Pineapple Pack II Read online

  A Pineapple Port Mystery: Book Five

  Amy Vansant

  ©2017 by Amy Vansant. All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by any means, without the permission of the author. All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  ISBN-13 978-1974577767

  ISBN-10: 1974577767

  Library of Congress: 2017912757

  Vansant Creations, LLC / Amy Vansant

  Annapolis, MD

  http://www.AmyVansant.com

  http://www.PineapplePort.com

  Copy editing by Carolyn Steele.

  Proofreading by Effrosyni Moschoudi & Connie Leap

  Cover by Steven Novak

  Dedication

  To Brock, a sweet, snuggle-bear of a nephew-doggie who left too soon.

  Chapter One

  The tide rolled in, pushed by a tropical storm swirling off the North Carolina coast. The sea swallowed the beach, churning toward the colorfully painted houses that peered over the dunes, powerless to stop their approaching guest.

  Even the most stalwart dunes meant little to an ocean, once it decided to make a house call.

  The tide served as a scout for the body of the storm. The wind had yet to arrive. A chill had fallen over the barrier island, but the center of the tempest spun hundreds of miles away, idling over the Atlantic Ocean, building strength.

  The man and the woman on the porch, enjoying the last of the calm weather, didn’t see the tendrils of water seeping through the ground beneath the sand.

  As unstoppable as an army of ants.

  More powerful than a train.

  The trick was patience. The water had nothing to do but rub. Break. Move. Fill.

  Fresh, salt, brackish—it didn’t matter.

  Water always won.

  Things rise from the ground as the water displaces them from the places they’ve slept for years. Old pathway pavers, hidden by dirt for decades, shimmy their way to the surface when the water visits. Shells. Bricks. Bottles. Chunks of asphalt.

  Bones.

  Old and new.

  Perched atop a nearby dune, a squirrel dug a hole and dropped a trophy inside.

  The man and the woman didn’t see this happening from their spot on the porch.

  But the ghost crabs smelled it.

  Chapter Two

  “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  Charlotte stared at herself in the mirrored doors of Mariska’s closet. She wore a yellowing cream velvet dress cinched tight at the waist with a scoop neck collar, and lace gloves.

  In Florida.

  Just looking at her outfit made her want to sweat.

  Mariska whirled, her dark maroon cape spinning, knocking her deodorant, a hair brush and a can of shaving cream to the floor.

  “Oh come on, this is fun,” said Mariska, trying to bend and pick up the items that had fallen. Her dress wouldn’t allow it.

  Charlotte dipped to retrieve the items.

  Mariska and Darla had been invited to a gothic romance book party by Veronica Deering, one of the Pineapple Port ladies. They’d insisted that Charlotte join them.

  Growing up as an orphan unofficially adopted by the Pineapple Port retirement community, Charlotte had been forced or cajoled into attending hundreds of ladies’ book club meetings. Most of the time she didn’t mind. She knew book club meetings could be a hoot and were usually little more than an excuse to drink. Occasionally, it helped to actually read the featured book, but it was rarely required. Once or twice, she’d been asked to bring a potluck snack. But no one had ever requested she dress like undead Jane Eyre before.

  “Leave it to Veronica to come up with this,” said Charlotte, scratching where the lace irritated her neck.

  “She’s a little weird,” agreed Darla.

  Darla wore what Charlotte had referred to as a Martha-Washington-as-professional-escort ensemble. The costume shop had been woefully short on gothic romance dresses. If Veronica had requested they dress like pirate wenches, they would have had scads of outfits to choose from, though bare midriffs and plunging necklines in a fifty-five-plus community provided challenges of their own.

  This she knew all too well.

  Pirate wench outfits wouldn’t do for this party, but it had still taken Charlotte ten minutes to talk Mariska out of buying a stuffed parrot to wear on her shoulder.

  The three of them waddled to the lanai in their uncomfortable frocks to unveil their costumes to Mariska’s husband Bob, Darla’s husband, Sheriff Frank and Charlotte’s boyfriend, Declan.

