Struts eyed the box, decorated with a fanciful gingerbread house on top and colorfully sketched gingerbread men and women tumbling down the sides. “What’s the catch? I don’t have a first-born, not likely to produce one, so it can’t be that. Are you trying to find out my real name?”
“Already know it,” Olivia said with a smug grin. “It’s Angelika. Mom told me.”
“That snitch.”
“It’s a lovely name.”
“I hate it. Do I look like an Angelika?”
Olivia studied Struts’s grease-streaked T-shirt and frayed jeans, along with the combat boots planted on top of her desk, and was inclined to agree with her. However, the hair that escaped from Struts’s ponytail and fell around her face was a rich, dark blond, with streaks of auburn and no emerging gray roots. Struts was somewhere in her mid-forties, taller than average, with the lean-legged figure of a long-distance runner.
“Actually,” Olivia said, “you look like an Angelika dressed like a Struts, but I get your point. Still, the nickname fits. Mind telling me how you got it?”
“Ellie didn’t spill that, too? What the heck.” Struts shrugged a slender yet well-muscled shoulder. “I grew up on a farm. We had this ornery old tractor with which I had a special relationship. I was the only one who could fix it. This embarrassed my six brothers, who gave me the name Struts and tried to pass me off as a foundling.”
Olivia imagined growing up with six Jasons and cringed. “Must have been rough.”
“Nah, I loved knowing my brothers were jealous of what I could do. I’ve got this intuitive gift with machinery. Your brother calls me the Engine Whisperer.” Struts slid her feet to the floor and lifted the lid off Olivia’s offering of cookies. “Whoa, these look stunning.” She selected an old-fashioned steam engine candy-striped in fuchsia and soft pink. “Do I have to share?”
“Up to you.”
Struts sank back in her chair, closed her eyes, and moaned softly as she chewed off the smoke stack. Having polished off the entire choo-choo, she reached for a purple Model T Ford. “Always wanted a Tin Lizzie.” As the hood headed for her mouth, she said, “So Livie, what do I owe you in return?”
“You heard about the break-in last night in Charlene Critch’s store? And that I saw the intruder run away?”
Struts nodded as she nibbled on the Model T’s wheels.
“Between you and me, I need an unobtrusive look at Charlie Critch from the back.” When Struts’s dark hazel eyes opened wide, Olivia added, “I think Charlie is younger than the guy I saw, but Sheriff Del wants me to be sure.”
Struts gulped her mocha and licked a few sprinkles off her upper lip. “Then we’ll use some of these cookies as bait. I sure hope Charlie isn’t the guy you saw. I like him. Nice kid, good feel for engines. Jason is working this shift, too, so we’ll have to include him. Man, that boy can eat.”
“No kidding,” Olivia said. “You might want to rescue a couple cookies for later.”
“Had that thought myself.” Struts grabbed a violet-and-yellow baby carriage and an electric orange bicycle with red sprinkles. She wrapped them in what looked like a clean rag and stowed them in her desk drawer. “Better eat them soon,” she said. “We’ve got mice. I’ll call the boys in here.”
“Before you do that, what do you know about Charlie and his sister?”
Sweeping errant strands of hair behind one ear, Struts said, “Not a lot of personal chatter goes on here, at least not when I’m around. But I’ve picked up a thing or two. I know Charlie worships that sister of his, god knows why. If he’s the one who messed up Charlene’s store, I’ll eat a seatbelt. Still, there’s something going on with him. He and his sister come from money, you know. Lots of it. Charlie told me once that both their parents are dead. Not a word about what they were like or how they died, just ‘They’re dead.’ Period. Jason might know more. He and Charlie are tight.”
“My mom mentioned Charlie’s father was a plastic surgeon.”
“Yeah, I knew that,” Struts said. “When they lived here in town, Charles Critch Sr. used to drive every day to his clinic in some DC suburb. Made quite a bundle, or so I heard. That’s why I said Charlie has some sort of problem; his father set up a trust fund for both kids. I know because I dated one of the managers at the Chatterley Heights bank, and he told me in the strictest confidence.”
Struts slid her hand under The Gingerbread House box lid and snagged another cookie. It turned out to be a modern car shape with electric green icing and a squished front end. The word “Valiant” was painted across the front in leaf green lettering. “Pure artistry,” Struts said. “It deserves to be saved.” She slipped it into her desk drawer.
Olivia asked, “You mentioned a trust fund and some problem with Charlie?”
“Oh yeah, sorry. Not like me to get distracted, but your cookies . . . Anyway, my guy who worked at the bank, he dumped me, so he deserves to have his confidence betrayed. He told me Charles Critch Sr. set up this trust fund for both Charlene and Charlie. They each get a monthly stipend, a generous one, and then each inherits a big chunk of the fund at the age of twenty-five. That’s why Charlene opened that silly store; she just turned twenty-five. Charlie is twenty, so he’s got a while to wait, but I pay well. Also, he gets that monthly stipend, which I could retire on. So you’d think he’d be living well, have a nice apartment, all that. But he lives in one room, and the last two pay periods he asked me for an advance.”
“If Charlie was used to having lots of money,” Olivia said, “maybe he has trouble staying within his allowance.”
“Maybe.” Struts shrugged. “Lord knows credit card debt is a pit a lot of folks have slid down into, yours truly included.” She pushed aside an untidy collection of papers to reveal a hairbrush. While she repaired her ponytail, Struts said, “When Charlie started working here, about four months ago, he’d show up in nice clothes, then change into his work clothes in the gents. Now he wears the same clothes over and over. They keep getting dingier. I think he only washes them on his days off. Hey, I don’t care, I consider grease a badge of honor. But you gotta wonder.” Struts splayed her strong hands on the desk. They were immaculate. “This work does a number on my nails, though. I have them done once a week,” she said, frowning down at her left hand. She whipped a diamond nail file out of her desk drawer and smoothed a tiny jagged spot on her thumbnail.
“Do you know anything about Charlene?” Olivia asked.
Struts shrugged. “She’s got her admirers.”
“I gather you’re not one of them?”
Struts snorted. “Your mom insists Charlene was shy in high school, but she reminds me of those in-crowd girls. Not fond of that type myself.”
“Me neither,” Olivia said, “though Mom keeps reminding me that as an adult I should suspend judgment.”
“Too tiring,” Struts said.
“Any idea how Charles Sr. died?”
“Sure do.” Struts’s lips curved in a half smile of malicious glee. “Charles had his wife Patty served with divorce papers while he went on an early honeymoon with his twenty-five-year-old nurse and second-wife-to-be.” Strut’s smile broadened. “As I heard the story, poor Charles didn’t last the night. Too much excitement. He had a heart attack and died in some fancy hotel in Vegas.”
“Interesting,” Olivia said. “So then how did Charlene’s mom die?”
Struts sighed. “That’s a sad story. I knew Patty from way back when she dated my oldest brother, before Charles swept her off her little size-five, triple-A feet. She should have married my brother, maybe she wouldn’t have morphed into a skinny witch. Anyway, after Charlie Sr. left her and then up and died, Patty inherited everything except the trust for Charlene and Charlie. So Charles Sr. got his comeuppance and Patty got it all. But was she happy?”
“I’m guessing not?”
“And you’d be right,” Struts said. “Patty went into a tailspin and let go of the steering wheel. She started drinking, decided she was too fat—at maybe ninety pounds—so she got herself hooked on diet pills and then sleeping pills. Plus she still drank her meals. She died less than a year after Charles Sr. Nobody talks about exactly how she died, but I think we can guess.”