“So you were spying on me.”
“If that’s the way you want to look at it. But honestly, I’ve got better things to do with my life.”
I sneered. “Like what?”
“Like rescue you from a pack of wild hillbillies. You’re welcome, by the way.”
I scrunched my face together until I could spit out an apology. “Thanks. Sorry I beaned you over the head, but I thought you were about to dismember me.”
“You should know me by now. I’m not that ambitious.”
I smirked. “What’s that thing hanging on your window, there?”
I pointed to a wire clothes hanger hooked over the curtain rod. It had been bent into a lopsided circle. Stretched across it like a Mercedes logo was a pair of women’s pink, thong underwear. Below them, tied to the bottom of the hanger with fishing line, hung two empty beer cans and a tin of Skoal chewing tobacco.
“Don’t tell me you’ve never seen one of those before.”
“No. Is it some kind of voodoo thing? You know, like the shrunken heads?”
Goober laughed. “Nope. That, my dear, is what they call a ‘redneck dreamcatcher.’”
I laughed despite my disgust. “And why do you have one?”
“Eh. It’s part of my disguise. You’d be surprised how much street cred it gives me with the locals.”
I sneered at the crude contraption. “I can only imagine.” I put my elbows on the table and rested my head in my hands. “I guess you know, they all think I murdered Woggles.”
“Yeah.”
“What do you think happened to him?”
“I couldn’t say at the moment, Val. But as you know, I always think better with a belly full of tacos.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
A crispy corn tortilla met its fate beneath a moustache that looked as if it had crawled out from under a damp rock. As Goober crunched down on the taco, a spray of salsa shot out and splatted onto the left boob area of my shirt, beating me to the punch.
I dabbed at it with a paper napkin. “So what are you doing in Glad’s...I mean Cold Cuts’ RV?”
“As they say, life is an ever-evolving process,” Goober waxed philosophically.
“Jorge threw you out?”
Goober shrugged. “More like Sherryl. Though I really can’t blame either of them. Love birds tend to prefer an empty nest.”
“One without a Cuckoo in it,” I said, and laughed at my own joke. “So, you flew the coop, eh?”
Goober stared at me. “You done with the bad bird puns?”
I sighed defeat. “Yeah.”
“With my options recently opening up, I decided to give the RV lifestyle a try. Cold Cuts offered me hers on a trial basis. She doesn’t get much use of it now that she’s with Bill down at the resort. Mind if I order another taco?”
I shrugged. “Why should I care?”
“Well, the tab’s on you. I’m kind ‘a short on cash at the moment.”
“Wait a minute. What about that check you just got for ten grand?”
Goober choked on his taco. “What check?”
I fished in my purse and pulled out the greasy check stub. “This one.”
“What the...how did...that’s not mine.”
“Right.” I pulled out the other paystub. “It sure wasn’t from working at Griffith & Maas.”
Goober’s lips followed the shift of his eyes to the left. “You got that right.”
“So where’d you get that kind of money, Goober? Are you like...a hitman or something?”
“Really, Val?”
I crinkled my nose. “Witness protection program?”
Goober sighed and shook his head. “No.”
“What, then?”
“Listen, if I tell you, then I’ll have to –”
“Kill me, right?”
“No,” Goober said. His eyes turned serious and bore into mine. “I’ll have to disappear.”
GOOBER AND I AGREED to put a pin in his check stub for the moment and concentrate on the looming problem at hand. Who’d killed Woggles? We strolled back across the lamp-lit parking lot to the RV, after a quick stop in Walmart for a six-pack and a plastic bag of popcorn the size and shape of the cashier’s thigh who rang us up.
“I have a confession to make,” I said.
“Don’t tell me. You actually did kill that poor, cross-eyed old redneck,” Goober joked.
“Ha ha. No. But Goober...” I looked around and lowered my voice. “...maybe Laverne did. Think about it. I know Woggles ate at least one bite from a cookie she baked.”
