Christmas Cookie Murder #6

by Meier, Leslie

  “I don’t know. I was pretty impressed with her. She was the life of the party, until the party…”

  “Died a watery death?”

  “It needed to be put out of its misery, believe me.”

  Lucy watched as Sue put an arm around one of the little boys and began gently stroking his stomach.

  “Take it easy, Will,” she coaxed. “Just relax.”

  Will’s narrow chest, however, continued to rise and fall rapidly under his OshKosh overalls.

  “Is that Steffie’s Will?” Lucy asked, putting two and two together.

  “Yup. This is my friend, Will, and this is Harry,” said Sue. “Boys, this is Mrs. Stone.”

  “Glad to meet you,” said Lucy, reaching across the table and shaking their hands. Harry smiled brightly at her, but Will, intent on his struggle to breathe, only gave her a glance.

  Sue pulled an inhaler out of her pocket and he obediently took a puff, and then another.

  Lucy glanced at Will, raised her eyebrows, then shifted her gaze to Sue. “You know it was Steffie who brought the MADD pamphlets. I got rid of them as soon as I heard about Tim, but Franny must have saved one. I know her intentions were good, but Andrea didn’t see it that way.”

  “That woman”—Sue tipped her head toward Will—“must be a fanatic. Why would you bring something like that to a party? I mean, you could very well have served wine. That would’ve put the kibosh on things.”

  “It really threw me when she showed up with the darn things. I didn’t know what to do.”

  “I don’t know what else you could have done, under the circumstances.” Sue pushed a little red car along in the sand, following the road Harry was making with his toy bulldozer. “And to tell the truth, I feel badly for Andrea, but Tim’s gotta learn, too. This isn’t the first time he’s been driving drunk; it’s just the first time he got caught.”

  Lucy nodded thoughtfully, watching Will. He looked as if he could use another puff on the inhaler, but she knew it was too soon. Elizabeth had asthma, and Lucy had often helped her manage an attack.

  “Lee didn’t help matters much, either,” said Lucy. “You were right about her. All she can talk about is how badly Steve’s behaving. And what was that about Tucker stealing her cookie recipe?” Lucy looked puzzled. “I didn’t understand that at all.”

  Sue snorted. “She isn’t worried about her cookie recipe, believe me. She’s afraid Tucker is stealing her husband.” Sue paused, and put a comforting arm around Will’s shoulder. The little boy’s eyes looked huge under his bangs. “Steve’s been dating Tucker. She told me all about it last night.”

  “Ohhh,” said Lucy, “now it makes sense.” She reached across the table and gently pinched Will’s chin, but he didn’t look at her. He was entirely focused on his struggle to breathe and was beginning to panic. “I don’t like the look of this,” said Lucy. “I think he needs a nebulizer.”

  Sue nodded. “Can you stay here, until I get back?”

  “No problem.” Lucy noticed Will’s eyes were beginning to roll up into his head. “You better hurry. Get your coat.” She picked up Will and carried him over to the cubby area, where the coats were kept, and began zipping him into his jacket.

  Sue grabbed her coat and yanked open a desk drawer, pulling out Will’s emergency file. She took out a card and tucked the manila folder under her arm.

  “Notify his folks, okay?” she told Lucy, handing her the card. “They can meet me at the emergency room.” Then she scooped up the little boy and hurried off.

  Lucy took a quick head count on the remaining kids. Harry, she saw, had gone to join the little boy who was playing with blocks. Two of the girls had moved into the toy kitchen, and Hillary Cummings was piling stuffed toys into a doll carriage. Everything seemed under control, so she sat down at Sue’s desk to phone Steffie.

  Looking at the number printed on the card, Lucy hesitated and let her fingers play with the numbered buttons on the keypad. After last night, she didn’t really want to talk to Steffie. Her conscience took over, however, before she could decide if her reluctance was due to anger with Steffie or embarrassment over the leak, and she punched in the number.

  Listening to the phone ring, she thought about the frail little boy Steffie seemed to have such high hopes for. Finally, the phone was answered; it turned out to be a bank in the next town, Gilead, and she was connected to Steffie.

