Gwen Tucker opened the front door of her nineteenth-century farmhouse, took a pan of cookies from Olivia’s hands, and said, “If it’s a girl, I’ll name her Olivia.”
Following Gwen through a foyer crammed with muddy boots, Olivia said, “My brother calls me Olive Oyl. Just information you might want to consider.”
Gwen’s laugh had a frantic edge. “Maybe it will be a boy. I could name him Oliver.” She slid the pan onto an already crowded kitchen counter. “Although one of our dogs is named Oliver, so that might be confusing. Anyway, I want you to know how incredibly grateful we are to you and Maddie for pinch-hitting today. Poor Heather, she sounded awful on the phone. Here it is, hotter than jalapeno, and she manages to get the flu.”
Olivia flashed back to their store event on Tuesday and Heather’s rosy cheeks. Maybe she hadn’t been wearing makeup after all. “I fervently hope no one caught Heather’s virus yesterday,” she said. “That was quite a crowd we had.”
“I’m drinking orange juice and hoping my flu shot still works.” Gwen began to arrange cookies on large plates. “These look irresistible, as always. However, I shall resist, at least for now. I don’t think my skin will stretch any farther.” She was about five feet tall, and her current width looked a close second to her height.
“How can I help?” Olivia asked.
“I’m afraid the house needs some straightening. We’ve been so busy lately, what with preparing for the baby and moving Paws to our big barn.” Both Gwen and Herbie were vet techs with a dream. They had opened the Chatterley Paws no-kill animal shelter about three years earlier and quickly found they needed more space. “That’s the thing about a no-kill policy,” Gwen said. “We spay and neuter our animals, but that only slows down the inevitable. Lately we’ve been getting pets from families who can’t afford them anymore. It’s so sad. I don’t suppose you’d like a kitten? Or two?”
“Um . . . Bertha Binkman is allergic to cats, so no, but I’ll spread the word.”
“Maybe Maddie—?”
“Did you mention something about a bathroom that needs cleaning? Point me to the noxious chemicals and I’ll get to it. Can’t have you breathing that stuff.”
By five thirty p.m., Olivia had cleaned two bathrooms, decorated the living room, and made a bowl of punch. While arranging chairs, she realized there were only enough for ten guests. She found Gwen in the kitchen, cutting sandwiches into animal shapes.
“Oh gosh,” Gwen said, “Heather was going to bring a bunch along with her. She keeps a huge supply of folding chairs for family picnics, and she carts them around in her truck. What can we do? Guests are arriving in less than two hours.”
“I hate to bother Heather when she’s not well,” Olivia said, “but maybe I could drive to her place and pick up the chairs myself?”
“Oh, would you? That would be perfect. And you wouldn’t have to bother her because I know where she stores the chairs—in the small barn way at the back of her property. Not the big barn behind her house; that’s where she keeps her horse. She adores horses, you know. And cats, thank goodness. Just follow the gravel drive past the big barn to the beginning of a grove of trees, and you’ll see the small barn. Heather never locks that barn because there’s nothing of value in it. I mean, I guess the chairs are valuable, but they aren’t books or horses. That’s all Heather cares about, books and horses.”
“You’re sure I shouldn’t call and warn her?”
“Totally sure. Even if she hears your car, she’ll see the painting of The Gingerbread House on the side, and she’ll know you’re helping me. You’re an angel to do this, Olivia. I will never, ever buy a cookie cutter from anyone but you and Maddie. I’d hug you, but . . .” She pointed to her rotund middle and laughed.
Heather Irwin’s farm was several miles down the road from Gwen and Herbie’s, in an isolated area of the countryside. Whereas the Tuckers had neighbors across the street, Heather was able to look out any window in her old farmhouse and see nothing but fields and trees. It was an ideal setting for a shy woman who loved books and horses.
Olivia turned onto the gravel drive that wound past Heather’s place. She braked for a moment and rolled down her window, still wondering if she should let Heather know what she was doing. The quiet, dark house convinced her to drive on. If Heather had managed to fall asleep, it was better to leave her alone.
