Pineapple Mystery Box: A Pineapple Port Mystery: Book Two (Pineapple Port Mysteries 2)

by Amy Vansant

  Charlotte sighed. After capturing Jason at the Hock o’ Bell, Declan had dumped Gloria’s jewelry from the wooden box and slipped it under his desk to prevent it from falling into evidence. She praised him for the fast-thinking move, but he hadn’t stopped agonizing about it since.

  “Don’t worry about the box. When you hid it, you’d just had your skull nearly crushed by a Tiffany lamp. You didn’t know what you were doing.”

  “Faux Tiffany lamp,” muttered Declan rubbing the back of his head. “Twice as heavy and ten times as cheap.”

  “Anyway, they don’t care that Jason stole Gloria’s jewelry as a consolation prize. Robbery is the least of his problems. Frank told me this morning that Tampa homicide thinks he might have killed his grandmother and filled her room with cats, hoping they’d eat the evidence.”

  Declan’s eyes grew wide. “That was him? I just read about that. So…” He puffed out his chest. “I captured a killer…”

  She chuckled. “Well, Stephanie did.”

  “Hey! I would have got him. And she took him out after I roughed him up.”

  She balled her fist beneath her chin and fluttered her eyelashes at him. “My hero. Of course… I did rough him up for you first.”

  Declan grinned and knocked on Jackie’s door.

  “There you are,” said Jackie, answering. She gasped. “Look at your face!”

  Charlotte’s hand fluttered to hide her blackened eye. “Cripes, I hope that isn’t how you greet all your guests…”

  They walked inside, where Seamus awaited.

  “Tilly get everything setup?” asked Charlotte.

  Jackie nodded and pointed to a Christmas cactus hanging in the corner of the room. “She’s got a camera hidden in the cactus and one outside. If anything goes bad, she’ll call the police and hopefully they’ll get here before we’re all dead.”

  “Way to stay positive.” Charlotte waved at the plant. “Hi Tilly. Thank you for doing this.”

  “Here’s the box,” said Declan, handing it to Jackie.

  Jackie took it from him and sighed. “I can’t believe how happy I am to see this piece of junk.” She opened the lid and wiggled it. “It’s in bad shape.”

  “It’s had quite a week,” said Charlotte.

  There was a knock and Seamus moved to the door to peek outside.

  “It’s him. He’s early.”

  “Rocky?’ asked Charlotte.

  “No. His father.”

  Seamus looked at Declan and they nodded to each other.

  “Here we go…” Seamus opened the door.

  The dapper, gray-haired gentleman on the step broke into a broad grin.

  “Hi, I’m Rock Conrad. My son said…” He looked past Seamus. “You found it! You’ve got my box!”

  Seamus moved aside so Rock could step in.

  “May I see it?” he asked Jackie, who stood with the box in her hands.

  She handed it to him. As he took it the wood shifted, revealing the large crack along the joint.

  “It’s broken,” he said.

  “Yes. I needed to tell you about that…” began Charlotte.

  Conrad shook his head and slid his thumb along the side of the box. A piece of wood slid out, jutting four inches past the corner.

  He slid another piece and then another until a panel on the bottom of the box fell into his palm. He flipped over the box and Charlotte saw a yellowed square of what looked like paper inside the hidden panel.

  Conrad removed the paper and turned it over to reveal a glossy black and white photograph of a teenage girl standing on a boardwalk. Above her head large scripted letters spelled ger’s and beneath that in smaller letters Taffy. The hand on her shoulder implied someone stood to her right, but that person had been torn from the photo.

  “My love,” he said, his eyes welling with tears. “I thought I lost you.”

  “That’s why you wanted the box? For a photo?” asked Seamus.

  Conrad held it up.

  “It’s Lily. Lily Talliferro. She was the love of my life. We had this photo taken on the Atlantic City Boardwalk not long before I lost her.”

  A dark-haired girl stood smiling in the photo. She wore a light-colored dress, her long sleek hair lying neatly across each shoulder.

  Charlotte moved closer to Rock, following the photo with her gaze as he waved it in the air while he spoke.

