Another Saturday Night and I Ain't Got No Body (A Page Turners Novel)

Copyri
ght © Jennie Marts
, 2012. All rights reserved

KINDLE EDITION

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

ISBN-13:
 
978-1480211384
 
ISBN-10:
 
1480211389

Cover and book design by

THE KILLION GROUP

www.thekilliongroupinc.com

1

The recipe for disaster began innocently enough with a phone call during a lazy summer morning while Sunny Vale sat on the sofa reading a book. Throw in a dash of dramatic eighty-year-old woman with a fondness for reality crime television, and mix with a midnight arrival of one hunky stranger. Spice it up with an automatic weapon, and the disaster entrée was nearly complete.

“Edna, are you sure it was a gun?” Sunny asked, used to her neighbor’s tendency to exaggerate. She was anxious to get back to her latest romance novel and the bag of Cheetos she was munching on before the phone rang
.

“Yes, Sunny, of course I’m sure,” her neighbor replied. “I might be old, but I never miss a CSI. I’m telling you, I saw a man, with a gun, breaking into Walter’s house last night!”

“Okay, I’m listening.” Sunny licked the orange dust from her fingertips, and set her book on the coffee table. She looked longingly at the cover photo of the muscular, bare-chested pirate who held a sword in one hand and a raven-haired beauty in the other, her well-endowed bosom bursting from her corseted bodice. Heaving a boringly B-cupped sigh, she half-wished Edna really had seen a gorgeous gun-toting stranger. He might add some much needed excitement to her ordinary life. Not that teaching second graders how to read and write didn’t have exciting moments, but it sure didn’t compare to an affair with a sword-wielding pirate
.

“Why were you up in the middle of the night anyway?” Sunny asked, now resigned to hear the whole story. So far, her Saturday morning consisted of coffee, Cheetos, and fantasizing about a pirate fling. Edna’s story could only add one more facet to her exciting day.

“Because of that damn pepperoni pizza we ate last night. I got up around midnight and was looking out my kitchen window, chewing on some Maalox, when I saw this dark-colored sports car pull up in front of Walter’s house,” Edna said, referring to the house that sat between them. “Then this scruffy haired young punk climbed out and stretched like he’d been driving for a long time.”

“Young, like a teenager?” 

“No, young like you. Mid-thirties or so.” Everyone seemed young to Edna, who had just celebrated her eightieth birthday by learning the Samba and going on a singles cruise. “Anyway, after he stretches, he reaches into the car and pulls out a duffel bag, then a gun that he tucked into the waistband of his jeans. Which, by the way, he filled out quite nicely.”

Sunny chuckled as she pictured Edna in her robe and favorite pink, fuzzy slippers, the words Sassy and Girl embroidered on each in glittery silver lettering. She imagined her, peering out her kitchen window, her tongue working the chalky antacid from her teeth, as she checked out a hunky, mysterious stranger’s arrival in the middle of the night. “So, did Walter let in this young, gun-wielding punk with the nice tush?” 

“No, that’s just it. Walter wasn’t even there. This guy snooped around the house and garage then found Walter’s hide-a-key by the front door and let himself in. And this morning, his car is gone, like he was never even there.”

“Maybe Walter knew he was coming and told him to let himself in.” Sunny shifted to pull her legs free from under Beau, her golden retriever, who was lying across them on the sofa. Both her legs and the dog were asleep, and Sunny and Beau each groaned as she stood and headed for the kitchen.

“I doubt it,” Edna said. “I got to thinking about it and realized I haven’t seen Walter in days. Have you?”

Now that Edna mentioned it, Sunny couldn’t remember the last time she had seen their mutual neighbor. Walter’s wife, Betty, died several years ago, and he seemed to finally be adjusting to life as a bachelor. He was an avid gardener and still quite fit for a man in his late seventies. The big white door to the garage behind his house often stood open all day, the radio set to an oldies station, as he putzed around the yard or tinkered at fixing one thing or another.

With the school year ending for summer, Sunny hadn’t paid much attention, but she couldn’t recall the last time she had noticed the garage door open. “I don’t think I’ve seen him lately, either. Not even working in his yard.”

“We usually have coffee once a week or so, but this last week I was so busy with those new Italian cooking classes, I never found the time. And now this strange guy lets himself into Walter’s house. I just know there’s something fishy going on here.” Edna’s voice climbed up an octave.

Sunny rinsed her coffee cup in the kitchen sink as she studied Walter’s house. The yellow and white ranch style home looked peaceful, the gardens full of colorful flowers reaching for the June morning sun. A sudden movement caught her eye as a figure emerged from the corner of the house and stooped to look into Walter’s front window.

“Edna, get away from that window!” Sunny cried, knocking on the kitchen pane.

Edna jumped and dropped the cell phone she had pressed to her ear as she looked over at Sunny, a startled expression on her face. “Gosh dangit, I dropped the phone.”

Edna’s voice sounded muffled as she bent to search through Walter’s petunias. She didn’t even have the gall to look guilty.

“Get out of Walter’s flowerbeds!” Sunny yelled. Edna reached down and plucked the phone off the ground. She waved it at Sunny with a triumphant shake before putting it back against her ear.

“Edna, what are you doing over there?”

“I’m trying to gather evidence,” she explained, as if Sunny were the ridiculous one versus the woman spying into her neighbor’s window like a wrinkled, geriatric Nancy Drew. “His car is in the garage so he might be in there, hurt or bound and gagged.”

“Well, what are
you
gonna do if he is
?
Break down the door
?
Get out of there. You’re trampling Walter’s flowers. I’m sure he’s fine.”

“Humph.”

Sunny heard the older woman’s grumble and imagined the eye roll that accompanied it, but Edna did get out of the flowers and start back to her own yard.

“I’m heading to the grocery store,” Sunny told her, ready to move on from this ridiculous notion of a neighborhood break-in by a gun-toting hunk. “Do you need me to pick up anything for you?”
A fingerprint kit, a secret decoder ring, a sane thought, perhaps?

“No honey, I’m fine. I just went yesterday,” she replied. “But keep an eye out for this mystery guy and call me if you see Walter.”

“I will.” Sunny slipped on her flip-flops and noticed her purple toenail polish was starting to chip. So there
was
something to look forward to on a Saturday night, a home pedicure
.

“I’ll see you at book club Wednesday night,” Edna said, referring to The Pleasant Valley Page Turners, aptly named for their small Colorado town nestled against the foothills of the Rocky Mountains.

“Great. I’ve almost finished the book. See you then.” Sunny clicked off, grabbed her purse, and headed out the door. On the drive to the grocery store, she planned her shopping list in her head: milk, bread, eggs, more Cheetos, a bunch of Lean Cuisines, chocolate-chip cookie dough ice cream. That about covered it.

She had her cart half-full (or half-empty because she didn’t have the ice-cream yet) when she spied a new product in the frozen food section. Opening the freezer door, she grabbed a couple bags of Mandarin Orange Chicken. Yum. She flipped the top bag over to check the calorie content, but the top had split open, and the entire package of small chicken chunks scattered across the floor. She stood stock still for a moment, and prayed no one saw or heard the chicken nugget explosion.

“Some people take them home before they open them,” a voice behind her said.

Oh, crud.
Sunny slowly turned around as she let the freezer door close with a
thwap
.

“The package was already opened,” she said to, of course, a super-cute guy with an Owen Wilson style head of dark blond hair. Why couldn’t she have flung chicken pieces at an old lady or a pimply teenager?

“Let me help.” He scooted several chicken nuggets under the freezer with his foot. “I think I’m your only witness,” he whispered and grinned.