The drive curved in back of Heather’s house to skirt around a large maroon barn. Like the farmhouse, the barn looked recently painted and in good repair. Olivia heard a horse whinny as she drove past. The gravel thinned and mixed with hard dirt as Olivia traveled through the middle of a fallow field toward the copse of trees where the small barn nestled. She wondered if the trees might once have marked a boundary between properties. The building’s orientation seemed odd, facing into the trees rather than back toward Heather’s house. The fields behind the barn had all gone fallow in a wild way, as if no one cared.
The little barn had seen better days, though maybe not much better. It looked like it was hand built by an amateur. Only a few remnants of brown paint dotted a door barely large enough to allow more than one animal at a time to enter. The door was unlatched. Olivia carefully wedged it open—she didn’t trust the rusty hinges to hold it upright.
Little daylight penetrated the small, dirty windows, and the air smelled of rotting hay. Olivia heard the unmistakable rustling of little rodent feet scurrying to escape the human intruder. She decided it was best not to dawdle. The folding chairs were easy to locate. They leaned against the wall in neat stacks of four, close to the door. Ten stacks added up to forty chairs. The baby shower invitation list had contained about fifty guests, and most had accepted. The PT Cruiser could hold a lot, but it didn’t have the capacity of a truck. Olivia decided to pack in as many as possible, and that would have to do.
Carrying four chairs at a time proved painful. On her first try, one chair slid from the middle of the stack and directly onto Olivia’s big toe. She held on to the other three and limped to her car. Transporting two chairs at a time, she filled her trunk, then packed the back seat so high she wouldn’t be able to see out her rear window. She thought she’d wedge a few more on the floor of the passenger’s side of the front seat and then call it quits.
Olivia reentered the barn and picked up three chairs at a time, hoping to make this her last trip. Burning pain seared through the shoulder she had injured some months earlier in a car accident. She lowered her burden to the floor and closed her eyes, willing the pain to subside. As it eased, she became aware of an odor in the stale air, besides the natural ones she’d already learned to ignore. She smelled coffee.
Opening her eyes, Olivia slowly swiveled her head, trying to locate the direction of the odor. This is silly, I don’t have time for this. But coffee? In a virtually empty, unused barn? Heather must have visited recently and dumped the remains of a cup of coffee on the dirt floor. Not today, though, if she was as ill as Gwen said she was. How long would the smell of coffee linger in the air, given the competition from ranker odors? An hour or two? Surely not an entire day. It wouldn’t hurt to go fetch that new flashlight she’d put in her glove compartment and check out the source. She was probably making a big deal out of nothing, but given the unsolved murder hanging over the town, she’d feel better if she had a quick look around that barn.
The bright, hot daylight steadied her. Feeling silly, she dug out her little red flashlight and wedged it into the back pocket of her khaki pants. Back inside the barn, Olivia switched on the flashlight and began to explore. The rodents, she hoped, would be in hiding.
At first Olivia saw nothing in the barn that aroused her curiosity, only an abandoned pile of hay in one corner and a couple of tractor attachments she couldn’t put names to; she wouldn’t know a combine if it ran over her. Otherwise, the barn looked empty, with the exception of two stalls along the opposite wall. The door to one stall hung open, and the other was latched shut.
Olivia checked her watch, which she should have done earlier. She’d already spent nearly forty minutes on her errand. Gwen would be getting anxious for her to return. Okay, a quick check of the stalls, and if she found nothing, she would leave the coffee puzzle unsolved. Olivia crossed the barn and ran her flashlight around the insides of the open stall. The coffee smell was stronger, but she saw no evidence of any in the stall.
Olivia moved to the closed door of the second stall. She lifted the latch, then dropped it and jumped sideways as two rats ran past her feet to escape into the barn. Through the thudding in her head, Olivia listened for more scuttling sounds. After some moments of silence, she clutched the latch and rattled it. Three more rats ran out under the door. Olivia figured that any rodents left in the stall were either dead or armed. She knew she had to look inside, if only to convince herself there was nothing of importance to see.
