by Amy Vansant
The residents didn’t like that joke either.
Charlotte had lived there long enough to grow accustomed to the scrutiny, but it was a whole new world for Declan. Dating in Pineapple Port was like trying to make out in a basement while your parents, grandparents, brothers, sisters, and a hundred or so aunts or uncles mingled upstairs.
Not sexy.
Then again, maybe the less-than-whirlwind nature of their romance was her fault. She’d been busy. She’d never felt so alive as she had while trying to unlock the mystery surrounding Declan’s mother’s death and now that it was over, she wanted to solve more puzzles. That’s where Seamus and his fiendish training came in handy.
“I hear your flyers didn’t turn out so well,” said Seamus.
She threw her head back and huffed. Declan must have told him she’d slipped flyers into her neighbors’ mailboxes to advertise her investigative services. She’d thought she was being enterprising. Aware of her potential clients’ proclivities, she’d even included a clip-and-save twenty-percent off! coupon. She wasn’t an idiot. Some of the Pineapple Portians would buy a wet suit in the Sahara if they had a coupon for it.
After a week of waiting for clients to come rolling in, only one crime had been committed: Someone put unstamped detective agency flyers in people’s mailboxes.
“Come on. Who knew it’s a federal offense to put mail in people’s mailboxes?”
“Mr. Caslin, apparently. The better question is: who knew you had a retired postman in the neighborhood?”
“Tell me about it. He felt duty-bound to lecture me on the dos and don’ts of mailbox laws for an hour.”
“Is he going to turn you in?”
“No. I begged Mariska to help me make a pie for him. She said he’d only threatened to report me in the hopes of getting a pie in the first place, but she helped me anyway.”
“He’s a notorious food grubber,” said Jackie, trying to unzip the ghillie suit. “I’ve seen that man eat an entire pie by himself. He ate it one slice at a time so people wouldn’t notice, but I noticed.”
“Maybe I should be training you,” said Seamus with a wink.
Charlotte tried not to take his comment as personally as it was probably meant and continued to whine about her failed marketing campaign.
“In hindsight, I did think it was a little weird that Mr. Caslin mentioned lemon meringue pie four times in a speech about mailboxes.” Charlotte lowered her voice to mimic the retired postman. “Say someone sends you two lemon meringue pies…you find one in your mailbox in a temperature controlled box with postage, and the other—this one with those little dollops of whipped cream around the edge—you find without postage…”
She’d only been operating a freelance detective agency for a few days and she’d already lost money on flyers, lemons and Crisco and committed two crimes herself. Turns out, she needed a license to be a private investigator, too. Crime number two. At this rate she’d be in prison by the end of the month.
“Maybe being a detective is a stupid idea. What’s the point? I can’t be a private investigator without a license, and to get a license I need at least forty hours of experience as an intern for a real private investigator and there aren’t any around here.”
“Yes there are,” said Seamus, grunting as he helped Jackie out of the ghillie suit. The zipper had stuck in her fringe.
“Where?”
“About two feet away from you.”
“Huh?”
Jackie let out a little scream. “I swear, if you don’t get me out of this suit I am going to freak out.”
“Shush, Jackie, you just shot me dead. You don’t get to complain. Seamus, what are you talking about?”
The zipper gave away and Seamus took a step back as Jackie thrashed. He ducked to avoid her flailing grassy arms. She dropped to her knees and collapsed sideways, squirming from the suit like a snake shedding its skin.
The sight was so pathetic Charlotte couldn’t help but pity her pretend-murderer. “Aren’t you going to help her?”
Seamus held a hand in Jackie’s direction as she squirmed across the lawn. “And miss this?”
Jackie rolled to her back, kicking her feet in the air as best she could with her ankles bound together by the suit.
Charlotte shrugged. “Okay, so what are you talking about? Who’s a private investigator?”
Seamus tapped his chest. “I am.”
“You are? Licensed?”
“Licensed.”
