Val & Pals Boxed Set: Volumes 1,2 & the Prequel (Val & Pals Humorous Mystery Series)

by Margaret Lashley

  ***

  The only cash cows I had left to milk were my clothes and the books, household goods and furniture I’d purchased over the years. I couldn’t afford another run-in with the law, so I called Rita Rudehiem to find out the rules and regulations about having a yard sale in Germany. To my great surprise, there weren’t any. And, also to my great surprise, Rita volunteered to help me hold the sale.

  It was a beautiful, crisp Saturday in late October, when tall, stick-thin Rita walked beside short, washed-up me to the main crossroads intersecting my little village. She held out the signs reading Haushalts Verkauf, while I pounded their posts into the ground with a hammer.

  With my only German friend’s help, I’d placed small notices in the regional newspaper and online, advertising the sale. I’d carefully tucked away all of Friedrich’s belongings, so as not to confuse potential buyers. Any pieces of furniture or items too heavy to move I had marked with “NZV,” the German equivalent of not-for-sale.

  When everything was in place, I opened the gate to the tall wooden fence separating our house from the street. I prepared for the flood of customers, but as it turned out, they only trickled in in dribs and drabs.

  The antiques I’d collected went first. Then, strangely, dusty old books and furniture from the attic. By the end of the first day, I’d made about nine hundred euros. I took Rita to dinner as a reward. Between bites of schnitzel and fries, she told me she’d enjoyed the day, and wanted to come back the next morning.

  On Sunday, we had a steady stream of old ladies stop in on their way home from church. But after two o’clock, we didn’t have a single patron for an hour. I told Rita it was time to quit. I walked down to the corner to collect the signs, but they were already gone. I came back and Rita informed me she’d heard my fax machine go off. I went upstairs to fetch it.

  The fax was from Friedrich’s sister Olga, but I couldn’t decipher it. I handed it to Rita. Her eyes grew wide as she read it.

  “It says if you sell anything from Friedrich, they charge you with embezzlement.”

  My knees gave out. I fell on the floor and began sobbing. I didn’t think Friedrich could hurt me anymore. But he’d found a way. Rita knelt beside me. She tried to hug me, but her attempt was awkward, as if I were as square as a box. Through my tears, I think I saw a glimmer of compassion in her face.

  “Friedrich is what you call dickhead, ya?”

  Hearing Rita say dickhead made me laugh, despite the horrible heartache inside me.

  “Ya,” I sobbed.

  “He is also horrider. Look at all these things!”

  Rita pointed her insect-like arms around at the stacks of clutter. I thought about correcting her English. Friedrich was a hoarder. But then I realized she had made no mistake. Friedrich was horrider. More horrider than I could have ever imagined.

  After I settled down and Rita left, I counted my cash. I’d managed to scrape together eleven hundred, thirty-seven euros for my efforts. I blew my nose and wondered angrily, Would it be enough to cover attorney fees for embezzlement?

  Why hadn’t Friedrich sent me the fax himself? Was he that small a human being? Or that big a coward? Why did it come from his sister, of all people? They’d been fighting with each other like cats and dogs for the last three years.

  An old saying flashed across my mind; The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

  At that exact moment, I realized that, even after all he’d done to me, I’d still been giving Friedrich the benefit of a doubt of not being an asshole. I’d been holding onto the idea that I’d failed him somehow, and had caused all this damage. That lingering doubt vanished, along with every other feeling I’d ever had for him.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Cold, grey November had come and settled, like an unwanted squatter, across the sky and in every corner of the village. I hadn’t heard from Berta in two weeks, and was in desperate need of some cheering up. I punched in her number, only to hear a message that the number was no longer in service. Panic stabbed my heart. I got on the computer and googled her name.

  The fourth item that came up under Roberta Goodman was a picture of Berta and the first line of her obituary. It read: “Ms. Goodman, aged 87, of New York, died in Glastonbury, England under suspicious circumstances.”

