by Amy Vansant
She fished the newspaper clipping from her pocket and unfolded it for the woman to see. “We, uh…remembered seeing you at the yard sale. You were at this yard sale last month? In Pineapple Port?”
The woman peered at the paper.
“I like yard sales,” she said in a heavy accent.
“Great. So, this box…you can see it in the picture…did you buy this box?”
“Me? La caja?”
“Caja? Is that box?”
The woman nodded.
Well there we go. Caja.
“Yes. La caja. I want to buy it back. Did you buy it? Do you have it?”
The woman looked confused. “No. No, I didn’t buy the box.”
“You didn’t?”
“No.”
She held up a finger and slipped back into the house, leaving the door ajar. She returned a moment later with a large, orange plate.
“Compré el plato,” she said, holding it aloft with one hand and pointing at it with the other.
“Oh. You bought a plate. But no caja.”
“Si. El plato pero sin caja.”
Charlotte sighed and refolded her newspaper clipping. “Okay. I’m sorry to have bothered you. Lo siento. Gracias.”
Lo siento. Guess a little of the Spanish language CD did stick in my head.
She’d also recognized plato, but only because so many Spanish words resembled their English counterparts. If only the woman had said she was going to the azul biblioteca for cervezas she could have used all the Spanish she knew. Why language programs were obsessed with libraries, she had no idea. Who traveled to another country and went to the local library? Still, it was sad how infrequently Spanish speakers asked her to have beers at the blue library.
Charlotte returned to her car and rolled to the stop light at the end of Tomasa’s street feeling dejected. She’d used her one lead. She’d even resorted to blackmail to pry the address from Frank.
What a waste.
She snatched the newspaper clipping from where she’d tossed it on her passenger seat and peered at the black and white photo until the objects in the image blurred into each other. The light turned green and red again, but there were no cars behind her so she let it go. There had to be something useful in the photo. She closed her eyes to rest them a moment and then again peered at the clipping photo. There stood Jackie behind her foldout table talking to a woman, but there was no way to identify the woman from the back of her shirt and shorts. She didn’t look like anyone Charlotte knew from Pineapple Port. She supposed she could take the clipping around the neighborhood to see if anyone recognized the back of the mystery woman, but really, the figure could have been anyone. Shorts weren’t an uncommon article of clothing in Florida. Anyway, the woman wasn’t holding the box in her hand; she probably wasn’t even the purchaser.
Charlotte tossed the paper into the passenger seat and hit the gas as the light turned green for a third time. Solving mysteries was an adrenaline rush, but trying to solve mysteries was frustrating.
The next red light stopped her a block away from her turn into Pineapple Port. She knew the light would be long. In the picture beside her, the box sat on the corner of the foldout table, taunting her, daring her to find it.
She grabbed the photo and stared at it again, eye jumping from one newsprint pixel to the next.
One of these stupid dots will tell me something…
There were two cars in the photo, or more correctly, parts of two cars. While she was able to read the license plate on Tomisa’s, the other vehicle had little showing but a bumper, part of the right rear light and the edge of a bumper sticker.
Bumper sticker…
Charlotte squinted at the second car. There was something familiar about that bumper sticker. It appeared to be white with a swirly pattern…perhaps a cursive letter e? Where had she seen an e like that before…?
She looked up to check the light. Still red. Looking down the road in front of her, she spotted the entrance sign for another one of Charity’s famous planned retirement communities: Silver Lake.
Silver Lake…written in scripty font…
Silver Lake…that ended in an e…
She looked back at the bumper sticker and then up at the sign, a tendon in her neck twinging with the speed of her movement.
Silver Lake!
“Whoo-hoo!”
Charlotte threw her hands in the air in celebration as the driver behind her leaned on the horn. She jumped and hit the gas, nearly plowing into the divider as she struggled to grip the wheel without crumpling the newspaper clipping. She glanced in her rearview mirror and saw Tilly scowling at her. She waved an apology and made a mental note to find a cooler way to celebrate discoveries. Sherlock Holmes never yelped whoo-hoo! How embarrassing.
Once in the neighborhood Tilly turned left and Charlotte continued straight.
She smiled.
The investigation wasn’t cold yet.
I have a lead.
Silver Lake residents slapped bumper stickers to their cars to make sure everyone knew they lived in the community with the multiple pools. Silver Lake lots were larger than Pineapple Port’s and their modular homes were slightly bigger. Some of them had porches, a luxury rarely seen in the Port. The communities each harbored a quiet dislike for the other. They were like high school sports teams doomed to be each other’s rivals in everything. Their residents battled in citywide bowling, shuffleboard and bocce ball tournaments and their crafty people tried to out-bake, knit, crochet and paint each other at every church bazaar. The upcoming Halloween costume contest was the biggest battle of them all.
The Port occasionally lost people to Silver Lake and Silver Lake lost people to Pineapple Port.
Neither spoke of those people anymore.
Traitors.
Charlotte rolled her eyes.
They had to have the box. Who else, if not miserable ol’ Silver Lake?
She checked her car’s clock. She had time.
