by Amy Vansant
Hold the phone.
Heads usually come attached to bodies.
Were there more bones?
What was worse? Finding a whole skeleton or finding only a head?
Charlotte hoped the rest of the body lay nearby, and then shook her head at the oddity of the wish.
She glanced around her plot of dirt and realized she might be kneeling in a whole graveyard. More bones. More heads. She scrambled to her feet and dropped her shovel.
Charlotte glanced at her house, back to where her chalkboard wall patiently waited.
She really needed some chalk.
Chapter Two
The Sheriff’s deputies allowed Charlotte to stay in her home while they oversaw the removal of human remains from her garden; the garden she now lovingly referred to as The Garden Never to be Touched Again. It wasn’t as catchy as The Garden of Eatin’; the nickname one couple in Pineapple Port had dubbed their screened-in porch area, but it would have to do. It was still better than lanai. Everyone in Pineapple Port had a lanai. Outside of Hawaii, calling a porch a lanai smacked of Sun Belt snobbery. As if Florida sun porches were more exotic than those in Maryland or Vermont. Maybe they are. Her fellow Floridians could grow palm trees and dwarf fruit trees in their southern porches. Maybe it was okay to call a porch a lanai. I mean if it makes everyone happy…
Charlotte rubbed her eyes.
No wonder I never get anything done. I spend time thinking about the dumbest things. A human head was sitting in her garden and all she could think about was whether she had the right to call a porch a lanai.
Priorities, Charlotte, priorities.
Outside, two young deputies stood in drab tan uniforms watching the dig with little interest. Frank Marshall, Darla’s husband and the Manatee County Sheriff, stood beside the diggers, clearly wishing he could be anywhere but standing in the Florida sun watching nerds excavate a body one brushstroke at a time. Whenever Charlotte trotted water to the crowd in her backyard, Frank released an exasperated sigh that conveyed his deep preference for ice-cold beer. When she offered him a bottle, he glanced at his young companions and declined.
“I couldn’t possibly have a bottle on duty Charlotte,” he said, retrieving a handkerchief to swab his sweaty forehead. “Not a bottle this early.”
“A can?”
Frank tilted his head and peered at her from beneath his brow, encouraging a second guess.
Charlotte considered the emphasis Frank had put on the word bottle.
“Aaah…”
She popped back into the house, poured the bottle of beer into a coffee mug, and returned.
“How about coffee?” she asked, handing Frank the mug.
“Oh, sure,” he said, glancing at the younger officers. “I would love some coffee.”
“It’s good, I grind the beans myself.”
“Do you, now?”
“They have a nutty, almost hoppy taste, don’t you think?”
Frank glared at her. “Mm,” he grunted, taking a sip. “You should probably go back in. I don’t want you contaminating the scene.”
She grinned and went back inside. Abby barked as she entered and ran towards the front of the house. Charlotte followed her.
“What is it girl? Is Timmy down the well?”
The police had stretched a length of yellow crime tape across Charlotte’s front gate and a line of chattering neighbors stretched from one side to the other. The police might as well have sat in the front yard with a bullhorn screaming, “Scene of the crime! Come see the scene of the crime!” Like sharks to blood, the people of Pineapple Port smelled gossip fodder from miles away.
Charlotte wasn’t only the youngest resident of Pineapple Port, she was the most famous. Growing up in a retirement community made her the local oddity. If she purchased a different brand of coffee, within two hours, the whole neighborhood knew. Crime tape was overkill.
She’d moved to Pineapple Port with her grandmother, Estelle, at age eleven, following her mother’s death from cancer. Estelle had died nine months later. Mariska and Darla were her grandmother’s best friends, and they conspired with Darla’s husband Sherriff Frank, and Pineapple Port’s founders, Penny and George Sambrooke, to allow Charlotte to remain in her grandmother’s home. She spent most of her time at Mariska’s, until her teens, when she officially moved back into her grandmother’s home. Though she lived alone, she had everyone in the community as foster parents, with Mariska and Bob, who lived directly across the street, as primary caregivers.