  I pictured Berta’s laughing face and thought about how much she would have enjoyed that last line. Just what were those suspicious circumstances, my friend? Did you hijack one of those tour-buses and drive it over a cliff? Were you throttled by the hands of a jealous wife? I loved Berta. Her passing made me sad. But how could I feel sorry for her? Berta had lived her life to the last drop.

  I hoped when I got back to St. Petersburg, I would follow Berta’s example and do the same. There wasn’t much to go back to, but as Berta said, I’ll have me, and that’s a lot.

  I kissed the tip of my index finger and put it on Berta’s image on the screen.

  “Goodbye, my friend. I’ll miss you.”

  ***

  I packed my suitcases and rolled them down the stairs of my quaint winemaker’s villa for the last time. Technically, it wasn’t mine anymore. As soon as I stepped out the door, I could never return. I picked up the package I’d found hidden away in a closet when I’d scoured the house in search of things I could sell. It was wrapped in Christmas paper, and had my name on it. Friedrich had planned to give it to me last Christmas, but his wall of silence had fallen before the day arrived.

  This week, another Christmas had come and gone. I’d intended to open the package on Christmas Eve, but I’d been alone. I was afraid that its contents might shatter my fragile heart and there’d be no one around to pick up the pieces.

  I tucked the package into my little, brown-checked carry-on and wheeled it onto the steps beside my big blue suitcase. I closed the door behind me. I dropped the keys in the mailbox, and noticed a postcard inside. I took it out and read it. It was a note for Friedrich, written in German.

  Mein Schatz, I am so happy we have found each other. I cannot wait until we are in each other’s arms again.

  All my love, Christina

  I’ll never know if the postcard was real, or just one last despicable deed by Friedrich, designed to hurt me. Either way, it turned out to be a gift. After I read the note, my only thought had been; Thank god he’s found someone else. He can finally let me go.

  I no longer loved Friedrich. His power to hurt me was gone.

  ***

  I trudged down the narrow village road to the train station, my two suitcases in tow. As I boarded the train headed for Frankfurt airport, it began to rain. I fingered the letter tucked into my shirt pocket. It was a notice from Clarice’s attorney. He’d been in charge of liquidating her assets after she’d died, and I’d asked him to sell my car in her garage. After complications with clearing the title and his attorney fees, he’d netted me $5,700 for my Ford. That, along with the thirty euros in my pocket, were what I had to begin my life anew, give or take a side of fries.

  I thought about my family back home and laughed to myself. You know, Val, $5,700 is good money for a redneck. But I wasn’t a redneck anymore. I was an international fancy person. And I was back to square one. No, I was further back than that. I was back to absolute zero.

  In the company of strangers, I fished the brightly wrapped Christmas gift from my carry-on. I tore off the paper and opened the box. Inside was a strange contraption made of metal and plastic. I held it up to study it.

  “It’s a walnut press,” offered the businessman sitting next to me. “For getting the oil out of the nuts, see?”

  He took the press from my hand and twisted the handle. Two cup-shaped cylinders met together like a vice.

  “Oh,” I said. Another thoughtless gift from the man who never knew me.

  The man tried to hand the press back to me.

  “Oh no. You keep it,” I said. “The pair of nuts I’d like to pulverize with it don’t grow on trees.”

  ***

  As I stepped ont
o the plane headed for Tampa, Florida, a calm resignation swept over me. I pictured Friedrich as I last remembered him; his face red and twisted.

  “You never made me feel loved,” he’d hissed at me.

  In the year that had passed since that moment, I’d learned a lot about what love was, and what love wasn’t. If I’d had the power to rewind the clock, I would have shared with him a secret I’d discovered. But I couldn’t. So I whispered it to myself, instead.

  “I couldn’t in a million years make you feel loved, Friedrich. That’s something you have to do for yourself.”

