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

by Margaret Lashley

“Officer Hans Jergen. Come with me.”

  “Am I…under arrest?” I asked.

  He turned his icy eyes on me. “Should you be?”

  “No! I…I just don’t know what’s going on here.”

  “Just routine questioning. Nothing to fear – if you’re not guilty, that is.”

  If his words were meant to reassure me, which I doubted, they had the opposite effect. I followed Officer Jergen into a small, eight-by-eight room with a beat-up metal table and two hard, bare-steel chairs. He motioned for me to sit in the chair furthest from the door. I grimaced. I wish I had some Ty-D-Bol to wipe the chair down. I swallowed, closed my eyes and lowered my haunches onto the seat that was still warm from the butt-cheeks of god-only-knows who.

  Officer Jergen didn’t sit. He hovered, instead, like an angry ape, supporting his body on two white-knuckled fists. They pressed down hard on the metal table like frozen punches to the gut.

  “So, Ms. Fremden, I recall from the report that human remains were found in your domicile.”

  “Uh. Yes. A finger to be exact.”

  His ice-blue eyes were mere slits, but I could still see they harbored something just short of menace.

  “Would you say this is a common occurrence in your place of residence?”

  “What? No!”

  “Have you been involved in any other cases of missing persons, or missing body parts?”

  “No!”

  “I urge you to tell the truth now, Ms. Fremden. “Any lies will be uncovered during my investigation. That won’t play well for you later.”

  “I’m telling the truth. I swear!”

  My words sounded weak, as if I doubted them myself. A trickle of sweat slid down my back.

  “So tell me. How did this finger come to be in your possession, Ms. Fremden?”

  “It wasn’t really in my possession….”

  “You were the one to find it, correct?”

  “Yes….”

  “In your house, correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then, Ms. Fremden, it was in your possession.”

  “Well, if you put it that way –”

  “I do. And I find it very suspicious that you would find a body part among your household furnishings. A couch, correct?”

  I nodded. “But it was in the alley –”

  “Yes, I’ve read your report,” he barked, cutting me off. “Still, I find it highly unusual. Very convenient that the couch was out of your jurisdiction just long enough for someone to slip in a dismembered finger.”

  “Well, that’s the way…it was.” My voice faltered. I fought not to burst into tears. Did he really think I was a criminal? What an asshole!

  “Who else had access to this couch at the time?”

  My mind raced around aimlessly, like a headless chicken. Was I supposed to know the answer? Three cats? A possum? A sleepy bum?

  “Uh…anybody who went down the alley, officer. That’s what I was trying to tell –”

  “For your information, finding a finger isn’t, in itself, a crime, Ms. Fremden.” Officer Jergen’s jaw tightened to sinew. “But murder and dismemberment of a corpse is. No disfigured body has turned up as of yet. So I can’t hold you. But you best be advised, I’ve got my eye on you.”

  I blinked hard and looked at the door to the tiny room.

  “Can I…can I go now?”

  “Like I said, I can’t hold you at present. But that could change at any moment. You’re free to go. But don’t leave town.”

  I tried to stand but my knees buckled. A slight smirk curled the corner of Officer Jergen’s lips. It reminded me of my German ex, Friedrich. A sickening, helpless feeling flashed through me, followed by a surge of determined hutzpah. I wasn’t about to give this man the satisfaction of knowing he’d gotten to me. I took a deep breath and willed myself into Valliant Stranger mode. I set my jaw firm and stood up. I left ice-cold Officer Hans Jergen in that grimy little interrogation room without saying goodbye.

  But then again, neither did he.

  Chapter Nine

  “Hans Jergen? That guy’s an asshole!” groused Tom. “He’s the cop assigned to the case?”

  “Yeah.” I stepped aside to let my good cop in the front door. “And I agree. He’s an asshole, alright.”

  Tom took off his gun holster. “What did he do?”

  “Well, nothing specific. He just acted like a jerk. Like he already knew I was guilty. He thinks I had something to do with it – with cutting the guy’s finger off. Maybe even killing him! He said he’d be waiting for a body to turn up. And that he ‘had his eye on me, and I better not leave town.’”

