Cookie Dough or Die

by Virginia Lowell

  “Livie, we need to talk.” The voice did not belong to Maddie.

  “Del!” Guided by instinct, Olivia clicked closed the website she’d found, lowered the computer lid, and twisted around in her seat. “You surprised me. I was expecting . . .”

  Del wasn’t his usual low-key self, and Olivia felt her muscles tighten. “What’s up?” She tried to keep her voice light and casual. As Del stepped around the corner of the kitchen table, she noticed he was carrying a rolled-up newspaper. “Spunky has more or less grasped the whole housebreaking thing, if that’s what you’ve brought the paper for.” Okay, that was pathetic. She instructed her mouth to stay shut.

  Del unrolled the newspaper and held it out for her to see. “Did you know about this?”

  Olivia recognized the front page of the local paper, The Weekly Chatter, which usually came out every Wednesday.

  “Where did you get this?” she asked. “It’s only Tuesday.”

  “It’s late on Tuesday, and I’m the Sheriff. Binnie always drops off an advance copy.”

  “That’s mighty cooperative,” Olivia said, “for a newspaper editor.”

  Del shrugged and shifted his gaze toward the cupboards. “Binnie used to babysit me when I was a kid.”

  Olivia stifled an urge to laugh, but her amusement dissipated when she read the banner, “Chamberlain Death Suspicious.” She yanked the paper from Del’s hand. A photo accompanying the article showed Olivia dressed in the black pants and gray sweater she’d worn to the will reading. She was standing next to her Valiant, talking with a man whose back was to the camera. The photo caption read, “Olivia Greyson, heir to fortune, consults with her lawyer.”

  “What the . . . ?” Olivia muttered. “My lawyer? Heir to fortune?”

  Del said nothing. He pulled a kitchen chair near her and sat down, his legs crossed in a casual way, one ankle resting on the opposite knee. Olivia’s peripheral vision registered the rapid wiggling of his left foot.

  According to the byline, Binnie Sloan wrote the piece and Nedra Sloan was credited with the photos. Dread lay like a waterlogged tennis ball in Olivia’s stomach as she forced herself to begin reading the article. Binnie’s take on her surprise inheritance appeared to depend on comments from several “confidential sources,” who offered quotes such as:

  Ms. Chamberlain was a healthy, successful woman with a ton of money and a couple grown sons under her thumb.

  It’s the same old story, an elderly woman gets taken in by a young con artist and leaves her a bundle, but the con artist gets impatient because the old lady won’t die fast enough.

  That Greyson woman, she runs this little store with cookie cutters, and all of a sudden she’s inherited five million dollars and another million in antique cookie cutters? All I can say is, where there’s smoke, there’s fire.

  Olivia heard a high-pitched whimpering sound and realized it had erupted from her own throat. The newspaper dropped on her lap. She glanced over at Del, who watched her with a thoughtful expression, as if he wasn’t sure what her reaction meant.

  “Del, I check my phone messages and emails all the time, and Binnie never even tried to interview me.” “There’s more,” he said. “Go to page five.”

  With a deep groan, Olivia did so. She found two more photos. The first showed her with Spunky in the store’s side yard. That explained the disturbing clicks they’d heard. The caption read,” Heiress Olivia Greyson enjoys a break.”

  In the second photo, Bertha stared at the camera, her eyes so wide the whites encircled her pupils. The article continued with a quote from Bertha: “I can’t believe Ms. Olivia would hurt her. Why, Ms. Clarisse treated her like a daughter.” Olivia groaned again. She could hear Bertha saying those words in all innocence, but written down they could be read as conveying shock.

  It came as no surprise that the attorney Mr. Willard, along with Hugh and Edward Chamberlain, had refused to comment. Tammy Deacons was not mentioned. Either she wasn’t there at the time of the so-called interviews, or she was one of the “confidential sources.”

  Olivia sprang out of her chair and slapped the newspaper down in front of Del. It made a satisfying thwap, but Del barely blinked.

  “When you first barged in here, you demanded to know if I knew about ‘this.’ If you think I’d have anything to gain from this kind of exposure, you’re nuts.” Olivia hauled herself up onto the table so she could look down at him.

