by Amy Vansant
The man named the knives on his shirt.
That’s how much he liked knives.
Declan chewed at his lip and decided all was well.
Dress codes are such an antiquated idea, really.
He said the only word that came to mind.
“Neat.”
Clearing his throat, he tried for a little levity. He surveyed the cat draped over Blade’s shoulder and chuckled.
“With the one eye, he kind of looks like a pirate, but he’s sitting more like a pirate’s parrot.”
Blade stared at him without comment.
Yeah. That was a stretch. Nevermind.
Defeated, Declan offered a quick nod and headed toward the back of the store. As he passed the sofa, he glanced back and noticed the cat’s white legs hanging down Blade’s broad back. It occurred to him no paws had hung down his chest.
He backed to his original position.
“Does Spot only have two legs?”
Blade nodded. “Now.”
Silence filled the room and a feeling of dread fell over Declan. He couldn’t bear the idea of spending another twenty minutes dragging the story of the two-legged cat out of Blade. And yet—
The doorbell jangled, breaking the silence. Declan sighed with relief as two white-haired ladies entered the shop, wrapped in animated conversation. Spot again began to caterwaul.
Blade stood and the ladies fell silent, their eyes following his ascent to its improbable height.
Declan watched them stare at each other.
Ah, the classic gunfighter stand-off between two little old ladies and a cat-clad giant.
The animal ceased its whining, releasing the women from their trance and launching them into coos of unrestrained affection.
“Look at that cat!”
“Poor dear only has one eye!”
Blade patted the animal and grinned with the enormous teeth he still possessed. “Yep. Lost a run-in with an alligator I’m afraid.”
“An alligator!” shrilled the ladies together.
“An alligator?” mumbled Declan. Though he still stood not far from Blade, it appeared his customers hadn’t yet noticed him. He smiled and waved. “Morning ladies.”
The ladies ignored him and huddled around Blade as if he were a toasty fire on a winter’s night.
Declan wandered to the counter where he thought he might be of some use.
Back on the floor, Blade continued his tale. “I found him close to dead on my doorstep and ran him to the vet. Nursed him back to health myself after the doctor did the hard stuff.”
“Oh my, that was just wonderful of you,” said one of the ladies, stepping closer.
Declan marveled at the scene playing before him. When the women looked at Blade all they saw was an oversized teddy bear, not a tall-tale-telling, six-foot-six leather-man wearing elephant-gutting knives named Baby and Stick.
“Is he missing a leg, too?” piped the lady on the left.
Blade lifted the cat to offer his audience a better view. “Two. That’s why he likes to pretend he’s my parrot!”
The ladies burst into giggles and Declan’s head snapped up from his paperwork.
That’s my joke!
“My husband Charles would have loved that cat. He loved all cats, you know.”
Blade gasped. “That’s quite a coincidence. That’s his name...Charlie.”
The woman echoed his gasp. “No!”
Declan watched the fibbing giant nod. “It is indeed.”
The woman reached into her purse to retrieve a tissue as her eyes began to water.
Fifteen minutes later the two women left, having purchased an ottoman, a wicker lounge chair and a set of dishes Declan had been trying to unload for two years. The cat wailed until the door shut behind them.
“I thought his name was Spot?” asked Declan as he tagged the ottoman for delivery.
“Who?”
“The cat. You said you found him at the bar and named him Spot, but you told the ladies you found him on your doorstep and his name is Charlie.”
“Oh. I haven’t settled on a permanent name. Charlie is a pretty good name. And you had a good point, about him not having any spots and all.”
Blade scratched the cat’s ears until it rumbled like a Harley-Davidson, but its ecstasy was short-lived. Charlotte entered, and the cat broke into torturous song once more.
“Hey, Blade, I like your second head,” said Charlotte over the wailing.
Blade stood grinning ear to ear. “Well, thank you Miss Charlotte. I found him outside my house and he seems to like it up here.”
Charlotte stretched to give the cat an ear scratch.
“Is it me, or does he not have any front paws?”
“Nope. Found him like this. Not sure if he was born this way or—”
“Or was nibbled by an alligator,” grumbled Declan as he walked out to greet Charlotte, hoping he could steal the attentions of his own girlfriend away from Blade.
He wasn’t feeling confident.
“Hi,” he said.
Charlotte’s eyes remained on the cat as she winced. “Yikes. Poor thing.”
“Hello,” repeated Declan.
“Oh, hey,” said Charlotte.
Declan sighed and turned to Blade. “So can we settle on this much? You found the cat post-mangled. Not bleeding on your doorstep?”
Blade’s expression turned coy. “Alligator attack makes a better story, though, don’t it?”
“Sells more dishes, that’s for sure.”
Another customer entered and the cat turned on his warning siren.
Charlotte frowned and pulled back her petting hand.
“It’s not you. He does that every time someone comes in,” said Declan.
She resumed petting. “I guess it’s nice to have a shop greeter.”
Declan grunted. He didn’t really want a moaning cat to be the first thing the customers heard, but so far, it had only helped sales.
Blade wandered off to greet the customers.
