Murder at the Christmas Cookie Bake-Off

by Darci Hannah

  Kennedy, hearing her cue, mustered attitude and marched up to the coffee table. There she took off the little jacket, threw it over her shoulder, looked left, looked right, and spun around. It became apparent that she had practiced this. As the women clapped and commented on the beautiful dress, I swallowed painfully. Although Mom had been a model, I was never comfortable parading my clothes in front of people. I suddenly wished I had been a more astute daughter.

  On my cue, I chose to focus on my stolen cookies. I had no problem mustering my Lindsey-tude and marched right up to the coffee table. However, instead of a graceful swirl, I bent down and plucked one of my lemon-ginger sandwich cookies off the Santa plate. The platinum blonde with the good plastic surgeon remarked, “Oh my, I thought models aren’t supposed to eat cookies.” She then had the nerve to giggle.

  “Some of us are lucky,” I said, flashing a pointed look. “Where did you get these cookies?”

  “I baked them,” Sophia glibly lied.

  I tilted my head and stared at her with my one exposed eye. “Really? These look familiar. What’s your recipe?”

  “I’d have to look. Might have thrown it away. It wasn’t very good, but you can take them all after the show if you like.”

  As hard as I tried to keep my Lindsey-tude in check, I lost the battle. “Am I in crazy town?” I shouted, then flung off my hat. “Not very good!? These are my signature cookies! You women stole them from my bakeshop!”

  The chubby woman with the reddish hair and tooth gap looked at her friends and stammered, “I . . . I don’t know what’s going on right now. I . . . I thought we were having a fashion show?”

  “The fashion show’s over, ladies,” Mom informed them, stepping up beside me.

  “But . . . but you are fashion models.” The woman with the reddish hair was clearly not the ringleader.

  “She’s a model,” I said, gesturing to Mom. “I’m Lindsey Bakewell. I own the Beacon Bakeshop in Beacon Harbor.”

  Sophia shot out of her chair. “I’m going to have to ask you all to leave!”

  “You stole my cookies and locked me in a storage closet at the bake-off. You’re Bradley Argyle’s mother. I’ve been looking for you all week. I’m not leaving your house until I get some answers!”

  The platinum blonde stood up as well. Her face was contorted with self-righteous indignation. “How dare you come into this house and accuse us of stealing your cookies. You can’t prove it! They’re cookies!” To illustrate her point, she plucked a cookie from the plate and tried to eat the evidence by shoving it into her mouth. Her chubbier friend, catching on, began eating cookies, as well, until I grabbed the plate.

  “Ladies, let’s be civil,” Mom called out as I fought three desperate women for control of the Santa plate.

  “Lindsey, look what I found.”

  I turned to look at Kennedy, who was standing in the kitchen. I loosened my grip on the plate, but it was worth it. While I was scuffling over cookies, Kennedy had set to work, snooping around the kitchen. She was holding a paper towel that was protecting the antique ceramic rolling pin she had in her hand. The rolling pin was covered with little gingerbread men.

  “That’s Felicity Stewart’s missing rolling pin!” I exclaimed, recognizing it. “Call the police!”

  “What?” Sophia was in my face. “I bought that.” She backed away as a sudden flash of horror crossed her face. “I am not a murderer!”

  Chaos erupted. Sophia turned and chased after Kennedy as Mom and I were assailed with a barrage of lemon-ginger sandwich cookies. “Hold them off,” I told Mom and ran after Sophia.

  Kennedy could walk like a pro on stiletto heels, but they weren’t designed for much else. She had trotted through the kitchen and was stumbling on the tile floor of the foyer, tripping on the hem of her long ball gown while holding the heavy rolling pin in the air. She saw me and tossed it over Sophia’s head.

  I caught it with both hands, letting the flimsy paper towel fall to the floor. I then raced for the door.

  “After her!” Sophia cried to her minions.

  I knew that Rory was sitting in a car at the end of the road. All I had to do was get the rolling pin to safety. It was the murder weapon. Sophia had confirmed that fact the moment she saw it and protested that she wasn’t a murderer. How would she have known it was the murder weapon if she hadn’t used it on Chevy Chambers?

