One Dead Cookie

by Virginia Lowell

  “If she didn’t say much, why would you remember her?” Olivia asked.

  “Like I said, she was cute. Also, Kevin was being sort of a jerk, so I felt bad for her. I never saw her again after that.”

  “What did she look like then?”

  “She was a blonde,” Jason said, “and she had a good figure. Kind of quiet, like I said.”

  “Did Kevin and Jennifer break up? Is that why you never saw her again?” Olivia found herself more and more curious about her reserved clerk with so much cookie cutter expertise.

  Jason shrugged. “Maybe, I don’t know.”

  “Kevin didn’t tell you?”

  “Well, I sort of never spoke to Kevin again.”

  “Why not?” Olivia felt uneasy about pushing Jason. He seemed uncomfortable, and she wondered if more had happened that evening than he wanted to reveal.

  When Jason didn’t respond, Ellie said, “That was a difficult time for your brother, Livie.”

  “It’s okay, Mom.” Jason hunched over the table and stared at his intertwined fingers. “I was a little out of control back then. That night the four of us sneaked off after the game. Kevin and I were supposed to go back on the bus with the team. Instead, we got hold of a bottle of vodka and—”

  “How did you—?”

  “It doesn’t matter, okay, Livie? We got some, that’s all. We drank until the bottle was empty, and then my girlfriend drove us home. And, yeah, I know we shouldn’t have been on the road, but my girlfriend only had a couple sips. She was on a diet or something. Jennie passed out, though. We carried her to her house and sort of propped her up on the porch. Then we rang the doorbell and ran, so we wouldn’t get caught. We all got home safe, only Kevin got really sick, so his parents figured out what had happened, and we got into trouble. The coach kicked Kevin and me off the team. Kevin blamed me because…well, it doesn’t matter.”

  Ellie squeezed Jason’s forearm and said, “Don’t leave Livie thinking you or Charlene provided the alcohol, dear.”

  Jason heaved a long sigh. “Yeah, okay, it was Jennie who brought the bottle. She stole it from her mother. She said there was plenty more and her mom wouldn’t notice. Kevin lied to his parents and said I brought it, but I told Mom the truth, and she told Kevin’s mom.”

  “Mom? She believed you, and not her own son?” Olivia asked.

  “I’m afraid so, dear. Some mothers are able to see their children clearly, yet still love them.”

  “Anyway,” Jason said, “Kevin and I stopped speaking to each other, and I never saw or heard about Jennie until I recognized her in the store.”

  “Did she recognize you?” Olivia asked.

  “She didn’t seem to,” Jason said with a shake of his head. You know, there is one reason I remember Jennie, besides how cute she was. She said she didn’t have a dad, and her mom was…I think she said her mom was on drugs. I remember thinking I was luckier than Jennie. I didn’t have a dad anymore, but I had a mom who cared enough to notice my existence at least.”

  “Thank you, dear,” Ellie said. “I think.”

  Jason snickered, and the mood lightened. “Hey, that took a lot of energy,” he said. “Some key lime pie might help me get my strength back.”

  Olivia shoved the pie pan toward him. “Thanks for telling me all that, Jason. I think it explains a lot.” She could understand Jennifer’s reticence, given her tough childhood. “Do you happen to remember how old Jennie was?”

  Jason opened a mouth filled with pie, and said, “Nope, but she seemed about our age. Anyway, she wasn’t a kid.”

  “Don’t talk with your mouth full, Jason.” There was a touch of pride in Ellie’s stern voice.

  * * *

  Excited and exhausted, Olivia slumped on a kitchen chair in her childhood kitchen to watch her mother slide a sheet of round cutout cookies into the oven. She and Ellie had spent nearly three hours experimenting with recipes for decorated cookies to serve at Maddie’s engagement party. After they’d finished mixing the batches, they’d begun to roll and cut the dough. Soon they would be able to taste the results.

  “Mom, how can you keep standing on your feet for so long?” Olivia asked. “I mean, aside from the fact that you are practically weightless.”

  “Tai chi,” Ellie said as she set the oven timer. “And calisthenics, of course. I’m afraid my weightlessness is pure myth. I gained a pound over the winter, after I worked so hard last summer to get back to ninety-nine pounds.”

