Cookie Dough or Die

by Virginia Lowell

  “Well, I don’t know, will you be wearing that sweet little number you had on last night?”

  “You get one pass for exhaustion, Del, then I start keeping score.”

  Del laughed. “Fair enough. Meet me at the café around one o’clock, and we’ll talk.”

  Olivia hung up and slid her phone into her pants pocket. When she twisted the stool seat around, her breath caught in her throat. At the front of the store stood Sam Parnell, postal carrier, holding a bundle of mail. She hadn’t heard him come in.

  Chatterley Heights had three postal carriers, two parttimers and Sam, who’d been delivering mail for fifteen years. Every day, freezing or sweltering, he wore an official U.S. Postal Service uniform, complete with hat. He never left home without it.

  “Anything interesting today?” Olivia had heard all the rumors about Sam. According to local gossip, he wasn’t nicknamed “Snoopy” for nothing.

  “Looks like a whole lot of bills,” Sam said.

  “Good to know. Thanks for bringing them in.” She busied herself sorting through a stack of new receipts.

  “Shame about Ms. Chamberlain.” Sam’s nasal whine reached across the room.

  Olivia glanced up at him, which he took as an invitation. He flipped through her mail as he crossed the store. “I guess there’s only so much stress a woman can take,” he said as he handed the envelopes to Olivia.

  “Stress?” she asked, then kicked herself. She knew how much Sam loved looking as if he knew more than everyone else, and she’d handed him an opportunity.

  “A woman her age, I mean, with all those businesses going at once. And two grown sons wanting to take charge. I heard she was thinking of changing her will. Must have been tough on her. I mean, Hugh and Edward, hard to tell if either one will ever settle down and have kids to carry on the family name.”

  Olivia sorted through her mail without comment. She’d learned that whenever Sam was angling for information, he would string together several vague suggestions, hoping to see his listener react to one of them.

  Sam cleared his throat. “One thing I know for sure,” he said. “Having grandchildren, that was real important to Ms. Chamberlain. Real important.”

  It was probably another guess, but Sam’s statement surprised Olivia. She remembered Clarisse mentioning the topic of grandchildren, but she hadn’t given it any thought. Olivia said nothing, but she couldn’t help meeting Sam’s watery blue eyes. True or not, his comment was something to think about. Sam gave her a nod and sauntered toward the door, whistling.

  Olivia rarely had time for lunch out, and even when she did, she avoided the Chatterley Café. At lunchtime, even on a weekday, customers sat on windowsills and crowded the doorway, waiting for a table.

  Olivia slid onto the stool Del had saved for her at the counter. “You look awful,” she said.

  “It’s good to see you, too, Livie.” Del gave her a muted smile that only accentuated the puffiness around his eyes. His sandy hair, normally straight, was bunched and creased as if he’d wedged on his uniform hat right out of the shower.

  Olivia scanned the café. It was a few minutes past one o’clock, but every table was occupied. No one appeared to be signing a credit card slip or donning a coat. “I was hoping for a lower decibel level,” she said, leaning toward Del’s ear.

  The waitress sloshed two cups of coffee in front of Del, who slid one toward Olivia. “My treat,” he said. “You can buy lunch.”

  “Thanks,” Olivia said. “This makes an even half dozen cups since I got up this morning. I can feel my stomach lining dissolve.”

  Del nodded toward a table along the front window. “I think those two are about to leave,” he said.

  Olivia glanced at the couple, who appeared to be deep in conversation. “How do you know?”

  “Because, Livie, I’ve been a cop for nearly fifteen years. I’ve learned how to read these kinds of situations.”

  Grinning, Olivia said, “This has something to do with donuts, doesn’t it?”

  “Oh ye of little faith.” Del pointed to the same table, where the couple had stood up and were shrugging into their coats. Del grabbed his coffee cup and reached the table in seconds. Both customers greeted him with smiles and motioned him to take their table. Del waved to Olivia to join him.

  “Okay, how did you do that?” Olivia demanded as she opened a menu.

