One Dead Cookie (6 page)

“Lo these many hours,” Maddie said. “Our customers expect cookies every day, and I
figured you had your hands full. I’ll freeze enough cookies for a week or more once
I get all that dough cut, rolled, and baked. Then I can help you with the cookies
for the party. How did your brainstorming go?”

Olivia finished her cookie, remembering the voice she’d heard from the bench among
the trees behind the Bon Vivant restaurant.

“I gather it wasn’t productive?” Maddie doctored her coffee with cream and sugar and
danced it back to the worktable without spilling a drop. “If you’re still hungry,
I put aside a few cookies for us. We need our strength.” She pointed toward a small
plate.

“My brainstorming was a total success. More or less.” Olivia selected a magenta bunny
cookie from the table and tasted its ear. She wasn’t really hungry, but that rarely
stopped her from eating a cookie. “I came up with a couple of cookie ideas which are,
if I may say so, worthy of you.”

“Good to know.” When Olivia didn’t elaborate, Maddie asked, “So are you planning to
share your ideas with me, your obedient co-baker? Livie? You seem distracted. Don’t
tell me there’s been another murder in poor, dwindling Chatterley Heights. There’s
no other explanation for your failure to spill your brilliant baking ideas and bask
in my admiring gratitude.”

“Sometimes you’re scary,” Olivia said. “That was a compliment, in case you wondered.
Actually, I was thinking about a conversation I overheard…well, half a conversation.
I’m probably making a big deal out of nothing, but…” She repeated for Maddie, as precisely
as she could remember, the angry whispered words she’d heard.

Maddie frowned in quiet thought for so long that Olivia began to worry she’d made
the incident sound more sinister than it probably was. “I suppose there are numerous
perfectly innocent explanations,” she said. “A marital spat, for instance. Bickering
spouses can be brutal to each other,” Olivia remembered her own marriage as it broke
down. Although she couldn’t recall even Ryan, her ex-husband, using quite so harsh
a tone with her, or her with him. Sarcasm was Ryan’s personal favorite way to get
his point across. “I missed most of the conversation,” Olivia said, “and I might have
misinterpreted what I did hear.”

“Or you heard right, and you are a witness to half a criminal conversation. Remember,
someone broke into Lady Chatterley’s last night.”

Olivia poured herself a cup of fresh coffee, added
cream, and reached for the sugar. “From what Del told me, nothing was taken.”

Maddie perked up. “What else did Del tell you? And no stinting on the details.”

Oops.
Olivia had promised Del she would keep mum about anything he shared with her about
ongoing investigations. Once again, she had failed. “Look Maddie, I can’t tell you
everything Del says to me. He trusts me…more or less. I don’t want to mess that up.”

Maddie didn’t protest. In fact, she was suspiciously silent.

“Maddie? You have that look on your face. You’ve already heard all the details of
the break-in, haven’t you? Did you bug my apartment?”

“Don’t be silly, Livie. I am but a simple baker; I have no idea how to bug an apartment.
Lucas would know, but I would never involve him in such a nefarious scheme. No, I’m
simply amused by your city ways.”

“City ways? What the…? Oh. There are no secrets in small towns, right?”

“Right.” Maddie’s generous mouth curved in a smug grin. Even the curly mass of red
hair that piled on top of her head seemed to puff up with self-satisfaction. “Plus,
my friend Lola is the top manager at Lady Chatterley’s, remember? She told me every
detail about the break-in, including the weird fact that someone expertly dismantled
the store’s state-of-the-art alarm system only to bash the safe with a hammer. So
incompetent.”

“And, as you said, weird. It might explain why nothing was taken. Maybe the intruder
only wanted cash and got angry when he couldn’t find any.” Olivia relaxed. After all,
Del understood the relentless power of the small town rumor mill better than she did.
Juicy information always zipped
through Chatterley Heights faster than a professionally set wildfire; Del wouldn’t
assume she’d lit the match. Would he?