  Del uncrossed his legs and sat up straighter. “By ‘this,’ I meant the bequest Clarisse made to you. And by the way, I’m aware it wasn’t five million dollars plus a million in antique cookie cutters.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I called the Chamberlain house and asked. Apparently, I have more influence than the editor of The Weekly Chatter, because Edward answered the phone and assured me you’d received only one hundred fifty thousand dollars and a collection estimated to be worth about thirty thousand.”

  “It won’t make much of a dent in his inheritance, or Hugh’s,” Olivia said. “Although it sounds huge to me, and it might look like a good motive for murder.”

  “It probably would.”

  “At any rate, the answer to your question is a definite no. I had no hint that Clarisse planned to leave me anything at all. When Mr. Willard called to tell me she had made a bequest to me, I assumed it would amount to a few of her favorite cookie cutters, the ones with sentimental value. I was stunned when Mr. Willard read the codicil. That’s why we were talking outside afterwards, when that photo was taken. He assured me that Clarisse had wanted the bequest kept secret. You can ask him, if you don’t believe me.”

  “I already have,” Del said with a faint but definite smile. “However, he couldn’t know if you’d found out from another source. I needed to hear it from you.”

  He didn’t add that he now believed her, and she didn’t ask.

  According to the clock over the sink, it was five. Maddie would be straightening up the chaos left behind by a crowd of excited customers. On the one hand, Olivia wanted Del to leave so she and Maddie could get back to their own investigation. On the other hand, maybe this wretched newspaper article had opened Del’s mind a bit.

  “Del, remember that conversation we had at the café right after Clarisse’s death?”

  Del nodded.

  “You seemed so certain it was an accident. In fact, you wouldn’t even talk about the possibility of suicide. I couldn’t believe it had been either one, but the possibility of murder didn’t occur to me then. Now it has. I’ve thought for some time that Clarisse was murdered, and now I’m convinced she was. Only I don’t know by whom.”

  Del leaned forward, elbows on knees, and stared at the kitchen floor for what felt to Olivia like an hour. Anyway, it was long enough for her to move through a string of emotions from intense anxiety to curiosity to embarrassment that the floor hadn’t been swept in a week.

  Finally, he looked up at her and asked, “What makes you so sure?”

  She should have known he’d ask her that question. How could she be convincing without involving anyone else?

  “And before you tell me,” Del said, “let me add that I already know Cody shared his so-called crime scene photos with you. We had a serious discussion about that.”

  “Oh dear,” Olivia said, cringing. “I hoped I wouldn’t get him into trouble, but you were so insistent it wasn’t a crime, you can’t really blame him. Blame me, if you want, but not Cody. He’s serious about his job, and I, for one, think he’s on to something.”

  “So do I,” Del said.

  “You do? Really? When did . . . I mean, how . . . ?”

  “Give me some credit, Livie. I realize television mystery series present small-town sheriffs as buffoons or bullies, but most of us speak in complete sentences and take pride in our jobs.”

  “Um, I—”

  “Furthermore, I am not required to tell you, at any time, what I might know or suspect in a certain case. It makes my job a lot harder when private
citizens start asking dangerous questions and putting themselves in harm’s way because they think they are smarter than I am.”

  “Wait a minute, I never, ever thought I was smarter—”

  “I’m not finished, Livie. I’m saying this because I care about you.”

  “Well, you have a strange way of—”

  Del sprang from his chair and grabbed Olivia by the shoulders. He looked into her eyes with an intensity that sent a distracting shiver through her.

  Del released her as the kitchen door opened.

  “I’ll finish closing up,” Maddie said quietly, her eyes darting from Del to Olivia. “Then I’ll be heading on home.” The door clicked shut.

  Del slid back onto his chair. “Now having said all that, let me add that I think you are intelligent, insightful, and I want to hear everything you, and I presume Maddie, have discovered.”

  An hour later, Olivia had shown Del the financial information Maddie had gathered, the websites they’d searched, and Tammy’s notorious Facebook page. She told him that Sam Parnell delivered to Clarisse a letter he thought was from a private detective, and she urged him to connect the attack on Sam with that letter.