  “We were going to get married—”

  Charlotte grabbed the corner of the photo. Rock scowled and tugged on it, but she didn’t let go.

  “Um…anyway…her family disappeared. I was going to give her this box I made for her, but she was gone. Witness protection. Her father worked for the mob and he flipped. I’ve been looking for her for fifty years.”

  “So you are in the mob!” said Jackie pointing at him.

  “Me?” Rock laughed. “I said her father. And mine for that matter, but not me.”

  “Your son told us if we didn’t get the box you’d bump us off.”

  “He what?” Rock’s face turned red as he roared the words. In his surprise, he released the photograph to Charlotte who’d continued to tug at it. “I’m going to kill him. I should have never told him about his grandfather. He’s been obsessed for years!”

  “Who’s his grandfather?”

  “I can’t say. We were put in witness protection as well, shortly after Lily’s family. Even Rocky doesn’t know our real last name.”

  “Should you be telling us you’re in witness protection?” asked Declan.

  He chuckled. “Probably not. Simone would kill me. But everyone is dead now—”

  “Simone!” yipped Seamus, cutting Rock short. “Wait. Who’s Simone?”

  Jackie looked at him. “What are you all wound up about?”

  “She’s my contact with the U.S. Marshals,” said Rock. “Funny story, actually…apparently, when she was a newbie, she goofed and ended up sending a ton of WitSec people to this same area of Florida.”

  “WitSec?” asked Jackie.

  “Witness Security. She sent people from rival gangs and whatnot. Set them up just a few towns away from each other in some cases. Big mess. They stationed her here for life, just to keep an eye on us all.”

  Seamus’ jaw slowly fell. “Holy mother of—”

  “Funny thing,” continued Rock, oblivious to Seamus’ reaction. “She showed up on my door yesterday asking about this box, which was strange. Hadn’t seen her in years. She really knows everything…”

  Jackie stared at Seamus. “Do you know this woman?”

  “Huh?” Seamus looked at her as if he’d just awoken. “Who? Simone? No. Just an interesting story, don’t you think?”

  “I guess…” Jackie squinted at him and then turned to Rock. “So…you’re not going to kill us?”

  Rock’s expression clouded. “No! I spotted the box in the newspaper and Rocky offered to get it for me. He didn’t say anything about threatening anyone. I don’t know if you noticed, but he’s a bit—”

  “We know,” said the other four in unison.

  Rock cleared his throat and offered a stiff nod.

  “What about the lady in the greenhouse? The one you had moved,” asked Seamus.

  Rock turned to him. “The Lady—hey…I can’t shake the feeling I know you. Have we met?”

  Seamus shook his head and tilted his face towards the floor. “No…”

  “Wait…” Rock gasped and pointed at him. “You’re the Russian who was destroying my rose bushes!”

  Seamus sighed. “Yeah. I might have done a little reconnaissance on you…”

  Rock chuckled. “That accent was terrible.”

  “Agreed.”

  “My son must have really had you in a tizzy to drive you to spying on me. I’m going to kill him.” He grimaced. “Anyway, The Lady you said? In the greenhouse? That’s my prize-winning lily. She’s at the garden show right now. I started breeding a hybrid in honor of Lily, of course, and it became quite an obsession for me.”

 
“What about Artie? Did you kill him?”

  “Artie, my tennis partner? I’m meeting him at the club tomorrow. I plan on killing him, yes…”

  “You killed him in tennis…” mumbled Seamus.

  Rock’s eyes grew large. “You thought—”

  “I’ve seen this photo before,” said Charlotte, interrupting, her eyes riveted on the image. She looked up at the others and gasped. “And I just remembered where I saw it—”

  “My house.”

  Everyone turned as Tilly entered, a torn photo in her nutmeg-colored hand.

  “Tony,” she said, staring at Rock.

  “Lily?”

  Rock’s mouth fell open and the two of them stood, staring at each other.

  “Tilly’s missing from his photo!” Charlotte said, holding the picture in the air and pointing at it.

  “Tilly?” echoed Rock.

  “I took the name Tilly because it rhymed with Lily and had a T for Tony.”

  “Remember your nickname for me?” he asked.

  She smiled. “Rocky.”

