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through and disappeared into her yard.
    “Katie no!” said Charlotte, reaching toward the retreating dog. “Katie! I’m pretty sure that has to stay with the head!”
    She leaned forward and nearly touched the jawless skull before yanking away her hand.
    Whose head is in my garden?
    She felt her eyes grew wider, like pancake batter poured in a pan.
    Hold the phone.
    Heads usually come attached to bodies.
    Were there more bones?
    What was worse? Finding a whole skeleton or finding only a head?
    Charlotte hoped the rest of the body lay nearby, and then shook her head at the oddity of the wish.
    She glanced around her plot of dirt and realized she might be kneeling in a whole graveyard . More bones. More heads . She scrambled to her feet and dropped her shovel.
    Charlotte glanced at her house, back to where her chalkboard wall patiently waited.
    She really needed some chalk.

 
     
    Chapter Two
     
     
    The Sheriff’s deputies allowed Charlotte to stay in her home while they oversaw the removal of human remains from her garden; the garden she now lovingly referred to as The Garden Never to be Touched Again. It wasn’t as catchy as The Garden of Eatin’ ; the nickname one couple in Pineapple Port had dubbed their screened-in porch area, but it would have to do. It was still better than lanai . Everyone in Pineapple Port had a lanai . Outside of Hawaii, calling a porch a lanai smacked of Sun Belt snobbery. As if Florida sun porches were more exotic than those in Maryland or Vermont. Maybe they are. Her fellow Floridians could grow palm trees and dwarf fruit trees in their southern porches. Maybe it was okay to call a porch a lanai. I mean if it makes everyone happy…
    Charlotte rubbed her eyes.
    No wonder I never get anything done. I spend time thinking about the dumbest things. A human head was sitting in her garden and all she could think about was whether she had the right to call a porch a lanai.
    Priorities , Charlotte, priorities.
    Outside, two young deputies stood in drab tan uniforms watching the dig with little interest. Frank Marshall, Darla’s husband and the Manatee County Sheriff, stood beside the diggers, clearly wishing he could be anywhere but standing in the Florida sun watching nerds excavate a body one brushstroke at a time. Whenever Charlotte trotted water to the crowd in her backyard, Frank released an exasperated sigh that conveyed his deep preference for ice-cold beer. When she offered him a bottle, he glanced at his young companions and declined.
    “I couldn’t possibly have a bottle on duty Charlotte,” he said, retrieving a handkerchief to swab his sweaty forehead. “Not a bottle this early.”
    “A can?”
    Frank tilted his head and peered at her from beneath his brow, encouraging a second guess.
    Charlotte considered the emphasis Frank had put on the word bottle .
    “Aaah…”
    She popped back into the house, poured the bottle of beer into a coffee mug, and returned.
    “How about coffee?” she asked, handing Frank the mug.
    “Oh, sure,” he said, glancing at the younger officers. “I would love some coffee .”
    “It’s good, I grind the beans myself.”
    “Do you, now?”
    “They have a nutty, almost hoppy taste, don’t you think?”
    Frank glared at her. “Mm,” he grunted, taking a sip. “You should probably go back in. I don’t want you contaminating the scene.”
    She grinned and went back inside. Abby barked as she entered and ran towards the front of the house. Charlotte followed her.
    “What is it girl? Is Timmy down the well?”
    The police had stretched a length of yellow crime tape across Charlotte’s front gate and a line of chattering neighbors stretched from one side to the other. The police might as well have sat in the front yard with a bullhorn screaming, “Scene of the crime! Come see the scene of the crime!” Like sharks to blood, the people of Pineapple Port smelled gossip fodder from miles away.
    Charlotte wasn’t only the youngest resident of