Murder at the Christmas Cookie Bake-Off

by Darci Hannah

  The sun had already set, and the air had grown colder by the time Wellington and I set out for Ginger’s house. Welly, dressed in his Ellie & Co Pup Original coat, was the obvious choice. Everyone in town knew my dog, and his presence would neither be suspicious nor threatening. Besides, he was a good listener, or at least he pretended to be whenever I shared my own concerns with him.

  Walking through a neighborhood at night was so much better at Christmastime. True, it was cold, and the sidewalks were never really cleared of snow for long. But the lights and decorations made up for the inconvenience. They were a feast for the eyes and set a joyous, hopeful mood. However, the moment we turned down Beach Street, the feeling changed. Ginger’s house, dark and quiet, stood out from the rest. Although the wide front porch had been wrapped in lights, they hadn’t been plugged in. My heart sank, thinking she might not be home. If I couldn’t get ahold of her, I’d have to pass my information along to Tuck and let him handle it. But the thought rankled me. Probably because I had put a lot of time and effort into getting the damning piece of information in the first place.

  I stood on Ginger’s dark porch with my nerve fading as fast as a winter sunset. Welly, however, knew where we were. To him, Ginger’s house meant a yummy treat, usually in the form of a broken waffle cone. Not to be deterred, he sat at her front door and whined. I was about to pull him away when I caught a shimmer of light seeping through a small opening in her heavy curtains. I went to the window and peered through the crack. The lights were most definitely on, and someone was inside. It was all the impetus I needed to knock on her door.

  Whoever was inside was ignoring me. I knew they had heard me. I looked at Welly. My dog ramped up his whining to pitiful levels as I gave the door another thumping with my gloved fist. A moment later, the front light turned on, and the door opened a crack.

  “Oh, hi.” The door opened a little wider. Although Ginger smiled, I could tell it was born of politeness and not feeling. “I, um . . . meant to thank you for the cake. It looks delicious.”

  “I’m glad you like it. It’s partially why I’m here.”

  “Oh God, you haven’t come to tell me who my secret admirer is?” Her face paled as she took a step back from the door. She still hadn’t invited us in, a fact that Wellington was about to remedy by sheer brute force. “I’d rather give you back the cake.”

  I tightened my grip on Welly’s leash, holding him back. Ginger was clearly worried about something. Although I had carefully prepared for what I was going to say to her, all that went out the window as guilt and opportunity seized me. “I’m the one who sent you the cake. Can we talk?”

  Refusing anything to eat or drink, I sat on her couch, relieved to learn that her daughter, Kate, was having dinner with her grandparents. I really didn’t want the poor child to hear what was going to be a tough conversation between her mother and me. Wellington, on the other hand, had searched the house for his friend until finally being lured back to the family room by the promise of a treat. After devouring a pile of waffle cone pieces, he had stretched out on the carpet and was now sleeping peacefully.

  “I guess I’m missing something here. I don’t understand why you would send me that cake and claim it was from somebody else?” She looked hurt by the notion. I suddenly felt very guilty.

  I looked down at my thick wool socks and wiggled my toes. “I’m sorry to have misled you. I did it because I’m looking into the murder of Chevy Chambers.”

  Her voice was fraught with emotion as she said, “That bake-off was a disaster! And Chevy was a creep! That still doesn’t explain why you sent me a cake.”

  I mustered the courage to look her in the face. “Remember that Rory and I found his body? We were the first ones there. We know that Chevy had a note crumpled in his hand.”

  A micro expression flashed across her face and vanished. I couldn’t tell whether it was from surprise or guilt. “He was holding a note?”

  “He was. Not a long note. It said, Meet me under the mistletoe. Ironically or perhaps, tragically, Chevy’s body was found beneath the only sprig of mistletoe in the entire hotel. The police believe he was lured there under the guise of a romantic interlude.”