  “Of course. You couldn’t call my husband,” sighed Steffie, when Lucy explained the situation.

  “I didn’t think of that,” said Lucy, remembering the police station was just around the corner. She flipped over the card. “Actually, yours is the only number we have.”

  “I can’t believe this,” fumed Steffie. “As it happens, I’m in a very important meeting, and I can’t leave right now. I’m sure Will’s in good hands at the cottage hospital.”

  “Do you want me to try your husband?” asked Lucy, somewhat stunned. She couldn’t imagine reacting as Steffie had, but then, she hadn’t tried to juggle a demanding career with motherhood.

  “Never mind,” snapped Steffie. “I’ll get there as soon as I can, but I’m at least ten miles away.”

  Well, thought Lucy, replacing the receiver, at least Will is with Sue and she won’t leave until his mother shows up.

  Realizing it might be a while before Sue returned, Lucy went around the room, chatting with each of the children. She suspected they might be concerned about Sue’s sudden departure, and she wanted to introduce herself and let them know that she would be taking care of them. Then she spotted a tray with a pitcher and a plate of cookies, and realized it was well past snack time.

  As soon as she placed the tray on the table, the children came running and jostled for seats.

  “Wow, you guys must be hungry,” said Lucy, pouring cups of apple juice for them. “There’s plenty for everyone.”

  She sat down with them and played a name game. The first child said his name, Justin, and the second child had to say Justin’s name and add hers, Hillary. The third child, Emily, had to say the other names in order: Justin, Hillary, Emily.

  Lucy was last, and she pretended to have a terrible time remembering all the names. The kids thought she was hilarious, and had a rollicking good time laughing at a stupid grown-up. Finally, when everyone had finished their snack, she recited the names in proper order and sent the kids over to the cubbies to put on their jackets so they could all go out for some fresh air. While they did that, she cleared up the snack things and gave the table a quick wipe.

  By the time she joined them, the kids had done a pretty good job with their coats. She knelt down and helped them with zippers and buttons, and made sure they had their mittens on. Then she slipped into her own coat and led the little line over to the door. She was just about to open it, when Officer Barney Culpepper’s face appeared in the glass window.

  “Hi, Officer Culpepper,” she said, opening the door. “What can we do for you today?” She assumed he was there for one of the many safety programs he presented at local schools—maybe bike safety, or stranger danger. So did the kids, who clustered around him, demanding to see his walkie-talkie. But today Officer Culpepper wasn’t smiling, his St. Bernard jowls were drooping and he looked very grim.

  “Go on outside, children. It’s playtime,” said Lucy. “Officer Culpepper will be back another day.”

  “What’s the matter?” asked Lucy, fearing that his wife, Marge, had taken a turn for the worse.

  “Where’s Sue?” Barney looked through the doorway. “I need to talk to her.”

  “At the hospital. Will Scott had an asthma attack. Can I help you?”

  “Maybe.” Barney took off his blue cap and scratched his brush cut. “I probably shouldn’t tell you but, heck, it’s gonna be all over town soon enough, anyway.” He held the cap in his hands and shifted his weight from one foot to the other. Finally, he spoke. “Tucker Whitney was killed this morning. A neighbor noticed her front door was open and called 911. The res
ponding officer found her dead, inside the house.”

  Lucy collapsed against the doorframe, feeling as if she’d been punched in the stomach. “I can’t believe it. I just saw her last night.”

  “It’s terrible.” Barney shook his head.

  Lucy’s mind was in a whirl, trying to understand how a healthy young girl like Tucker could be dead. “Was it an accident?”

  “Doesn’t look like it. They’re not saying anything until the medical examiner is through, but it sure looks like murder.”

  “How?” Lucy asked in a small voice.

  “She was strangled. At least that’s what they think.”

  “Oh my God.” Lucy closed her eyes and leaned against the doorjamb. Then, hearing a shriek from the play yard, she was reminded of her responsibilities.

  “Justin, Matthew—one at a time on the slide, please,” she said, struggling to keep her voice level.

  She looked up at Barney, blinking back tears. “I just can’t believe it. Who would do such a thing?”

