A Cookie Before Dying (21 page)

“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.”

Some folks revel in heat and humidity, oblivious to the shiny layer of sweat that covers the body, but Olivia Greyson wasn’t one of them. Now that Spunky was no longer an exuberant puppy with an unpredictable bladder, he didn’t need a walk every few hours. However, after a frantic day in The Gingerbread House, followed by the Tuckers’ baby shower, the little Yorkie had been cooped up in Olivia’s apartment for too long. She knew if she didn’t take him for a long walk, he’d want to play all night.

By the time she and Maddie finished their pizza-fueled brainstorming about murder suspects, it was ten p.m. As soon as Maddie left for home, Olivia clicked a leash on Spunky’s collar and allowed him to lead her downstairs. Heavy, damp air coated her as she locked the front door behind them. The humidity had no effect on Spunky’s energy level. Olivia let him determine their direction, which he did by perking up his ears, sniffing the air, and yanking her forward. Their walks usually began with a romp through the town square, but a small group of flashlight-wielding clue hunters still wandered the park, shouting each time they thought they’d found a piece of evidence. Spunky seemed to disapprove of the noise level. He veered east on Park Street, leading Olivia away from the town square. Lovely Victorian-era houses, most of them small and well maintained, lined both sides of east Park Street. The glow from old-fashioned streetlamps, matching the one near the band shell in the town square, created an atmosphere of comfort and safety.

“I’m not worried about murderers on the loose,” Olivia said to Spunky. “Not when I have you to protect me.” Spunky wagged his tail at the sound of her voice but kept up his pressure on the leash. At Willow Road, he stopped to sniff the air.

“This is new territory for you,” Olivia said as Spunky turned onto Willow Road. He dragged her south, toward a fire hydrant that hadn’t seen refurbishing in many years. “Found a juicy one, have you,” she said as Spunky eagerly sniffed every square inch. While he used the facilities, Olivia gazed around. On Willow Road, some of the oldest homes in Chatterley Heights mingled with small businesses and run-down bungalows. Olivia felt safe in every area of town; however, it was getting dark and a couple streetlights were out farther down the street. She tugged at Spunky’s leash. He ignored her and stood his ground.