Pineapple Puppies

by Amy Vansant

  Charlotte moved on to retrieve her glass of wine from the side table. Mina had left that spot and wandered over to talk to the lawyer with Lyndsey. Out of people to interview, Charlotte checked her watch, wondering when they’d read the will. The same disappointment she’d felt in the church washed over her. If she were the P.I. in a movie, she’d lean against the wall until some shifty-eyed character did something to catch her attention. But all she saw was people eating chicken salad and pretending to like relish in deviled eggs. No one was laughing too hard or too little. No one sneaked off at an inappropriate time. Other than Todd and one of the landscapers locking themselves in a battle to see who could polish off the room temperature shrimp cocktail, there was very little excitement. No one even drank too much, with the exception of Payne who sneaked several glasses of white wine when Mina wasn’t watching. She looked less sulky than usual.

  When the food had been thoroughly picked over, the smattering of guests left Mina, Lyndsey, the twins, the lawyer and Charlotte in the great room. The lawyer whispered something to Mina and she nodded.

  “Everyone, take a seat. This is William Josef, Kimber’s lawyer. He’s going to read Kimber’s will and he’s asked that we all be here.”

  Charlotte tucked herself against the wall hoping no one would notice her and object to her being there. No one seemed to care. They only had eyes for the lawyer, no doubt hoping he was about to say their name next to a number ending in a lot of zeros.

  The lawyer took his place at the front of the room and pulled a blue-covered, folded collection of papers from his breast pocket.

  He cleared his throat. “I, Kimber Miller, being of sound mind...”

  Charlotte smiled to hear wills really did start like they did in the movies.

  Mr. Josef went through the technical bits of the will and then reached the distribution of wealth.

  “To The Kimber Miller Foundation, I leave the money already in the trust plus an additional one million dollars to aid in the running of the foundation and to put towards additional research so no one ever has to go through what I went through.”

  Mina leaned towards Charlotte and whispered. “When he found out he had Alzheimer’s he set up a foundation to help find a cure.”

  “Who runs it? Does a million dollars seem like a lot?”

  Mina shook her head. “I oversee it. All I do is donate the interest to research every year and take a token salary of five thousand dollars a year to cover my time.”

  Charlotte nodded and returned her attention to the lawyer.

  “To my nieces, I leave one hundred thousand dollars each, which I hope they will use to continue their education.”

  Payne straightened in her chair, her eyes wide. “But I can do whatever I want with it?”

  “We’ll talk about that later,” said Mina.

  Payne looked at her, scowling. “But it’s mine. He just said so.”

  Mina held her index finger over her lips, requesting silence and Payne flopped back against the sofa with her arms crossed against her chest. That cleared the path for Charlotte to spot Gemma sitting on the opposite side of her. Her expression hadn’t changed. Apparently, she’d expected no more or no less.

  “That hundred thousand is going to be trouble,” mumbled Mina.

  “To Mina...” began William.

  Mina’s gaze shifted to Lyndsey.

  “Oh no, he’s skipping over Lyndsey. Kimber must not have left her anything.”

  “Because she’s not actual blood?”

  Mina nodded. “I’m sure. And...” she paused. “He should have left her a token something.”

  Charlotte wanted to ask her what she was about to say, but Mina plowed on.

  “It doesn’t matter. I’ll take care of her.”

  The lawyer continued. “...my loving sister, who has cared for me during my illness, I leave five hundred thousand dollars.”

  Charlotte heard Mina suck in a breath.

  “Five hundred thousand?” Mina asked aloud, her voice rising at the end so sharply Charlotte could see the question mark dangling at the end of it.

  Mina looked at Charlotte, her eyes wide. “But that leaves—”

  “The rest of my money, holdings, land and properties go to my daughter, Lyndsey Griffin.”

  Now it was Lyndsey’s turn to sit up straight from her position at the other side of the sofa. She slapped her hand to her chest. “Me?”

  “That’s everything,” said William, folding up the papers.

