Pineapple Lies (25 page)

Chapter Twenty-Nine

“You’re telling me this is
your
gun?” asked Frank.

Penny nodded, almost imperceptibly. She looked as though she might fall, so Charlotte leaped up and put a chair behind her. Penny sat and touched the photo, as if she was seeing a ghost.

Frank put his hand on Penny’s. “This is important. Are you absolutely positive this is your gun?”

“George bought it for me.”

“Penny, we need to go down the station. I need George…” Frank glanced at Charlotte. “Both Georges, to come in, too.”

“Why?”

“Penny, we need to do this at the station.”

There was another knock at the door and Darla left to answer.

“Should I go home and get my crowbar?” asked Bob.

“What are you talking about?” asked Mariska.

“So we can squeeze some more people in here?”

“Oh, shut up.”

Declan and Seamus entered. Seamus walked a direct line to Frank and handed him the gun, backwards, with the barrel open.

“Here’s the gun,” said Seamus.

Frank took it.

“And here’s the paperwork.”

Seamus slapped a sheet of paper on the table.

“I’ll do anything you want me to. I had no idea this gun killed Erin.”

“What?” said Penny, her voice cracking.

“Penny, I need you to stay calm,” said Frank, putting his hand on her shoulder. She jerked away from him and stood, the chair toppling behind her.

“That gun has only been fired once. Once! I shot at George. Not really—I was just trying to scare him. But I didn’t kill anyone!”

“Penny, I told you, we need to get you to the station—”

“What do you mean you shot at George?” asked Darla.

“Darla, dammit—” said Frank, but he was cut short by Penny.

“He was having an affair. He was sleeping with that girl!”

“What girl?” asked Seamus.

“Erin!”

“Penny!” roared Frank.

“It didn’t even come close to hitting him. It went into the closet! You can still see the mark! He took the gun away from me and I never saw it again.”

“Penny, don’t say another word,” said Frank in his most stern voice. Charlotte shivered at the sound of it. “Is George at the house?”

Penny stared at him, shaking, her eyes wild.

“Penny! Is George at the house?”

“You said not to say another word!” screeched Penny.

“You can answer my question.”

“No. He and Junior went fishing.”

“Where?”

“Out of Tampa.”

“When will they be back?”

“Tomorrow afternoon.”

“Okay. Penny, I’m going to ask you to come with me so we can do this properly.” Frank turned to Declan and Seamus. “I want you two to come as well.”

Seamus and Declan both nodded.

Declan looked at Charlotte and she bit at her lip, unable to do anything else.

“Call me if you need anything,” she said.

Declan answered with a tight smile. He paused, and then leaned down and kissed her on the lips. He held the kiss for five seconds and then with one last look, turned to leave.

“Oh my,” said Mariska.

“That was kind of romantic, huh?” said Darla to her.

Charlotte smiled. She tried not to, but it was hopeless.

Frank ushered Penny out of the house with Seamus and Declan on his heels.

Mariska, Darla, Bob and Charlotte remained in stunned silence as the door closed behind them.

“So…” said Bob after a moment. “Was that a
no
on the extra pierogis?”

Mariska sighed.

“So are you thinking what I’m thinking?” asked Charlotte.

“That Frank’s bourbon has been left unattended?” asked Bob rising from his chair and shuffling toward Darla’s lanai. “I’ll hide it. It will make him crazy.”

“That George is guilty as sin?” answered Darla, watching Bob head for her husband’s liquor cabinet with little interest.

Charlotte shook her head. “We have to go to Penny’s house.”

“What are you talking about?” asked Mariska.

“Penny said she shot into the closet and you can still see the mark. We should go look for it.”

“Frank will figure it all out,” said Darla, returning to her dishes.

“But what if she gets word to George and warns him? What if there is evidence that goes missing by the time Frank can get George into the station?”

“The police have to do things by the numbers,” said Mariska.

Darla turned. “But we don’t.”

“Exactly,” said Charlotte. “If Penny calls George and tips him off, who knows what will go missing by the time Frank gets there.”

“But how will we get in?” asked Mariska.

“The door is probably open,” said Charlotte.

“And if it isn’t,” said Darla, slipping into the office off the kitchen. She returned with a small case. “I’ve got my lock picks.”

“Your lock picks!” said Charlotte, ogling Darla. “Who
are
you?”

“Her second husband was a thief,” said Mariska.

“I learned all sorts of fun things.”

“I’m going home,” said Bob, Frank’s bourbon under his arm. “You broads are nuts.”

Charlotte sat on Penny’s back step. She had agreed to meet Mariska and Darla there in fifteen minutes.

“Hey.”

Charlotte jumped at the sound of Darla’s voice. She was clothed in black. Charlotte could barely see anything but the parts of Darla’s face that weren’t covered with camouflage.

“What is on your face?”

“It’s dark blush. Can you see me?”

Charlotte stepped closer. In the dim light of the half-moon, she could see a tinge of red to the dark powder covering Darla’s face.

“You look like a baboon’s butt. Why did you have such dark blush? Were you trying out for Bride of Frankenstein?”

Darla shrugged. “It was a phase.”

“Hey!” said another voice. They turned and found Mariska wearing dark slacks and a black sweater with a giant goldfish in the center of it.

“Girl, I can see that goldfish from a block away!” said Darla.

“It’s the only black, long-sleeve thing I had.”

