“All right then, describe this foot-long knife. Make us see it.” Mr. Willard had transformed from a gentle elderly man to . . . Perry Mason.
Jason hadn’t once looked toward Olivia for support. He was in Mr. Willard’s power. The fear and tension melted from Olivia’s body as she turned her brother’s cross-examination over to an expert.
“I told you, I don’t remember what it looked like.” Jason was wilting from exhaustion. “It was just a knife, a big knife. There wasn’t anything about it worth remembering, I guess.”
“You don’t remember the knife you so carefully selected and with which you stabbed a man to death?”
“Um . . . No.”
“Mr. King was a strong man,” Mr. Willard said. “How did you manage to stab him without being harmed yourself?”
“I surprised him by . . . I stabbed him in the back.” Jason glanced uncertainly from Mr. Willard’s face to Olivia’s.
Mr. Willard scraped back his stool and stood, towering over Jason. “Young man, you are lying. You did not steal a knife, and you did not, as you keep insisting, stab Geoffrey King. Let me give you some advice. Next time you want to take credit for someone else’s murder, make sure you get the details straight before you confess.”
To Olivia’s surprise and relief, Jason crumpled. His sullen bravado gave way to a trail of tears down each cheek, which made him look even more like the little boy whose birth Olivia had once resented. She sat on his cot and put an arm around his shoulders. “You’ve really made a muddle of it this time, little brother.”
Mr. Willard, once again mild-mannered and concerned, folded his long body onto his tiny stool. “You must tell us the truth, Jason. Begin with the night of the murder.”
Jason sniffled with manly vigor. Olivia dug a tissue from a pocket in her khaki pants and handed it to him. She edged away, knowing that her brother’s nose blowing could rattle furniture. When the air was calm again, Olivia said, “Start with the time you left The Vegetable Plate on the night Geoffrey King died. Were you the first to leave?”
Jason nodded. “I kept yawning and nodding off, so Charlene told me to go home and get some sleep. Charlie said he’d stay all night. He planned to keep guard downstairs so he’d hear if Geoffrey tried to break in. Charlene wanted to stay with him, but Charlie told her to go upstairs and try to sleep on this little air mattress she keeps up there. Charlie borrowed Charlene’s cell phone and said he’d call 911 at the first sign of trouble. I wanted to help guard Charlene, but she insisted, and I really was pretty tired.”
“What time did you leave the store?” Mr. Willard asked.
“Eleven. I know because I checked Charlene’s cell to make sure it was charged. The battery was down about half, so I told Charlie to plug it in. He went to find the charger as I left. Can I have another tissue, Livie?”
Olivia dug out a tissue and said, “This is my last one. Don’t blow it all at once.”
Jason was too miserable to crack a smile. “I cut through the town square, like always,” he said. “I hurried because it felt like it was going to rain. I didn’t see anybody or anything. Honest. Cross my heart and hope to . . .” Jason’s shoulders slumped.
Olivia rubbed her brother’s back the way her mother used to when he was croupy as a little boy. “I’m confused about one thing,” she said. “If Charlie stayed all night, why did you make a point of saying he wouldn’t have seen anything because his route home didn’t go through the park?”
“I got confused, too,” Jason said. “The next morning, when everyone knew about Geoffrey, Charlene told me she sent Charlie home right after me. Charlene said he didn’t want to go, but she insisted. Charlie usually does what Charlene tells him to do. She locked all the doors behind him and stuck chairs under the doorknobs and kept her cell with her while she slept upstairs. And that’s all I know.”
Olivia pondered the implications of Jason’s story, which sounded reasonable to her . . . except for the part about Charlene Critch being so concerned about everyone else’s sleep. The fact that she chose to stay alone in the store sounded suspicious. What if she had already planned to kill Geoffrey if he did show up? She wouldn’t want Charlie involved. And what about Charlie? He didn’t have a home to go to, so perhaps he decided to sleep in the park. He might have reasoned that he could keep an eye on The Vegetable House from the band shell. Maybe Charlie took a knife from the store’s kitchen, in case he had a run-in with Geoffrey King.
