Charlotte felt her pocket for her phone and called Frank’s cell.
“Hello?” said a sleepy voice.
“Frank?”
There was a pause. “Charlotte? It’s not even eight o’clock in the morning. What’s wrong?”
“I’m standing in front of Alice’s house and the yard is filled with her things.”
She heard Frank grunting as if he were shifting in his bed. “What? Like a tornado hit the house?”
“No, it’s in trash bags but—”
“Oh crap. It’s trash day. I forgot to take it out last night. Hold on.” More grunting.
“I’m saying it looks like Crystal is emptying the place.”
“You called me this early to tell me Crystal is housecleaning?”
“Doesn’t she seem a little eager to move on?”
“People deal with grief in different ways. I had a lady once acting hysterical after hearing her husband had been in a car accident. And by hysterical I mean she was laughing her head off. Her emotions had short-circuited.”
“Or he was a terrible husband.”
“Maybe.”
“Anyway, I’m only saying because she’s moving awfully fast. Maybe she did kill Alice.”
“I don’t know what to tell you. We don’t have enough proof of wrong-doing to charge her for anything. We can’t arrest people for being ungrateful granddaughters.”
Charlotte frowned and shifted the box to her other arm and the phone to her other ear.
Stupid course of justice. So slow.
“Did you find out anything new?”
“Yeah, hold on.” She heard Frank’s automatic garage door opening. “They confirmed the cake had nuts in it.”
“Sprinkled on top or inside?”
“Almond flour baked inside. If Crystal did it, she didn’t just push a peanut in there or something.”
“No. It had to have been added before the stollen was baked. But Mariska said—”
“I know what Mariska said.”
“Maybe Crystal made another stollen, one with nuts. An imposter stollen. An impostollen.”
“Maybe. We’ll be looking into it. Damn it—”
Charlotte heard a cabinet bang and the rustling of plastic bags. While waiting for Frank to finish wrestling with his trash, she looked at the houses surrounding Alice’s with renewed interest.
“Maybe someone saw Crystal up that night, baking the spare stolen?”
“Charlotte, look, I have to go catch this trash truck…” His voice grew muffled but she could hear him talking to someone else. “It’s Charlotte. Crystal’s got all Alice’s stuff on the curb.”
“Did you wake up Darla?”
Frank’s voice returned louder as he barked a laugh. “Did I wake up Darla? Don’t you mean did you wake up Darla? And yes. You did. She woke up long enough to call Crystal a name I won’t repeat and now she’s off to bed again before I can ask her to help with this damn trash. Good-bye.”
“But wait, what do you want me to do with the pup—”
Charlotte heard the line die and slipped her phone back into her pocket. Maybe if she hurried back she could catch him dragging his cans to the curb.
She gave Alice’s house one last glance and spotted a pale face staring at her from the front window.
Crystal.
Charlotte gave Abby a tug and walked on.
Chapter Seven
Charlotte sat in a chair beside Pineapple Port’s Olympic-sized pool with Darla and Mariska, the box of puppies perched on a large round table beneath a shady umbrella. Two Yorkies were curled up in the box and one slept on Darla’s lap. Charlotte had let them run around the house for an hour after walking Abby and the little things were pooped. Literally and figuratively. She’d never been so happy to not have wall-to-wall carpeting.
She yawned wondering if she could steal a nap in the sun to make up for her rough evening and prepare for the next. Frank had refused to answer his phone since their morning conversation, so she still didn’t know if she needed to keep the puppies another day. Another night with them and she’d be like one of the walking dead.
At least she didn’t have to show up at work like Declan and the other nine-to-fivers. One of the joys of becoming a private investigator was she could keep a “retired” schedule. Poolside at ten in the morning was a luxury she’d hate to lose.
Music played in the background as the locals went through the paces of their water aerobics. Instead of exercising, Mariska and Darla had spent the last ten minutes bandying back and forth ideas on how they might prove Crystal had killed her grandmother. Not only would pinning a murder on Crystal clear Mariska, but legitimate excuses to avoid water aerobics were like gold. Whenever one of the other ladies asked them if they were getting in, Mariska told them they were helping Charlotte with a big case.
“Crystal can’t stay here whether she killed Alice or not. She’s too young,” said Darla, invoking Pineapple Port’s fifty-five-plus rule.
Charlotte clucked her tongue. “I stayed.”
Darla dismissed her with a wave. “You’re a nice girl. And you were too young to go anywhere else. She’s old enough to get an apartment like a normal person.”
Mariska agreed. “Though I feel terrible I’m sitting here hoping she killed her grandmother. It’s awful. But I know I didn’t bring any nuts with me.”
“Uh oh,” said Darla, lowering her sunglasses.
Mariska and Charlotte followed her gaze to a woman entering the pool area.
“What?” asked Charlotte.
“That’s Gina. Dirty Dirk’s weekend nurse.”
All three of their heads swiveled towards the pool, where Helen, Dirk Skiff’s regular housekeeper and cook, stood in the pool hopping from one foot to the other with the aerobics
