by Amy Vansant
Penny stared at him, shaking, her eyes wild.
“Penny! Is George at the house?”
“You said not to say another word!” screeched Penny.
“You can answer my question.”
“No. He and Junior went fishing.”
“Where?”
“Out of Tampa.”
“When will they be back?”
“Tomorrow afternoon.”
“Okay. Penny, I’m going to ask you to come with me so we can do this properly.” Frank turned to Declan and Seamus. “I want you two to come as well.”
Seamus and Declan both nodded.
Declan looked at Charlotte and she bit at her lip, unable to do anything else.
“Call me if you need anything,” she said.
Declan answered with a tight smile. He paused, and then leaned down and kissed her on the lips. He held the kiss for five seconds and then with one last look, turned to leave.
“Oh my,” said Mariska.
“That was kind of romantic, huh?” said Darla to her.
Charlotte smiled. She tried not to, but it was hopeless.
Frank ushered Penny out of the house with Seamus and Declan on his heels.
Mariska, Darla, Bob and Charlotte remained in stunned silence as the door closed behind them.
“So…” said Bob after a moment. “Was that a no on the extra pierogis?”
Mariska sighed.
“So are you thinking what I’m thinking?” asked Charlotte.
“That Frank’s bourbon has been left unattended?” asked Bob rising from his chair and shuffling toward Darla’s lanai. “I’ll hide it. It will make him crazy.”
“That George is guilty as sin?” answered Darla, watching Bob head for her husband’s liquor cabinet with little interest.
Charlotte shook her head. “We have to go to Penny’s house.”
“What are you talking about?” asked Mariska.
“Penny said she shot into the closet and you can still see the mark. We should go look for it.”
“Frank will figure it all out,” said Darla, returning to her dishes.
“But what if she gets word to George and warns him? What if there is evidence that goes missing by the time Frank can get George into the station?”
“The police have to do things by the numbers,” said Mariska.
Darla turned. “But we don’t.”
“Exactly,” said Charlotte. “If Penny calls George and tips him off, who knows what will go missing by the time Frank gets there.”
“But how will we get in?” asked Mariska.
“The door is probably open,” said Charlotte.
“And if it isn’t,” said Darla, slipping into the office off the kitchen. She returned with a small case. “I’ve got my lock picks.”
“Your lock picks!” said Charlotte, ogling Darla. “Who are you?”
“Her second husband was a thief,” said Mariska.
“I learned all sorts of fun things.”
“I’m going home,” said Bob, Frank’s bourbon under his arm. “You broads are nuts.”
Charlotte sat on Penny’s back step. She had agreed to meet Mariska and Darla there in fifteen minutes.
“Hey.”
Charlotte jumped at the sound of Darla’s voice. She was clothed in black. Charlotte could barely see anything but the parts of Darla’s face that weren’t covered with camouflage.
“What is on your face?”
“It’s dark blush. Can you see me?”
Charlotte stepped closer. In the dim light of the half-moon, she could see a tinge of red to the dark powder covering Darla’s face.
“You look like a baboon’s butt. Why did you have such dark blush? Were you trying out for Bride of Frankenstein?”
Darla shrugged. “It was a phase.”
“Hey!” said another voice. They turned and found Mariska wearing dark slacks and a black sweater with a giant goldfish in the center of it.
“Girl, I can see that goldfish from a block away!” said Darla.
“It’s the only black, long-sleeve thing I had.”
“Well turn it inside out!”
Mariska muttered ‘fine’ and began pulling the sweater over her head. She didn’t get far before she froze with her hands above her head, her arms bound by the same sweater that now covered her face.
“What are you doing?” asked Charlotte.
“It’s caught on my earring,” said Mariska. “I’m trapped.”
“Oh for crying out loud…”
Charlotte and Darla jostled to free Mariska’s ear from the knitting. They managed to get the sweater back down.
“The fish is fine,” said Charlotte. “Leave it. We’re not Seal Team Six.”
“Goldfish Team Three,” said Mariska.
Darla snorted a laugh.
Charlotte sighed and tried the doorknob. Many of the residents didn’t bother to lock their homes, but no such luck with Penny.
“It’s locked.”
“Ooh! Goody!” said Darla, pulling her lock-picking pack from a navy fanny pack around her middle. “I need some light.”
Charlotte put her phone on flashlight mode and covered it as best she could, concentrating the beam on the back doorknob. Little transpired without notice in Pineapple Port, and she wanted to get inside as quickly as possible.
The door swung open.
“Still got it,” said Darla.
The three went inside and shut the door behind them.
“Which closet did she shoot?” asked Mariska.
“She didn’t say. I guess we’ll have to check them all.”
Charlotte switched on a light.
“What are you doing?” asked Darla, ducking behind the kitchen island.
“She has blinds on all the windows, and if you were her neighbor, what would you find more suspicious: the lights on like usual, or a flashlight beam moving all over the darkened house?”
“Flashlight,” said Mariska. She grinned. “I love trivia.”
