Dead Men Don't Eat Cookies (4 page)

“Why don’t you go into the band shell and warm up,” Olivia said. “I’ll meet you there in a minute.”

“I guess that would be okay.” Crystal frowned at Spunky, whose melting brown eyes watched her from the safety of his mistress’s iron grip. “I’ve got things to do. I can’t take all night.”

Olivia smiled and nodded to convey warm understanding, which she didn’t feel. When she pulled her cell phone from her pocket, Crystal took the hint and headed toward the band shell. Olivia waited until she’d begun to climb the band shell steps before speed dialing Del’s cell phone number. The call went immediately to voice mail. “Hi, Del, it’s me. Dare I hope you are driving and wisely decided not to answer your phone? I’ll be a bit late for dinner, but don’t give up on me.” She lowered her voice. “I might have some interesting information for you. And, no, Maddie and I are not breaking into a house or in any way risking life or limb.” In case Del hadn’t yet heard about the victim’s family, Olivia told him about Alicia Vayle and her mother, Crystal Quinn. “Crystal wants to talk to me, in a less than loving way, about her daughter. Might be nothing; might be something. I will tell all at dinner.”

Crystal’s face appeared briefly at the band shell entrance. “Oops, subject is getting impatient. Gotta go, Del.” Olivia slid
the phone back into her jeans pocket, tightened her grip on her pup, and hurried to join Crystal. “I expect you to be on your best behavior, Spunks. There’s an extra treat in it for you,” she whispered as she approached the band shell steps. Spunky maintained silence but made no promises.

Once inside the band shell, Olivia paused to let her eyes adjust to the dimness. A bench encircled the inside of the seashell-shaped structure. Olivia spotted Crystal sitting at the back, in the darkest area of the band shell.
At least no one will overhear us.
Crystal stared at her feet, her arms wrapped tightly around her chest, as Olivia approached and sat on the bench next to her.

“Listen, I’m sorry if I came on too strong,” Crystal said. “Alicia is high strung, like her father . . . like her father was, that is. Everything is so serious to her. She gets overly emotional. I keep telling her to take things in stride, but she just rolls her eyes at me.”

“If I’d found bones that I believed to be my long-lost father’s, I’d be upset, too.” Olivia stroked the silky hair on Spunky’s head as she thought about her own father’s death from pancreatic cancer. It had happened so quickly, but the shock had lasted a long, long time. Alicia’s father, as far as Olivia could tell, had been absent, reputedly drunk, for much of his daughter’s life, yet Alicia had continued to long for his return. It must be tough to let go when a parent simply disappears. Death is final; Olivia had no illusions that her father would ever again walk through the front door, although she’d often wished for it.

“I don’t want Alicia to follow in her father’s footsteps, that’s all.” When Crystal shivered and crossed her arms, her elbows showed through the worn knit fabric of her thin sweater. “That man was weak. I’ve had to fight for everything that’s come to me, but not Kenny. All he ever did was sit and wait . . . and drink. Lord knows why Alicia worshiped him. He could be fun, I’ll grant you that. And generous, especially with money I’d earned.” Crystal shook her head impatiently,
as if to rid herself of bitter memories. “Alicia is convinced it was my fault that Kenny left, but it wasn’t. He just disappeared one day nearly five years ago. He never sent his own daughter so much as a postcard, but whose fault was that? Mine, of course. According to Alicia, I’m such a witch that Kenny couldn’t take it for another minute. She thinks that’s why he left.” Crystal’s thin shoulders slumped. “Alicia doesn’t know the half of it. She doesn’t want to know. She’s a dreamer, like her father. She wants everything handed to her, without her having to work for it. Yeah, I know she’s got a job, but it’s just waitressing and a few hours of fetching and carrying at a construction site. Those are barely jobs, but she figures she can quit fast when her dreams magically come true.”

Olivia remembered Alicia’s concern that she couldn’t make enough money waitressing, and she wondered if Crystal had the slightest clue how her daughter really felt. “What are Alicia’s dreams?” Olivia asked.

