Olivia didn’t get many chances to see her younger brother, but his presence might be a hindrance. She figured Jason was too young to know the Chamberlain family well. He’d probably get bored, and boredom made Jason testy. He wasn’t known for his patience. She’d better find out what she could from her mom and Allan as quickly as possible.
“Livie, welcome,” Allan boomed as Olivia entered the kitchen. “How about a hug for the cook?” He gave her a firm, one-armed squeeze while he flipped a pancake with his free hand.
Allan Meyers wasn’t more than a few inches taller than Olivia, and he tended toward hefty, though she had to admit he was solid muscle.
It had taken Olivia some time to accept Allan’s appearance in her mother’s life. She had been fifteen when her father died, old enough to be in the throes of teenage angst, rebellious yet in need of her father. Right when she needed a stable place to struggle toward adulthood, she found herself at her father’s funeral. For years afterwards, he’d retained an almost mythical perfection in her mind. He’d been tall and thin. She remembered him as someone who listened with his full attention, who watched with gentle curiosity as life swirled around him. He had loved to grow vegetables and write poetry, and he had achieved unexpected success as the author of a book on ornithology. The book’s popularity was due in large part to her father’s insightful observations of bird behavior. And his photos—he’d had a gift for capturing heartwarming moments and hilarious antics in the bird world, from the vivid red cardinal feeding a sunflower seed kernel to his chosen mate to a nuthatch hanging upside down from the bottom of a bird feeder.
Next to Olivia’s memories of her father, which she now admitted were romanticized, Allan Myers had seemed rough-edged and loud. She’d tried to accept him early on because she could see how happy he made her mother, but she didn’t get it. Once she had grown up, and especially after experiencing the realities of marriage, Olivia began to perceive and appreciate Allan’s better qualities. Like her father, Allan was thoughtful and kind. He simply displayed these qualities at a higher decibel level.
“Come and get it while it’s hot,” Allan said. With a flourish, he flipped a pancake into the air and held a plate underneath, shifting it quickly to catch the pancake. The first two slapped on target, but the third hit the edge of a plate and broke in half. “Two out of three,” Allan said. “I’m ahead so far.”
Olivia hovered between amusement and anxiety as she watched the performance. She was relieved when most of the pancakes had made it to plates and they could sit down to eat. She had missed breakfast, resisted sneaking a cookie from her Food Shelf package, and the sweet smell of maple syrup made her want to stuff an entire pancake in her mouth.
Half a stack of pancakes and two slices of bacon later, Olivia felt much better.
“Are you eating regular meals, Livie dear?” Ellie asked. Her expression was gently bemused. “Should I be sending over hot casseroles?”
Olivia looked at their plates and realized she’d already gobbled twice as much as her mother and stepfather. “Now you mention it, I have been missing meals lately. I’ve been so busy with the store. And I do have a lot on my mind.”
Ellie passed the bacon, pancakes, and syrup in her direction. “How can we help?”
“Your mother tells me you’d like to pick my brilliant business brain about the Chamberlain clan,” Allan said. He leaned across the table and filled Olivia’s coffee cup to the brim. “She said you’re having trouble believing Clarisse’s death was an accident. I’d have to say, it’s the last thing I would have expected, especially the way it happened.”
Allan leaned his beefy arms on the table and frowned at the coffeepot. “Over the years, I’ve worked on deals with Clarisse, haggled over prices—you remember when she bought my printing business a few years back? I’d expanded right before a downturn in the economy. Clarisse offered to buy, and I was getting bored with printing, anyway, so I was ready to sell. But I owed a lot to the banks. Clarisse could have put on the screws, but she didn’t. Mind you, she insisted on a good deal, and she got it. She was tough and fair. And smart. Too smart to mix a bottle of sleeping pills into a full wine bottle and drink the whole thing.”
“Not even if she were very upset about something?” Ellie asked.
“Nope,” Allan said with a firm shake of his head. “Clarisse had a heart, but she was no delicate flower. She’d tough it out, whatever it was.”
“I think the sheriff is afraid Clarisse might have killed herself,” Olivia said.