  As I struggled with the doorknob, Sophia grabbed me from behind and reached for the rolling pin. She had almost pulled it from my grasp when Kennedy wrangled her off me. Adjusting the rolling pin, I turned the knob again. This time the door burst open with a gust of icy wind. Still wearing my red cape, I ran for the icy street. Unfortunately, every woman in the house ran after me.

  Models didn’t make the best runners. Models on ice were even worse. Mom was clip-clopping and slipping her heart out on the frozen pavement. I turned and saw her whack Sophia in the back with her handbag. Bradley’s mother wasn’t wearing heels. Although she slipped a little, she regained her balance and continued the chase. Kennedy, on the other hand, had kicked off her heels, hiked up her gown, and was braving the snow in her bare feet. Unfortunately, she was being outrun by the chubby fifty-year-old with the reddish hair.

  Spotting Mom’s rental car, I called out to Rory. I waved a hand to get his attention, but the car door remained shut. I silently cursed YouTube and all their addictive video content. Rory had been beyond bored and was probably reclining in the front seat watching football highlights.

  The woman with the platinum-blond hair was in shape and had nearly reached me when I lunged for the car. I shifted the rolling pin in my other arm and tried to open the door. I yanked harder on the handle and cursed. It was locked. Rory wasn’t inside. The blonde was relentless. Panic took hold the moment she yanked the rolling pin out of my hand and shoved me to the pavement.

  “That outfit makes you look fat!” She flung the insult with mean-girl glee. She then turned and started running for the harbor.

  Although the shoreline was covered in ice, and some of the harbor had frozen over, there was still open water a few yards out. If she threw the rolling pin into the bay, it might never be found. This thought plagued me as I scrambled to my feet and ran after her. We had only made it halfway down the block when she suddenly screamed. Rory, emerging from behind a snowbank on the side of the road, had grabbed her from behind and wrestled the rolling pin out of her hand.

  “Where were you?” I cried, doubled over and breathing heavily.

  “In the bushes at the back of the house watching a pop-up fashion show.” He flashed a private grin as he handed me the rolling pin. He then secured the woman’s hands behind her back with a zip tie. “Keep an eye on this one,” he said, motioning to the woman fuming with anger beside me. Then with a straight face, Rory added, “I was hoping for a little more twirl out of you.” Before I could reply, he was off again, heading this time for the frantic woman who was racing hell-for-leather back to her house.

  I had never realized how fast Rory could run. Sophia was down in the snow before she knew what hit her.

  CHAPTER 44

  Sophia Argyle-Huffman was arrested for the murder of Chevy Chambers. Her two friends were brought down to the station, as well, but were released after questioning. A pair of bored, wealthy women, they admitted to the cookie-napping. Apparently, as a professional baker, Sophia had targeted me because I posed a threat to her son’s chances of winning the live bake-off. She had convinced her friends that by taking my cookies, I wouldn’t have any to offer shoppers and no one would vote for me. They thought they were helping a friend. They had also admitted to speaking with Chevy Chambers at the bake-off, purely to sway his vote in favor of their friend’s son, Bradley Argyle. The only crime the two women seemed guilty of was being a loyal friend to a kleptomaniac murderess.

  After our harrowing visit to Bay Harbor, and after explaining to Sergeant Murdock how we had found the cookie-nappers and the murder weapon, we had driven back to th
e Beacon Harbor Police Station to give a new set of statements. Murdock, true to form, was furious with me. But I could tell she was also a little relieved. Police had to operate by certain rules of law in order to catch a criminal. Things like pop-up Christmas fashion shows were beyond the scope of what was normal or accepted. Thanks to Mom and her utter confidence in the wacky plan, it had worked for us. No one wanted a murderer at large during Christmas.

  While we were giving our statements, Officer Tuck McAllister, aka Officer Cutie Pie, walked in with Bradley Argyle. Bradley, having learned that his mother had been found with the murder weapon in Bay Harbor, was visibly upset. Last night at the restaurant, he had tried to protect her by withholding her name and address, but he’d admitted that she was a kleptomaniac. It occurred to me that he might have known she had stolen Felicity’s rolling pin. The antique rolling pin would connect Sophia to the crime scene, and for reasons that must be very painful, Bradley could never make that mental leap.