  Barney shook his head sadly. “It’s early, still. I don’t know if they have any suspects, yet. I came to see if she had an address book or anything like that here—they didn’t find anything at her place.”

  “I don’t know. I think she used the desk by the window. You can look around.”

  “Thanks, Lucy. I’ll be out of your way in a minute.”

  “No problem.”

  Shoving her hands in her pockets, Lucy strolled out to the play area. It wasn’t too cold, maybe thirty-five degrees, and it was bright and sunny, but Lucy felt chilled to the bone. The kids didn’t seem to mind the cold one bit. The boys were scrambling up the ladder and shrieking as they went down the slide, a couple of the girls were bouncing on plastic horses fastened to sturdy springs. Two others were going up and down on the seesaw. It all seemed so normal. A typical day at the day-care center. Maybe it was, she thought, finding comfort in denial. Maybe she’d imagined the whole thing. Barney hadn’t come, and Tucker was still alive.

  “Thanks, Lucy,” came Barney’s voice, from over the fence. She turned and saw him, tipping his hat at her. “I’ll be on my way now.”

  She lifted her hand to wave and a dark wave of grief overwhelmed her, like clouds rolling in and blotting out the sun. She sat down on a bench and watched the children play, but they seemed very far away, and their voices were muffled. It was only when she heard the steeple bell at the community church tolling the noon hour that she realized it was time to go inside for lunch. Otherwise, she didn’t know how long she might have sat there.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  To the children, the bells meant it was lunchtime. Shrieking, they ran for the door and tumbled inside.

  But to Lucy, they sounded like funeral bells, tolling the years of a life that was far too brief. Distracted, she went through the motions automatically, helping the children hang up their coats in the cubbies and telling them to wash their hands. Used to the routine, they were soon sitting at the table, waiting for Lucy to get their lunches out of the refrigerator and bring them to the table.

  They thought it was hysterical when she gave Justin’s blue lunch box to Harry; everyone knew Harry had a Power Ranger lunch box. Their laughter roused Lucy, and she reluctantly returned to the here and now, letting go of Tucker’s death for the time being.

  “Are you sure the Power Ranger lunch box is Harry’s?” she teased, peeking inside. “I see Oreos—I think it must be mine.”

  All the children laughed, except Harry, who appeared a bit anxious.

  “Oops, I forgot,” said Lucy, slapping her hand to her head. “I didn’t bring any lunch today. This must be Harry’s!”

  With a big sigh of relief Harry took the box and opened it up. Like the other children he began arranging the contents on the table in front of him.

  Lucy went into the kitchen to get the milk and grabbed a few graham crackers for herself. After she poured the milk she sat with the children, nibbling on the crackers. She noticed that they all followed the same pattern: first they ate their cookies and fruit, after a lively trading session in which one fruit roll-up went for a box of raisins and two Vienna fingers, then they took a bite or two out of their sandwiches and discarded the rest.

  Lucy was tidying the table, sighing over the waste, when Sue returned without Will.

  “They wanted to keep him for a while, to make sure he isn’t coming down with something, and I was afraid I’d never get away,” complained Sue, “but his mother finally showed up. She had to cancel ‘two very important meetings, mind you.’” Sue was a good mimic, and copied Steffie’s officious tone perfectly. Lucy almost smiled.

  “Hey, what’s the matter?” prompted Sue. “You look as if something awful’s happened.”

  “Barney came by with some bad news,” began Lucy, wishing there was some way to soften what she had to say. “Tucker’s dead.”

  “What?” Sue didn’t believe what she heard.

  “It’s true. She was found dead this morning. A neighbor noticed the front door was open and called the police. Barney came here looking for an address book, so they can notify her family.”

  “Was it an accident?” Sue was struggling to understand.

  Lucy shook her head. “They think she was strangled,” she said, her voice breaking.

  “Oh my God.” Sue collapsed on a little chair, her long, elegant legs splayed out at an awkward angle.

  Noticing the increase in the volume of the children’s voices, Lucy turned her attention to them. Two of the girls were fighting over the bride’s veil in the dress-up corner and Justin and Matthew were crashing toy wooden cars into each other.