The hinges creaked as Olivia swung the stall door open. Geez, could this get more melodramatic? She poked her head inside far enough to see one back corner, which she illuminated with her flashlight. What she saw explained the stale coffee smell—a landslide of paper coffee cups, some scrunched, others tossed with coffee still in them. Next to the pile stood one lone ceramic cup with its own brewing attachment. A pile of coffee grounds had been dumped next to it. Since the barn had no obvious source of electricity, the cup must have been brought from somewhere nearby. Heather’s house, perhaps? Or there might be another farmhouse through the trees, if the barn had once belonged with another property.
Olivia stepped inside the stall and aimed her flashlight at the other back corner of the stall, where a blanket was spread over a lumpy pile. Olivia felt more curious than leery; she’d read enough police procedurals to know that her nose would probably have told her by now if the blanket hid a body. She’d already left her fingerprints all over the place, so she lifted a corner of the blanket and took a peek. Her flashlight revealed what looked like a collection of belongings. By now, she’d forgotten about the time. She gently peeled the blanket back.
“My, my, my,” Olivia whispered. “What have we here?” She’d expected to see personal items, such as worn, used clothing, shoes, maybe a backpack. What she found was not what one would expect a homeless person to carry . . . unless that person was also a thief.
Olivia didn’t touch anything, since it was unlikely the thief had bothered to clean off fingerprints. She settled on her knees and played her light around the pile. She saw a man’s dress shirt with the tag still on it. The only store in town that carried such an expensive line of men’s clothing was Fred’s. A silky pink negligee with lace on the bodice might have come from Lady Chatterley’s. A bottle of eighteen-year-old Glenlivet scotch, its seal broken, rested inside a silver wine bucket with Bon Vivant etched across the front. This was no ordinary thief. Stealing expensive scotch required skill, as did swiping a wine bucket from an upscale restaurant. There was more, but Olivia didn’t dare move anything.
As she reached to replace the blanket, Olivia spotted a splotch of red through an opening deeper inside the pile, behind the silver bucket. Her light didn’t reach it, but even in shadow the red looked too bright for blood. She inched closer for a better look. The object looked round with an indentation in the middle, from which a bit of brown protruded. For some reason, the shape reminded Olivia of a decorated cookie. It looked so familiar, as if she’d seen it before.
A stem. Of course. The brown bit was a stem protruding from the red flesh of an apple. No, not an apple. A tomato. Olivia knew where she had seen the object before. She didn’t have to dig it out of the pile to know that the tomato decorated the handle of a knife sharp enough to peel an apple . . . or kill a man. The knife was part of a four-piece set owned by Charlene Critch.
Olivia dropped the blanket and ran from the barn, leaving behind the last three folding chairs.
“I’m telling you, Del, I didn’t need to see the whole thing to know it was a knife from Charlene’s set.”
“You aren’t driving, are you?” Del sounded worried.
“Oh, honestly, I have one little accident and suddenly I’m a menace to myself and others. All right, fine, I’ll pull over. Don’t hang up.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it.”
Olivia found a gravel turnaround and shifted into park. “Okay, here’s what I think,” she said. “Geoffrey King must have stolen the knife, probably as a sort of veiled threat to Charlene. I mean, from what I’ve heard about him, he resented losing his rich wife, so it makes sense he’d steal whatever he could from her. Especially if he could make her fearful that he might use one of those knives to hurt her or her brother.”
“Did you see anything that directly connected the items to Geoffrey King?”
“Who else would go around Chatterley Heights stealing expensive items? That had to be King’s stash. Besides, I’m sure there’s DNA and fingerprints all over the place.” Olivia heard a car door slam in the background. “You don’t intend to drive while we’re talking, do you?”
“I’m allowed,” Del said. “Or I could hang up, if that would make you more comfortable.”
“Ah, but then you wouldn’t hear the rest of my report.” Olivia told him everything else she could remember, including the presence of a ceramic cup used to brew fresh coffee. “Maybe King stole the cup from Charlene, too. Or he must have found a way into Heather’s house. Heather seems too cautious to hand a house key to someone she just met. Anyway, from the looks of that stall, King was seriously hooked on coffee.”
