A Cookie Before Dying

by Lowell, Virginia

  “No reason you should be.”

  With his eyes glued to Ellie’s movements, Allan asked, “You thinking about rumba lessons, too? You might want to step on it. This guy will be gone in two weeks.” With a sheepish grin, he added, “Not that I’m counting the days.”

  The rumba came to an end, and Ellie danced over to them, swaying her hips in a way no daughter should have to witness. Allan handed Ellie a bottle of water from which she took a long swig. “I have a five-minute break while Raoul selects more music. And I’m afraid Allan and I have to leave right after the lesson. We have reservations for a romantic dinner at that new restaurant, Bon Vivant. Allan planned the whole thing.” Ellie flashed a radiant smile at her husband.

  Olivia decided not to mention that she’d just had dinner with Del at Bon Vivant. Her mother already dropped enough hints about the two of them. Living in the city had given Olivia a sense of personal privacy that had evaporated about two minutes after she’d moved back to Chatterley Heights.

  Ellie took another swallow of water and handed the bottle back to Allan. “Now Livie, on the phone you said you wanted to know about the Critches? I’m afraid I rather lost track of them after they left Chatterley Heights for DC, but one hears things.”

  “I think Charlene Critch is hiding something,” Olivia said. “She knows who that prowler was, the one I found in her store. I’m sure of it. Del suspects her brother, Charlie.” Olivia shook her head. “I visited Struts & Bolts and took a good look at him, but I’m not convinced Charlie is the man I saw. He does seem secretive, though. I’d like to know more about him, and about Charlene, too.”

  Allan laughed. “You sure came to the right person. When it comes to people, your mother knows all.”

  “I’m not so sure about that. Let me think.” Ellie fingered her hair off one shoulder to disentangle it from a dangly earring. “The Critch family moved away from Chatterley Heights about ten years ago, right in the middle of the school year. I remember because it was Jason’s senior year in high school, and he had such a crush on Charlene. After she left, he was down in the dumps for some time and had trouble concentrating. Although it was spring, after all, which undoubtedly had something to do with his distraction. You know what those last months of high school are like. There’s so much on one’s mind, all of it earth-shattering.”

  “The minutes march on, Mother.”

  “As they so often do when one is constantly reminded of them.” Though Ellie’s tone sounded innocent enough, Allan edged away out of range.

  “Point taken,” Olivia said.

  “It’s hard for teenagers to adjust to change,” Ellie said.

  “Charlene is a couple years younger than Jason, so she was about fifteen when she had to leave all her friends. She was a pretty little thing, not so painfully thin as she is now. It gives her a hard look, don’t you think? I suspect the poor girl has an eating disorder, which shouldn’t be surprising with those parents of hers. So critical, especially Patty. She insisted her children be perfect, which of course children never are. Present company excluded, of course.”

  “Liar,” Olivia said. “But back to the intruder?”

  “I’m getting there, Livie. You’re so impatient.”

  “I thought I was perfect.”

  “Now who’s wasting time?” Ellie glanced back over her shoulder as Raoul crooked a come-hither index finger at her. “Hang on a moment, I have an idea.” She glided across the dance floor to Raoul, who leaned down to her as she spoke. He nodded once.

  Ellie waved toward Olivia and called, “Come along, both of you.”

  “But—”

  “No buts, Livie. I refuse to miss a moment of my wonderful lesson.”

  Olivia had a bad feeling about what might be coming next. She glanced at her stepfather. With his husky build and hunched shoulders, he reminded her of a bull in the headlights.

  As Raoul changed the compact disc, Ellie said, “This will be fun. And so fortuitous! I’ve always wanted both of you to take up dancing. It will keep you young, and wait until you see how exhilarating it is.”

  Olivia’s bad feeling worsened.

  “We will keep the dance slow and simple.” Raoul looked as if he had arrived yesterday from Latin America, but his accent was slight. “Ellie and I will demonstrate the basic steps of the rumba. We will then separate the ladies from the gentlemen. Or the gentleman, in this case.” Raoul bowed his head in Allan’s direction. “Normally, I would have a dance partner to instruct the ladies. Alas, here I teach alone. Therefore, I will first instruct the gentleman in his movements, and then the ladies in theirs. Ellie has learned the dance quickly and well, so she will dance with her husband. But first, Ellie and I will again demonstrate the rumba, as I noted that the two of you were in conversation while we danced earlier. Please pay careful attention.”

