One Dead Cookie

by Virginia Lowell

  “I’m virtually positive.” Maddie shivered. “It was burned on his skin, wasn’t it? Olivia thought it might be a charcoal drawing.”

  “No, the image was definitely burned on,” Del said. “Have you sold a gavel-shaped cookie cutter recently, or ever?”

  Olivia shook her head. “Clarisse’s collection includes a whole set of legal-themed cutters, but I haven’t had a reason to use them. In fact, I’ve never taken them out of storage. So far there hasn’t been much demand for events with a legal theme.” She suppressed a nervous giggle as she envisioned a cookie party to welcome an ex-con home from prison.

  Del flipped his notebook shut. “That’s enough for now. I may have more questions once I hear what the medical examiner has to say.”

  “You know where to find us,” Olivia said. “We’ll be the ones with confectioners’ sugar in our hair.”

  With a faint smile, Del said, “I’ll allow you to keep baking, and I promise not to eat the inventory.” He gave Olivia’s cheek a light stroke with his fingertips before reaching for his uniform hat. “You two get some sleep. I recommend you keep the store closed tomorrow. Lie low, try not to answer the phone. I don’t want everyone in town pumping you for information.”

  Maddie and Olivia exchanged quick glances. They both knew that nothing could protect them from the intense curiosity of Chatterley Heights residents.

  * * *

  It was four a.m. when Olivia rinsed out Mr. Coffee’s carafe and Maddie tried to find space in the already-stuffed dishwasher for the cups and plates they’d used while Del questioned them about their grim discovery. The color had returned to Maddie’s cheeks, but she had been uncharacteristically quiet since Del left. Olivia hoped it was only exhaustion.

  “I’m beat,” Olivia said. “What if we grab a few hours of sleep before we tackle the baking again?” Before Maddie could respond, the phone rang. “Leave it,” Olivia said. “We can listen for a message.”

  Maddie glanced at the caller ID, and said, “Oh jeez, it’s Lucas. I was supposed to call him about three hours ago. He must be worried sick.” She grabbed the receiver. “Lucas! I’m so sorry I forgot to call, but…” Maddie’s eye widened as she listened to him for a few minutes. “Well, all I can say is, I’m impressed. Even I would be hard pressed to learn all that information in”—she glanced up at the clock—“in less than an hour. Especially in the middle of the night.” Maddie listened a moment, shaking her head. “I’m fine, honey, really. A little shook up, that’s all. You get some sleep. I’m staying here. And no, we are not postponing our engagement party. Livie and I plan to catch a nap and then start baking again. Neither sleet nor snow nor…whatever the rest is. I’ll call you at a decent hour. Love you.”

  “Did Lucas already find out about Trevor’s murder?” Olivia asked as Maddie hung up.

  “Yep.”

  “But how?”

  “Well, it started with Polly, who was working really late at the food shelf because she was trying to find a safe place for a homeless family with a bunch of children to spend the night. After they left, Polly went upstairs to her little office to do some paperwork. She heard sirens, so she looked out her office window, which gives her a view of Pete’s Diner. She saw a light on in the diner and figured Ida was doing some personal cooking. Pete lets her do that because she doesn’t have a kitchen in her rented room, though she’s allowed to heat things up in the landlady’s kitchen. Anyway, Polly called Ida, who got her binoculars and went outside. She saw all the lights on in The Gingerbread House, then the crime-scene van arrived.” Maddie paused for breath.

  “So, how did Lucas find out?” Olivia asked, fascinated in spite of herself. “I have a hard time believing that Ida would think to call him.”

  “Patience, Livie. The gossip vine is a tangled web. And now is not the time for a lecture on messed metaphors.”

  “Mixed metaphors.”

  “Whatever. Anyway, Polly has a new boyfriend, did you know that? I just found out a few days ago. He’s working as a night janitor at the Chatterley Café. They stay open really late, you know, and the cooks arrive at five a.m., so they need cleanup during the night. Polly called her boyfriend’s cell. He was just about to leave the café, so he locked up and walked down Park Street until he could see The Gingerbread House. He watched the body get carried off the porch. He knew it wasn’t one of us because he saw us on the porch with Del. Although he did wonder if one of us had killed someone, like maybe an intruder.”

  Olivia was starting to feel dizzy. “So I ask again, how did Lucas find out?”

