Cookie Dough or Die accsm-1

by Virginia Lowell

  “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 over 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.

  “I’m sorry, Livie,” Del said. “Clarisse Chamberlain was a remarkable woman, but we all make mistakes. Sometimes a mistake is fatal.”

  Olivia stared at her overstuffed wastebasket, wishing she could be satisfied with never knowing.

  “Here, let me take that,” Del said, nodding toward the wastebasket. “I’ll empty it on my way out and leave it outside the alley door.” He put on his uniform jacket and hat. “Anyway, I’m relieved there’s no clear evidence of suicide. Got a call today from an insurance investigator, and I told him as much. That won’t stop him from coming here to investigate for himself. Clarisse had a pretty hefty life insurance policy, which wouldn’t pay off in the case of suicide. But it’ll be tough to make a case for suicide with no note and no health or business problems.” Del lifted the full wastebasket. “Anyway, I hope so.”

  With Spunky under her arm, Olivia led the way downstairs to the front door. Her hand on the doorknob, she asked, “Do her sons inherit everything?”

  “I shouldn’t be telling you all this, but nothing stays a secret around here for more than a minute or two. I’d swear the police station is bugged.” Del grimaced and shook his head. “So the answer to your question is yes, the bulk of her estate goes to Hugh and Edward equally. She left Bertha a tidy sum, too, and made some bequests to her favorite charities.” He gave Olivia a quick smile. “Including the Yorkie rescue group you got Spunky from.”

  At the sound of his name, Spunky squirmed in Olivia’s arm, his paws reaching toward Del. “He’s probably trying to grab the pizza box,” Olivia said. “Or planning his next escape.” She held the door open for Del and breathed in the cool, damp air, scented with lilacs.

  As Del stepped through the entryway, he paused and said, “One more thing.”

  The porch light brought out gold flecks in Del’s brown eyes. Olivia felt a rush of awareness.

  “In case that brain of yours starts wondering if Clarisse was somehow murdered, both her sons have alibis. They were attending a conference in Baltimore.”

  Chapter Seven

  Olivia possessed three dresses, none of which had she worn for almost a year. Early in their marriage, Ryan had always complimented her when she wore a dress. Over time, his response had changed. He began to ignore her in a dress and criticize her appearance if she wore anything else. After their divorce, she had given away most of her dresses, keeping only the three she actually liked.

  When Tammy first commanded her to appear, wearing a dress, at a Sunday afternoon gathering, soirée, tea party, whatever, Olivia’s first instinct was to roll her eyes and vow to wear jeans. But that was before she had a plan.

  The previous evening, Del had assured her that Clarisse wasn’t murdered. He’d made sense at the time, but the more she thought about, the less convinced she felt. Murder c
ould be made to look like an accident or suicide. And murder as the cause of death made more sense, or at least it did to Olivia. Clarisse had amassed an enviable fortune. Her extraordinary success in business hadn’t been luck. She was capable of what some might call ruthlessness in her decisions to close businesses that didn’t perform to her expectations, and she had acquired failing businesses as cheaply as possible. She was never cruel, only practical and single-minded. Olivia had loved and admired Clarisse without ever wanting to be exactly like her.

  Even if Hugh and Edward had airtight alibis, surely there were others who were resentful, who felt they had suffered at Clarisse’s hands. Lucas Ashford, for instance—though she wouldn’t mention that to Maddie without scads of proof. And, not to doubt Del’s police work, but what about Hugh and Edward? How thoroughly had he checked their alibis?

  Olivia was willing to bet that Del had considered, then dismissed, the possibility of murder. He loved Chatterley Heights; the last thing he’d want was a sensational murder investigation involving a highly respected family, especially one with businesses that provided jobs for the town’s citizens. Times had been tough recently.

  Without clear evidence of foul play, Del would resist digging any deeper. However, he took his job seriously. He might listen if Olivia gave him a reason to do so. She wouldn’t talk about her suspicions to Del until she had something to back them up.

  Really, did Maddie have to choose this moment to fall in love and virtually disappear, right when she was needed? Maddie would listen, and no matter what Del thought, Maddie could keep secrets when she wanted to. Well, she’d be with Lucas at Tammy’s event, and Olivia intended to rip her from his arms and wrestle some help out of her.

  If Tammy was throwing a shindig, Hugh Chamberlain would also be there, no matter how recent his bereavement. It was that simple. Tammy might seem flighty to some people, but Olivia knew her well. Inside the ruffles and the first-grade-teacher persona, the woman had a spine of tempered steel. Tammy knew what she wanted, and she wanted Hugh. So Hugh would be in attendance. Possibly Edward, too. And Olivia wanted very much to talk to both brothers.