Mr. Willard checked his watch and stood up. “As your attorney,” he said to Jason, “I strongly advise you to stop confessing to a crime you did not commit. We will inform the sheriff that you are recanting your confession. Agreed?”
Jason nodded his assent. To Olivia, her little brother looked liked a boy who needed a nap. It saddened her to think of him curled up on a hard cot, isolated and scared. “One last question, Jason. When you stupidly . . .” Deep breath, release slowly, like Mom does. “When you confessed to Geoffrey King’s murder, was it because you wanted to protect Charlene only or because you wanted to protect both Charlene and Charlie?”
Jason’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “You don’t think Charlie—”
“I don’t think anything yet. Answer the question.”
“I wanted to protect Charlene, of course. I mean, Geoffrey was a jerk, and I was the one who first introduced them. I felt responsible, you know? I didn’t know what he was like then, but still . . . He treated Charlene really badly. He slugged her in the face last weekend, you know. If she killed him, it was in self-defense, but I knew she’d get in trouble anyway because she didn’t call the police right away.”
Mr. Willard cleared his throat twice. “Jason, I must ask you this, and I urge you to be open with me. Do you have reason to believe that Charlene did kill her ex-husband in self-defense? Because if so, I can help her. I’ll find her an excellent attorney, and she may avoid prison altogether.”
“All I know is what I already told you.”
Olivia kissed her brother’s forehead and ruffled his stringy hair. “We’ll get you out of this somehow,” she said. “So stop confessing, start proclaiming your innocence, and if you remember anything else, call your attorney. Or me.” She exchanged a glance with Mr. Willard, who nodded and closed the notebook in which he’d been recording the conversation. Before ringing the bell to summon Del or Cody to let them out, Olivia turned to her brother. “I’m sending Mom to see you. You will talk to her. Won’t you.” It wasn’t a question.
“Yeah,” Jason said. “Send her soon, okay?”
Chapter Fourteen
As Olivia burst into The Gingerbread House kitchen, Maddie’s head snapped up and cornflower blue icing squirted onto the worktable. “Crap,” Maddie said.
“Sorry,” Olivia said. “I’m behind schedule. How are the library cookies for Heather going?”
“Slowly. If you intend to keep finding bodies and tracking down killers, we’ll need more help in the store.” Maddie refocused her pastry bag on a cookie shaped like a book and wrote READ A COOKIE on the cover. “How’s Jason doing?”
“Better, if you don’t count the need for a shower and deep depression. He has agreed to see Mom. Also, he confessed to making a false confession and has promised to confess no more. Then again, he is hopelessly in love with Charlene Critch.”
“So it’s a good news/bad news thing.” Maddie finished her book cover and stretched. “I hope you’re including me in some of this sleuthing around town. Much as I adore decorating cookies, my back is forgetting how to straighten up.”
Olivia poked her head in the fridge and found a bowl covered with plastic wrap. “What’s this?”
“My tuna salad,” Maddie said. “Something to cleanse the palate between cookies. Try it. If I do say so myself, I have perfected the art of tuna salad.”
“I’m starving. I might have missed breakfast this morning. I don’t remember.” Olivia found some bread that wasn’t too dried out and piled tuna salad on a slice. “This is great. Is there a
ny dish you can’t create?”
“Liver and onions. Unless I leave out the liver part. What’s next on the agenda?”
“Could you spare me a few of these cookies?” Olivia asked. “I need to bribe my next informant.”
Maddie winced as she stretched her arms behind her back. “Ah, much better. Who is your next informant?”
“Constance Overton.”
“You’d better take half a dozen cookies. I suspect she’s still gunning for you, despite everything she’s been through.” Maddie selected a pastry bag filled with inky blue and tackled another book-shaped cookie.
“Everything she’s been through?” Olivia asked. “Never mind, I don’t have time. You can fill me in later.” She selected six cookies with dry icing and placed them in a Gingerbread House bag. “Anything urgent, before I hit the trail?”
“Only that Bertha thinks she knows who has been stealing cookie cutters.”
“No kidding. Who?”
“Charlene Critch.”
