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.”
Del pushed aside his empty plate and leaned his elbows on the table. “I know Robbie Quinn,” Del said, “although not well. When I first arrived in Chatterley Heights, Robbie would stop by the station to fill me in on what he considered the shady doings of various townsfolk. He’d appointed himself as sort of my trainer and informant.”
“Oh dear,” Olivia said.
Ida appeared at their table carrying two plates of apple pie and an open bottle of merlot that might half fill their two tumblers. “Pete said this is all on the house,” she said. “It’s a wonder that man doesn’t go broke, giving away food and drink to folks who can afford to pay for it.” Ida piled their empty dinner plates on a tray and trudged toward the kitchen.
Once Ida was out of earshot, Olivia asked, “What was your assessment of Robbie Quinn? Just a cop wannabe, or was there something else going on?”
Del emptied the remains of the merlot into their two glasses. “This is all conjecture, and I wouldn’t repeat it under oath. Robbie didn’t yearn to be a police officer, as far as I could tell. He reminded me more of a tattletale. He seemed to feel superior to pretty much everyone.”
“I sense from your tone that you aren’t fond of the type.” Olivia dug into her apple pie, which was almost as meltingly delicious as Maddie’s lemon sugar cookies.
With a rueful smile, Del said, “As a kid, I was more the type that got tattled on. Lucky for me, in fifth grade I had a teacher who realized that punishments like sending me to the principal’s office or making me stay indoors during recess weren’t having the desired effect. I was becoming more and more rebellious. So she started talking to me, getting to know me better. When she found out my folks were going through a divorce, she told me about her own experience being a kid with divorcing parents.”
Olivia’s heart gave her a little pinch as she flashed back, once again, to her father’s death when she was in high school. His loss had been even harder on Jason, who began to hang out with troubled kids and nearly flunked out of high school. “Your teacher understood your rebellion was really about pain,” she said.
Del took a sip of wine and nodded. With a shrug, he said, “The kids who tattled on me had their problems, too. Who knows what was going on with Robbie Quinn. At any rate, I tried to discourage him from gleefully turning in his neighbors for partying past nine p.m. It took a while, but he finally ceased his daily reporting. Underneath it all, Robbie seemed resentful. But that’s for a shrink to decide. I’m just glad he isn’t my brother.”
Olivia thought back to her conversation with Crystal in the band shell. “I’m thinking Robbie Quinn might be an irritating husband, but he seems to be a good provider. And I suppose he is more reliable than Alicia’s real father was. When I spoke with Crystal, she struck me as deeply angry. She was openly critical of her daughter and still resentful of Alicia’s father. Also, money seems to be a big issue for her. I suspect she’ll show up at your office and demand that you hand over anything of value that might have been found with the bones. I’ll let you handle that situation, though I’d appreciate hearing about it.”
“I’m guessing you’d like me to set Crystal straight, and not in a gentle way?”
“Goodness, no,” Olivia said. “That would be unprofessional. I’d like to be kept in the loop, that’s all.” She attempted a wide-eyed, innocent expression, which made Del laugh. “Anyway,” Olivia said, “I doubt we can trust Crystal’s perceptions about the people in her life.”
“I’ll talk to Crystal tomorrow.” Del drained the last of h
is merlot. “It’s interesting that she doesn’t seem to know about the necklace. I wonder what else Alicia might be keeping from her mother.” Del pushed aside his empty dessert plate. “It might be some time before we confirm who those bones belonged to. Maybe it isn’t Kenny Vayle after all, but it won’t hurt to question the family informally. I don’t have much else going on right now, assuming you don’t stumble upon another body any time soon.”
“Hey, not fair,” Olivia said. “This time someone else did the stumbling. Maybe I’ll have a chat with Mom. She will almost certainly have lots of long, involved stories about the Vayle/Quinn family, going back decades. The trick will be sorting out what’s relevant.”
“Patience, Livie. Ellie’s stories are always relevant.”
“Eventually.” Olivia checked Pete’s Audubon bird clock. “Well, it’s past the red-winged blackbird and approaching the yellow warbler. I’m opening the store tomorrow morning, so I’d better wend toward home.”
“And I have a cold case to warm up.” Del pulled out his wallet. “Ida deserves a tip.”
“Nope, it’s my turn.” Olivia counted out several bills for a generous tip. “By the way, Maddie is thrilled with this case,” she said as she slid her arms into the warm sleeves of her thick sweater. “All the intrigue of a murder investigation without the squeamishness. At least that’s what Maddie thinks. I’m not so sure.”
Del slipped on his uniform jacket and buttoned it up. “Your instincts are more accurate,” he said. “Cold cases have a way of igniting. They can dredge up all sorts of nasty secrets.”
Chapter Five
Dead Men Don't Eat Cookies Page 5