Murder at the Christmas Cookie Bake-Off

by Darci Hannah

  What Kennedy had said got me thinking. The truth was, I had no idea what Mrs. Nichols could have gotten up to the moment I left the bake-off stage to chase after the woman she had pointed out to me. I’d been gone awhile that time, having been locked in a closet. I wasn’t sure how much time had passed from that moment until we found the body in the library. The unknown was too daunting to consider, and thankfully I didn’t have to consider it for very long. Wellington’s anxious whining had reached a hypercritical level. The reason he was making so much noise was because we had pulled into the parking lot of the dog park and he could see the other dogs playing in the fenced-in yard.

  “Look,” I said, as Rory parked the truck. “We’ve peered under the lid on the proverbial Pandora’s box that is the Chevy Chambers murder investigation. Let’s give it a rest a moment before we throw it open and release Christmas chaos on my bakery and possibly the entire town of Beacon Harbor as well.”

  Rory turned to me and grinned. “I know you, Lindsey. Your curiosity is going to get the best of you.”

  With a grimace of my own, I relented. “Alright. But we’re going to need to think this through. And Kennedy, don’t you dare text Tuck with this latest development until we give you the okay.”

  “What?” She looked offended. “I wouldn’t dream of it.” Although she sounded convincing, I didn’t know if I could trust her anymore where Officer Cutie Pie was concerned.

  “This is our lead,” I reminded her. “Mrs. Nichols is an elderly woman and my employee. She deserves the benefit of the doubt. Also, James and Ellie are to be kept in the dark about all of this as well. We don’t want to create any more Christmas drama than necessary.”

  “Gotcha.” Rory gave a heart-melting smile of approval. “I guess that means we’ll be meeting tonight in the usual place?”

  I nodded. “Dress warm. It can be a bit chilly this time of year.”

  * * *

  At dinner I realized that Kennedy and I weren’t the only ones keeping a secret. I had made a hearty dish of creamy Tuscan chicken over penne pasta. It was one of my favorite go-to meals. It looked beautiful, tasted amazing, and wasn’t too hard to throw together in a pinch. My version called for plump, pan-fried chicken breasts in a garlic cream sauce flavored with dried tomatoes, spinach, and my special addition of mushrooms. When served over pasta, it was hard to resist. Although my parents loved Tuscan chicken and enjoyed the meal, they managed to evade the question of how they had spent their afternoon.

  “We were sightseeing,” Dad had said when I asked him. “Traveling down memory lane. I had forgotten how beautiful this part of Michigan can be.”

  Mom had smiled and patted his hand. “Your dad even admitted to me that he missed Michigan winters. Can you imagine?”

  I really couldn’t, although I had to agree that Michigan was beautiful in all seasons.

  Any mention of lunch with Betty and Doc was strategically left out, and it made me wonder what they were up to. Sure, I could have pried, but I thought it best to let it go. When they asked how we had spent our afternoon, I told them, “We took Welly to a new dog park in Traverse City. We had lunch there too. It was loads of fun.” And that was the end of that.

  Rory had graciously bowed out of another family dinner, claiming that he needed to get some work done. I also suspected that he was doing a little poking around on the internet before tonight’s meeting.

  After dinner, we played a round of euchre over hot cocoa and cookies. My parents were on a roll and soundly beat Kennedy and me. The dogs were taken out for their nighttime romp in the snow, after which Mom and Dad retired to their room on the second floor, with the models trotting happily behind them up the stairs.

  Once they had settled down, I made another thermos of hot cocoa and grabbed three mugs. Kennedy, being the savvy diva that she was, laced it with peppermint schnapps before the lid went on, then plucked a can of whipped cream from the fridge. I placated Wellington with a cookie before putting on my coat. Then, with fortification in hand, we headed for the light tower stairs.

  “I’ve been waiting for a good excuse to climb up here,” Kennedy said, reaching the lantern room. “Ooo, I like what you’ve done to this place.”

