Pineapple Hurricane

by Amy Vansant

  He typed.

  That could be anyone.

  Stephanie texted back.

  It’s her.

  Shaking his head, he slipped his phone back into his pocket. The woman in the video could be anyone. Why would Stephanie even bother sharing the clip?

  Maybe Charlotte was right and this was Stephanie’s latest ploy to make him think about her.

  He cocked his head, realizing there was another option he hadn’t considered.

  Maybe she finally lost her mind.

  The bell on his shop door rang as he pulled it open and left, ready to lock up for the hurricane. As he turned to head back to his Jeep, he noticed a blue Ford parked in the lot across the street. Someone or something moved inside, and he found himself unable to look away.

  It couldn’t be.

  Declan pulled the phone from his pocket again and navigated back to the video Stephanie had sent. He studied the blue car and then glanced back up at the one across the street.

  That could be it.

  He couldn’t be sure, but the color and shape matched.

  The car pulled from the parking spot.

  Could it be Jamie? Did she see him spot her?

  Declan sprinted for his Jeep and tossed the backpack of goodies in the passenger seat.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Frank grabbed his hat and Charlotte followed him to the cruiser. Once buckled in, he hit the sirens and the pedal.

  “So spill it,” he said, once they were on the road.

  Realizing how crazy her story would sound, Charlotte decided to say everything out loud without hesitation, like ripping off a Band-Aid.

  “Jamie Moriarty might be out of prison.”

  “What?” Frank turned and scowled at her for so long she felt the need to point his attention back to the road. “What would make you think that? Not that guy who fell off the ladder?”

  “No. Though, I don’t think he fell off a ladder.”

  “I’m well aware. What’s got you thinking about Jamie?”

  “Stephanie says she’s out. She said she talked to her today in her office.”

  Frank’s shoulders dropped an inch and he chuckled. “Whew. You scared me for a minute.”

  “What?”

  “You’re taking Stephanie’s word on this? That wingnut is probably just trying to spook you.”

  “Maybe. But she came to Declan’s house—”

  “There’s your answer right there. She’s making up stories to get closer to Declan.”

  “I’ll admit that’s a possibility. But she didn’t look…normal. She was all disheveled and—” Charlotte searched for the right word. “Scared. She looked genuinely scared.”

  Frank chewed on this information for a minute. Or, he was still trying to get ham out of his teeth. Charlotte couldn’t be sure.

  “I haven’t heard anything. If she broke out, it would be all over the news.”

  “We called the prison. Well, Stephanie did. They said she’s still in her cell, but sent her call directly to the warden, which she thinks is suspicious. Like he’s in on it.”

  Frank shook his head. “Now she has a whole conspiracy theory? I wouldn’t worry.”

  Charlotte watched the cars in front of them part like the red sea as Frank ran through a light. It made her feel better he felt the same way she did.

  Stephanie, up to no good as usual.

  Stephanie had been the one to make the call. Who’s to say she even talked to the prison? She could have made up everything. All the details about the warden being in on it could have been there to distract them from the simple truth that Jamie was still in prison where she was supposed to be. Even her sloppy look could have been part of the lie. And the bit about her mother’s lawyer calling—it could have been anyone calling. She’d probably decided to turn a spam call into more smoke and mirrors.

  Charlotte took a deep, cleansing breath. Maybe, when she had a moment, she’d call the prison and see if they patched her right through to the warden. She looked at Frank.

  “You’re right. She probably did make the whole thing up.”

  “Of course she did,” he said, pulling into The Fairways golf community, the long entrance flanked on either side by golf courses. The Fairways was a ritzy neighborhood with a clubhouse at the end of the approach resembling an antebellum mansion.

  Frank killed his sirens, cruised by the clubhouse and headed down one of the neighborhood roads to park behind an ambulance as EMTs closed the doors.

  “Whaddawe got, Barbara?” Frank asked one of the EMTs as he and Charlotte clambered of the car.

  The woman pulled off her Latex gloves. “Hey, Frank. One dead. Male, seventy-three. Carbon monoxide. Wife went shopping and returned to find him unresponsive in the garage. Looks like he was running his generator with the doors shut.”

  Frank shook his head. “Do people never learn? Every damn hurricane.”

  A small crowd had gathered on the opposite side of the road. Most wore casual clothes, and all looked as if they had a little money, so Charlotte guessed them to be curious neighbors. No one looked unusual, except the few wearing golf attire and holding clubs in their hands. They’d probably wandered off the nearby course when they saw the flashing lights—

  Charlotte’s focus rolled over the crowd, screeching to a halt on a familiar man. Taking a step to the side to afford herself a better view, she spotted his socks through the legs of the other looky-loos—white and pulled up over his calves.

  Charlotte left Frank talking to the EMT and moved through the crowd to approach the man.

  “Jack Canton?”

  The man scowled. “Yes?”

  “You’re Ted’s neighbor.”

  He pointed at her. “You’re the girl from this morning. With the sheriff.”

  “What are you doing here?” she asked.

  He laughed without humor. “I could ask you the same thing. Are you the sheriff’s secretary or something?”

  “No, I’m a private detective.”

  “For who? Ted’s family?”

  “No.” Charlotte felt Jack’s haughty amusement shift toward annoyance. If the conversation continued in the direction it pointed now, she’d never get a straight answer out of him. She did her best to soften her expression. Fitting his assumptions would be the fastest way to make him feel comfortable and herself less threatening.

  “I take notes for Sheriff Marshal sometimes,” she said.

  He seemed to relax and she felt confident she’d transformed herself into a familiar piece, one that fit neatly into the puzzle of his world.

  She continued, easing into the questions she really wanted answered. “Funny to see you again. You heard the ambulance, I guess?”

  He nodded. “I saw the ambulance and we came over to see what was up. We were on the fifth.” He pointed to the golf course behind the dead man’s house.

  She shook her head. “Two dead bodies in one day.”

  “Hm?”

  “This is the second dead body you’re seeing today.”

  He pointed at the house. “This guy’s dead?”

  “Apparently.”

  “Hm. I didn’t see. You’re right. That is weird.” He perked and winked at her. “I should play the lottery.”

  He looked past her and his expression changed to one of confusion. Charlotte followed his gaze to see a dark-haired woman step into a gray sedan to drive away.

  “That’s the woman from this morning,” said Jack.

  “Who?”

  “The little Mexican cleaning lady.”

  Charlotte turned again, but the car was gone. “Are you sure?”

  “Looked like her. Who knows? They all look the same.”

  He laughed and Charlotte’s lip curled.

  Such a terrible person.

  Without announcing his intention to leave, Jack turned and walked toward a golf cart parked ten feet down a blacktop path.

  “John, let’s get back to it,” he called.

  Charlotte frowned.<
br />
  I guess we’re done.

  Another man wearing golf shoes shifted his attention toward the golf cart before peeling from the crowd to join Jack. Jack rolled past the crowd, waving at Charlotte with a sort of half-hearted salute as he headed back to the course.

  Charlotte moved back to Frank.

  “Seems pretty straightforward here,” he said as she approached.

  “I don’t know.”

  Frank looked at her, seeming suddenly tired. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I just saw Jack Canton from this morning.”

  It took Frank a moment to place the name. “The neighbor?”

  She nodded. “He was in the crowd watching. Said he was playing golf and rode over to see what was up.”

  “That’s quite a coincidence.”

  “Exactly what I’m thinking. But that’s not the half of it. He saw the woman who found the body this morning, too.”

  “Here?”

  She nodded. “I didn’t get a good look at her, but he seemed pretty sure.” She recalled his racist comment and decided not to repeat it for Frank.

  “Huh. I suppose you’d like a peek around the scene?” he asked.

  “Don’t you?”

  “Yes. But that’s my job.”

  Charlotte laughed. “I mean, I’m here. I might as well...”

  “Come on.”

  Frank led her up the driveway as the ambulance pulled away and the crowd began to disperse. The dead man’s garage was neat, its edges lined with the usual array of garage things: buckets, re-purposed kitchen cabinets, recycle bins and trash cans. Against one wall sat a stack of water bottles, 24-packs stacked five high and three wide.

  “Water hoarder,” said Charlotte.

  Frank nodded. “I’d say so. He looks like a distributor.”

  Charlotte thought about Gloria and her revenge on the hoarders. The crazy little lady had been out shopping when she arrived at Frank’s.

  But no shopping bags.

  She looked at the water again.

  What if Gloria didn’t go shopping? What if she came here?

  Was she killing people now?

  Charlotte shook her head. The thought was crazy.

  The center of the garage was empty, and Charlotte imagined the Lexus in the driveway was usually parked inside. She guessed the wife had pulled up, opened the garage door from inside the car, saw her husband on the ground and parked.

  Near the garage entrance to the house a gas generator sat beneath an open electrical panel, a red gas can beside it. Directions for the generator were splayed on the ground next to it.

  Charlotte squatted down to read. “Looks like it’s some sort of kit to connect a generator to an electrical panel. You’d think someone handy enough to attempt a job like this would know better than to run a gas generator in a closed area.”

  “You’d think,” said Frank. “People don’t realize how fast they can be overcome and once they’re out, it’s over.”

  Charlotte pointed toward an empty pack of cigarettes sitting on a work bench. “He might have had underlying issues, too.”

  “I saw that.”

  A rattling noise came from the inner door and a second later it opened far enough for a hand to reach out and slap at the garage door control panel on the wall. A white-haired woman peered out, saw them, and gasped. Her eyes were red and puffy.

  “I’m sorry. I thought you were all done,” she said, sniffling. “I just wanted to get rid of these people gawking at the house.”

  “Understood,” said Frank, but his eyes were on the garage switch. “The door didn’t close.”

  “What?”

  “Can you hit that button again?”

  The woman did. Nothing happened.

  Frank looked at the work bench and spotted a rag. He picked it up and put it between his fingers and the garage button’s panel to pop it open. The space where a battery should sit was empty.

  “Did you know the battery was missing?” he asked.

  “No.” The woman seemed confused. “I just hit it this morning when I went food-shopping and it worked fine.”

