by Amy Vansant
“Sticky things?” asked Frank.
“You know, sticky things. Sticks you use to beat people. Everybody has them.”
Charlotte slid her gaze towards Darla.
“What the hell is Ginny’s husband up to?”
“I don’t know, but I’m going to make a mental note not to piss him off.”
Frank held up a hand to stop the rising tide of chatter. “Well, anyone with a gun, I’d like to collect them for ballistics testing.”
“I was going to suggest that,” said Harry.
“You don’t think one of us could have killed her, do you Frank?” asked Jackie.
“I’m not saying that, but getting your weapon cleared is the easiest way to remove yourself from suspicion. If they decide to do a house-by-house search for weapons, you don’t want to be the one hiding your gun. Bring them to me now and we’ll get them tested against the bullet.”
“That I found,” mumbled Harry.
“Of course none of us did it,” said Penny. “But I’ll tell George to bring by his guns, Sheriff. We want to help in every way possible. Things like this don’t happen in Pineapple Port.”
“I brought some pictures,” said Declan. He stood and slipped a pile of papers from his manila envelope. He handed a sheet to each person in the circle.
“Charlotte thought seeing my mother might help people remember her, maybe help with the investigation.”
Everyone took a photo and stared at it. A few offered nods of appreciation.
“Such a beautiful girl,” said Mariska, shaking her head.
Charlotte looked at the photo of the dark-haired woman. She was very pretty, with a pert nose, full lips and startling green eyes. She could see Declan’s face in hers.
“You favored her,” said Darla, noticing the same thing.
Declan nodded.
A silence fell over the group.
“Can anyone think of anything else?” asked Charlotte. “Penny, now that you’ve seen her, does she look familiar?”
Penny offered a level seven sniff. Seven meant True Agitation.
“I’m not sure. She looks like anyone. I didn’t get to the office much. I was raising my babies. But I did some of the book work and I remember seeing her name on the payroll.”
Al stared at the photo, his usually tan face paler than usual.
“Al?” asked Charlotte. “Do you recognize her?”
“I…I do,” he said. “I worked for George and I remember seeing her at the office. But I never saw her outside the office. I don’t know anything about her. You said she was shot, right?”
“We don’t know for sure,” said Frank.
“Probably, though,” said Harry. “I found a bullet, after all.”
“I set up a Facebook group for the Corpse Club,” said Penny.
Declan looked at Charlotte, his eyes wide. Charlotte shook her head and looked down, trying not to laugh.
“Crime Club,” said Charlotte, after taking a second to compose herself. “Remember Penny? We voted to change the name.”
“Right, yes,” said Penny. “I’ll have to change the name of the group. Anyway, I’ll send you all a link. Go and join and I’ll post any updates there.”
“I don’t trust the Face Place,” said Agnes. “I won’t do it. You can’t make me.”
Penny huffed.
As the meeting adjourned, attendees gravitated towards Declan and Charlotte walked outside. Jackie asked her about getting some dishtowels embroidered with Scottish terriers on them for her daughter’s birthday and they talked until she saw Declan exit the building. She assured Jackie she’d stitch whatever she needed and excused herself. Seamus approached and started a conversation with Jackie.
“Thanks for coming,” said Charlotte to Declan when he stepped outside. “Sorry if you were swarmed in there. You’re like a celebrity around here now.”
“Oh, thanks for the invite. Seamus, this is Charlotte. They found the bones in her backyard.”
Seamus paused his conversation with Jackie and thrust forward his large paw to shake.
“Nice to meet you. My nephew’s told me all about you.”
“About how you found the body,” said Declan.
“Right,” agreed Seamus. “About the bones.”
Seamus turned back to Jackie and Charlotte watched as the pool aerobics queen offered him a demure smile. For no-nonsense Jackie, it was category four hurricane flirting. She could pull a face muscle fluttering her eyelids like that without stretching first.
“That seemed like a successful meeting,” said Declan. “Who knows, maybe something will come of it.”
“I never dreamed so many people here had guns,” said Charlotte.
“Well, a lot of our founding fathers did and I’m sure there are a few of them living here.”
Charlotte laughed.
“Well…” he said, swinging his arms. “Back to the shop.”
Charlotte nodded and said goodbye to both of the Irishmen. She watched them walk toward the parking lot as Mariska appeared in the doorway, cookie crumbs nestled on the shelf created by her bust line.
“Was that Declan?” she asked.
“Yep.”
“Why don’t you ask him over for a drink?”
“Really? I thought you thought he was gay?”
“I saw the way he looked at you. That man is not gay.”
Charlotte looked back at Declan’s retreating form.
“I think he has a girlfriend.”
Mariska shrugged. “Maybe she’s not all that.”
Charlotte laughed.
“What? You don’t think I know the hip lingo?”
She shook her head, still snickering. “You’re crazy anyway, Mar. Anytime someone looks in my direction you think they’re five minutes away from proposing marriage.”
“They probably are. You’re gorgeous.”
“Gorgeous to you, maybe, but you have low standards.”
“Gorgeous to everyone,” said Mariska, grabbing her and sneaking in a second hug for the day.