  In the summer months, the lantern room was my favorite place to hang out. Sitting high above the lighthouse, and with a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree view of Beacon Harbor and Lake Michigan, the views were amazing and the sunsets spectacular. It was the scene of many romantic dinners, as well as a place to talk, to reflect, or to be alone with my thoughts. In keeping with the season, I had brought up a space heater to take out the chill. I had also hung some holiday greenery and placed flameless pillar candles around the edge of the circular glass window. My four white wicker chairs now sported red-and-white plaid cushions, each with an accent pillow depicting either Santa or one of his reindeer. I kept blankets in a wicker basket on the floor next to the wall where the old blackout panel had been. In the old days, the blackout panel had protected the lighthouse from the bright revolving light. But the great Fresnel lens had been decommissioned long ago. It now resided in the boathouse, along with the recently removed blackout panel. Beyond the glass, a full moon illuminated the ice-covered shoreline and the cold, midnight-blue lake beyond. It was a stark, dramatic sight. However, a quarter turn from the frozen lake and a stone’s throw inland, the view was something quite different. Bright, colorful Christmas lights shimmered on a blanket of snow, transforming the village of Beacon Harbor into a winter wonderland. The sight was breathtaking. Kennedy, filled with awe, heartily approved of both the view and my sparse, yet cozy Christmas décor.

  “I call Santa,” she announced, removing said pillow and plopping in the chair. We had no sooner poured two mugs of spiked cocoa topped with a swirl of whipped cream when we heard Rory climbing up the wrought-iron steps.

  “Ladies.” He tipped a pretend hat to us the moment he appeared in the lantern room. When his eyes landed on the mugs of cocoa in our hands, and the empty mug reserved for him, he smiled. “Hope there’s something a little stronger than hot cocoa in there. I have a feeling it’s going to be a long night.”

  “Let’s start by writing down the facts as we know them.”

  We had all settled into our respective chairs as I opened a leather-bound notebook. It had been a gift from my old boss, specially made to look like an authentic lighthouse logbook. I kept it in the lantern room for inspiration, never thinking it would be used to sort out suspects in a murder investigation. I flipped it open and gave it a dramatic title: Murder of Christmas cookie critic, Chevy Chambers.

  After writing down the details of Chevy’s death—the remote library where we found the body, the note in his hand, the suspected cause of death, and the fact that he had crumbs from my cookie on him—we began adding our own information.

  “Felicity was having an affair with him,” Kennedy noted.

  “Suspected affair,” Rory corrected as I added her to the list. “Suspected because she’s denied it. The fact that Chevy bragged about it to Stanley might suggest it was an act of revenge for something else we don’t know about. Why else would he throw it in Stanley’s face like that, angering him? What did he have to gain?”

  For the first time, I thought about the possibility. “It does seem odd.”

  “They knew each other, remember?” Rory paused to take a sip of his cocoa. “Stanley remarked about having bought him dinner on several occasions. We know from Felicity that they met Chevy in Chicago through mutual friends. Maybe there is a business connection we don’t know about.”

  I wrote Stanley’s name in our suspect book. Twirling the pen between my fingers, I added, “Chevy obviously knew how desperate Felicity was to win the live bake-off and possibly took advantage of her. But you’re right. Why would he promise her a win and not follow through with it? That seems unusually cruel.”

  “Hard to believe anyone would be that much of a wanker.” Kennedy, having plucked a blanket out of the basket, wrapped it around her
legs. “Recall, if you will, Stanley Stewart’s bread and butter. His ‘niche,’ as you called it, is micro brewed spirits. What if there was a kerfuffle over a bad review of one of Stanley’s clients? Stanley retaliates in some way, and Chevy counters by manipulating Stanley’s wife? He wouldn’t have to sleep with her to do it either. He already knew Felicity was a nutter about Christmas. All he’d have to do was encourage her a bit, and boom! Bob’s your uncle! Everyone thinks she was having an affair with him, including her husband.”

  We all agreed it was a possibility. I made a note of it, adding my thought about the three cookie-nappers. If Chevy was trying to embarrass Felicity, he would need her to be in the live bake-off. He could have hired the women to steal my cookies, which had effectively taken the Beacon Bakeshop out of the competition for one day. That had been enough to let Felicity and the Tannenbaum Shoppe rise in the polls. But Chevy was dead, and the identity of the three women remained a mystery.

  However, there was another name we needed to add to our list, a name we’d all been tiptoeing around. Rory, rising to the challenge, was the first to address the troubling matter.