  Ginger closed her eyes as if pained, then took a deep breath. When she had opened them again, she said, “I’ve already talked to the police. I told them everything.” She wrung her hands, then suddenly stood up from her chair. She took a few steps toward the fireplace, stopped short of my dog, then turned back to look at me.

  “Lindsey, I consider you one of my good friends, and as my friend, I’m going to ask you not to put your nose where it doesn’t belong.”

  I looked up from my folded hands. “It’s too late for that. I know you wrote that note.”

  She stopped pacing and glared at me. For a brief second, I thought she might run. She changed her strategy, however, and doubled down. “Not funny, Lindsey! How dare you accuse me of such a thing? We’re allies, friends! We’re both single women who own thriving shops in Beacon Harbor! Don’t be silly. If anyone wrote that note, it was Felicity Stewart. She . . . she was having the affair with Chevy. Everyone knew it.”

  “Maybe,” I agreed. “But you were the one who wrote that note.”

  “What makes you think I would do that?”

  “I honestly didn’t think you were the one. But I have proof.”

  “Proof? Ha! I don’t believe you! I think all this snooping around and sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong has gone to your head. You, my friend, are delusional. How could you possibly think . . .” She stopped in the middle of her tirade as a horrifying thought seized her. “The cake! Oh my God, you sent me that cake to get my signature!”

  Guilty as charged. Like most of my grand visions, my anonymous Christmas cake delivery scheme had looked great on paper. It had also worked like a charm. What I hadn’t counted on, however, was the welling of guilt at having betrayed a friend. It wasn’t sitting well. I silently cursed the obnoxious cookie critic whose death had forced me into it. I turned to my friend and tried to explain.

  “When I sent that cake, I never thought . . . look, I never meant to hurt you. I wanted to shift the blame on Felicity or her husband, Stanley, for Chevy’s death. I never expected—”

  “You think that I killed him?” she finished the thought for me. I watched as her resolve slowly crumbled. She reached for her hair and nervously twirled a brown lock between her fingers. She clearly didn’t know what to do. “Okay, look. You caught me. I did write that note. But I didn’t kill him.”

  “Ginger, I’m one step ahead of the police. But you know that they’re going to figure this out eventually. Why don’t you tell me why you wrote that note? I know you. If you did it, you obviously had a good reason.”

  Casting a wary sideways glance at me, she uttered, “I wouldn’t be too sure about that.”

  We sat at her kitchen table with a bottle of red wine between us. The first glass had gone down swiftly over a light dusting of nervous small talk. Ginger bristled with inner turmoil as she poured herself a second glass. Deciding to get on with it, she finally blurted, “Okay, don’t judge me, but Chevy and I were having an affair.”

  I was in mid-sip when she said this, and I was sorry to think that the sudden spewing of red wine from my lips would be interpreted as judging. I choked, sputtered, and reached for a napkin, hoping to breeze by my little faux pas unnoticed. “Y’ don’t say?”

  “Don’t try to pretend it’s not revolting. It is. It was. Just thinking about it makes me want to gag too.”

  Gently dabbing at the mess I’d made on her table, I asked, “Then why did you do it?”

  She shrugged. “Greed, stupidity, loneliness, and maybe a little jealousy too. Damn Felicity and her stupid Christmas cookie bake-off!” The mere thought of the frantic week leading up to the Christmas Festival had caused a welling of anger and frustration to play out on her face. I could empathize with her. I had felt it too. Although it had started out as a friendly competitio
n, the pressure of the holidays, the extra baking, and the manipulating by the cookie judge had taken its toll.

  “I blame Felicity,” Ginger continued. “She was a friend of Chevy’s and thought she had victory in the bag. But then Chevy started stirring the pot, so to speak. He started flirting with me and making promises. I knew he was flirting with you as well.” She gave a disparaging shake of her head. “I didn’t know if you’d take him up on his offer, but my competitive spirit got the best of me. I went out to dinner with him. Unfortunately, Felicity caught us kissing and flipped out. Chevy was her link to being the end-all and be-all of Christmas.”

