Connie Cobbler

by James DeSalvo

  "Well, that was a very difficult day. I'm sorry. Do you know how she got hold of picture of all of the Pals with Gramma Tart? Those were only given to friends and family."

  "No, I don't. What does this have to do with Mary? Can't we please call the police now?" he begged.

  I put the picture next to the first photograph. I looked at Tiffany. I looked at Mary. It was impossible.

  The eyes. They both had the same eyes.

  It hit me. 'My grandmother fights better than you.' Everything started to make sense.

  Mary and Tiffany Tart were the same toy.

  "A.J.," I said, "I've got some bad news."

  Chapter Twenty

  It was a while before anyone spoke in the cabin. I could hear rain hitting the windowpanes and A.J.'s boots thumping on the floor as he paced back and forth.

  "I can't believe this, Connie," he cried.

  "Me neither," added Debbie. "Connie, you and I watched Tiffany fall from the bridge. We were at her funeral."

  "Look at the facts. Tiffany's body was never recovered and you thought you saw something crawl out of the river and into the woods, Debbie," I said. "I don't want to believe it either, but I go where the clues take me."

  A.J. stopped pacing and stomped a foot to the floor. "A few hours ago you said the clues led you to Debbie. You thought she was out to kill you. Now you believe my wife is a killer. Make up your mind!" He stared at me as if I were the guilty one.

  "I know this is hard, but look at the clues. I found the bomb wire in your house. How do you explain that?"

  "It might have been left over from my military days," he shouted.

  "I found her disguise, I found a roll of thin wire which was used at the Gumdrop Bridge when Tiffany fell in, and we all found her cell phone in the pocket of a coat worn by a toy who just hung the two of you from the bridge. Do the math. You're an accountant," I shouted back.

  A tense silence filled the room.

  "Where do we find her?" A.J. asked.

  I thought for a minute. I looked down at the Pastry Pals photo. Gramma Tart's eyes smiled back at mine.

  "I know just the place," I said.

  It was dark in Gramma Tart's room. The sun had just set and the toys of Dwindling Pines had just gone to bed. All except Gramma Tart.

  Gramma had been right about Tiffany visiting her in the night. All I had to do was just to be patient. Tiffany would come.

  Slowly the door creaked open. I saw Tiffany's shadow on the floor. She closed the door behind her and crept to the shape of Gramma Tart in her wheelchair.

  "It's dark in here, Gramma," whispered Tiffany. "Let me turn on a light."

  "I like it in the dark. It's quiet."

  "Okay." Tiffany knelt next to the wheelchair and spoke softly. "Gramma, I have to go away for a little while."

  "Oh, dear me. Why?"

  "Well, I have some business to take care of. Something has come up. I'll be back to see you as soon as possible. Oh, don't cry! It'll be alright."

  "At least give your Gramma Tart a hug."

  Tiffany leaned in for a hug. I reached out from my seat in the wheelchair and slapped a pair of handcuffs on her.

  Tiffany's eyes widened in panic. "What's going on? Gramma, what are you doing?"

  The lights went on. Tiffany stared at me. I sat in Gramma Tart's wheelchair with a grey wig on my head and Tiffany's voice changer in front of my mouth. "I'm doing what's best for you, dear," I said, still speaking like Gramma Tart. I dropped the voice changer to the ground.

  Tiffany turned to flee out the door. She was blocked by Captain Cuddles, Sergeant Rook, and A.J. I blocked her exit to the window.

  "I...I give up," she said in defeat. Her eyes met A.J.'s eyes. "I'm sorry," she whispered to him.

  "How could you? I trusted you," he whispered back. I could tell he was trying to hold back the tears.

  Tiffany looked around the room. "Where's my grandmother?" she asked. "What did you do with her?"

  "She's safe. She's in another room," said Captain Cuddles. He took hold of Tiffany's arm and guided her out of the room. Sergeant Rook followed. I was left alone with A.J. He looked at me with pain in his eyes.

  "Why?" was all he could ask.

