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

by Margaret Lashley

  All of a sudden, a familiar whirring noise caught my attention. I sat up in bed.

  “What’s that sound, Tom? Hey, wait a second….”

  “What now?” Tom sat up on an elbow.

  “I think the air conditioner compressor just kicked on.”

  “I thought it was broken.”

  “So did I.”

  I jumped out of bed and made my way to the hall closet. I opened the door. Sitting atop the old air handler was a crumpled note scrawled in child-like handwriting. It read: “Gaul-dang great party, Val. Thanks.”

  “Winky!” I yelled.

  “Winky?” Tom called from the bedroom. “Is he crashed out drunk in there?”

  “No!”

  Winky had disappeared for a while during the party last night. I’d assumed he’d just gotten hammered and passed out somewhere. But he hadn’t been up to no good. He’d been up to good. A smile slid sideways onto my face. That freckle-faced little redneck rascal. I closed the closet door and padded back to the bedroom. Tom wasn’t there. I lingered in the doorway, collecting my thoughts. A moment later, Tom came up behind me…in more ways than one. Either that, or he was still toting that gun….

  ***

  Twice in one morning was my limit, so I showered, dressed, and left Tom in bed reading the Sunday paper. A big smile had settled on my face about Tom and me, and I wanted to keep it there. I jumped in Shabby Maggie and rumbled off to Water Loo’s, the chosen hangout of my deadbeat friends, Winky, Jorge and Goober.

  The wonderland of ironic fodder dished out by Water Loo’s never ceased to both amuse and appall me. The rat hole disguised as a restaurant was the kind of dingy, hole-in-the wall place that could never hope to rise to the esteemed status of, say, a run-down, truck-stop diner. Hobbling along on its last legs for years, Water Loo’s was being run – no, run into the ground – by Loo, a disgruntled ex-pat Brit and his potty-mouthed girlfriend Latrina. The fact that both of their names were not-so-subtle monikers for toilets propelled them, in my mind, to the reigning king and queen of the St. Pete irony scene.

  The two burned-out restauranteurs appeared to have given up on the idea of quality and service so long ago that it was no longer even a distant, plaguing memory for either of them. Instead, their sole goal in keeping Water Loo’s afloat was to make enough money to bet the afternoon trifecta at the Derby Lane greyhound track. This habit, along with their wanton inattentiveness to customers and cleanliness, offered me a daily-double dose of delicious irony whenever I overheard them yelling from the kitchen that their lives were “going to the dogs.”

  Which, actually, was pretty often. From what I could tell, their love of gambling was second only to their love of bitching and complaining. Loo and Latrina could be counted on to burst into shouting matches at any given moment. Occasionally, it escalated to pushing and shoving, but more often than not, neither sticks nor stones broke anyone’s bones, but the cuss words they hurled were foul enough to curdle the creamer.

  As a result, Water Loo’s clientele had dwindled to a mere trickle. Nowadays, it was frequented solely by hard-core locals – mainly those with no other choice due to DUI-related lack of transportation or severe, blinding hangovers. On the rare occasion, their ranks would be boosted by the random lost or grossly misinformed tourist.

  But Water Loo’s did get one thing right. It lived up to its name. It was a shit hole – the final splash down spot for the effluence of humanity as it passed on to its foul, inevitable end. That’s why I was pretty sure that the gang would be there this morning. I cracked open the door and took a peek.

  “Hey Val Pal!” Winky shouted.

  He was the first to spot me from his vantage in the corner booth. Peanut-headed Goober turned around and gave me a silent salute, his long fingers grazing the top of his shiny, hairless pate.

  “Look who’s all bright bald and bushy lipped this morning,” I chirped as I walked up.

  “Yeah, and look who just got laid,” Goober said, shooting me a sneer of mock annoyance. “I like you better when you’re a sourpuss in the morning.”

  My face grew red as the guys snickered amongst themselves.

  “Scoot over, butthead.” I shoved Goober on the shoulder.

  Goober muttered complaints under his breath and scooted his butt across the greasy vinyl. I slid in beside him and he stuck a spoon in his mouth. I blanched when I realized I’d grown fond of the tinny, hollow sound the utensil made as he clicked it against his teeth.