“It makes me think the intruder was a man. I doubt a woman could resist carting off
a selection of expensive dresses.” Maddie emptied a bowl of cookie dough onto the
rolling mat. “What if there were two burglars? Maybe the voice you heard in the Bon
Vivant garden was one of them checking in with his partner in crime. Maybe one turned
off the burglar alarm and left, and the other was supposed to steal the money, only
he couldn’t get into the safe. That would explain the anger you heard. Plus, if—”

“Whoa, that’s a whole lot of speculation,” Olivia said.

“You never let me have any fun.” Maddie glanced up at the clock over the sink. “The
hordes will descend soon to devour our free cookies. I’d better start baking and decorating
for later.” She gathered her icing ingredients: meringue powder, confectioners’ sugar,
lemon extract, and a handful of tiny bottles of gel food coloring.

“I’ll help Jennifer work the sales floor.” Olivia wiped cookie crumbs into the garbage
can before she deposited the plates in the dishwasher. “By the way, how is she working
out?”

“Great! That girl knows her cookie cutters. Bertha says she connects well with the
customers.” Maddie washed her hands, which meant she was ready to begin measuring
ingredients into the mixing bowl.

“Does she seem a bit distant to you?” Olivia asked. “Has she shared much about her
background? I’m wondering why I’ve never met her before, even at Cookie Cutter Collectors
Club meetings.”

“Livie, you are so suspicious. Jennifer isn’t actually from Chatterley Heights. She
grew up in Twiterton, but she
left as a child. She’s been living in DC, wanted to be in a small town, remembered
this area with fondness, and so on. That’s about all I know. She isn’t talkative,
which I can appreciate because it allows me to talk more. She’s a steady worker, knowledgeable…really,
what’s not to like? I get tired of high school girls who would rather text on their
cell phones than wait on customers. Not that I wasn’t exactly the same at their age,
except for not having a cell phone.” Maddie measured lemon extract into the mixing
bowl. “Begone,” she said. “I am about to transform these simple ingredients into the
miraculous substance known as royal icing.” She lowered the beaters into the bowl.

As the mixer began to whir, Olivia closed the kitchen door behind her and scanned
the sales floor, one of her most favorite places on earth. She counted four customers
wandering among the tables of cookie cutter displays. Three more had commandeered
the coffee table for an intense discussion that required nearness to cookies. Across
the floor, a young couple watched, clearly entranced, as Jennifer explained the many
and mysterious attachments for a large red mixer that had gone unsold since The Gingerbread
House first opened its doors. No one so much as glanced at Olivia as she tidied the
display of baking equipment.

Olivia’s back was to the sales floor when she heard a staccato
clip-clip
behind her, followed by a sound that made her think of castanets. “Mom?”

“So clever of you, Livie. How did you know?”

Olivia turned to see her petite mother, Ellie, dressed in a shiny lavender top, slim
black pants, and charcoal suede shoes tied with black laces. Her long gray hair hung
over one shoulder in a braid, and a gray suede fedora tilted
rakishly atop her head. “Wow,” Olivia said. “You look amazing. Are those sequins?”

“My little costume enhancement.” Ellie smoothed her fingers across several rows of
deep purple sequins sewn around the neck of her lavender top. As she spun in a pirouette
to show off the entire effect, her feet made a clicking sound.

“Hey, are those tap shoes? This is so unfair. You wouldn’t let me take tap dance lessons
when I was a kid.”

“I’m sorry about that, dear,” Ellie said. “I was a teensy bit afraid you would get
your feet tangled up and lose your balance. I was only thinking of your safety.”

“Well, Mom, I am eight inches taller than you are. It’s easier to stay balanced when
you’re so close to the ground.”

“Ouch,” Ellie said, grinning up at her five-foot-seven-inch daughter.

“Okay, that was mean of me. How about a cookie?” Olivia made a silent promise to accept
her clumsiness, inherited from her late father, and to celebrate the fact that she
could reach high shelves.

“Apology accepted,” Ellie said. “And normally I’d love a cookie, but I’m on the run.
I didn’t even have time to take off my tap shoes after my lesson, and I’m already
late for my League of Women Voters meeting, which I’m supposed to chair. I merely
stopped by to offer you my help with the baking for Maddie’s lovely yet ambitious
engagement party. My kitchen is at your disposal. So much easier to keep Maddie in
the dark about your cookie plans, and it would be such fun to bake with you again.”

