A Cookie Before Dying accsm-2

by Virginia Lowell

  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.”