They moved from door to door, searching for some sign of a bullet hole. Charlotte went upstairs to begin her search, and after checking Junior’s old room with no luck, began running her hand along the door of Penny’s walk-in closet. She stepped inside and pulled a string hanging from a bulb to illuminate the ten-by-ten room. Her gaze fell upon a patch mark in the wall, about a foot from the carpet, left unpainted. She touched it and then looked on the outside wall. Slightly higher, she found a second patched area, concealed by paint. They had patched the wall but only painted the outside.
“Anything Char?” called Darla from just outside the master bedroom.
“Yes, I found it!”
“Really?”
Darla scampered over and Charlotte pointed out the holes. Mariska joined them a moment later and studied the marks as well.
“So she wasn’t lying. She really did shoot the closet,” said Darla.
“In a jealous rage,” added Charlotte. “She might have done George’s defense some damage with that statement. Or her own.”
“You don’t think Penny could have killed her!” said Mariska.
Charlotte shrugged and pointed at the higher location of the outer patch. “It looks like the bullet went down…so the bullet must have…”
She pulled back the carpet inside the closet to look for the bullet’s final resting place. Several of the floorboards possessed a slightly different grain.
“Looks like they replaced the floorboards,” she said.
“Why three?” asked Mariska peering into the closet.
“What’s that?”
“Why three? It looks like they replaced three floorboards. The bullet couldn’t have hit three of them, could it?”
“I wouldn’t think so,” said Charlotte, considering the possibilities. “Maybe a couple broke when they tried to pull them up?”
The familiar “whoop whoop” of a siren blared outside and the three of them jumped.
“It’s the cops!” said Darla.
“It’s probably Frank,” said Mariska.
“That’s worse! We have to hide!”
“Where?”
“The window seat!” said Charlotte, pointing to a long bank of cushions beneath Penny’s bedroom windows. She ran over to it and opened it. “Nearly empty.”
“I can’t get in there!” said Mariska. “That’s like trying to shove a ham into a can of beans!”
“I can!” said Darla. She ran over to the window seat and climbed inside.
Charlotte turned off the closet light.
“Get in the far corner of the closet over behind where the robes are hanging.”
Mariska scurried inside the closet.
Charlotte ran to the window seat just as Darla was about to close it.
“Move over!”
“Move over?” screeched Darla. “Are you crazy?”
“This was my idea!”
“And I appreciate that, but there is no room to move over!”
Charlotte snapped her gaze to the bedroom door. Someone was already in the house.
“Take a deep breath,” she said.
“What?”
Charlotte clambered into the window seat, resting the lid on her back so it would close as she lowered herself onto Darla.
“We’re like low-rent vampires,” whispered Darla. “And your breath smells like kielbasa.”
“You just had coffee, this is no picnic for me,” Charlotte hissed back.
“If you’re in here come out!” called a man’s voice.
“It’s Frank!” said Darla.
“Shhh!”
They heard footsteps heading for the bedroom, and then nothing as Frank hit the carpet.
There was the squawk of a walkie-talkie.
“This is Frank. I don’t see anyone at the Sambrookes’. Back door was open but no sign of forced entry.”
“10-4 Sherriff,” said a woman’s crackling voice.
Charlotte held her breath waiting for Frank to leave.
That’s when she heard the unmistakable sound of someone expelling gas.
Mariska.
“Oh she didn’t,” whispered Darla.
“Come out of there,” said Frank. “Come out with your hands up.”
“Don’t shoot!” said Charlotte.
“What the hell?” said Frank. “Charlotte?”
Charlotte rose out of the window seat in time to see Mariska walk out of the closet with her hands in the air. Mariska looked at her.
“Kielbasa,” she said, moving a hand to her stomach. “Sorry.”
Frank grit his teeth as he strapped his gun back in its holster.
“I could have killed you two!” he said.
Charlotte stepped out of the window box and glanced at Darla, lying at the bottom, shaking her head, her eyes wide. She closed the lid.
“I’m sorry Frank. We wanted to check out Penny’s story before George got back,” said Charlotte.
“What do you mean before George got back?”
“We thought if Penny tipped him off he might try and hide evidence and we wanted to confirm her story about shooting the closet. Look.”
Charlotte walked to the closet.
“Mariska you can put your hands down now.”
Mariska put down her hands and moved out of the way so Frank could follow Charlotte.
“You can barely see the patch mark from the outside, but it is clear on the inside and under here…” Charlotte pulled up the carpet. “You can see the floorboards are different. They’ve been replaced.”
“Three of them,” said Mariska. “We think that is strange.”
Frank walked back out of the closet and stood with his hands on his hips.
“If this does turn out to be important to the case, it might be unusable if people find out we were snooping around without a warrant! I need you two to get out of here right now.”
“I’m sorry,” said Charlotte.
“I’m sorry, Frank,” said Mariska as they moved to leave.
“You too, Darla,” said Frank.
Charlotte and Mariska froze and looked at each other. Nothing happened.
“Darla. Now. I’m not playing with you.”
The window seat creaked open and Darla sat up.
“How’d you know?” she asked, climbing out.