“Mom, that would be perfect. I’ve already agreed to let Maddie help, but I’d rather
she didn’t know about my experimental failures. Can you really fit baking sessions
into your schedule? Don’t you have activities planned for every hour of every day?”

“You’re exaggerating just a bit, Livie,” Ellie said with an indulgent smile. “You
got that from your father, along with a tiny tendency toward sarcasm. Although I do
realize you are stressed at the moment, which always—”

“Mom? The League of Women Voters?” Olivia pointed to the Hansel and Gretel clock on
the wall, a gift from her mother to celebrate The Gingerbread House’s grand opening.
The clock face depicted an intricate view of the inside of the witch’s house, complete
with children and oven. The visual detail made it difficult to read the time accurately.
“According to Hansel and Gretel,” Olivia said, “either you are due at your meeting
right now, or you’re up to thirteen minutes late.”

“Oh good, I still have time. We usually drink coffee and eat doughnuts for at least
twenty minutes before calling the meeting to order. No one will miss me until the
doughnuts are gone.” Ellie glanced toward the cookie tray, still blocked by the two
intense women. “Maybe I’ll have that cookie, after all. For strength, you know.” She
tap-danced the few feet to the table, which startled the women into jumping aside.
Ellie snagged two cookies and tap-danced back to Olivia. “That was fun.”

“I’m torn between pride and embarrassment,” Olivia said.

“Thank you.” Ellie bit the tail off a bright red cardinal with dark red sprinkles.
“When can you come to the house for a baking session? I’d skip my yoga class this
afternoon, but I’ll need it after the league meeting. After that, I’m free. Maybe
you could come for dinner? Allan would love to see you, and I’m sure Jason could join
us once he finishes his shift at the garage.”

“Jason would skip transplant surgery for a free home-cooked meal.” Olivia’s string
bean of a brother could lose weight eating six meals a day. “I promised to help Maddie
decorate cookies for the store tomorrow, but I could probably get there by seven.
You can start dinner without me. I’d feel responsible if Jason passed out from hunger.”

“I’ll feed Jason while I’m cooking dinner, and he can eat a second meal with the rest
of us. That should hold him till breakfast. Allan is consumed by yet another new Internet
business he’s developing, so he won’t linger at the table. Honestly, I think that
man is happy only when he’s starting up a business. Once it’s humming along nicely,
he gets bored and sells it.”

“He seems to be good at it,” Olivia said.

“That he is.” Ellie finished her second cookie, and said, “Gotta tap-dance away. See
you sevenish.” But she didn’t move. She stared at the sales counter with a thoughtful
expression.

Olivia followed her gaze and saw their new clerk, Jennifer, pushing a large box across
the counter toward the young couple to whom she’d been demonstrating the wonders of
the fancy red mixer. Olivia had come to think of that mixer as her worst-ever business
decision. She checked the shelf the mixer had dominated for so long. It wasn’t there.

“I don’t believe it,” Olivia said. “Did Jennifer actually sell that red mixer?”

“I watched her box it up and run the credit card,” Ellie said. “But I keep wondering…”

Olivia felt a flicker of anxiety. “What? What are you wondering? Because if that credit
card is bogus, I’m out a lot of—”

“Take a deep breath, Livie.”

“But—”

“I was only wondering about Jennifer. Does she have family around here? She reminds
me of someone, but I can’t think who.”

“Maddie hired her,” Olivia said. “All I know is she recently moved here from DC, and
she has a great deal of knowledge about cookie cutters and baking. And she sold the
red mixer, which makes her a goddess in my eyes.”

“Understandable, dear. Anyway, I’m now officially late, no matter how we interpret
the Hansel and Gretel clock.” Munching on a cookie, Ellie tap-danced toward the front
door. She wove flawlessly around display tables and two of the customers. When she
reached the front of the store, she tapped around to face Olivia, blew her a kiss,
and danced backward out the door.

The customers followed Ellie’s performance in startled silence. As the door closed
behind her mother, all five faces turned toward Olivia. Their reactions ranged from
puzzlement to outright amusement. One customer giggled.

Olivia shrugged. “I’ve never seen that woman before in my life.”