Charlotte made a u-turn and headed into Silver Lake.
Silver Lake had a three-by-four-foot gatehouse that made Silver Lake residents feel superior to gateless communities like Pineapple Port, even if it was protected by a seventy-year-old man. But what they didn’t know, was that their precious gate wasn’t protected by just anyone.
He was a Pineapple Portian.
Pete, known as Parking Pass Pete around the Port, was their man on the inside.
She lowered her window and gave Pete her cheeriest smile.
“Hey Triple P!”
“Charlotte! How are you? What brings you over to the dark side?”
“I’m good, and I need to talk to a lady in here. I’m on a case. Okay if I go in?”
“I saw your detective flyer. Sounds exciting. Heard Arnie Caslin got a pie out of it. Can I threaten to turn you in for sneaking into Silver Lake for a plate of brownies?”
Charlotte laughed. “I’ll see what I can do.”
Pete chuckled, picked up his clipboard and slid a pencil from behind his ear. “Hm…I need to put something on the sheet. What should I say?”
“Maybe say I’m someone’s granddaughter?”
He nodded. “Sounds good. How about Victoria…I know she has a granddaughter who comes through here from time to time…” He looked up from his scribbling. “But you’re much better lookin’ than her.”
“Aw, thanks Pete. Keep up the good work.”
He tipped his imaginary cap to her. “Keeping the world safe for mankind. Take it easy.”
The gate arm opened and Charlotte drove into enemy territory searching for the bumper sticker. Several of the visible cars had stickers, but none had them in the right spot or with taillights that matched the news photo until she crept down Magnolia Court. There, parked in a driveway in front of what appeared to be a triple-wide home was an older model Audi with the right sticker in the right place. She pulled to the curb and parked.
Charlotte walked to the front door of the Audi home and stood on the por
ch for a few seconds before knocking. She admired the wooden railing and the small umbrella-covered outdoor dining set.
Gosh. This is a nice porch.
She wanted to build a porch behind her home, but after finding Declan’s mother there, she was terrified to dig.
She knocked. A moment later a woman answered. She had a sharp nose and a steel-gray bob.
“Yes?”
Charlotte smiled. “Hi…I hate to bother you but I have a sort of silly question for you.”
“I’m not buying magazines, I don’t need my driveway repaved and our roof is fine,” said the woman, closing her door.
“No, no! It’s nothing like that!” Charlotte put her hand on the door to stop it from shutting.
Panic flashed across the woman’s face. “There’s no soliciting!”
Charlotte removed her hand from the door and held both up to show she meant no harm. “I’m not soliciting, I’m sorry, I just need to ask you a quick question.”
“I’m not joining your church.”
“I’m not here to ask you to join my church. My friend had a yard sale in Pineapple Port a few weeks ago. You were there.”
“I was not.”
“You—you weren’t?”
“No.”
Charlotte could tell the woman was lying, but she didn’t want the door closed on her again.
“Is that your car?” she asked, pointing at the Audi. “That car was at the yard sale, but maybe it wasn’t you?”
“Yes. I—well…yard sale you say? Maybe I drove by. Accidentally. My friend likes yard sales. I told her she wouldn’t find anything.”
Charlotte knew the comment was a shot at Pineapple Port but did her best not to appear offended. If the woman knew she lived there, she’d be even less friendly.
“Okay…well…my friend did something accidentally, too. She sold a box she didn’t mean to sell. I’m just trying to find it.”
“A box?”
Charlotte nodded.
The woman closed the door a little tighter. “Why?”
“Why do we want it back?”
“Yes. Is it worth more money than you thought?”
“No, nothing like that. There’s not an original copy of the Declaration of Independence in it or anything. It just has sentimental value.”
The woman’s lips twisted into a knot. She clearly didn’t like what she was hearing, but Charlotte wasn’t sure which part of the story disagreed with her. She guessed the woman still thought the box was worth money.
“So…did you buy the box?”
The woman’s gaze darted past her and Charlotte turned to see where she was looking. All she saw were more houses. Houses where her friends probably lived…
She didn’t buy the box. The friend did.
The woman stood a little straighter and put her hand on her hip. “What did it look like?”
“It was rosewood with a flower in the center of the lid. A lily. About twelve inches long, maybe five inches wide?”
“No, doesn’t ring a bell. Sorry.” She began to close the door.
“What about your neighbor?”
Again the woman’s eyes shot across the street and she shook her head.
“She didn’t buy it either.”
Ah ha!
Charlotte smiled. The woman never said her yard-sale-shopping friend was a neighbor, but she didn’t correct the reference to the friend as a neighbor.
The woman who bought the box lived nearby.
“You’re sure she didn’t buy the box? Maybe you two were separated for a bit?”
“No. She doesn’t have it.”
“Are you sure? Could you point her out to me so I could ask?”
Again, the woman’s gaze fluttered past Charlotte and she felt confident the friend lived on the other side of the cul-de-sac.
“I wouldn’t feel comfortable. I’m sure she didn’t buy it. I have to go. I’m very busy. Good luck finding your box.”
The woman closed the door.
