No Such Thing As a Good Blind Date: A Brandy Alexander Mystery (No Such Thing As: A Brandy Alexander Mystery)

This book is a work of fiction. People, places, events, and situations
are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual
persons, living or dead, or historical events, is purely coincidental.

©2006 Shelly Fredman. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in
a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means
without the written permission of the author.

Printed in the United States of America
Bloomington, Indiana

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

Digital book(s) (epub and mobi) produced by: Kimberly A. Hitchens,
[email protected]

I would like to express my utmost gratitude to the following people:

Dudley Fetzer— Master of the one-liners. Thank you for being the yin to my yang, the cream in my coffee, the…well, you get the idea.

Corey Rose Fetzer—You are always right on target about what a scene needs and your (sometimes brutally honest) opinions are just what I need to do my best work.

Marty Schatz—I’m so grateful that you peruse the newspapers for quirky articles. Without you, I’d have no plotline!

Bruce Gram—Since I don’t know a period from a comma, I’m sure glad you do. Thank you for all the time you spent going over the text. It was so very appreciated.

Caleb Fetzer—One heck of a brother-in-law. Thank you for giving me Toodie.

Susan Jaye—Thank you for getting out there and spreading the word. Your friendship means the world to me.

Renée Greidinger—My emotional rock and keeper of the memories—Thank you for always listening to me and for keeping me in a steady supply of chocolate TastyKake cupcakes.

Judith Kristen—(AKA my wonderful pal Judy) author extraordinaire and God’s gift to teenagers—I don’t know what I’d do without your support.

Franny Fredman—Simply the best mom anyone could hope for. I love you, kiddo.

And to: Bergundi Silva, Kris Zuercher and Michelle Warren—my new friends—thank you all for making me laugh, supporting my work and sharing your lives with me.

I’d also like to thank Marilu Coleman, Sharon Ayers, Kathleen Berryhill, Dawn Freeman and Angie Shearin for taking a chance on a new writer.

For my mom

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

About the Author

My name is Brandy Alexander and I am a recently reinstated native of South Philadelphia; more specifically, the proud new owner of the house I grew up in. Until five weeks ago I was the “puff piece reporter” for a local morning TV news show, out in Los Angeles. My job was to act perky and look like I was having the time of my life while reporting on “special events” around the L.A. area. There’s really only so much enthusiasm a person can whip up for the Pacoima Chili Cook-off and the job fell a tad short of my dream of becoming the next Diane Sawyer, but it kept me off the streets and out of debt.

I’d left Philadelphia for the most clichéd of reasons—a broken heart. (I’m a firm believer in running away from one’s problems. It’s a great strategy, right up there with denial. Plus, it’s the only exercise I get.) You’d think that my four year stay in the land of a million therapists would have taught me to confront my feelings head-on, but as my dad would say, I’m a tenacious little bugger. I stick with my game plan no matter how dysfunctional.

Then one day my best friend, Franny DiAngelo, called to say she was getting married, and there was a bridesmaid’s dress down at Mama Mia’s Bridal Shop with my name on it. She had launched a pre-emptive strike and there was no way I could refuse her. So with much trepidation I packed up my emotional baggage and hopped a plane to Philly.

I didn’t even realize how much I’d missed my hometown until I was back in the heart of it. My brother and my best friends in the world all still lived in the neighborhood. PrimoHoagies still made amazing hoagies, and the crazy guy in the top hat who sells Italian ice on Market Street still remembered that my favorite flavor is cherry.

My career in Los Angeles was stalled in the 6:00 a.m. “filler” slot of a third rate news station. My social life was non-existent, since I’d gone on a grand total of six dates in the entire time I’d lived out there. I missed the sights, the smells and the sounds of my neighborhood. I missed who I was and how I felt being surrounded by the people I love.

In the two weeks I’d been back in Philly, I had reconciled my differences with (if not my feelings for) my ex-boyfriend and could finally take a walk down memory lane without bursting into tears. In short, the time was ripe for a change. So when my parents announced they were selling our family home and moving to Florida, it seemed like the most natural thing in the world to buy the house from them. My boss at the TV station argued that it wasn’t very mature of a twenty-eight year old to run back to the metaphoric womb, but nobody likes a know-it-all so I decided to ignore her advice. Had she pointed out that the metaphoric womb was over sixty years old, with really bad plumbing, she may have gotten my attention.

“Well, now here’s your problem.” Russell Hannigan, reigning expert on clogged pipes, waved a metallic snakelike object in the air. Speared on the tip sat a soggy oblong wad of cotton.

Eeww.
I blushed in recognition.

