A Deadly Cliche (A Books by the Bay Mystery)

away the humidity.”
    “Trust me, it’s much hotter inside. The kitchen’s open and the heat from the fryers has no place else to go but into the dining room,” Olivia assured her. “In any case, I try to dine al fresco whenever Haviland is with me. People find it less offensive to eat near an animal when he’s outside,” she explained. “Haviland probably has better table manners than most of their children, but I try to be discreet about serving him his meal around two-legged patrons.”
    Millicent curled her lip in distaste but quickly tried to hide her face with her menu before her client noticed. Olivia knew the Realtor tried to please all prospective clients. Millicent’s motto wasn’t “You can bank on Millicent!” for nothing. Olivia could only assume Millicent had heard of Olivia’s fondness for historic properties and planned to milk that angle for all it was worth. If Olivia wanted to buy a dilapidated warehouse so be it. “I brought all the documents you requested,” Millicent said after they’d ordered. She then casually passed Olivia a legal-sized manila folder. “This building has quite a colorful past.”
    “As do all interesting ladies,” Olivia said with a wry grin.
    Millicent squeezed lemon into her iced tea. “During the late eighteen hundreds, it was a turpentine warehouse. Things were chugging merrily along until a careless foreman started a fire that destroyed half the place and both of the neighboring structures. I read an old newspaper clipping stating that five men died in the blaze.”
    “Must have been a difficult conflagration to handle with a bucket brigade,” Olivia commented while accepting her pepper jack and barbeque bacon burger from the waitress.
    Millicent wasn’t going to be sidetracked by Victorian methods of fire fighting. She continued with her history lesson. “The building was repaired and became a cotton mill. It was well maintained right into the next century.” She consulted her notes. “In the mid-1950s it housed a plumbing supply business and in the seventies, was sold and divided into various retail spaces. One business bought out most of the leases and didn’t close its doors until the year two thousand.”
    Olivia was hooked. Setting aside her food, she flipped through pages in the folder and felt the excitement of a new project beginning to rise. “I wasn’t living in Oyster Bay at that time. What did the most recent retailer sell?”
    Blushing, Millicent fiddled with her iced tea spoon. “The products? Well, they were, ah, goodness!” She clasped her hands primly on the table. “I believe they sold lingerie and, ah, adult toys and things of that nature.”
    “My, my.” Olivia was amused. She held up a photograph of the building. “This old lady does have a colorful past.”
    Ignoring the remark, Millicent pushed her fork around her Cobb salad. “The town wanted to convert the structure into a small performing arts center, but in the end, it proved to be less expensive to build something from the ground up.” She frowned. “It’s a shame the Historic Society couldn’t act, but they just don’t have much of a budget and there are so many buildings in need of preservation.”
    Olivia’s gaze returned to the photograph of the wood and brick building. The basic shape was perfect—a long rectangle with a giant bank of windows facing the water. She could easily envision an expansive second-story deck filled with wrought-iron tables, potted plants, and fairy lights. A live band could play inside on weekends with acoustic ensembles entertaining patrons during lunch and weekday meals. Before she got too occupied by images of checkered tablecloths and disposable lobster bibs, however, she needed to know whether the building was truly salvageable.
    “What happened to the last deal?” she asked Millicent. “When I first examined the building, there was a ‘Sold’ sign out front. And please be straightforward. The absolute truth is important to me.”
    Millicent looked affronted. “I wouldn’t dream of sugarcoating my reply, Ms. Limoges.” She immediately softened her tone. “The warehouse was to be turned into luxury loft apartments, but when the investors saw what it would cost to make the transformation, they backed out. No one felt the permanent residents of Oyster Bay would be willing to spend that kind of money on a monthly lease. They also agreed that the average tourist preferred to rent a vacation home or condo within