  “If Stanley Stewart murdered Chevy Chambers, why did he tell us about the woman Chevy was waiting for, the one who fits the bill for Mrs. Nichols?”

  I shook my head; Kennedy picked up the thermos. “I’m going to need more zippy cocoa to wrap my head around this little mystery, darlings.”

  Rory and I watched as she emptied the last of the spiked cocoa into her mug. It only filled half of her cup, a fact that was swiftly hidden by an equal measure of whipped cream.

  “What?” she challenged. “Are you going to remark on my abuse of canned whipped cream as well?”

  “Wouldn’t dream of it.” Rory plucked the can from her grasp. “Just hoping you didn’t hog it all.” He then proceeded to shoot a stream of it straight into his mouth.

  “Like that’s not disgusting.” Kennedy laid on the attitude.

  Rory, with a conspiratorial grin, handed me the can. A shot of whipped cream was just what I needed. “When in Rome,” I said, and pulled the trigger, so to speak. After my whipped cream shot, I handed the can back to Kennedy.

  “Why not?” she proclaimed and joined us.

  After emptying the entire can of whipped cream, we were finally ready to face the name that bothered me most, namely that of Mrs. Nichols. I scribbled her name in the logbook, then added her background information, namely her sudden and timely appearance at the Beacon Bakeshop. She was a skilled baker, knew every Christmas cookie recipe by heart, and had a knack for filling the bakery cases. She told me she had come from “up north,” but she had never stated the town. She said she was staying with a friend, but she’d never told me her friend’s name. Shame on me for not prying. Sure, there was her instant dislike of Chevy Chambers and her subtle but telling remark that he was a very naughty man and ought to get nothing but coal in his stocking. But, really, I chalked that up to a killer intuition. On second thought, maybe “killer” wasn’t the right word to use.

  I lifted the pen from the page and looked at Rory. “You have to admit that she’s so wonderful and jolly.”

  He placed his warm, comforting hand on my shoulder. “I know this is hard for you, Lindsey, but according to Stanley, Chevy was either shocked or frightened to see her.”

  “That’s rather telling, given that her appearance is so harmless.” Kennedy’s expression softened. “You have to agree that her behavior is a wee bit odd, and that we don’t know much about her.”

  “She’s an older woman,” I reasoned. “There’s something charmingly nostalgic about the way she speaks and the way she dresses. Older people don’t like change. Maybe Chevy’s shock at seeing her was because he mistook her for the real Mrs. Claus. Chevy was definitely on the ‘naughty list,’ if you know what I mean.” Although I was joking, I could see that both Kennedy and Rory gave me an extra-hard stare. Rory gave my shoulder another gentle squeeze and took hold of my hand instead.

  “It’s important to remember that Mrs. Nichols answered your ad after the bake-off was announced, not before it. She would have known that Chevy Chambers was coming to town. Another odd fact is that it seems as if Mrs. Nichols is the only person who saw the three cookie-nappers, therefore she’s the only one who can identify them.”

  Kennedy gave a nod of approval, adding, “This seems to be the case. As you might be aware, I talk with Officer McAllister on occasion. What? Don’t look at me like that,” she admonished as the corners of her mouth lifted coyly. “I’m sure I’m not the only one who likes a little candy at the holidays.”

  Rory bristled and raised our entwined hands. “This isn’t candy. We’re in a committed relationship.”

  She rolled her eyes. “I’m staying in the lighthouse. I know how much candy you two crazy kids are pinching. Boresville.”

  I was about to defend our relationship and the fact that fate had not been kind to our romance when she held up a hand to stop me. “Let me finish. According to Tuck, Mrs. N is the only one who can identify those women. Tuck believes they’re not from around here, and neither is Mrs. N.”

  “What are you suggesting?”

  Apparently, Rory was quicker to pick up on this little nugget than I was. With a look of gentle pity, he said, “What Kennedy is trying to say is that maybe the cookie-nappers were working for her the whole time.”

  CHAPTER 28

  I didn’t want to believe it, but it had to be considered. Mrs. Nichols had been the only one working at the Beacon Bakeshop when the three women came in and stole our cookies. If she had anything to do with them, why would she willingly sabotage our bakery? The day it had happened, she’d been distraught. Had it been an act? Then, at the live bake-off, she had spied each of the three cookie-nappers on separate occasions. Rory and Kennedy had chased after two of them, realizing that both women had confronted Chevy. It was Rory’s opinion that these little run-ins hadn’t been pleasant. I couldn’t really say if the cookie-napper I chased had a run-in with Chevy as well. I’d been locked in a storage closet.

