One Dead Cookie (8 page)

“Okay, Jason, we need details,” Olivia said. “No more pie until you tell us how you
recognized Jennifer.”

“Geez. All right, but don’t blame me if I pass out from hunger.” Jason pushed back
his chair and stretched out his
legs. “I don’t remember her last name, but Elsworth doesn’t sound familiar.”

“But how come you know her and we don’t?”

“I didn’t meet her in Chatterley Heights,” Jason said. “I’m pretty sure she grew up
in Twiterton. I only met her once, but I do remember it was at a football game, an
away game at Twiterton High. That was the year I played on the football team, my junior
year, remember?”

“I wasn’t here,” Olivia said.

Ellie reached across the table and patted her son’s hand. “I was very proud of you,
dear.”

“Thanks, Mom, but I sucked at football. I was okay at basketball, but football is
for guys who get fed enough.”

“You can have the pie back when you tell us everything you know about Jennifer,” Olivia
said.

Jason groaned. “I hardly know anything except she was cute and kind of shy. She was
dating my friend, Kevin, the Chatterley Heights quarterback. He never said how they
met. I was with my girlfriend that night. She had her license, plus her parents’ car,
so we hung out after the game. Jennie didn’t say much.”

“If she didn’t say much, why would you remember her?” Olivia asked.

“Like I said, she was cute. Also, Kevin was being sort of a jerk, so I felt bad for
her. I never saw her again after that.”

“What did she look like then?”

“She was a blonde,” Jason said, “and she had a good figure. Kind of quiet, like I
said.”

“Did Kevin and Jennifer break up? Is that why you never saw her again?” Olivia found
herself more and more curious about her reserved clerk with so much cookie cutter
expertise.

Jason shrugged. “Maybe, I don’t know.”

“Kevin didn’t tell you?”

“Well, I sort of never spoke to Kevin again.”

“Why not?” Olivia felt uneasy about pushing Jason. He seemed uncomfortable, and she
wondered if more had happened that evening than he wanted to reveal.

When Jason didn’t respond, Ellie said, “That was a difficult time for your brother,
Livie.”

“It’s okay, Mom.” Jason hunched over the table and stared at his intertwined fingers.
“I was a little out of control back then. That night the four of us sneaked off after
the game. Kevin and I were supposed to go back on the bus with the team. Instead,
we got hold of a bottle of vodka and—”

“How did you—?”

“It doesn’t matter, okay, Livie? We got some, that’s all. We drank until the bottle
was empty, and then my girlfriend drove us home. And, yeah, I know we shouldn’t have
been on the road, but my girlfriend only had a couple sips. She was on a diet or something.
Jennie passed out, though. We carried her to her house and sort of propped her up
on the porch. Then we rang the doorbell and ran, so we wouldn’t get caught. We all
got home safe, only Kevin got really sick, so his parents figured out what had happened,
and we got into trouble. The coach kicked Kevin and me off the team. Kevin blamed
me because…well, it doesn’t matter.”

Ellie squeezed Jason’s forearm and said, “Don’t leave Livie thinking you or Charlene
provided the alcohol, dear.”

Jason heaved a long sigh. “Yeah, okay, it was Jennie who brought the bottle. She stole
it from her mother. She said there was plenty more and her mom wouldn’t notice. Kevin
lied to his parents and said I brought it, but I told Mom the truth, and she told
Kevin’s mom.”

“Mom? She believed you, and not her own son?” Olivia asked.

“I’m afraid so, dear. Some mothers are able to see their children clearly, yet still
love them.”

“Anyway,” Jason said, “Kevin and I stopped speaking to each other, and I never saw
or heard about Jennie until I recognized her in the store.”

“Did she recognize you?” Olivia asked.

“She didn’t seem to,” Jason said with a shake of his head. You know, there is one
reason I remember Jennie, besides how cute she was. She said she didn’t have a dad,
and her mom was…I think she said her mom was on drugs. I remember thinking I was luckier
than Jennie. I didn’t have a dad anymore, but I had a mom who cared enough to notice
my existence at least.”