Allan slapped the table with his hand, and the plates rattled. “Absolutely not. I’ve known Clarisse for twenty years. There’s nothing that woman couldn’t face down. She adored Martin, they were two peas in a pod, but when he dropped dead right in front of her, did she fall apart? Nope, not even for a day. She had plenty of reason to, no one would have thought less of her, but no sirree, not Clarisse Chamberlain. She called 911, gave him CPR. And after the funeral, she went right back to work. Don’t get me wrong, she grieved in her own way, but she never felt sorry for herself or turned to drink or anything like that. She stood on her own two feet and kept on walking.”
Allan picked up the last piece of bacon on his plate, folded it in half, and devoured it in one bite. “Now,” he said, wiping the grease off his fingers with his napkin, “how else can I help? Can I sell you a used car?”
Ellie began clearing the table.
Allan grinned at his wife’s back. “I’ve been told more than once that I sound like a used-car huckster on TV. No one has meant it as a compliment. Ellie hates hearing it. Not me, though. I don’t mind one bit if people see me that way. It makes them underestimate me.”
Olivia remembered thinking used-car salesman when she’d first met Allan. And she had, indeed, underestimated him.
“You see, Livie,” Allan said, “when folks underestimate you, they tend to let down their guard. And when they let down their guard, you can get a good look at their strengths and their weaknesses.”
“Was Clarisse ever fooled?”
“Nope, not when it came to business. Martin, neither.”
“And when it came to her family?”
“Parents see their kids through a filter,” he said. “For better or for worse.”
“What is your take on the Chamberlain brothers?”
“Edward and Hugh?” Allan threw back his head and laughed. “Opposites. Hugh has the charm without the drive. Edward, he’s got the drive without the charm. Put ’em in a blender, you’d have a damn fine businessman.”
Ellie passed by close enough for Allan to reach around her waist and pull her to him. Ellie’s cheeks pinked up. Olivia tried to hide the fact that she still felt a vague discomfort at witnessing the affection between her mother and Allan. Maybe by the time she turned forty, the feeling would disappear, but she wasn’t holding her breath.
“Frankly,” Allan said, “I think it would have been better for Edward and Hugh if they’d gone off on their own, developed their own style. Martin, though, he wanted a family dynasty, and Clarisse, well, I suspect she wanted her sons nearby.”
“Jason should be here soon,” Ellie said. “We decimated the pancakes. I’d better start more bacon cooking.” Ellie squeezed Allan’s hand, removed it from her waist, and headed toward the stove.
“Oops, sorry I forgot the eggs, Mom. Jason will be hungry.”
“Jason won’t starve. He can have bacon and toast sandwiches.”
“One last question, Allan,” Olivia said. “Only this one is about Lucas Ashford.”
Ellie and Allan exchanged a quick glance. “Are you concerned for Maddie?” Ellie asked as she put bacon into a frying pan. “They must be getting serious.”
“No, it’s not about Lucas and Maddie, although if there’s anything I should know, I order you to tell me instantly.”
With her light laugh, Ellie said, “If I ever find out that Lucas is an ax murderer, I’ll be sure to let you know. As far as I’ve observed, he is a perfectly nice
man, if a bit quiet for my taste.”
“Maddie can supply the noise,” Olivia said. “I was wondering, though. . . . Allan, maybe you know, is the hardware store doing all right?”
“As far as I know,” Allan said. “There’s no swelling demand for hammers and nails, but Heights Hardware seems to float along modestly. Why? Have you heard something?” His tone was casual, but Olivia sensed the businessman in him leap to attention.
“No, not in so many words.” Olivia wished she hadn’t brought up the topic.
Allan shrugged, but Ellie turned sideways so she could see the table and keep an eye on the spitting bacon at the same time. “I can answer that one, Livie. The hardware may be doing fine, but the Ashford family went through a rough patch.”
“I’ll be in my office, paying bills,” Allan said. “Give me a holler when Jason gets here.”
“Allan gets bored by too much talk about other families’ troubles,” Ellie said, without a hint of criticism. “Anyway, about the Ashfords, all this happened while you were busy in Baltimore, no reason you’d have heard about it. Although, I suppose a better mother would have emailed you regularly with all the Chatterley Heights news.”