“Really? Or are you a private investigator in the same way you said you were a cop in Miami when you were really a glorified informant?”
“Oh, you cut me to the quick, lass. I thought we were friends…you know I only fibbed to appear an upstanding citizen to my nephew.”
“So you’re really an investigator?”
“Sure. I did the paperwork while I was still in Miami right before I came up here. I even took a few side jobs. The cops didn’t pay all my bills.”
“Why didn’t you say so?”
“You didn’t ask.”
“Can I be your intern?”
He shrugged. “Sure. Unpaid, of course.”
“Naturally. All right!” She saluted him. “What’s my first assignment, sir?”
He jerked a thumb behind him.
“Locate a glass of water for her.”
Jackie’s face was flush and her shirt soaked with perspiration. She stood and began stomping on the ghillie suit with her right leg as she strained to yank away her left ankle.
“Jackie? Would you like some water?”
Jackie glared at her. “You two can play cops and robbers all you like, just leave me out of it from now on. This thing is some kind of alien…” She stomped on the suit one last time and then pounded toward her house, one leg dragging the deflated ghillie suit behind her.
Seamus chuckled.
“I couldn’t believe it when she agreed to wear that thing. This is going to give me material for weeks.”
He clapped Charlotte on the back and jogged after his girlfriend.
“Your shadow’s looking a little furry there!” he called.
“Shut up!” screamed Jackie.
Chapter Three
Charlotte heard the wailing from her bedroom, even with one ear pressed against her pillow and her soft-coated Wheaton terrier’s chin resting on the other.
“She’s gone! Someone stole her!”
She tried to rise but Abby fought her, pressing her furry face against Charlotte’s in an attempt to pin her human pillow to the mattress. She slipped out from under the Wheaton, who grunted and rolled onto her back, legs falling open to expose her pink belly. Charlotte offered a conciliatory tummy rub before throwing on shorts and a tee and heading for the door.
Outside, she looked down her street and saw a small crowd gathering in front of her friend Darla’s house. Charlotte felt her stomach lurch. In a retirement community, curious people outside someone’s home rarely turned out to be a good thing. At least she didn’t see an ambulance. Not yet.
Mariska burst out of her own home the moment Charlotte’s foot hit the asphalt. Mariska lived directly across the street from her. She wore a thin housedress and slippers.
“Uh…bra?” suggested Charlotte.
“Oh, phooey,” said Mariska, slapping an arm across her breasts to still the impression of puppies in a laundry bag. “We have to hurry!”
“What’s the ruckus? Do you know?”
“No, I don’t know! That’s why I’m rushing!”
“Is it Darla?”
“I don’t know!”
“Well come on! You’re supposed to know everything!”
“I know, I know!”
The two of them wove through the crowd until they spotted Darla standing in her front yard. She wore a black tee shirt with Sea Hag scrawled in white letters across the chest. Her husband, Sheriff Frank, had bought it for her after she insisted he take her on a fishing trip. She didn’t catch anything except a sunburn and never
asked to go again, but she loved the tee.
“Darla, what is it?” asked Charlotte.
Darla shook her fist, the grimace on her face making her lips thin and white.
“Someone stole Witchy-Poo!”
She thrust an accusatory finger at the roof as if it was the culprit.
The giant inflatable witch that always perched on Darla’s roof during the Halloween season had disappeared. Charlotte kicked herself for not noticing. She’d done well spotting tiny changes during Seamus’ test and then failed to notice the absence of a seven-foot-tall witch with striped socks and a wart the size of a blueberry muffin on her nose. Clearly, she still had work to do.
“They switched my flag!” said someone else deep in the crowd. “I’m not a Raven’s fan! They’re in my division for crying out loud. I’m from Pittsburgh!”
“My gazing ball is gone,” said another. “Now I’ve got gnomes!”
Mariska tittered. “That sounds serious.”
“Does the gnome have a hoe?” asked someone nearby.
“I’m not touching that,” mumbled Charlotte.
