“No. They’re aliens. They’ve chosen to take the forms of puppies.”
Mariska’s eyes narrowed. “Okay smartie-pants. I know they’re puppies. I mean where did they come from?”
“We don’t know. Someone left them on the doorsteps of three people in the neighborhood, including Alice.”
“Then that’s who killed her,” Mariska snapped, her index finger poking into the sky.
Frank shook his head. “We’ll look into that. But I don’t think so.”
“So you still think I did it?”
“We don’t think you did it,” said Charlotte. She glanced at Frank. “Did you forget to mention that?”
Frank shrugged.
Charlotte turned back to Mariska. “Is there any way you might have added some nuts and then forgotten?”
Mariska jerked back her head as if she’d been slapped. “I’d remember if I changed her recipe. I’m not senile. And why would I anyway? She’d been perfecting it for decades.”
“Maybe someone else added them at the end? Were they sprinkled on top? Did you see any nuts?”
“No. Did you?” Mariska asked Frank.
The sheriff slipped his fingers under a plastic-wrapped crumb cake and stole a chunk. “Nah. Though when we bagged things I wasn’t exactly looking for nuts either.” He dropped the cake into his mouth and chewed, nodding his head in approval.
Mariska squinted at him. “Do you really want to eat my crumb cake? You’re not worried it’s poisoned?”
Trapped in the middle of swallowing, Frank suffered a little cough and cleared his throat.
“No.”
Looking exasperated, Mariska stooped to pick up the box of puppies and carted them to her sofa. She gently tilted the box to let them slide onto the cushions and then flopped beside them as if exhausted. Izzy, who had lifted her head to watch, dropped her chin to the ground, banging it on the tile floor.
“You’re breaking Izzy’s heart,” mumbled Charlotte.
“I just wanted to hold them for a minute,” said Mariska. “They won’t let me have puppies in prison.”
Frank huffed. “You’re not going to prison. It’s my duty to come ask you these things. We have to investigate every possibility.”
Mariska dropped her head into her hands, until a puppy slammed itself into the elbow she’d been using as support and it slipped from her thigh. “This is terrible. Do you really think someone killed Alice? Who would do that?”
Frank shrugged. “We still have Crystal to look into.”
Mariska grabbed a puppy about to leap from the edge of the cushion. “I forgot about that horrible granddaughter of hers. Do you think—”
Frank held up a hand. “We’ll be talking to her.”
Mariska frowned. “I’d certainly be talking to her before you start accusing me—”
“I didn’t accuse you. I asked you a question about a possible honest mistake.” Frank ran his hands over his balding pate. “I swear, I don’t know how many more years I can deal with all you crazy people.”
Charlotte chuckled as she retrieved the puppy box and handed it to him. “You’d die without something to do.”
“And retirement would mean twenty-four-seven with Darla.” Frank affected a shudder before glancing at the combined boxes. “You don’t need these?”
“I can get them across the street without it.”
He nodded and moved for the door.
“I’m going. Don’t leave the country, Mariska.”
Mariska blanched. “That isn’t funny, Frank.”
He left, chuckling to himself.
The moment he was gone, Mariska’s gaze shot to Charlotte, her expression a map of worry. “I didn’t do it. I swear I didn’t add any nuts to the recipe.”
“I believe you. Everyone believes you. We just have to eliminate all the possibilities.”
One of the puppies had burrowed its head under a throw pillow and apparently fallen asleep. Mariska picked up another and kissed it on the nose. “Do you think Crystal could have done it? She’s a horrid girl but I can’t imagine anyone killing their own grandmother.”
“I don’t really know her. Not much of a charmer, but it’s been a rough day.”
Mariska clucked her tongue. “If you’d tried to run in her crowd, I would have locked you in a closet until you were thirty.”
Charlotte opened a cabinet to get a bowl. She needed to make sure the puppies drank and ate some food. There was no way of telling the last time they’d been fed. “She’s, like, seven years younger than me. If I’d been running in her crowd it would have been weird.”
“You know what I mean.”
Mariska stood and began lowering puppies to the floor. Together they herded them towards the bowl. Izzy stood and moved farther away to flop down anew with an indignant grunt. When one of the puppies bounded towards her, she growled, but did nothing as the peewee bumped into her and then bounced in the other direction.
Mariska shook her head. “She’s never going to forgive you for bringing them here.”
Chapter Six
Charlotte’s boyfriend, Declan, rapped on her front door and entered without waiting for a response beyond the sound of Abby’s toenails galloping across the tiles. The soft-coated Wheaton seemed more desperate than usual for attention, throwing herself against his legs and figure-eighting through them until Charlotte worried his leg hair might catch fire.
Abby hadn’t taken the arrival of the puppies any better than Miss Izzy had.
Jealousy, thy name is dog.
Sometimes Declan swung by on his way to open his pawn shop, the Hock o’Bell, and he’d called to say this was one of those mornings. Charlotte had joked she considered his visits good practice should they ever end up married, so he was prepped on what she looked like without makeup and her hair pulled into a sloppy clip at the back of her head. There would be no surprises.
“Good morning,” she said, giving him a kiss. He’d missed a tiny spot shaving beneath his bottom lip and it scratched at her own. Something about the curve of his mouth made that