  However, as she prepared to tell Del about the letters from Faith and Clarisse, his cell rang. He turned his back on her and answered. All she heard was, “I’ll be right there.” He turned around and said, “I’ve got to take care of something.”

  Del slid an arm in his uniform jacket sleeve. “I want you to delete those photos of the scene.” When Olivia opened her mouth to protest, he added, “Not because I’m the sheriff and I think you shouldn’t have them. Although you shouldn’t. I don’t think it’s safe for you to have them.”

  Del picked up his hat and reached for the alley door. In a lighter tone, he said, “I’d count it as a personal favor if you wouldn’t go all Miss Marple on me.”

  “You needn’t worry,” Olivia said.

  With a nod, Del opened the door.

  “I’m really more the Tuppence Beresford type.”

  “Really? The young Tuppence or the older one?”

  Before Olivia could draw in enough breath for a comeback, Del was gone.

  Chapter Seventeen

  If Wednesday morning dawned clear and sweet with the scent of lilacs, Olivia Greyson didn’t notice. She barely noticed Spunky’s insistent tug on his leash, indicating his longing for a run. Lost in her own thoughts, she ran on automatic pilot back and forth along the alley behind The Gingerbread House. She wasn’t eager to show her face outside the store. Not yet, anyway.

  “Come on, Spunks,” Olivia said as she nestled the squirming dog under her arm. “I’ll make it up to you, I promise. Tell you what, you were so good yesterday, why don’t you stay with Maddie and me today in the kitchen? In fact, I’ll move your spare bed and bowls down there. You have to promise to stay in the kitchen, though.” Sure, that’ll happen. At least if he escaped into the store, customers would make a fuss over him, which in turn would delay him long enough to ensure his recapture.

  It was seven thirty a.m. when Olivia, with Spunky on a leash, let herself into The Gingerbread House, carrying a dog bed and water bowls, food, treats, and a few toys. She opened the door with the two fingers that weren’t already holding on to dog paraphernalia. With a whimper, Spunky whipped the leash from her other hand and bounded into the store.

  “Spunky!”

  “It’s okay, Livie, I heard you coming. I’ve captured the little scoundrel.”

  “Maddie?” Olivia scooted inside and slammed the door with her rear end.

  “Nice moves,” Maddie said.

  “What are you doing here so early? Not that I’m complaining. We have work to do.” Olivia deposited the dog food and treats in the kitchen. Choosing the corner farthest from both doors, she set up Spunky’s second home.

  “Couldn’t sleep,” Maddie said. She released her hold on Spunky, who raced around the kitchen in frantic circles, pausing now and then for a quick sniff. “After you called last night and told me about your conversation with Del—and by the way, I saw actual sparks in the air—anyway, I was too wired to sleep for long. So here I am, my skills and my laptop at your disposal.” She pointed to a PC on the worktable.

  “Mine isn’t good enough for you?”

  Maddie shrugged. “I figured you’d changed all your passwords. I can’t read French, and I doubt I could read Proust even in English translation. Also, I brought along my printer, and it would take time to get it to talk to your little MacBook thingie.”

  “Great,” Olivia said. “We can both do some searching before the store opens and take turns when business is slow.”

  Maddie wrapped her foot around a chair leg and dragged it to the table. While her computer booted up, she said, “By the way, I’ve made an executive decision. I realize business was fabulous yesterday, and far be it from me to quell such success, but I sent an email to everyone on our mailing list announcing that, at the current time, the Chamberlain antique cookie-cutter collection is not for sale. I asked everyone to hold their enquiries until further notice.”

  “Might not work, but it’s worth a shot,” Olivia opened her laptop and pressed the start button. “My first order of business is to hunt down some background information on the editor of The Weekly Chatter, Ms. Binnie Sloan. I intend to have a meaningful chat with that woman. I want to know her sources, if any, even if I have to—”

  “Don’t say it,” Maddie said. “I might be called upon to testify under oath.”