“Oh crap.”
“Exactly. What’s the going rate for unintentional homicide?”
Goober looked taken aback. “How should I know? Geeze. But one bite...that’s not enough to...well...no. We are talking about Laverne here.”
I nodded solemnly. “The police are still waiting on the toxicology report.”
“Did you tell Chief Collins about Laverne?”
“No. That’s when I pled the Fifth and called J.D. He knows.”
“You talked to J.D.? What did he say about this whole...situation?”
“That I was lucky not to be hanging from a rope already.”
Goober whistled. “That bad, huh? Okay. Let’s pin Laverne up there with me for now. Who else could have done-in Woggles?”
“I couldn’t say. In the South, a mean streak can run deep and silent. And then, one day – bam!”
Goober sidestepped away from me. “Thanks for the warning.”
“Really?”
“Didn’t you notice the puddle?” he joked. “As you were saying.”
“My gut tells me Elmira had something to do with it. She’s creepy...and craftier than you might think. She’s the one who made that shrunken head and wrote those threatening notes. First, ‘Stay Away,’ which she claims was ‘Stay Awhile,’ but then the second one said ‘Get out now.’ She couldn’t so easily explain that one away.”
I handed Goober back his keys. He fiddled with the lock until he opened the RV door. As he climbed the steps, he turned and said, “Elmira couldn’t explain that second note because she didn’t write it.”
“Who did?” I asked as I followed him inside the Minnie Winnie.
“I did.”
“What? You?”
“Yeah. I was the one who broke into your lovely tin-can cottage by the sea.”
“Why?” I plopped onto the dinette bench. My toe was aching. I cracked open a beer. Goober twisted a can from the plastic ring and put the rest in the tiny fridge.
“Well, originally I was just going to leave the keys to Maggie for you to find. I used the spare keys to retrieve the set you locked in the trunk. Smooth move, by the way.”
Goober winked and shot me with a finger gun. I shot him back with a sneer.
He slid into the bench across the table from me. “Anyway, I was committing the B&E when I heard someone coming, so I hid in the bushes. I overheard Charlene talking to Slim about how you were writing a story about killing someone with poison snickerdoodles. I mean really, Val. That’s crazy. Even for you.”
“It was a class assignment!”
I ripped into the bag of popcorn and grabbed a handful.
Goober picked up a kernel and popped it into his mouth. “Whatever. Anyway, I figured it would definitely not be in your best interest for your computer to fall into the wrong hands, so I –”
“You have my computer?!”
“Yeah.”
“Oh! I could kiss you! I thought my stories were lost forever!”
“Really? That’s what you’re worried about?”
“Oh. Well, no. I mean...it isn’t all I was worried about. You have no idea how hard it is to write a book!”
“Well, let’s just hope that when you’re done with it, they don’t throw it at you.”
“Har har. Very funny.”
“Okay. Assuming Laverne and Elmira didn’t do it, who else could have killed Woggles?”
“Bigfoot?” I asked.
>
“That does it. I’m going to bed.” Goober took a slug of beer and rubbed the sizable twin lumps swelling above his eyebrows. “For some reason, I have a headache.”
I grimaced with guilt and sympathy. “Sorry again.”
Goober stood up. I grabbed his hand. “Goober, does Tom know everything?”
“Pretty much. You want to use my phone to call him?”
“No. Thanks. I’ll charge mine and call him in the morning.”
SOUTHERN GUILT MADE me insist that Goober take the bed. I kept an eye on him from a folding chair in the hallway. I was afraid I might have given him a concussion, so I wanted to make sure he kept on breathing through the night. After he started snoring like an asthmatic goat, I remembered I’d forgotten to ask him where he’d stashed my computer. Dang it!
I got up and quietly rummaged through the old Minnie Winnie from top to bottom. Goober must have hidden my laptop well, in case the cops decided to search for it. I went back to my chair by the bedroom door and watched him breathe for a few minutes.