  I took my seat next to a little boy wearing a party hat. I suddenly remembered it was New Year’s Eve.

  “Do you have any plans for the new year?” his mother asked.

  “Not a single one,” I said.

  And I was okay with that, because I was free.

  Glad One

  Crazy is a Relative Term

  Copyright © 2016 Margaret Lashley

  MargaretLashley.com

  Cover Design by Melinda de Ross

  Interior Design by Polgarus Studio

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  For more information, write to: Zazzy Ideas, Inc. P.O. Box 1113, St. Petersburg, FL 33731

  This book is a work of fiction. While actual places throughout Florida have been used in this book, any resemblance to persons living or dead are purely coincidental. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and in some cases, the names of places have been altered.

  Chapter One

  Nervous cheers broke the white-knuckle silence as our plane from Frankfurt, Germany bounced roughly, then settled onto the tarmac in Tampa, Florida. It was New Year’s Eve. Like the other bleary-eyed passengers around me, I had my mind on fresh beginnings. To be honest, I had no other choice. The past I’d fled was still too raw and painful to touch. I studied the thin, pale strip of flesh encircling my now-naked ring finger. The ghostly reminder of yet another failed attempt at love sent a hot jolt of desperation racing through my gut.

  A puff of jaded air forced its way between my pursed lips like steam from a relief valve. I needed a good cry. But this was not the time or place for it. To distract myself, I started counting my blessings.

  One decimated pocketbook. Two cottage-cheese thighs. Three maladjusted ex-husbands…. Crap!

  Whoever was running the show up there had a wicked sense of humor – and I was getting damn tired of being the punchline. I scrounged around for my powder compact and opened it, intent on repairing my makeup after the nine-hour flight. One glance in the mirror at my worn-out face made me snap it shut. Why bother?

  In forty-five years, I’d accumulated a good portion of wrinkles, a fair amount of belly fat, and, apparently, precious little wisdom. These questionable assets, along with $5,726 and a suitcase full of inappropriate clothes, were all I had left to launch my latest life makeover. I slumped back into my seat. I was bone-dragging tired. Even so, a wry grin snuck across my lips like a stolen kiss from a stranger. I was not defeated. Not yet, anyway.

  The way I saw it, I still had two viable options. One, I could finally learn to laugh at myself. Or two, I could drink myself into oblivion. I fished around the bottom of my purse for a coin to determine my fate. I flipped a tarnished nickel into the air with my thumb. It did a triple gainer, plunged into my coffee, and splashed a nasty brown stain on the crotch of my white stretch pants.

  Awesome. Let the festivities begin.

  ***

  My last life makeover had begun over seven years ago, and had turned out to be a spectacular, downward spiral reminiscent of diving off a cliff with a bowling ball in my pants. Drowning in dullness and fueled by movie-inspired stupidity, I’d ditched a tiresome marriage and lucrative writing career, sold all my belongings and took off for Europe. In Italy, I met a German and fell in love with the idea of life with a stranger in a strange land. Things had been great for a while. But then the shiny wore off and the cracks showed up, like they always did.

  On my arrival back in St. Petersburg, Florida, I’d discovered that seven wasn’t such a lucky number. In fact, seven years abroad had been just exactly long enough for my entire credit history to be erased – just like most of my money. I’d gotten off that plane with no driver’s license. No place to live. No credit card. No phone. No resume. And, worst of all, no friends. Incredibly, I’d somehow managed to become a foreigner in my own homeland.

  As a lifelong lover of irony, I’d had to smile at my own ingenuity. How many other people on the planet could have claimed such a monumental screw-up?

  My climb back aboard the American dream had required counting pennies and swallowing more than just pride. When I’d finished with that, I’d scrounged around for a tire jack and started lowering my expectations to half a notch above gutter level. That’s how I’d ended up in a little “no credit check” hovel of an apartment, living a “no foreseeable future” scrabble of a life.

