Carpenter, a character in the Dirty Little Secrets book, is one of your neighbors, a carpenter, and your love interest. He/She is first seen in Chapter 1.
Although his/her default name is "Charles/Charlotte", the player can choose to name him/her as they wish.
Quick Answers
What is the default name of the Carpenter character in Dirty Little Secrets?
How can the appearance of the Carpenter character in Dirty Little Secrets be customized?
In which chapter is the Carpenter character first introduced in Dirty Little Secrets?
Appearance
His/Her gender and looks are determined by the player.
The male version wears a denim shirt with the first few buttons undone, some ripped grubby jeans, and a leather jacket tied around his waist. For accessories, he wears an anchor necklace and a watch on his left wrist.
The female version wears a turquoise shirt with some buttons, short ripped blue Jean-shorts, and a black jacket around her waist. Additionally, she wears two gold necklaces and gold hoop earrings. All of the female versions also have a slit in the left eyebrow.
Personality
Carpenter is helpful and accommodating, as shown by his/her willingness to do odd jobs for others and help out with neighborhood events despite many of those neighbors suspecting him/her of murder. He/she shows compassion in trying to understand where people are coming from instead of assuming the worst about them, and he/she is patient even with those he/she finds annoying. Carpenter is emotionally cautious with most people, but bonds with you unusually quickly and displays an open vulnerability and flirtatiousness with you that he/she shows to no one else.
While you charge ahead with your amateur detective schtick at full speed, Carpenter is level-headed enough to pull you back from many rash actions and jumped-to conclusions. At the same time, however, he/she is entirely willing to follow your lead, and he/she's got a good enough sense of humor to enjoy the absurdity of the situations in which you two often find yourselves.
Yvette mentions to you in Chapter 16 that Carpenter used to be fun and carefree before the death of Iris and that he/she is starting to be that way again because of you. She also calls him/her a dork. Carpenter describes him-/herself as stoic and closed off. You add that you see him/her as loving and caring.
Background
Carpenter is a widow/er, whose reputation has been tarnished in the neighborhood by gossip and unfounded accusations, most notably ones circulating that he/she murdered his/her spouse. Carpenter states that he/she was a loner in college, not having anyone who wanted a deep relationship with him/her of any kind which only changed when meeting Iris.
Chapters
Dirty Little Secrets
Dirty Little Secrets
- Chapter 1: Welcome to Vermillion Lane
- Chapter 2: Comfort From a Stranger
- Chapter 3: Potluck of Secrets
- Chapter 4: A Date with Danger
- Chapter 5: In The Wake Of
- Chapter 6: Sadie's Secrets
- Chapter 7: Twin Surprises
- Chapter 8: F is for Philanthropy
- Chapter 9: War of the Car Washes
- Chapter 10: Sweet Sadie-Anne
- Chapter 11: On The Outs
- Chapter 12: The Mayor's Mistress
- Chapter 13: Detective Lawson
- Chapter 14: Happy Kitchen, Happy Life
- Chapter 15: In Close Quarters
- Chapter 16: A Fractured Fantasy
- Chapter 17: Fires Are Lit
- Chapter 18: Crimes of Passion
- Chapter 19: Caught
- Chapter 20: The Killer Unmasked
Relationships
Your Character
You first meet Carpenter the day you move into Vermillion Lane. Carpenter is working in a garage when are about to bring your moving boxes into your new house that you inherited from your late aunt. Carpenter catches a box that was about to slip off your hands and offers you his/her help with the rest of the boxes, as well as with fixing your porch after he/she stepped on a creaking step. You are unsure if Carpenter is flirting with you and during your attempts to learn more about him/her, you learn that Carpenter has some walls up regarding personal questions. While Carpenter is still at your place, Valerie, Sadie, and the twins arrive and Valerie drops down dead. A few hours later, when the police is about to leave, Carpenter checks on you and comforts you. After the other neighbors have bombarded you with questions about Valerie's death, Carpenter brings you to his/her house, not wanting to leave you alone while the neighbors are still loudly discussing Valerie on your doorstep. At his/her place, Carpenter makes you lemonade and you can choose to learn more about him/her in a premium scene. The conversation is cut short when his/her daughter Yvette returns early and Carpenter walks you back home. You try to learn more about Yvette's other parent which is when Carpenter says goodnight and leaves while you notice a flash of pain in his/her eyes. Back home, Sadie visits you and warns you of Carpenter, stating that "[e]veryone knows he/she murdered his/her wife." You are shortly torn whether to trust him/her or not and want to clear up the mystery, even by searching his/her bedroom where you find medicine that could have caused his/her late wife's heart attack. This doesn't go unnoticed by Carpenter who, when confronted by you about the rumors, tells you that he/she occasionally takes the medicine to help his/her anxiety. You become determined to clear his/her name by solving Valerie's murder and Carpenter regularly steps in to help with your amateur sleuthing, which brings you two closer in the progress. Along the way, Carpenter realizes he/she finally has to let go of Iris which makes him/her want to burn everything related her for a fresh start with you in Chapter 17. He/She asks you to move in with him/her and Yvette.