Growing up in a fifty-five-plus community had pros and cons. The con was having endless other nosey grandmothers watching her every move. The pro was access to golf carts. Everyone in the neighborhood had a cart, some quite fancy. Access to souped-up golf carts was a child’s fantasy, and as a child, she’d dreamed of becoming a professional golf cart racer. She’d been horrified to discover there was no such thing. All other career options paled in comparison.
As an adult the pros and cons of living in the Port shifted. The neighborhood scrutiny contributed to her lackluster love life. That was a huge con. The one time a man spent the evening at her home, she’d been greeted by winks or scowls by nearly everyone in the neighborhood the following day. In retrospect, she wished she’d worn a t-shirt that said, He got to second base and then slept on the sofa.
On the pro side, she never wanted for jams, jellies or crocheted items of any kind. People without an endless supply of homemade jelly really didn’t know what they were missing.
Charlotte returned to her kitchen and watched them dig, drinking the rest of Frank’s beer from her own coffee mug to calm her nerves. The Sheriff wasn’t the only one trying to avoid scrutiny. Frank looked through the window and she held up her mug in cheers. He reciprocated.
As they enjoyed their beers, the forensic team removed and labeled each part of a skeleton. Charlotte watched a tech dust and place what looked like a toe bone into a baggie. She took another sip from her mug.
“I’m her mother!”
Charlotte’s head swiveled toward her front door. She heard arguing. She recognized one voice as that of the female officer guarding her front door. The woman had a terrible demeanor, and her sharp bark was undeniable. The other voices sounded more familiar, particularly the one claiming to be her mother.
She drained her mug.
Charlotte walked to the front door to find Darla and Mariska on her porch, their faces twisted in agitation. From the conversation, she deduced the two were attempting to gain entry by claiming to be her mother and grandmother, but they’d forgotten to agree upon who would play which role, and neither wanted to be the grandmother.
“So, you’re both her mother?” asked the officer. “Or you’re both her grandmother?”
Charlotte opened her door just as two other neighbors, Penny and Bettie, joined Mariska and Darla on her stoop.
“Charlotte, dear,” said Mariska. “I was so worried for you. What’s going on? Tell Mama.”
Darla glared at Mariska.
“What’s going on?” asked Penny. “I demand to know what’s going on.”
Charlotte knew she’d have to tell Penny everything. Pineapple Port’s matriarch ruled all the important committees and planned all the events worth attending. Those who disappointed her were doomed to a lifetime of weak bridge partners.
“Your grandmother and I are very worried!” said Darla, stepping on Mariska’s toe.
“Hi Charlotte!”
Behind the three louder women stood five-foot-nothing Bettie “Bettie Giraffe” Dahl, adorned in her trademark giraffe-print blouse.
“Hi Bettie, you’re back!” Charlotte said, unsurprised to see her. Bettie had no permanent place of residence. She visited friends until it was time to hop to the next host home, and appeared in Pineapple Port two or three times a year.
Bettie waved. “You look beautiful, Charlotte.”
Bettie never had a bad word to say about anyone, didn’t mind if other people did all the talking and her
obsession with giraffes made holiday shopping for her a breeze. Her collection of friends was no mystery.
The officer turned to Charlotte, her thumbs hooked in her belt and her demeanor hovering somewhere between annoyed and simmering volcano. She was clearly a woman of many moods, all of them variations of cranky.
“Two of your mothers are here,” said the officer. “Should I be on the lookout for any more?”
Charlotte shook her head and stepped outside, leading her four visitors away from the door and towards the crime-taped gate.
“What’s going on?” asked Mariska, as Charlotte half-beckoned, half-dragged her away from her front door. She herded the three instigators until they arrived on the edge of her property, as far from the officer as possible. Bettie, Charlotte knew, would follow wherever the others went.
“Are you okay?” asked Darla. “There’s tape everywhere. We thought you were murdered!”
