A Killer Plot (A Books by the Bay Mystery)

strawberries or cookies or little bits of cake right in ’em. Lordy! I’d eat chocolate until I couldn’t move.”
    Sue Ellen unloaded two jumbo-sized bags of potato chips and a bouquet of scentless carnations onto the belt. “She oughta give back to the community. After all, she grew up in Oyster Bay. Lots of folks kept an eye on her when her daddy was off on one of his trips.”
    “Which trips?” Darlene snorted cruelly. “The fishin’ trips or the ones where he drifted along the coast with a net in the water and a case of whiskey by his side?”
    “Either one. With her mama passin’ on when she was still at such a tender age, that girl needed folks to look in on her. I recall my mama bringin’ her a tuna casserole more than once. And how about that lighthouse cottage?” Sue Ellen was becoming flushed in righteous indignation. “The way she’s lettin’ it fall to pieces—it’s a disgrace! She should fix it up and let the town use it. It’s not our fault her daddy left her all alone out on that boat in the middle of a storm for—”
    Bam! The woman’s words stuck in her throat as a twenty-pound bag of lams Premium dog food was slapped onto the belt, instantly flattening the potato chips and the tight cluster of carnations.
    “Good morning, Mandy.” The tall woman with white blond hair greeted the cashier as though the other customers did not exist. “Just the peaches and the dog food, please. And whatever you’ve already scanned from my neighbor’s cart. You can charge me for the chips and flowers twice, seeing as they’ll both have to be replaced.”
    Mandy nodded, biting back a smile. She rang up Olivia’s fruit and kibble as well as the other woman’s frozen dinners, rump roast, potato chips, flowers, cookie dough ice cream, and maxi pads. Olivia swiped a credit card through the reader, shouldered the dog food bag as though it was filled with helium, grabbed her peaches, and wished Mandy a pleasant day.
    She walked out of the store, squinting as the sun bore down on her. She slid glasses over eyes that had been fiery with anger a moment ago but had now returned to a placid, lake-water blue.
    Inside her Range Rover, Captain Haviland, her black-furred standard poodle, barked out a hello.
    “You may find that a portion of your kibble’s been pulverized into crumbs, Captain. I’m afraid my temper got the better of me.” Olivia gunned the engine, drove seven blocks north, and swung into an available handicapped parking space. Haviland barked again and added an accusatory sniff.
    “It’s tourist season. There’s no place else to park and if I do get ticketed, that’ll just add more funds to the community treasure chest. Apparently, I don’t give back enough,” Olivia snidely informed her dog and together, they marched into Grumpy’s Diner. Olivia established herself at the counter, ordered coffee, and perused the headlines of The Washington Post. However, her concentration was repeatedly broken by a group of people seated at the diner’s largest booth. They were tossing out words like “dialogue,” “point of view,” and “setting,” and since Olivia had been trying to write a book on and off for the past five years, her curiosity was aroused.
    She kept the paper raised, as though an article on escalating interest rates was inordinately captivating, while she listened intently as a woman read aloud from what sounded like a work of romantic fiction.
    “Maureen put her eye to the keyhole and gasped. There was her mistress, the duchess, in the arms of a strange man. His fingers were unlacing her gown, slowly, letting each piece of delicate silk slide over his powerful fingers.”
    “What drivel,” Olivia Limoges muttered to Haviland as the reader paused for breath. The poodle sneezed. Feeling that her canine companion hadn’t been in clear agreement with her assessment, Olivia leaned to the right in order to eavesdrop further.
    “He then turned her around, roughly, and pushed her frock to the floor I could hear her gasp as he caressed the ribbons on her petticoat, his dark eyes never leaning the duchess’s amber ones.”
    Olivia snorted. “Cats have amber eyes. People do not” She cast a glance at the author who had abruptly ceased speaking, seemingly reluctant to continue. She was a pretty woman—small-framed and smooth-skinned, with hair the color of sunlit wheat, but her face was discolored and puffy, indicating a consistent lack of sleep.
    “Go on, Laurel, my