“What?”
“If all the stollens have nuts in them, and she’s allergic and doesn’t usually use them...remember, she didn’t make the bread.”
Frank’s eyes grew a little wider. “Mariska.”
Charlotte nodded.
Frank stuffed the notepad back into his pocket. “Mariska can get pretty creative with her recipes, can’t she? Not out of the realm she might have doctored the original recipe?”
“Not crazy to think she might have decided a handful of some off-script nuts might improve the batch.”
Frank grimaced. “Of course she wouldn’t know about Alice’s allergy, but that won’t make her feel any better if she finds out she killed the woman.”
Charlotte hugged the puppy tighter.
“She’ll never forgive herself.”
Chapter Four
Charlotte glanced through the window of Alice’s home to watch a sheriff’s cruiser pull to the curb. It parked, and a moment later a heavy-set girl in her late teens or early twenties dressed in a black t-shirt and cut-off jean shorts stepped from the passenger side and lumbered towards the front door. Her arms flopped at her sides beneath slumped shoulders, as if the effort to cross the yard was more than she could muster. Dyed black hair cut at the shoulder bounced in unison with her arms, as if it too, was simply too tired to hang there.
Behind her, Deputy Daniel stepped from the vehicle and followed, catching up to the girl with hurried strides.
“Mam, I don’t know if you should go back in there quite yet—” Charlotte heard him say.
Frank pushed open the screen door to allow the girl access. “It’s alright. She’s fine.”
Crystal entered without looking at Frank and dropped a small backpack to the ground.
“Where’d they take her?”
Daniel held open the door and Frank repositioned himself back into the house.
“She’s not here. The medics took her to the coroner.”
“For an autopsy?”
Frank nodded. “They’re going to have to find the cause.”
Crystal flipped her wrist back as if she was swatting a fly away from her ear. “She had lupus and a bunch of stuff going on.”
“We know. We have to know for sure, though.”
For the first time, Crystal seemed to notice Charlotte standing there.
“Who are you?”
“I’m Charlotte.” Charlotte made an attempt to shake Crystal’s hand, but found she couldn’t contain the squirming puppy with only one. “Sorry, I should probably give you back your dog.”
“My dog?” Crystal’s eyebrows and mouth arched to let Charlotte know she had to be the dumbest woman on the planet. “That ain’t my dog.”
“Alice’s dog then?”
“It ain’t hers either. Why do you think it’s ours?”
Charlotte nodded to the box in the corner. “He was in there.”
Frank’s gaze shot to the box and then back to Crystal. “So this puppy wasn’t here when you went to work this morning?”
Crystal huffed and walked to a floral chair, leaving her backpack on the floor in front of the door where everyone who entered would have to step over it. She flopped onto the chair, apparently to get the rest she so desperately needed. “No. And you ain’t leaving it here either.”
Charlotte glanced at Frank. She could tell they shared a common thought.
Crystal was unlikable.
Charlotte reminded herself the girl had just found her grandmother dead. While no tears glistened in her black-traced, over-lined eyes, people dealt with grief in many different ways. They had to give the girl a pass for rude demeanor today.
“Do you want me to take the dog?” asked Charlotte.
Frank sucked his tooth with his tongue for a moment and then nodded. “Yeah. Would you do that? Leave the box here.”
Charlotte nodded and glanced in Crystal’s direction. The girl already had her phone out, her fingers tapping a message to someone.
“Sorry to hear about your grandmother.”
Crystal didn’t look up, but Charlotte thought she caught a bit of a head nod.
Deputy Daniel held open the door and Charlotte carried the puppy into the sun, wondering if she still possessed any of her own dog’s old puppy paraphernalia. Abby, her soft-coated Wheaten, weighed close to forty-five pounds now. Her collars would hang like hula hoops on the wriggling baby in her arms.
Charlotte was still trying to picture where she might have stored some of Abby’s old puppy collars when she noticed Althea Moore walking towards her with a box in her arms. Althea scowled.
“Where’d you get that dog?”
Charlotte wasn’t sure what to say. “It was at Alice’s house.”
As she finished her sentence, Althea grew close enough that Charlotte could peer into her box, where another puppy lolled, nearly identical to the one in her arms. The two dogs spotted each other and the one in the box jumped up to nip its doppelganger’s toes.
“Is this one yours?” asked Charlotte.
Althea’s eyes grew wide. “Mine? No. I was hoping this one was yours.”
Althea bent down to put the box on the ground and Charlotte lowered her pup into the container to join the other. Althea huffed.
“That thing is too heavy for its size.”
“Where did you find it?”
“Found it on my doorstep this morning. Darnedest thing.”
“And you have no idea who put it there?”
Althea rolled her eyes. “No. And I don’t want it and I’m not taking it. I’m too old to break in a puppy. I saw the sheriff’s car and I was bringing it to him.”
“Hey!”
Charlotte turned to spot another neighbor, Katherine O’Malley, headed her way. The woman had a box under one arm, the other waving in the air above her head.
As she approached, Katherine lowered her box so Charlotte could see yet another identical puppy inside, the paws on the edge of the box as it tried to climb out of its cardboard prison. Katherine scooped it up with one hand and lowered it into the box with the others. The two pounced on their