  This was the part Charlotte had been dreading the most.

  As they jostled through the sliding door that separated the lanai from the living room, Charlotte noticed the bourbons the men had poured in anticipation of their departure. The ladies’ book club meant an impromptu meeting of their Bourbon Club, the less-veiled version of the men’s “book club.”

  “What do you think?” Mariska asked Bob, as she completed a spin. Her cape clipped a small lamp and Charlotte dove to catch it before it crashed to the ground.

  “You look like vampire Mary Poppins,” said her husband. He snorted at his own joke.

  Frank eyeballed Darla. “You look like the inside of a coffin.”

  He flinched as Darla smacked him on the shoulder.

  Charlotte hooked her mouth, glaring at Declan, awaiting his verdict.

  He smiled. “You look lovely...”

  She scowled. “Go ahead. Finish. Get it out of your system.”

  “...Miss Havisham.”

  Charlotte sighed. She knew she did look like Dickens’ attic-dwelling abandoned bride. “I think her dress itched less than mine,” she said, clawing again at her irritated neck.

  Mariska shook a finger at Bob. “Don’t drink too much. We don’t want to come home to a bunch of idiots.”

  The three men looked at each other as if they couldn’t imagine what she meant.

  Assured no compliments would be forthcoming, the ladies shuffled toward the front door. Charlotte exited first, and then turned in time to watch Mariska forcibly jerk Darla and her impressive poofs through the doorframe.

  “A few more ruffles and you would have had to grease me like a pig,” said Darla.

  Charlotte continued down the driveway, only to find herself confronted by Mariska’s Volkswagen Bug. She put her hands on her hips and considered the physics of the task that lay before them.

  “We’re going to look like clowns stuffing ourselves in that thing.”

  “Let’s take the golf cart,” suggested Darla.

  “The golf cart? That’s even smaller,” said Mariska.

  “Yeah, but all our dangly bits can hang over the edges.”

  “Don’t they always?” asked Mariska.

  The two older ladies burst into giggles.

  Charlotte frowned at the golf cart and decided there was some logic to Mariska’s plan. She waddled to it.

  They piled onto the cart, Mariska wedged behind the wheel with Darla beside her on the front bench. Charlotte, as usual, sat in the reverse rumble seat, clinging to the framework like a koala in a eucalyptus tree during a hurricane.

  Mariska backed out of the driveway as if she were being chased by a mob of angry zombies, paused long enough for Charlotte to wrap her arm snake-like around the roof pole, and then stomped on the pedal.

  Charlotte’s knuckles turned white. Back when her real grandmother died and Mariska explained that she and the rest of the Pineapple Port retirement community would be raising her, she never dreamed how harrowing growing up in a fifty-five-plus neighborhood would be.

  Mariska’s cape unfurled and fluttered across Charlotte’s face, slapping her as if demanding a duel. She wrestled it down and braced her feet as Mariska rolled left.

  Veronica lived in the older part of Pineapple Port, but it didn’t take long to arrive with Lead Foot at the wheel. Mariska screeched to a halt behind
several other carts and cars. No matter how fast Mariska had driven, it appeared that stuffing their bodies into their costumes had still left them fashionably late.

  The ladies piled from the golf cart and toddled to the house, muttering beneath their breaths as they repeatedly stepped on their own, and each other’s, skirts.

  Hostess Veronica Deering opened her door before they could knock. She was a tall woman with black hair and a matching skin-tight gown that made her look like Dracula’s mistress. She grinned upon seeing them.

  “Ladies, how good of you to come.”

  Mariska and Darla said their hellos. Charlotte also returned the greeting, but felt her smile fading as her attention locked on Veronica’s ruby red lips.

  Something about her shade of lipstick seemed off.

  Too red? Too shiny?

  Mariska noticed as well, gushing over the lip gloss. “Your lipstick almost looks like wet blood, but in a good way.”

  “You’re too funny,” said Veronica, chortling as she led them into the house. If she was offended by the comparison of her lip gloss to bodily fluids, she didn’t show it. There was no denying that Mariska had perfectly articulated what Charlotte had been thinking.

