Until Dirk hired Gina for the weekend shift.
Darla shivered with what looked like excitement. “This should be good.”
“What’s going on?” asked Charlotte.
Mariska jumped to answer. “You know Dirk’s been planning that trip to Naples, right?”
Charlotte rolled her eyes. She didn’t know why Mariska and Darla imagined she kept up on the more salacious gossip in the neighborhood. “No, but okay.”
“Well, he promised to take both of them but he can only take one. He’s been playing them off of each other all week.”
Charlotte’s lip curled. “Surely both of them can do better than some old horndog like Dirk.”
“He’s got money,” said Darla, shrugging. “And those housekeepers are both first class gold-diggers.”
“But Helen’s getting a little long in the tooth for him, I think,” said Mariska.
Charlotte studied Helen. She was a good ten years younger than Dirk. Shifting her attention to Gina, she decided the new housekeeper had to be at least fifteen years younger. All of them were well over fifty-five.
“Gross,” she mumbled.
Darla continued, still as excited about the gossip as when she’d started. “When Helen found out he’d hired Gina to work on her days off, she nearly lost her mind.”
“Look at her. She’s built like Sophia Loren,” Mariska added, nodding to Gina, who’d picked a lounge chair and removed her cover-up to reveal her curvy figure, hugged by a two-piece bathing suit. Charlotte guessed her to be about fifty-seven, but Dirk was in his seventies, so for him she was quite the young chickie.
From the pool, Helen watched Gina as she bounced through her routine, her gaze locked on her rival as if she were an F-16 targeting system. Certainly if she could release missiles from her eyes, she would. Helen was in her mid-to-late sixties. For years she’d traveled everywhere with Dirk, but if now he was threatening to take Gina instead...
Oh boy.
Charlotte closed her eyes and rested her chin on her chest. Time to change the subject before Mariska and Darla leapt up and started cheering for blood as if they had ring-side seats at an MMA bout. “Frank said it was almond flour.”
“What?” piped Mariska.
“It wasn’t nuts, per se, that killed Alice. It was almond flour in the batter.”
Mariska poked a crooked finger at her. “See? I’ve never bought almond flour in my life. It couldn’t have been me.”
“It was probably hidden in Crystal’s room,” muttered Darla. “We should go look. It’s probably full of weird powders.”
Charlotte cocked open an eye. “Was she on drugs?”
Darla shrugged. “I don’t know. I wouldn’t be surprised.”
“Addiction is a motive. Drugs aren’t cheap,” said Mariska. “It’s always drugs.”
“Exactly,” agreed Darla.
Charlotte opened her eyes. There was no point in trying to nap with the ladies yammering about drugs, romantic rivals and murder. “Was Crystal around while you were baking?”
Mariska swatted away a fly. “I remember Crystal wasn’t there because in the middle of baking I got to thinking why doesn’t she get Crystal to help her? Young, healthy girl like that, living in the house and being no help. It’s shameful. I asked her where her granddaughter was and Alice got that look on her face that said don’t ask.”
“Alice was the best thing that ever happened to that girl. If it hadn’t been for her, she would have ended up in an orphanage,” said Darla.
Charlotte smiled. “We could have been roommates.”
Mariska huffed. “You were never going to end up in one of those horrible places. But even without us, you wouldn’t have turned out like that girl. You’ve always been so sweet. Remember how sweet Charlotte was as a little girl, Darla?”
Darla nodded. “Darling. Cutest little—”
“All right, all right.” Charlotte held up her hands in protest. She had to nip the lovey-dovey talk in the bud, or the ladies would have her baby albums out within the hour.
Time to change the subject. Again.
Charlotte nodded towards the pool.
“Gina’s getting in.”
Darla and Mariska’s gazes whipped to the pool as they watched Gina enter the water to join aerobics. She took a spot directly behind Helen.
“Ooh, she is cheeky,” muttered Mariska, clearly enjoying every second of the unfolding drama.
Mission accomplished. Darla and Mariska had forgotten all about her as a little girl.
Now back to business.
“I never asked, how did Crystal end up with Alice? Did her parents die?”
Mariska pulled her gaze from Gina and bobbed her head from side to side. “That’s not exactly how it happened. Alice’s son was a good enough boy, but Alice didn’t approve of his wife. Crystal’s mother was a wild child. When he died—”
“Car accident,” interjected Darla.
“—his wife went even crazier. Doing the needle drugs.”
“Wrong crowd,” said Darla, pressing her lips tight and adding a disapproving head shake to drive home her point.
“And she overdosed?” guessed Charlotte.
“No. Worse. She started sleeping with men for money to buy the drugs. Endangering little Crystal.”
“There were rumors she tried to sell Crystal to men,” added Darla in a fierce whisper.
Now it was Mariska’s turn to frown and shake her head.
No one could do synchronized disapproval like Mariska and Darla.
Mariska continued. “Those were rumors…too awful to even think. I don’t know if they were true, but Alice called the police on that woman for one thing after another. Eventually she had the child taken away, took custody and had her mother arrested.”
Charlotte straightened in her seat. “So doesn’t that make Crystal’s mom a terrific suspect?”
Darla slathered some sunblock on her nose, careful not to disturb the puppy on her lap. “Sure, if she wasn’t dead. She got out of jail and overdosed a few years
