A Catered Christmas Cookie Exchange (A Mystery With Recipes)

by Crawford, Isis

  Ten Westward Drive was a modified, white clapboard ranch, with green trim, arborvitae foundation plantings, and an attached garage that someone had added a second story to at some point. The house was completely unremarkable, and made even more so by the fact that it looked exactly the same as the ones on either side of it. Even the Christmas decorations were similiar.

  All three houses had white lights strung around the windows and the front door. Bernie couldn’t help thinking that Ten Westward Drive was one of those houses that went into your mind and out again without leaving a trace behind. For all intents and purposes, it was invisible.

  As she and Libby walked up to the doorway, Bernie heard voices coming from the television. The curtain wasn’t drawn, and Bernie could see the living room from where she was standing. It was like a stage set. The furnishings consisted of a white sofa, two beige armchairs, a glass coffee table, and a shelf full of what looked like knickknacks. A rerun of Law and Order was on the TV, although as far as Bernie could tell, Alma wasn’t in the living room. When she and Libby got to the door, Bernie rang the bell.

  “Coming,” Alma called. A moment later she opened the door.

  She was wearing a three-quarter-length light blue quilted housecoat, black socks that highlighted her white skin, and fuzzy slippers on her feet. Her white hair was in curlers, except for three pin curls on her forehead.

  “My goodness,” she said, when she saw Bernie and Libby standing there. “What are you doing here at this time of night? Is it something about the show?”

  “In a manner of speaking,” Libby said.

  “What manner of speaking?” Alma demanded. “Have they canceled the taping?” she asked, her voice rising in alarm.

  “Not as far as I know,” Bernie said. “We need to talk to you about something else.”

  “Can’t it wait?” Alma asked. “I’m busy.”

  “I’m sorry, but it can’t,” Libby replied.

  Alma made a show of looking at her watch. “It’s late, and I’m not dressed to receive company. We can talk sometime tomorrow if you’d like.”

  “We’re not company,” Bernie said, stepping into the hallway. “And we need to talk now.”

  Libby followed her sister in. She took a quick look around. The hallway was painted a cool bluish white and lined with small display units that held Alma’s collections of thimbles, teaspoons, and miniature teacups. Libby made a note to herself to stay away from them. She was such a klutz, she could just imagine herself crashing into them by accident.

  Alma coughed and touched her pin curls. “There’s no need to be rude,” she told the sisters.

  “We’re not being rude,” Bernie said.

  Alma frowned. “I don’t know what you call this, but in my day people didn’t barge in on people, especially in the evening, without calling first. I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to leave. As I said, I’m busy.”

  “We will leave in just a moment,” Bernie assured her. “We just want you to answer one question for Libby and myself.” With that she whipped out the square of material Libby had found in Amber’s room. “We just wondered what this is?” she asked as she handed the square to Alma.

  Alma looked at her. “A skull and crossbones, obviously.”

  “We thought it was going to go on a quilt.”

  Alma shrugged. “I guess it could. Anything can go into a crazy quilt. It could be something for a pirate flag as well.” She handed the square of material back to Bernie. “But I don’t see what it has to do with me.”

  “We found it in Amber’s desk drawer,” Libby told her.

  Alma sniffed. “Then I suppose your time would be better employed asking Amber about it.”

  “I’d love to, but I can’t,” Libby said.

  She waited for Alma to ask why, but she didn’t.

  “Don’t you want to know why I can’t?” Bernie asked when the silence had gone on for longer than it should have.

  “I assume you’re going to tell me,” Alma replied, looking at her watch again.

  “She’s missing,” Libby told her.

  “Missing?” Alma said, as her hands moved down to her housecoat and began to finger the top button.

  “That’s right,” Bernie said, watching Alma closely. “We were hoping that this quilt square . . .”

  “If it is a quilt square,” Alma interjected.

  “. . . might help us find out where she went.”

  Alma blinked. “I don’t see how it would,” she said.

  “Well, we were hoping she’d talked to you.”

  Alma shook her head. “Hardly. Are you sure she’s missing?”

  “Positive,” Bernie replied.

  “Maybe she just ran off with someone,” Alma said. “You know how young people are these days.”

  “Not in this case,” Libby said.

  “How can you be so sure?” Alma asked. “Given her hair and those things she has in her face.” Alma shuddered. “I don’t know why anyone would disfigure themselves like that. Who knows what someone who looks like that will do?”

  Libby pointed to herself. “I know. Think about it.”

  “Think about what?” Alma said. Her voice took on an indignant tone. “As far as I can see, there’s nothing to think about. Certainly nothing that concerns me.”

  Libby leaned forward. “First Millie gets into a fatal accident, then Amber disappears. You don’t find that coincidence just a little suspicious?”

  Alma looked up at Bernie and Libby. Her nostrils flared. “So what are you two saying exactly?”

  “We’re saying,” Bernie went on, “that’s there’s a connection between the two events.”

  Alma Hall’s eyes got smaller, which made her nose and her jowls look bigger. “What does that have to do with me?”

  “It’s obvious, isn’t it, