by Amy Vansant
“Okay, sure, I guess,” said Declan, his voice sounding deflated. “Do you want me to come to you?”
Charlotte’s eyes darted around her home. She’d never been embarrassed about it before, but Declan had called it a dorm room. She was mortified for him to see it again.
“No. I’ll come to you.”
Declan gave her his address and she wrote it on her wall in chalk.
“I’ll be there in a few minutes.”
She stared at Declan’s address on her wall. Her stomach felt funny again. She circled the address to emphasize the seriousness of her visit. The circle started at the top, looped around, and then dipped down to complete the ring.
It reminded her of something.
It looks like a heart.
She released a frustrated grunt, put down the chalk and jogged to her bedroom to remove her lay-around clothes. She pulled thong underwear from her bureau drawer and slipped into them. She loved thongs. Growing up in a retirement community meant coming face-to-butt with an endless array of panty lines. Every tush had some configuration of granny panty lines; even some of the men. Not only were panty lines unattractive on a young person, but they involved the word panty, possibly the worst word in the English language. Charlotte couldn’t even say panties without cringing and giggling. Even 1959’s Anatomy of a Murder with Jimmy Stewart had a ten-minute shtick about how they couldn’t say panties in the courtroom without the gallery cracking up.
Thongs made her feel young. Not many other things did in the Port.
She planned to wear thongs until her butt grazed the backs of her knees. She didn’t know how old was too old for a thong. Maybe never. Maybe her generation would fill retirement homes with thong-wearing octogenarians, everyone wearing thongs the way their grandmothers wore scarves and housedresses.
She noticed the elastic unraveling on the thong she’d chosen, and threw it back into her drawer. She pulled out a sexy, lacy pair and stepped into it. She hadn’t worn that pair in some time, so it was a good to slip it into rotation. She didn’t want to wear her underwear unevenly.
That was why she chose that pair.
She looked at herself in the mirror and assured herself of that fact.
That is why I chose this pair. Not because it is my sexiest pair. Because it was feeling unloved.
Charlotte grabbed shorts, paused, and then opened her closet. She plucked a sky blue summer dress from the rack and slipped into it. It, perhaps, showed a little too much leg, but it was easier to step into a dress. No buttons or zippers. Shorts were high maintenance.
Yes, shorts are a lot of work. The dress is much easier. Saving time is efficient.
She put on her usual makeup; mascara, lipstick and a dusting of blush, and then opened the cabinet under the sink. She collected five crinoline wash balls and a forgotten loofah lurking in the back of the cabinet. She marched them all to the kitchen trash and then took the trash to the outside bin.
She didn’t want to come home at night to that many angry, abandoned bath products.
Loofahs safely in the trash, she ran back inside and grabbed a cold bottle of white wine from her refrigerator. It was only polite to bring a gift when visiting a person’s home for the first time. She patted Abby on the head and left. Declan’s home was less than a mile away, so she put the bottle of wine in the basket of her bike and wheeled out of Pineapple Port.
She felt as though her body was about to crawl out of her skin. Nerves jangling, she stared at the bottle of wine, wondering if it would be rude to arrive with it half empty.
Chapter Twelve
Declan and Seamus walked into Declan’s stucco home in Charity, Florida, just on the outskirts of the Pineapple Port community. The house stood barely half a mile from the modest modular home in which he’d lived as a child. Declan could still see the two-bedroom home he’d shared with his mother in his mind’s eye. He could walk through it and see the red, crushed velvet sofa and the checkered white and yellow linoleum kitchen floor. Crushed velvet seemed like an odd fabric choice for sticky Florida, but his mother had loved that sofa. It made Declan smile to think about her telling him not to put his feet on the cushions.
Sometimes he jogged past his old home, but it made him sad to see the unruly grass and the screen door hanging at an awkward angle from its hinges. Declan’s grandmother had moved him to her home in Tampa after his mother’s disappearance, and whoever purchased his home after he left wasn’t endeavoring to win any curb appeal competitions. Declan could only imagine the rundown interior. When planned neighborhoods like Pineapple Port appeared in Charity, no one wanted to buy stand-alone modular homes without access to pools and community centers. If it wasn’t for the rusty Chevy truck parked outside, Declan would have thought his childhood home abandoned.
As Seamus walked into Declan’s new home, he whistled with appreciation.
“Nice place. How many bedrooms?”
“Thanks. Just two. You’ll be staying in the office slash guest room.”
“What? Where’s the kids’ room?”
Declan chuckled. “Riiight.”
“You got a girl?”
“Not at the moment. Can I get you a beer?”
“Yes, sir,” said Seamus, flopping into Declan’s large brown sofa. “Damn. Is this real leather?”
“Yes. That was an estate sale item I decided to keep. The guy was a furniture importer.”
“Nice.”
He popped a beer and brought it to his uncle. Seamus took a long swig and then lazily surveyed the room. He glanced out the slider door and then craned his neck to gain a better view of the backyard.
“Is that a pool?” he asked.
“Just a little one. A lap pool. We don’t get the ocean breezes you have in Miami.”
“Any idea what a place like this would have cost me in Miami?”
“Charity is a long way from Miami…and this is hardly a mansion.”
“It’s nice though,” said Seamus, taking another long draught of his beer. “You really have it made here. That place we went is full of ladies on the prowl.”
Declan scowled, confused. “Are you talking about Pineapple Port?”
“Yeah! Pineapple Port. Wall-to-wall ladies. I bet most of their husbands are dead, too.”
Declan froze, the bottle inches from his lips. He lowered the beer to his lap.
“Like the older ladies, do you?”
“Oh yeah,” said Seamus, dragging out the word ‘yeah’ until it sounded as if he was talking about the juiciest burger he’d ever eaten. He leaned forward to rest his forearms on his knees.
“Young guys have it all wrong,” he said, in a conspiratorial whisper. “They’re all hot for the pretty young things, but those girls won’t do anything but break your heart. The real love is with the older ladies.”
“Really…”
Seamus took a swig of his beer and then nodded, staring into middle distance.
“Oh yeah. It’s all about the older ladies.”
“How old are you again?”
“Fifty-five.”
“And these ladies…just how old are we talking?”
He shrugged. “The girl who really taught me everything I know was seventy-two,” he said. “But I think the sweet spot is mid to late sixties.”
Declan nodded in slow motion. This was a side of his uncle he’d never seen. Talking about Seamus’ love life was uncomfortable enough, but this chat had taken a hard right into Weird Town.
“Right. So how many older girlfriends have you had?”
“Four,” Seamus counted on one hand and then waggled his pinky. “Four and a half.”
Declan laughed. “How do you have half a girlfriend? Was she really short?”
“She died. We’d only been dating two months, but she was something special.”
“Oh.”
He squinted at his uncle, waiting for him to laugh and tell him he was kidding. Instead, Seamus stared at the floor, silent, and then stood to fetch another beer.
“She might have been the one,” he said as he opened the refrigerator. “But fate is a cruel mistress. Cancer, cancer, emphysema, heart attack and unexplained.”
“What’s that?”
“That’s how I lost my last five loves. Cancer, cancer, emphysema, heart attack and unexplained. It’s the only downside to dating older ladies. I keep outliving them.”
“Who was unexplained?”
“Violet. Probably a heart thing. I think she was still pining for her ex-husband. She never seemed totally with me, y’know? Especially in bed.”
“Oh wow. You’ve got to warn me before you say things like that.”
Seamus took a sip of his new beer and sighed. “I thought I could make her forget him. The bastard ran away with his home care nurse, but he never left Violet’s heart.”
Declan laughed beer into his nose and covered his face with his hand to keep it from pouring into his lap.
“Come on, Seamus,” he sputtered between coughs. “You’re pulling my leg.”
Seamus walked over and sat back on the sofa.
“You think it’s funny, but these older ladies are real, y’know? I know you don’t get it. You’ve got the hots for the young one.”
“What young one?”
“You know, the young one. The only chick in a room full of hens. I could see you have it for her from a mile away.”
“Charlotte? I just met her. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Oh, you’ve got it bad. Don’t deny it. I might like them older, but even I could appreciate the stems on that flower.”
“Are you suddenly channeling Humphrey Bogart or something? I feel like I just walked into a film noir.”
“A film war?”
“Film noir. You know, an old forties drama where people said things like ‘hey, check out the stems on that gal.’”
“What? She had long legs. You had to have noticed them.”
“She does have ni—long legs, it was just the way you said it. I get what you meant.”
“I bet you do,” said Seamus, winking.
“Whatever. Anyway, you’re wrong about Charlotte. Her whole neighborhood thinks I’m gay, anyway.”
“I don’t doubt it. You’re just so damn pretty.”
“Very funny.”
Seamus threw a pillow at him, his booming laugh echoing from the cathedral ceiling.
Declan snatched the pillow from the air just as his phone rang. He winged it back at his uncle and stood to retrieve his phone.
“Speak of the devil. It’s Charlotte,” he said, looking at the caller ID.
“Ooooh,” said Seamus, following with a string of kissing noises.
Declan waved at him to be quiet.
“Hello?”
He repeated his greeting until Charlotte began to talk. It seemed they had a bad connection.
“Are you at home?’ she asked.
“I’m home.”
“I’m home,” said Seamus in a breathy voice. “I’m naked and waiting for you.”
“Just a second,” he said, covering the phone. “Cut it out! Charlotte has information about mom.”
“Yeah? What?”
“I don’t know yet. Shut up for a second and maybe I can find out.”
He uncovered the phone. “Sorry. My uncle is here and he was being…uh…loud. What is it?”
He begged Charlotte to reveal her information, but she insisted on delivering the news in person. It worried him. People never traveled to deliver good news.
“I’m in Charity. You know the Hibiscus Community? I’m 398 Sandtrap Drive.”
“Guess they were running out of nice golfing street names,” said Charlotte.
“Well, at least I’m not on Dog Leg Lane.”
“Or Ball Washer Way. I’ll be there in a few minutes.”
Declan hung up, and found his uncle staring at him.
“What?”
“Oh, you are so done. Look at that smile.”
“What?” he repeated, frowning. “She made a golf joke. I can’t smile?”
“She coming over here? Tell you what, you guys chat and I’ll just sit here and scream get in the hole! every once in a while. I can be punny, too.”
“You’re disgusting. She’s a nice girl.”
“And pretty.”
“And pretty.”
“And smart.”
“And smart.”
“And nice rack.”
“Alright already! You’re an idiot. Whatever you do, don’t tell Charlotte she has ga-ga gams or something when she gets here, copper.”
Seamus laughed. “She does,” he said, putting his empty bottle on the counter and opening the refrigerator to retrieve another.
Declan threw him a dirty look, snatched the empty bottle and put it in the trash.
Chapter Thirteen
Ten minutes later the doorbell rang and Declan answered to find Charlotte on his stoop. She wore a simple summer dress that framed her elegant collarbones and, he had to admit, the aforementioned nice rack. Declan’s eyes darted back to her face, worried that his eyes would telegraph his thoughts directly into her brain. His more off-color thoughts were echoes of Seamus’ comments, but there was no way to explain that to her through telepathy.
“Hi,” she said, holding up a bottle. “I brought wine.”
“Oh! Well, thank you.”
Charlotte’s face twitched.
“Was bringing wine weird? It felt strange to dump all this information on you and leave. I thought the wine would be a nice way to pretend it was just a normal visit. Plus, I’ve never been to your house before so it’s like a housewarming gift, right?”
“Sure, no, I appreciate it. It’s a nice change from my uncle, who brought nothing but two weeks of dirty laundry and plans to drink every beer in the house. What’s weird is that I haven’t asked you in yet. Come in.”
Charlotte entered and he took the wine from her. He moved to the kitchen to uncork it.
“Hi Seamus,” said Charlotte, wandering into the living room. She offered a wave at hip level.
“Hello, lass.” He stood from his place on the sofa and strode over to her, opening his arms and wrapping her in a bear hug.
Seamus looked at Declan as he hugged her and waggled his eyebrows. Declan grit his teeth and waved at him to leave her alone.
“She’s too young for you. Let her go.”
Seamus flashed one last grin and then stepped back.
“So I hear you have some information for us?”
Charlotte’s hands fluttered to smooth her dress, knocked akimbo by Seamus’ energetic embrace.
“Yes, I do.”
“Here you go,” said Declan, handing her a glass of wine. “Sorry about that. Have a seat.”
Seamus flopped down on the sofa and patted the cushion next to him.
Charlotte looked at the spot and paused.
“Sit right there,” said Declan, motioning for her to sit in a matching standalone chair. “Ignore him. He’s just goofing with you. You aren’t even his type.”
“Oh,” said Charlotte, sitting.
She balanced the wine on her thigh and offered a tight smile.
Declan saw her frozen features and realized what he’d said.
“I mean, not that you’re not gorgeous or anything! I just meant he likes old ladies. I mean older ladies.”
Seamus nodded. “Nice recovery, slick.”
Charlotte laughed and Declan thought he saw her shoulders relax.
“I wasn’t offended. Anyway, yes, I have news for you both.”
Declan held out a glass of wine for Seamus and he raised his upper lip in disgust.
“I’ll take a beer,” he said, handing him his latest empty.
Declan grimaced and set the glass of wine in front of his own seat. He walked briskly to the kitchen, opened a beer, and returned to thrust it at his uncle.
“When exactly are you moving out?” he muttered.
Seamus took the beer and smiled.
“Okay,” said Declan, sitting and facing Charlotte. “Ready now. What’s up?”
“Two things. Al Taliaferro stopped at my house after the meeting.”
“He was the squirrelly little guy at the meeting, right?” asked Seamus. “The guy who kept asking if Erin was shot?”
“Yes, exactly. How did you know?”
Seamus shrugged. “It’s a cop thing.”
“Well, your instincts were right. Now I know why that detail was so important to him. About the time your mother went missing, he saw a woman in a white shirt and red belt stumbling down the road. He swerved to avoid her and doesn’t think he hit her.”
“Doesn’t think? Did he go back?” asked Declan, horrified. “Was it her?”
“No. I mean, he didn’t go back, so he doesn’t know if it was her. He’d been drinking and thinks he might have imagined the whole thing, but felt obligated to report the incident because it happened in front of my lot.”
“Wow,” said Declan, putting his hand over his mouth while he absorbed the story.
“It doesn’t work,” said Seamus. “You found her in a grave. She didn’t get hit by a car and go spinning into an open grave.”
“And we found a bullet. That doesn’t mesh either,” said Charlotte. “I wonder if maybe Al saw her running from someone, but he didn’t see anyone else. He really thinks he imagined the whole thing.”
“He sounds like Towline to me,” muttered Seamus.
Declan looked at him. “What?”
“Towline. He was one of our CIs.”
“Confidential informant!” said Charlotte, jumping in her seat. Her wine sloshed and she scrambled to keep it from spilling on her lap.
The two men stared at her and Declan thought he saw her blush. The corner of his mouth curled into a smile. It was cute how enthusiastic she seemed, though he had no idea what had inspired her outburst.
“Confidential informant,” she said. “Sorry. I watch too many crime dramas. I got a little excited there.”
Seamus shot Declan a sidelong glance and he realized his uncle had caught him grinning again. He cleared his throat to squelch his smile.