by Amy Vansant
“Right.”
Stephanie offered one last unctuous smile before pointing to the sky with one hand. “Bring out the costumes!”
A man burst through the throngs of people with what looked like dresses draped over his outstretched arms. Stephanie spun on her heel and yanked the dresses from him, throwing one to Tabby. The other she held up for the audience to see. The dress unfurled to the ground and the crowd burst into cheers and a smattering of laughs.
“What is that? Why do they have to wear a dress?” asked Darla.
“It’s that book. The Scarlet Letter,” said Mariska.
The costumes were black and white puritan-style dresses with a large letter A on the chest. Unlike the scarlet letter worn by Hester Prynne in Nathanial Hawthorne’s famous novel by that name, this A was in the center of the chest and as large as Superman’s famous S.
Mariska shook her head. “Didn’t the A in that book stand for—”
“Adulterer,” finished Charlotte.
Darla gasped. “Oh! And people would know that?”
“It’s one of those books most people have to read in school at some point.”
“I must have gone to a terrible school,” mumbled Darla.
Mariska placed her hand over her mouth. “This is mortifying. Poor Penny.”
Charlotte surveyed the crowd as phone cameras flashed and videos rolled. Cora was nowhere to be seen. As she suspected, Stephanie was running the show.
Charlotte wiggled through the crowd again to get closer to Penny as her client struggled to dress in her costume. As Penny’s head popped through the top of the dress, Charlotte placed her hand on her boney arm.
“Don’t do this, Penny. Not for a piece of land,” she said, as quietly as she could and still hope to be heard over the catcalls from the crowd.
Penny looked at her, her eyes rimmed with tears. “You reap what you sow.”
“Penny—”
Penny sniffed and set her jaw, wiping the tears from her eyes with the back of her hand.
“And I want that land.”
Stephanie moved between Charlotte and Penny. “Return to your seat please, or you’ll be disqualified.”
Charlotte glared at her. “You’re going to pay for this.”
“They actually paid me for bringing in the crowds,” said Stephanie, before turning to the audience. She thrust her hands over her head, asking for silence.
“Now, I turn you over to your master of ceremonies and referee, two-time Florida state arm wrestling champion, Ricky “The Python” Richards!”
The crowd exploded again and short man with biceps as wide as dinner plates stepped forward “Okay ladies, take your places.”
Stephanie stepped aside to let him into the ring and then melted into the crowd.
Penny and Tabby looked at each other, both seemingly confused as to what their places were. Ricky moved in and guided their arms into the right positions, their skeletal fingers wrapped around each other’s hands.
“I can’t believe Stephanie did all this,” said Mariska.
Darla hooted. “I can’t believe she hired a real arm wrestler! Look at that man’s arms. You have to admit, the girl has style.”
Charlotte grunted.
Ricky took an extra minute to ensure the sisters were lined up properly and then explained the rules for them and the crowd.
“—touch your opponent’s fingers, forearm or wrist to the table and you win. You can’t use your other hand. All decisions made by me, the referee, are final. Ready?”
The sisters nodded and glowered at each other.”
Ricky raised a hand. “Ready...and...go!”
For a moment, Charlotte thought that the women had decided against participating. Their entwined hands didn’t move one way or the other. It wasn’t until she saw the intense grimaces on their faces that she realized they were struggling with all their might, but were equally matched.
“Go Penny!” rooted Mariska.
Momentum swung in Penny’s direction before bouncing the other way. Penny’s wrist began to bend. After a brief show of force, she appeared helpless to reverse Tabby’s attack.
Charlotte knew the end was near.
Apparently, Pilates does make a difference.
Tabby’s lips tightened and receded like those of mummy, her teeth clamped and grinding as she pushed home her win.
Ricky The Python stepped in and lifted Tabby’s opposite arm in victory as she bleated at her defeated sister.
“It’s mine!” Tabby jumped up and down, clinging to Ricky’s arm as if it was her date to the prom. “I won!”
Penny stood and tore her Hester Prynne costume over her head before shoving her way through the crowd, headed for the door.
“I should do this every week,” yelped a man standing beside Charlotte. He wore a Juggs’ staff polo shirt.
“You should be ashamed of yourself,” she said.
He laughed. “I am ashamed of myself—for not thinking of this sooner. That blonde is a genius.”
Darla and Mariska hustled after Penny, and Charlotte followed. Walking outside, Charlotte squinted beneath the Florida sun as her eyes adjusted from the dark bar.
“Penny,” called Mariska, waddling as fast as she could after her neighbor.
“Leave me alone,” cried Penny. She tried to open the door of her Cadillac but failed, yelping in pain as she grabbed her shoulder with her opposite hand. Cursing, she opened the door with her good arm.
Mariska, Darla and Charlotte had to move out of the way as Penny pulled from her parking spot and roared away.
Darla shook her head. “Part of me thought that was hilarious, what with Penny always acting like such a snob, but I do feel bad for her. All those kids in there hollering. It was like a freak show.”
“And Penny was the dog-faced boy,” said Mariska.
“Tabby didn’t seem to mind,” said Charlotte.