  “I really don’t think this is—” As the music interrupted, Olivia shot an alarmed glance at her mother.

  Raoul held out his hand to Ellie, who took it and allowed herself to be escorted again to the dance floor. She rested her right hand on Raoul’s upper arm as he reached his left hand to her shoulder blade. Olivia sneaked a peek at Allan’s scowling face. She sympathized. Over Ellie’s head, Raoul called across the floor, “Watch our feet, the steps are quite simple. Think of a square.”

  To Olivia, the square image lasted about twenty seconds. After that, the steps made no sense at all. If there was a pattern to them, she couldn’t see it. Ellie and Raoul’s dancing feet seemed to be going everywhere at once, and the hip movements became, to say the least, distracting.

  When the dance ended, Raoul turned to Olivia and Allan. “There, you see? One makes a square, with small departures. Slow, quick-quick, slow. It is simple.” With a tight, closed-lip smile, he held out his hand to Allan, who shrank back against the wall. With an elegant shrug, Raoul turned to Olivia and captured her hand. She felt her heart sink to about knee level.

  Ellie took one look at her daughter’s face and said, “I’m sorry, sweetie, I forgot that you need to repeat the steps slowly several times before they make sense to you. I’m afraid you inherited that from your dear father.”

  “Ah,” said Raoul. “I shall teach you slowly.”

  Ellie slid between them. “That is so perceptive of you, Raoul, but first, perhaps I could try? It would be such good practice for me.” Ellie grabbed Olivia’s hand and dragged her toward the far end of the dance floor. As Raoul started to follow, she said, “No, no, you gentlemen take a break. We won’t be a minute.” Ellie slipped into the office and reappeared as the rumba music began again. She led Olivia to a dimly lit corner and said, “I know you hate this, Livie, and so does Allan, so I regretfully release my dream of having a twinkle-toed family. I shall orchestrate your escape. But first I thought we could talk more easily over here, away from the pressure. Raoul is so forceful.”

  Olivia glanced back across the room, where her stepfather and Raoul stood several feet apart, arms crossed over chests, watching them. “But poor Allan is alone with Raoul.” Turning back to her mother, she asked, “Don’t you find Raoul rather intimidating?”

  “Not at all, dear. Besides, Allan is more than capable of taking care of himself. By the time we finish, he will probably know all there is to know about the financial aspects of Raoul’s dancing career. Now, let’s get to it, shall we?” She took Olivia’s left hand and placed it against her upper arm. “Now Livie, you may ask your questions, but pay attention, as well. If I’m to give up the remainder of my dance lesson, at least I can have the satisfaction of teaching you a few steps. Now, start with your right foot and step backward. No, sweetie, your other right. That’s it, but slower. Make it sultry. Next, two quick steps.... Now what else did you want to know about the Critches?”

  Distracted and struggling to avoid a collision, Olivia stared down at her feet and watched as they completed a square—more or less, if she didn’t count her false steps. So that’s what Raoul meant by thinking about a square. Olivia re
laxed a bit and remembered one of the questions she’d wanted to ask about the intruder in The Vegetable Plate. “Um . . . about the man who broke into Charlene’s store,” she said. “Could he be someone from Charlene’s past? Her ex-husband, maybe?”

  When her mother didn’t launch into a convoluted story, Olivia glanced up at her face. Ellie’s knitted eyebrows indicated thought. Olivia lost track of her feet and zigzagged right into her mother’s undulating hip. Ellie didn’t miss a step. With gentle pressure, she guided Olivia into position and hesitated a moment as her daughter stumbled back into rhythm.

  “I might be thinking of someone else altogether,” Ellie said, unruffled by the mishap. “But I do think that Charlene’s brief, unfortunate marriage was a while back, at least seven or eight years, because I remember thinking how lucky your father and I were that we’d managed to stay happy despite how young we were when we married. I was only nineteen, and your father was twenty. Of course, we’d already lived together for a year at the commune.”

  “Too much information, Mom.”

  “Oops, I feel a spin coming on,” Ellie said. Olivia jumped out of the way in time to avoid being whacked as her mother flung her arm out.