There was a lot I didn’t know about Goober. But one thing was for sure. He was a good friend. He had had my back.
Bone-tired, I nodded off in the chair....
Chef Boyardee was in a red speedo, swimming around in a pool of marshmallow fluff. He spied me sitting on the pool steps. His chef’s hat bobbed up and down as his arms wind-milled through the water toward me like an electric beater. He stopped in front of me, shook his smiling head at me, and stomped on my toe.
I awoke in a start. My toe was throbbing and an idea was spinning in my head.
The space above the stove in Winky’s RV...where I’d found the jars. I hadn’t looked for the laptop there!
I drug the folding chair into the kitchen and found a flashlight under the sink. I climbed up on the chair, opened the cabinet, and peered inside.
Chef Boyardee’s instincts had been right. But what the flashlight illuminated wasn’t my computer. It was something way, way more precious than that.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
My Dearest, Most Beloved Child,
Wherever you are, whatever name you’ve been given, to me you will always be my beautiful dragonfly. My precious angel on the wing.
I never got to see you walk, or smile with pearly little teeth, but I’ve pictured you in my mind a million times.
I know it would take a true miracle of God for this letter to ever reach you. But miracles have been known to happen. I held one in my arms once, long ago.
Even so, sometimes I can scarcely believe you really do exist out there, somewhere. It’s those times I look at your photograph, and remember the truth. I truly was blessed.
Believe me when I tell you that I never wanted to let you go, my sweet angel. But I had to. For your sake.
I hope one day you’ll understand.
With all the love a mother can have for her beautiful daughter,
Your mom,
Gladys
A tear splashed down heavy on the small photo in my hand. No bigger than a postage stamp, the faded, black-and-white memory had been accompanied by miracle in the form of a frail, yellowed note.
God had granted Glad’s wish. Her daughter had found her letter. And she understood.
In a way, God had granted my wish, too. I’d never known how I’d come to be lying on the side of the road...to be found by my adoptive father Justas. Had I been abandoned by Glad? Thrown out by her horrible husband Bobby? Stolen and ditched by one of Tony’s disapproving father’s minions?
Now I knew. I’d been loved. So much so that Glad had given me up to protect me. To give me a chance at a better life.
The walls of her old RV wrapped around me like a womb. I stared at the miniscule photo of a woman holding a tiny baby in her arms, and let my heart break open and the tears flow.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
I snorted myself awake. I was hunched over on the dinette bench, my head resting on a lump on the table. I lifted my noggin. The muscles in my neck protested so strongly I groaned.
I rolled my head to one side and rubbed my neck. Sometime during the night, I’d decided that my purse would make an excellent pillow. It was lying sideways on the table in front of me, the impression of my face pressed into it, its contents spilled out like the entrails of a possum caught in the wheels of a Ford F-150.
The devil was at the stove making coffee. I was ready to sell my soul to him for a cup.
“Mornin’, sleeping beauty,” Goober teased as he rubbed one of the red lumps on his forehead. “What’cha got there?”
I looked down at the letter in my hand. I inhaled sharply and pressed it to my chest. “It’s...a...love letter.”
“From Tom?”
“Uh...no.”
“And I thought I had secrets.” Goober poured coffee into two mugs. “You take it black?”
“With milk.”
“Well, unless you know a friendly cow nearby, I’m afraid this is it.”
“I’ll take it,” I said, and grabbed the mug he offered “Speaking of secrets, let’s get back to yours. What’s up with the ten grand? And what did you mean when you said you’d have to disappear if you told me?”
“Don’t ask.” Goober sighed and took a sip of coffee.
“I just did. Come on.”
“Geeze! Are you always this feisty in the morning?”
“You haven’t begun to see my feisty.”
“Good grief. How does Tom do it?” Goober picked up an envelope from the table and waved it at me. “If you must know, I have to disappear because the AARP found me.”
“Yeah, right. Come on. They find everybody.”
“Exactly.”