  Olivia’s opportunity to talk with Binnie Sloan came sooner and more easily than she’d anticipated. Twenty minutes after The Gingerbread House opened, Maddie poked her head into the kitchen and said, “Binnie Sloan is here. She wants to talk to you. What should I say?”

  “Tell her I’ll be out in a minute.”

  “Will do.”

  Olivia had skimmed the editor’s biography and a few of her most recent articles in The Weekly Chatter, all of which she’d found on the newspaper’s website. Her search had left her confused about Binnie. Her official photo showed a plump, middle-aged woman with large round glasses, a friendly smile, and a gap between her front teeth. Her straight, short graying hair looked unstyled, and she wore a flannel shirt for a formal photo.

  Her newspaper articles, all written in a conversational style, covered town issues ranging from the need to clean bird poop off the town founder’s statue to the underrepresentation of chocolate at the last PTA bake sale. Binnie Sloan didn’t seem the type to take on a controversial topic. Or perhaps Olivia’s predicament had offered Binnie her first opportunity to dig her teeth into a story.

  Olivia realized she’d spent much of her time the past year working on and in The Gingerbread House, discussing business with Clarisse Chamberlain, or hanging around with Maddie. She knew about all the bake sales her best friend had held while she was in Baltimore and how Maddie worked hard to make ends meet while still doing what she loved. But Olivia realized she’d lost touch with her home town. She vowed to get to know Chatterley Heights much better in the coming year.

  However, first things first. She entered the store and spotted Maddie helping a customer. With a tilt of her head, Maddie pointed toward the antiques cabinet. Binnie stood in front of the glassed-in display, moving her head slowly as she examined each row of cookie cutters. Olivia joined her.

  “Ms. Sloan? I’m Olivia Greyson. Everyone calls me Livie, and I hope you will, too.” She tried for her best warm-yet-confident smile, though the clenched teeth weren’t helping. At first glance, Binnie Sloan looked like everyone’s grandmother, but her article had revealed another side.

  “Your store is marvelous,” Binnie said. “I can’t believe I haven’t come in before now—I really should have, it was remiss of me. I love these old cookie cutters. They remind me so much of my grandmother. Oh, she made the most wonderful cookies. Everyone calls me Binnie, by the way.” She focused pale blue eyes on Olivia’s face.

  “Ms. Sloa—Binnie. About your
article,” Olivia said. “I have to say, I wasn’t thrilled by it.” This was an understatement of gigantic proportions, but if she wanted a retraction, she’d better keep her temper.

  “Oh, I’m so sorry you feel that way. Usually folks around here love to see their names in the paper, but, of course, you lived in the city for so many years.” Binnie’s gaze wandered around the store.

  “You never talked to me to find out the truth. That’s . . . that’s unprofessional.”

  With a dismissive wave of her hand, Binnie said, “We’re not trying to be the New York Times.”

  “Well, you did practically accuse me of murder without even checking in with me. I think most folks might find that upsetting.”

  Binnie offered a wide, gap-toothed smile. “Really? Based on the popularity of all those reality shows, I believe people crave attention, even when it brings public humiliation.” She shrugged. “Anyway, there’s no such thing as bad publicity anymore. Why, I peeked in your store yesterday, and it was packed with customers! So really, you have to admit my article was good for your business.”

  Binnie looked so pleased with herself. Apparently, she expected Olivia to be gushing with gratitude, not whining about her threatened reputation and her silly privacy.

  Olivia opened her mouth and closed it again. Was there any point in trying to reason with Binnie Sloan? She was so agreeable, so sure of herself, and so not of the planet earth.

  Suppressing a sigh of frustration, Olivia said, “Look, Binnie, I know you’re only doing your job, but I have two requests. These may not seem important to you, but I would truly appreciate your cooperation. First, print a retraction in next week’s paper making it clear that the quotes you printed about me were inaccurate and not from knowledgeable sources. And second, stop taking photos of me without my permission. Especially on my own property.”

  Binnie’s eyebrows shot up in astonishment. “Oh, I’m sure Ned wasn’t on your property, if that’s what you’re so upset about. I specifically instructed her to stay in the arborvitae, which are actually on your neighbor’s property. I looked up the plat map to be sure.”