  “A pound, wow. You must need a whole new wardrobe after packing all that weight on your little body.”

  “Livie, dear, sarcasm is not your most attractive quality. When one is four foot eleven, an extra pound can be quite cumbersome.”

  “Uh-huh.” Olivia stretched her arms over her head. She’d developed a kink in her back from working at the kitchen’s low counters, designed for her mother’s diminutive stature.

  “How about a glass of lemonade while we wait for the cookies to bake?” Ellie opened a cupboard and selected two tall glasses.

  “How about a glass of wine instead?”

  Ellie hesitated only a moment before exchanging the tumblers for two wine glasses, which she brought to the table, along with the merlot from dinner. “For medicinal purposes,” Ellie said. “Today I ran in the morning, followed by a kung fu class at noon, and then I tap-danced until the league meeting. Between you and me, I’m a bit achy. In a good way, of course.”

  “Of course.” Olivia divided the remaining wine between their glasses. “Mom, can I ask you something? It’s about what Jason told me earlier. I’ll understand if you’d rather not say anything. I’m asking because Jennifer does work for The Gingerbread House now, and I need to know if I can trust her.”

  “And you are curious, as well,” Ellie said. “You were always so curious, even as a tiny—”

  “The timer for the cookies is going off in three minutes, Mom.”

  “Have I mentioned how impatient you’ve always been?”

  “Not since yesterday.”

  “I’ll wait a bit, then. Now you asked about Jennie….” Ellie took a slow sip of her merlot. “I really don’t know much about her. I tried to investigate a bit after Jason’s experience, but information was hard to come by.”

  “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you say that before,” Olivia said.

  “No one is perfect,” Ellie said. “You know, it’s odd how little contact we here in Chatterley Heights have with a town that’s only ten miles down the road. I suppose it’s because our two school systems draw children from different areas. Twiterton has become something of a bedroom community for DC, so the families tend to be wealthier. They are attracted to more urban sorts of leisure activities, I imagine. I do know a few of the women who live there, but you must have met many more than I have. I’m sure they come to The Gingerbread House. There’s nothing else like it anywhere nearby.”

  “I get lots of business from Twiterton, but they don’t stick around to chat,” Olivia said.

  “I suppose not. Well, I never did learn a great deal about Jennie. I don’t remember her last name, but it wasn’t Elsworth. She might be married now.”

  “I guess she could be using a married name,” Olivia said, “though she didn’t mention a husband. Or a divorce.”

  “After the episode Jason described to you,” Ellie said, “we mostly talked about Charlene, his girlfriend. Jennie’s name came up only in passing. Jason did mention that Jennie said she’d lost another family member. A sibling, I think.” Ellie started as the timer dinged. She peeked into the oven, and said, “Done to perfection. They smell delicious.” She put the cookie sheet on a cooling rack and slid another batch into the oven.

  “So on top of having a mom on drugs and no dad, Jennifer lost a sibling. No wonder she doesn’t discuss her past,” Olivia said as she lifted the cookies off the sheet with a spatula and slid them onto another cooling rack. “You know, Mom, it would be easier and quicker to cool the cookies if you’d line your cookie sh
eets with parchment paper, plus you wouldn’t have to scrub the sheets so hard to clean them.”

  “So you keep telling me, Livie, but I can’t help thinking what a waste of resources that would be.”

  “Mom, we’re talking about art here. Decorated cookies are worth a few wasted resources.” The cookies needed to cool a few minutes before they were ready for tasting. This first batch contained lavender oil and a scattering of lavender buds. They looked gorgeous, but beauty was only half the battle. If they weren’t melt-in-the-mouth delicious, it was back to the recipe board for Olivia. With only three days left before the party, Olivia was feeling the pressure. At least she had a starting place. It was the second batch she was really worried about, since she had no idea what finely ground lemon verbena tasted like. She’d added a touch of lemon extract to the recipe, but not too much. Her worry was that lemon cutout cookies were so common. For Maddie’s engagement party, they would have to be special.

