usually laid-back tone. I studied him for a second. His smile seemed artificially tight. His eyes were focused on me like a TV cop’s. But then again, he was a police lieutenant....
“Uh...nothing, Tom. Class was cancelled.”
Tom’s face softened a bit. “Good.”
“What do you mean, good?”
“I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just that...well, while you were out, a lady called on the land line. She left a message saying she was your writing instructor.”
“Angela Langsbury?”
“Yes.” Tom sounded relieved. “I thought it was a prank call. I should have known better.” He shook his head and laughed softly. “Only you, Val.”
“What do you mean, only me?”
“Only you could have a murder mystery instructor named Angela Langsbury. You, my dear, are a magnet for the absurd.”
Oh, boy. If you only knew the half of it.
In the five years since I’d returned from Germany to St. Pete, the absurd had followed me around, pestering the living daylights out of me like a swamp full of angry no-see-ums.
In that time, I’d been forced to falsify public records to claim the dead body of a stranger – who’d later turned out to be my biological mother. I’d been robbed by a dwarf looking for somebody’s disembodied finger. I’d chased down a hippie in a rogue RV to recover my mom’s cremated remains after Tom traded them for a tiki hut. I’d competed with my adoptive mom Lucille and tied for “family fruitcake” of the year. I’d been sued for using a toothpick to lift the lid on a cop’s bad toupee. I’d undergone relationship therapy from a dog psychologist. I’d been abducted by a serial killer disguised as Bigfoot. And two weeks ago, I’d been outwitted by a ceramic effigy of a man squatting on a toilet.
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