“I’m fine. I was going to call you, but they showed up so fast I didn’t get a chance. Did you read the tape?” Charlotte pointed to the yellow strips draped across her gate. “It says, Do Not Cross.”
“It’s on the fence,” said Penny, punctuating her comment with a sniff. She had a sniff for every emotion, from a level one Not Really Listening to You to a level ten Fury. This was a about a two: Don’t Waste my Time. “They didn’t go across your door with it. It’s a mixed message at best and a fine symbol of their infinite incompetence.”
Charlotte paused, waiting for a level five Why is Everyone so Stupid? but Penny instead chose a well-timed hair flip, which, according to the body-language thesaurus, landed somewhere between a sniff and an eye-roll.
“We didn’t cross the tape,” said Darla.
“We didn’t cross it,” echoed Penny.
“I didn’t cross it,” said Bettie. She looked at Charlotte with large brown eyes. “I didn’t, did I?”
Charlotte smiled and patted Bettie on the shoulder.
“No, you didn’t cross it, Bettie. None of you did. But we need to disperse this crowd. You’d think Justin Bieber was throwing a concert in my backyard.”
“Who?” asked Penny.
“Oh, he’s that awful Canadian kid,” said Darla. “Needs a good kick in the pants.”
“But what’s going on?” asked Mariska again.
Charlotte looked around to be sure no one but her immediate crowd stood within hearing distance.
“After you two left this morning I went to work on my garden and found bones.”
Charlotte said found bones in a dramatic whisper. She didn’t mean to; the word bones just inspired drama.
Mariska’s eyes grew wide as silver dollar pancakes (one of the dollar-fifty specials at the local diner, half-price on John F. Kennedy’s birthday.) Charlotte knew all the deals in town. She didn’t mean to; she just naturally absorbed that sort of information living in the Port. Coupons, promotions and deals made up twenty percent of local small talk. Fifty percent was medical related; the remaining thirty was a mixture of bragging about grandkids, disapproval, gossip and recipes.
“Whaddya mean, bones?” asked Darla.
“Dog bones?” asked Bettie.
Bless her heart.
“Well, it was Franny’s Cairn who did the actual finding, but no, human bones. Definitely human bones. A skull, to be exact.”
All four women put their hands to their mouths, except Penny, who put her hands on her hips and cocked her head hard enough to send her short bob haircut swinging.
“That’s ridiculous.”
Charlotte shrugged. “It’s true.”
“There was a body in your yard?” asked Bettie. “A whole body?”
“No skin or clothes, just bones, but yes. When they removed the concrete for my garden, the bones were underneath. They’re old. The police and some forensic guys are back there processing the scene.”
“Ooh, is Frank there?” asked Darla. “I’ll get the whole story from him.”
“He’s there. He isn’t happy about it, but he’s there with two other officers.”
“Two policemen?” asked Bettie, touching her hair. Bettie was an incorrigible flirt.
“Did they bag and tag him yet?” asked Darla.
Darla watched an inordinate number of crime shows. Charlotte could see she was giddy at the opportunity to use her crime slang. Telling food store employees to bag and tag a sack of potatoes just wasn’t as satisfying.
“Are you a person of interest?” asked Penny.
“What? No!”
Charlotte realized the local gossip mill would have her labeled as an escaped convict/serial killer before Jeopardy! aired that evening. Even sharing what facts she could would spare her little in the imaginations of bored retirees.
“From what I’ve overheard, the bones are at least ten years old,” Charlotte said, taking a moment to make eye contact with each of the women, except Bettie, who had already lost interest and was watching a Blue Jay hop around the azalea bushes.
“And I can promise you they’re at least fifteen years old, because that cement has been there since my grandmother moved in. When I was eleven. I didn’t kill anyone and tunnel them under my grandmother’s porch like some kind of psychotic Lord of the Rings dwarf.”
Penny squinted at her, her expression cold. “You were always a precocious child.”
“Is it a man or a woman? What age?” asked Darla.
“I hope it isn’t a child!” said Mariska.
“I think I heard one of the nerds say the bones were female, but to be honest, I’m not sure. I can tell you the skull was a normal adult size.”
