Cookie Dough or Die

by Virginia Lowell

  Their waitress, a tired woman who looked to be in her seventies, appeared at their table and retrieved the empty dessert plate. Without asking, she filled their coffee cups. “You girls want another brownie?” Her eyes strayed to a crumb on Ellie’s chin. “Maybe two?”

  “No, thank you, Ida,” Ellie said. “Olivia is watching her figure.”

  Ida’s gaze shifted to Olivia, looked her up and down, and shrugged.

  After Ida shuffled off to the kitchen, Olivia said, “I gather you two know each other.”

  “My goodness, yes,” Ellie said. “Ida used to babysit me when I was little.”

  “I don’t remember her.”

  “Her husband had a stroke in his forties. She took care of him for decades afterwards until he finally died a few years ago. Right after the funeral, she rented out her house, collected his life insurance, and went on cruises until her money ran out. That’s when she came home and went to work. She’s in my Wild Widows group.”

  “Your what?”

  “Yes, there really is such a group, and I am one of the founding members.”

  “But you married again.”

  “I’m still a widow, I know what it’s like, and you never forget the friends who stand by you when you are no longer part of a couple. Our mission is to demonstrate that life goes on and can even be great again, whether or not we remarry.” Ellie reached across the table and patted Olivia’s hand. “Divorced women could do with a group like ours.”

  “Mother . . .”

  “I’m only saying, it’s a fun group. We asked Clarisse to join several times, but she always refused. Politely, of course. Which brings us back to Clarisse and Jasmine.” Ellie pushed aside her half-drunk coffee and reached for her macramé bag. “You thought I’d gone off on a hopeless tangent, didn’t you? Unfortunately, my timing was off, so I’ll have to talk fast. My papermaking class starts in fifteen minutes. Jasmine was, as you can now see, an extraordinary young woman. She was secretive about her origins, but she had gifts and great charm, when she chose to use them. Clarisse thought she had promise and was delighted when both her sons became friends with her. Rumor has it she dated Hugh Chamberlain, at least for a while. By all accounts, Clarisse was thrilled. So much so, in fact, that when Jasmine began to date Lucas Ashford, Clarisse quashed the relationship. She told Lucas that Jasmine was out of his league and off limits.”

  “I can’t believe—”

  “Believe it,” Ellie said quietly. “Clarisse could be remarkably single-minded when it came to her family. When she decided Jasmine should marry Hugh, Tammy Deacons was, as they say, toast, and she never regained Clarisse’s approval. Even though I suspect Hugh genuinely loves her now. Jasmine and Hugh were off-again, on-again for a long time, until Jasmine packed up and left town. No one knew why. Maybe she simply felt it was time to move on.

  “Anyway, gotta run, sweetie. The store is still closed on Mondays, right? Then here’s an idea: come to the house about eleven on Monday for brunch. I’ll cook all your favorites, and you can talk to Allan about Clarisse and the boys. He still has a fair amount of contact with Hugh and Edward, and he’s quite good at observing people. For a man, that is.”

  Ellie slid off her chair, which was, like all furniture, too big for her tiny frame. She gave Olivia a quick kiss on the cheek and turned to leave. After a couple steps, she stopped with her back to Olivia. She tilted her head to the side, as if she’d thought of something.

  “Mom?”

  Ellie pivoted around. “It’s nothing really,” she said. “I remembered a question I’ve been meaning to ask you. Are Maddie and Lucas seeing each other? If it’s still hush-hush, you don’t have to tell me, but I noticed a few looks between them the other day, when I was in the store, and I’ve been hearing rumors that Maddie . . . well, that she fixed the cookie contest this morning so Lucas would win a private baking lesson with her. So I wondered. . . .”

  “The answers are: yes, they are seeing each other, and no, it isn’t a secret, since they practically shouted it through the entire event this morning. And yes, I’m pretty sure Maddie fixed the contest. We will have a serious chat about that before the next event. Do please spread the word that it will never, ever happen again.”

  “Of course, Livie dear, don’t give it another thought. Most folks seem to have found it more amusing than irritating. This time, anyway.” Ellie’s normally sunny features gathered into a small frown. “Lucas and Maddie,” she said, almost to herself. “That is interesting. I wonder. . . .”