  The center island of Veronica’s kitchen was laden with snacks. Mariska and Darla headed toward them as if pulled by magnets.

  “I hope the deviled eggs aren’t all gone,” mumbled Mariska, straining to see.

  A man nodded at Charlotte and she smiled. He licked his lips, gazing at her as if he were starving and she was a juicy hamburger.

  Hm. Disturbing.

  Her progress toward the island grew slower and she scanned the room, carefully avoiding eye contact with the leering man.

  Oh no.

  All the party guests appeared as if they’d just awoken from their coffins. Women in dresses with draping sleeves chatted with men in leather pants and frilly white shirts. Seventy-year-old men in leather pants. Several of the men wore eyeliner.

  Charlotte scooted to Darla’s side. “Notice anything odd about this party?”

  “Hm?” grunted Darla, a piece of pepperoni hanging from her lip for a second before her tongue swept it to safety.

  “Look.”

  Charlotte grabbed Darla’s head and pointed her gaze toward a man and a woman on Veronica’s lanai. The man was licking the woman’s neck.

  Darla’s eyes grew wide. “What in the name of fat Elvis are they doin’?”

  Charlotte leaned past Darla to tug on Mariska’s sleeve.

  “Oh, Charlotte. You have to try this punch. It has the strangest consistency and it’s a little salty, but—”

  “Mariska,” Charlotte hissed. “What kind of party did you say this is?”

  “Gothic romance?”

  “What did Veronica call it, exactly?”

  Mariska pursed her lips. “Um...just what I said. A Goth party.”

  Charlotte closed her eyes and groaned.

  A steel-haired woman in a knee brace hobbled by sporting five earring piercings, a nose ring, a lip bolt and what looked like a silver snake weaving through her eyebrow.

  Darla gasped.

  “Not something you see every day,” agreed Charlotte.

  “It’s her knee.”

  Something about Darla’s comment struck Charlotte as odd. “Wait… She just walked by with all those piercing and you gasped at her knee brace?”

  Darla nodded. “You have to remove everything metal for an MRI. It must have taken her a year to get ready for it.”

  “And they’re just the piercings we can see,” said Mariska. She popped a cheese square into her mouth and stared at the crowd. “It looks like they’re remaking the Golden Girls using the cast of the Addams Family.”

  Charlotte felt something brush her neck and jumped, yipping like a Yorkshire terrier. She whirled to find a tall, thin old man behind her, smirking. Slapping her hand to her neck, she felt moisture.

  “Did you just lick my neck?” she asked, horrified.

  His smile broadened, revealing what looked like pointy, filed-down dentures.

  “Delicious,” he said, his eyes flashing with import.

  The man leaned towards her again and she put her hand on his chest to stop his progress. She stared into his eyes.

  “Buddy, you lick me again and I’ll drive a porterhouse steak through your heart. Believe me, it takes a lot longer to die that way.”

  The man blanched and wandered away.

  Charlotte turned to Mariska and Darla.

  “We’re out of here,” she said, circling her finger in the air above her head.

  Darla and Mariska gathered a few extra snacks from the spread and followed her lead to the door.

  “Are you leaving?” asked Veronica, touching Mariska’s arm as she passed.

  Mariska nodded. “There’s been a mistake, Ronnie. I thought this was a book club.”

  Veronica gaped. “A book club? You know, I thought it was strange when you asked to come. What did you think light S & M meant on the invite?”

  Mariska shrugged. “Snacks and meats?”

  “Weirdos!” called Darla from the entrance landing. She leaned in and yanked Mariska outside.

  Charlotte flashed Veronica an apologetic smile and hurried after the others.

  The three of them crowded back into the golf cart and Mariska hit the gas.

  “Snacks and meats?” screamed Charlotte from the back.

  Mariska glanced back at her. “How was I supposed to know that sort of thing was going on in Pineapple Port?”

  “No telling the men. I’ll never hear the end of it,” said Darla.

