“So the neighbor is number three.”
“Yep. And he’s a real jerk too. I’m rooting for him.”
Declan sat on a bar stool and tapped his thumb on the granite top. “Why would Jamie kill those two? And why would she try to make them look like accidents?”
Charlotte sighed. “That’s what I’m wrestling with. She’s a known killer, and her appearance lines up with the deaths, but this isn’t her style.”
“No. So that leaves us with number four?”
“Number four is the mystery person. Someone we don’t know who likes to kill people and make it look like an accident.”
“Storm accidents,” muttered Declan.
Charlotte cocked her head. “That’s interesting. What if this is another serial killer who only kills before natural disasters?”
Declan laughed. “I think you think there are more serial killers in the world than there are. It’s amazing little Charity has one.”
“Is it? When Jamie collected bad guys here like they were baseball cards?”
“True.”
“And when are police more likely to chalk a death up to an accident? People fall off of ladders and asphyxiate before storms all the time.”
“And during a storm, with other tragedies happening, they’re more likely to rush on to the next thing.”
Charlotte nodded. “Exactly. It’s sort of brilliant.”
“But Jamie’s witness protection people were usually thugs and everyday-Joes who turned evidence on powerful people. Not really serial killers.”
“But what if you were a killer who scratched that itch by becoming a hitman, and then you had to go into witness protection? Maybe you’d have to find another way to deal with your urges.”
Declan shrugged. “Maybe. A hit man who only worked before storms would be pretty useless, though.”
There was a knock on the door and before Charlotte could answer, Mariska entered holding a giant frozen pork shoulder in her hands. Abby ran over to say hello.
“Charlotte, can I put this in your freezer—” She stopped, spotting Declan in a towel, her mouth shaping into a perfect ‘O’. “Oh I’m sorry—” She twirled on her heel.
Charlotte rushed to stop her before she could run out of the house. “It’s okay. He fell in a lake. I’m drying his clothes.”
“I didn’t fall in a lake,” she heard him mutter behind her.
“Oh.” Mariska smiled, a blush still on her cheeks. “Can you take this, it’s freezing my hands.”
Charlotte took the pork and dropped it in her freezer.
“Did she say you fell in a lake?” Mariska asked Declan.
“I didn’t fall—”
Charlotte intervened to change the subject. “Mariska, who would I talk to if I wanted to call together the Five Families?”
Mariska gasped. “Why would you do that?”
“There might be someone dangerous in town and I think it’s important to let the communities know.”
Mariska pressed her lips tight. “But the last time someone did that...I mean, I think Ralph still walks with a cane.”
“Who are the Five Families?” asked Declan.
“And poor Wanda,” continued Mariska, crossing herself.
Charlotte touched Mariska’s arm to pull her attention back to the present. “I know. I’ve heard the stories about Five Family meetings, but I think it’s important. We’re going to have to work together on this.”
Mariska sighed. “Penny can make it happen.”
“Wait. What happened to Wanda?” asked Declan.
“Meetings of the Five Families can be very stressful. She had a weak heart,” said Mariska.
“And the Five Families are...?”
Mariska held up a hand to tick off the list one digit at a time. “Pineapple Port, of course. Represented at the table by Penny, Terra Siesta, Silver Lake, Smillages and Canuck City.”
“Smillages?”
Charlotte hopped in to explain. “That’s a nickname for The Fairways, the golf community I was just telling you about. Back in the day the developer said it would be just like The Villages, but it turned out more like the Smillages—much less impressive.”
“Villages-smillages. Got it. So what happened that everyone is scared to have another meeting?”
Mariska rolled her eyes. “What hasn’t happened? One year someone flung a pizza slice at another representative and gave him third degree burns on his face. Wanda had a heart attack and never made it to the hospital.
“That’s awful.”
Mariska shrugged. “She was the only fatality, so far.”
“It sounds like you’ve been to one?”
“Penny took me once to act as secretary for them because the real secretary was too scared to attend.”
“You weren’t scared?”
“I told her I’d only do it if she let me sit in the room next door with a glass pressed against the wall. Good thing too. Turned out to be a real mess.”
“Why?”
“It was about adding bike paths to the town.”
Charlotte clucked her tongue. “They were fools to even try.”
Mariska nodded. “The representative from Smillages tried to take off the face of the representative from Canuck City with a parmesan grater and that was the end of that.”
“Yikes.” Declan looked at Charlotte. “Are you sure you want to do this?”
She nodded. “I think it’s a good idea to warn everyone. And anyway, we’ll be there to make sure nothing happens.”
Declan sighed. “Oh good.”
Chapter Nineteen
Charlotte and Declan entered Angelo’s Pasta Pit at ten minutes to nine in the evening, thinking they’d be early to the emergency meeting of the Five Families. Only a few of the restaurant’s patrons remained at the late hour, making a bickering group of people, jostling amongst themselves against the far left wall, all the more obvious.
“Is that them already?” asked Declan.
Charlotte recognized Penny, the owner of Pineapple Port and her sister, Tabby, who owned Silver Lake, their bodies pressed against a pair of French doors Charlotte knew led to the restaurant’s meeting room. The two of them traded hip-bumps as if they were dancing, vying for the spot where the doors would split. She didn’t know the other