“Penny’s always been the sweet one of those two,” said Mariska.
“Penny is the sweet one?” echoed Charlotte. She took a moment to wonder what a nightmare Tabby must be. “Were they raised by sharks?”
Speaking of sharks...
She considered storming back inside and giving Stephanie a piece of her mind, but knew it would do no good. She silently repeated her mantra.
Sit back and let Stephanie be the crazy one.
The three of them piled back into Mariska’s VW and headed for home. Five minutes into the ride, Charlotte’s phone chimed.
“Is that a new text noise?” asked Mariska. She was always fascinated by Charlotte’s iPhone, though never enough to upgrade from her own clamshell flip-phone.
Charlotte shook her head and peered at her screen. “No. It’s a motion alert from the video doorbell Declan bought me.”
“Oh, what fun. You installed it?”
“No, I didn’t. That’s what’s worrying me.” Charlotte pictured the last place she’d seen the doorbell.
Sitting on her kitchen counter.
How is that possible?
She swiped the alert and found the video still rolling. The screen filled with the white of her ceiling and nothing else.
She hit the talk button.
“Hey, whoever is in my house, I see you.”
“Who are you talking to?” asked Darla, craning her neck to see.
“I can talk through the doorbell. I’m trying to scare away whoever set it off.”
“Someone’s in your house?”
“I don’t know. I can’t see or hear anything.”
“Maybe Abby did it somehow?”
“Maybe.”
“Do you want me to call Frank?”
“Or I could have Bob cross the street and check on things,” suggested Mariska.
“No. We’re almost home. I don’t want anyone walking in on anything.”
Darla jumped in her seat. “Ooh! Maybe it’s Declan?”
“Maybe. Good thought.” Charlotte called Declan to see if he had stopped by, but he d
idn’t answer. Usually, that meant he was at the shop with a customer.
She spent the remaining ride sitting at the edge of her tiny leather seat, her stomach in knots, concerned she was being robbed, but more worried for Abby.
Her connection with the video ended and she played it from the beginning.
“There,” she said.
“What?” chimed the two women in unison.
“There’s a flash of something in the video at the beginning, maybe an elbow? It’s hard to tell. I can’t hear anything.”
She replayed it over and over but couldn’t even ascertain if it was a male or female elbow—if it was an elbow at all.
Mariska pulled into her driveway and Charlotte jumped out as fast as she could.
“Don’t go running! You don’t know who’s in there,” called Mariska.
Charlotte opened her front door and Abby ran to her, stubby tail wagging.
“Who was here?” she asked, showering the dog with love.
Abby didn’t answer. She didn’t seem agitated, either.
Darla and Mariska appeared behind her.
“Is everything okay?”
Charlotte strode through the house looking for signs of an intruder, but found nothing out of place. When she returned from checking the bedroom, she found Darla standing in her kitchen with a knife in her hand.
“Just in case,” said Darla.
Charlotte smiled. “If someone was here, it doesn’t look like they took anything.”
“Was your door still locked?’ asked Darla.
“Yes.”
“If someone was here, wouldn’t Abby have tried to stop them? You would have heard her barking or something.”
“I like to think she would have tried. She barks at everyone she doesn’t know. I’m thinking it must have been her. She was probably snorfing along the table looking for crumbs—”
Charlotte’s gaze settled on her blackboard.
She felt her chest tighten.
“Uh, you guys should go now. I have some work to do. Thank you for the use of your car, as always,” she said, carefully sliding the knife from Darla’s hand and returning it to her butcher block.
She ushered the women to the door.
“If you see anything amiss you give me a call and I’ll get Frank over here to check things out,” said Darla.
“I will. I promise.”
Charlotte waved and closed the door behind them. As soon as they were gone, the smile fell from her lips. She walked to her chalkboard, her gaze dropping to number seven.
In thick red chalk, someone had written a large question mark in the spot next to the digit.
In the Suspect slot she had intentionally left blank.
Chapter Sixteen
There was only one explanation for the question mark on Charlotte’s chalk board.
I’m on to something.
Why else would someone break into her house?
The video doorbell remained on her kitchen counter. She walked by it, hugging tight to the counter edge, and her phone chimed.
If someone had walked by it...
The logical path past the doorbell led directly to her kitchen table, where her computer sat amongst the scattered papers from Bucky’s police file. She shifted through them, finding nothing missing.
Her mind wandered to the moment they’d realized Declan’s home was bugged. What if that was why someone was in her house? To plant bugs?
She made a mental note to keep her mouth shut and straightened the papers, sorting the photos and reports and slipping them back into their package. Popping open the manila envelope, she noticed a small, square object at the bottom of it.
She dumped the envelope upside down and watched a black thumb drive clatter to her table top.
How did I miss this?
She popped the thumb drive into her computer and a video program auto-loaded. Her screen flickered with what appeared to be security camera footage from Bucky’s marina apartment building. The video was a compilation of each person who trigged the camera when entering the building.