  Looking pleased with himself, Del said, “I happen to know that those two eat here every day, and they tip heavily so the waitstaff will save this table for them. They keep a running tab, which they clear every two weeks on payday. Both of them work at the post office. If they clock in past one fifteen, their pay is docked.”

  “Impressive,” Olivia said. “And I see you’ve even arranged for entertainment.” She pointed out the window toward the sidewalk. A black Lab the size of a pony loped past, scattering passersby.

  “The cavalry won’t be far behind,” Del said, shaking his head.

  Within seconds, a tall young man with a frantic expression sprinted past the window. It was Deputy Cody Furlow, trying to dodge the folks his dog, Buddy, had nearly mowed down.

  “Is Spunky still trying to run away, too?” Del asked.

  “Not as often. I think he’s feeling safer now.”

  “That’s one plucky little guy,” Del said. “Escaping from a puppy mill, living on the streets of Baltimore for weeks. It would make a terrific movie.”

  “Yeah, he’s a great little con artist. It’s part of his charm.”

  Once they’d ordered, Del rested his chin on his laced fingers and regarded Olivia with a concerned expression. “You wanted to talk about Clarisse?”

  Olivia sipped her coffee, searching for the right words to describe Clarisse’s behavior a few days earlier. It was the last time she’d ever see Clarisse, but she couldn’t have known that, so she hadn’t paid rapt attention to their conversation. Though it had struck her as off-kilter, she wasn’t sure she could explain how or why. Del didn’t prod her, for which she was grateful.

  When their orders arrived, Del dug into his turkey club as Olivia said, “Clarisse Chamberlain was the sharpest, most determined woman I’ve ever met, and I admired her for that, even though sometimes I didn’t agree with her. She always seemed to know what she wanted.”

  Del nodded encouragement while he chewed.

  “But the last time I talked to her, she was like a different person.”

  “When was this exactly?” Del crunched the tip of a dill pickle.

  “Tuesday afternoon. Tuesday is usually a slow retail day, so I was glad to see her and hoping for a chat. Her business insights were always so helpful to me. I offered her a cup of coffee, only she didn’t seem to hear me.”

  “Livie, you know how distracted people can get, no matter how sharp they are. Hugh and Edward are both in their thirties, so Clarisse must have been nearing sixty. At her age, lots of folks are thinking about retiring to the golf course. Maybe she was tired, or maybe she wanted time to use all those cookie cutters instead of just collecting them.”

  “I wonder if you will feel that way when you are sixty,” Olivia said. “Besides, Clarisse had no interest in cooking. She certainly wasn’t longing to become a housewife.”

  “I didn’t mean . . . Okay, help me understand. You said Clarisse wasn’t acting like herself Tuesday afternoon. What did she say or do to leave you with that impression? Tell me everything you can remember.”

  Olivia munched on her salad, casting her mind back to that afternoon. Clarisse was wearing her long, wool winter coat, even though spring had touched the air that day. Olivia had glanced at Clarisse’s face and sensed right away that something was wrong.

  “Her lipstick was smudged,” Olivia said, “badly smudged.” Before Del could respond, she added, “And don’t suggest she’d been eating an apple or making out. I never saw Clarisse without perfect makeup, even when I’d drop off a delivery at her home without calling ahead.”

  “Point taken,” Del said. �
�What else struck you? Better yet, describe the whole scene to me, including any details that stuck with you. People tend to remember details that have meaning for them, even if they don’t realize their significance at the time.”

  Fortified by food, Olivia placed herself back in time and described what she saw. “I noticed that Clarisse’s face was sort of pinched, scrunched up—”

  “Frowning? Angry?” Del leaned forward, elbows on the table.

  “Not angry. More like she was thinking about a problem, something that worried her. When she saw me, she smiled. Not a big smile, and she didn’t greet me by name, like she usually does. Did, I mean. It’s so hard to believe—”

  “I know.”

  Olivia exhaled a sigh. “She was carrying a large purse, the one she used when she had lots of errands or was delivering a package somewhere. I remember because she opened it, looked inside, then snapped it shut. Then she glanced around the store again, but she stood rooted in one place as if she couldn’t remember why she’d come.