  “Great party last night,” Jorge slurred.

  The Latino’s blue-black hair, usually wavy, looked more like a tsunami this morning. His big, puppy-dog brown eyes rolled lazily in his skull, unable to focus. Despite his inebriated state, I could have kissed Jorge’s drunken lips for changing the topic.

  “Thanks Jorge. Did you enjoy yourself?”

  “I don’t remember,” he managed to blurt, just before his head hit the table.

  Mr. Dude whiskey had claimed its first victim of the day. I turned my attention to the two guys still clinging to consciousness. Actually, they both seemed pretty sober this morning, all things considered.

  “Thanks for fixing my air conditioning, Winky. I didn’t know you were handy.”

  “Oh, he’s handy alright,” joked Goober. He pointing his spoon at Winnie, who was busy doing nothing behind the coffee counter. “Ask her yourself.”

  “Good ‘un, Goober!” Winky chortled.

  The two slapped hands in a high-five. Winky turned toward me. His freckled face shifted from silly to serious in the blink of an eye.

  “You know Val, I can fix purty-near anything with a pocketknife or a roll a duck tape.”

  “You mean duct tape,” I corrected.

  “That’s what I just said,” Winky huffed. His ruddy face tinged a shade pinker. “Get the cotton’s balls outta yore ears.”

  “Yeah, Ace Face over here was an auto mechanic until things got all computerized,” Goober explained. “Ain’t that right, buddy?”

  “Yep,” Winky nodded solemnly, then grinned. “I don’t know nothing about no mother boards. Less’n you count the one my momma used to beat me on the hind-end with.”

  I sniggered despite myself. “What did you do for a living, Goober?”

  Goober took the dull silver spoon out of his mouth and laid it on the table. He twitched his lips, causing his bushy moustache to undulate like a furry, brown caterpillar.

  “Drove a cab, mostly. Up in New York City. But then they found out I spoke English and had a good sense of direction. That was the end of that.”

  “Ha ha,” I said dryly. “I heard you moved downtown. How do you like it?”

  “I could get used to walls and indoor plumbing again.” Goober smoothed an errant whisker with his thumb and forefinger

  “So, where’s your new place?”

  “I prefer to remain anonymous of domicile, Val. Besides, you’ve already got a boyfriend. Obviously.”

  The two men grinned at each other like hyenas at a fresh kill.

  “What do you mean, obviously?”

  They broke into a wave of raucous laughter. It echoed dully off the restaurant’s greasy, brown-paneled walls.

  “What’s so funny?” I demanded.

  My question set them off laughing again.

  “Come on. Tell me!”

  Goober raised a finger, tried to speak, then cracked up laughing. Winky finally managed to utter a few words between hillbilly hoots and guffaws.

  “Val…your…gaul-dang…shirt’s…on…inside…out!”

  Chapter Five

  I left Water Loo’s in a huff. I was totally peeved at the men in my life. Ha ha ha. The joke was always on me. Jerks! And not one of them had brought me a birthday present! It wasn’t like I’d expected something nice from the gang, but come on? Not even a chocolate bar? Tom hadn’t given me a gift either. Not unless I was counting that couch. And believe me, I wasn’t!

  I mashed Maggie’s gas pedal to the floorboard. She blew out a cloud of bu
ilt-up carbon. I turned the radio on full blast. It drowned-out the obscenities I hurled at the sunburnt tourists shuffling along Gulf Boulevard. I was madder than my cousin Tammy when the new stylist at Beauty Belles botched her haircut right before her fifth wedding.

  I desperately needed an unsuspecting target to unload my frustrations on. One that couldn’t talk back. A thought hit me like a hammer between the eyes.

  That shitty sofa. That damn thing was going to get the cleaning of its life!

  I’d have chucked that piece of crap sofa yesterday if I hadn’t needed it for the party. I’d ordered a new couch weeks ago. It was supposed to have arrived on my birthday. But while I was unpacking my stuff from Maggie’s backseat, I’d gotten a call from Couches Today. The delivery had been delayed for another week. Couches Today? What a joke! They ought to call that place Couches Some Day – no – Couches Maybe Some Day. Geeze! I was in such a bad mood I couldn’t even make a joke!