“Now Maddie, are you sure you didn’t put that notion into her head?”
“Absolutely positive. All I did was show Bertha the list of missing cutters and ask her to keep her eyes open because they might simply have gotten misplaced. Bertha read down the list and said to me, ‘I think it might be poor little Charlene.’ I asked why she thought that and she said, ‘Well, I could be wrong, but I know I saw her holding at least three of those cookie cutters during the harvest event.’ They were all on mobiles,” Maddie said, “so it was easy to see what Charlene was holding. Bertha said she had a wistful look on her face, like maybe they reminded her of something.”
“Not enough to convict,” Olivia said as she headed for the door leading to the back alley.
“Not yet.”
The Chatterley Heights Management and Rental Company turned out to be half of a renovated duplex. It had once been a Queen Anne summer house much like Olivia’s, but smaller and split in half rather than into two levels. The exterior was in the process of being restored and repainted. The right half of the building housed a chiropractor, while the left front door sported a sign that read M & R COMPANY. The crisp block letters felt efficient and cold.
Olivia hadn’t called ahead for an appointment. It had seemed like the best approach at the time. Now she wished she had at least some sense of how the adult Constance Overton might react to her. Olivia’s watch read nine fifteen a.m. No time to worry about high school trauma. Jason was in jail and likely to stay there if she couldn’t find the mysterious ballerina—a potential witness for the defense. Constance was her best shot.
A bell tinkled overhead as Olivia entered the front door of the M & R Company. She found herself in a narrow foyer containing an old-fashioned standing coat rack and a small table. The latter held a silver-footed tray. Olivia knew something about antiques, and this tray had once been used to deliver visiting cards to the lady of the house. Now it held business cards for The Chatterley Heights Management and Rental Company, 19 Apple Blossom Road, Chatterley Heights, Maryland, followed by Constance Overton, M.B.A., Owner and Manager.
As Olivia slipped one of the cards into her pants pocket, a commanding voice called from a room somewhere down the hallway. “Second door on the right. Come on in.” The voice hadn’t changed much, though it had grown deeper and more powerful. Well, so have I. Olivia straightened her spine, the way her mother was always telling her to, and strode toward the disembodied voice.
Constance Overton hadn’t changed much, either, at least in looks. Her thick golden hair had darkened, and she now wore it short, layered, and blow-dried to create a sculpted wind-blown effect. Her face had filled out, but she still possessed a crystalline beauty. Olivia paused a moment and watched Constance’s face shift from professional welcome to recognition. She did not stand up.
“Olivia Greyson. Well, well. I heard you were back in town. You are looking . . . healthy. Sit down and tell me what I can do for you.” She waved toward three antique chairs arranged in a semicircle in front of her imposing desk.
Olivia chose the center chair, which offered a soft needlework seat. “Hello, Constance. You seem to have done well for yourself.” Her comment sounded banal. Wincing inwardly, Olivia said, “I think you might be able to help me with some information.”
Constance relaxed against the back of her chair, which seemed higher than the one Olivia had chosen. “Now you’ve made me curious,” Constance said. “I doubt you need rental property, since I heard you purchased the house with your little cookie store in it.”
“Actually, Maddie and I—you remember Maddie Briggs, don’t you? We co-manage The Gingerbread House, specializing in both modern and vintage cookie cutters.” When Constance drew in a breath, presumably to interrupt, Olivia said quickly, “I came to you because I’ve been told you manage the property on Willow Road where the Chatterley Heights Dance Studio is located. I need information about the renter. This isn’t idle curiosity on my part. You’ve probably heard about my brother, Jason?”
Constance cringed and said, “Sorry, my head is always thinking about business. I completely forgot that you were the one who found that man’s body . . . and that your brother was arrested for the murder. As I remember, Jason was a good kid. No genius, maybe, but well meaning. How does all that relate to the renter of the dance studio?”
“I’m searching for a potential witness to the murder.” Olivia felt relieved by the shift in Constance’s demeanor—still curt but with a hint of empathy. They’d both grown up since high school; perhaps Constance had let go of the boyfriend-stealing episode from their youth. Maybe she didn’t even remember it.