Del said, “King might have offered to do some handyman work around the house so Heather would give him a key during the day.”
“Geoffrey King? Handyman work? Wouldn’t Heather get suspicious when nothing got done? She’s quiet, but she isn’t dense. And wouldn’t she have noticed him coming and going from her barn? From the pile of paper coffee cups, he could easily have spent a couple of weeks holed up in that barn. Del, was one of those knives used to kill King?”
Del didn’t answer.
Olivia switched on her ignition. “I intend to drive again, so I’d better hang up or you’ll have me arrested. Be considerate when you get to Heather’s place. She has some awful bug, so don’t scare her with sirens. The house was dark when I left. She probably knocked herself out with cold medication, and she is undoubtedly contagious. If you give me whatever bug she’s got, I’ll have to kill you.”
“Understood. Just in case, I’ll wear a surgical mask when we go out to dinner on Friday.”
“Friday . . . ?” Olivia began. But Del’s cell had gone dead.
It was six p.m. by the time Olivia reached the turn-in for the short drive leading to Gwen and Herbie Tucker’s house. Only one hour to go before baby shower time. Her anxiety eased when she saw a little yellow Volkswagen and a red truck parked side-by-side near the side entrance. Gwen and Herbie owned the truck, so Herbie must have found someone to watch over the animals still residing at the Chatterley Paws shelter in town. He and Gwen were in the process of moving their furry charges to the renovated barn on their property. Maddie owned the yellow VW, which meant she’d finished the decorated cookie order in record time.
Maddie emerged from the side entrance and sprinted over to Olivia’s car. “I’m to help you carry folding chairs,” she said. “Where have you been so long? Gwen is frantic. I’m afraid that baby will pop just to get some rest. Thank goodness Gwen invited her obstetrician.” Maddie hauled three chairs from the PT Cruiser’s trunk.
Olivia lifted out two more chairs. “Don’t run off,” she said. “I’ve got a lot to tell you about why I was late getting back.”
Maddie’s eyes widened. “About the murder? Speak at once.”
“Probably about the victim, anyway. Also, I have a plan for us, so we’ll be multitasking this evening.”
“Goody,” Maddie said. “I am the queen of multitasking.”
While they carried folding chairs into the house, Olivia gave Maddie a quick, quiet summary of Ida’s story of the dancing ghost, the stolen items she’d found in Heather’s barn, her conversation with Del, and the information she hoped the two of them could gather while they helped host the Tucker baby shower.
“Our timing is exquisite,” Maddie said. “There’s nothing like decorated cookies to quell suspicions and loosen lips.”
“Except maybe wine, of which I saw several cases chilling in the basement.”
“I’ll take these last two chairs,” Maddie said. “Your shoulder has been through enough. Besides, I’m younger.”
“By mere months, but thanks for your concern.” As she held open the side door for Maddie, Olivia asked, “Are we good to go? Any questions?”
“Ready and eager. Let’s meet afterward to share information.”
“Good idea,” Olivia said. “My place, pizza and merlot. It’ll have to be frozen pizza, I’m afraid.”
“Not to worry, I’ll stop at the grocery on the way and pick up a few little enhancements.”
By seven p.m., guests began arriving at Gwen and Herbie’s house, parking wherever they could find a spot. The lawn would need reseeding. By eight, at least forty people had packed themselves into the house for the gift opening, after which many wandered outdoors to breathe. The cookies were gone and the wine half drunk, but Olivia hadn’t managed to pry any useful information from the guests. She missed having her mother there to make gentle suggestions, but she understood why Ellie and Allan had declined the invitation. Fielding the inevitable questions about Jason’s predicament would have been agony.
At least Maddie seemed to be making some headway. She’d flashed a thumbs-up at Olivia twice already. Noting that the wine supply was dwindling, Olivia made her way downstairs to get a few more bottles. When she returned to the kitchen, she found a tall, middle-aged woman using the bright light over the sink to check her makeup in her compact mirror. The woman arched her eyebrows unusually high, as if she were practicing a surprised expression. When she caught sight of Olivia, she said, “Why, it’s Livie Greyson, isn’t it?”
