A Killer Plot (A Books by the Bay Mystery)

dear. I sense we’re nearing the juicy part,” a middle-aged man with carefully gelled hair, a peach silk shirt, and finely manicured hands urged.
    “Maureen knew she should back away from the door but the stranger’s movements were hypnotizing. His hand, which resembled the calloused palm of a man engaged in trade, not the smooth, pampered hands belonging to a gentleman, eased apart my lady’s bodice. His eyes lingered on the heaving swell of her breasts — ”
    Olivia couldn’t contain herself. “Not heaving breasts!” she exclaimed with a wry laugh. “Anything but those!”
    The woman named Laurel blushed furiously and dropped her paper onto the table in front of her.
    “If you’d like to share your opinion, it’d be a mite easier if you joined their group instead of hollerin’ across the counter. It’s this kind of behavior that makes folks think you’re an odd duck,” a high-pitched voice emanating from Olivia’s left scolded. “Good morning, Captain,” the woman greeted the poodle warmly. “Your usual, sir?”
    Haviland issued a polite bark and parted his mouth in order to smile at the familiar speaker.
    “Good morning, Dixie.” Olivia folded her paper in half and smoothed out the wrinkles. “And for your information, people think I’m odd because I’m rich and single and perfectly content. All three of those factors are a rarity here in Oyster Bay.” Olivia lowered her empty coffee cup from the counter so the vertically challenged diner proprietor could fill it with her famously strong brew.
    At a total height of four feet seven inches tall, including the two inches provided by a pair of roller skates and an inch of comb-teased, sun-streaked brown hair, Dixie Weaver had the body of a kindergartener. She was not as young or as well proportioned as a five-year-old however, being that she was a dwarf.
    “Dwarf” was the term Dixie preferred, and the residents of their coastal town had learned long ago never to refer to her as a “little person.”
    “I’m of short stature,” she had told Olivia soon after Olivia had moved back to town and had struck up an immediate friendship with the feisty, roller-skating diner owner. “I’m not little. ‘Little’ implies young or innocent. Like a cute puppy or a baby bird. I’m a middle-aged waitress with a litter of children and a permanent tan. I smoke and do shots of tequila and I’m not cute. ‘Sides, I haven’t been innocent since the eighth grade. And do you have any idea how much I hate havin’ to wear clothes from Walmart’s kid’s department? I can’t exactly pull off sexy wearin’ Strawberry Shortcake, now can I?”
    Today, Dixie was garbed in denim overalls, a green-and-white-striped T-shirt, and rainbow leg warmers. Her hair was meticulously feathered as though she were a diminutive version of Farrah Fawcett and her large, ale brown eyes were amplified by a layer of frosty baby blue shadow that spanned the entire area of skin from upper lid to brow.
    “Someone’s in my booth,” Olivia complained to Dixie, gesturing at the table in the corner of the room. Most of the Oyster Bay residents knew better than to plant their buttocks on the red vinyl cushions of that booth between eight and eight thirty A.M. That was when Olivia frequently showed up at Grumpy’s to claim a booth. She’d then spend the better part of the morning there, eating, sipping coffee, and writing.
    It was the only booth not surrounded by Andrew Lloyd Webber paraphernalia as it butted against the diner’s front window. Dixie, who practically worshipped the king of musicals, had filled her establishment with posters, masks, and themed-decorations celebrating the composer’s work. It was an adoration Olivia did not share with her closest friend, and she preferred the street view to being seated beneath a pair of Dixie’s used roller skates and a poster of Starlight Express illuminated by strings of pink Christmas lights.
    “You sound like one of the three bears.” Dixie lowered her voice to a squeaky growl. “Somebody’s been eatin’ in my booth and they’re still there!”
    The current occupants were not locals. They hadn’t been seated for long either, as they had only been served beverages. Olivia was surprised to see four college-aged boys awake, dressed, and functioning so early in the day. Normally, they’d be slumbering with their mouths open on the floor of a six-bedroom vacation home surrounded by empty beer bottles, brimming