Shoot.
Charlotte walked down the porch steps toward her car. She peeked down the side of the woman’s house as she strolled, but found no easy way to eavesdrop. She suspected the woman was on the phone with her bargain hunting buddy, but there was no way to hear the conversation.
I know that friend has the box.
She could feel it in her toes.
She stopped to look back at the other houses in the cul-de-sac. There were three houses across from the woman’s home. Judging by the angle of her gaze during their conversation, Charlotte felt confident she could narrow the friend’s house down to the two farthest to the left.
If only I could hear the conversation! Right now, the woman was probably telling her friend to get the box appraised.
An idea flashed through Charlotte’s mind and she slapped her hip.
Maybe Declan could appraise it!
But she needed to find a way to get the box to him. How?
She could knock on the neighbors’ doors… No. The lady with the pointy nose probably already warned her friend. She’d never answer her door now.
Wait.
She might not be planning to answer her door, but she will be on the lookout.
She’ll suspect I’m coming. She’ll want to know what I look like so she can avoid me in the future.
Charlotte stepped behind a street lamp, taking a moment to admire the fact that Silver Lake had impressive antique-style street lamps. Maybe if Pineapple Port had such lovely street lamps she’d want to slap a bumper sticker on her car, too.
Hm.
Back to the case.
She stared at the three other houses, mumbling to herself. “Come on…peek…you know you want to…”
After a few minutes, the door of the center house opened and a woman peered out. She looked around the cul-de-sac as if searching for someone. Charlotte stepped out from behind the lamp and the woman spotted her. She froze for a moment, and then squatted to adjust her doormat as if that had always been her intention.
Yep, sometime a person just can’t sleep, worrying their doormat might be crooked.
Gotcha.
The woman slipped back inside and closed her door.
Charlotte walked to the house and rang the bell. No one answered. She tried knocking. Still no answer.
So that’s how we’re going to play it.
She gave up and headed back to her car. Just as she stepped inside, a golf cart with a light on top came wheeling into the cul-de-sac.
Parking Pass Pete.
She closed her door and slid down her window.
“I’m supposed to kick you out for soliciting,” said Pete.
“I’m not soliciting, but that’s okay, I’m leaving anyway.”
He grinned. “That’ll make me look good. It would be better if I threw you over the hood and cuffed you though.”
“Not a chance.”
“Ah well.”
“Do you know who lives in that house there?” she asked, trying to point as discreetly as possible.
He looked. “Diana. Diana Fassbender. Thick as thieves with the one in this house here, though she’s twice as miserable.” He gestured toward pointy-nose’s house. “Her name’s Poppy.”
Charlotte nodded. “You know, Pete, I don’t think I’d want to live here even with all the fancy street lamps.”
“Nope! Now get out of here, you snake oil salesman!” He made a big show pointing her toward the exit of the neighborhood and she laughed as she closed her window and left the neighborhood.
She didn’t have the box.
But she sure knew where it was.
Chapter Nineteen
Charlotte pulled into her driveway and saw Declan’s car parked on the curb. She smiled and felt a shimmy of giddiness run through her.
This day just gets better and better.
As she neared her door, Declan stepped outside to meet her.
She bowed. “How wonderful of you to greet me at my door, kind sir!”
&nb
sp; “My, you’re in a good mood,” he said, kissing her on the cheek.
She turned her head in time to catch him on the lips and he leaned into the kiss.
“A very good mood.”
“I am. The license plate was a dead-end but I think the bumper sticker is a winner.”
“I’ll just pretend I know what all that means.”
Charlotte opened the newspaper clipping and held it aloft for him to see. She pointed to the visible license plate. “I got Frank to run this plate and found a lady who had been to Jackie’s yard sale, but she bought a plate, not the mystery box. But then…” She pointed to the partially visible bumper sticker. “I realized this is a bumper sticker for Silver Lake, across the street, and found the buyer.”
“You did? So you have the box?”
“Well…no. That bit is a little more complicated. But I know where it is.”
“That’s great!”
“Hopefully.” Charlotte nodded towards the house. “So I guess you met Gloria?”
“Yep. Interesting lady. Did you know she put fast drying cement in the finger holes of a woman’s bowling ball?”
“What?”
Charlotte pushed past him to enter the house.
“Gloria!” she called.
Gloria’s head popped around the corner from the kitchen.
“Charlotte! You’re home. Perfect timing. I made pork chops. I even have enough for your handsome friend.” She waggled her eyebrows in Declan’s direction.
“Gloria, what’s this about cementing bowling balls?”
Gloria’s face fell and her gaze drifted back to Declan.
“Have you been telling tales out of school?”
He held up his hands. “Sorry! I didn’t realize it was a secret.”
Charlotte dropped her purse on the table next to the door. “You said you’d told me everything.”
Gloria sighed. “I forgot. Sorry. A few weeks ago during bowling league, this woman kept stepping to the line when I was at the line. That makes me crazy. It is so rude. She should wait if she sees I’m ready to bowl. Then she did it again the week after that. I found out from some other people that she does it to everyone. So…I took care of it.”