“Thank you, dear,” Ellie said. “I think.”

Jason snickered, and the mood lightened. “Hey, that took a lot of energy,” he said.
“Some key lime pie might help me get my strength back.”

Olivia shoved the pie pan toward him. “Thanks for telling me all that, Jason. I think
it explains a lot.” She could understand Jennifer’s reticence, given her tough childhood.
“Do you happen to remember how old Jennie was?”

Jason opened a mouth filled with pie, and said, “Nope, but she seemed about our age.
Anyway, she wasn’t a kid.”

“Don’t talk with your mouth full, Jason.” There was a touch of pride in Ellie’s stern
voice.

*   *   *

E
xcited and exhausted, Olivia slumped on a kitchen chair in her childhood kitchen to
watch her mother slide a sheet of round cutout cookies into the oven. She and Ellie
had spent nearly three hours experimenting with recipes for decorated cookies to serve
at Maddie’s engagement party. After they’d finished mixing the batches, they’d begun
to
roll and cut the dough. Soon they would be able to taste the results.

“Mom, how can you keep standing on your feet for so long?” Olivia asked. “I mean,
aside from the fact that you are practically weightless.”

“Tai chi,” Ellie said as she set the oven timer. “And calisthenics, of course. I’m
afraid my weightlessness is pure myth. I gained a pound over the winter, after I worked
so hard last summer to get back to ninety-nine pounds.”

“A pound, wow. You must need a whole new wardrobe after packing all that weight on
your little body.”

“Livie, dear, sarcasm is not your most attractive quality. When one is four foot eleven,
an extra pound can be quite cumbersome.”

“Uh-huh.” Olivia stretched her arms over her head. She’d developed a kink in her back
from working at the kitchen’s low counters, designed for her mother’s diminutive stature.

“How about a glass of lemonade while we wait for the cookies to bake?” Ellie opened
a cupboard and selected two tall glasses.

“How about a glass of wine instead?”

Ellie hesitated only a moment before exchanging the tumblers for two wine glasses,
which she brought to the table, along with the merlot from dinner. “For medicinal
purposes,” Ellie said. “Today I ran in the morning, followed by a kung fu class at
noon, and then I tap-danced until the league meeting. Between you and me, I’m a bit
achy. In a good way, of course.”

“Of course.” Olivia divided the remaining wine between their glasses. “Mom, can I
ask you something? It’s about what Jason told me earlier. I’ll understand if you’d
rather not say anything. I’m asking because Jennifer does work
for The Gingerbread House now, and I need to know if I can trust her.”

“And you are curious, as well,” Ellie said. “You were always so curious, even as a
tiny—”

“The timer for the cookies is going off in three minutes, Mom.”

“Have I mentioned how impatient you’ve always been?”

“Not since yesterday.”

“I’ll wait a bit, then. Now you asked about Jennie….” Ellie took a slow sip of her
merlot. “I really don’t know much about her. I tried to investigate a bit after Jason’s
experience, but information was hard to come by.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard you say that before,” Olivia said.

“No one is perfect,” Ellie said. “You know, it’s odd how little contact we here in
Chatterley Heights have with a town that’s only ten miles down the road. I suppose
it’s because our two school systems draw children from different areas. Twiterton
has become something of a bedroom community for DC, so the families tend to be wealthier.
They are attracted to more urban sorts of leisure activities, I imagine. I do know
a few of the women who live there, but you must have met many more than I have. I’m
sure they come to The Gingerbread House. There’s nothing else like it anywhere nearby.”

“I get lots of business from Twiterton, but they don’t stick around to chat,” Olivia
said.

“I suppose not. Well, I never did learn a great deal about Jennie. I don’t remember
her last name, but it wasn’t Elsworth. She might be married now.”

“I guess she could be using a married name,” Olivia said, “though she didn’t mention
a husband. Or a divorce.”

