One Dead Cookie (10 page)

Allan rested his elbows on the table and asked, “Any idea how much the assailant stole
from the bank?”

“I can’t answer that question with precision,” Mr. Willard said. “Bertha was recounting
what she heard from a friend of hers who is also a bank employee. However, it was
her impression that very little was disturbed inside the bank. Or, I should say, that
is the rumor Bertha heard. Perhaps the sheriff will reveal more soon?” He directed
his last question to Olivia.

“You all realize, don’t you, that Del doesn’t automatically contact me when he is
called to a crime scene? He’d be more inclined to suggest I get lost.”

“Oh, Livie, I’m sure he does so out of kindness and concern for your safety,” Ellie
said.

“Or not.” Olivia took the biggest gulp of coffee she could manage.

“Well then, we’ll simply have to wait for further word on the poor head teller’s condition,”
Ellie said. “He is in good hands; we must hope for the best. Would you pass the cream,
Allan, dear?”

Chewing replaced conversation as they enjoyed their breakfasts. Olivia gazed out the
window as she ate. The town square bustled with dog walkers, reminding her that she’d
been neglecting Spunky during the frantic preparations for Maddie and Lucas’s engagement
party. As she was getting ready to leave her apartment earlier that morning, the little
guy had propped his head on his front paws
and whimpered. His sad brown eyes had flitted between his mistress and his leash,
which hung near the door. Olivia couldn’t take much more of that. Maybe she and Spunky
could sneak in a run through the park before the demands of baking claimed her attention
again.

Among the shop clerks and early customers cutting through the spring grass, one slender,
bright pink figure caught Olivia’s attention. The woman’s gait was brisk yet wobbly,
as if she might be wearing high heels. Her floppy hat, also pink, flapped in the breeze.
When it threatened to leave her head, she clamped down on the crown with one hand.
Olivia couldn’t see the woman’s face, but she knew who it had to be: Lenora Tucker
Bouchenbein. Stage name: Lenora Dove. In Chatterley Heights, she was known as Herbie
Tucker’s aunt Len.

“Uh-oh,” Allan said as he caught sight of Lenora heading straight for Pete’s Diner.
“That woman terrifies me.” He shifted his chair away from the window.

“Allan, dear, I think ‘terrified’ is an exaggeration.” Ellie patted her husband’s
muscular upper arm. “I think you could handle her in a street fight.”

“That’s not what I’m worried about. Last week she followed me into the hardware store
and talked my ear off. Confused the heck out of me. Suddenly I realized I’d agreed
to give her free business advice. I’m not sure, but I think I might have offered to
‘loan’ her money to buy a used computer so she can write the story of her life.”

“How kind of you, dear.” Ellie said. “The poor thing was left destitute, and she has
led such an interesting life.”

Olivia’s sympathies were with her stepfather. “I know Gwen and Herbie feed Lenora,
but she acts as if her survival depends on the free cookies we put out every day.”

“Lenora doesn’t wish to be a burden,” Ellie said.

Lenora had recently moved back to town after the death of her husband, Bernie Bouchenbein,
a Hollywood producer who had believed in spending money as soon as it reached his
hands, if not before. He’d left Lenora with very little. Consequently, she’d shown
up on Gwen and Herbie Tucker’s doorstep, offering her glorious presence, as well as
help with their new baby. According to Gwen, her visit had quickly become permanent,
but the helping-with-the-baby part had yet to materialize. Aunt Lenora had, however,
relieved Gwen and Herbie of every bottle of wine in their cellar. She required a steady
new supply, which put a dent in the young couple’s budget.

Still and all, Olivia enjoyed Lenora. Which was a good thing, because Lenora was at
that moment breezing into Pete’s Diner, a woman with a mission. She headed straight
for the group at Olivia’s table, smiling as warmly as she could after several too
many facelifts.

“Darlings, I’m so glad I finally tracked you all down.” Lenora dragged over a chair
from another table and wedged it between Allan and Mr. Willard. “You don’t mind if
I join your little gathering, do you?” Lenora appropriated Mr. Willard’s unused knife
and speared one of his sausage links. “The food here is a bit heavy for my delicate
figure, but the sausages are lovely.” As Lenora devoured the sausage, she eyed the
other offerings around the table. Jason snugged his plate closer to keep it out of
her reach.