“Oh, who knows. They change from week to week.” Crystal sank back against the hard wall of the band shell. “A few years ago, she wanted to be a dancer. She’d put on a skimpy outfit and jump around the house pretending to practice.” Crystal wiggled her shoulders in derisive imitation of a dancer trying to look suggestive. “Alicia was convinced that someday a producer would come to town. He’d go for a walk, see her through the window while she was dancing, and beg her to compete on one of those ridiculous dance shows.” Crystal snickered. “If any producer ever saw her dance, he’d have a good laugh. She was always crashing into the furniture. She broke my favorite cake plate, the one my mother gave me for a wedding gift.”

Olivia stroked Spunky’s silky head to keep him calm as Crystal’s voice grew harsher. It was more than clear that Crystal found her own daughter irritating. Was that only because Alicia reminded her so much of her despised former husband?

“Crystal, do you have any idea where your husband was going the day he left?”

“Well, I know where he
said
he was going. Had himself a job interview, he said. A really good job that would solve all our problems forever and ever. I just laughed at him. I figured he’d borrowed some money and was heading for the bar again. Even if he’d really had a job interview, he’d have gotten too drunk to show up for it. Alicia believed him, of course. When he didn’t come home, Alicia accused me of driving him away by laughing at that ridiculous lie about a job. That man was never good at anything except baking.”

“Baking?” Olivia hadn’t seen that coming.

Crystal laughed at Olivia’s astonishment. “Yeah, I thought you’d be interested in that. His mother taught him to bake just about everything, but he was best at making those fancy cookies like you make at your store.”

“Decorated cutout cookies?” Olivia asked.

“Whatever.”

“Did Kenny ever work as a baker?”

Crystal’s laugh had a hard edge. “Work? Kenny was not familiar with that word. He baked at home sometimes, especially when Alicia was little. He taught her all his baking secrets. Alicia was fourteen when Kenny left for good. By then she was almost as good a baker as Kenny was. She just started working as a part-time waitress at Pete’s Diner, even though she could make loads more money as a baker, maybe in one of those fancy bakeries in DC. Lazy, like her father.”

“But she does have a job,” Olivia pointed out. “Two jobs, in fact, even if they are both part-time.”

Crystal shrugged one shoulder, a dismissive gesture. After several seconds of silence, she said, “If anything, Alicia is a better baker than Kenny ever was.” Crystal’s derisive tone had softened. “She kept at it, too, even when Kenny started getting bored with baking because it wasn’t making him rich. I thought maybe Alicia had found a place for herself, a job she could be good at. But she drifted away from it after Kenny
disappeared. Oh, she kept on baking for quite a while because she was hoping he’d come back. She would experiment with new recipes, so she could show him how much she’d learned. But after a while, the light went out of her.” Crystal went silent and stared down at her hands. With an impatient shake of her head, she said, “Alicia was angry a lot. She was well into her teens by then, and you know how they are. One minute she’d be in a rage, then all of a sudden she’d tear up and sob that life wasn’t worth living.” Crystal slowly shook her head. “Well, I need to get back. My husband will be home from work soon, and he’ll be wanting his dinner. I think I’ve said what I had to say. I only wanted to warn you that Alicia isn’t very reliable, and she gets overemotional. Don’t get sucked in by her. She doesn’t always tell the truth.”

Olivia thought about the cookie cutter necklace. Alicia had identified the bones as belonging to her father based purely on the presence of a tarnished cookie cutter necklace, found amid the bones. The girl hadn’t even seen it, but she’d been certain it identified the deceased as her father. That necklace was part of a larger story. Olivia was almost sure of it. She found herself more and more curious about its history and meaning.

“Crystal, do you remember if Kenny ever wore any jewelry?” Olivia hesitated to give away too much information, but her curiosity was growing by the minute.

“Jewelry? Kenny? He wouldn’t even wear a wedding ring.”

Interesting, Olivia thought. Alicia must not have told her mother about the cookie cutter necklace she’d bought for her father.

Crystal’s eyes narrowed with suspicion. “Why are you asking? Did Kenny have expensive jewelry with him when you found him? Because if he did, by rights it should come to me. I supported that man and raised his child practically by myself.”

Olivia felt a chill roll down her back, and it wasn’t from the cold. Spunky’s low growl said he’d picked up on his mistress’s discomfort.

Crystal stood up and pulled her sweater tightly around her slight body. “Kenny took everything that was important to me. He left me with nothing. If that man had anything on him when he died, it’s mine, and I want it back.”

