by K. J. Emrick
“Well, I was thinking,” he said. “At school we had a guest speaker talk about how root cellars are making a comeback across America. He said one of the big uses for them now is for, like, community food pantries. They take in surplus vegetables from local farmers, store the veggies and canned goods through the winter, and distribute them again based on need.”
Cookie blinked at him. “Why, I think that’s a fine idea. I know several people in town who grow gardens for fun and they always have more tomatoes and onions and zucchinis than they know what to do with. If there was a program to redistribute all of that to needy families that would sure help a lot of people.” She looked at him with something like pride, to know that this was the man her granddaughter had chosen to love. “Tell you what, Hamish. Why don’t you and I sit down with this idea before you go back to college, and we can work out the details.”
“Me?” he asked her. “Mrs. Williams, I’m just a college student. I don’t have the business sense that you do.”
She gave Clarissa a wink. “Oh, I think you have more sense in that head of yours than you give yourself credit for. And please. Call me Cookie. That’s what all of my friends call me. Family, too.”
This time his smile returned, and it didn’t go away.
Of course, that would all have to wait until the police decided the cellar wasn’t a crime scene. Plus, Cookie was still very certain that there was something else down there. Whoever had gotten into her bakery, and then down into the cellar, hadn’t gone through all that just to take some pictures that could be sold to the news agencies. Someone knew there was something there, and she had a feeling the answer to that little riddle could be found in the newspaper records Jerry had taken from Rick Santimaw’s computer.
She needed to find some time to do a search. Maybe she should go down to the hardware store tomorrow and see if they had one of those metal detector thingies to search the dirt floor with. She didn’t want to dig holes all over the place on the off chance there was buried treasure down there. What about the stones, too, she wondered. Could one of them be loose enough to hide something behind? The fact was, without knowing where to look she could end up spending days down there and still miss whatever it was that might—or might not—be there.
She was just about to send Cream back up to their apartment so they could start baking for the next day when there was a knock on the front door. Clarissa stuck her head out of the kitchen doorway, looking through the front windows. Then she turned back with an odd look on her face and Cookie knew that her visitor had arrived.
“It’s all right,” she told Clarissa. “The mayor’s here to see me. Why don’t you and Hamish slip out the side door and enjoy the rest of the evening. Here,” she added, taking some money from the petty cash jar. “Get a nice dinner somewhere. Just be home by nine.”
Clarissa accepted the money and gave Cookie a dubious look.
“Okay,” Cookie relented. “Nine-thirty.”
“Thanks Mrs. Williams…” Hamish hesitated, then corrected himself. “I mean, thanks Cookie.” He awkwardly hugged her, just a quick embrace, and then he took Clarissa by the hand and they ducked through the door that led to the stairway and the side door out of the bakery. Cookie waited to make sure it locked behind them, and then she went to let the mayor in.
“Closed up shop already?” Quinn asked with a smile that didn’t do anything to light the shadows under her eyes. The pantsuit Cookie remembered from earlier in the day was rumpled and she had let her hair out of its bun at some point. It lay straight and dark against her shoulders.
“We’re doing quite the business during the centennial,” Cookie said as she closed the door behind Quinn, locked it, and made sure the CLOSED sign was turned the right way. She didn’t want to be interrupted by anyone. Or have anyone try to sneak in to get into the cellar either.
Of course, there was still the upstairs bathroom window.
Quinn sat down in a chair at the closest table. “I’m glad your business is doing so well,” she said in a snotty tone. “You realize you’re only bringing in a crowd because they want to say they ate a donut in the place where Jozebus Merriam was chained up in a chair and left to die.”
“I know,” Cookie said. “It’s not right, but I can’t change what happened. I want to thank you for giving Jerry back his job. He didn’t deserve to be suspended.”
“Does he deserve to be chief?” Quinn asked, raising an eyebrow.
Cookie didn’t even have to think about it. “Yes. He does.”