  “Wait, that’s not right,” said Mina to Charlotte. “Did he say daughter? She’s my daughter if she’s anyone’s, not his. He never even officially adopted her.”

  “But you did?”

  Mina blushed, her right eye twitching. “No. I didn’t see the point of getting into a custody battle with her real mother in prison but—”

  From her seat, Lyndsey looked up at Mr. Josef. “Did you say I’m Kimber’s daughter?”

  He nodded and held out the will for her to take it. “There’s a paternity test attached.”

  “A paternity test?” yelped Mina, crossing the room to snatch the will from Lyndsey’s hand. Lyndsey let it go, seeming more baffled than anyone by Mina’s behavior.

  Mina opened the will and flipped through a few pages until she found what she was looking for. She looked up at Lyndsey. “You’re his real daughter? By blood?”

  Lyndsey’s jaw worked without sound.

  “He never told you?” asked Charlotte, unable to help herself. If Lyndsey didn’t know, then it was less likely she would have coerced the old man into making her the majority benefactor.

  Lyndsey shook her head as Mina’s arms dropped to her sides, the will pinched between the thumb and forefinger of her right hand. She stared at the twins.

  “This isn’t right. It was my idea to take her in. I had to fight him.” Mina looked at Charlotte. “How could he never tell me?”

  Charlotte didn’t know what to say.

  The twins remained in silence, staring at Lyndsey, their jaws hanging slack.

  “I’m going to head out,” said William, retrieving his briefcase from the corner of the room.

  “I’ll go with you,” said Charlotte. She put a hand on Mina’s arm and Mina jumped.

  “I’m going to go.”

  Mina stared at her in stunned silence until finally her head began to nod, ever so slightly.

  Charlotte took that as a sign she was good to go and headed for the door. As she went she took one last look at Lyndsey who still sat on the sofa ramrod straight. Her hands rested on her thighs as she blinked at the floor, as if it was taking some time for the information of her paternity to sink in.

  The woman was probably tossed upon a sea of churning emotions, but Charlotte wasn’t concerned for her. When faced with a shock like that, it was always nice to get ten million dollars or so to ease you through it.

  Suddenly, Lyndsey stood and threw her arms around Mina.

  “That means you’re my real aunt!”

  Now it was Mina’s expression that seemed to freeze.

  Payne stood, her lips pulled into a taut knot. “Why does she get millions and we only get a hundred thousand?”

  Charlotte hurried out the door. She didn’t envy the night Mina had ahead of her.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  On the way home Charlotte stopped at Lyndsey’s mother’s house a few blocks away from her own in Pineapple Port. She couldn’t help but wonder how Lyndsey’s mother had never mentioned to her daughter that the man under whose roof she’d grown up also happened to be her real dad. Had she made an arrangement with Kimber from jail? She had to know, didn’t she?

  She knocked on the door and Tracy Griffin answered wearing a thin floral bathrobe. A cigarette hung from her lips, her mouth drawn in a deep frown. She seemed every bit as delightful as Charlotte remembered from their earlier engagement. If it was possible, she seemed even more sour without Lyndsey there to scold her for being rude.

  “You’re not allowed to
sell around here,” she said without removing the cigarette. It bounced in her lips so violently Charlotte took a step back, readying herself for it to launch at her from Tracy’s lips.

  “I’m not selling anything. We met yesterday with the sheriff. I’m—” She was about to say I’m a friend of Lyndsey’s to ingratiate herself to the woman, but that was really a lie. She barely knew Lyndsey. “I’m working with Mr. Kimber Miller’s family, trying to tie up some loose ends.”

  “What kind of loose ends?”

  “Oh we’re getting the will finalized and whatnot.” Charlotte didn’t want Tracy to know about Lyndsey’s inheritance yet. “Do you mind if I come in for a moment?”

  The woman shook one shoulder in a jerky attempt to shrug and took a step back to let Charlotte in. A reality television program blared from a television six inches too wide on either side for the table it had been perched upon. It looked new.

  “Nice television,” yelled Charlotte, hoping to both break the ice and make it clear it was much too loud for them to talk.