“Oh, that’s good,” said Mariska. “I mean, not good, but better.”
“Do you think we all have bodies in our yards?” asked Darla, glancing down the street toward her own house as if it were a party guest she’d just found lurking near her good jewelry.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” said Penny. “This land was nothing but swamp when George and I expanded Pineapple Port, not a grave site.”
“I told you not to build this place on an Indian burial ground,” said Charlotte.
Mariska gasped. “What? It was?”
“I’m just kidding. Poltergeist reference.”
The women stared at her with blank expressions.
“You know… Little girl gets sucked into the TV? Their house was built on an Indian—”
“Precocious,” muttered Penny.
Charlotte sighed. “Look, never mind. Bottom line is I don’t know much yet, but I’ll tell you everything when I find out. You all go home and let me do the snooping. Maybe if you leave, some of these others will wander off.”
Charlotte watched a woman slowly pass her house, Dachshund in tow. It was the tenth time she’d passed by and the stubby-legged dog looked tired. One more circle and the poor thing would be dragging behind her like a deflated party balloon.
None of the women moved.
“Hello?” said Charlotte. “Did any of you hear me?”
Darla and Penny remained planted on the sidewalk just outside Charlotte’s gate, trapped in a contest to see who could purse their lips more tightly. Bettie’s attention wandered down the block, and Charlotte followed her gaze to find a tall, athletic-built man headed in their direction. He had dark hair; not shaggy, but long enough that Charlotte suspected it took real effort to keep it so perfectly in place. As he neared, his mouth curled into the sort of charming grin that could melt the icing off the ladies’ best church bazaar cupcakes.
He made eye contact with each woman, spending no more or less time on each, and then glanced at the yellow tape half-heartedly hugging Charlotte’s picket fence.
“This must be the place,” he said.
The four women watched, silent, as the young man slipped past them and walked toward the stoop. The grim keeper of Charlotte’s doorstep turned towards him as he approached, preparing for battle.
Good luck with her.
After a short conversation, the officer stepped aside and al
lowed the tall stranger to enter her home, her dour puss replaced by two rows of teeth arranged in the shape of a genuine smile.
She giggled as he passed.
Giggled.
Charlotte would have bet money the woman had never giggled in her life.
Noticing eight eyes upon her, the officer’s face collapsed like window blinds, shifting back to her usual mask of disapproval. She crossed her arms over her chest. Charlotte wonder if the officer had just given her home to the dark-haired man and now planned to keep her out while he redecorated.
“Who the hell was that?” Charlotte said aloud, not expecting an answer.
Darla, Penny and Mariska all answered in unison.
“Declan.”
Chapter Three
Charlotte passed the disapproving gaze of the officer at her door without turning to stone and reentered her home. She found the handsome stranger in her living room, bent over, scratching Abby behind her ears. Abby stretched and groaned, shifting her butt toward the man in order to offer him more spots for attention. He apparently had a mystical power over all women, regardless of species.
She glared at Abby, who remained oblivious to her failings as a watchdog.
Charlotte rolled the man’s name over in her mind. She’d heard it before. He was the one who swept in and bought all the best things at the estate sales Mariska and Darla loved to peruse. She’d heard Mariska lament that she missed all the good stuff because ‘Declan had already picked it over.’ She’d pictured him older.
“Declan?”
Declan looked up, gave the dog one last pet and straightened. He scratched his nose, and Charlotte saw he had large hands; each of his long, elegant fingers ending in perfectly clipped, buffed nails. She wondered if Declan had a woman in his life who worked at one of the four hundred nail salons in the area. He wore no wedding ring. If he were married to a nail technician, she probably would have told him to do his own damn nails by now, so that didn’t make sense…
“Hellooo…?”
Declan’s face was suddenly very close to hers, his bemused smile working the laugh lines on either side of his mouth to maximum visibility. He peered into her eyes and used the hand attached to those elegant fingers to wave, as if she were a window and some small child stood on the opposite side of her skull.