“We would love to have you join us, Lenora,” Ellie said. “We were just discussing
the upcoming party at Bon Vivant to celebrate Maddie and Lucas’s engagement. Olivia
is planning it.” Ellie reached over to an unoccupied table for a clean, empty coffee
cup and a spoon and fork. “May we offer you some breakfast? Allan and I are treating
this morning.”

Allan shot his wife a look that begged for mercy. Ellie smiled as she patted his arm
and said, “Allan is so sentimental about weddings, aren’t you, dear?”

“Oh no, I couldn’t,” Lenora said. “I eat so little, these huge breakfasts simply overwhelm
me. I’ll just sample here and there.” She liberated Mr. Willard’s one remaining sausage.
Ever the gentleman, Mr. Willard did not object, but his eyes followed the sausage
as it left his plate. “I’m just helping you finish quickly,” Lenora told him with
a coquettish smile. “You see, we must leave very soon if we want to get to the airport
in time.” It was well known that Lenora, hoping to steal Mr. Willard away from Bertha
Binkman, was forever plotting ways to spend time with him.

As Mr. Willard’s eyebrows puckered in confusion—and possibly dread—his eyes appeared
to sink into his skull. “Airport?”

Lenora scooped up a forkful of pancake. “Oh, silly me,” she said. “Did I forget to
tell you? It’s so thrilling. Two of my dearest Hollywood friends are flying in this
morning for a lovely visit. I don’t have a car, and I simply must meet them myself.
They are staying at my place, of course. I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

Olivia wondered how Gwen and Herbie felt about the visit, since Lenora’s “place” was,
in fact, their home. She was trying to think of a sneaky way to mention that fact
when she caught her mother watching her. Ellie raised her eyebrows a mere fraction,
enough to warn her daughter that she could read minds.
Drat the woman! How does she do it?

Ida appeared next to Mr. Willard and refilled his coffee cup. “Once a moocher, always
a moocher,” she muttered.

Ellie aimed her eyebrow weaponry at Ida, who shrugged her shoulders and retreated.
Around the table, forks busied
themselves with remaining morsels, while Lenora opened a gold compact and patted her
hair.

To her own surprise, Olivia took pity on Lenora. “Tell us about these friends of yours,”
she said. “Are they actors?”

Lenora snapped shut her compact and paused for dramatic effect. Olivia tried not to
wince as Lenora’s smile pulled to the right. “My dear friend, Trevor Lane, is a well-known
actor. I’m sure you’re all familiar with his work. He is best known for his portrayal
of the brilliant psychiatrist Dr. Patch Treadwell.” When the character’s name failed
to produce sighs of recognition, Lenora added, “On
Midnights in Manhattan
.”

“Afraid I don’t have time for the soaps,” Allan said.

“Gotta get to work,” Jason said, scraping back his chair.

Ellie pushed the muffin basket closer to Lenora. “How delightful your friend was able
to take a break from his demanding schedule to come visit you.”

“Well, Trevor is on a bit of a hiatus,” Lenora said. “He so longs to return to his
first love, the theater. We began our careers together in the theater, you know. Bernie—that’s
my dear late husband, Bernie Bouchenbein—invested in a lovely play in which Trevor
and I performed together. Bernie usually stuck to movies, but plays always seem more
respectable. I’ve never understood why. However, I was an ingenue at the time, and
Bernie wanted me to have a good start.”

Olivia wasn’t an expert on the soaps, but she knew that “on hiatus” usually meant
the actor’s character was dead or in a coma. And wanting to “return to the theater”
sounded a lot like wanting “to spend more time with my family” after one has been
fired. And now that she thought of it, a “good start” in theater suggested that Bernie
Bouchenbein didn’t want his pretty young wife to begin her acting career
as a disposable starlet. Olivia found herself liking Lenora’s deceased husband.

“Naturally, Trevor is bringing along his assistant, Dougie Adair.” Lenora took a delicate
sip of coffee. “Dougie has been tremendously helpful to Trevor’s career. Dougie isn’t
an actor, of course, but he is such a clever young man, and he knows so much about
the business.” With a sigh, Lenora said, “It will be such a lovely reunion.”