  “I do love those spins,” Ellie said. “Now where was I? Charles Sr. was the key, I think. You will have noticed that both children were named after their father? Arrogance, pure arrogance. Charles Sr. was a plastic surgeon, wildly successful, made piles of money. That’s why they moved to DC. They bought a mansion, I heard, joined all the right clubs, put their children in private schools. Those poor young dears.”

  As the intensity of the music built, Olivia knew she was running out of time, but she decided not to interrupt. Her mother’s stories nearly always yielded helpful information and insights. Eventually.

  “They became reflections of their parents’ worth, you see,” Ellie said. “They had to look perfect and excel at everything. I remember hearing that Charles suggested Charlene have plastic surgery when she was still a teenager. And little Charlie, he became quite a problem. I believe he was thrown out of more than one private school.”

  Olivia decided to keep Charlie on her suspect list for the time being.

  Ellie executed a final twirl out and back as the music ended. “Wasn’t that fun?” Her cheeks had pinked up, but her breathing seemed normal.

  “Mom, I really am sorry I used up your lesson. Allan said Raoul will be leaving soon.”

  “Don’t worry, dear. I haven’t broken it to Allan yet—he’s feeling a bit overshadowed, you know—but Raoul told me during our dance that he likes Chatterley Heights so much, he has decided to stay indefinitely. Isn’t that lovely? Now, about Charlene’s marriage,” she said. “I don’t know the details, but I remember hearing that she married what they call a ‘bad boy,’ which isn’t surprising when you think about it. I believe she was still in high school in DC when they eloped. Charles hired someone to track them down, or so I heard. I don’t know exactly what happened then, but I assume the marriage was unhappy, since I remember hearing about an annulment. Poor Jason has never forgiven himself.” Ellie flipped her hair over her head and fluffed it with her fingers.

  “Jason? What does Jason have to do with it?”

  “Oh, didn’t I say? Jason is the one who introduced Charlene to the boy. After your father died, Jason felt so lost. Oh, I know you missed him, too, but you went off to college, and Jason sort of floated for a couple of years, keeping so much inside. Then I met Allan, and it all got worse. Jason was a senior by then. His grades began to slide, he didn’t want to go to college, and he started skipping school to hang around with a group of dropouts. At the moment, I’m afraid I don’t remember anything about them, including their names. Jason was secretive during that time. I’m sorry, Livie, I wish I knew more details. Only I suspect that the man Charlene married turned out to have a nasty side.”

  Chapter Five

  A sudden piercing noise awakened Olivia from a deep sleep. When the sound repeated twice and went to voice mail, she finally recognized the opening bars of “Satisfaction” by the Rolling Stones. Not Olivia’s favorite. It crossed her foggy mind that her mother, who danced to that song, might have reprogrammed the cell phone ring tone. But no, messing with ring tones was Maddie’s specialty. Olivia decided it wasn’t worth opening her eyes.

  Before she could drift off again, Olivia heard voices murmuring nearby and felt a weight land on her stomach. The voices turned out to be the television turned on low. The weight on her stomach began to wiggle. She finally opened her eyes when Spunky licked her face.

  It had been a long day. Trying to learn the rumba and talk at the same time had taken a surprising amount of energy. Olivia had fallen asleep on her living room sofa, lulled by the cooking channel. While she debated checking her voice mail or going straight to bed, Mick Jagger complained again about the absence of satisfaction in his life. Olivia answered just to make it stop.

  “Livie, you have got to see this.”

  Olivia made a guttural sound in her throat.

  “I’m serious, Livie, you need to wake up and look out your living room window. I know you’re there; the light is on. So drag yourself over to that window and check out what’s going on in the town square.”

  “Why?”

  Maddie ignored the irritation in Olivia’s voice. “Come on. I’m afraid it will disappear any minute. It’s . . . it’s amazing. Enchanting. Fantastical. Please, go to the window now. Oh, and turn the lights off. And bring your cell.”

  Spunky jumped off Olivia’s chest and trotted to the front window, as if Maddie had communicated with him telepathically. By then, Olivia was awake enough for curiosity to overtake crankiness. She slid off the sofa, switched off the light, and joined Spunky at the window.

  “Come on, Spunks,” Olivia whispered. “Let’s see what Aunt Maddie has cooked up for us this time. It had better be worth losing sleep over.”