  Mariska nodded. “Absolutely. No telling.”

  Charlotte squelched her rising giggles and tried to remain quiet.

  She couldn’t wait to get back and tell Declan.

  Chapter Three

  “It looked like a True Blood cast reunion party, fifty years later.”

  Charlotte leaned on the checkout counter of Declan’s pawn shop, the Hock o’Bell, sharing horror stories of the previous evening’s mature goth party.

  Shuffling through his SALE! tags, Declan hooted with laughter. “They have parties like that? I mean, in that neighborhood?”

  “I guess so. I had no idea. And I’ve been here forever. I’m just sorry I missed the best part. Mariska said she asked Bob what S and M stood for and he nearly choked on his coffee.”

  “You’re a private investigator now. Shouldn’t you have solved that puzzle before you had your neck licked?”

  “I’m not official yet,” said Charlotte. She’d completed the intern hours required to earn her official private investigator’s license and submitted the paperwork. Now she had to wait. She was giddy at the idea of hanging her shingle. She could advertise her services without breaking the law. She could finally stop solving cases on the sly.

  “So you’re saying that if you’d had your license, you would have known all about the geriatric dungeon in your midst.”

  She nodded. “Naturally. What are you doing with all those sale tags? Are you having a sale?”

  “Good guess, Sherlock. But no, as a matter of fact, I’m just counting them. I don’t need to have sales anymore. These are the tags from items Blade sold yesterday. The man is a machine.”

  Declan’s employee, Blade, stood at the front of the shop, chatting with an elderly woman as if they were long lost friends. His six-foot-six frame, long gray-blond ponytail, weathered face and exclusive wardrobe of war and death-related t-shirts made him a terrifying sight to behold, but the people of Charity, Florida couldn’t stop buying things from him.

  Declan waved his hand in Blade’s direction. “Look at that mustache. He’s terrifying and these people love him. Meanwhile, I can’t shake the feeling he’s selling all my taxidermy to make room for a stuffed me.”

  Charlotte twisted to survey Blade’s new mustache. From beneath his nose the blond streak spilled in straight lines down either side of his mouth like twin caterpillars agreeing to go thei
r separate ways.

  “You can’t judge a book by its cover,” she said.

  “He made himself even scarier and had his best day ever. I think the locals buy things just to talk to him. Getting him to say more than three words a day to me is like pulling teeth. But everyone else—men, women, children—to them he’s like the pied piper of pawn.”

  Charlotte beheld her boyfriend’s wistful expression. Declan was handsome, built like an Olympic swimmer and had been the local ladies’ obsession before Blade appeared.

  “Jealous?” she asked.

  He scoffed. “No.”

  She patted his hand. “Aw. I still think you’re cute.”

  “Gee, thanks.”

  She decided to change the subject. “So, are you ready for our vacation?”

  Darla had friends, Phil and Brenda Scott, who owned a vacation home on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. The Scotts’ rental home needed maintenance, and they’d offered to allow Darla and a group of her friends to stay for free over the Thanksgiving holiday in return for repairs. Sheriff Frank couldn’t take the time off, so Darla invited Mariska and Bob, who considered himself handy. They’d invited Charlotte and Declan to join to gain access to their “strong young backs” and—never to be left out—Declan’s uncle Seamus had weaseled his way into the group by promising to provide free transportation. Mariska completed the list by inviting her sister Carolina, who lived in Michigan. Her husband, Chuck, was an electrician so he made for a useful addition.

  The plan was for Carolina and Chuck to fly to the nearest airport and rent a car, while the Florida crew drove north in whatever vehicle Seamus provided.

  Declan wrapped the SALE! tags in a rubber band and threw them in a drawer. “I’m still not convinced driving north in November to stay in the middle of nowhere in the freezing cold is a vacation.”

  “Oh come on. It will be fun. How handy are you?”

  “Not at all. But Seamus is. He’s always fixing things around the house. That’s the only reason I didn’t tackle him when he opened his mouth and invited himself.”