“A reunion?” Ellie asked. “So you haven’t seen Trevor and Dougie for some time?”

“Alas, no,” Lenora said. “Although by reunion, I meant having all of us back home
together.”

“Back home?” Olivia asked. “Here in Chatterley Heights?”

“Oh, didn’t I say? Trevor and Dougie grew up here. Well, not in Chatterley Heights,
but close by, in Twiterton. They went to high school together. Naturally, both of
them played on the football team.”

Jason’s face lit up. “No kidding. I spent a year on the Chatterley Heights football
team, and we played the Twiterton Twits. That’s not what they called themselves, of
course. Anyway, they usually beat us.”

“They still do.” Allan scraped back his chair and stood up. “I need to get to work.
Ellie, I know you’ll be helping Livie prepare for Maddie’s shindig, but you won’t
forget we have dinner plans?”

Ellie said nothing as she reached a slender, graceful hand toward Allan’s wrist. Allan
sat down. Turning to Lenora, Ellie said, “I know that poor Mr. Willard is snowed under
with work at the moment, and it’s so important that you pick up your friends at the
airport. Would you mind if Allan and I drove you instead? I would love to meet them.”

“Mom, don’t you have—”

Ellie turned on her brightest smile. “Don’t fuss, Livie. I’m
sure I’ll be back in plenty of time for my meditation class. Unless you would care
to drive Lenora and me to airport?”

Allan gazed toward Olivia with desperate hope in his eyes. It lasted only a moment,
though. With a firm shake of his head, he said, “Now, Ellie, Livie is a businesswoman.
She has a store to run. It takes time and dedication to keep a business going. We
can’t send her off on errands during her workday. And don’t forget, Livie is preparing
Maddie’s get-together almost single-handedly.”

“I agree completely,” Ellie said, looping her arm around her husband’s elbow. “Besides,
your online businesses are humming along nicely, and you worked until nearly midnight
last night. You need a break.”

Lenora’s ability to show emotion had been lost to surgery, but her wary eyes were
asking,
What just happened here?
Olivia had the same question. Her mother could get anyone to do anything, but normally
she used her powers for a clear and just purpose. Ellie might simply be trying to
rescue Mr. Willard from Lenora’s clutches and keep Bertha from losing her love. However,
Mr. Willard, befuddled as he might seem at times, was shrewd, insightful, and completely
devoted to Bertha. Ellie knew this better than anyone.

It struck Olivia that her mother might have the same questions that had crossed her
own mind. Were these younger men truly taking a few days out of their busy professional
lives simply to spend quality time with Lenora Tucker? Nothing against Lenora, but
it seemed unlikely. Were they out-of-work moochers? Did they assume Lenora had inherited
a fortune from her producer husband? Did Ellie suspect the two men might try to take
advantage of Lenora, not to mention her nephew and his wife? Well, if the Tucker family
needed protection, Olivia could think of no one more capable of providing it than
her mother.

The Gingerbread House had been open for over an hour by the time Olivia returned from
her breakfast meeting. Several customers were browsing while two women waited for
assistance at the cash register. Bertha, alone on the sales floor, was busy helping
a harried mother decide between two cookie cutter themes: baseball or zombies. Olivia
went directly to the sales counter and got to work. Spunky would have to stay in her
apartment for a while. She’d make it up to him. Meanwhile, thank goodness for puppy
pads.

From the sweet, buttery smell of freshly baked cookies drifting through the leaky
old kitchen door, Olivia knew that Maddie was hard at work. It wasn’t like Maddie
to ignore the sales floor, especially when the store was short staffed. Even on ordinary
days, though, she could so easily slip into her own world filled with music, dancing,
and decorated cookies. And this was no ordinary Wednesday. In three days, the town
of Chatterley Heights would celebrate
Maddie and Lucas’s engagement, and one week later, they would marry in a tiny, private
ceremony. Olivia and Del had agreed to be their witnesses, and Maddie’s aunt Sadie
would be the only other guest. Maddie, who reveled in crowds and loved to dance, was
nervous. She joyfully anticipated a huge turnout for her engagement party, but for
her nuptials she wanted quiet.