  I squealed up the driveway and slammed on the brakes. Tom’s silver 4Runner was gone. Good. There would be no witnesses. Bring it on, sofa.

  I marched into the house. My sandals skittered across the floor as I kicked them loose. My purse sailed across the room, grazed the armchair, belched its contents across the terrazzo floor, slammed against the wall and sank to the floor like a punched-out drunk. I snatched the lumpy brown cushions off the couch, pushed the sliding glass backdoor open with my bare foot and flung each one into a heap on top of a plastic lounge chair. I grabbed my weapon of choice from the kitchen. Dust plumed like a mushroom cloud with every whack of broom-straw on corduroy.

  I was almost done pulverizing the first cushion when I heard someone call my name.

  “Hi Val!”

  I glanced sideways from my frenzy like a disrupted serial killer. My horse-faced neighbor Laverne was in her backyard, waving at me. This time she was fully clothed…in a shiny gold lame robe and matching heels. At least I had that gift to be grateful for. I waved back half-heartedly.

  “Wanna cup of coffee?” she yelled from the low picket fence dividing our properties.

  “I’m kinda busy,” I yelled back.

  I raised the broom and whacked a shit-brown cushion for emphasis.

  “You should always take time to stop and smell the roses.”

  Laverne walked over to the white fence reached out her hand.

  “Here.”

  I let go of my stranglehold on the broom handle. Laverne held out a small bouquet of white, orange and pink roses. I dropped my broom and a little bit of my witchy mood and met her at the fence.

  “Thanks, Laverne.”

  I took the roses from her hand. Inbred Southern guilt crawled up my throat and out of my mouth.

  “Why don’t you come over to my place for a cup of coffee?”

  “Don’t mind if I do!”

  Laverne hiked her robe up to her hips, stepped over the fence with her spray-tan-orange stork legs and followed me inside. She ogled the kitchen with her big donkey eyes while I poured coffee into two huge novelty mugs. Hers read, “World’s Best Something or Other.” Mine read, “I Like Big Cups and I Cannot Lie.”

  “I see your faucet’s leaking.”

  Laverne was sitting at the breakfast bar, staring at the kitchen sink.

  “Yeah.” I shrugged. “Another thing on my to-do list.”

  “Maybe I can help.”

  Before I could object, Laverne jumped up and busied herself jiggling the tap handle. The stainless-steel double sink had a pivoting faucet that swiveled to reach both basins. Laverne swung the spout from one sink to the other, then back again. I kept one eye on her as I searched the fridge for the cream. She was totally tongue-out focused on her task.

  “You take sugar or cream, Laverne?”

  Her eyes shot up at me for a millisecond, then returned to the faucet.

  “Huh? Oh. Neither.”

  “Okay. Here’s your –”

  “Ah ha!” Laverne called out. “I got it!”

  “Got what?”

  “It’s not leaking anymore, see?”

  I looked at the faucet. She was right. No drip, drip, drip. I handed her a mug.

  “What did you do?”

  She set her mug on the counter.

  “Watch.”

  Laverne moved the spout about an inch to the right. The water started dripping again.

  “See? If you move the thingy to five p.m. on the clock dial, it quits leaking.”

  She adjusted the tap again, her tongue sticking out of the corner of her mouth to aid her in her effort.

  “See? No more leaking.”

  “Wow, thanks, Laverne,” I said dryly. “Another problem solved. But tell me again. The position that stopped the leak. Was it five a.m. or five p.m.?”

  “Five p.m., definitely.”

  Laverne sat back and cocked her head proudly.

  “Okay, I’ll try to remember that.” I’ll never forget it as long as I live.

  Laverne’s naïve, cheerful ignorance made me question how she’d survived to such a ripe, old age. To be totally honest, it also made me envious. I was completely devoid of the gene required for Laverne’s brand of happy-go-lucky bounciness. I wondered what life must be like for people like her – those lucky individuals who were never bothered by the need to ponder the reason for anything. I couldn’t seem to escape questioning everything – from the purpose of my existence to why a grown-ass man wouldn’t buy me a decent birthday gift.