  Lyndsey’s mother picked up a remote and paused the show.

  “Thanks.”

  “Well, I won’t keep you. I just had a couple of questions for you.”

  Tracy pulled the cigarette from her mouth and crushed it in an overfilled ashtray made out of an inverted sea shell. “Did I get something in the will?”

  “You?” Charlotte blinked at the woman. “Why would you get something?”

  Tracy smiled, flashing the yellowed teeth she had remaining. She was missing one upper canine. “There’s a reason.”

  “Is it because Kimber Miller is Lyndsey’s real father?”

  Tracy’s eyes widened. “How’d you hear that?”

  “They just read the will.”

  “They did?” Tracy gasped and glanced at her phone, lying silent on the table between her comfy chair and the television.

  “Did you know Kimber was Lyndsey’s real father?”

  Tracy snorted. “Of course I did. You think I’m some kind of whore who doesn’t even know who’s putting babies up in her?”

  Charlotte winced. Yikes.

  “No, I didn’t mean to imply that at all.”

  “Well you kind of did.”

  “Sorry. I guess what I meant to ask was, did Lyndsey know?”

  Tracy shook her head. “No.”

  “She had no idea?”

  “No.”

  “Did Mr. Miller?”

  “Yeah. He knew.”

  “That’s why he took her in?”

  “Sure. Why else?” She grabbed the crushed pack of cigarettes from the table and shook it. Finding nothing inside, she glared at Charlotte as if she’d stolen the last one.

  “Did Mina know?”

  “Who’s Mina?”

  “The sister.”

  “Oh right. No.” Tracy coughed. “Of course, he never treated her like a proper daughter. He preferred those fancy twins…”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Lyndsey told me.” She shrugged. “She’s my daughter, too. After what I did, I was afraid he’d treat her mean.”

  “After what you did?”

  “You don’t know?” She laughed and cleared her rattily throat. “I’m the one who killed his brother and his wife. That’s why I was in the slammer.”

  Charlotte’s jaw fell. “They were killed by a drunk driver.”

  “That’s me.”

  Charlotte covered her gaping mouth with her hand.

  Why didn’t Mina tell me?

  “It all happened at once?” she asked.

  “What’s that?”

  “He took in the twins and Lyndsey all at once, all of them orphaned by the same accident?”

  Tracy scowled at her. “Not orphaned. I was in jail, not dead.”

  “Right. Sorry.”

  “Why didn’t you tell Lyndsey that Miller was her father?”

  “Didn’t know how she’d take it. Figured he’d tell her if he wanted, and he didn’t.”

  A phone sitting on the table buzzed to life and Tracy held up a finger to request a pause in the conversation.

  “That’s her now, I bet.”

  Charlotte nodded. She’d been hoping Lyndsey would call. She wanted to watch Tracy’s reaction to the news of her daughter’s windfall.

  “Hey baby,” said Tracy. Charlotte heard a loud voice on the other end of the line, but Tracy cradled the phone to her cheek, obscuring the sound enough she couldn’t make out the words.

  “You got what? Really?”

  Tracy looked up at Charlotte, her eyes bulging. “Did you know about this?”

  “About what?” asked Charlotte, trying to appear as if she didn’t know about Lyndsey’s millions.

  “The detective lady is here. Uh huh. I know. Well, come on over when you get a chance.”

  Tracy hung up, grinning. “Ain’t that somethin’. That old bastard left her millions of dollars.” She squinted. “But you knew that.”

  Charlotte stood. “That was all I wanted to ask you.”

  Tracy stood with her to poke a boney finger in her chest. “This is Mina, isn’t it? She sent you here to get the money for herself.”

  “I don’t know anything about that,” said Charlotte heading for the door. Tracy shadowed her.

  At the threshold, Charlotte paused and turned. “Where were you the night Miller was killed?”

  Tracy flashed her horrible smile again, appearing impressed Charlotte had come out and asked the question directly.

  “I was here gettin’ a puppy, remember?”

  Charlotte nodded. “Right.”