Blade ended his shift with another stunning handful of sales, including a stuffed grouse Declan had regretted buying for months. When Blade lumbered home sporting his cat epaulet, Charlotte remained to talk through her latest case.
Although Declan loved discussing Charlotte’s new career as a private detective, he found it unsettling that it sometimes brought her in contact with unsavory characters. At least they lived in Charity and not in a big city. And for the most part, her clientele needed help with missing lawn ornaments more often than missing bodies, but even so, he worried.
Sometimes he felt a little jealous. The most heart-pounding thing he did on a daily basis was stare holes through that stuffed grouse collecting dusty on his shelf. The idea of never turning a profit on it had scared him to death, but it still wasn’t quite the same.
As she chatted, his gaze wandered to a paycheck envelope on his desk. He picked it up. “Shoot. Blade left his check here.”
Charlotte stood. “I have to go anyway. I can take it to him.”
“You know where he lives?”
“I do. He chewed my ear off the other day when I came to see you and found only him. I know all about his place—the color of the walls, the sticky light switch in the kitchen—”
“I can’t even get him to tell me where he found a cat and he lends you his diary.”
Charlotte put her hands on either side of her cheeks and posed. “I have a trusting face.”
Declan squinted at her. “When he was here and I wasn’t, that was bad, right?”
“Bad? What do you mean?”
“I mean, you’d rather have found me here than Blade.”
“Of course.”
He smiled. “Good. Just checking. That devil is a charmer.”
Charlotte laughed.
He handed her the check. “You can take it to him, but be careful. He could be an assassin.”
“Oh, come on. He’s a Teddy bear.”
“Did you see his t-shirt? H
e told me his mother was a hippie and named him Blade after grass.”
“Not true?”
“I don’t know. But when he shows up wearing a shirt with enormous knives on it, I have to ask myself if he’s being entirely honest.”
She chuckled. “I’ll be careful. You know me.”
Declan sighed. “I do. That’s what I’m afraid of.”
Chapter Six
As soon as Charlotte sat in the Volkswagen Bug she’d borrowed from Mariska, she could feel something was off. It took her a moment to identify the smell.
Chanel Coco Mademoiselle.
She’d smelled the perfume several times before, but never in Mariska’s car. Mariska’s car smelled like baked goods and whatever tester perfume they had out at Costco that day.
Charlotte only knew one person who wore Chanel Coco Mademoiselle.
“Crouching on the floor of someone’s car isn’t the most lady-like move,” she said, gaze trained on her rearview mirror.
A blonde head rose into view. Charlotte viewed it like a sunrise...rising on someone stranded in the desert.
Stephanie wiggled her fingers, waving to the mirror. “Shoot. I was going to pop up just before you drove away.”
“Shoot.”
Stephanie Moriarty, Declan’s ex-girlfriend, ran her fingers through her hair, raking the tussled mop back into place. She always possessed the look of a fresh-out-of-bed-yet-ready-for-a-night-on-the-town sex-kitten.
Charlotte hated that about her.
Stephanie had grown up in Charity with Declan. She was a lawyer, and, more than likely, a psychopath.
“I have some news for you,” said Stephanie.
“You could have come into the shop. Or—here’s a novel idea—I have a phone.”
Charlotte wanted to know how Stephanie had broken in to her car, but couldn’t bear giving her the satisfaction of asking.
Stephanie dismissed her sarcasm with a wave of her blood-red manicured nails. “Nah. I know you don’t like it when I distract Declan.”
Charlotte’s fist curled at her side. “Funny. Now tell me what you want and get out of my car.”
“It isn’t what I want, it’s what my client wants.”
“And who’s that?”
“Cora Bloom.”
Charlotte turned to face Stephanie. “I thought you were a defense attorney.”
“I’m a little bit of everything.”
“Mm. Yes, that’s true. I can think of a few things you are.”
Stephanie smiled. “Cora has retained my services to handle details and assist her in deciding the winner of a competition between your client, Penny, and Tabby.”
“Why do I have the feeling she didn’t find you online?”
“She didn’t. No, when I heard about this interesting turn of events I offered my services.”
“You mean, when you heard Penny hired me to help her.”
“What? Wow. Aren’t you self-absorbed. The point is, there could be any number of things she’ll require the eventual winner to accomplish, but there is one overriding theme worth the largest number of points—”
“You’re judging us on a point scale?”
“—she wants you to find out who killed her husband.”
Charlotte shifted to get a better view of Stephanie and to keep the frustration and awkwardness of their encounter from causing a crick in her neck. “What are you talking about? I thought Bucky fell?”
“We don’t know that for sure.”
Charlotte shook her head. “I’ll pull out then. If I help Penny, you’ll make sure she loses. I can’t do that to her.”
“If you pull out, she automatically loses.”
“Who says?”
“I say.”
Charlotte sighed. “Didn’t the police already rule his death an accident?”
Stephanie smiled her snakiest grin and popped open the door. “Prove it then.”
“Do you know something the police don’t?” she called as Stephanie slammed the door.
If the blonde heard her, she offered no sign. Instead, she tip-toed off in her four-inch heels and slinked into her candy apple red Dodge Viper before roaring away. She waved good-bye as she passed.