  Olivia reunited with her glass of merlot. “I wonder if Elsworth is just a name Jennifer made up or if she really was—or still is—married. And why wouldn’t she be open about her ties to this area? Jennifer told Maddie that she moved away from Twiterton as a child, but Jason met her as a teenager. If she was a junior in high school, she would have been sixteen or seventeen.”

  “You won’t let up on that poor girl, will you?”

  “Mom, aren’t you the least bit curious about why Jennifer returned to this area and won’t reveal who she really is?”

  “Well, maybe she wanted to come home but isn’t ready to deal with the sadness in her past,” Ellie said. “Either way, I think we should respect her privacy.” When the timer dinged, Ellie hopped up to put another batch of cookies in the oven. “I’m out of cookie sheets. I’ll clean one while you wield the cutter.”

  Olivia rolled the lavender dough one last time and cut as many cookies as she could, using her mother’s biscuit cutter. After the cookies went into the oven, she sacrificed the last remnants of the lavender batch. As she rolled and cut a first batch of lemon verbena cookie shapes, Olivia asked herself why she was so curious about her new clerk. She had no complaints about Jennifer’s work. She was respectful, attentive to the customers, knowledgeable about cutters and virtually everything else in the store…and yet so secretive. That bothered Olivia. Why would Jennifer return to this particular area of Maryland, secure a job near, yet not in, her hometown, and keep her identity under wraps? Why had Jennifer lied about the age at which she’d left Twiterton? And why, out of all the possibilities in Chatterley Heights, had she sought a job at The Gingerbread House? Olivia felt her skin prickle with foreboding. She couldn’t help worrying that her little store was about to become the epicenter of a category four hurricane.

  Chapter Five

  On Wednesday morning, with only three days left before Maddie and Lucas’s engagement party, Olivia tried to quell her panic as she gazed out the window of Pete’s Diner and watched the early morning sun awaken the town square. Her table afforded a view of the statue of Frederick P. Chatterley, accidental founder of Chatterley Heights, and his ever-patient horse. She wondered what it said about Frederick P. that, after two hundred and fifty years of trying, he still hadn’t managed to mount his steed.

  “You gonna drink that coffee or just smell it?” Ida, Pete’s senior waitress in more ways than one, raised thin, gray eyebrows at the full cup of cold coffee Olivia held in both hands. “Must be nice having time to waste. Some of us have to work.” Ida had spent fifty of her sixty working years as a cook, waitress, and manager at Pete’s Diner. She usually wore an old uniform and a hairnet, and she treated all customers with equal disdain. No one ever complained. At least not more than once.

  “What? Oh, Ida, you startled me.” Olivia spilled a few drops of coffee, which she dabbed with her napkin. “I was just enjoying the sunrise and feeling glad that spring is here.”

  “Spring will be gone before you get that cup emptied,” Ida said. “Here, let me do that. Lord knows I’ve got experience.” She pulled a damp rag from one of her uniform pockets and mopped the table clean. “Hand over the cup, I’ll get you some fresh coffee. When’s your mother getting here?”

  Olivia’s watch read 6:52 a.m. “In about eight minutes, give or take.”

  “Good.” Ida said. “Ellie’ll liven up the place. I suppose you want me to drag over more chairs, like I’ve got nothing else to do. How many?”

  Olivia counted on her fingers as she listed. “Mom, Allan, and Jason, that’s three. Mr. Willard and Bertha make five. But not Maddie. She’s opening the store. And Del, of course.” Sheriff Del Jenkins and Olivia were, as The Weekly Chatter had often described them until recently, an item. For both of them, free time was hard to come by, so they invited each other to informal gatherings whenever possible.

  “Forget about seeing your boyfriend,” Ida said. She poked an escaped lock of iron gray hair back under her hairnet, which she wore while cooking. When she switched to waitressing, she never bothered to remove it. “Don’t tell me you didn’t hear what happened? I swear, all those years living in Baltimore drove the small town right out of you.”

  Olivia felt her face and hands chill as the blood retreated to her thudding heart. “What happened? Is Del…is he okay?”

  To Olivia’s surprise, Ida laughed. “Well, he ain’t a crime statistic. Not yet, anyway. Though the more he hangs around you—”

  “What happened?” Olivia was too worried to keep the impatience out of her voice.