“After the episode Jason described to you,” Ellie said,
“we mostly talked about Charlene, his girlfriend. Jennie’s name came up only in passing.
Jason did mention that Jennie said she’d lost another family member. A sibling, I
think.” Ellie started as the timer dinged. She peeked into the oven, and said, “Done
to perfection. They smell delicious.” She put the cookie sheet on a cooling rack and
slid another batch into the oven.

“So on top of having a mom on drugs and no dad, Jennifer lost a sibling. No wonder
she doesn’t discuss her past,” Olivia said as she lifted the cookies off the sheet
with a spatula and slid them onto another cooling rack. “You know, Mom, it would be
easier and quicker to cool the cookies if you’d line your cookie sheets with parchment
paper, plus you wouldn’t have to scrub the sheets so hard to clean them.”

“So you keep telling me, Livie, but I can’t help thinking what a waste of resources
that would be.”

“Mom, we’re talking about art here. Decorated cookies are worth a few wasted resources.”
The cookies needed to cool a few minutes before they were ready for tasting. This
first batch contained lavender oil and a scattering of lavender buds. They looked
gorgeous, but beauty was only half the battle. If they weren’t melt-in-the-mouth delicious,
it was back to the recipe board for Olivia. With only three days left before the party,
Olivia was feeling the pressure. At least she had a starting place. It was the second
batch she was really worried about, since she had no idea what finely ground lemon
verbena tasted like. She’d added a touch of lemon extract to the recipe, but not too
much. Her worry was that lemon cutout cookies were so common. For Maddie’s engagement
party, they would have to be special.

Olivia reunited with her glass of merlot. “I wonder if Elsworth is just a name Jennifer
made up or if she really
was—or still is—married. And why wouldn’t she be open about her ties to this area?
Jennifer told Maddie that she moved away from Twiterton as a child, but Jason met
her as a teenager. If she was a junior in high school, she would have been sixteen
or seventeen.”

“You won’t let up on that poor girl, will you?”

“Mom, aren’t you the least bit curious about why Jennifer returned to this area and
won’t reveal who she really is?”

“Well, maybe she wanted to come home but isn’t ready to deal with the sadness in her
past,” Ellie said. “Either way, I think we should respect her privacy.” When the timer
dinged, Ellie hopped up to put another batch of cookies in the oven. “I’m out of cookie
sheets. I’ll clean one while you wield the cutter.”

Olivia rolled the lavender dough one last time and cut as many cookies as she could,
using her mother’s biscuit cutter. After the cookies went into the oven, she sacrificed
the last remnants of the lavender batch. As she rolled and cut a first batch of lemon
verbena cookie shapes, Olivia asked herself why she was so curious about her new clerk.
She had no complaints about Jennifer’s work. She was respectful, attentive to the
customers, knowledgeable about cutters and virtually everything else in the store…and
yet so secretive. That bothered Olivia. Why would Jennifer return to this particular
area of Maryland, secure a job near, yet not in, her hometown, and keep her identity
under wraps? Why had Jennifer lied about the age at which she’d left Twiterton? And
why, out of all the possibilities in Chatterley Heights, had she sought a job at The
Gingerbread House? Olivia felt her skin prickle with foreboding. She couldn’t help
worrying that her little store was about to become the epicenter of a category four
hurricane.

On Wednesday morning, with only three days left before Maddie and Lucas’s engagement
party, Olivia tried to quell her panic as she gazed out the window of Pete’s Diner
and watched the early morning sun awaken the town square. Her table afforded a view
of the statue of Frederick P. Chatterley, accidental founder of Chatterley Heights,
and his ever-patient horse. She wondered what it said about Frederick P. that, after
two hundred and fifty years of trying, he still hadn’t managed to mount his steed.

“You gonna drink that coffee or just smell it?” Ida, Pete’s senior waitress in more
ways than one, raised thin, gray eyebrows at the full cup of cold coffee Olivia held
in both hands. “Must be nice having time to waste. Some of us have to work.” Ida had
spent fifty of her sixty working years as a cook, waitress, and manager at Pete’s
Diner. She usually wore an old uniform and a hairnet, and she treated
all customers with equal disdain. No one ever complained. At least not more than once.