“How many times do I gotta tell you women not to throw this crap down the toilet?”

“It’s not mine. I think Mrs. Gentile was in here the other day.” I was not above blaming my geriatric neighbor for anything embarrassing retrieved from the depths of my toilet bowl. “Um, do you mind just throwing that away?”

Russell gave a disgusted shake of his head and tossed the culprit in the trashcan. “Ya know these pipes are ancient. They’re gonna give you a real headache if you don’t replace them.”

I sighed. “How much?”

“It’s gonna cost ya.”

Big surprise.

“Russell, you up there?”

“Yeah, Toodie, come on up.”

Toodie? Toodie Ventura?
I craned my neck over the railing as a lanky, red haired bundle of manic energy bounded up the stairs. Toodie was two years ahead of me in elementary school, the same class as my brother, Paul. By the time I’d graduated high school he was one year behind. Toodie reminded me of an Irish Setter puppy, all arms and legs and big dopey smiles. He laid one on me now and I couldn’t help but smile back.

“Yo, Brandy. I heard you were back in town. Me too.”

Toodie had just returned from an all expense paid vacation, courtesy of the Pennsylvania penal system. He’d been convicted of stalking his ex-girlfriend, Ilene, and burning cigarette holes in the crotches of all her panties as they hung on the line to dry in her back yard.

Toodie’s grandmother was convinced it was all just a big misunderstanding, but the dead rats he’d left in Ilene’s oven, along with the note that read: “Bon Appetit, you fucking bitch. Love, Toodie” cleared up any lingering doubts the judge may have had. Okay, so the “puppy” had a dark side.

Russell cleaned up his tools and headed downstairs. That left just me and Toodie, and I wasn’t sure why he was here in the first place.

“I’m working for Russell now. He needed help with the overflow.” Standing ankle-deep in toilet water, Toodie considered what he’d just said and cracked up.

I helped him mop up and we made our way downstairs. Russell was under the kitchen sink, banging away on the pipes.

“You’ve got a leak the size of Lake Erie. Ya don’t do something about it, it’s gonna ruin the drywall.”

I did a quick mental calculation. Eighty-five bucks an hour plus materials came to more than an out-of-work new homeowner could afford.

“Can’t do it, Russell. At least not until I get a job,” which, at the rate things were going, could be
never.

In the five weeks since I’d been back, I’d been on nine interviews at various news organizations, starting with the most prestigious and slowly working my way down, until yesterday, I found myself answering an ad for a new show called The Nosey Neighbor.

Basically, the job consists of a pair of binoculars and a cheap digital camera with which I’m supposed to spy on people in the neighborhood and catch them in embarrassing situations. Hilarity ensues. I told them I’d think about it and they told me not to wait too long, there’s a real market out there for this kind of stuff.
And there are still people who think we couldn’t possibly be descended from apes.

Toodie hung back as Russell pulled away from the curb. I live in a predominantly Italian neighborhood on a narrow street filled with small, attached houses called row homes. My house is at the end of the block. The mezuzah on the doorjamb reflects my dad’s half of my heritage, while the statue of the Virgin Mary peering out of a second story window represents my mother’s.

Eighty-year-old Doris Gentile and I share a common wall. Mrs. Gentile hates me. It started with the decades-old feud she’s carried on with my mother, over some holiday lawn ornaments. In Mrs. Gentile’s world grudges are transferable and they pick up steam as time goes by.

At the sound of Russell’s van, Mrs. Gentile poked her head outside “to see who was making all that ruckus.” Like there was any doubt in her mind. She sniffed the early December air as if she smelled something distasteful on her shoe and glared down at me. Suddenly her eyes clamped onto Toodie and she furrowed her unibrow in recognition.

“Toodie Ventura, is that you?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Shoo. Shoo!” she scowled, willing him gone with a flick of her wrist.

Toodie remained rooted in place.

“What’s with her?” I asked.

“She’s mad at me because I threw snowballs at her cat when I was six.”

“Oh.”

Mrs. Gentile gave up and slammed her door.

I looked at my watch. I was late for an interview and didn’t have time for small talk, but I didn’t want to appear rude.

“Toodie, it was good to see ya—”

“So Brandy, I was thinking. You need some plumbing repairs and I need a place to stay until my granny gets back from her trip to the Bahamas…”

Oy, I could see where this was heading. “Toodie, why can’t you just stay at her place while she’s gone?”

“She says I can’t stay there alone since I accidentally set her rug on fire with my wood burning set. But that’s just because I was high at the time. I don’t do that shit anymore,” he added, but he didn’t look me in the eye so I wasn’t all that convinced.