  “Okay, quiet down,” she said, rising to her feet and giving Sue’s hand a little pat. “It’s time for a story.”

  Back in the familiar groove of their daily routine, the children gathered on the rug in the corner and sat cross-legged. Lucy settled herself in the rocking chair and opened the first book that came to hand. Afterward, she couldn’t have said what book it was, but it held the kids’ attention. Then, knowing the drill, they unrolled their mats and settled down for quiet time. Lucy popped a cassette of soothing music into the tape recorder and went back to Sue.

  “Can I get you some tea? Something to eat?”

  Sue didn’t respond, so Lucy put two mugs of water in the microwave to heat and raided the graham-cracker box once again. Hearing the ding, she dropped tea bags into the mugs.

  “Drink this,” she urged Sue.

  Sue took the mug with shaking hands. “I just can’t believe this. I was with her yesterday.”

  “I know.” Lucy sipped her tea. “You know what I was thinking last night, when I was talking to Tucker? I was thinking how wonderful it would be to be young again and have my whole life ahead of me.”

  Sue shook her head. “It’s not fair. She loved life—she had so much enthusiasm. Once I asked her if she didn’t get depressed sometimes, and you know what she said? She said she woke up every morning convinced that the day held something wonderful for her, and it was up to her to find that beautiful thing. It might be a smile from one of the kids, or a postcard from a friend, or a kitten…” Sue’s face crumpled as she dissolved into tears.

  Lucy wrapped an arm around Sue’s shoulder and let her cry, grateful they were hidden from the children’s view by a bookcase. Raffi’s gentle voice drifted across the room. Finally, Sue’s shoulders stopped heaving, and she wiped her eyes with a tissue.

  “I’m sorry, Lucy. I don’t know what’s the matter with me. It must be the shock.”

  “You don’t need to apologize. You have a right to grieve.” Lucy wondered who else would be grieving for Tucker and remembered Barney’s visit. “You know, Barney was looking for an address book but I don’t think he found anything.”

  “She had a bright pink agenda—you know, calendar, address book, your whole life wrapped up with a Velcro flap.” Sue sniffled and reached for another tissue.

  “How big was it?” asked Lucy, going
over to Tucker’s desk. The top was bare except for a plant, a small pink mitten, and a picture of a smiling middle-aged couple. Lucy picked it up for a closer look. Tucker had inherited her coloring from her mother, but her smile came from her dad.

  “About like this.” Sue described a ten-inch square with her hands. “It was chunky, a couple of inches thick.”

  “It wouldn’t fit in a pocket?” Lucy replaced the picture and slid the center drawer open. It was empty, except for a clutter of pens and pencils in the tray designed for them. Pulling open the top drawer on the side, Lucy noticed Sue had joined her.

  “No, it was pretty big.” Sue peered in the drawer. “She’d only been here a few months. She didn’t have time to accumulate much.”

  The drawer held only a bottle of Advil and a spare pair of panty hose.

  “What brought her here?” asked Lucy, pulling open the middle drawer and lifting out a sweater.

  “She’d finished two years of college and wanted a break. Her folks said OK, as long as she did something useful. I almost fainted when she walked in one day, answering the help-wanted ad. I never expected to get anyone with her qualifications, not for what we pay. But she said she didn’t need much money, she was living in her parents’ summer house on the coast road.”

  Lucy raised an eyebrow. Smith Heights Road overlooked the cove and was lined with enormous, gray-shingled “cottages” belonging to wealthy old-line families who summered in Tinker’s Cove but lived in New York, Washington, or Philadelphia. Among them were a cabinet secretary, a prominent pediatrician whose name had become a household word, and the celebrated talk-show hostess, Norah Hemmings. Others were CEOs or lawyers or investment bankers.

  In the bottom drawer Lucy found a well-worn pair of loafers, a handful of college catalogs, and a guide to hiking trails.

  Sue picked up one of the catalogs and fanned the pages. “She was thinking of changing her major—she wanted to concentrate in early childhood education. I warned her it was a bad career move—low-paying, not respected—but she said she didn’t care. She said she loved working with kids.” Sue closed her eyes and took a deep, quavery breath. “She said she’d never been happier.”