“Well turn it inside out!”

Mariska muttered ‘fine’ and began pulling the sweater over her head. She didn’t get far before she froze with her hands above her head, her arms bound by the same sweater that now covered her face.

“What are you doing?” asked Charlotte.

“It’s caught on my earring,” said Mariska. “I’m trapped.”

“Oh for crying out loud…”

Charlotte and Darla jostled to free Mariska’s ear from the knitting. They managed to get the sweater back down.

“The fish is fine,” said Charlotte. “Leave it. We’re not Seal Team Six.”

“Goldfish Team Three,” said Mariska.

Darla snorted a laugh.

Charlotte sighed and tried the doorknob. Many of the residents didn’t bother to lock their homes, but no such luck with Penny.

“It’s locked.”

“Ooh! Goody!” said Darla, pulling her lock-picking pack from a navy fanny pack around her middle. “I need some light.”

Charlotte put her phone on flashlight mode and covered it as best she could, concentrating the beam on the back doorknob. Little transpired without notice in Pineapple Port, and she wanted to get inside as quickly as possible.

The door swung open.

“Still got it,” said Darla.

The three went inside and shut the door behind them.

“Which closet did she shoot?” asked Mariska.

“She didn’t say. I guess we’ll have to check them all.”

Charlotte switched on a light.

“What are you doing?” asked Darla, ducking behind the kitchen island.

“She has blinds on all the windows, and if you were her neighbor, what would you find more suspicious: the lights on like usual, or a flashlight beam moving all over the darkened house?”

“Flashlight,” said Mariska. She grinned. “I love trivia.”

They moved from door to door, searching for some sign of a bullet hole. Charlotte went upstairs to begin her search, and after checking Junior’s old room with no luck, began running her hand along the door of Penny’s walk-in closet. She stepped inside and pulled a string hanging from a bulb to illuminate the ten-by-ten room. Her gaze fell upon a patch mark in the wall, about a foot from the carpet, left unpainted. She touched it and then looked on the outside wall. Slightly higher, she found a second patched area, concealed by paint. They had patched the wall but only painted the outside.

“Anything Char?” called Darla from just outside the master bedroom.

“Yes, I found it!”

“Really?”

Darla scampered over and Charlotte pointed out the holes. Mariska joined them a moment later and studied the marks as well.

“So she wasn’t lying. She really did shoot the closet,” said Darla.

“In a jealous rage,” added Charlotte. “She might have done George’s defense some damage with that statement. Or her
own
.”

“You don’t think Penny could have killed her!” said Mariska.

Charlotte shrugged and pointed at the higher location of the outer patch. “It looks like the bullet went down…so the bullet must have…”

She pulled back the carpet inside the closet to look for the bullet’s final resting place. Several of the floorboards possessed a slightly different grain.

“Looks like they replaced the floorboards,” she said.

“Why three?” asked Mariska peering into the closet.

“What’s that?”

“Why three? It looks like they replaced three floorboards. The bullet couldn’t have hit three of them, could it?”

“I wouldn’t think so,” said Charlotte, considering the possibilities. “Maybe a couple broke when they tried to pull them up?”

The familiar “whoop whoop” of a siren blared outside and the three of them jumped.

“It’s the cops!” said Darla.

“It’s probably Frank,” said Mariska.

“That’s worse! We have to hide!”

“Where?”

“The window seat!” said Charlotte, pointing to a long bank of cushions beneath Penny’s bedroom windows. She ran over to it and opened it. “Nearly empty.”

“I can’t get in there!” said Mariska. “That’s like trying to shove a ham into a can of beans!”

“I can!” said Darla. She ran over to the window seat and climbed inside.

Charlotte turned off the closet light.

“Get in the far corner of the closet over behind where the robes are hanging.”

Mariska scurried inside the closet.

Charlotte ran to the window seat just as Darla was about to close it.

“Move over!”

“Move over?” screeched Darla. “Are you crazy?”

“This was my idea!”

“And I appreciate that, but there is no room to move over!”

Charlotte snapped her gaze to the bedroom door. Someone was already in the house.

“Take a deep breath,” she said.

“What?”

Charlotte clambered into the window seat, resting the lid on her back so it would close as she lowered herself onto Darla.

“We’re like low-rent vampires,” whispered Darla. “And your breath smells like kielbasa.”

“You just had coffee, this is no picnic for me,” Charlotte hissed back.

“If you’re in here come out!” called a man’s voice.

“It’s Frank!” said Darla.

“Shhh!”

They heard footsteps heading for the bedroom, and then nothing as Frank hit the carpet.

There was the squawk of a walkie-talkie.

“This is Frank. I don’t see anyone at the Sambrookes’. Back door was open but no sign of forced entry.”

“10-4 Sherriff,” said a woman’s crackling voice.

Charlotte held her breath waiting for Frank to leave.

That’s when she heard the unmistakable sound of someone expelling gas.

Mariska
.

“Oh she
didn’t
,” whispered Darla.

“Come out of there,” said Frank. “Come out with your hands up.”

“Don’t shoot!” said Charlotte.

“What the hell?” said Frank. “Charlotte?”

Charlotte rose out of the window seat in time to see Mariska walk out of the closet with her hands in the air. Mariska looked at her.

“Kielbasa,” she said, moving a hand to her stomach. “Sorry.”

Frank grit his teeth as he strapped his gun back in its holster.