  “Easy,” Maddie said with a grin. “Polly called him. Well, actually, she wondered if maybe I’d killed Lucas. He said Polly sounded a bit disappointed when he answered his own phone.”

  “Hold on, Maddie. Lucas hasn’t used that many words as long as I’ve known him. How did he remember all that detail?”

  Maddie laughed. “Here’s what Lucas said: Polly called him and said she’d talked to Ida, who called her boyfriend, who said something about a body. Period. I filled in the detail. And I’ll bet you a dozen cookies it’s all accurate. Wow! I feel energized! I need to bake. You go take a nap, Livie.”

  “Good idea.” Olivia had been tired before Maddie’s recitation. Now she was ready to drop. “We’ll keep the store closed, at least until afternoon. I’ll put a sign on the front door before I go upstairs. We’ll need to notify Bertha and Jennifer, too.”

  “I’ll do that,” Maddie said. “Bertha gets up at five thirty to take a long walk, so I’ll call her then. Jennifer turns off her phone at night because she has trouble sleeping. That means I can leave her a message without disturbing her.”

  “How do you know these things?”

  “Well, Livie, it’s very simple. I didn’t waste ten years living in Baltimore and avoiding my neighbors.”

  “I’ll ignore that,” Olivia said. “See you in a couple hours.”

  “Oh, Livie, make it three hours at least. I’m fired up enough to do the work of a team of bakers.”

  Olivia pretended she hadn’t heard. Maddie was already humming along to her earbuds as Olivia closed the kitchen door.

  Spunky’s head popped up when Olivia flipped on the light for the sales floor. “Hey, Spunks, time for bed.” She searched the shelf under the cash register and found a blank sheet of paper, a pen, and a small Scotch tape dispenser. Spunky jumped down from his favorite chair and trotted over to her. “You’ve been a patient little boy,” Olivia said as she scrawled a quick message on the sheet of paper. Aiming for indefinite and uninformative, she wrote, Closed for Inventory. The sign would fool no one.

  Spunky trotted beside Olivia into the foyer. He waited at the door leading up to Olivia’s apartment while she unlocked the front door. Her heart began to pound as soon as she cracked the door open. “It’s all over,” she whispered. Her heart wasn’t convinced. She took a deep breath, then another before wedging her arm through the opening to tape the note on the outside. Okay, that felt a little silly, but I don’t care.

  Olivia led Spunky upstairs, comforting herself with the knowledge that, by daylight, everyone within a fifty-mile radius would have heard about the body on The Gingerbread House porch. Maybe then she wouldn’t feel so alone.

  Chapter Eleven

  At twelve minutes past eight, Olivia opened the kitchen door of The Gingerbread House to a blast of sensory overload. The aroma alone nearly knocked her off her feet. The dominant fragrance was lavender, but Olivia thought she smelled lemon, rose, and a hint of tuna fish.

  Maddie’s hair, a mass of fluffy red springs dotted with flour and confectioners’ sugar, resembled a powdered wig. She sang along with the Dixie Cups as she danced around the worktable with a pastry bag full of electric purple royal icing. Olivia noticed several flower girl cookies with electric purple hair. Either Maddie had overdosed on coffee, or she’d cracked from stress. Possibly both.

  Maddie waved with her pastry bag and sang, “So did you sleep well?” as if it were “Goin�
� to the chapel,” a line from “Chapel of Love.” When Olivia didn’t so much as smile, Maddie stopped dancing and pulled out her earbuds. “Are you okay?” she asked.

  “I’m just wondering the same thing about you,” Olivia said. “How did you do all this baking? Why do I smell lavender, lemon, and rose? Did you have tuna salad for breakfast, and is there any left?”

  Maddie sniffed the air and wrinkled her nose. “Sorry about the tuna. It’s all I could find for breakfast, and I’m afraid I devoured all of it.” Maddie capped her pastry bag to keep the icing fresh. “About the other, more pleasing aromas…Livie, I realize I’ve taken over creating the special cookies for my wedding gift, but you know how it is. I get carried away. Ideas pop into my mind, and I can’t resist trying them out. I thought about Trevor and that rose-covered chapel cookie he held on the palm of his hand. That memory upset me at first, but then I thought, ‘Hey, instead of plain lemon, why not use lemon and rose together for the cookie cake?’ I tried that combination, but it tasted awful, so I dumped the lemon altogether and went with rosewater and vanilla bakery emulsion. I know it’s been done before, but I’ve been varying the flavoring measurements to try for a somewhat rosier effect. I thought we could sprinkle rose-colored sparkling sugar on the cookies and use rose-flavored icing to hold them together in a pyramid.”