  “You were food-shopping?” Frank nodded to the mountain of plastic water bottles. “You look like you’re pretty well stocked already.”

  The woman frowned. “There’s a hurricane coming.”

  Frank continued. “Can you think of any reason your husband would’ve removed the battery?”

  “I don’t see it anywhere,” said Charlotte scanning the workbench and other flat surfaces nearby.

  “I guess it died,” she said.

  Frank pointed to the door the woman held open. “Was that door locked when you came through just now?”

  She glanced at the knob on which her hand rested. “It was. That’s strange.”

  “You didn’t try to go in that way when you found your husband?”

  She shook her head. “No. I ran out front screaming for help and then ran in the front door. We leave it open most of the time. It’s a nice neighborhood.”

  Frank reached up and pinched the radio on his shoulder. “Darlene, can you get FDLE on the horn for me? Tell them I need them out here?”

  “Sure thing.”

  “Who’s FDLE?” asked the woman.

  “Florida Department of Law Enforcement,” said Charlotte, pleased to show Frank she’d remembered.

  “I’m going to have to ask you to go back inside, ma’am,” said Frank.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “It’s just a precaution. We’re going to have FDLE come and investigate the scene.”

  “What are you saying? You think someone killed him? You don’t think it was an accident?”

  “Just routine, ma’am.”

  The woman sobbed once and covered her mouth with her hand before disappearing inside.

  Frank looked at Charlotte. “We might have to go talk to old Jack again, after all.”

  She nodded. “Too many coincidences.”

  Her attention drifted back to the stack of water bottles.

  “That house with the vultures this morning, they weren’t hoarders too, were they?”

  Frank chuckled. “That lady had stacks of toilet paper in the garage. I had the passing thought I might take some for evidence.”

  Charlotte looked away, wrestling again with her disturbing thought.

  Had messing up someone’s pool not been enough for Gloria?

  Chapter Fifteen

  “Keep it,” said Special Agent Macha.

  Snookie Moore looked down at the gun she’d placed on the agent’s desk. “Really? I could have sworn we just had a big conversation about how I was retiring today. There was cake, people were hugging me... Are you telling me I submitted to a bunch of unnecessary hugs?”

  Macha chuckled. “I remember the party.”

  Snookie pushed the gun towards her. “Then please, take the issued gun. I have plenty of my own. I don’t need your charity.”

  Macha’s eyebrows lifted. “Funny you should mention charity. I need you to go to Charity.”

  “On a job?” Snookie unbuttoned her jacket and dropped into the chair sitting opposite Macha. “I’m going to sit down. Seems it’s going to take a while to explain retirement to you.”

  Macha opened her drawer and retrieved a piece of nicotine gum. She’d stopped smoking the previous month and Snookie felt confident her old friend was now more addicted to the gum than she’d ever been to cigarettes. If she ever started smoking again she’d have to smoke three packs a day to get the same amount of nicotine into her system.

  “You better start easing up on that stuff,” she said, though she’d made the suggestion more times than she could count. “You’re going to be mainlining nicotine pretty soon.”

  Macha popped the gum in her mouth. “I know. I’m wearing a patch too.”

  “Hopeless. So, back to my retirement. You know I’m going to stay with my sister for a while.”

  “Yes. And I’m not trying to sign you up for anythi
ng. This isn’t an official assignment. Well, it is, but I’m thinking of it as more of a favor.”

  “Okay...”

  “I’m wondering if you could stop in Charity on your way to the other coast.”

  “Charity is a place? I thought it only existed in your heart.” Snookie put a hand over her heart and looked up and away like a lonesome dog staring at the moon.

  “It’s a place, smartass. A town south of here.”

  Snookie leaned back in her chair. “All kidding aside, it sounds familiar. Why is that?”

  “Because Jamie Moriarty, a.k.a The Puzzle Killer, was captured there.”

  Snookie pointed at Macha. “The Puzzle Killer. I remember now. Agent Bingham took her down.”

  “Exactly.”

  “That’s all that pompous blowhard needed to confirm his suspicions he’s God.”

  Macha raised her hand to cover the smile creeping across her lips. “I know I didn’t hear you speak ill of a fellow agent.”

  “No, no. That doesn’t sound like me at all. Plus, I’m retired. Did you hear? I’m like a kitten now. All I do is knit and bake.”

  “Right. Back to this favor. Long story short, I’m going to delay putting your final paperwork in until you’re officially with your sister to keep you on the books while you’re in Charity.”

  “What’s the assignment? Do we have loose ends in Charity? Please don’t tell me you’re sending me to do Bingham’s paperwork.”

  “No. We have it on good authority Jamie Moriarty escaped.”

  Snookie sat up in her chair so fast she felt her short, blonde-streaked hair bounce on top of her head. The same hairspray that kept it in place also enabled it to sometimes move as a single unit.

  “Escaped from prison? How is this not all over the bulletins?”

  “Because she did it by swapping in a body double and threatening the warden’s kids if he told. We make a big thing about this and the warden’s whole family ends up dead before we find her.”

  Snookie snorted her incredulity. “How could she stay hidden and kill off a whole family?”

  “I don’t know. How did she stay hidden for thirty years in the first place?”