  “What, Mom, what do you wonder?” Remembering her own concerns about the relationship, Olivia felt a ping of anxiety.

  At that moment, the call of a wood thrush announced four o’clock from the restaurant’s Audubon clock. “Now I really will be late,” Ellie said. She raced for the door on her small but well-exercised legs.

  “Mom, wait, what did you mean about the relationship being ‘interesting’? What kind of interesting?”

  “Don’t fuss, Livie,” Ellie called over her shoulder. “We’ll talk Monday morning.” The door snapped shut behind her.

  Chapter Six

  When her cell phone rang, Olivia let it go to voice mail. She was running through what her mother had told her about Jasmine. The mysterious woman certainly had an effect on the Chamberlain family. And what about Lucas? Was he in love with Jasmine, too, and did he hate Clarisse for keeping them apart? Olivia needed to know more for Clarisse’s sake and for Maddie’s. One thing she was sure of, the upcoming lunch at Tammy’s was going to be interesting.

  She was stretched out on her living room sofa with Spunky nestled on her stomach and the Animal Planet channel on mute. At eight o’clock on a Saturday evening, it was the best she could find, and Spunky seemed intrigued by a show about a golden retriever being taught to fetch a beer for his owner. Olivia believed such education should be encouraged.

  The phone went silent for about twenty seconds, then began ringing again. She’d left it, along with her unopened mail, on a small table in the hallway, midway between the front door and the living room entrance. She let it go to voice mail a second time. Almost at once, it began ringing for the third time.

  Olivia felt a twinge of apprehension. Maybe something had happened to her mother . . . or Jason or Allan. Maddie might be stranded somewhere, trying to reach her. She moved Spunky to the sofa and trotted toward the insistent sound. In her haste to answer before the call went to voice mail, she didn’t check her caller ID.

  “Hello?”

  There was a pause at the other end. Then a tentative, “Livie? I’m at the front door, but the doorbell doesn’t seem to work, and you never gave me your new phone number.”

  “Ryan? What are you doing here? I mean, it’s eight o’clock on a Saturday night, why aren’t you in Baltimore?” What she meant was, why wasn’t her ex-husband out with the soon-to-be new Mrs. Dr. Ryan Nathaniel Jeffries? She’d heard at once from friends when, four months after their divorce, Ryan became engaged to a wealthy Baltimore socialite. Not that she cared, but given how hard he’d begged her to stay, he had certainly recovered in record time.

  “Can’t I stop by when I’m passing through?” Ryan’s tone was a familiar blend of cajoling authoritarianism.

  “It’s late, Ryan. I’m tired.”

  “I remember when we used to sit up until two or three, watching old movies.”

  “You sat up. I conked out on the sofa.” Olivia didn’t like her own tone, either. She sounded harsh, resentful, which was, she knew, a reaction to the sadness she still felt. She also knew that Ryan would not give up easily.

  So Olivia decided to tell a small fib. “You really should have called ahead, Ryan. I have plans for this evening.” Falling asleep on the sofa with the TV on could be called a plan, couldn’t it?

  “I thought you were tired. Do you have a big date or something?” He chuckled smugly, as if he’d just said the most preposterous thing in the world.

  Olivia’s sadness evaporated in an instant. She knew
what he was doing. If he could get her to feel defensive, to begin justifying herself, she might weaken enough to let him in. However, now she knew better. Maybe she saw through him more easily now—or he needed something from her. Perhaps he was the desperate one. Otherwise, why show up on her doorstep? She felt a twinge of curiosity but not enough to allow him into her home.

  “That’s why I’m resting up right now, for my big date. Nice of you to drop by, Ryan,” she said. “Next time, give me some warning, at least a week.” With relief, she clicked the little red telephone icon on her cell. She opened the small drawer of the hallway table and slid the phone under a pair of gloves. For good measure, she dropped her mail on top of the gloves and slammed the drawer shut.