“There are few sure things in this world,” said Frank, presenting a hand to help Darla out of the box. “But one of them is if two of you are up to something, the third isn’t far behind.”
Chapter Thirty
Walking home from Penny’s, Charlotte was so lost in her thoughts she didn’t hear Harry come up from behind her.
“Hey Charlotte,” said Harry. “I hear Seamus had a scare tonight.”
Charlotte jumped, startled by his voice.
“Harry! What do you mean?”
“You don’t have to pretend with me. I’m a cop remember?”
“Ex-cop.”
“Once a cop always a cop.”
“How did you hear?”
“Seamus called Jackie and Jackie told me. I was with her in the clubhouse when he called.”
“Oh. So you know about the gun.”
Seamus nodded. “George’s gun. I’m glad things aren’t getting off track. It seems pretty clear George did it, as much as I hate to say it. Finding the bullet cracked the case wide open.”
“I guess. Penny says she only fired it once.”
“She did? Penny fired it?”
“That’s what she said. She said she shot at George to scare him. He took it away and that was the last she saw of it.”
“Why would she shoot a gun in her own house?”
“Jealousy. Turns out George really was having an affair with Erin and Penny was trying to scare him.”
“Really…” Harry wiped his brow with the back of his hand. The evening was muggy. “Well, I guess after that he used the gun to kill Erin. Must have felt he had to get rid of her if Penny was that upset.”
“Seems a little extreme.”
“I know extreme. You wouldn’t believe some of the things I’ve seen…”
Charlotte struggled to find something to say before Harry launched into another cold case story.
“The weird thing was the floorboards—”
She stopped. She wanted to bounce what she knew about the floorboards off Harry. His cold case experience might give him some insight. Unfortunately, telling him about them would mean admitting they broke into Penny’s home, and she had to keep that under wraps.
“What’s that?” he asked.
“Nothing.”
Harry stared at her a moment in silence.
“Is Penny home? Did they pick up George yet?” he asked.
“Last I heard Penny is still at the station. George and Junior are out fishing, unreachable until tomorrow.”
“Hm. Hopefully they aren’t trying to get away.”
“I don’t think so. He doesn’t know the gun’s been found. He probably thinks it’s long gone. Dumb luck that Seamus ended up with it, all these years.”
“Dumb luck has taken down more than one killer. Dumb luck and me.”
“I keep thinking it has to be someone else.”
Harry shrugged. “I hope so. But I doubt it considering the evidence. I’ll see you later.”
He strode off into the darkness.
“See ya.”
Charlotte went home and checked her phone for messages. She hoped Declan would call when he had the chance, but it was getting late.
Charlotte awoke to the sound of Abby barking and someone knocking on her door. She looked at the clock. It was seven-thirty a.m. She’d fallen asleep on her sofa, rolling the facts of the case over and over in her mind. She stretched and plodded the few steps to the door.
“We’re going to take an apple cake to Penny,” said Mariska, holding what she could only assume was the aforementioned apple cake beneath tin foil. Darla stood behind her.
“Did you get in trouble?”
Darla rolled her eyes. “Oh you know how they bluster. Just had to sit it out and now everything is fine. Though I didn’t mention we were going back to Penny’s before he left this morning. Didn’t want to upset the apple cake, if you know what I mean.”
“Are you sure she’s back? Or up? She must be exhausted from the stress alone.”
Mariska clucked a string of tsk noises. “She’s back. She called me, upset. I told her I’d bring her a cake. She’s terrified about what they’re going to do to George when he gets home but she can’t reach him. He’s not answering his phone.”
Charlotte remembered Harry’s warning that George might be making a run for it. Maybe he was right.
“I guess you want me to come with you? Can you give me a second?”
The ladies made themselves a pot of coffee while Charlotte showered and hopped into a clean pair of shorts and a v-neck tee. She’d stitched the tee herself and it featured a soft-coated wheaten face embroidered on the chest with Abby underneath it.
“Oh that is so adorable,” said Mariska as she rejoined the ladies.
The three of them walked the block and a half to Penny’s house. When she answered the door, Charlotte saw the dark circles beneath her eyes. For all Penny’s pushy behavior, she always looked ready to tackle the world. It made Charlotte sad to see her so broken. Her maid, Maria, stood behind her, a concerned look on her face, no doubt worried that Penny had beaten her to the door. Penny didn’t reprimand her. That was a bad sign.
“We brought you cake,” said Mariska, holding out the plate.
Penny nodded towards it and Maria scurried forward to grab it.
“Can I get you some coffee? Some of the cake?” asked Penny.
“I’d love some,” said Mariska. She loved her own cooking, and rightfully so.
George strode up behind them, a cooler in his arms.
“Hello ladies,” he said.
“George!”
Penny wrestled the cooler out of her husband’s grasp, put it on the floor and hugged him. George stood still, his arms at his sides, his face a mask of confusion.
“We caught a huge tarpon, but I didn’t expect this. What’s gotten into you?” he asked, peeling Penny’s arms from him.
Penny’s eyes began to well with tears. Charlotte had never before seen any emotion in Penny other than smug satisfaction. It made her uncomfortable to watch.