  “You okay in there, sugar?”

  My attention shot back to the room. Laverne was staring at me like a mother donkey.

  “Oh, sure. I was just wondering, Laverne. How’d you learn to be so…handy?”

  “Oh. I was a Vegas showgirl!”

  As if that explained everything.

  ***

  The house I inherited wasn’t, in itself, much to look at. It was just a single-story, concrete-block box with terrazzo floors, an open living room, dining room, kitchen area, two bedrooms and one small bathroom. But the location was a whole different story. After Laverne left, I went outside to gather up the battered remains of the sofa cushions. As I reached for the last one, a boat horn sounded. I looked up and was reminded that my backyard had a breathtaking panorama of the nearly always sunny and sparkling Intracoastal Waterway.

  When I’d first gotten the house, the backyard had been a garbage dump. Literally. But after all the junked appliances, broken windows, garbage bags and dead cars had been hauled away, a whole new perspective had come into view. Even now, with nothing but weeds and bald patches of sand for landscaping, the seascape was spectacular. The only thing blocking my wide-open water vista was Glad’s old Minnie Winnie RV. It remained, still parked, flat-tired, in its little patch of weeds. I just couldn’t bear to part with it.

  From where I stood, the wide, turquoise waterway sparkled like diamonds in the sunlight. Small, wooden docks jutted out along the saltwater inlet like teeth on a sawfish’s boney nose. Along both sides, modest homes in pastel hues made the waterway feel more like a cozy, liquid lane, with boats replacing cars parked along its edges. The overall effect was, ironically, both expansive and cozy. I stopped dead in my tracks and drank it in for a moment. Lavern was right. It does pay to stop and smell the roses.

  When I hauled the sofa cushions back into the house, an odor punched me in the nose. It wasn’t roses. It emanated from the area around the couch, and smelled like a dead frog’s fart. I dropped the cushions on the floor and peered under the sofa. Nothing. I climbed onto the cushion-less frame and felt around in the crevices where the bottom of the couch met the back. I came up with three pennies, a plastic spoon and a laundry token. I tried the space by the right armrest. My fingertips detected something wedged in the crack. I curled my fingers around it and pulled it out.

  It was about the size and shape of a hotdog. Whatever it was, it was wrapped in a white handkerchief. I unfolded the cloth and stared, open mouthed, at a gold ring engraved with the initials WH. It was still encircli
ng a bloated, grey, human finger.

  Chapter Six

  It was a little late in life, but I’d just discovered another thing that made me scream like a little girl.

  “Calm down, Val!” Tom said over the phone. “Put it in a jar with some ice.”

  “Are you out of your mind? I’m not touching that thing!”

  Bitter bile surged up my throat. I wretched.

  “We need to preserve the evidence,” Tom said in his cop voice.

  “Then I suggest you come over and do it!”

  I clicked off the phone and ran toward the bathroom. I high-jumped past the area in the living room where I’d flung the finger away in horror. I locked the bathroom door and dry-heaved into the toilet. I stuffed a towel under the door, in case that horrible finger came back to life and tried to inch its way after me.

  The logical part of my brain knew that the whole idea of a reanimated finger was irrational. The scared-witless part didn’t give a flying crap what my rational part knew. I needed to keep my feet off the floor and away from that finger! I squatted on top of the pink toilet-seat lid and remained perched there, like a frozen pigeon, until I heard the door creak open and a familiar voice call my name.

  “Val? Where are you?”

  “In here, Tom!” I called from behind the bathroom door. “I’m not coming out until you deal with…it!”

  “Roger that.”

  Tom burst out laughing.

  “It’s not funny!”

  “I’m not laughing at the finger, Val.”

  “Well, you better not be laughing at me, or you’re going to get another kind of finger!”

  Tom laughed again.

  “I’m on it, Miss Marple.”

  The panicked horror that had gripped me for the last fifteen minutes like a popsicle in King Kong’s fist suddenly thawed and sent me tumbling off the toilet. I grabbed the towel bar on my way down and snatched it off the wall. We both fell to the floor with a clattering thud. Tom was at the door in an instant. He tried the knob, but it was locked. I wasn’t taking any chances with that finger.