Charlotte grimaced and pretended to hate it.
“We never should have let you live in that house by yourself for so long. You’ve gotten too used to it.”
The two of them began strolling back to the golf cart.
“You and Bob and Frank and Darla were always right across the street. And whenever I wanted I could sleep over.”
“Like after you watched a scary movie,” said Mariska, chuckling at the memory.
“Exactly. It was a dream being queen of my own castle.”
“Yes, but both your mother and grandmother weren’t huggy things. As much as I loved Estelle, she wasn’t the warmest person. And now you jump at the slightest touch. I’ve been trying to hug it out of you for years, but I worry you’ll never let anyone get close to you.”
“Wait,” said Charlotte, stopping. “You’re telling me this hug routine of yours is some sort of physical therapy?”
“Well…” said Mariska, her eyes growing moist. “That and I love you.”
Mariska clamped her arms around her once more and she submitted to the third hug of the day. When it became apparent Mariska was in for the long haul, Charlotte struggled to pull her arms free and hugged her back. They stood that way, rocking back and forth, until Darla approached.
“Oh no,” said Darla. “Who died now?”
Chapter Ten
Charlotte walked home, poured herself a glass of wine and sat on her back porch, book on her lap, once again staring at Erin Bingham’s shallow grave.
“Hey Erin, I met your son,” she said aloud.
No answer. Good.
“He’s very cute.”
Nothing.
A part of her wished she’d never met Declan. If she hadn’t, the bones would have remained bones and not become a person. The more time she spent thinking about Erin, wondering what happened to her, the more she felt like she knew her.
A tiny part of her thought that maybe Erin would answer. She ju
st hoped it would be when she expected it and she wasn’t going to just open her bathroom door sometime to find Erin standing in the hallway. When she was young, Mariska used to enter the house with no announcement. Charlotte would turn a corner to find a shape standing in her hall or kitchen. Half the time they’d both yelp and then stand there panting, hands on their hearts.
“What happened Erin? Just talk enough to tell me what happened.”
She couldn’t help but wonder about Erin’s last hours.
“Were you afraid? Did you know you were going to die? Did—”
Charlotte fell silent. It made her upset to think of Erin in fear for her life.
Abby groaned and rolled on to her back, her legs in the air like a dying cockroach. She definitely didn’t look like a dog with extra-sensory perception alarms blaring.
“Whenever you’re ready, Erin,” she mumbled.
Charlotte wanted to fill the grave and make it go away, but she worried disturbing it might ruin some chance of finding Erin’s killer. The crime tape came down before Harry arrived and found the bullet, so she didn’t trust the police to tell her when it was safe to touch the area. What if she’d covered the grave before Harry came round? What if, while digging, she’d knocked the bullet through the fence and into the yard next door? Harry might never have found the most important piece of evidence.
She wished she could fast-forward and discover the results of the forensic testing. Or, as long as she was giving herself superpowers, she wished she could see into the past, and identify Erin’s killer. She could give both Declan and his mother peace.
Charlotte closed her eyes and rested her head on the back of her chair. Sans superpowers, she’d have to use her mind to find Erin’s killer. Think. There had to be angle; some breadcrumb that would lead to better clues. She felt responsible somehow, for owning the property beneath which Erin had rested for so many years. She was obsessed.
She was passionate.
Hm.
Isn’t this what she’d wanted? A passionate interest in something? She couldn’t make a career of finding bones in her yard, but…
The sound of Abby’s deep bark made Charlotte jump and slosh wine onto her shorts. She heard a knock and set down her glass to walk to the front door.
“Al,” said Charlotte, finding Al Taliaferro on her doorstep.
“How you doin’ Charlotte?”
Al ran a hand over his head. Towering over the five-foot-nothing man, she could see every sun-damaged inch of his scalp through the strips of his thinning black hair. It was unusual to have yet another member of the community at her door, but least he’d had the decency to knock and instead of peeping over her fence.
“What’s up?”
Al wrung his hands, eyes darting left and right.
“Uh… Mind if I talk to you for a bit?”
“No, of course not.”
She waited for Al to begin, but he stood, silent, shifting his weight from one foot to another. She realized Al’s conversation required more than a chat on the stoop.
“Want to come in?”
Al nodded and stepped into the house, careful to avoid the bounding terrier determined to steal his attention.
“Can I get you something to drink? Wine? Beer?”
“You got scotch?”
“Do I live in Pineapple Port?” She flashed him a smile. Scotch was a popular drink in the neighborhood. She thought it tasted like earwax, but she always kept some on hand.
Charlotte put ice in a glass and poured. She handed it to Al.
“Let’s sit on the lanai,” she said, leading the way to where her wine awaited her return. She decided right then to say lanai a million times a day until she became desensitized to it.
Al followed her. He froze at the threshold, staring at the gravesite through the screen.
“That where they found her?”
“Yes. That’s where Katie found her. Just to the right of the lanai.”
Al swallowed and walked into the porch. He sat across from Charlotte, who retrieved her glass and took a sip.
“So how can I help you, here in my lanai?” she asked.
Al didn’t flinch. She could probably answer all his questions with lanai in and he wouldn’t bat an eye.