  “Shit.” Tom put his gun and holster on top of the refrigerator, then opened the door and pulled out a beer. “Want one?”

  “Yeah. Thanks. What’s the deal with that jerk, anyway?”

  “He’s the son of the Chief of Police, Franz Jergen,” Tom explained. He handed me a can of beer. “That makes him a real stickler for protocol. He’s got something to prove, even if no one else cares but him and his uptight old man.”

  “Really?” I pulled the tab on the Fosters. “The attitude I got from him…well, it didn’t seem like protocol. It seemed more personal to me.”

  Tom looked away and licked his lips. When he looked back at me he was biting down hard on his bottom lip. I knew what that meant. It was Tom’s “I don’t want to tell,” tell.

  “What is it, Tom?” I took a sip of beer and kept an eye on his face.

  Tom blew out a breath. “He and I have some bad blood together.”

  “What?”

  “Val, I don’t make a habit of asking you for favors, but I’m asking for one now. Just let that answer be enough, okay?”

  ***

  I woke up dead tired. I’d slept alone, but Tom’s secret had stayed the night and played ping-pong with my mind until nearly 3 a.m. It would’ve been so much better if he’d just told me a lie. At least then my restless mind would’ve had something to focus on. Instead, I’d found myself imagining all kinds of ridiculous scenarios. Hans Jergen slept with Tom’s ex-wife. No. Tom ran over Hans’ dog. No. Tom and Hans were once lovers. No. Hans had an affair with Tom’s dog….

  I’d never thought of Tom as a man with a shady past. With his meticulously ironed clothes and smooth-shaven good looks, I’d fancied him as a kind of blond Mr. Clean, wholesome inside and out. Not knowing Tom’s “deep dark secret” ate away at my ability to think like a pitcher of Long Island iced teas.

  I was in the kitchen trying to put together a grocery list, but even fortified with two huge cups of coffee, I couldn’t get past item one – Ty D Bol. I recalled the time Tom had blindsided me before, when he’d neglected to mention that his “friend” at the forensics lab was his bombshell-gorgeous ex-wife. I wondered what else he had conveniently forgotten to clue me in on.

  Arrgh! There was only one way to tame the vicious gerbil running circles to nowhere inside my skull. I needed some serious chocolate therapy. The big guns. It was time for a trip to Chocolateers.

  I tore the one-item list from my notebook and slipped it into my purse. I ran a brush through my wavy brown hair, locked the front door behind me and slid sideways onto the red, fake-leather bucket seat behind Maggie’s steering wheel. I turned the ignition and hit the gas. The vintage Ford’s twin glass packs rumbled like a pack of angry, ’roid-raged bears.

  ***

  Downtown St. Pete was the kind of gritty-yet-trendy city center that suited both the ambitious and the artistic. Gleaming glass buildings towered over tiny, single-story shopfronts straight out of Main Street, circa 1930. Cracked sidewalks and red-brick alleyways led to walls adorned with amazing, hip murals, smelly dumpsters, and drunken derelicts. Chic new vegan restaurants sprouted up next to junk shops disguised as antique dealers, both doomed to die in the toxic fog of capitalistic disinterest. Still, somehow, one thing – no, two things – seemed to always prosper in any socioeconomic environment; coffee houses and chocolate shops.

/>   Addiction was never short of admirers. I was living proof. My brain worked better with a caffeine or anandamide buzz, and I was Jonesin’ for some chocolate, big time.

  When I needed a coffee fix, Brew’delicious had my vote. I loved the friendly baristas at the cozy wooden bar and the homey, eclectic hodgepodge of couches and chairs where patrons could sit and sip as long as they pleased. But when it came to cocoa beans, I was pulled like a mating-season salmon toward the stream of dark, rich heaven known as Chocolateers.

  Both shops were on Central Avenue. Chocolateers was closer to Beach Drive, wedged between an Irish pub and one of those new cigar bars that seemed to be popping up everywhere like pimples on a fat man’s ass. Personally, I didn’t get it. Cigar smoke was the best woman repellant ever invented. It wasn’t as if the men frequenting those places needed another reason for women to avoid them.