“And you think the dance instructor, Raoul, might be that witness?”
“In a sense.”
“In what sense? And why should I reveal private information about one of my renters?”
“I didn’t mean that you . . .” What was it her mother kept telling her about breathing? Oh yeah, keep doing it. “Do you know if Raoul lives in the property alone?” she asked.
Constance’s penciled eyebrows shot up. “He assured me he would be living alone. My rents include a portion of the cost of utilities. If someone else is living there with him, he should be paying higher rent, or the extra resident should be paying his or her own portion of the rent. I was specific about that. Do you have evidence someone is living with him full time?”
Olivia felt a strong need for a cookie. Then she remembered she had brought some. But where were they? “Hang on a sec, Constance. I left something on the table in the hallway.” Olivia had the impression that Constance’s eyelids had arched to her hairline, but she didn’t pause to confirm. She hurried out to the table in the hallway and found the bag on top of the silver card holder. Constance’s command to report to her office must have flustered her more than she’d realized. She resisted the urge to stuff a cookie in her mouth. With her luck, she’d wind up with crumbs on her chin.
When Olivia arrived back in the office, Constance was reading through some papers, her pen scratching notes on a pad. Olivia felt a compulsion to announce her presence. She resisted. Instead, she sat on her spindly chair, plunked the bag of cookies on Constance’s desk, and opened the top. The mingled scents of lemon zest and ginger wafted into the air. The pen slowed, then stopped. Constance’s eyes lifted from her work. She dropped her pen and reached for the bag. Olivia had to smile. A good cookie can tame the most aggressive of business school graduates.
Without comment, Constance reached into the bag and pulled out a frowning gingerbread boy dressed in purple and yellow stripes. The corner of Constance’s mouth twitched. “Reminds me of a high school boyfriend of mine, the one who dumped me for another girl. What was his name? Shane?”
“Shawn,” Olivia said.
“That’s the one.” Constance bit off the gingerbread boy’s head.
“As you know very well,” Olivia said, “the girl he began dating was me. You vowed eternal vengeance.”
“Eternity is a long time,�
� Constance mumbled, still chewing. She bit off a gingerbread arm and dragged the cookie bag out of Olivia’s reach. When she had swallowed the last of the gingerbread cookie, Constance said, “Excellent quality. I assume Maddie is the chief baker?” She brushed crumbs off her desk and into her wastebasket. Then she smiled. “Bribe accepted and eternal vengeance canceled. Tell me how I can help Jason.”
“Thank you.” Olivia moved her chair closer and leaned her elbows on the desk. “First, can you tell me what Raoul’s last name is? No one in town seems to have any idea, and I don’t see how he could sign rental papers without one.”
“Let me check,” Constance said, opening a file drawer on the right side of her desk. She extracted what looked like a contract. “Yes, here it is. His legal name is Raoul Larssen.”
“Larssen? Are you sure?”
“I remember now,” Constance said. “I had the same reaction, so Raoul showed me his driver’s license. He said he’d emigrated from Argentina as a young boy, accompanied by his widowed mother, who was a celebrated dancer. His mother managed to support them for a time by giving dance lessons, which is how he learned to dance. When Raoul was thirteen, his mother met and married a second-generation Swede named Sven Larssen, and mother and son took his name. Made sense to me.”
“Did he mention having any family still alive?”
Constance said, “I always ask a few questions about family members, even for a month-to-month lease like this one. You never know when some kid will move back in with the folks. Another resident means more use of utilities, maybe more damage, depending on whether the newcomer has come from, say, prison. Raoul said his mother and stepfather were deceased and his wife had died. I let it go at that. Are you going to tell me what this is all about?” Her hand slipped into the cookie bag and reappeared holding a pink rutabaga. “My kind of vegetable.”
Olivia pondered how much to reveal to Constance. “It’s important that Raoul not find out I’ve been asking about him,” she said. “I don’t have any reason to suspect him of anything, but I think he might know something or someone.... I don’t know, I might be grasping at straws, but right now that’s all I’ve got. Do you know what his wife’s name was?”
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