“I have a frog where my ducks used to be,” said another voice.
“A frog?” roared Darla’s husband, Frank. “Lil’ Frankie! I was so mad about the witch I didn’t even notice Lil’ Frankie was missing!”
In the spot where Frank’s fishing frog, Lil’ Frankie once sat, the fishing pole string no longer floated in the tiny manmade pond. Now, Mrs. Mann’s plastic squirrel struggled to nibble his acorn while standing tail-deep in water.
“Someone switched all the lawn decorations?” asked Charlotte.
Mariska gasped and grabbed her arm. “It’s a mystery! You’ve got your first case!”
Charlotte shook her head. “All we have to do is switch them back.”
“Yes, but who did it? And what about Witchy-Poo? I don’t see anything in her place. And what’s to stop these vandals from doing it again?”
“I suppose Frank should do something—” began Darla, who had moved to take her usual place beside Mariska.
Mariska elbowed her.
“Ow! Oh… Right. Frank’s busy. He doesn’t have time for this. We need a detective. Like Sherlock Holmes. Only maybe cuter.”
She winked at Charlotte.
Charlotte suspected the ladies were patronizing her, but Mariska had a point. No one would hire her to find out who switched the lawn decoration, but if she solved the case, it would prove to the whole neighborhood that she had skills. It would be like handing out freebees in the hopes of selling more in the future.
“You’re right. I’ll take the case.”
“Go get ‘em!” said Darla. “Find Witchy-Poo and arrest the heartless jerk who stole her!”
“I don’t think I can arrest anyone.”
“Then just beat ‘em up.”
“I don’t think she should beat up anyone…” said Mariska.
“Well, maybe just rough them up.”
“What’s the difference?”
As the two women bickered over what constituted a beating, Charlotte gazed at Darla’s empty roof. “Hey… does anyone else have a big decoration like Witchy—er, the witch?” She hated the name Witchy-Poo and refused to say it.
Darla stopped arguing long enough to look at her. “Only I have Witchy-Poo. She’s one of a kind.”
“And only I have to climb my old butt up there once a year and blow her up,” said Frank. “I’m going to go get Lil’ Frank from Sally’s house.”
Darla rolled her eyes. “You do that, hon. That frog is probably homesick and panicky.”
Frank glared at her, hitched his belt and wandered off.
“Charlotte’s going to figure out who did this,” said Mariska.
“Yes! Go get ‘em Char!” said Darla. “Just make sure you concentrate on Witchy-Poo.”
Charlotte patted Darla on the shoulder and jogged back to her house to grab a pen and paper. She wanted to let Abby out for her morning bathroom break and then note the switched items so she could search for any patterns.
She let the dog out the back and grabbed a notepad and a pen. She considered hopping into her golf cart to begin her investigation, but worried she might miss a clue by speeding by it. No, she would walk the neighborhood and knock on every door.
Wait—time to start using official investigator language.
She wouldn’t walk. She would canvass the neighborhood. Canvass for clues.
She felt very official, until she realized the pen she’d grabbed looked like a palm tree, with green, plastic fronds flopping from the top.
Sherlock Holmes would never use a palm tree pen.
She grabbed another, much more official-looking pen, and the game was afoot!
Well…she was afoot, anyway.
Someone had to have seen something. People couldn’t wander the streets of Pineapple Port with gnomes and giant inflatable witches tucked under their arms without someone noticing. The Port had more busy-bodies per capita than any other place in the United States. At least according to her own unofficial statistics.
An hour later, as Charlotte climbed the steps to old Dottie’s house, she knew solving the caper wouldn’t be as easy as she’d hoped. Her notes said she’d discovered precious little.
Two Republicans turned into Democrats and vice versa. Politically motivated?
Three flowerpots switched with birdbaths. Theme? Or just too many flowerpots and birdbaths?
George Sambrooke’s golf cart half off the curb and pressed against his wife’s sedan. Had a few too many last night?