  To be honest, Olivia felt considerable relief that the project was progressing so much faster than she’d feared it would.

  Maddie’s eyes lit up like green sparklers. “And my best idea of all, my pièce de…de…don’t tell me. My pièce de persistence!” Noting the pained expression on Olivia’s face, Maddie said, “Blew it again, huh?”

  “It’s pièce de résistance, but I like your version, I really do. And I’m sure the Académie française would agree, after a glass of wine or two. So elaborate on your idea for me.”

  “Okay, this isn’t entirely new, either,” Maddie said, “but what is? We’ll ‘sprinkle’ organic rose petals on the cookie cake and hold them in place with little dabs of icing. What could say ‘wedding’ more lusciously than red and pink rose petals? Plus, it will sort of match my hair.”

  Olivia had to admit it all sounded beautiful and delicious…and labor intensive. “It’s a great idea,” she said. “How would we get the rose petals in time for Saturday? I don’t think Bon Vivant uses them, do they?”

  “No, but don’t worry. Problem already solved.” Maddie uncapped her pastry bag. As she added decorative loops to a wedding cake cookie with the last of her electric purple icing, she said, “I know a little online company based on a farm outside Clarksville. I emailed them. Someone was already up and on their computer, checking orders. They promised to have dried organic rose petals in our hands by tomorrow morning. We’ll have the cookie cake ready by then.”

  “Sometimes I wonder if I’m really needed here,” Olivia said.

  “Don’t be silly,” Maddie said as she mixed pale daffodil yellow gel coloring into a small bowl of icing. “You’re the one with the money. Also, you can add and subtract.”

  Olivia dumped old coffee grounds and rinsed out the Mr. Coffee carafe. “I smell a lot of lavender in here,” she said. “You didn’t increase the lavender in the other experimental recipe, did you? I may not have mentioned this before, but lavender is not my favorite flavor.” Seeing Maddie’s worried expression, Olivia added, “Though I love the color and, of course, the stunning gown Aunt Sadie made for you, in which you look gorgeous.”

  “Nice save,” Maddie said with a grin. “To put your mind at rest, I got a bit too rambunctious with the dancing, and I spilled half a bottle of lavender oil. Think of it as cleaning solution.”

  “Believe me, I do.”

  “Here, try one of these.” Maddie handed Olivia a bright yellow and purple daisy.

  Olivia sniffed the cookie. The lemon fragrance was stronger than the lavender. Good sign. She took a small bite. “Nice,” she said. “Very yummy. It’s even better than our experimental lavender recipe. What did you change?”

  “I used lemon bakery emulsion instead of extract. It didn’t change the texture of the dough, but the lemon flavor is stronger and sort of mellows out the lavender better. I agree with you, a little lavender goes a long way.”

  “So did you get any sleep at all?” Olivia asked.

  “Nope. I hit a slight energy dip, so I sneaked into Lucas’s house for a shower and a change of clothes. Only please don’t tell Aunt Sadie that I keep some clothes at his house. She never married, you know.”

  “Maddie, I hate to shatter your innocent image of Aunt Sadie, but I’m quite certain she wouldn’t die of shock. According to my mom, Aunt Sadie was quite the popular young woman. Mom said she broke off at least two engagements.” Olivia had to laugh when she saw Maddie’s stunned expression.

  “How come she didn’t tell me?”

  “You were her little girl,” Olivia said. “Mom never shared a word with me about her scandalous past. I was nearly eighteen when I found an album with pictures of mom and dad dressed in hippie clothes. That was the first I’d heard about them living together in a commune. Of course, now she won’t shut up about it. There are some things we don’t need to know about our parents, at least not too soon or in too much detail.”

  “I see what you mean,” Maddie said.

  Olivia poured cream into two fresh cups of coffee. “Did you mute the phone? I thought it would be ringing nonstop.”

  “It was.” Maddie filled a clean pastry bag with daffodil yellow icing and gave a flower girl a head of perfectly reasonable blond hair. “I figured no one should be calling the store phone in the middle of the night, so it wouldn’t matter. My cell was going crazy, too, so I turned it off.”