Charlotte squeezed the steering wheel until her fingers threatened to break. Stephanie wanted Declan back, but if she couldn’t have him, she seemed content making their lives as difficult as possible.
Think, think, think.
Stephanie would load the deck against her. She’d try for maximum pain, all the while ensuring Penny didn’t win thanks to her association with Charlotte.
She had to stay two steps ahead of her.
Luckily, if one of the challenges was to find exactly how Bucky arrived at the wrong end of a sailboat mast, Penny already had the services of a detective. Well, one almost-detective plus Seamus, who was legit, if not a tad unorthodox and very annoying.
She needed to get to work immediately.
How had Stephanie found out about the competition so fast? Did she have connections to Cora? Or maybe Tabby?
Realizing she’d begun to sweat, Charlotte turned on the Volkswagen’s air, retrieved her phone and dialed.
“Hello?” said Seamus.
“Seamus, I’m glad I caught you. We have to find out how Bucky Bloom died.”
“What? Who?”
Charlotte sighed. “I told you I needed you to take over Penny’s case for me so I could use the internship hours, remember?”
“Right. Uh...remind me the facts again?”
“Penny wants Cora Bloom to sell her Cow Town, the pastures next to Pineapple Port. But Cora—”
“Oh, right right—Penny has to compete against her sister. And the two of them both boinked Cora’s shish-kebobbed husband.”
“Right. At least you remembered the important parts.”
“Always.”
“Anyway, I just talked to Stephanie—”
“Ooh. I’m sorry I missed that.”
“Uh huh. It was a joy as always. I found her hiding in the back seat of Mariska’s car, ready to leap out and scare me.”
“Or slit your throat.”
“Always a possibility. She discovered that I’m helping Penny and talked Cora into hiring her to plan and run the competition between the sisters.”
“Then you should drop out.”
“Tried. She said if I do Penny automatically loses.”
“Wow. So, she just wants to make sure you end up looking like an idiot.”
Charlotte paused. “She wants to toy with me, no doubt. The point is, we have to stay one step ahead of her. She all but told me the winner would be the one who solved Bucky’s murder.”
“I thought he took a tumble.”
“I guess Cora thinks different. Or she wants proof it was an accident.”
“Okay. This is your operation. What do you want me to do and, more importantly, when do I get my first check?”
“I have every intention of sharing the money—”
“I’m kidding. Sort of.”
Charlotte laughed. “I’m going to see if Frank can dig up everything the cops know about Bucky’s death. Maybe you can find out if Tabby hired someone to help her? It would be nice to see who we’re up against.”
“Smart. I’m on it.”
“Thanks. Oh, one other thing. Stephanie found out about this really fast. I know she keeps tabs on Declan and probably me, but it might be worth checking to see if she has connections to Tabby. I can’t imagine Penny would have told her.”
“Maybe Declan’s house is bugged.”
Charlotte’s gasped. “You think? Is that possible?”
“We are talking about Stephanie.”
“I know, but, that’s like spy stuff. How can we find out?”
“It’s no problem. I’ll get a bug detector and give the house a once-over. Leave it to me.”
“Thank you.”
Charlotte hung up and took a deep breath as she imagined all the things she’d said to Declan in his ho
me. She cringed thinking Stephanie might have heard everything.
She took a moment to clear her mind and see the game from Stephanie’s perspective. How had she been able to sweet talk Cora into hiring her? Had Stephanie already turned Cora against Penny and her? Had Cora already made up her mind, thanks to Stephanie’s meddling?
Wait.
How did she know Stephanie really met with Cora at all?
She dialed Penny.
“Penny, have you heard from Cora? Do you know anything about a lawyer working with her?”
“Yes, Cora called me fifteen minutes ago to tell me I’d hear from her lawyer. I figured she was trying to scare me, that vindictive b—”
Charlotte cut her short. “Hey, watch what you say. This is going to be more cutthroat that you know, believe me. You never know who’s listening.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Just trust me and think only kind thoughts about Cora. Act like she’s always in the room with you.”
“Sounds like a nightmare.”
“What did I just say?”
“Sorry.”
“Did Cora mention her lawyer’s name?”
“A Miss Moriarty? I recognized the name from that new storefront out on the main drag.”
Charlotte heard herself release the deep, guttural moan that sounded every time she heard Stephanie’s name. “Yep, that’s her.”
“You heard from her? This lawyer?”
“Yes. She said the winner would probably be the one who solved Bucky’s murder.”
Penny gasped. “Bucky’s murder? She thinks he was murdered?”
“I don’t know. She might just want proof that he wasn’t. It might be a lesson in futility created to frustrate us.”
“Can you solve a murder?”
“If you remember, I have before. Declan’s mother? The lady I found in my backyard?”
Penny grunted. “Mm. Right.”
“Don’t worry. I’m working with Declan’s uncle Seamus. He’s a licensed detective. We’re already on it.”
“Good.”
“I’ll let you know when I know more.”
Charlotte disconnected.
So far, Stephanie was telling the truth.
That was a first, which worried her all the more.
Shifting into reverse, Charlotte noticed the paycheck envelope marked Blade on her passenger seat. She’d almost forgotten she had to deliver it.