“I’m afraid I—”
“Oh, of course you don’t recognize me. You were a tiny slip of a girl when I left Chatterley Heights. Of course, I wasn’t much more than that myself, but, well, the years do march on, don’t they? And now, here you are all grown up and then some, and I’m home again.” She heaved a dramatic sigh.
Olivia noticed that the woman’s eyebrows had remained arched throughout her speech. They were fixed in place, almost certainly by a surfeit of cosmetic surgery.
“Oh but I must reintroduce myself. I am Lenora Dove.” She made her pronouncement as if there were nothing more to be said. When Olivia gave her a blank look, the corners of her scarlet lips drooped. “Well, I can see you are not a movie fan,” she said. “Young people these days seem to prefer squinting into a tiny computer screen to reveling in the big screen. Lenora Dove is my screen name, though Lenora is also my given name. In private life, I am Mrs. Bertie Bouchenbein, though you might remember me as Lenora Tucker.”
“Of course,” Olivia said, “you are Herbie’s aunt Len! I heard you were moving back to town. I’m so sorry about your husband. I never met him, but I’m sure you miss him deeply.”
“Oh, I do indeed.” As Lenora tilted her head in sadness, her sculpted dark blond curls remained glued in place. “By the way,” she said, “I go only by Lenora now.”
“Of course.” Olivia wondered how long that would last. Old nicknames die hard. “Have you been back in town long?”
“For only a week,” Lenora said, “but such an eventful week it has been. Brutal strangers and murders and arrests. . . .”
“Only one of each, actually.” Olivia sounded defensive; she vowed to be more careful.
“I’m so sorry, I forgot the young man arrested is your brother. He wasn’t even born when I left to seek my fortune in Hollywood. Such years.... I had parts in several films, you know, and I have it on the best authority that they will be reissued on DVD at any moment. That’s all I had time for, though, only a few films, and then I met the love of my life, Bertie Bouchenbein. He was twenty years older than I, but what is age? A mere number. He cast me in a film he was producing, and the rest is marital history.” Lenora touched a tissue to her cheek to imply emotion. “However, I am delighted to be back home.”
Olivia did not doubt that statement. According to Herbie, Uncle Bertie and Aunt Len spent every penny they earned as fast as they could. Bertie died penniless and without life insurance.
“Your dear brother—what was his name again? Jake? Jimmy?”
“Jason.”
“Yes, of course. Dear Jason will be vindicated. I feel it in my very being. I am quite sensitive, you know. It helped me enormously in all my acting roles. I am certain that nasty young man was killed by someone from the underworld. A loan shark, perhaps. He struck me as a grasping, greedy sort, and that type always needs money.”
“You met him?”
“Didn’t I mention that? I will never rid myself of the memory of that experience. A detestable young man. I met him briefly in that store, the one with all the vegetables.”
“The Vegetable Plate. Charlene Critch owns it.”
“Exactly. I am a vegetarian, you know. That’s how I keep my slender figure. I visited little Charlene’s vegetable patch late one evening and found the front door open. The store was dark, but since I was in need of some items, I ventured inside. I heard voices behind a door, loud voices. I surmised the door must lead to a kitchen. I opened it and peeked inside. My goodness, what a scene met my gaze! They weren’t aware of me at first, so I heard more than perhaps I should have, but really, it was just like walking in on a filming. Although of course it is nearly impossible to interrupt the actual filming of a movie scene. I remember once I—”
“So you heard Charlene and someone arguing?”
“I did indeed. That sylphlike girl was protecting herself from a man. He was tall and strong . . . quite well built, actually. But so very angry. Charlene was holding him off with a long knife. There was some sort of decoration at the top of the knife, but I only got a glimpse of the color. It was red, bloodred. The man was telling her she had to give him money or some other man was going to kill him. I naturally assumed he was talking about a loan shark situation. Years ago I had a part in a movie called Dark, Dark City. It was never released, some nonsense about a stolen script, but anyway, there were several unsavory characters threatening the hero with a slow, gruesome death because he couldn’t pay back a loan.”
