For your free story this week, I give you Carlotta's First Case. (I'm also moving these things to a single post, but that's housekeeping).

Here: meet Carlotta. She's young; she's working on a few things.

She's sitting in her front yard minding her own business...

Carlotta's First Case by M. K. Dreysen

When the bus pulled up across the street, Carlotta didn't look like she was paying attention to it. She was just the little girl playing in her front yard.

The guy who got down from the school bus and went into Mrs. Davis's house could be forgiven for not paying attention. The girl didn't look like someone he had to pay attention to. She had her bike next to her, that much he saw, and what looked like dolls scattered all over. Maybe she was arranging them so she could load the basket up and take them somewhere, that's about all the guy knew. Or thought of, before he opened the door and went about his business.

Carlotta was paying more attention than that. Her bus was the regular one for the neighborhood, she and Janelle were the only ones who got down for this block. And their stop wasn't right there in front of the house, it was up the street at the stop sign. Mister Brown pulled his bus diagonal to the intersection, to make sure everyone saw him and did the right thing before he'd let Carlotta and Nellie step down.

A few years from now, Carlotta would be just about the only person in the world, other than her grandmother, that Janelle would let call her "Nellie". For now, her parents and Carlotta were allowed, but Janelle was working on the first two.

Carlotta had to deal with other things. Mom had started asking her to "Act like a young lady. You know, maybe just for practice." Dad giggled when Mom said it, like there was a joke Mom didn't want him telling in front of people.

The bus across the street wasn't for the high school kids, either. That one got home an hour or so before the little kids did, the big kids started earlier and finished earlier. Why'd the bus come by, then? And why'd the driver get down to visit Mrs. Davis? It's not like she needed a ride to school. Not anymore. Carlotta thought maybe she'd been a teacher, Ms. Leonard had asked Carlotta once if she ever visited Mrs. Davis, and to say "Hi from Celene" when she did.

Carlotta had let Mrs. Davis know this. Carlotta was like that, she wanted to make sure that when someone asked her to do something, she put in a good effort to do it.

Dad giggled when Carlotta told her parents about the bus driver, the one who drove the wrong bus up to Mrs. Davis's house. Mom told Dad to hush, "Carlie doesn't need you giving her those kind of ideas yet. Carlie, sweetie, I'm sure it was just an old friend of Mrs. Davis's, maybe a driver she knew from when she worked at your school, come by to visit her." Mom stepped over to look through the kitchen window, where she could see Mrs. Davis's house through the limbs of the beech tree in their own front yard.

Carlotta could have told her the bus wasn't there anymore. The driver hadn't stayed all that long, maybe about the time it took two, three of the afternoon cartoons to run. Carlotta had looked for him. Janelle was busy with swim lessons this afternoon, and Carlotta had finished her homework at school, so she'd had plenty of time. The driver had come out of Mrs. Davis's house and walked straight back onto his bus. Without looking around at all, Carlotta noticed. Straight on, start up the bus again, and then he'd gone.

"I wonder if I should go visit, see how she's doing?" Mom asked.

"She might not thank you, if she had a good afternoon," Dad responded, still smiling. "Then again..."

"Hush you," Mom told him. "Carlie, you sure you're finished with your homework, young lady?"

That again. "Yes, ma'am," Carlie responded. She didn't roll her eyes. That gesture wasn't part of her vocabulary. Yet.

Mom did end up crossing the street to Mrs. Davis's house; she did it the next morning, right after she'd walked Carlotta and Janelle to the bus stop.

That's why the police cars were pulled in front of Mrs. Davis's house when the two girls got down from their bus that afternoon. "I wonder what happened?" Janelle asked.

"Maybe Mrs. Davis had a heart attack or something," Carlotta answered. "Your dad will know."

Janelle's dad was a police officer. Not a detective, Carlotta thought, but he'd been one. Now, he did more office work, Carlotta remembered him telling her. "I wish I could go back to that," he'd said. "Running the place doesn't have the same day to day excitement."

"Want me to tell you what he says?" Janelle asked, before she turned up the walk to her front door.

Carlotta nodded. "After dinner?"

The end of the school year approaching, the days were getting long enough now that they could do that. Go in, finish homework, eat dinner, then come back out and do something that wasn't school. Play with Janelle's Lab, Ginny, a red-coated mix who would chase a tennis ball for as long as daylight, or Carlotta's arm, held out. That was the most likely, because Janelle's mom loved to have the girls tire "That fool mutt" out before bedtime.

Mom had the story about Mrs. Davis, as it turned out. "She's dead?" Carlotta asked.

Mom was through crying, mostly. She kept a box of tissue next to her, dabbed at her eyes every now and then when she realized the tears were coming. "I stopped by this morning, after you girls left. Her car was there, so when no one answered the door..."

Mom would have called 911 regardless. The front door was unlocked, though, so when she tried it, a half-hearted effort because "I didn't think I'd be able to get in", she went in, phone in one hand "Because I'd need to get an ambulance there quick, if she'd fallen and hurt herself."

Mrs. Davis did look like she'd fallen. Her body lay in the shower, half in half out with the curtain hanging over her. "I felt her pulse, the operator asked me to, and then I went out to wait on the front porch until they came. I couldn't bear to sit there with her like that, that poor old woman."

Carlotta understood. As long as she could remember, Mrs. Davis had been there. Oh, they didn't spend every day with her, but every so often, Mom would go across and drink a cup of coffee with her, bring cookies, or maybe Mrs. Davis would bring some fried chicken to them, "Because I love it, and you can never cook just a little bit of fried chicken."

Dad didn't cry, but he did hold Mom's hand all through dinner.