Spunky squirmed to free himself from Olivia’s grip, but she tightened her hold on him. “I’m not the one who found the . . . your former husband,” she said. “Besides, for all we know, it might not be Kenny, after all.” Strictly speaking, Olivia was telling the truth. “The police are in charge of the case. You’ll have to check with them about what they found, if anything.”

“Oh, I’ll do that,” Crystal said. “You bet I will.” She turned to leave the band shell. At the entrance, Crystal hesitated for a moment, silhouetted against the light of an old-fashioned streetlamp. Her arms fell to her sides. A moment before Crystal strode down the band shell steps, Olivia saw her fingers curl into
fists.

By the time Olivia arrived back at her apartment, after her unsettling meeting with Crystal Quinn, she had eight minutes to shower, change, and walk back across the park to Pete’s Diner to meet Del. If she tried to meet that deadline, she’d end up needing another shower.

Olivia called Del’s cell and got his voice mail. “Hi, Del, it’s me. I’ll be late.” She checked the time, and added, “I should get to Pete’s by about seven. I’ll have much to tell you. Long story, though interesting and highly relevant. To be continued.” As soon as she hung up, Spunky pawed at her leg and whined. “I hadn’t forgotten your post-run snack, Spunks,” Olivia said. “Okay, I did forget. However, here we go.” Spunky’s ears perked with excitement as Olivia opened the treats drawer, took out two small Milk Bones, and snapped them into halves. She tossed the pieces across the kitchen floor, smiling at the sound of little Yorkie nails tapping on the tile.

As Spunky hunted every last crumb, Olivia escaped to the shower. She was in and out in six minutes, which she considered a personal best. Settling on an outfit took about two
seconds—Olivia chose the only clean clothes in her closet. Luckily, the light wool slacks, the color of dark chocolate, fit her perfectly. A once-over in the mirror told her the burgundy sweater brought out the green in her blue-green eyes. However, she’d better get serious about doing some laundry.

For once, Spunky didn’t make a fuss when Olivia headed toward the front door of her apartment, grabbing her keys from the small hallway table. After finishing his dinner, Spunky had snuggled on the living room sofa for a post-prandial snooze. Olivia wrapped herself in a heavy wool sweater and escaped quickly. Despite her best efforts, she was running behind schedule. If she could make it to Pete’s Diner in eight minutes, she’d be acceptably late.

Olivia pulled her sweater tightly around her chest as she headed across the Gingerbread House porch. At the bottom of the steps, she hesitated. She’d planned to cut through the park, which would shave a few minutes off her travel time, but the park was dark except for a circle of light around the old streetlamp near the band shell. She told herself that Chatterley Heights was perfectly safe, but . . . Olivia opted for the lighted sidewalks. If Del got worried, he could call her. As she hurried along the sidewalk, passing stores closed for the night, Olivia reached in her pocket for her cell phone. She found only her keys. The other pocket was empty. Once again, she had left her cell phone at home, languishing on the kitchen counter. Her mother was forever touting the benefits of yoga to undo the effects of a busy schedule. Maybe she was right. Olivia suspected her system needed more calming and centering than her hectic life allowed. Naturally, she had no intention of admitting that to her mother.

Olivia was slightly out of breath when she entered Pete’s Diner. She spotted Del at once and waved. When she reached the table, Del made a show of checking his watch.

“I’ll have you know that I flew like the wind.” Olivia sat across from Del and pointed to his nearly empty tumbler of merlot. “I’m surprised you can even
see
your watch.”

“I can hold my merlot, I’ll have you know,” Del said.

Olivia cocked an eyebrow at him. “With the help of appetizers, perhaps in the form of cheesy muffins?” She pointed toward a bread basket containing only crumbs.

“Pete took pity on me. Besides, we had a bet about how late you’d be. Thanks to you, Livie, I won.”

“I think I’ve been insulted.” Olivia picked up a menu as their waitress, Ida, shuffled toward their table. “I no longer feel obligated to enlighten you about what I’ve been learning.”

“Aren’t small town traditions fun?” Del drained the last of his merlot.

Ida poured more merlot into Del’s empty tumbler, drained the remainder of the bottle into Olivia’s water glass, and sighed. “Let’s pick up the pace here,” she said. “It’s the end of my shift, I’m tired, I don’t want to trudge back to this table any more than I have to.”