“The man who was threatening Charlene, do you remember exactly what he said to her?” Olivia poured two glasses of wine and handed one to Lenora.
“I might.” Lenora downed her wine and handed the empty glass to Olivia, who refilled it. “I’m very good at memorizing dialogue, you know. Let’s see. . . .” She took a gulp from her second glass of wine. “Let me visualize the scene . . .” She closed her eyes. “The man was trying to grab little Charlene, who was fending him off with the knife. Then he said, ‘If you don’t give it to me, someone will arrive here from DC. He will be large and armed, and he’ll be coming to kill me. Only I won’t go down alone, you put that in your stupid noggin.’ And then Charlene said, ‘I hope he does kill you. If you don’t leave Charlie alone, I’ll point the guy in your direction.’ I could never forget such great lines.” Lenora drained her glass and held it out to Olivia. “I wouldn’t mind another,” she said.
While she filled Lenora’s glass a third time, Olivia said, “You need to tell all this to Del as soon as possible. It could be really important.”
“Del?”
“Our sheriff, Del Jenkins.”
“Ooh, that delicious young man with the warm eyes. I’d be delighted to tell him anything.”
Olivia was surprised to feel an instant prick of jealousy. Of course, Lenora was not a serious rival, but Olivia had assumed she was the only one who had noticed those warm brown eyes. A foolish assumption, clearly.
“I’ll give Del a call and tell him to drop by.” Olivia saw Lenora’s eyes stray toward the wine bottle. “Or maybe I’ll just tell him to call you to set up a time to meet. I’ll let you tell him your story in your own words. You do have a superb memory for dialogue.”
“So kind of you,” Lenora said, pouring herself a fourth glass of wine. This time she kept the nearly empty bottle within easy reach.
Olivia thought maybe she would suggest that Del wait until the next morning to interview Lenora. Late morning.
“That Lenora Tucker is a hoot,” Maddie said. “I liked her. We share a flair for the dramatic, and I can remember dialogue, too.”
“Can you polish off a bottle of merlot in twenty minutes and still speak coherently?”
“Would I need to be standing upright, as well?”
“And maintain good posture.”
“Then no, not a chance.” The kitchen timer dinged, and Maddie opened the oven door to remove an enhanced pepperoni pizza. “Perfect,” she said. “It needs a minute to set, then I’ll slice it.”
Spunky trotted into the kitchen, his nose twitching. “Sorry, Spunks,” Olivia said. “It’s the canned stuff for you.” She filled his tiny food bowl and gave him fresh water.
“Did you learn anything else at the baby shower?” Maddie asked.
“Lenora Tucker was more or less it, and I didn’t have to work very hard for that information.”
“Well, it was useful information,” Maddie said. “There was your productive visit to Heather’s barn, too, so overall you did good. See, I can be magnanimous.”
“I never said you weren’t. Is it time to cut the pizza? I’m dying here.”
“Done.” Maddie ran a pizza cutter through the pizza and centered the pan on the table between them. She had worked wonders with a frozen pepperoni pizza. It was two inches thicker with chopped green pepper, onions, olives, fresh basil leaves, and bite-sized pieces of roasted chicken.
“Wow,” Olivia said. “It looks like a decorated cookie.”
“That was a compliment, right?”
Olivia nodded, having already filled her mouth. Spunky leaped to her lap, hoping a chunk of chicken might slip off her slice.
Maddie slid a piece onto her plate and said, “I’ve discovered that I love prying information out of people, especially when they don’t know I’m doing it. Maybe my talents are wasted baking and decorating cookies.”
Olivia paused in mid-chew.
“Naw,” Maddie said, laughing at Olivia’s stricken expression. “As long as I stick around you, I can do both. Now let me eat and then I’ll relate the wondrous results of my sleuthing.” She bit into her pizza. After a second bite, she reached into the back pocket of her jeans and extracted a folded, wrinkled piece of paper. “Notes,” she said, as another bite headed toward her mouth. She smoothed the paper on the table and glanced through it.
“How about I read that while you chew,” Olivia suggested.