  “I asked her, ‘Is there something special you’re looking for, Clarisse? We’ve gotten in several new spring collections since you were here last.’ She didn’t react, so I added that we’d received several vintage pieces from the 1970s Hallmark Peanuts collection. She perked up and asked to see them, so we walked over to the curio cabinet.”

  Del interrupted, his voice muted. “Do you keep it locked? Just wondering.”

  “I always try to, although I’d let Clarisse sort through it. The average shoplifter wouldn’t know the value of vintage cookie cutters—some can be worth hundreds of dollars—but serious collectors and antiques dealers do. At night, we lock the most valuable ones in the safe.”

  “Good,” Del said. “Makes my job easier. Go on.”

  “When I got out the Peanuts cookie cutters, Clarisse picked up one with Snoopy dancing. She held it for several seconds while she stared off into space. Finally, she said something like, ‘So gleeful,’ softly, almost to herself. Then she said to me, ‘I’ll take this one.’ As I walked over to the sales counter, she called to me, ‘I’m going to look around a bit.’ I looked over my shoulder, but she’d already turned her back on me.

  “I said to her, ‘Of course, take your time,’ but she didn’t answer. I felt a bit . . . well, rejected. Clarisse had never acted so distant, not with me.”

  Olivia picked at the remains of her salad. “I know it doesn’t sound like much, but in the last few months, Clarisse had been treating me almost like a daughter, taking me out to dinner, offering unwelcome advice. . . .”

  Del chuckled. “Sounds about right.”

  “The next thing she did during her visit on Tuesday was out of character,” Olivia said. “She asked me for some of our cookie recipes.”

  “You said she didn’t bake,” Del said, sounding interested.

  “I must have looked surprised, because she added that they were for Bertha. Even that didn’t make a lot of sense. When Clarisse wanted decorated cookies for a gathering, she always hired us to provide them. Anyway, I said, sure, I’d go make copies of them.”

  “Anything else you can remember?”

  “That’s about it. When I returned with the recipes, Clarisse had put another cookie cutter on the counter—a flower shape, I think. I wrapped it up, then walked over to her, and . . . You know, I thought I’d imagined this, but after Sam’s comment, I’m not so sure.”

  Olivia pushed her plate aside, so she could lean on her elbows. Rubbing her temples with her fingers, she said, “Clarisse was standing in front of a collection of cookie cutters meant for baby showers—you know, baby booties, rattles, a rocking horse, that sort of thing. She was holding a baby carriage shape. I touched her lightly on the sleeve of her coat, and her head jerked up as if I’d startled her home from another world. She looked right at me. I’d swear she had tears in her eyes. But she recovered so quickly I thought I’d imagined it. Then today, Sam insisted that grandchildren were very important to Clarisse—except she’d never mentioned it to me.”

  Del said, “Sounds like a safe, generic observation, the kind Sam often uses to elicit information. What mother doesn’t want grandchildren? However, what you saw might be helpful.”

  Del was silent for a few moments. A wrinkle between his eyebrows told Olivia that he’d taken her seriously and was giving her observations some thought.

  “You’re actually pretty good at this,” he said. “You have no idea how hard it is to get coherent details out of witnesses. I understand now why you’ve felt concerned. I might be able to put your mind at rest, at least partially.” Del leaned across the table and lowered his voice. “I’m going to tell you some information we’ve gathered since Clarisse was found. It hasn’t been very long, and we don’t yet have the autopsy and other test results, so this will be sketchy. Only here’s the thing, Livie, don’t tell anyone else, not even Maddie. Especially not Maddie. There are enough rumors out there already.”

  “Of course I won’t,” Olivia said.

  “It’s not that I don’t trust you, or even that this information will turn out to be important, but . . . well, we simply don’t know what we’re looking at here.”

  “Del, are you saying that—”

  “Keep your voice down.”

  Olivia leaned closer and whispered, “Are you saying that there’s something suspicious about Clarisse’s death?”