Carlotta remembered something, just before she left to go meet Janelle. "Was the shower on?" she asked Mom.

"No, sweetie. I guess she turned it off, then slipped on her way out. Why?" Mom didn't turn, she and Dad were still sitting knee to knee, keeping each other company at the dinner table. They'd start clearing the dishes in a bit.

Carlotta hoped Ginny would keep her busy through that part of it. She'd be taking out the trash as payment, but that was ok. "I just noticed you didn't say anything about it. If she'd fallen in the shower, I thought maybe the water would have to still be on when you found her." Mom would have turned the shower off, Carlotta thought. Automatic, so she didn't get wet when she tried to help Mrs. Davis.

The detail stayed with Carlotta, while Janelle told her dad's version of the story, then while Carlotta filled in the gaps that lead to Janelle's father's team and the red lights. They were still working over there, Janelle's dad had walked across to check on his crew after dinner.

"Kind of hard not to, with them right there."

When she and Janelle spread out, Carlotta in Nellie's yard and Janelle in Carlotta's, so they could throw the ball between them and let Ginny chase it back and forth, Carlotta still wondered.

Why the shower hadn't been running. And what the bus driver from yesterday might have to do with any of this.

About the time Ginny finally ran out of energy and decamped to the porch, Janelle's dad walked back across the street. "Time to go in, girls, daylight's about done." The sky was well into red, the sun set just over their back fences and wasn't visible at all now in the front yards.

"Mister Childress?" Carlotta started.

"Yes, ma'am?"

"Did Mom tell you about the bus driver?"

"No, ma'am, Carlotta." He turned to her, and Carlotta saw Janelle's father become something else, then.

Chief Childress. Former detective, chief of their little town's police department. He didn't condescend to her. He sat down next to Ginny on the porch, put one hand on the panting pup, and patted the empty space next to him. "Why don't you tell me, Carlotta. Make sure you don't leave anything out, and tell it exactly as you remember it."

So she did that. Janelle sat down next to her, held her hand, almost just like Dad had held Mom's hand at dinner, and Carlotta told Mr. Childress, Chief Childress, everything that she remembered. "And it wasn't our regular bus. This was someone different, it wasn't Mister Brown."

"Did you see the number?"

"22... 224, I think."

"Are you sure it was an Appletown school bus?"

"Yes, sir, I'm sure." Their school buses all had it there, Appletown Independent School District painted on the side. The only school district she'd ever known. "There was one other thing."

Chief Childress was looking across the street; his crews were all gone now, the last lights turned off, and only Mrs. Davis's empty house left to look at. "Yes, ma'am?" He didn't look down; Janelle squeezed her hand, whispered "He's like that, when he's working."

"Mom said the shower wasn't running, when she found Mrs. Davis." Carlotta wasn't sure that would matter.

Chief Childress turned away from the empty house. "Carlotta, I think maybe you should know something, but I need you and Janelle to promise me something."

The children looked at him, and even Janelle saw her father as Chief Childress, then. It was something in his eyes, and the weight on his face, around the cheeks. "We promise," Carlotta said.

"Yes, sir," Janelle followed.

"I need you two to keep this to yourselves, not even Mom," and Janelle nodded, "Or your mom and dad," and Carlotta nodded as well. Chief Childress looked from one to the other, and then he turned back to Mrs. Davis's house. "You're both too young for this. But I think you should know it, anyway." And so he told them.

That Mrs. Davis's body wasn't wet. "Her hair was dry, so was her body. Someone killed that lady, girls. I think you both should understand that, hear it from me, before you hear it at school after the rumor mill gets ahold of it."

He didn't tell them about the used condom his crew had found floating in the toilet next to Mrs. Davis's shower stall. The one with just enough DNA that it would end up closing the case. There were some things Chief Childress would take to his grave before talking about with his baby girl and her best friend. He just hoped, in that moment, that Carlotta's story would give him, and Mrs. Davis, the break they needed.

Three days later, Carlotta left Janelle at her front walk, just like normal, and made her way into her kitchen. Where she found Chief Childress sitting with her parents, drinking coffee in the evening light.

And, as it turned out, waiting for her. Chief Childress, because he was still that and not back to Mister Childress yet, he was still working, told Carlotta, "I've come here to let you know that we caught the man who killed Mrs. Davis."

Carlotta put her backpack down, giving herself time to think. "It was that bus driver, the one who didn't belong."

"Yes, ma'am. And you're the reason we caught him."

"Will she need to testify?" Dad asked. Carlotta could see the worry on Dad's face; he didn't want her to have to do that. Testify in front of the jury, like the detectives and the lab team had to on the murder shows.

Chief Childress chuckled, causing both adults, and Carlotta, to turn back to him. "Nope. Carlotta won't need to speak to anyone. Mr. Jennings has a camera on his front porch. Seems he's been losing deliveries from Amazon."

Mister Jennings was Mrs. Davis's neighbor, the one directly across from Janelle's house just like Mrs. Davis was just across from Carlotta and her parents.

"Oh, thank God," Mom replied. She was teary again, reaching for the tissues.

It was the first time, Carlotta would always remember, that she'd ever seen her parents really and truly worried for their little girl. She stored the moment away, to think about later, while she walked back with Mister Childress to visit Janelle. And tell her what had happened.

Before they walked up the porch steps, to let Ginny out from behind the screen door, Carlotta stopped the Chief. "Mister Childress?"

"Yes, ma'am?"

"I think you might need to know something, about those packages Mister Jennings has been missing, the ones from Amazon?"

The Chief turned to his newest detective. "Go on."

"There's a car that follows the Amazon driver, when he comes in the evening..."