  “Wait! Are you suggesting that Felicity wasn’t having an affair with Chevy Chambers?”

  Ginger shook her head. “We all knew that Felicity was desperate to win the bake-off. Chevy knew it, too, and he fueled that flame with false promises.” She shook her head. “That man was a special kind of devil. He promised the world, or as much of it as he could give, in exchange for a roll in the sheets. Felicity, the silly idiot, already has a successful Christmas shop, and a husband. I’m a single mother. I love my daughter and want to give her the world, but there’s only so much I can do. Harbor Scoops doesn’t exactly thrive during the winter months. They’re lean and quiet. It makes the holidays particularly stressful for me, not to mention lonely. Then in walks charming Chevy Chambers flaunting his celebrity and his sway over the Christmas cookie bake-off.”

  “He propositioned you.” By now, I knew how the man worked. He had come into the Beacon Bakeshop with the same strategy, hitting on both Kennedy and me. But I had the love of Rory Campbell and was, thankfully, financially sound. However, what if I had been a single mother struggling to make ends meet? Would I have been sucked in by Chevy and his promises too?

  Ginger drained her wineglass and shook her head. “I took the easy way out, Lindsey.” Her face darkened as she added, “He promised to be discreet. He promised he’d make sure that I won. He even dangled the promise of a regular segment on his television show. I played his little game, but that creep had no intention of keeping any of his promises.”

  “When did you write him that note?”

  “At the Christmas Festival. It was after our first bake, when he judged our cookies. He was still flirting with Felicity. The two were nauseating. I had slept with him!” The shame of it was written all over her face as she relived the memory. “I sold out, and he didn’t seem to have any qualms about shoving it in my face! In fact, he seemed to thrive on his broken promises. He gave the win to Bradley!”

  There was no denying that Chevy was despicable. But I had to point out that Bradley’s cookie truly was sublime.

  “Yes, it was. But that’s not the point. Chevy was on the take, and I took, so to speak. But my currency wasn’t doing it for him anymore. I wrote him the note so that we could speak in private. You read it. I wanted him to think that I was willing to ignite his passions again for what I knew to be false promises. I knew he’d bite, but this time I wouldn’t. I was going to give him a piece of my mind.”

  The fact that Ginger’s note had worked was troubling. Chevy had, indeed, been found beneath the mistletoe—the same mistletoe she had directed him to meet her under. She admitted to being angry and desperate. She also had easy access to a rolling pin. Although she had denied killing Chevy, what I couldn’t deny was that she had motive, opportunity, and possibly the murder weapon as well. With a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach, I poured another glass of wine. I tried to smile, but fell short of the mark as I asked, “Did you hand him the note?” She nodded. “When was this?”

  “During the gingerbread showstopper. He came to look at my gingerbread rendition of Harbor Scoops. I felt like a spy, passing it to him discreetly under the all-seeing eye of Betty Vanhoosen. Betty was talking so much and adding so many snappy comments that she didn’t notice.”

  I hadn’t noticed, either, being obsessed with my showstopper lighthouse. It wasn’t until I had finished that I realized everyone else had left the stage. It prompted me to ask if she had met with him.

  She crossed her arms and sat back in the chair. “I had every intention of doing so,” she said. “But then I caught him flirting with another woman.”

  “Who?” I sat up and stared at her.

  She shrugged at the memory. “I don’t know, just some woman.”

  “Can you describe her?”

  “Older, but still quite attractive.”

  Alarm bells sounded off in my head as she said this. Ginger must have seen Chevy talking with one of the mysterious cookie-nappers. I asked, “Did you recognize her?”

  “No, I didn’t. I did see that she had brown hair with highlights and a trim figure. That’s about all I noticed.”

  From her brief description, she might have been describing the mysterious woman I’d been chasing. The fact that Ginger had never seen the woman before was testament to the fact that they weren’t working for her. The three middle-aged women remained a total mystery. The only thing that I knew for certain was that they were somehow connected to Chevy. They were either working for him or trying to cause him harm. “Where did you see him talking with her?”