  I took hold of his arm and walked him outside. Tiffany was already being driven away to the police station for questioning. "Let's go find out," I said as I led him to my car.

  When A.J. and I arrived, Tiffany was already being questioned by Captain Cuddles. She had said she didn't want her lawyer. She just wanted to confess her crimes. I wish most suspects cracked this easily.

  I found Sergeant Rook and asked if A.J. and I could listen in on the interrogation.

  "I can't let you, Miss Cobbler. It could cost me my job," he explained. I already knew that, but I thought that it never hurt to ask.

  "I want to see Mary," A.J. said to Sergeant Rook. "I want to see her now!"

  "Uh, sir, I know you're upset, but please calm down. I'll check on how things are going," Rook said. He gave me a look of help. I smiled at him and mouthed a thank you. Rook walked towards the interrogation room.

  A.J. turned to me. "It's got to be a misunderstanding, that's all. It can't be true." I couldn't wrap my mind around what A.J. was going through. It must have been tough to find out the person you loved for years was really another toy.

  It was hard for me, too. Of course I was sad for A.J., but I also found it difficult to believe that a friend I thought had died because of me was alive.

  On the other hand, she also wanted me dead. Why? Did she blame me for the fall?

  "Cobbler, I want you to come with me," I heard Captain Cuddles bark. I was so lost in my thoughts I never heard him come up.

  "What about me, Captain?" said A.J. as he stood up.

  "Sorry, A.J.," Cuddles said, "but she said she only wants to talk to Connie now."

  "Did...did she say anything?" asked A.J.

  "I can't say too much. She did confess to giving Foo-foo the poisoned biscuit and kidnapping both you and Miss Danish," answered Cuddles.

  "Why?"

  "That's what she won't tell us. She said she'd only tell Connie."

  A.J. sat down defeatedly. He took my hand. "Tell her I still care about her."

  I couldn't resist the look in his eyes. I had never seen A.J. so vulnerable before. "Sure."

  "This way, Cobbler," Captain Cuddles said as he walked me to the same interrogation room where Foo-foo bought it. "I shouldn't even be doing this, not after what happened with you in there yesterday morning, but I'm under orders to get her to explain what happened. Don't mess it up."

  The only thing I could say was, "Let me in there."

  Cuddles unlocked the room. I walked in by myself and sat across from Tiffany. She smelled like custard. She could tell that I noticed.

  "I never could get that smell out after my tumble into the river," she said.

  "What do you want, Mar...Tiffany?" I asked.

  "I want you out of my life forever. Since I can't have that, I'll settle for letting you know the reasons why."

  I looked her in the eyes. They were still the same. "Okay, tell me."

  She laughed. "Oh, I'm sure you figured out some of that when you spoke to my grandmother. It was jealousy mostly. You had what I didn't. You had the good singing voice, you had pretty hair, you had it all."

  "Come on. You were talented. You could sing and dance."

  "But I wasn't in front. It was always Connie Cobbler and the Pastry Pals. It was never Tiffany Tart and the Pastry Pals. You were in my way."

  "So all the times I thought you were just being shy..."

  "Were just times I was planning ways to get rid of you. But you ruined even that."

  I sat there stunned. I had always thought of Tiffany as my friend, even after she fell from the bridge. I carried around the guilt of her fall for a long time. I felt the rage building. "How...how could you?" was all I could get out.

  "It was really very easy," she said. "Don't you understand? You w
ere the one who was supposed to fall off the bridge that day."

  Tiffany told me how she had bribed Foo-foo to loosen the bolts on the Gumdrop Bridge. She attached the wire to herself so when we both fell, she would be able to get back to shore. Her plan backfired when she slipped from my fingers and fell first. She hid out at her family cabin in the Gingerbread Forest, the same one where A.J., Debbie, and I rested.

  "You managed to escape. You always were a quick one," she said.

  "But I saw the fear in your eyes."

  "I always was a better actress than you," she chuckled.

  "Then why did you hold on so tightly?" I asked.