Del winked at Ida. “We love you, too.” He picked up a ketchup-stained menu. Without consulting it, he said, “I’ll have the meatloaf, my personal favorite, with extra sauce.”

“Plus potatoes and green beans with bacon,” Ida said.

“Absolutely. You know me so well, Ida.” Del winked at her again as he slid his menu back into its holder.

“Not much of a challenge,” Ida said, though her tone had softened. “And you . . .” She turned to Olivia. “Meatloaf, extra sauce on the side, green beans, no potatoes because you always think you’re gaining weight, and more merlot. Plus some coffee for the both of you.”

“Um, sure,” Olivia said, though Ida had already turned away. She hadn’t written down their orders, but she never made a mistake.

Del slid his chair closer to Olivia. “Okay, Livie, let’s talk,” he said quietly. “I went to the old boarding house and took lots of photos of the scene. I also nailed the plywood back in place. I’m hoping a barrier will discourage folks from messing with the skeletal remains, although it won’t stop someone who is
determined. Thanks for putting the duct tape across the door, by the way. Nice touch.”

“That was Maddie’s idea,” Olivia said. “She’s the creative genius, remember.”

“And you are the diligent investigator, which I wish you wouldn’t do, but never mind that right now.” Del took a small sip of wine. “Tell me everything, including your observations about the people who were there when the remains were revealed.”

“I wasn’t actually in the room at the time,” Olivia said. “You should ask my mother for her input. She was there, and she’s good at observing people. From what I saw when Maddie and I got to the room, only one person reacted emotionally. That was Alicia Vayle, who was convinced the remains belonged to her father, Kenny Vayle. Alicia sobbed for quite some time.” Olivia spotted Ida approaching their table, carrying a pot of coffee and a pitcher of cream. “To be continued,” Olivia said.

As Ida sloshed coffee into their empty cups, Olivia asked her, “I suppose you’ve heard about what happened today while we were working on the renovations for Mom’s new school?”

Ida’s thin, gray eyebrows shot up, creating rows of wrinkles across her forehead. “Well, of course I’ve heard. Who hasn’t? All I can say is, at least now we know what happened to that lazy bum, Kenny Vayle.”

Olivia glanced at Del, who raised his eyebrows but didn’t interrupt. “Doesn’t Alicia Vayle work here?” Olivia asked. “Has she talked at all about her dad?”

Ida snatched a clean coffee cup from a neighboring table, dragged over an empty chair, and sank down. “Been on my feet all day. It’s time I got a break.” She poured herself a cup of coffee and gulped it down. “Alicia’s a sweet kid,” Ida said. “Not much of a waitress. She’s slow, chats too much with the customers. Pete says we should go easy on her, though, on account of her dad.” Ida poured herself more coffee and took
a big gulp. “Bones in a wall . . . I’ve been alive more than seventy years, and I never heard of such a thing. Not here, anyway . . . maybe out there in California or New York, but not here in Maryland.”

“Why did you say Kenny Vayle was no good?” Olivia asked.

When Ida shook her head, an iron gray curl escaped the confines of her hairnet. She poked it back underneath the net. “Kenny was a dreamer and a schemer. Nearly drove that little wife of his to the loony bin with his get-rich-quick notions. Crystal had no respect for the man. I remember her calling Kenny an idiot because he didn’t know what was valuable and what wasn’t. That was the day the two of them had a fight right here in the diner. Pete had to break it up. He kicked them out, told them not to come back, ever.”

Del’s brown eyes darkened. “Did Kenny become violent with his wife? Did you ever witness him hitting her or their daughter?”

“Kenny would never hit his daughter. Crystal, though . . .” Ida began to chuckle. “That day in the diner, those two did come to blows, but it was the other way around. Crystal hit Kenny. Socked him right in the kisser. After he saw that, Pete hated having to throw them both out of the diner. He has a soft spot for a woman who can throw a punch. I told him, ‘Pete,’ I said, ‘that woman’s no good.’ I had to break it to him that Crystal was having an affair. Pete’s got strong feelings against broken marriage vows. He’s been married twenty-five years now.”

Olivia’s interest piqued. “Who did Crystal have an affair with, do you know?”

“Well, of course I know,” Ida said. “She did finally marry the guy, or she said she did, but that don’t make it right.”

“Are you talking about Robbie Quinn?” Del asked.

