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

by Margaret Lashley

  The shoulder-high lid on the waste bin was as big and round as a Hula Hoop. I hoisted it up and peeked inside to discover my microwave was not the only victim of the storm. I wrestled the bulky white box up the side of the trashcan to the lip and pushed it in. I watched it smash into a cheap plastic blender and an ancient metal toaster.

  A sudden thought twisted through my mind, and I slammed the trashcan lid down with all my might. Another of Glad’s lessons echoed in my head. It simply didn’t pay to get too attached to anything.

  I climbed the stairs, grabbed a beer from the fridge and a notebook from my desk and flopped onto the lumpy old couch. I needed to organize all the information I’d discovered about Glad so far. I started with narrowing down the timeframe of possibility for Glad to have given birth. Tony’s letter had been postmarked December 12. He had asked Glad if it was a boy or a girl. So chances were, the baby was already born by then, but not necessarily. The missing records had included November and December, so Glad’s baby must have been born between November 1 and December 31, 1964, or it would still be in public records. I guess.

  Since all the records had disappeared for both months, they must have gone missing at the end of December 1964 or early January 1965. Sometime during Christmas holidays through New Year’s. With everybody potentially on vacation at the time, anyone could have taken the records. But why would they?

  Tony had sent his letter to Glad in care of Mrs. Wannabaker. Why? Glad’s parents had gone on vacation to Florida. Did they take the baby with them? Had they left Glad in the care of Ms. Wannabaker? Was she some kind of midwife? Maybe the head of a place for unwed mothers? Did she work for an adoption agency? The hospital? Was she, herself, adopting Glad’s child?

  And what about this Mrs. D. B. Meyers, Glad’s father’s cousin in Tallahassee. The one Glad’s parents were visiting when they died in the car crash. Could she know something?

  Then there was Tony’s family. It was crystal clear they weren’t thrilled with the situation. They’d sent Tony off to boarding school. Had they also done something with the records? Maybe even with the baby? Tony had mentioned his father had influence over the faculty. Was he a big shot in politics or high society? That would offer some pretty good motivation for a cover-up.

  It was all getting too confusing. More leads than a professional dog walker. More loose ends than a bowl of spaghetti. I needed someone used to dealing with multiple motives and evidence. Maybe it was time for Jorge to come out of retirement. Or call for backup. I closed my notebook and rubbed my eyes. It was definitely TNT time. I headed for the fridge.

  ***

  I was at the beach with Glad. The sun hung lemon-yellow in a crazy purple-blue sky. Glad’s beer can glinted a full spectrum of rainbow colors as we raised our beers to toast. The tinny clink of the aluminum cans morphed into laughter as a boy around four years old wandered by us, a pile of seashells in each hand. He dropped one shell. As he bent over to pick it up, two more fell out of his overstuffed palms. He tried to pick those up, and even more shells tumbled loose from his grip. Glad thought the whole thing was hilarious.

  “See? It ain’t good to hold on to too much,” Glad said. She cackled and sat back in her pink lounge chair. “After a while, memories can get to be like elephants, Val. Better to forget ’em than tote their heavy asses around.”

  “How can you forget when there’s so much pain attached?” I asked her.

  Glad laughed and took a swig of beer. “Them’s the best ones to forget. What’cha winnin’ by holding on?”

  “People should suffer for what they do to others.”

  “Have it your way, Kiddo. So who’s doin’ the sufferin’?”

  “Me, okay? You happy?”

  “Yes, I’m happy,” she said, beaming at me through smeary red lips. “Are you?”

  I started to speak, but a man came running up the beach with a machinegun, firing at random. He looked right at me and fired. Bam! Bam! Bam!

  The sound of gunfire startled me awake. Bam! Bam! Bam! Rapid fire, like an automatic weapon. “What the…?” I grumbled, trying to kick-start my brain. I ducked my head and crawled off the couch. Bam! Bam! I snuck a peek through the blinds. Boom! Bam! Bam. Bam! Flashes of color lit up the sky, taking eerie snapshots of the Vinoy’s Greek temple tower. The rush of adrenaline finally kicked my brain into gear. Ah! Fireworks.