  "I wanted to make sure you fell in with me. Then I was going to hold you under until you couldn't swim. I was hoping the current would carry you out to sea."

  "You wanted to get rid of all of us?"

  "No, Cobbler. Only you. That's why I had to make sure the others went first. They were talented, but I could have really shined if you had been out of the picture."

  I had million questions I wanted to ask her. "Why did you change your appearance?"

  "Too much hot custard can burn. I simply had my face fixed. Lots of dolls do that nowadays." She yawned. "I'm finished with you, Cobbler. Tell Captain Cuddles I'll tell him the rest."

  I stood up to leave, thinking for one brief moment that she might fall over like Foo-foo.

  No such luck.

  "I'll give A.J. your best," I said.

  "Don't you say a word to him," she hissed. "I'm sorry he ever had to get involved in all of this. I never wanted to hurt him. It's all your fault."

  "My fault? How is it my fault?"

  She smiled. "If you had just fallen in the river like a good toy, none of this would ever have happened."

  I left.

  Chapter Twenty One

  I sat in Captain Cuddles' office a few hours later. We were still trying to piece together the whole case.

  "Why did she want you dead?" asked Cuddles.

  "Jealousy, I guess. She wanted to be the star of the show. If it were up to me, she could have had it."

  Cuddles wrote down what I said on a sheet of paper. "You're not going to write down everything I say, are you?"

  "It's procedure, Cobbler. You're a witness to most of this. I have what Tiffany Tart said and I need your information to finish these reports," he said pointing to a pile of papers on his desk. "At this rate I'll be here until next week."

  "Alright, you tell me something," I said. "Tell me what it says in that report about why she poisoned Foo-foo.

  Cuddles flipped through a few pages then stopped. "It says here that she met Foo-foo a month before the bridge collapsed at some fan club meeting. I guess he was a big Tiffany Tart fan. Anyway, she eventually paid him to loosen the bolts on the bridge. Maybe he didn't trust her to go through with her plan because he recorded the entire bridge collapse and Tiffany's swan dive without her knowledge. Later he used the recording to blackmail her for money."

  "That dog needed to learn a new trick."

  "What I don't get is how she made it back to the shore," said Cuddles.

  "That part's easy. She tied some strong, thin wire to her back and the other end to a tree. She thought she was going to do me in, but she failed. She fell in and pulled herself to shore a little ways downstream. In all of the chaos of the bridge collapse, no one noticed her get out of the Custard River. No one except Debbie Danish."

  "That reminds me. She called earlier. She wants to interview us later. I told her it was okay."

  I stood up to leave. "It may be okay with you, but I've had it for today. I'm going home to get some rest."

  "You're just going to leave another mess in my office again, aren't you, Cobbler!!" he growled.

  "Have a good night, Captain," I said as I walked out of his office.

  I looked for A.J. at the police station before I left, but Sergeant Rook told me that he was finally allowed in to see Tiffany. I felt sorry for A.J. Mary had been his whole life. He had changed for her, gave up adventure for her and loved her. Now he was left with Tiffany instead. I promised myself I was going to be there for him and help him out.

  That's what friends do.

  I checked my messages when I got home. I was so tired I really didn't want to, but old habits die hard. Mostly I had calls from news reporters wanting an interview. I had a singing message from Priscilla Pie and Tracy Tart.

  "We're sorry, we were wrong; let’s all sing the Forgiveness Song..."

  I deleted it.

  I was about to delete the rest of the messages when I heard A.J.'s voice.

  "Connie, it's A.J. I'm sorry I missed you down at the station. Um, Captain Cuddles said that since Mary...sorry, Tiffany confessed to everything that she'll probably go right to jail. I'm going to go away for awhile, too. I'm going around the world and try to figure out what happened. I'll put one of my employees in charge of the company until I come back. Don't worry, I'll send you a postcard. That's a promise. You're a good friend, Connie. Bye."

  "You're a good friend, too," I said as I hung up the phone.

  I slept well that night.