“I guess we’ll see.” She looked around the bakery, tapping a finger on the table. “I don’t suppose you would have a cup of coffee for me? It has been a very, very long day.”
“I’ll start a fresh pot.”
Cookie went off to the kitchen and set some grounds into a filter, then fit the filter into the pot. She hoped Quinn liked red hazelnut. “So tell me,” she said as she came back from the kitchen. “Did you make it in time for the television interview?”
The mayor lifted both arms and stretched. She was quite an attractive woman, and the pantsuit accentuated her lithe figure. Photogenic, Cookie would say. “I made it on time, but only just barely. I was waiting for Rick Santimaw to meet me at the town hall so we could go over together. He never showed. Now I guess I know why.”
“At the town hall?” Cookie said, keeping her face carefully neutral as she sat down across from Quinn. “Really? I would have thought the town hall would be closed up for the day, what with the centennial going on.”
“The work of government has to continue. Look, Cookie. Let’s not be coy, all right? You’re no good at it, I’m no good at it, and that boyfriend of yours certainly has no talent for it.”
She meant Jerry, of course, but Cookie would argue the point that Jerry didn’t know how to lie convincingly. “What did Jerry say?” she asked.
“Why, he was asking me such simple questions about where I’d been all day.” Her smile took on a hint of ice that frosted the short distance between her and Cookie. “He may be a very fine police officer but his motives were clear as glass. Or, perhaps I’m just smarter than the people he’s used to dealing with.”
Possibly that was true, Cookie thought, but Quinn certainly wasn’t any humbler.
“So let me save you some time,” Quinn said. “No, there was no one else in the Town Hall with me. Yes, I was late getting to the interview with the reporters which could mean I was in the police station, killing Rick. Or, it could simply mean that I was waiting for Rick to meet me, and he never did. Either way, there is no one who can verify where I was while Rick Santimaw was being shot.”
Cookie nodded. “Well, that may be so but it wouldn’t mean anything unless you had some way of getting into the police station.”
Holding their gazes locked together, Quinn reached into the front pocket of her slacks and pulled out a key dangling from an otherwise empty metal ring. “You mean, like with a key to the front door? But then, you knew that, didn’t you? Jerry would have already told you that all of us town council members have keys.”
“Now that you mention it,” Cookie said pleasantly, “I do remember Jerry mentioning something about that.”
“Oh do you? Well how nice.” Quinn leaned over to set her elbows on the table. “So that would give me, what? Opportunity, certainly. Means, of course, because what fool can’t pull a trigger on a gun. However, that still leaves us with just one thing missing, doesn’t it?”
From the kitchen, Cookie heard the glug-glug-glug sound of the coffee pot filling up, but she ignored it. “You’re talking about motive.”
“That’s the one.” She pursed her lips. “Pesky little thing, isn’t it? See, this is the one that should stop you from accusing me of anything. We know I could get into the police station and we know I could have killed Rick, but… why? What would be my reason for doing such a thing? You see, this is why people as smart as myself run things, and people who are… like you, and Jerry, work in service industries. You s
erve other people. I’m sure you do it well. From what I hear you’re an amazing baker. Good for you. But, you won’t ever be the mayor of this town.”
Cookie’s hands were folded tightly together in her lap. She thought if they hadn’t been, the temptation to slap Quinn Fieldberg would be overwhelming. “Are you saying I’m not smart enough to investigate a murder? You do know that I’ve been involved in murder investigations before. Twice.”
“I do know that. I did my research on you, Cookie. You do like to put your nose in where it doesn’t belong, don’t you? Well. You should keep your nose out of this completely. Otherwise, someone might just get it into their heads to cut it off.”
“Are you threatening me?” Cookie asked. “I don’t think I care for your tone.”
Quinn’s smile widened. “Were you ever taught what ‘Mohawk’ translates to? My tribe’s name, I mean. Mohawk. No? It means man-eater. As the story goes, way back in our history a rival tribe named us the man-eaters because of how fierce we were in battle. It was a term of respect. The other tribes feared us, and they stayed away.”