  “I heard that.” Maddie’s voice crackled from the forgotten cell phone in Olivia’s hand. “Talk to me.”

  Olivia pulled aside the edge of the damask curtain covering her front window, while Spunky jumped on top of the small Queen Anne–style desk centered under the windowsill. “Okay, we’re looking out on the park,” Olivia said into her cell. “What’s so amazing? All I see are sleeping stores, moonlight on the rump of Fred P. Chatterley’s horse, about half of the band shell in lamplight, and—Oh. . . . What on earth . . . ?” Olivia pressed her nose against the glass. She’d caught a glimpse of shimmery movement near the band shell, but now the park looked deserted.

  “Wait for it,” Maddie said, her voice hushed with excitement. “There, see it? Right in front of the band shell.”

  Whimpering softly, Spunky stood on his hind legs. His nails made a clicking sound as he steadied his front paws against the windowpane. Olivia placed her head next to his and looked in the same direction. She saw what looked like a curl of fog, almost ghostlike, an apparition. Which, of course, Olivia didn’t believe in. Except maybe in the middle of the night.

  “Isn’t she amazing?” Maddie said. “It has to be a ‘she,’ don’t you think? It doesn’t look like the way a man would dance.”

  “Dance?” Olivia readjusted her mental context and sure enough, she saw a slender, sylph-like creature twirling in the moonlight. She seemed to be wearing a diaphanous white midlength gown with a flowing white cape that swirled around her shoulders as she pirouetted. A curved arm swooped over the dancer’s head as she leaped into the air with a smooth grace Olivia could only dream of possessing. “Are those ballet steps?”

  “Livie, my friend, you need to get out more. Of course those are ballet steps, and I’d be willing to bet my new silicone baking mats she has trained professionally. Who on earth could she be? I don’t recall Chatterley Heights producing anyone so skilled. She could be a beginning ballerina practicing for her first appearance. Wouldn’t that be exciting? I wish I could get a closer look at her. She seems tiny, but I can’t tell from this distance
. I suppose she could be very young.”

  Olivia said, “I remember my friend Stacey saying her daughter has been studying ballet at some school in DC. Maybe she sneaked out of the house to practice.” Her excitement waning, Olivia yawned. “We need to get back to bed.”

  Maddie’s laugh was loud enough to distract Spunky for a moment. “That isn’t Rachel Harald,” she said.

  “How do you know?”

  “Trust me. Rachel is bigger, and besides, I’ve seen her efforts. I went to her first-year recital last spring, just to relive the dancing days of my youth.” Maddie made a clicking sound that Olivia recognized as frustrated curiosity. “I’m going to sneak around behind stores and see if I can get a peek at her. Otherwise, I’ll never be able to concentrate again.”

  “Maddie, it’s the middle of the night. Please go home and get some sleep.”

  “Already slept,” Maddie said. “I’ll keep the phone on, and you tell me if she moves to another location.”

  “Maddie, I’m tired. I—”

  “Okay, I’m behind the hardware. Bless Lucas for leaving a back light on. Now I’m in back of Fred’s.” Like most town residents, Maddie shortened the full name of the men’s clothing store Frederick’s of Chatterley. “Once I get to the other side of the bookstore, I think I’ll be close enough to the band shell to see her. Is she still there?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “I’m past Book Chat. I can see her,” Maddie whispered into her cell. “But I can’t see her face. It’s too dark, and she seems to be avoiding the lamplight. She looks small and very slender, almost like a pre-teen girl. It’s funny, though. . . .”

  Now Olivia was hooked. “What?”

  “Her hair,” Maddie said. “It’s long, nearly to her waist. And it looks pure white.”

  “Maybe that’s why I thought she was wearing a cape,” Olivia said. “So she must be quite a bit older than we thought.”

  “If only if I could see her face,” Maddie said. “She’s wearing something over her head, sort of a sack thing. She must be able to see through it, so it might be the same filmy fabric as her dress. Maybe it’s a costume.” Maddie sighed into her cell. “I’m losing her; she’s dancing into the shadows, away from the band shell. I guess I’ll have to try again another night. Anyway, I’m heading back to the store now, so you can run along to bed. And take that furry creature with you.”