“Keep your mitts off.” Maddie rested her half-eaten slice on the edge of the pizza pan. “My strength is sufficiently restored. I will now present a dramatic interpretation of my stunning discoveries.” She wiped her hands on a paper towel.
Olivia plunked Spunky on the floor and got up to start her Mr. Coffee. Maddie’s dramatic interpretations could reach epic lengths.
“Okay,” Maddie said, “let’s begin with Charlene. My favorite suspect, as you know. However, I can be big enough to admit that I didn’t find any solid evidence pointing to her as Geoffrey King’s killer. I talked to several women who remembered Charlene from high school. They all said more or less the same thing: Charlene has certainly changed since then. In high school, she was shy and eager to be liked. Some kids sucked up to her because her family was filthy rich, while others, including my informants—at least, according to themselves—ignored the rich part and thought Charlene was insecure and, frankly, boring. She didn’t date much, purportedly because her parents forbade it.” The corners of Maddie’s generous mouth tightened. “I should warn you that your brother’s feelings for Charlene were well known among her peers. Charlene and Jason hung out together quite a bit during and after school hours, at least to the extent they could without her parents finding out.”
“That matches what Mom told me,” Olivia said, “except she didn’t mention anything about Charlene feeling more than friendship for Jason.”
“It seems your mother was not fully informed,” Maddie said, “which has got to be a first. Jason and Charlene were inseparable. When her folks weren’t watching, that is. Anyway, this close yet unsatisfying arrangement continued until Charlene was almost fifteen, when she had an apparent breakdown. She spent a month in a private hospital before returning to school.”
“Really?” Olivia poured two cups of coffee and found some cream in the back of the refrigerator. “Mom didn’t mention anything about Charlene being hospitalized.”
Maddie said, “Charlene told her friends about it when she returned to school, but kids that age . . . they can be really secretive with their parents. Anyway, it’s not like your mom was cozy with the senior Critches or their rich buddies, so maybe it’s one of the few Chatterley Heights happenings she never got wind of.”
“I guess,” Olivia said. “Mom did mention Jason was having problems about that time. She also said Jason introduced Charlene to Geoffrey King, although Mom wasn’t sure of his name.”
“Affirmative,” Maddie said. “That was after Charlene returned from the hospital. And guess what she’d been hospitalized for? She’d been starving herself. She went for days without food, only water, and finally she passed out in study hall. Chemistry class, I could understand, but study hall? Jason carried her to the nurse’s office. Made quite an impression on the other girls. At any rate, the Critches hightailed it to DC very soon after, dragging their progeny along. Which I realize doesn’t get us very far, but it does confirm Charlene’s instability.”
“Sort of,” Olivia said, “but it also digs Jason in deeper. He has been protective of Charlene since high school.”
“Luckily, I have much more. As it happens, one of Gwen’s favorite aunts became Charlie Critch’s landlady when he moved back here to be with his sister. She had a lot to say about young Charlie, not all of it good. Some of it is downright suspicious.”
“I thought Charlie was generally likable.” Olivia lifted a box of decorated cookies off the top of the refrigerator and switched it with the empty pizza pan. Spunky jumped from her chair onto the table and tried to climb into the box. “Spunky! Bad boy!” Spunky ignored her. Olivia grabbed him around his middle, deposited him in the hallway, and shut the kitchen door. “You and I will be repeating puppy school,” Olivia said through the door. “Again.”
“Poor guy. I feel his pain,” Maddie said as she reached into the cookie box and brought out a peppermint-striped pig.
“About Charlie?”
“Okay, this is good,” Maddie said. “Gwen’s aunt Agnes said that she was about to kick Charlie Critch out of her house, where he’d been renting a room since he moved back to town. It seems he fell behind on his rent and then stopped paying about a month ago. A couple weeks ago, he paid her all his back rent. And last week, he couldn’t pay again. Also, she’d been noticing her food disappearing from the kitchen. He was allowed to cook his own food there, but he was supposed to buy it himself. She rarely saw any food in the fridge that she hadn’t bought, but she figured he was eating fast food. So about a week ago, before the murder, Aunt Agnes gave Charlie an ultimatum: pay on time and stop pinching food, or find another place to room.”