  When young, attractive, and totally smitten Officer Tuck McAllister came out of the interrogation room, he waved Kennedy and the rest of us into another private room to tell us what they had learned. Sophia Argyle-Huffman had sung like a canary.

  “It’s all rather sad,” Tuck began, and shook his blond head before revealing Sophia’s motive for murder.

  As we had discovered, Bradley Argyle had opened his first restaurant in Chicago eight years ago. Sophia, wanting her only child’s restaurant to be a smashing success, had done what Ginger Brooks (and nearly Felicity) had done during the run-up to our own Christmas cookie bake-off. Sophia had agreed to an affair with the food critic in exchange for a glowing review of her son’s restaurant. Bradley, of course, was blissfully unaware of the bargain struck between his mother and Chevy. We had read the scathing review of the Tall Ships restaurant ourselves and knew that Chevy had never honored the bargain.

  “Chevy Chambers was notorious for that type of bad behavior,” Tuck reminded us. “He was trying his hardest to create havoc in our own town, and we all know the result of that. I really wish you guys had come to me with that newspaper article the moment you found it.” He looked truly hurt by the way we had kept from him our most important find.

  “Tuck, darling,” Kennedy soothed. “We were only trying to scope out the territory for you. You would have had to work with the sheriff in Bay Harbor.” Tuck knew all we had done to get Sophia’s name and address.

  He nodded and continued to tell us how Bradley had lost everything after his restaurant tanked. He went bankrupt and started drinking. Those were dark times, according to Sophia.

  “I can only imagine,” Rory interjected.

  “Tuck, why did she wait all these years to kill him?” I asked.

  “That’s the thing. She said she had no intention of killing him. Bradley had landed on his feet in Beacon Harbor and was making a name for himself at the Harbor Hotel Restaurant. Sophia, having divorced Bradley’s father when Bradley was ten, moved to Michigan shortly after her son did. She remarried a wealthy businessman by the name of Douglas Huffman. Douglas was older than Sophia and died two years ago of a heart attack. Her story checks out,” he added.

  “So, if she hadn’t meant to kill Chevy, what happened? Sophia stole our cookies and locked me in a storage closet during the bake-off.”

  “Right. Once she heard that Chevy Chambers was coming to Beacon Harbor, the town her son lives in, to judge the Christmas cookie bake-off, she hatched her plan. She wanted Bradley in the live bake-off. She wanted Chevy to know how talented her son really was. She stole your cookies, Lindsey, because you were his only real competition. She was trying to knock you out of the live bake-off, but it didn’t work. That forced her to spring a new plan. She had her two friends confront Chevy at the bake-off. Since it was no secret that Chevy was soliciting bribes, she had Cynthia Goddard and Barbie Blankenship work him over on behalf of Bradley Argyle. At that point, Chevy didn’t know that Sophia was in Beacon Harbor. She was a blast from his past. Anyhow, Sophia caught wind of that note passed to Chevy by Ginger Brooks. Sophia’s girlfriends relayed the information that Chevy was to meet someone under the mistletoe in the library.”

  I shook my head. “And here, I thought everyone was too busy baking cookies and frosting gingerbread houses for shenanigans of that nature.”

  Tuck shrugged. “Sophia believed that Felicity Stewart was having an affair with Chevy. She imagined that Ginger Brooks found out and was trying to bribe him as well. That, for some reason, made her angry.”

  “She probably believed Felicity would win,” Mom added.

  “It was after you chased her, Lindsey, that she decided to make sure Bradley would win. He had won the cookie round, but she was going to corner Chevy and make sure Bradley had a clear victory when the gingerbread houses were being judged. When she realized that you, Lindsey, had recognized her as the woman who stole your cookies, she panicked. She had taken Bradley’s master keys before the event, planning to lure Chevy in a closet for their private chat, but she didn’t need to do that, thanks to Ginger. Once she locked you in the closet to get you out of the way, she then doubled back, snuck onto the stage and took Felicity’s rolling pin. Then she went to meet Chevy under the mistletoe.”

  I looked at Rory. The timeline fit. “But why did she steal Felicity’s rolling pin if she didn’t mean to kill him?” I thought to ask.