  “Okay, keep your bobby socks on,” Ida said. “The sheriff is just fine. Can’t say the same for that bank teller fellow, what’s-his-name. You know, the one who’s got a pretty cousin working over at Lady Chatterley’s?”

  “Lola? But I thought her connection to the Chatterley Heights National Bank was through her husband. He’s a vice president.”

  Ida sighed and rolled her eyes heavenward, creasing her forehead with wrinkles. “How do you think Lola’s cousin got his teller job and then got promoted to head teller so fast? Anyway, every morning he gets to the bank early to count all the money or something, and then he lets the other tellers in when they arrive. Only this morning, someone was waiting for him.” Ida deepened her voice for dramatic effect. “Soon as he unlocked the front door, somebody knocked him senseless and dragged him inside. That’s all I know.” With a shrug of her thin shoulders, Ida scraped a chair across the floor and shoved it under Olivia’s table. “Get the rest of the story out of that boyfriend of yours,” Ida said, “and then tell me. You owe me.”

  “This must have just happened,” Olivia said.

  “Yep,” Ida said. “The sheriff called about ten minutes ago.”

  “So Del told you all those details?”

  “Of course not.” Ida’s tone implied Livie was one pancake short of a stack. “I got my ways.” Shaking her head at the ignorance of youth, Ida headed for another table.

  Feeling rattled, Olivia stared out the diner window and noticed a man and a woman entering the park grounds from the southwest corner of the town square. She couldn’t see the couple clearly, but given the woman’s animated gesticulation, Olivia wondered if she might be her mother, Ellie. If so, the man would be Olivia’s stepfather. Good. Ellie would probably know every last detail about what happened at the bank. Or if she didn’t, she’d know whom to call.

  As the couple cut diagonally through the park, Olivia realized the woman was too tall to be her mother. The woman stepped into the sunlight, and Olivia recognized the shoulder-length sandy hair of her childhood friend, Stacey Harald. Stacey’s ex-husband, Wade, walked alongside, shoulders hunched forward and eyes focused on the grass under his feet. According to Olivia’s watch, it was five minutes to seven, an unusual time for two rancorously divorced individuals to be out for a chilly stroll in the park.

  “Those two have been going at it for days.” Ida plunked a clean cup in front of Olivia and filled it with steaming coffee. She slid the cream and sugar closer, and said, “I kno
w how much you like this stuff. One of these days it’ll catch up with you. You’ll end up round as one of them fancy cookies you’re always making.”

  “Thanks for your concern,” Olivia said. “What did you mean by ‘going at it’? Stacey and Wade, I mean. They haven’t gotten back together, have they?” Olivia watched as Stacey halted, planted her fists on her hips, and appeared to deliver a harsh lecture to Wade’s stiff back.

  “Ha! Not a chance,” Ida said. A half smile dispersed a wave of wrinkles across the left side of her cheek. “Stacey’s too tough for that. She never should have married that drunken hothead, let alone have two kids with him. Lord knows what he’s gotten himself into now. Probably lost his job at the garage again.”

  Olivia tore herself away from the drama unfolding in the park and forced her attention back to her cookie ideas for the engagement party. She’d jotted down the two recipes she and her mother had tried out the night before, one for lavender cookies and the other lemon. Neither was quite right. The lavender cookies were lovely, but to Olivia they’d tasted overwhelmingly…well, lavender. Maybe she should cut down on the lavender and add a bit more lemon or some vanilla to mellow the flavor. She thought about using vanilla royal icing and sprinkling lavender sugar on top, for a sweet hint of flavor. The lemon verbena cookies posed a tougher problem. She and her mother both loved the lemony flavor, but the cookies were an odd greenish color. Maybe if she dyed the cookie dough….

  Olivia was so engrossed in her vision of perfect cookies that she started when the diner door opened. Her petite mother floated in, followed by Olivia’s hearty stepfather. Allan wore a suit and tie as if he were attending a breakfast meeting to discuss business. Her younger brother, Jason, wore his oil-stained work jeans and a light jacket over his T-shirt. He poked his head inside and surveyed the diner as if he needed reassurance before entering. When Ida passed by bearing a tray of cholesterol-laden breakfasts, Jason appeared convinced.