“Any idea when Charlie got to his room the night of the murder?”
“Aunt Agnes is feisty, but she’s also a pushover for a young man down on his luck. She told Del that Charlie was there this morning when she got up at six. She said he paid up all his past-due rent plus a week in advance and even cooked her some eggs he’d bought himself. She said she’d heard him come home last night. She wasn’t sure exactly, but she thought it was around ten or eleven.”
Olivia finished off a blue lamb cookie, which, combined with Spunky’s pathetic whimper from the hallway, made her feel guilty. Besides, she could almost see the scratch marks on the kitchen door. When she cracked the door open, the little Yorkie shot through and skidded into a cabinet. “Oh Spunks, what am I going to do with you?” He limped over to her, favoring the front paw that had been injured during his puppy farm days. “Give me a break,” she said, but she lifted him to her lap and scratched his ears. “So Charlie has an alibi for last night?”
“Well, here’s the kicker,” Maddie said. “I pressed for more detail, and Aunt Agnes’s story got shaky. She began to contradict herself. Finally she admitted, just between her and me, that she’d fabricated part of her story. What really happened is, a few days after the morning of her ultimatum to Charlie, she found more food missing. He was still behind on his rent, too. She kicked him out that evening when he got home from work.”
“My, my,” Olivia said. “So we don’t know where Charlie was after he left The Vegetable Plate on the night of the murder. But why would Agnes fib?”
“She felt guilty about kicking him out, and she didn’t want to get him into trouble. Personally, I think she has a soft spot for Charlie. She told me she was absolutely certain that Charlie could never have killed someone in cold blood. I guess I should have called Del right away,” Maddie said, “but I hate to be the one to get sweet, misguided Aunt Agnes into trouble with the law.”
“I’ll call him when we’ve finished,” Olivia said. “I can point him toward Agnes and let him get the story himself. I’ll mention she said a few things at the baby shower that made you start wondering if she’d gotten the days mixed up.”
“You’d lie for me?”
“It isn’t a lie, exactly. It’s more like . . . well, like using a royal icing mix when you’re in a hurry, rather than taking the time to mix the ingredients yourself.” Olivia reached into the cookie box and withdrew a purple Yorkie with big pink eyes. She put it back.
“You mean like a shortcut?” Maddie asked.
“A shortcut, yes.”
“That doesn’t make a lot of sense.”
“I know,” Olivia said, “but just go with it. What else did you learn?” She peered into the cookie box and chose a yellow cow with purple sprinkles. Finding it unappetizing, she left it on the table.
“Nothing,” Maddie said. “Where do you suppose Charlie Critch has been staying since Agnes kicked him out?”
“Probably with Charlene. She’s so protective of him, I can’t see her making him sleep under a bridge.”
Maddie picked up Olivia’s cow cookie and bit off the tail. “I’m wondering if Charlie told Charlene about his predicament. Wouldn’t she have come up with the money for his rent? Or at least fed him so he wouldn’t have to steal food? Hey, what if that stash you found in Heather’s barn was Charlie’s, not Geoffrey King’s?”
“If Charlie had all those valuable items at his disposal, wouldn’t he try to sell them to get rent money and food? Or heck, why not steal food from a grocery store, if he was so good at stealing?”
“I guess,” Maddie said. “I think we need to find out where Charlie has been bunking for the past week. Del won’t want to tell us, and Charlie will probably lie to him, anyway. I’ll bet Jason knows.”
“My brother is not speaking to me,” Olivia said. “And even if he were, he wouldn’t want to make Charlie look suspicious.”
“Just try, okay, Livie? I know you’re feeling tired and scared. I can tell because cookies seem to irritate you when things feel out of control.” Maddie closed the cookie box and slid it onto the top of the refrigerator. “So here’s a plan for you. Get a good night’s sleep, then go shake that brother of yours until he spills some information.”
“Sure thing, Mom,” Olivia said. “Only I’m afraid he’ll cough up a more convincing confession.”