  As I walked by Cigar Daddy’s, I was forced to pass one of their customers puffing it up at a sidewalk table. Rotund and revolting, the man could have run a comb through the hair growing out of his nose and ears. His mint-green Nehru shirt had reached maximum capacity long ago, and could no longer span the girth of his huge beer belly. As I walked by him, he nailed me in the face with a lungful of smoke that smelled like a cherry fart.

  I stared at him in disgust. Really? My copywriter brain kicked in. Come and get it, ladies! Fat, greasy, ham-fisted troll – now with extra stink! I battled my way through his miserable cloud of screw you and slipped inside Chocolateers.

  If there really was such a thing as Nirvana or Heaven, it had better include chocolate or I’m not going. I felt my pupils dilate as I stared at the exquisite dollops of dark- and milk-chocolate delicacies arranged in precise rows and tidy boxed sets. Like puppies at a rescue center, I wanted to take all of them home with me. But like I’ve said before, I couldn’t be trusted alone with chocolate.

  “So, what’s it going to be today, Val?” asked the thin man in a white apron and chef’s hat.

  “The usual, Jack.”

  I drooled over a stack of peanut clusters and debated whether I should be happy or embarrassed to be on a first-name basis with the proprietor.

  “Two dark-chocolate-covered cherries coming up.”

  Jack reached a slim hand toward a stack of small, white paper bags, then hesitated. He looked over at me. His friendly face asked a question to which he already knew the answer.

  “Just hand ‘em over,” I said.

  I shoved a five-dollar bill across the counter.

  Jack grinned. “Why do I always feel like a dirty drug dealer when you come in?”

  I shot him a jaded sneer.

  “Because you are, Jack. You’re the gaul-dang chocolate pusher-man.”

  Jack nodded apologetically.

  “Well, I have to admit it, Val. You do look like you just got a fix every time you pop those cherries in your mouth.”

  “You of all people should know, Jack. Great chocolate fixes everything.”

  I picked up the cherries. Jack watched me intently from the corner of his eye. He knew from experience that looking head-on at what was coming next would be too much for him to bear.

  I crammed both chocolate-covered, liquid-centered globs of ecstasy into my mouth. Jack blanched. He waved goodbye and I slipped out the door. I concentrated on the yummy flavors as I ran past Cigar Daddy’s and its patrons’ smelly, yellow haze of disgust and desperation.

  ***

  Meeting my chocolate dealer had placed me just a few blocks from the convenience store-cum-drunkard’s paradise called Detroit Liquors. During my first year back in the States, this humble little shop had earned a huge place in my heart. It was the only shop within walking distance of my old apartment, so it was there where I was first introduced to Fosters beer. Along with malt liquor, cigarettes and condoms, “The Deet” sold Fosters in shiny silver cans as big as my head. After seven years abroad, I’d returned home in need of a friend. Fosters had been the first one to meet my criteria; it was cheap, easy to get along with, and it never talked back.

  My list of friends had grown a bit over the last year and a half. The party I’d thrown a few days ago was a good reminder of it – but it also put to mind the fact that I could use a few women friends. At any rate, my birthday festivities had me running low on beer and Tanqueray. I decided to walk down to The Deet and pick up a six pack and a pint.

  I crossed the street and window-shopped the row of glass storefronts along the way. One shop advertised huge glass jars of olives and olive oil. Another window displayed gourmet cupcakes topped with spring flowers piped in bright green and yellow icing. Abby’s Shabby Chic was crammed with old furniture painted white to look new, then the edges rubbed off to look old again.

  Because it was designed near the turn of the century, every city block in downtown St. Pete was divided in half by a brick-paved service alley. I crossed the alley half a block from The Deet and looked up from my cellphone. A tall, bald guy was walking in my direction, pushing a baby stroller up the dumpster-lined side street. Hee waved. I took a closer look. It was Goober. I stopped and waited for him.

  “What’s up with the stroller?”

  “Hitting all the known vices today, I see.”

  I eyed him with a tinge of suspicion.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Come on. Chocolate drool and The Deet?”