  Rock’s face broke into the largest grin Charlotte had ever seen.

  “My love!” he reached Tilly in two long strides and they embraced. “I thought I’d never find you!” he said, his voice breaking with emotion.

  “I tried to find you—” she began.

  “My father flipped too! They sent us to Lakeland!”

  “They sent me here!”

  They clung to each other, rocking back and forth in apparent bliss.

  “I never married!” she exclaimed.

  “I—” Rock fell silent. As the silence continued, Tilly began to struggle to free herself.

  “Wait, wait, wait…” she said, waving her hands in the air.

  “Come on, Lily, it’s been fifty years!”

  “You married some broad?”

  “Yes, but I never loved her the way I loved you. We divorced not long after Rocky was born.”

  “You had a kid?”

  “Awkward,” mumbled Seamus.

  “Tell me, how long did you wait before you married some hussy?”

  “Lily, my love, I was young! You were gone! Everyone else was doing it…”

  Tilly spun on her heel and stormed out of the house.

  “Tilly!” called Rock, racing after her.

  The others looked at each other as Tilly and Rock’s voices faded in the distance.

  “So…that was interesting…” said Charlotte.

  Jackie turned to the box, sitting half broken on her table, pieces sticking out from every side. “And I have this stupid box back again.”

  “Well, look at the bright side,” said Charlotte pointing to the hanging plant. “That touching reunion is all captured on video.”

  “Can I still kill Rocky?” asked Seamus.

  Epilogue

  Charlotte called for Gloria, but found only Abby, half asleep on her bed with her back legs stretched out behind her like a frog.

  The house felt quiet without Gloria in it.

  She needed to get ready. Declan would arrive soon to take her to a celebratory dinner. But first…she needed to update the chalkboard wall. She’d solved the switched lawn ornaments, found Witchy-Poo, discovered the person threatening Gloria and returned the mystery box to its rightful owner.

  What a week.

  Heading back down the hall, she noticed a pile of something on her counter top. A mound of money sat on top of a note scrawled on white paper. She slipped the note out from the pile.

  Dear Charlotte,

  Thank you so much for all your help and for giving me a place to stay during my ordeal. I’ve left you payment for your services. My house is a disaster. I’m moving to the beach. I’ve always wanted to live on the beach. Hope to see you soon!

  Love,

  Gloria

  Charlotte picked up the pile of money and realized each bill was a crisp hundred. Thirty of them.

  Three thousand dollars! What a payday! No, no. She couldn’t possibly accept so much money. Granted she had been attacked, but still…

  The smile melted from Charlotte’s face.

  Such crisp bills…

  She found her purse and pulled from it the first hundred Gloria had given her. Another new bill. The date on each was over fifteen years ago. Every single one. She hadn’t thought the newness of the first bill was odd at the time, but in combination with thirty others…all with old dates…Gloria’s new house at the beach…

  No wonder Jason couldn’t find the bank money his father hid in his grandmother’s house.

  Gloria found it first.

  THE END

  Look for the next Pineapple Port novel coming winter 2016!

  Thank you for taking time to read Pineapple Mystery Box! If you enjoyed it, please consider telling your friends or posting a review on Amazon or GoodReads or wherever you like to roam. Word of mouth helps poor starving authors so much!

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  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Amy has been writing and finding other creative ways to make no money since high school.

  She specializes in fun, comedic reads about accident prone, easily distracted women with questionable taste in men.

  So, autobiographies, mostly.

  Amy is the former East Coast Editor of SURFER Magazine but the urge to drive up and down the coast interviewing surfers has long since left her. Currently, she is a nerd and Labradoodle mommy who works at home with her goofy husband.

  She has rocked water aerobics at a fifty-five and over community, but has yet to play bingo. She’s heard it’s vicious.

  Other Books by Amy Vansant

  Pineapple Lies (Pineapple Port Mystery: Book I)

  Slightly Stalky (romantic comedy)

  Angeli (funny/dark urban fantasy adventure)

  Cherubim (Angeli Book II)

  Moms are Nuts (editor: humor anthology)

  The Surfer’s Guide to Florida (non-fiction: out of print)