  “Two reasons. She wanted it, being a kleptomaniac, and she wanted to teach Felicity Stewart a lesson, thinking she was the one having the affair with Chevy. Are you guys following all this?”

  Rory grimaced. “Unfortunately, yes.”

  “Anyhow,” Tuck continued, “Sophia said that Chevy was shocked to see her there. Remember, he thought he was meeting Ginger. Sophia thought he was meeting Felicity and called him out on it by showing him that she’d stolen her rolling pin. Sophia knew Chevy was on the take and threatened to expose him if he didn’t make amends for what he had done to her son. She reminded him of their bargain all those years ago and how he had failed to keep it. But instead of apologizing, Chevy, true to form, mocked her for being a fool. He also threatened to tell Bradley—who, he admitted, was a talented chef—how his mother had sold herself for a positive review of his restaurant. That shameful incident was a secret Sophia wanted to protect. She never wanted her son to know what she had done. Knowing Chevy Chambers was an evil-spirited man, she believed he would actually tell Bradley about their affair. She grew angry and clubbed Chevy on the head with the rolling pin. The moment she realized that she had killed him, she called her friends and they swiftly left the hotel. Neither Barbie nor Cynthia ever knew what she had done. They simply thought their plan was in motion. How messed up is that?” He shook his head.

  “How sad,” I said, my heart going out to poor Bradley Argyle. “She really should have had more faith in her son’s abilities.”

  * * *

  We left the police station with heavy hearts and drove straight to the Beacon Bakeshop. Although the bakeshop was closed for the day, Dad and Mrs. Nichols were still there waiting for us and our news. So, too, were the dogs. The moment we entered and were greeted by our three excited furry friends, the horrible events of the day seemed to dissipate in the festive atmosphere. Bing Crosby was singing “White Christmas” over the speakers as the scent of pine, cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg tickled our noses. The Christmas tree was lit, shedding its festive glow on the two bakers who were dearest to me, Dad and Mrs. Nichols. They were sitting at a table wearing floppy red Santa hats while sipping eggnog lattes. A plate of beautiful Christmas cookies sat on the table between them. I suddenly wanted one very much. There was nothing like a Christmas cookie to lift the spirits.

  As Rory, Mom, and Kennedy pulled up chairs to join them, I went to the kitchen and brewed a pot of coffee. While the coffee was being made, I took out another plate and filled it with more cookies and thin slices of a rum-soaked fruitcake I had made before the Christmas cookie bake-off had been announced. Fruitcakes were alw
ays better the longer they sat. With coffee, mugs, and a new plate of goodies, I went to join them.

  “Oh my!” Mrs. Nichols exclaimed, after hearing our story. “I never imagined so twisted a tale at Christmas. All mothers love their children,” she said, directing her kindly blue gaze at Mom. “But to go to such lengths to see one’s child succeed is dangerous for both mother and child.”

  “I agree,” I said, thankful that my parents were supportive without being overbearing. I valued their guidance as much as my independence. “The whole village is reeling from this. Chevy and his deceitful ways have ruined everything; his death has overshadowed our Christmas festival. I do think the Christmas cookie bake-off was a good idea, but it spun out of control the moment we put the judging into that man’s hands. The worst part is, now we’ll never know who actually baked the best cookie!”

  Mrs. Nichols held me with a thoughtful look. “Why, dear, Christmas cookies are baked with tradition and love, and because they are, every person who bakes a Christmas cookie is a winner. You are all winners.”

  “I agree,” Dad said with a grin. “I always thought it was folly to think that one Christmas cookie could be better than another, when my favorite is clearly all of them.”

  Kennedy laughed at his remark and held up a piece of fruitcake. “My mum makes a dry fruitcake cookie without the booze, so maybe not all of them?”

  Rory laughed. “Lindsey and Mrs. Nichols have baked so many cookies these last few weeks, and I’ve had the pleasure of tasting them all. I agree with James. Variety is what makes them so special. Sometimes a lemon-ginger sandwich cookie is the way to go, while at other times, it must be chocolate chip. By the way, are there a lot of cookies left?”

  “Tons of them,” Mrs. Nichols and I replied at the same time.

  That got me thinking about all our Christmas cookies and what to do with them. A moment later, I blurted, “We need to have another Christmas festival!”