  She gave a little huff of exasperation. “Under the mistletoe, of course.”

  CHAPTER 37

  “You’re still alive!” Kennedy’s cheerfully sarcastic greeting hit me the moment Welly and I walked through the lighthouse door. It was Mom’s night to make dinner, and she didn’t disappoint, judging from the astounding array of Chinese take-out cartons crowding the countertops. I hadn’t ordered Chinese takeout in months, and the savory smell of spicy beef, chicken almondine, stir-fried vegetables, sweet and sour pork, fried rice, spring rolls, and other delights I could only guess at made me instantly ravenous. It was making Welly ravenous too. After our brisk walk in the cold night air, I couldn’t blame him.

  The models rushed to greet us with their little yips of excitement and a flurry of fluffy white tail wags. I gave each dog a pat as they took a moment to sniff each other in the manner dogs do. Then, with curiosity satisfied, all three trotted off to the kitchen, where Mom was transferring a carton of beef and broccoli into a serving bowl. Welly, I noticed, had induced her to “drop” a piece of tender beef on his awaiting tongue.

  Rory had been helping Dad set the table. He was holding a pile of napkins, clearly debating whether to just plop them down in the middle, as instinct dictated, or neatly fold each one and place it next to a plate—a waste of time and effort to the calculating bachelor mind. The sight of me tipped the scales. He dropped the napkins in favor of helping me with my coat. Apparently, chivalry was not dead.

  “What happened?” he asked. Although he turned to hang my coat in the front hall closet, I could tell the suspense was killing him. “Did Ginger write that note?”

  Everyone had stopped talking. Mom, about to pop a crab Rangoon into her mouth, stilled with the fried wonton delight poised before her lips. All eyes were on me, everyone anxiously awaiting the news.

  “She did. But I don’t think she killed him.”

  As we sat at the table enjoying our Chinese feast, I told them about my visit to Ginger’s house.

  Kennedy, hanging on my every word, picked up a piece of broccoli with her chopsticks. “So, Ginger wrote the note, and Chevy took the bait, leaving the bake-off stage for a remote wing of the hotel. How simple men are.” Her eyes flashed to Rory as she bit the head off her broccoli spear.

  “I don’t blame Ginger for being angry,” Mom said. “He pitted Felicity and Ginger against one another, and angered Felicity’s husband as well. What did he expect would happen?”

  Dad looked at me from across the table. “Do you believe her? I mean, she lied to you about writing the note. She could be lying about the rest.”

  “They could all be lying.” Rory stood up and crossed to the kitchen. He grabbed the carton of kung pao chicken off the counter and brought it back to the table. “Think about it. Everyone we’ve talked to was seen in
a private conversation with the victim at some point during the bake-off. Felicity cornered him in a hallway. Stanley let him have it in the men’s room and again in the room where he died. Ginger is the one who lured him to the library in the first place, but she claims she was too angry to confront him. Heck, even Kennedy and I saw those two cookie-nappers cornering him. Lindsey and Bradley were the only two people who didn’t corner him. I don’t know what’s going on, but I do think we really need to find those cookie-nappers.”

  Kennedy set down her fork and stared at him. “Of course we do, but we can’t! They weren’t on any of the footage Mrs. N looked at, and the police have nothing to go on. If we had the murder weapon, we’d at least get some fingerprints. But we don’t even have that!”

  “Then we keep searching,” Rory said with a determined set to his jaw. “Three middle-aged women don’t just disappear into thin air.”

  We had no sooner cleared the table when Betty and Doc arrived. Betty came bearing a dessert in the form of a beautiful English trifle. Kennedy’s eyes nearly popped out at the sight of it.

  “Betty, you angel! You’ve brought a Christmas trifle! I could kiss you! My gran used to make one every year for us. So much better than fruitcake.” She took the glass bowl from our guest’s hands and whisked it away to the kitchen. The trifle looked delicious. I followed her and began making coffee and tea.