  I had totally forgotten it was the Fourth of July. I sat up and sighed. I rubbed my face for a moment and debated whether to walk the two blocks to the park for a better view of our fine nation’s Independence Day celebration. Naw. I lay back on the ugly couch and scratched my flabby stomach. I wondered if, somewhere out there, Glad’s son or daughter was celebrating, too.

  I snuggled into the sofa and thought about Glad and all the things I’d been forced to let go of in the last year, including her. It was a long list. But it was just a postscript, really. Since I’d popped out of my mother’s womb I’d created three, maybe four seperate lives already. And I’d wiped the slate clean of each of them like yesterday’s blackboard lesson. Glad was right. I had learned a lot. And each life had had its value, for sure. But boiled down to its essence, I had almost nothing to show for all that living in terms of what could be seen with the naked eye. What had proven worth holding onto so far in my four-and-a-half decades of life had been precious little indeed. Geeze. Maybe that was the whole point.

  Chapter Thirteen

  I woke up the next morning still spooning my melancholy memories. But I just didn’t have time for a mental meltdown. I was supposed to meet Jorge and Lieutenant Foreman at Caddy’s at 8 a.m. The clock said I had half an hour to get my butt out the door. I showered and pulled on my official Florida business attire: Thick-soled flip-flops, a one-piece, tropical-print bathing suit and an aqua skirt that fell mid-thigh. I padded to the kitchen to blow a kiss to my boyfriend, Mr. Coffee. “Hey, I love you dude, but variety is the spice of life,” I said to my stoic companion. “Just wanted you to know your services are not required today. I’ll be cheating on you with some strange restaurant brew.” Now I’m talking to appliances. I really could be crazy.

  The drive to Caddy’s was a straight shot west down Central Avenue that took about twenty minutes. Along the way, I sat back and smiled at the puffy pink clouds dissipating in the soft morning sky. They were a gentle, comfy way to start the day, and for the first time in a long while I felt appreciated and loved by some all-knowing source. A light and giddy joy traced across my heart. I stepped on the gas and Maggie’s dual glass packs roared their appreciation.

  ***

  The ground-up fossilized shells that comprised Caddy’s parking lot made a breakfast-cereal crunch under my tires as I slung Maggie into a space. I spotted Jorge and Lieutenant Foreman standing together by a picnic table in the sand. Each held a cup of coffee in their hands, the sight of which made my stomach gurgle with envy. Jorge spied me and we exchanged quick waves. I studied the men as I walked through the lot in their direction. The sun hung midway in the sky like a melty red rubber ball, and had already chased away the friendly pink clouds. I could smell the salt of the Gulf of Mexico just a hundred yards away.

  Lieutenant Foreman was dressed in a clean, white muscle tee and blue surfing shorts. Definitely off-duty attire. He looked shockingly shiny and brand-new compared to the shorter, slump-shouldered Jorge in his faded Hawaiian shirt and fraying, grey cut-offs. The contrast made me study the cop with fresh eyes. He was actually pretty damn hot!

  “Nice to see you again, Val,” Lieutenant Foreman said. “I’ve never seen you in a bathing suit before.”

  “I have,” said Jorge. His eyes studied the sand. “Plenty of times.”

  “Lucky you,” the cute cop said, never taking his sea-green eyes off me.

  Eye contact with the lieutenant sent a jolt of surprise through me, mixed with something I wasn’t able to define. I’d have been the first to admit that life had worn me down into more of a realist than a romantic. I still had a pretty decent face and go
od legs. My upper arms, however, were a story I didn’t want to talk about. But considering my age, I garnered my share of attention. Usually unwanted. Until my divorce a year ago, I used to eat right and rarely drank. So far, my body was still surfing along on the momentum of that former health wave.

  “Thanks for coming out, Lieutenant Foreman,” I said, trying hard to quit making a mental inventory of my body parts. “Why don’t we go for a walk on the beach? I’m afraid Winky might show up if we stay here.”

  “Don’t chew worry, Val,” Jorge said. He bobbed his head like a tortoise in a lustrous black wig. “Goober’s got babysitting duty this morning.”

  “Oh. Great!” I was genuinely relieved. “So, should we sit down or should we walk?”