“Thank you for not being a better mother.”
“You’re welcome, dear.” Ellie paused to move several strips of bacon from the pan to a length of paper towel she’d placed on the kitchen counter. She added raw strips to the pan, each landing with a sizzle.
“It all started about four years ago,” Ellie said. “Lucas’s father was diagnosed with colon cancer. He had surgery and chemo, and it looked hopeful, but the shock of his illness was too much for Lucas’s mother. She had a stroke, a bad one.”
“Poor Lucas,” Olivia said.
“Poor Lucas, indeed. He was trying to care for both parents and keep the hardware store running. His dad needed to be transported back and forth for the chemo, and then he’d be sick from it. His mom was . . . well, you probably remember her.”
“Do I,” Olivia said. “She terrified me when I was a kid. I’d wait outside the hardware store when Dad took me on errands with him.”
“Yes, well, the stroke seemed to make her even more of a tyrant. All of us tried to help out by staying with her while Lucas carted his father to and from treatments. But nobody lasted very long. I have to admit, Shirley tried my patience.”
Olivia began to scrape the dirty plates and arrange them in the dishwasher. “As I remember, not only did Shirley have a demanding personality, but she must have weighed at least two hundred and fifty pounds. If you were trying to help her to bed, she could have squashed you.”
“Illness did whittle her down considerably,” Ellie said. “Though she still possessed nearly two hundred of those pounds.”
“And you a wraithlike ninety-nine pounds,” Olivia said.
“Sadly, with the arrival of middle age, I’ve packed it on. I’m up to one hundred and four. Three digits.”
Olivia snickered. “I wonder how you can show yourself in public.”
“Loose clothing helps.” Ellie had finished frying the bacon and was pouring the grease into a Maxwell House coffee tin. From the rust, Olivia assumed it was the same tin her mother had used since she and Jason were kids. The thought comforted her.
“As to your question,” Ellie said, “Lucas had to hire caregivers almost around the clock, so he could keep the hardware store going. From what I heard, he had to mortgage the house, which they’d paid off years earlier, and also take out a hefty loan, using his business as collateral. Both his parents passed on shortly before you came back home, but the loan remains to haunt poor Lucas. That’s why I was surprised to hear he and Maddie are spending so much time together—for years he’s done nothing but work.”
“Is his loan with the bank here in town?” Olivia asked.
“Not a bank, dear. The loan came from Clarisse Chamberlain.”
“Hey, where is everybody?” Jason’s voice came from the living room. “Does he always walk in without knocking?” Olivia asked.
“Look who I found loitering outside our front door,” Allan boomed. He appeared in the kitchen a moment later, Jason following behind.
“Hi, Olive Oyl.” Jason gave Olivia a light tap on the shoulder and raked his fingers up the back of her head, causing unruly curls to poke out from her carefully smoothed hair.
“Hey!” Olivia grabbed Jason’s hand before he could strike again. Looking at his long, oil-stained fingers, she said, “Here’s a suggestion: why don’t you scrub your hands instead of cleaning them in my hair?”
“I could scrub this stain for hours and it wouldn’t come out.”
Jason had spoken with pride, and Olivia swallowed her next retort. She knew what that job at the garage meant to him. He’d stuck with it for two years already, and he was earning a reputation for quality work. After quitting college and a string of other jobs, he needed to feel good about this one. However, he also needed to stop messing with her hair—and calling her Olive Oyl, a nickname given her as a young teen, after a dramatic growth spurt left her with long, skinny legs.
“This looks great, Mom,” Jason said. He piled several strips of bacon on a piece of buttered toast, folded it in half, and finished it off in three bites. “I smell pancakes and maple syrup,” he said.
“All gone,” Ellie said. “There’s plenty more toast and bacon.”
Jason’s forlorn expression reminded Olivia of Spunky when he hoped she’d forgotten that he’d already had his dinner.
Ellie sighed. “No, I can’t make more,” she said. “No more pancake mix, no eggs, no time to get any before you go back to work.” She pushed the bacon and toast closer.