The last item probably had nothing to do with her case. Things hadn’t been great at the Sambrooke’s lately, but that was gossip, not a crime.
She knocked on Dottie Parson’s door. She waited a minute and then knocked again. She was about to leave when the door jerked open and slammed against the interior wall of the home. Dottie caught it with the side of her walker and elbowed it back into the wall repeatedly until she’d wedged the walker tight enough to keep the bouncing to a minimum. Charlotte sneaked a peek behind the hinge and saw a pre-formed hole in the drywall holding the doorknob. That explained the strange metallic ding of the door’s bounce; it had been striking a metal joist inside the wall.
“Hi Dottie, sorry to bother you.”
The old woman grunted. “I was busy.”
Charlotte took a deep breath and decided it would be unwise to start an argument. Dottie was probably “busy” lifting small trucks off the ground. Her arms were freakishly strong, as if the strength in her legs hadn’t so much left her as packed up and moved to her biceps. She wished the old woman would invite her in so she could peek in the back rooms, see what sort of workout equipment she had, and sell the secret to an NFL football team.
“Sorry. I just wanted to know if you’ve noticed any of your lawn items missing or replaced?”
Dottie glowered at her. Charlotte calculated how long the woman’s arms were and took half a step back to be safe.
“Why should I tell you?”
“You don’t have to tell me. I could arm wrestle you for it.”
“What?”
“Never mind. Just kidding. You don’t have to tell me, but I wish you would. I’m trying to find out if anyone saw anything suspicious last night. A bunch of people had their lawn decorations stolen.”
“I don’t have any lawn decorations. Lawns are for grass. Grass is the decoration.”
“And you didn’t see anything?”
“No. Someone stole the tennis balls off my walker a while back. I didn’t see you here then.”
“Really?” She looked down and saw Dottie was sporting brand new Wilsons, sliced down the center so they could cuddle the feet of her walker.
Who would steal an old lady’s walker balls?
“I’m sorry to hear that. I didn’t know.”
“Uh huh. That it?”
“Um…yep. Thank you.”
Dottie took a wobbly step backwards and then slammed the door so
hard the house shook.
Charlotte stared at the door until it finished vibrating.
I pity the person who stole those balls.
Charlotte wiped her brow and realized how hot it was. As the first flush of investigative excitement began to melt from her bones beneath the Florida sun, she understood why people said police work was mostly drudgery. She’d hoped being a private investigator was all grand discoveries and foot chases. Foot chases after very slow, small, weak criminals ready to turn themselves in at the slightest provocation.
Maybe I should have become a grade school truant officer.
She knocked on the edge of Gloria Abernathy’s screened porch door. On a flag hanging from a wooden pole beside her, a bright red parrot held aloft a coconut with a festive drink umbrella hanging from its shaved rim. Neon pink script along the bottom of the flag announced It’s Five o’Clock Somewhere. She wasn’t sure, but she thought Gloria had a different flag. Gloria was new to the neighborhood, and didn’t seem like the drunken-parrot-flag sort. Of course, in Florida, parrots drinking rum concoctions from coconuts were as common as sunglass-wearing lizards tanning on the beach. Maybe everyone who moved to Florida received a parrot flag at the border.
Both Gloria’s car and golf cart were in her driveway, but no one answered. Charlotte tugged on the screened porch door and found it open. She moved to the inner door and knocked again. Nothing.
Leaning to the right, she peeked through the window. A flash of movement caught her eye, something moving low to the ground.
Did Gloria have a dog?
“Gloria?” she called, rapping on the window.
A head popped up from behind a floral-patterned sofa and then disappeared. It was like peering in on a life-sized game of whack-a-mole.
Was sixty-six-year-old Gloria Abernathy crouching behind her sofa?
Charlotte pressed her face against the window. “Gloria! It’s Charlotte! Are you okay?”
Gloria’s face popped into view like a meerkat on high alert.
“Charlotte?”