  She was barely off the landing before the door slammed shut behind her.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Charlotte pulled into her driveway deep in thought. Tracy’s up to no good. She could chalk it up to the rough edges years in prison had given the woman, but it was more than that. For one, she couldn’t shake the feeling Tracy had known the will would include her daughter. Had she found a way to strongarm Miller into making Lyndsey his heir? And if so, had the next logical step been to hasten his demise?

  What if Tracy had been the one to sneak into the house and clunk him with the rabbit? The rickety woman barely seemed strong enough to hold her cigarette to her lips. It was hard to imagine her swinging a heavy iron rabbit. But on the other hand, Kimber was apparently helpless at the time.

  Maybe Lyndsey had called her mother after finding Miller on the ground. How much time had really gone by between Miller supposedly falling and Mina finding Lyndsey in the whelping room? She could have been hiding, waiting for her mother. By the time Mina found her, maybe Tracy was already skulking around the back of the house, waiting for her chance. Lyndsey knew about the servant stairs. Maybe she’d told her mother.

  Charlotte sighed. She couldn’t picture Tracy parking her car out on the road and jogging to the back of the house unnoticed with that smoker’s cough.

  Charlotte let herself into her house and suffered Abby’s ritual hello tackle.

  “Do you think seeing me will make her confess?” said a voice.

  Charlotte yelped and slapped her chest.

  Peering around the corner she spotted Mariska sitting at her kitchen island drinking coffee.

  “You just about gave me a heart attack. What are you doing in here?”

  Mariska took a deep breath and then released it. “It’s starting to get around the neighborhood that I killed Alice.”

  Charlotte rolled her eyes and emptied her phone from her pocket. “You didn’t.”

  “But everyone thinks I did. And they’re never going to change their mind until we prove Crystal did it.”

  Charlotte moved to the sink to wash her hands. There had been a lot of handshaking at the funeral and the last thing she needed was a cold.

  “So what are you asking me?”

  “Do you think if I went to see Crystal she’d confess?”

  “Are you going to beat her with a bag of oranges?”

 
; Mariska scowled. “Why would I beat her with oranges?”

  Charlotte chuckled. “It’s an old rumor about how Bing Crosby supposedly beat his children to avoid leaving bruises.”

  “What?”

  “Never mind. The point was, how are you going to make Crystal confess?”

  “Not by beating her with oranges. I’ll tell you that!”

  “Forget the oranges. I’m sorry I mentioned them.”

  “Bing Crosby had a beautiful voice.”

  Charlotte rubbed her forehead with her hand. “Mariska, I’m super tired. Can we get to the point please and forget about Bing?”

  Mariska nodded. “I think if I talk to her, she’ll feel bad about what she did and confess to me. I’d be like a mother figure for her.”

  “She killed the last mother figure she had. Sure you want to do that?”

  “But she’s a motherless girl, don’t you see? I can do it. I can make her confess.”

  Charlotte leaned her butt against the kitchen counter and crossed her arms against her chest to think. The sound of Crystal sobbing, begging for forgiveness from Alice had been playing in her head since her time hiding beneath Crystal’s bed. She believed now, more than ever, Crystal had killed her grandmother, and the guilt weighed heavily on the girl’s mind.

  Maybe Mariska’s onto something.

  There was almost no way—short of a confession—anyone could prove Crystal doctored the stollen. Even with proof the loaves contained almonds, their presence could be easily disregarded as an accident. Based on the evidence alone, Mariska was as likely a suspect as Crystal, but for one thing—Crystal had motive. She wanted her grandmother’s house to herself, her grandmother’s money, and from all accounts, she’d harbored a deep resentment against the woman who raised her.

  Maybe Mariska’s plan to strike at Crystal’s raw nerve while exposed could work. Something, probably guilt, had driven the girl to tears. Now was the time to push her to confess her sins. If they waited, time might ease Crystal’s regret and she’d never confess.

  “So you’re going to show up on her doorstep like all three of Scrooge’s ghosts rolled into one and make her change her ways?”