Well, Cookie thought to herself. If it hadn’t sounded like a threat before, it certainly did now.
“But among ourselves,” Quinn continued, “we call our people Kanienkehaka, which means People of the Flint. We are hard, and unyielding, like flint. We are steadfast and true. You do see the difference between the way other people see us, and the way we see ourselves?”
“I do, but as interesting as that is—”
“It’s true in my own life, too.” Now Quinn sat back in the chair, and her face softened, and she dropped her eyes to the center of the table between them. “People see me as this hard, successful woman with no need for an emotional side. No need for a family. No need… for love. It’s true that I’m smarter than most people. I’ve done more with my life than most. That’s what people see. They don’t see the other side of me.”
Now she looked up again, and her eyes were moist with tears. “Rick saw the softer side of me. Rick knew that under the hard shell of the mayor of Widow’s Rest, a woman’s heart was beating. He loved me, and I loved him.”
Cookie didn’t know what to say. Rick Santimaw had been married and divorced twice, but she hadn’t heard anything about him dating another woman. Certainly not the town’s mayor!
Letting that revelation sink in, she got up and went to the kitchen. There she poured out two cups of coffee, one for Quinn and one for herself, and tried to decide what this would mean. Quinn and Rick were dating. On the one hand, that might eliminate her as a suspect because people who loved each other weren’t supposed to shoot each other.
On the other hand, a secret relationship with the town’s chief of police opened up a whole range of possible motives. Jealousy. Rage. Rick could have threatened to make their affair public. He might have told Quinn they couldn’t see each other ever again.
One thing was for sure. Rick had been shot by someone sitting in his chair. Someone he knew, and trusted well enough that he didn’t feel the need to draw his gun. The woman he was dating certainly fit into that scenario.
Thinking back to their conversation together at the Cedar View retirement home this morning, Cookie could remember Quinn getting very upset at the very mention of Hester Merriam killing her husband Jozebus. At the time her reaction had seemed very odd to Cookie, but now she had to wonder if perhaps it was because Quinn had been planning on killing Rick already and the parallels between her shooting him, and Hester killing Jozebus, hit a little too close to home.
She set the second coffee in front of Quinn and then took her seat again, sipping at her own cup. Quinn picked hers up in both hands, blowing at the dark roasted brew inside. Her moment of revelation was over, and she was the beautifully aloof mayor once more. It was almost, Cookie thought to herself, as if Quinn had been putting on a show.
Or perhaps that had been the real thing, and the face she showed the town every day was the real show.
“Mmm,” she said with an inscrutable smirk. “This coffee smells delicious, Cookie. See? You’re a very good baker. You should stick to what you know. Because even if I did kill Rick Santimaw—and I’m not saying I did—you’ll never be able to prove it. I’m just too smart.”
“No one is that smart,” Cookie told her.
Quinn flashed her smile again. “I am. Trust me, Cookie. I am that smart.”
Chapter Eight
The mayor.
But… why?
Cookie had known Quinn for years, but not very well. She had always been on the periphery of the events in Widow’s Rest. For instance, she’d been instrumental in helping her predecessor Belvedere Carson get elected as mayor. She’d been one of his selectmen, proving that a woman could be just as good as a man in positions of responsibility. She’d declined to go on the cruise where Carson’s ex-wife, Jessica, had gotten remarried two months ago, offering instead to stay in town and run things while so many other people from Widow’s Rest went to celebrate the wedding, Cookie included.
She was always there, it seemed, and just out of sight.
After making up the trays of cupcakes and the batches of bread dough to set aside and let rise overnight, Cookie had finally gone up to her apartment and the smaller refrigerator there to take out some cold cuts and cheese slices so she could make herself a sandwich. Some barbecue chips at the side of the plate should have complimented the flavor nicely but Cookie barely tasted her dinner.
The clock on the wall told her it was getting late. Hamish would be bringing Clarissa home soon. She hated the thought of her granddaughter running around town when there was a killer on the loose but whoever had killed the police chief wasn’t targeting random people.