  “If they were working for Mrs. N, they might have been delivering a message, one meant to poke away at Chevy’s puffed-up confidence.” Kennedy gave the air a half-hearted punch. “Getting in a few jabs before the knockout blow, so to speak.”

  It was an unpleasant thought. I stood up from my chair and looked out over the night-black lake. The vastness was what I thought floating in deep space might be like, only without a spectacular earthrise to focus on. Although secure in the lighthouse, I found the blackness daunting. “It doesn’t make sense. Every time Mrs. Nichols spotted a cookie-napper, she grew agitated. I really don’t think it was an act.” I turned from the window, hoping for reassurance. Yet the questions that surrounded Mrs. Nichols were too great.

  “It all comes down to the fact that we really don’t know much about her,” Rory said. “I even tried delving into her background on the internet while I was at home.”

  The look of uncertainty on his face did nothing for my queasy stomach. “Please don’t tell me she has a rap sheet.”

  I was hoping he’d smile, allaying my fears, but his lips remained firm. “Honestly, Lindsey, I’m not sure. As you can imagine, there are a lot of Carol Nichols out there, but none that fit the description of our Carol Nichols. Granted, I didn’t have much to go by. I suspect it might not even be her real name. But I did find something of interest.” Rory bent down to pick up his laptop. He opened it, turned it on, and brought up the page in question.

  “What are we looking at?” Kennedy stroked her chin as she focused on the screen.

  “A possible link between Chevy Chambers and a woman I think might be Mrs. Nichols.”

  After a couple of hours of searching the internet for clues to the identity of Mrs. Nichols, Rory had come up with more questions than answers. He then changed course and began looking into Chevy Chambers. The man had a huge online presence. However, after sifting through the online articles, videos, and soci
al media posts, he decided to go back even further and focus on the newspaper columns Chevy had written before becoming a famous food critic. That’s when Rory stumbled on an old review written about a well-loved bakery in a small town in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Chevy’s scathing critique of the local landmark was hard to read. It was derisive, smug, and self-serving. Having firsthand experience owning a bakery, the mean-spirited review boiled my blood. Yet as bad as his review had been, it was his personal attack on the owner that I couldn’t stomach.

  “What a jerk!” I flopped back in my chair, feeling as if I had been kicked in the shin with a steel-toed boot. “How did he get that published?”

  Kennedy was just as dumbfounded as I was. “Us Brits generally like a clever turn of sarcasm and snark in a review, which is all in good fun. But this here is a bloodbath.” She looked at Rory. “You think this bakery has something to do with Mrs. N? I must point out that this article clearly states the owner’s name as Patrick Wagner.”

  Rory nodded. “That’s the issue. There’s no mention of a Carol Nichols. I only point it out because it fits with her story. As far as I can tell, this bakery was the only one Chevy Chambers critiqued in the Upper Peninsula. Patrick Wagner could be her relative, or even her husband.”

  “Years have passed, and she’s changed her name.” I thought about it a moment. “You could be right. If she, in fact, had an issue with Chevy Chambers, I provided her with the perfect opportunity to get close to him again. Maybe the Mrs. Claus getup is a disguise, one meant to throw him off. Also, she helped me come up with my signature cookie, knowing it would be good enough to get me in the live bake-off.”

  A dark thought crossed Rory’s face. “If she did have her sights on teaching him a lesson, we all could have been her puppets. Think of it. She swoops into the bakery and helps Lindsey get into the live bake-off. She fakes a cookie robbery, possibly to get Felicity into the bake-off as well, but also to draw attention to the fact we were robbed. Getting Felicity there is important. If Chevy’s mode of operation is talking women into sleeping with him for the win, then Mrs. Nichols would know Felicity was being used. Look, the woman stated, and rather cryptically mind you, that Chevy Chambers was a bad man. Felicity might be her foil. Didn’t we all jump to the conclusion that Felicity is the obvious choice for wanting to kill Chevy? Even the fact that her rolling pin went missing is suspicious.”