  When she returned to the sofa, Spunky was so entranced by the Animal Planet show that his greeting consisted of half a tail wag. “What a good little student you are,” Olivia said as she snuggled up next to him. On the screen, a charming little puggle pranced up to a group of young women stretched out on beach towels. When one of the women knelt to pet him, he stretched his neck over her bent back, caught the string tie of her bikini top in his teeth, and pulled. The young woman screamed and grabbed her top in time to keep it from falling off.

  Olivia switched to the cooking channel. Four pastry chefs were constructing four different gingerbread houses for Halloween. A repeat, but a classic, and preferable to watching a cute pup learn to humiliate young women in public.

  As one of the pastry chefs struggled to salvage a gingerbread house damaged in transit, the phone in Olivia’s kitchen began to ring. She’d never bothered to hook up an answering machine to her home phone, so the blasted thing kept on ringing, finally ending at fifteen. Ryan must have found her number using his iPhone Internet connection.

  Olivia’s temper leaped to code scarlet. She went rigid and counted the silent seconds through grinding teeth. Spunky sensed her mood and whimpered. Fifteen seconds passed, then twenty, twenty-five. Olivia considered relaxing. At thirty-five seconds, the phone rang.

  With a primal growl, Spunky leaped off the sofa and began to yap. Olivia knew she had to answer the phone or listen to her pet go noisily insane. She marched into the kitchen, followed by a frantic dog, and placed her hand on the wall-phone handset. For two full rings, she inhaled deeply to calm herself. She told herself that Ryan would love it if he knew how much he’d upset her. That helped.

  Olivia lifted the handset and answered with a clipped, cold, “Yes?”

  The next few seconds felt like a repetition of Ryan’s earlier call, only this time she could hear a quick intake of breath, even with Spunky yapping. She reached down to stroke his ears to quiet him.

  “Livie?” A moment passed. “Livie, is everything all right?”

  “Oh geez, Del.” Olivia groaned and sank cross-legged onto the kitchen floor. Spunky leaped onto her lap and whimpered.

  “Livie, answer yes or no. Are you in danger? Is someone there with you?”

  “Del, I didn’t expect—”

  “Yes or no.”

  Olivia sucked in a lungful of air, then answered, “No and no, unless you count poor little Spunky. He’s had a bad night. Me, too.”

  “Somehow I guessed,” Del said. “Want to talk about it? I come bearing pizza. Actually, I got the pizza from the café and was heading home when I saw a man leave something on your doorstep. Thought I’d investigate. It’s a huge bouquet of flowers in a glass vase. Must have cost a bundle. I don’t see a card. Any idea who it’s from?”

  “Oh, I most certainly do.”

  “Sounds like you have a story to tell. So how about it? Triple-meat pizza and a sympathetic ear?”

  Olivia glanced at her bare knees sticking out of torn jeans, her grubby tennis shoes with no laces, and knew they didn’t matter, not to Del. If Ryan had caught her dressed so casually, he’d see it as a game point, something he could use to dent her self-assurance. He didn’t quite realize what he was doing, of course. Probably never would. Del might tease her, but that’s all it would be.

  “I’ll come right down and let you in,” she said. “I had triple chocolate for lunch, so the day is a cholesterol disaster anyway. Might as well go for triple meat. I’m assuming one of them is sausage?”

  “Of course.”

  “Excellent. Oh, and I’d be grateful if you’d chuck the flowers in my garbage can, vase and all. Preferably before I get there.”

  “Really? I could save the vase for you.”

  “Only if you want to watch me smash it.”

  “So, this ex-husband of yours seems to have a gift for pushing your buttons.” Del helped himself to a third serving of the salad Olivia had thrown together to create the illusion of healthy eating. She’d opened a bottle of cabernet sauvignon as well, for the same reason.

  “You could say that. The sad part is he’s really not such a bad guy. It’s more that he’s . . .” What was going on with her ex-husband? He had worked so hard and done well in medical school, won a surgical residency at Johns Hopkins, but she’d always felt his equal. It was only after he’d become a thoracic surgeon with a growing reputation that he’d begun to treat her as if she weren’t quite good enough for him.

  “Are you thinking ‘controlling’?” Del offered. “Domineering, maybe? Needs to get over himself?”