  “I guess we should turn the wretched things back on,” Olivia said. She began with the kitchen phone, which began to ring immediately. Olivia checked the caller ID. “It’s Bertha.” She picked up the receiver, and said, “Sorry, Bertha, have you been trying to reach us for long?”

  “Oh my, no, Livie. I knew you’d be trying to get some sleep. Goodness, what a night you two had! Are you both okay? Do you need me to cover the store today? I know how to handle gossips. They won’t get through me.”

  “That’s sweet of you, Bertha, but we decided to stay closed for a while, maybe all day. Frankly, we need the time to bake. What are people saying?”

  “Well, Mr. Willard and I had an early breakfast at Pete’s Diner, and you wouldn’t believe…Ida figured you and Maddie must have killed an intruder trying to rob the store. Then Polly came in and said she’d heard it was that handsome actor who died, the one who came to The Gingerbread House. Only don’t you tell me anything, Livie. It’s best I don’t know. I’d get too flustered trying to remember what to keep to myself.”

  “That’s wise, Bertha. If anyone asks, just say Maddie and I are unharmed, neither of us is under any suspicion, nothing was stolen from the store, and the police will release more information when they are good and ready.”

  “I can do that, Livie. Honestly, some people are so…Oh dear.”

  “What’s wrong, Bertha?” Olivia exchanged a worried glance with Maddie, who held her pastry bag suspended above a daffodil-shaped cookie.

  “Well, Mr. Willard bought me a sweet little laptop for my birthday so we could email each other, and I just got a message from Polly. She wrote to a whole list of folks. She says that a friend of hers heard that Sheriff Del has arrested Wade Harald for murder! Oh, that can’t be right. Poor Wade does have a bit of a drinking problem, but I can’t believe—”

  Olivia’s breath caught in her throat. “Bertha, what does the email say? Is Stacey okay?”

  “Stacey Harald? Oh yes, I should think so. Polly says Wade killed Trevor Lane. But, dear me, whatever for?”

  * * *

  Olivia had been trying for forty minutes to reach either Stacey Harald or Del. She’d left several messages to no avail. The police department’s answering machine directed her to 911 for an emergency. Olivia gave
up, at least for the moment.

  Maddie interrupted her cookie-icing project and settled at Livie’s desk with the laptop. Her fingers danced across the keyboard while Olivia checked her cell in case she had missed a message.

  “Livie, come look at this,” Maddie said.

  Olivia peered over Maddie’s shoulder at the laptop screen. “Tell me you aren’t checking Binnie’s excuse for a blog. What use is that?”

  “Binnie doesn’t mention anything about a cookie cutter in her post about Trevor Lane’s murder,” Maddie said. “All she says is the body was found on the porch of The Gingerbread House. Oh, and the police probably suspect us but haven’t yet collected enough evidence to charge one or both of us. Binnie is certainly predictable,” Maddie said. “She takes a kernel of information and builds an outrageous story around it. If I can figure out where she started…” Squinting at the screen, Maddie scrolled through an array of photos taken by Ned, Binnie’s niece and the photographer for The Weekly Chatter. Ned rarely opened her mouth, but her photographs spoke for her. The last photograph in the series practically shouted. It was a photo of Olivia holding a wriggling Spunky and staring open mouthed into the darkness. “Binnie must have used these photos to fabricate her story,” Maddie said. She returned to the first one.

  Olivia pulled over a kitchen chair, so she could see the screen more clearly. “That’s a night shot,” she said. “It’s the inside of the band shell. How on earth did Ned do that without being seen?”

  “Knowing Ned, she made herself invisible,” Maddie said. “She must have taken this before you arrived at the band shell last evening. Those three men standing inside look like Trevor Lane, Dougie Adair, and Howie Upton.”

  “See over there, near the left edge of the band-shell entrance?” Olivia touched the screen. “That looks to me like the toe of a work boot. And up above, that’s a hand. See the finger pointing toward the three men? When Spunky and I were in the park, walking toward the band shell, we heard a man’s angry voice. The man came stalking out and stared at me as if he were trying to figure out who I was. Of course, Spunky was yapping in his own unique way, so that would have been a clue. I recognized him; it was Wade Harald. I meant to call Stacey, but…”