“I have information about the girl. About those bones.”
Charlotte forgot about the lanai game.
“What? You do?”
“I didn’t kill her,” said Al. He took a gulp of his scotch.
“I didn’t think you did!”
“I just have some information that probably don’t mean nothin’.”
“Okay…”
She considered suggesting to Al that he tell his story to Frank, but she didn’t want to scare him away. What could it hurt if she heard it first…
“Go ahead,” she said, using her most reassuring tone.
Al took a deep breath.
“I was coming back from Sandy’s… That was a bar that used to be three towns over. It’s gone now. Anyway, I was coming back and I’d been drinking. I’m not going to pretend I wasn’t. I was drunk. I was driving with one eye closed.”
She winced and he saw it.
“Hey, keep in mind this was fifteen years ago. Back then, nobody thought twice about driving drunk.”
“Fifteen years ago wasn’t the fifties, Al.”
“I just mean it’s worse now. I mean better. You know what I mean.”
“Understood.”
“Anyway, something happened…I forget what. I had to change the radio or I dropped my cigarette…I don’t remember. I just know I looked down for a second, and when I looked up, I saw this woman walkin’ down the road. No, more like jogging down the road.”
He took another drink from his glass until only the clinking ice remained. She stood and retrieved the bottle of scotch. She refilled his glass and sat back down.
“Thanks,” he said, grabbing the glass the moment it left her fingers. “Anyway, I remember she was wearin’ a white blouse with a big red belt. She looked like a ghost. I was headed right for her. She was moving funny, y’know? Weavin’ back and forth. I remember because it confused me. I didn’t know which way to swerve.”
“Like she was drunk?”
“Yeah, I guess. I dunno. It all happened in a split second. She was stumblin’ back and forth. It seemed like she was everywhere. I swerved and I missed her.”
Al paused and stared at her. She tried not to react; worried any judgment on her part would silence him. Maybe serving as his confessor had been a poor idea. There’d been murmurs in the neighborhood that Al was once connected to the New Jersey Mafia, but, that rumor followed almost everyone from New York or New Jersey whose name ended with a vowel. It wasn’t unusual for the victims of the stereotyping to not only embrace the rumor, but encourage it, much like Declan had done with his own tall tales. Pineapple Port was crawling with ex-Tony Soprano wannabes.
“Charlotte?”
Charlotte’s attention snapped back. “I’m sorry. My mind wandered.”
Al grimaced. “That’s okay. I’m probably scarin’ you. You think I killed that poor girl.”
“But you didn’t?”
“No. No…”
“You didn’t hit her with your car?”
“No, I…I mean I don’t think so.” He paused to take another sip. “I didn’t hear a scream, didn’t see her on the road in the rearview, didn’t feel a thump. I told myself I’d imagined it. Like I said, she looked like a ghost, but—”
Al finished his glass and put it on the table. He put his face in his hands and breathed deeply.
“But what?”
“But it was right here,” said Al, sitting up and pointing at the ground with his stubby index finger. “Right where your house is; where they were building the new part of the Port. I never would have thought about it again, but it was right freakin’ here.”
Charlotte looked out at the grave.
“Did you bury her?”
“No! That’s the
thing! I didn’t bury her. I never got out of the damn car. I slowed down…but I never got out. I told myself I’d imagined her and I went home. I was pretty shaken up to tell you the truth. Laughin’ with nerves.”
“You said everything is a little fuzzy. Are you absolutely sure you didn’t bury her?”
“How could I forget buryin’ someone? I’m not that old. And I’m not that stupid to tell you I was in the same state the day she disappeared if I did bury her. Hell, I couldn’t live with myself all these years knowing I’d killed a girl and buried her! I know people got a thing about certain Italians buryin’ people under cement, but to be honest, the sight of blood makes me sick. I wouldn’t have been able to touch her.”
Al leaned forward in his chair, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper.
“Char, I was a plumber. I knew maybe one connected guy and he was a nobody. I might let people around here think what they want about my past. Maybe I don’t correct them when they start dreamin’ up stories, if you know what I mean. But I ain’t never killed nobody.”
Charlotte sat back in her chair, deep in thought.
“She couldn’t have been knocked into a hole somehow,” she mumbled. “They couldn’t have built over her; someone would have noticed.”
“Unless they were afraid it would stop construction? I can’t stop thinking about it…thinking someone might have found her by the side of the road and thrown her in a hole just to avoid delays.”
“Oh gosh…you think? I mean, even the greediest bastard wouldn’t pave over a dead girl to avoid stalling construction, would he?”
Al shrugged. “Probably not, but I dunno. Stranger things have happened. Just because I wasn’t connected, doesn’t mean I didn’t hear stories, if you know what I mean.”
“Are you sure it was Erin Bingham?”
“No. Like I said, I’m not sure about nothin’ except I didn’t bury no one. That picture her kid brought, though, it sort of looked like her, but I dunno. Gave me the sweats.”
“Did you see her again? Did you see Erin at the office here again?”
Al shrugged. “I only went in the office once in a while. I wouldn’t have noticed when she was there or when she was gone.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