Jason accepted defeat and rolled another half sandwich. “S’okay,” he said between bites. “The boss has been ordering pizzas every afternoon, ’cause we all get so hungry we start to slow down.”
“I’m surprised you haven’t gotten fat,” Olivia said.
“I’m surprised you’re not in jail,” Jason said just before forcing another half a sandwich into his mouth. He closed his eyes in ecstasy while he chewed, which left him unaware of the reason for the sudden silence. Only when he opened his eyes and reached for the last of the food did he notice the confused stares from his nearest and dearest. “Wassup? Do I have a piece of bacon up my nose?”
Ellie frowned at him, a rare occurrence. “That was an unusual statement you made about your sister,” she said.
“What? About her being in jail?” Jason looked from his mother to his stepfather and finally to Olivia. “You really haven’t heard, have you?”
“Heard what?” Allan’s tone was clipped, no-nonsense.
Jason wiped his mouth with his napkin and scraped back his chair. “We found out soon after it happened because a customer came in to get his car right after watching the ambulance arrive. Sam Parnell was rushed to the hospital, unconscious. I guess he finally got too snoopy for his own good and somebody tried to kill him.”
Olivia was first to break the stunned silence. “How do they know it was a murder attempt?” she asked. “And even if it was, what could it possibly have to do with me?”
Jason started to laugh, but the dangerous look on Olivia’s face sobered him quickly. “I don’t have the inside scoop or anything, only what’s going around town.”
“Which is?”
“Well . . . Look, Livie, don’t kill the messenger, okay? What’s going around is, Sam was eating a cookie when he collapsed, and he didn’t choke or have a heart attack or anything. He had a bag from your store, and there were still cookie crumbs and icing bits inside.”
“That doesn’t mean the cookies were ours. What do we sell in our store, for heaven’s sakes? Cookie cutters, that’s what. There are scads of people who’ve bought them from us and could have made that cookie.”
Jason said, “What about the bag?”
Ellie said, “Jason, I have a stack of bags from The Gingerbread House.” At a look from her husband, she said, “What? I like th
em.”
“I gave Sam a few cookies this morning but none ‘to go’ in one of our bags. Who found him?” Olivia asked.
“Ida, that ancient waitress at Pete’s Diner. I guess she’s off on Mondays. Anyway, she opened her front door and reached around to empty her mailbox and there was Sam, out cold on her porch. She called an ambulance.”
“None of which means that—”
“Sis, all I’m saying is, it doesn’t look good.”
Chapter Twelve
“What the heck is going on in this town?” Olivia paced around The Gingerbread House kitchen, moving objects from one place to another for no apparent reason.
“Don’t ask me.” Maddie sounded exasperated. “I’m as confused as you are, not to mention irate. It seems as though somebody went to a lot of trouble to make us look like bad guys. At least Sheriff Del hasn’t arrested us.”
“He hasn’t eliminated us as suspects—or me anyway. I don’t think he believed I didn’t know about Sam being diabetic. He sure packed away the cookies this morning.”
“You don’t get out much,” Maddie said. “Sam is funny about the diabetes. He’s so proud of being fit, I think he sees diabetes as something he shouldn’t have. It’s hard to believe he’d blow off his insulin after eating so many cookies, though.”
“If something was wrong with his insulin, I guess it’ll show up when they test his supply,” Olivia said. “Meanwhile, we need to get organized.” She removed a container of confectioners’ sugar from a cupboard and put it on a shelf.
“That’s the third time you’ve moved that sugar,” Maddie said. “That isn’t the type of organization we need right now. Stop moving, you’re making me nervous.”
“Right. You’re the one who can’t sit still, I’m the calm one. And if I ever find out that someone tried to set us up, I will calmly break their nose.”
“Good, that’ll leave a few appendages for me.”
They had returned twenty minutes earlier from the Chatterley Heights Police Station, where Sheriff Del had questioned them without any of his normal friendly teasing. He had confirmed Sam’s condition as serious and being treated as a diabetic coma. He hadn’t regained consciousness. The cookie crumbs, Del had said, were undergoing analysis, along with Sam’s stomach contents. Otherwise, all Olivia and Maddie had received was a warning to stay quiet and in town.
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