“Charlotte? This is Dr. Powers.”
“Hi, how are you?”
“Good. You asked us to let you know if a Yorkie came in. We have him.”
Charlotte sat up in her seat. “You do?”
“Yep. He’s in my palm as we speak.”
“Awesome. I’ll be right there.”
She hung up to find Frank looking at her.
“Sixth puppy?”
She nodded. “Sixth puppy.”
Chapter Ten
Mariska climbed three low steps and knocked on the rattling screen door of their first house. She and Darla had talked about the puppies during the rest of their time at the pool—during the few minutes they weren’t talking with the other ladies about the fight for Dirty Dirk—and they’d decided to knock on doors on the way back home to see if they could help Charlotte find the missing pup.
The first house was a dud. No one answered.
“Off to a roaring start,” said Darla, who stood at the bottom of the step, supervising.
Mariska put her ear to the screen and listened. “I don’t hear a dog.” She took one step back down the stairs before hearing the pop of the inner door opening. She stopped and resumed her place on the landing.
“We don’t donate,” said the woman now standing in the doorway. It was hard to read her features through the thick screen, but Mariska didn’t think she looked terribly friendly.
“We’re not looking for donations. We’re looking—”
“We don’t want any.” The woman took a step back as if preparing to shut the door.
“Wait, we’re not selling anything. We’re just looking for—”
“Why are you naked?”
Mariska scowled. “What?”
“Why are you naked on my doorstep?”
Mariska looked down. She wore a sheer cover-up over a bathing suit a nun could wear on vacation.
“I’m not naked. We’re heading home from the pool—”
“We don’t use the pool. Full of germs.”
“Actually, they use a lot of chlorine. Anyway, we just need to ask—”
“We have our own religion, we don’t need—”
Mariska felt her cool slip away.
“Lady, did you find a friggin’ puppy?”
The woman’s eyes popped wide. Below her, Mariska heard Darla hoot with laughter.
“What?” asked the woman, her confrontational manner replaced by what sounded like genuine confusion.
“Did you find a puppy? Little black and brown thing with hair that looks like someone plugged its tail into the wall socket?”
“Did I, what?”
“Did someone leave a puppy on your doorstep?”
The woman straightened and shook her head. “No. Why would someone give us a puppy? You’re a crazy person.”
The woman closed the door. Inside Mariska could hear her calling to her husband.
“Nothing. Some crazy naked lady looking for a lost dog.”
Mariska turned to glare down at Darla. They’d only knocked on one door and she was exhausted.
Darla chuckled. “Seems nice.”
Mariska tottered down the steps. She caught movement from the corner of her eye and looked up to see an old man peering at her though the curtains.
Darla shook her index finger at him and the curtains closed.
“He didn’t want to miss the naked lady, the old dirtbag.”
The two of them climbed back into Mariska’s golf cart and took the two-second drive to the next house.
Mariska grunted as she climbed out again.
“This might not be the task for us.”
“This is Tilly’s house. She always has good cookies.”
Mariska’s mood lightened. “Ooh, I love those anise ones with the sprinkles.”
“I like the ones half-dipped in chocolate,” mused Darla. “Though I don’t know why they don’t dip the whole thing in chocolate.”
“To give you a place to hold them without getting your fingers all messy.”
“I could use a smaller handhold. As it is, the one end tastes so much better than the other.”
“What you need is to find someone who likes the end without the chocolate and split them.”
Darla rolled her eyes. “That’s like finding someone who doesn’t like the stuffing part of an Oreo.”
“A unicorn.”
By the time they reached the door, Tilly was already standing behind her screen.
“What are you two up to?”
Mariska’s gaze shifted behind Tilly, straining to see if she had any plates of cookies on display. “Charlotte asked us to go around the neighborhood to try and find a missing dog.”
“I haven’t seen any. You want me to check my cameras?”
Tilly had moved with her family from New York City to Florida as a girl, shifted there by the Witness Protection Agency, after her father turned on the mob who’d hired him as an accountant. The uprooting had instilled in her an obsession with safety and, decades later, she still kept a log of suspicious comings and goings in the neighborhood. There were rumors she’d installed cameras all over Pineapple Port. Mariska knew nobody got away with anything with Tilly around.
“You really do have cameras?”
Tilly bounced one shoulder. “Eh. Charlotte knows all about them. I figured you did. Wanna see if I can dig anything up?”
“That would be wonderful,” said Mariska.
“You’re so much nicer than your neighbors,” added Darla, glancing back at the previous house.
Tilly shrugged. “Oh they don’t mess with me. She had a pork shoulder slide off a plate on their way to a potluck once and I caught her rinsing it off under the hose. She’s still scared I’ll tell.”
Darla’s lip curled. “I wonder if I was at that dinner.”
Mariska shrugged. “You have to admit. It would have been a terrible waste to throw it out.”
Darla gaped at her. “You too? Remind me not to eat at your house anymore.”
They followed Tilly inside.
“I was about to have a little limoncello. Want some?” asked Tilly, motioning towards a bottle filled with a cheery yellow liquid.
“What is it?” asked Mariska.
“Try it.” Tilly pulled what looked like two tiny champagne flutes from her cabinet and set them in front of the women.
Tilly poured them both