  I frowned and wiped the corners of my mouth with the tips of my thumb and forefinger. Goober grinned and gave me a quick nod. My face was clean.

  “Thanks. So, what are you doing with a baby stroller?”

  “You mean BOB? I’m working on my next avocation.”

  “What happened to Le Fartomane?”

  “Le Petomane,” Goober corrected.

  He shook his deeply tanned, peanut-shaped head.

  “Tsk. Tsk. How soon the fartiste is forgotten.”

  I blew out a big sigh. “Well? Why did you quit?”

  “I didn’t. I got shut down.”

  Goober glanced up and down the alley. He leaned in closer toward me. He pushed down on the stroller until it creaked under his weight.

  “Damn shame, too. I was just getting good at it. Yesterday some cop came by. Said he was getting complaints and that I was disturbing the peace. ‘Unsanitary insanity,’ he called it. Bastard! One little technical difficulty and I’m out on my ass.” Goober blew out a big sigh. “Another budding career brought down by a bad burrito.”

  I blanched and recoiled involuntarily. I willed myself to think of rows of pretty chocolates, puppies playing in the park, smelly guys with cigars – anything but the image trying to force its way to the surface of my mind like a beach ball trapped underwater.

  “So what’s with the baby stroller?” I asked yet again, desperate for a diversion.

  “Guy’s gotta make a living.”

  “What about the money I gave you?”

  “A pack of dogs ate it.”

  “By dogs, he means a pack of greyhounds,” Jorge said from behind me.

  I turned around. Jorge’s hair and the aviator sunglasses on top of his head gleamed the same blue-black in the glaring sun. He appeared relatively sober, considering it was already almost noon. He shot me a rare glimpse in the eye, then studied my sandals.

  “Greyhounds?” I asked.

  “Derby Lane.”

  Jorge shot a glance at Goober. He smoothed his moustache with his thumb and forefinger, then wiggled his bushy upper lip back and forth, settling the hairy beast back in place.

  “Yeah, yeah,” said Goober. “Nothing to worry about, Val. I’ve got a new place to live and another idea in the works. See? I found this premo baby stroller in the alley. A BOB sport utility model. A beaut, isn’t she?”

  I eyed the stroller. It looked like an overgrown tricycle with handlebars over the back wheels. With its fat rubber tires, rugged stainless steel body and thick canvas seat, it appeared to have been built to withstand a lunar landing.

  “It’s the SUV of baby tran
sportation,” boasted Goober proudly.

  “It’s busted,” I said.

  “Yeah, the front axle’s bent to hell,” agreed Goober. “But Winky says he can fix it for me.”

  “What are you going to do with it, Goober? I hate to be the one to break it to you, but nobody’s going to trust you with their baby.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Val.”

  Goober shot me a look of pity for my pathetic ignorance.

  “I’m talking about a new customer service here – something totally outside the playpen, sore to speak.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You know all those people you see pushing their dogs around in strollers?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, I’m the new dog taxi. Specializing in pampered pooches. I was thinking about calling it Goober Dog.”

  I raised my eyebrows in astonishment. “That’s so bizarre it might actually work.”

  “It better,” said Jorge. “Goober lost all his money and his job on Beach Drive.”

  “Bastards. I wasn’t panhandling. I was offering a legitimate entertainment venue in exchange for charitable donations.”

  I rolled my eyes. “I’m sure you can get your spot back –”

  “Venues aren’t as easy to come by as you think Val. The busker community can be vicious. I’d been lucky that a place had opened up when it did.”

  “Who had it before?”

  “Some guitar player, I think.”

  “What happened to him?”

  Goober shrugged. “Who the hell knows?”

  “Do you know a lot of guys out here, Goober? Panha…uh…buskers, I mean?”

  “I’m making a name in the community. Why?”

  “Well, I might need your help finding someone. The guy who helped Tom load my couch onto his 4Runner.”

  “Sure. What did he look like?”

  “I…I don’t know.”

  Goober shot me a wry look. “Well, that certainly narrows it down.”

  Chapter Ten

  Of all the things I’d dreamed of doing when I was a little kid, toting around a picture of a dead finger wasn’t one of them. Probably because I’m a girl.