By the time she reached her car, she had Frank on the phone.
“I think Tracy Griffin had the sixth puppy. She’s Lyndsey’s mother and she lives in Pineapple Port.”
“Who’s Lyndsey again?”
“The horse trainer at Miller’s.”
“How’d you come up with all that? Vet have her on camera?”
“No, I—” Charlotte didn’t want to tell Frank the path had started with Tilly’s cameras until she had to. “It’s a long story. But I think Lyndsey is at her mother’s now. I need you to get there. I’m at the Miller Estate. It’ll take me twenty, twenty-five minutes to get back and if her mother tells her she had to ditch the puppy at the vets, she might try to take off.”
“What are you doing at the Millers’ place? Did they hire you?”
“No. Not exactly—”
“Charlotte, dang it, that’s not your case. Hell, it’s not even my case. It’s out of my county.”
“I had to return the puppy. And Lyndsey’s in your county now. She’s in your neighborhood. You have to go question her. Stall until I can get there.”
“Why? What are you going to do?”
“I have evidence she won’t be able to deny.”
“What exactly am I supposed to confront her with until then?”
“Tell her we have her mother on camera at the vet’s.”
“But we don’t.”
“Then just imply it. Be creative.”
“Be creative.” Frank huffed. “Fine. But you and your evidence better hurry. I can’t keep her there with nothing for long.”
“I’m already on the way.”
Chapter Fourteen
Frank hung up with Charlotte and scowled at the front of his house. He’d just pulled up and had been looking forward to having a bourbon and making fun of Darla and the screaming hangover she no doubt had by now.
He put his car into reverse and headed for Tracy Griffin’s house, just a few blocks away. He’d stopped to introduce himself to the new resident a month or so earlier, as was his habit. Best way to keep the neighborhood nice was to ensure every new person knew there was a sheriff living a few doors down. Funny business in the county was one thing, funny business in his neighborhood was a whole other.
At the time, he’d found Ms. Griffin unremarkable. A lack of makeup or primping of any kind had inspired him to file her under plain-Jane in his memory; a small woman, hair a mixture of dark and light gray, shoulder-length with a curl to it. In her day she might have been a cutie. One of those pixie types. It wasn’t always easy to tell. Now in her early sixties, he remembered she’d seemed a bit beaten down by life. Maybe a little rough around the edges.
As Frank pulled in front of Tracy Griffin’s house a woman burst from the front door headed for a car backed in the driveway.
Lyndsey.
Frank put his cruiser in reverse and rolled to block her car in the driveway.
That’s one way to keep her here.
Lyndsey looked up at him, registered shock and lowered the phone she’d had pressed to her ear.
Frank stepped out of the car and walked around the back of it. Lyndsey waited until he was in full view and then unleashed a toothy smile.
“Hi, Officer, I was just about to pull out, so if you could—”
“Lyndsey Griffin?”
Lyndsey appeared shocked, though Frank suspected she was less shocked than she let on.
“Yes?”
“I need to talk to you and your mother if you could come inside?”
“My mother? Why would you need to talk to my mother?”
“Could we do this inside?”
Frank heard a growl and turned to see Mama Griffin standing at her open door, her fists shut tight at her sides.
Lyndsey looked at her mother with what appeared to be fury, but no sooner did he note her angry expression, than Lyndsey’s face relaxed. She smiled again at Frank and led him up the stairs to the door as her mother disappeared inside.
Frank crossed the threshold and took a moment to scan the interior. Layout-wise, the home looked like any other in Pineapple Port, though it definitely fell on the shabbier side of shabby-chic. The worn slipcover engulfing the padded chair parked in front of the television told Frank that Tracy lived alone and didn’t have much money. The chair was pulled too close to the set, so her eyesight was probably on the fritz, too.
There were two types of people who retired to Pineapple Port: people with just enough money to afford the cheap houses and modest land rent, and people with money to live well but only if they didn’t blow all their savings on a big, expensive house. Those people sometimes had cars in their driveways that cost more than their homes. The old Ford Taurus in the driveway in front of Lyndsey’s Jeep told Frank Tracy belonged to the first group.
“What’s this about?” asked Lyndsey.
Frank paused, trying to eat time. If Charlotte had the evidence she said she did, Lyndsey was being pretty brash about his visit. She wasn’t a tall woman, but she’d straightened to her full height, giving him the impression she was ready to toss anything he threw her way right back at him. Her mother seemed like an older version of the same defiant personality. Something about her eyes as she watched him made him feel as though he scared her a little.
Let’s start with her.
“Tracy, I don’t know if you remember me,” he began, talking as slowly as he dared without sounding as if he’d suffered some sort of brain damage. “I came by to visit you shortly after you moved in?”
Tracy nodded. “I remember. You didn’t bring anything.”
Frank felt his head jerk back a little in surprise.
Bring anything? Was I supposed