Yvette
Yvette King is Carpenter's teenage daughter who is living together with Carpenter in a house close to yours. Yvette is away with some of her friends when Carpenter brings you to their house after Valerie's death. During your conversation, Carpenter tells you Yvette is trouble but that she is "the single most important thing in [his/her] life." While you are still at their place, Yvette comes back early and wants to cook dinner for the two of them. She is visibly hurt seeing that Carpenter shared the special lemonade he/she usually makes for her with you. Carpenter tells you she is protective of him/her ever since her mother died. They have the annually tradition of visiting the fair and sampling all the available foods to declare a winner. In Chapter 16, Yvette can tell you that Carpenter convinced her to go to her first high school dance which happened shortly after her mother died. They went dress shopping and Yvette had to pose for photos taken by him/her. His/her speech about being able to be sad about something and still be happy about something else helped her when dealing with her mother's death. After Yvette rode a bike for the first time without training wheels, Carpenter and Iris bragged about it to the entire street for weeks. Carpenter is also protective of Yvette which is why he/she is cautious to let her officially join your investigation, especially because Yvette already hurt herself on a table saw once when she was younger and had to be rushed to the emergency room.
Sadie Hotchmitch
Sadie flirts constantly with Carpenter and is always attempting to monopolize his/her time. She consistently asks for his/her help with fixer-upper tasks, keeps tabs on when he/she might be home alone, and strongarms him/her into joining her for community events such as potluck contests. At the same time, she actively spreads rumors that Carpenter murdered his/her wife. You suspect in Chapter 3 that she's trying to scare other people away so she can keep Carpenter to herself. In the same chapter, it's revealed that they won the fundraiser contest together last year which, according to Sadie, earned them the ship name "Sad-Charles/Charlotte". In Chapter 11, Carpenter confirms that Sadie spread the rumors about him/her despite being fully aware that they're untrue.
Character Customization
Male
Female
Miscellaneous
Trivia
- A male version of Carpenter is shown on the cover of Dirty Little Secrets.
- If the default forename is kept, the male version shares the same name as Charles Shepard from Home for the Holidays, Charles Cooper from It Lives In The Woods, and Charles from Getaway Girls; while the female version shares the same name as Queen Charlotte from the Desire & Decorum series, Charlie Smith from Distant Shores, and Charlie from Rising Tides.
- He/She and his/her daughter share their surname with Imani King from Getaway Girls.
- Male versions 3 and 4 share the same hairstyle as male Raleigh Carrera and Robert respectively.
- Female versions 3 and 4 share the same hairstyle as Alma and Aisha Bhatt respectively.
- A premium scene of Chapter 15 indicates that Carpenter was born in the 1980s. While searching his/her shed more thoroughly, you note that his/her father taught Carpenter wood carving. Some of the wooden cardinals Carpenter carved date back to the early 1990s, with progress being made until the late 2000s.
- Carpenter and his/her father entered the wood carving competition of the Oak Valley Fair when Carpenter was 11 years old.