  Olivia laughed out loud. It felt good. “No, but thanks. I guess I’d describe Ryan as driven. More and more with each passing year.” Two pizza slices remained in the box, and Olivia picked up the smaller one. A thinning string of mozzarella stretched behind it like the fading tail of a shooting star. “When his hard work started to pay off, it didn’t seem to help him relax. He worked harder than ever, worried more, demanded more—money, respect, obedience from underlings. He got what he wanted, but it seemed to make him into an unhappy person.”

  “I can understand that,” Del said.

  The understated tone of his voice caught Olivia’s attention. He didn’t smile or meet her eyes. She wanted to ask about his marriage, which had ended in divorce many years earlier. After all, hadn’t they discussed her ex-husband? But she hesitated, not certain how to ask the question without sounding intrusive.

  Instead, she refilled his wineglass and said, “The last piece of pizza is yours. Shall I give it a jolt in the microwave?”

  “Are you kidding? I eat it straight out of the fridge.”

  While Del had his mouth full of pizza, Olivia asked, “Have you learned anything new about Clarisse’s death? I still can’t believe she’d be careless, no matter what was bothering her. She was so strong willed and determined.”

  Del took a sip of wine. “This sure isn’t my cheap Chianti.” He took another sip.

  “Well, it isn’t Chianti, but it is cheap.”

  Del put down his glass and leaned back in his chair, hands clasped behind his neck. “I’d have to say that I share your confusion, based on my knowing Clarisse. She went through some mighty tough times and survived better than anyone I’ve ever known. She was one smart lady. The forensics we’ve gotten so far haven’t helped much. The autopsy revealed nothing remarkable. She’d been in good health, no sign of incipient disease. A little arthritis in her knees, but the medical examiner doubts she’d even have felt the effects of it yet.”

  “Clarisse was very active,” Olivia said. “We used to take long walks together around her property and through the woods beyond. I was half her age and an inch taller, but I had to struggle to keep up with her. She never seemed to be short of breath.”

  “There was no indication of dementia, either,” Del said. “It’s clear from the autopsy results that she died from an overdose of sleeping pills and alcohol. Her sons and housekeeper confirmed that Clarisse seemed disturbed about something prior to her death, but she kept the reason to herself.”

  Olivia slowly twirled her half-full wineglass by its stem and watched the contents slosh up the side like tiny red waves. “I can’t tell you how many times I had dinner at Clarisse’s home, with Bertha watching ov
er us. Clarisse would usually have a glass of red wine. It took the entire meal for her to finish it, and sometimes she didn’t. She showed much more enthusiasm for her after-dinner espresso.”

  “Which Bertha confirmed,” Del said. “But remember that the night of her death Clarisse had asked Bertha to bring an entire bottle of red wine, uncorked, to her study. Then she closed the study door and kept it closed until Bertha went upstairs to bed at ten. All of which was, according to Bertha, uncharacteristic. So something was up.”

  A sliver of an idea poked at Olivia’s mind, and she struggled to make it whole. She had seen enough to agree that something was bothering Clarisse and that her behavior had been uncharacteristic. Yet even those closest to her seemed unable to give a reason. Or were unwilling to do so. Either Clarisse was trying to think through and solve a problem by herself, or someone was holding back information.

  “What was Clarisse’s alcohol level?” Olivia asked. “Can you find out that kind of thing after . . .?”

  “Up to a point, but not very accurately,” Del said. “Are you sure you want to talk about this?”

  “Very sure.”

  “Well then, the ME found she’d consumed some alcohol, but there wasn’t a whole bottle’s worth in her system. If she drank the wine over a long period, some of it would have metabolized.”

  Shaking her head, Olivia said, “I cannot imagine Clarisse guzzling down an entire bottle of wine under any circumstances. I doubt she’d have been conscious to even take the pills.”

  “Well, there were high levels of a sleeping pill, eszopicione, in her system,” Del said. “Also, the same drug was found in the wine dregs, both in the empty bottle and her glass. And only Clarisse’s fingerprints found on both. Bertha confirmed that Clarisse had trouble swallowing pills, so she always ground them up and dissolved them in liquid.”

  Olivia closed the lid on the empty pizza box, scrunched it in half, and tried to stuff it in her kitchen wastebasket. It wouldn’t fit. With a hard push, she crammed it farther down.