  A few months into what I’d sarcastically dubbed “my adjustment period,” I was contemplating a Smith & Wesson retirement plan when something unforeseeable happened. I met an old woman named Glad. I’d been in desperate need of a life coach. Glad had fit the bill perfectly. The fact that she was a crazy homeless woman had been the icing on the cake. I could afford her fees.

  Chapter Two

  St. Petersburg, Florida only had two seasons – summer and not-summer-yet. It was not-summer-yet, but just barely. I first met Glad on May 10, 2009. I remember because I was trying to make the most of “The end of days.” I called the first two weeks of May that because anybody with any sense (translation, not a tourist or a transplant), didn’t venture out in the Florida sun between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m. from the middle of May to the end of October. Not if they could help it, that is. And with no job at the time, I could help it.

  I was determined to get to Sunset Beach early that Sunday. Not just to beat the heat, but the five-dollar fee as well. If I got there before the lot attendant, I could park for free at Caddy’s, my favorite beach bar.

  I was attracted to Sunset Beach for three reasons. One, it was gorgeous – sugar-white sand and water the color of a fresh robin’s egg. Two, the tourists hadn’t discovered it yet. And three, it was the only local strip of beach that allowed open containers (aka BYOB alcohol). Caddy’s bar sat right on gorgeous Sunset Beach, sandwiched between a patch of virgin sand dunes and a recently erected, three-story McMansion the color of pumpkin puke.

  In stunning contrast to the prissy new house, Caddy’s was pure, relaxed, old-school Florida. To be honest, it wasn’t much more than an old beach shack with a front porch and a rooftop deck scabbed onto it with bent nails and duct tape. The bottom floor facing the Gulf didn’t even have an exterior wall. If it rained hard or the temperature dropped below 65 degrees, the easy-going folks at Caddy’s unfurled plastic flaps like tent windows against the inclement weather. But on good days, which were most days, there’d be nothing between Caddy’s tipsy patrons and the turquoise Gulf of Mexico but a hundred feet of squeaky, blindingly white sand. Caddy’s fit right in with its laid-back vibe, good food, live music and a full liquor bar. Being a native Floridian, I appreciated that it wasn’t a tiki bar. After all, this was not freaking Hawaii.

  When I got to the beach that morning, I’d planned on getting in a st
roll before the humidity turned the air to soup, and then the sun heated that soup to steam. I thought about splurging for breakfast at one of Caddy’s picnic tables on the beach afterward. But being a loner, and on a budget as tight as last year’s jeans, I decided against it.

  It was Mother’s Day. Not being a mother myself, or having one I was keen to celebrate, I planned to let the day go by as unnoticed as possible. I got lucky and pulled into the lot in time to avoid the attendant. I slipped off my flip-flops and shorts and put them on the floorboard of Shabby Maggie, my 1963 Ford Falcon Sprint convertible.

  I had to admit it. Maggie suited me. Today’s cars all looked the same. I couldn’t have told a Prius from a Pontiac to save my life. But those older cars like Maggie had style. With her curvy, Batmobile rear-end, cherry-red upholstery and Wimbledon-white exterior, Maggie was a classic beauty. All the nicks and dents and faded spots reminded her she’d seen better days. Boy, could I relate.

  As I reached into the backseat for my beach bag and chair, a loud wolf whistle rang out over the rumble of a diesel engine. I didn’t even waste the energy to look up. Instead, I just shook my head and wondered what desperate soul could find the sight of my flabby ass in bathing suit worth that much effort. I hoisted my beach chair under one arm, hooked my bag over the other and picked my way across the crushed-shell parking lot.

  As I reached the white picket fence leading out to the beach, I spied an old woman lying on a lounger a good fifty feet from the shoreline. I’d seen her there countless times over the last few months. She was a wiry, leather-skinned old bat who, had I met on the street, I’d have labeled a bag lady. But there at the beach she fit right in. Maybe stripping down to a bathing suit somehow leveled the playing field.