Not whoever, she reminded herself. The mayor. The same woman who had sat in her bakery downstairs and almost dared Cookie to prove she was a killer. Quinn Fieldberg.
Swallowing a bite of sandwich that had gotten caught in her throat Cookie reached for her cellphone across the table and sent off a quick text. Maybe it was just the grandmother in her working overtime but she suddenly really wanted to know that Clarissa was safe.
Hey honey. How’s it going?
She slid her plate away while she waited for a response.
The little ding telling her the answering text had arrived was the nicest sound she’d ever heard.
Having fun Gram. Okay if we stay out to 10?
No, was her immediate thought. She wanted Clarissa home right now. With a deep breath, she allowed herself to remember that Clarissa was nearly a grownup now, and that she was with a boy who had a good head on his shoulders and wouldn’t let anything bad happen to the girl he loved. She had to let Clarissa have a little space to grow up. She was not in danger, Cookie reminded herself. She was safe.
Sure. No later than 10.
Thanks Gram!
There was the little smiley face emoji sign after it. Cookie needed to ask Clarissa how to do that. It looked so cute.
The phone dinged again in her hand, another text message.
Hey, it’s me. Jerry, Cookie noticed. I’m at the front door. Locked.
Oh. Right. Cookie got up from her seat quickly, telling Cream not to go after what was left of her dinner as she rushed down the stairs, closing the apartment door behind her.
Jerry was waiting for her with a smile, holding up a soft briefcase looking thing. A computer case. She unlocked the door and let him in, not bothering to lock up again. Clarissa would be home within the hour and she’d need to get in. Which reminded her.
“Why didn’t you just use your key?” she asked Jerry. “I gave it to you so you could get in whenever you want.”
“Yeah, well.” He kissed her cheek and then swept past to sit down at one of the tables. The same one that Quinn had sat at earlier. “It’s been one of those days. I got promoted, my boss got killed, and we’re still trying to figure out who snuck into the secret cellar beneath your bakery where a skeleton was found chained to a chair.”
“So… you forgot your keys at the office?”
He shrugged. “I forgot my keys at the office. I did, however, remember to bring my laptop with the files of those newspaper editions. I thought we could go through them together. On our date.”
“Heh. I’ve got some things to tell you first. About our mayor.” She started for the kitchen. “Want some coffee? It’s a little cold at this point but I’ll heat it up, if you like. Or I can make some fresh.”
“Actually, maybe we could be a little more grownup?”
“Ah. That sounds nice. I’ve got a bottle of wine right here.”
Jerry had set up the computer on the table and brought up the first of the newspapers by the time she got back with two plastic cups half-filled with sweet red liquid. If she was going to be married soon, she’d have to invest in some real wine glasses. Or did Jerry already have some at his house? They hadn’t really discussed it but there was sort of an unspoken agreement between them that she would be moving in with him once the honeymoon was over. It made sense. They might have done it already but they were trying to keep appearances rather than feed the gossip mill.
Of course, right now there was already enough going on to keep the rumor mill busy.
“Newspapers in the early 1900s were very different than what we’re used to,” Jerry told her. “Look at this. Ads for banks. When was the last time your bank had to advertise in the newspaper to get your money? Lots of stuff in here about the election, too. Taft versus Wilson. Looks like a knock-down drag out sort of fight.”
“What about the fire?”
He took up his wine glass and pointed to the screen. “See for yourself.”
Pulling a chair over next to his, she leaned in, tilting the laptop screen to see it better.
“FIRE!” read the headline.
The image of the newspapers was as clear as the real thing. The pages were yellowed in the picture, and in spots the pages were being held together with tape. The corners were worn. Tears here and there had obscured a word but for the most part, the whole story was there. The article went on to detail how the fire had started in a boarding house and then quickly spread to the nearby buildings, until one entire side of Main Street was a conflagration to rival the fires of Hell.