Person after person entered. Charlotte groaned and lowered herself into her chair, the burden of proof becoming too heavy to support on two legs. Each unidentified person was a potential lead, but it could take her the rest of her life to divine the identities of everyone who entered the marina apartments that day.
She watched as Bucky entered with a dark-haired young woman she recognized as Shawna. That made two people she wouldn’t need to identify. She flipped through the rest of the day’s footage, but no one else appeared familiar. She dragged a copy of the file to her computer and put the thumb drive back into the folder.
So many leads, and chances were good his death was an accident anyway. All signs pointed to it being an accident.
Except for that chalk question mark.
The question mark on her chalk board gave her both the heebie-jeebies at the idea of someone in her home and hope that she was on to something.
She rubbed her eyes with the palms of her hands. Becoming obsessed with Bucky’s death was distracting her from her real job—winning Cow Town for Penny. She was doing Penny a disservice by not concentrating harder on the individual tests. Was there something she could have done to tip the arm-wrestling in Penny’s favor? Had she missed a chance?
She couldn’t put all her hopes on the big score of unraveling Bucky’s possible murder. Penny was down zero to two to her sister.
They needed a win, but only Stephanie knew what was next—
She straightened.
Did it have to be that way?
No.
She needed to get a message to Stephanie, and she knew just how to do it.
Worried by the possibility of listening devices in her home, Charlotte walked outside and called Seamus.
“Where are you?” she asked when he answered.
“At home.”
“You mean Declan’s.”
“Right. Home.”
“Do we still have that roach problem there?”
“Roaches?”
“Bugs.”
“Oh, right. Yes.”
“I need to give the bugs a message. I’m going to swing by.”
“I’ll be here. Bring a six-pack.”
“What?”
“I’m out.”
Charlotte released an exasperated sigh and hung up. She hopped on her bike and pedaled to Declan’s house by way of the liquor store.
When she arrived, Seamus answered the door.
“Oh, hello, Charlotte, how are you? What are you doing here?” he said, much too loudly.
She rolled her eyes and covered her ears with her hands to pantomime that he needed a volume adjustment. He nodded, cleared his throat, stretched and shook his shoulders as if preparing to run a marathon.
“I thought I’d just swing by and talk about the case. Here’s your beer.” She knew she, too, sounded unnatural, but Seamus had thrown her out of her rhythm.
He took the six-pack. “Oh good, thanks, come on in. Want one?”
“No, thank you.”
“It’s Saturday.”
“I know. But no, thank you.”
He shrugged and pulled a can from its plastic harness. “Fine then. More for me.”
She took a moment to collect herself. Seamus’ awkwardness was making her performance for the bugs much more difficult than she’d anticipated. “So, anyway, I just got back from an arm-wrestling match.”
“With who?”
“Not me. Stephanie called Penny and Tabby and demanded they meet at Juggs, where she’d arranged for a huge arm-wrestling match. She made them compete in front of the whole bar while wearing a scarlet A costume.”
“A what?”
She pointed to her chest. “Like The Scarlet Letter—that novel where a puritan woman is forced to wear a bright red letter A on her dress so the whole town knows she was an adulterer.”
“Jaysis.”
“Yeah. Pretty harsh. But you know, it’s
just like Stephanie to pick on Penny.”
Seamus stared at her and she waved her hand around like a motor gear, encouraging him to play along.
“Oh yeah?” he asked.
“Absolutely. Stephanie doesn’t have the guts to pick on you or me. She has to pick on old women.”
Seamus grinned and Charlotte could see he was catching on. “You’re right. It’s sad, really, that she never gives us the chance to beat her. Such a frightened little girl, she is.”
“It is sad. That’s the perfect word for it. Almost as sad as her thinking she’s going to get Declan back.”
Seamus laughed and then slapped his hand over his mouth as he tried to rein in his unbridled mirth.
“And how about how she came crawling back here to Charity? How sad is that? Who knows what embarrassments she suffered out in the big wide world that she had to come home and lick her wounds?”
“Good point,” Seamus peeped before again covering his mouth. His body shook with silent laughter.
“Don’t even get me started on her mother—”
Seamus’s eyes grew wide. “I have to get the paper, I’ll be right back.” He bolted out the front door.
“That’s okay, I should probably be going anyway,” she said to no one but the bugs.
She went outside to find Seamus staring at her with his jaw hanging as low as it could fall.
“Are you crazy?”
“Why?”
Seamus scratched his head and began to pace. “I mean, I understand you’re trying to get her to punt us one of the challenges, but there’s stirring up the hornet’s nest and then there’s slipping it over your head.”
“Is that a saying in Ireland?”
He paused and cocked his head. “What? No. I don’t think so—you know what I mean.”
“You think I should be scared of her.”
“Yes! It’s like she has more hours in a day than the rest of us and she spends them all planning terrible things. And for you to bring up her mother! That woman is a killer. Literally.”
Charlotte rolled her eyes. “They didn’t seem that close the last time we saw them together.”
“They’re mother and daughter. You can’t break that bond. Maybe Mommy wishes they were closer. Ever think of that? Maybe she thinks Stephanie would love her more if she gift-wrapped us and chopped up into little pieces.”