“Robbie? Nope, he was later. Not much later, mind you, and Crystal was still officially married . . . to somebody. Not clear to me who it was by then.” Ida closed her eyes tight while
she thought. “I never met the second guy, and I don’t remember his name. Just somebody who landed in town during the housing boom a while back. Crystal was still married to Kenny, but he’d left town, or so we all thought.”

“I’m confused,” Olivia said. “If Kenny had disappeared, how could Crystal marry two more men?”

Ida grinned, an unusual occurrence that revealed a missing tooth. “There was boyfriends, too, before Robbie came along. Most of ’em only lasted about a month before they disappeared. Don’t remember any of their names.”

“It sounds like Crystal doesn’t like to be on her own,” Olivia said under her breath.

Ida scraped back her chair and stood up. “Your dinner should be ready by now. Pete said it’s on the house on account of the wait, never mind he’s not the one who caused it,” she said with a stern look at Olivia. “How Pete makes a living, I’ll never figure out. Long as he pays me, I guess I won’t worry about it.” Before turning to leave, Ida said, “Livie, you tell Alicia that Pete doesn’t like that boyfriend of hers hanging around the diner. The kid’s first name is Kurt. Never heard his last name. I saw Alicia sneak some free food out to him in the alley. If Pete gets wind of what she’s doing, he’ll put that girl on notice. It’s all right if Pete gives away his own food, but nobody else can.” Ida shook her head all the way to the kitchen.

Olivia leaned toward Del. “I’m fairly certain Alicia didn’t actually see the necklace found with the bones, but she insisted the remains had to be her father’s because she had given him a silver necklace. Maddie and I did wonder if Kenny himself might have killed someone and thrown the necklace inside the wall to make it look as if he was the actual victim.”

Del frowned in silence as Ida reappeared with their dinners. Once she had wandered off toward the kitchen, he said, “You’re thinking about Crystal’s second husband, the one who disappeared?”

“I am.” Olivia spread Pete’s delicious tomato sauce evenly over her two generous slices of meatloaf.

“It’s something to investigate,” Del said. “By the way, I did manage some decent photos of that necklace. I removed it from the scene before I boarded up the hole and sent it to the crime lab. I’ve never seen anything like it, though I’m no expert on necklaces. I don’t expect enlightenment anytime soon. The crime lab is backed up, as usual, and this is a low-priority case.”

“You might ask Aunt Sadie if she has any ideas,” Olivia said. Maddie’s aunt Sadie had taken her in when she was ten years old, after her parents were killed in an automobile accident. Aunt Sadie possessed remarkable expertise on the subject of cookie cutters, plus she knew the history of nearly all Chatterley Heights residents, past and present. Olivia ate a bite of her meatloaf and sighed. “Best meatloaf ever. I wish I could get Pete to tell me the secret to his sauce. I’m fairly certain Ida knows, but she refuses to rat on him. Mom thinks there are tiny bits of rosemary in the meat and maybe diced shallots instead of onion, but the sauce is a mystery to her.”

Del touched his napkin to Olivia’s chin. “A dab of secret sauce,” he explained. “Unless you were planning to sneak it out for analysis? In which case, you’d probably need a bigger sample. But back to the necklace.” Del ran a hand through his brown hair, perpetually creased by his uniform’s hat. “If Alicia didn’t actually see the necklace, I’ll need to find out why she was so sure it was the same one she gave her father.”

“I could ask Calliope if Alicia said anything more about the necklace after Maddie and I left.”

“I’ll be interviewing Calliope as soon as possible,” Del said.

“You could ask Mom, too. By the time Calliope, Maddie, and I saw the cookie cutter charm attached to the chain, Alicia was down in the kitchen with my mom and the workers.” Smiling at her forkful of green beans, Olivia said, “I’d eat more vegetables if they tasted this good.” She knew they were cooked with bacon, but she tried not to think about it.

While Del devoured his potatoes, Olivia told him about her conversation with Crystal Quinn. “By the end of our talk,” she said, “it became very clear that Alicia had never
mentioned the necklace to Crystal. I got the impression they rarely speak to each other, even though Alicia still lives with her mother and stepfather. Alicia works part-time jobs, so she probably can’t afford to live on her own at the moment.” Olivia soaked up the last bits of sauce with a roll. “I wish I could tell you about Alicia’s stepfather, but Crystal did little more than mention him.”