A Deadly Cliche (A Books by the Bay Mystery)

tripped over the curb. Her face was ashen.
    Rawlings reached for her and she sagged against his chest. Olivia put her hand under her friend’s elbow, steadying her.
    “I can’t handle this, Olivia!” she cried, her fingers clawing at Rawlings’ shirt, roughly creasing the blue material on either side of the buttons. Looking up she fixed an agonized gaze on Olivia. “This isn’t a story about theft anymore. Now it’s about murder! Oh, poor April! And those poor children ! Felix Howard . . . husband, father . . . dead. Dead !”

Chapter 9

    We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men.
    —HERMAN MELVILLE

    L aurel was too upset to pick up the twins, so Olivia convinced her to drive home and calm down before venturing out again. Rawlings went back inside the hospital, promising to call Olivia that evening.
    Not knowing what else to do, Olivia took Haviland to The Boot Top and was pleased to discover several members of her staff stacking pieces of the pine tree that had fallen across the parking lot onto the bed of a pickup. When she thanked them, one of the dishwashers replied, “We gotta get ready to open. None of us can afford to go without a paycheck.”
    “Your weekly check will look exactly the same,” Olivia assured her employees. “I’m hardly going to dock your wages because an act of nature shut us down.” She gestured at the building. “And you will work this week, even without power. We’re going to make box lunches and deliver them to anyone who’s out there trying to restore electricity, clearing away debris, or performing any other task that will help us return to business as usual.”
    Another member of the kitchen staff tossed a limb into the truck and then dusted off his hands. “We have a lot of fruit in the big fridge. I can start cutting that up. Maybe make a fruit salad.”
    “Too messy,” one of the waiters argued. “These guys need sandwiches with a lot of meat, chips, and Gatorade.”
    “That’s precisely what we’re giving them,” Olivia said. “Michel will be here shortly so let’s get this parking lot cleared, and be ready to unload the van. I have a feeling he bought a few pallet’s worth of supplies.”
    Olivia told Haviland he’d have to wait for his lunch and then joined in the cleanup effort around the restaurant. Once the tree had been removed, one of her waiters cleared the asphalt with a leaf blower and the crew set about picking up branches and litter from the flowerbeds surrounding the building. By the time they’d finished, Michel had arrived and thrown open the rear doors of the van with a flourish, revealing cases of bottled water, Gatorade, cold cuts, bread, condiments, fruit, nuts, granola bars, milk, ground coffee, and two jumbo-sized boxes of diapers.
    Olivia was proud of her employees. Without hesitating, they immediately surged forward to unload the van. There was enough daylight in the kitchen to create a functional assembly line and Michel barked orders until the room hummed with the same brisk efficiency it did during the preparation of five-star meals. Everyone seemed happy to have something useful to do and it warmed Olivia’s heart to see that her staff made sandwiches and arranged apple slices and pretzels into cardboard lunch boxes with the same measure of pride with which they created rose blossoms out of strawberries or drizzled remoulade over a shrimp and avocado salad.
    Well before noon, the owner and employees of The Boot Top donned white aprons and piled into Michel’s white van. By now, the streets were stirring to life. Industrious business owners and locals looking to help with Oyster Bay’s restoration had replaced the curiosity-seekers of early morning. The town was suddenly alive, like a hermit crab creeping out from the safety of its shell. And like a colony of busy ants, people scattered over the sidewalks and streets bagging trash, picking up sticks, sweeping, and chatting.
    The presence of the utility trucks seemed to add an extra dose of energy to the mix. People knew, despite the damage Oyster Bay had received, that they would recover from the storm. Lights would go back on, shattered windows would be replaced, roofs would be patched. There would be an endless string of phone calls to insurance companies and repairmen, but Olivia was confident that the town would sparkle by the Cardboard Regatta’s opening day.
    She and her staff wasted no time in handing out lunches. From