  “My vote is for a walk,” said the cop. “Please, call me Tom.”

  “Okay, Tom. Looks like you get out to the beach a bit,” I said as the three of us twist-stepped our way through the sugary sand toward the Gulf. Tom’s blond hair shone golden in the sun. His smooth skin was a rich, golden brown. Even the hair on his legs and arms was sun-bleached to a glimmering gold.

  “Being a native, it’s in my blood,” he said. His grin activated a fine web of crinkles at the corners of his eyes and mouth.

  “Yeah. Tom’s a native just like us,” said Jorge. He arched his thick black eyebrows and gave me a rare look directly in the eye.

  “Go figure,” I said. “Three Florida natives in a row. Do we get eggroll with that?”

  Tom flashed me a grin, then turned to scan the shoreline up and down. The tide was coming in. Low, lazy waves lapped at the sand, making tentative grabs at the coquina and cat’s paw shells stranded by last night’s high tide. “Looks like another perfect day in paradise.”

  “Except for the 99% humidity,” I replied. I felt the first trickle of sweat work its way down the center of my back. “I think I’ll test the waters.”

  “Let me hold your shoes,” Tom offered.

  Tom took my flip-flops and our fingers touched briefly, sending a mild tingle up my arm. The sight of this handsome man holding my shoes suddenly seemed very personal. Intimate even. I probably would have blushed if I could remember how. I wiggled out of my skirt and he held that, too, making something inside me squirm. I sucked in my gut and put my toes in the warm Gulf. I was distracted, looking to the right, when I got sidelined by a blast of seawater from my left. It soaked me from my neck to my waist, causing me to abandon my held-in breath with a gasp.

  I looked to my left and saw Tom and Jorge laughing at the culprit. A boy about three years old stood motionless in the water a few feet away. He stared at me wide-eyed, mouth open, still clutching the empty plastic pail he’d used to douse my fledgling sex-kitten career. I fished around and found a smile for the boy.

  “What’s your name?” I asked.

  “Miguel,” he answered shyly. Then he dropped his pail and ran through foamy seawater in the direction of a Hispanic woman and a dark-haired girl who looked to be about six. They were both making their way toward shore. “Momma, Momma!” he yelled.

  “No, no Miguel!” the woman cried. She looked up at me. “So sorry!”

  “It’s okay,” I replied.

  “Kids. They’re a blessing and a curse,” the woman said.

  I watched Jorge flinch at the woman’s words, then lower his eyes to the sand. The woman herded her brood up the beach toward a big blue umbrella. Jorge watched them for a moment, then said, “Uh, I don’t feel so good. You guys go on without me. I’ll see you back at Caddy’s.”

  “Are you sure?” I asked.

  “Jes. I think I jus’ need a beer or something.” Jorge didn’t wait for a reply. He turned sharply and walked back toward the beach bar, head down, shoulders slumped.

  “Okay, see you soon,” I called after him, trying not to sound sympathetic. Tom and I turned back toward the turquoise water and walked in silence along the shore for a minute.

  “He and I used to be partners, you know,” Tom said, breaking the quiet tension between us. “I’ve never seen anyone so devastated as he was when he lost his family. He’s still just a fraction of the person I used to know.”

  “A fraction. That’s sad. Tell me, where do our missing pieces go?”

  Tom stopped walking and looked me in the eyes. “That’s a damn good question. I wish I knew the answer.”

  “Me too.”

  His eyes studied my soul for a moment, then shifted back to this mortal plane. “I guess we better stick to questions we can answer, Val. What have you got for me so far?”

  “Just a bunch of jumbled up theories, mostly. With the Hawesville records missing, I’m not a hundred percent sure Glad even had a child, or, if she did, that it survived.”

  “What does your gut say?”

  “My gut?”

  “Yes. In my line of work, I’ve learned that facts can only get you so far. You’d be surprised how often it’s intuition – a gut feeling – that fills in the missing pieces. Connects the dots. Solves the case.”

  I stopped walking and looked at Tom, incredulous. “Really?”

  Tom stopped, too. He turned to face me, and the wind off the Gulf fluttered his golden bangs over his forehead. “Yes, really. I’m going to ask you a question, Val. Don’t think about the answer. Just let yourself kind of relax and float instead. Then say the first thing that bubbles up from your throat. Ready?”

