Free One Dead Cookie by Virginia Lowell Page B

as she listed. “Mom, Allan, and Jason, that’s three.
     Mr. Willard and Bertha make five. But not Maddie. She’s opening the store. And Del,
     of course.” Sheriff Del Jenkins and Olivia were, as
The Weekly Chatter
had often described them until recently, an item. For both of them, free time was
     hard to come by, so they invited each other to informal gatherings whenever possible.
    “Forget about seeing your boyfriend,” Ida said. She poked an escaped lock of iron
     gray hair back under her hairnet, which she wore while cooking. When she switched
     to waitressing, she never bothered to remove it. “Don’t tell me you didn’t hear what
     happened? I swear, all those years living in Baltimore drove the small town right
     out of you.”
    Olivia felt her face and hands chill as the blood retreated to her thudding heart.
     “What happened? Is Del…is he okay?”
    To Olivia’s surprise, Ida laughed. “Well, he ain’t a crimestatistic. Not yet, anyway. Though the more he hangs around you—”
    “What happened?” Olivia was too worried to keep the impatience out of her voice.
    “Okay, keep your bobby socks on,” Ida said. “The sheriff is just fine. Can’t say the
     same for that bank teller fellow, what’s-his-name. You know, the one who’s got a pretty
     cousin working over at Lady Chatterley’s?”
    “Lola? But I thought her connection to the Chatterley Heights National Bank was through
     her husband. He’s a vice president.”
    Ida sighed and rolled her eyes heavenward, creasing her forehead with wrinkles. “How
     do you think Lola’s cousin got his teller job and then got promoted to head teller
     so fast? Anyway, every morning he gets to the bank early to count all the money or
     something, and then he lets the other tellers in when they arrive. Only this morning,
     someone was waiting for him.” Ida deepened her voice for dramatic effect. “Soon as
     he unlocked the front door, somebody knocked him senseless and dragged him inside.
     That’s all I know.” With a shrug of her thin shoulders, Ida scraped a chair across
     the floor and shoved it under Olivia’s table. “Get the rest of the story out of that
     boyfriend of yours,” Ida said, “and then tell me. You owe me.”
    “This must have just happened,” Olivia said.
    “Yep,” Ida said. “The sheriff called about ten minutes ago.”
    “So Del told you all those details?”
    “Of course not.” Ida’s tone implied Livie was one pancake short of a stack. “I got
     my ways.” Shaking her head at the ignorance of youth, Ida headed for another table.
    Feeling rattled, Olivia stared out the diner window andnoticed a man and a woman entering the park grounds from the southwest corner of the
     town square. She couldn’t see the couple clearly, but given the woman’s animated gesticulation,
     Olivia wondered if she might be her mother, Ellie. If so, the man would be Olivia’s
     stepfather. Good. Ellie would probably know every last detail about what happened
     at the bank. Or if she didn’t, she’d know whom to call.
    As the couple cut diagonally through the park, Olivia realized the woman was too tall
     to be her mother. The woman stepped into the sunlight, and Olivia recognized the shoulder-length
     sandy hair of her childhood friend, Stacey Harald. Stacey’s ex-husband, Wade, walked
     alongside, shoulders hunched forward and eyes focused on the grass under his feet.
     According to Olivia’s watch, it was five minutes to seven, an unusual time for two
     rancorously divorced individuals to be out for a chilly stroll in the park.
    “Those two have been going at it for days.” Ida plunked a clean cup in front of Olivia
     and filled it with steaming coffee. She slid the cream and sugar closer, and said,
     “I know how much you like this stuff. One of these days it’ll catch up with you. You’ll
     end up round as one of them fancy cookies you’re always making.”
    “Thanks for your concern,” Olivia said. “What did you