  “No, I’m not saying that at all. I’m pretty sure it was an accident, only . . . Look, I’ll tell you what I can, then you’ll understand why it’s important to keep this to yourself.”

  Del glanced around the half-empty café and seemed satisfied. “Okay. It looks right now like Clarisse drank a full bottle of red wine the night she died. Bertha said Clarisse asked her to open the bottle and bring it to her study. She also said Clarisse normally drank no more than one glass of wine, and only with dinner. Clarisse had trouble sleeping, Bertha said, and she had a prescription for strong sleeping pills. Since she had trouble swallowing pills, she always crushed the sleeping pills and added them to liquid, usually water or orange juice. Bertha said she’d seemed troubled lately. The evening of her death, she had barely touched her dinner.”

  “Which means,” Olivia said, “she was drinking wine and taking pills on an empty stomach.”

  “Exactly. Bertha got up at about three a.m. to answer the shout of nature, as she put it, and saw the lights on downstairs. She found Clarisse on her study floor. She was lying facedown, halfway between her desk and the study door, as if she’d realized she was in trouble and had tried to get help.”

  Olivia stared out the café window. The sky had been darkening all morning; rain would arrive before long. “So what you’re saying is that Clarisse was so disturbed, she didn’t realize or care that she was doing something really stupid?” Olivia’s mind flashed again to her many conversations with Clarisse. “I don’t know, though. . . . Clarisse could be stubborn, but she wasn’t ever stupid.”

  Del shrugged. “We’ll see what the autopsy reveals. Right now I’m concerned about a third alternative, given what you and everyone else have told us about Clarisse’s state of mind. I want it kept quiet until we’ve had a chance to eliminate the possibility.” Del checked his watch. “I need to get back to the station. What you’ve recounted only supports what everyone else has said, that Clarisse was more distracted than anyone had ever seen her. We have to explore the possibility that Clarisse herself might have decided to—”

  “No!” A couple of heads swiveled in their direction, and Olivia lowered her voice. “I know what you are going to say, but Clarisse would never choose to end her own life. She could face anything. Whatever was bothering her, she would have found a solution or gritted her teeth and carried on.”

  Del reached over and touched Olivia’s arm for a brief moment. For some reason, it only made her angrier.

  “I hope you’re right,” Del said. “Look, I know how much you want answers, but please don’t go out there on your own, asking questions
that might fuel rumors. Clarisse had several life insurance policies, and we don’t want big-city insurance investigators getting the wind up while we’re still trying to figure out what happened.”

  Olivia nodded her assent to a promise she wasn’t sure she could keep.

  Chapter Three

  After her unsettling lunch with Del, Olivia walked back to The Gingerbread House in a funk. She couldn’t accept the idea that Clarisse had died from an accidental overdose of sleeping pills and alcohol. Clarisse had been a nurse, for heaven’s sakes. And after her marriage, she and Martin had created a medical supply business that grew to be their largest, most successful venture. Clarisse had been far too knowledgeable to make such an ignorant and deadly error, no matter how preoccupied she was.

  Olivia understood why Del didn’t want her to broadcast her doubts about Clarisse’s death. Naturally he’d want to protect his town from outside invaders who might take over his investigation. She doubted he’d prevail once the circumstances of Clarisse’s death became known. Insurance investigators were paid to be suspicious. Besides, Clarisse’s reputation reached beyond little Chatterley Heights, and her death would capture media attention.

  Olivia hated the idea that Clarisse might have chosen to end her own life. As she approached The Gingerbread House, an unwelcome thought wormed into her mind: Clarisse would have known how to make her death look like an accident. But why? What could possibly have driven her to such a desperate act? And how could she, Clarisse’s friend, not have understood the signs?

  She would be asking questions, that much was certain. She wanted, needed to know what had been going on in Clarisse’s life during those days before her death. This wasn’t idle curiosity. Olivia was angry, and the person she was most mad at was herself. She kept replaying in her mind Clarisse’s last time at The Gingerbread House. She should have paid more attention, prodded Clarisse to share her troubles. Maybe she could have helped. Instead, she’d reacted like a rejected child.