Goober tossed the AARP envelope back on the table. I set my mug down on it like a coaster.
“I’m serious, Goober.”
“So am I. Val, if I tell you, I’ll have to leave all this behind.”
Goober swept his free hand in the air like a merchant displaying his fine wares. I wasn’t buying it.
“It’s just a dilapidated old RV,” I muttered.
Goober dropped his hand and shrugged. “It means a lot more than that to me.”
Images began to flash in my mind like a series of photographs. The first was of crazy Glad, busy plastering the Minnie Winnie’s walls with decals of dragonflies. Next came Cold Cuts and me donning disguises to go crash someone’s bad date. Stakeouts with the guys. And the nights I’d spent in here alone, talking things out with the mother I wished I’d had more time to get to know.
I looked up at Goober. “I guess I kind of get that.”
He sighed and slid into the booth opposite me. “So, have you called Tom yet?”
“No.”
“You’re in up to your eyeballs, Val. What are you waiting for?”
“I can’t have some man running to my rescue every time I’m in trouble, Goober. I need to stand on my own.”
“No you don’t.”
“Who are you to talk, Marlboro mystery man?”
Goober sneered, making him look like a devil in a wife-beater t-shirt. “Like I said, I’m not saying. But I’ll tell you this. Being on your own isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. There’s no sin in needing someone, Val.”
I scowled. “I guess it wouldn’t hurt to get Tom’s professional advice.”
Goober grinned. “There you go.”
“Do me a favor, would you?”
“What?”
“Lose the gold tooth?”
Goober laughed and touched his mouth. “I’ll be in the bathroom if you need me.”
He ambled off as I dialed Tom’s number.
“Hey, there.”
“Val! You okay?”
“Yeah, I’m all right.”
“Where are you?”
“With Goober in the RV.”
“Good. I wish I could be there instead.”
“Me, too. But it’s okay. I’m doing fine. J.D. said they don’t have enough evidence to hold me.”
“H
old you? For what?”
“I...I thought Goober told you.”
“Told me what?”
Oh, crap! “I kind of got...accused of murder....”
“What? Again?!”
“It’s okay. I didn’t do it.”
“Val! I know that. But I mean...ugh! What happened?”
“An old man at Shell Hammock died. I just happened to be writing a story about an old man getting murdered in a trailer park –”
“Why on Earth?”
“It was a class assignment!”
“Oh, geeze.”
“Tom, the cops want my computer. Do you think I should give it to them?”
“Absolutely, Val. Hand it over and cooperate. It’s the only way. If they apprehend you trying to flee with it, you’re toast.”
“Okay. And Tom?”
“Yeah?”
“I –”
The deafening honk of a bullhorn sounded outside. Over a megaphone, a voice demanded, “Come out with your hands up.”
“Oh crap. Tom, I gotta go.”
I PEEKED OUT THE RV window. Unless it was “Free Donuts for Cops Day” at Walmart, every cop car in Polk County was hot on our trail. We were surrounded like a wagon train, and Chief Collins was leading the roundup.
I open the RV door and stood in the doorframe with my hands up. Chief Collins peeked his jowly face from around the open door of a squad car.
“Step out, Fremden. Anybody else in there?”
“Yes. My friend Goo...uh...Gerald.”
“Tell him to come on out, too. Hands in the air.”
“I can’t. He’s kind of...indisposed.”
“Disposed! Did you kill him, too?”
“No! He’s in the bathroom!”
An officer approached and patted me down. “She’s clean.”
“Go get the other one,” Chief Collins said as he stepped from behind the car door.
The officer pulled his revolver, crept up the stairs, and disappeared inside the RV.
Chief Collins took his time approaching me. Probably so I could get a good look at his smug face. He hitched a thumb in his belt loop and rocked onto his tiptoes and back. “Got word you were trying to flee the area, Fremden. Not smart.”
Seven Daze: Redneck Rendezvous (A Val Fremden Mystery Book 7) Page 14