  “Uh…I guess.”

  “Close your eyes.” He reached toward me and removed my sunglasses, then slid them into his shorts pocket. He touched his fingertips to my cheeks, then gently placed his thumbs on my eyelids to close them. Hot electricity shot through my body.

  “So Val, did Tony and Glad have a baby?”

  I shivered. “Yes,” I heard my mouth say.

  “And did it survive?”

  “Yes,” formed on my lips again. Spooky.

  “And is it still alive?”

  Goosebumps broke out on my arms. “Yes!”

  “Boy or girl?”

  I overthought it and the tingly feeling evaporated. My gut quit on me. I frowned. “I don’t know.”

  “No worries,” he said gently.

  I opened my eyes just in time to see Tom wink at me. He pulled my sunglasses out of his pocket and handed them back to me. They were warm from his body heat.

  “How about we head back? I don’t want to leave Jorge alone too long,” he said.

  I nodded in agreement. We turned around and started the walk back toward Caddy’s. It was barely nine in the morning and the sun was already hot enough to make me sweat without exertion. At least, I think it was the sun. A spike of exhilaration shot through me, and suddenly everything seemed more beautiful, somehow. I watched the Gulf do its diamond shimmy show with the sunlight. I listened as the seagulls heckled out their gratitude for another gorgeous morning. I felt so light I might lift off and float away. Tom’s deep voice brought me back down to Earth.

  “So now that we feel pretty sure they had a baby, Val, do you think Tony or Glad would have wanted to harm the child, get rid of it?”

  My gut reaction was instant. “No! In my heart of hearts, I have to say no, Tom. The Glad I knew…I just can’t see her being capable of that. And based on Tony’s letter to her back then, I don’t think he wanted anything bad to happen to her or the baby either. You saw Tony’s house. He never let go of anything. He couldn’t even bear to throw garbage away.”

  “Fair enough, Val. But hoarding is a sign of psychological trauma. It can stem from a big loss…or a guilty conscience.”

  I thought about Tom’s words as I watched a black-backed skimmer fly by. It maneuvered so close to the water that its blood-orange bottom mandible touched the surface and made a shallow rivulet in the calm, lazy Gulf.

  “I’m sure that’s true, Tom. But now we know Glad and Tony lived together as a couple. I just can’t see her staying with a man who would take her baby from her. She always talked to me about letting go and forgiving as the way to freedom. I’m sure
she could have let go of hating the people who did this to her. But I don’t think she’d come back for more punishment by living with one of them. She wasn’t into self-flagellation.”

  “Just self-medication.”

  I smiled and shrugged. “Hey, nobody’s perfect.”

  “But some are more perfect than others.” Tom’s hypnotic green eyes slowly traced my body, beginning with my toes. When they reached my face, they settled in for a long look into my own brown eyes, making me sweat a little more. Tom seemed to sense my discomfort and abruptly switched gears. “So, have you found a marriage certificate for Tony and Glad in all that shoebox stuff?”

  “No. Not yet. Is that important?”

  “For inheritance rights it is. But if they lived together for more than seven years in Florida, she could be considered his common-law wife whether they were married or not.”

  “For some reason they kept their relationship secret, Tom. From the people at Caddy’s, anyway. I don’t know if anybody else knew they were together. Could you check public records for a marriage certificate?”

  “Sure.”

  “In the meantime, I’ll check the shoebox files. If I can’t find a certificate, maybe there’ll be wedding pictures, or something else that might prove how long they lived together.”

  “Okay. But make it quick, Val. We need to return all that stuff to Tony’s house by tomorrow.”

  “Why tomorrow?”

  “Tony’s memorial service is tomorrow. So far, nobody’s turned up to make a claim on his estate. But that could change at any moment. I think it would be prudent to have everything back in its proper place. It’s my neck on the line, you know.”

  “Yes. I know. And I’m grateful, Tom.” I smiled at him softly. He returned the favor.

  “You think Tony’s relatives might show up at his house?” I asked.

  “It could happen. Usually, the only ones that snoop around the property are the ones named in the will. Or ones who hope they are.”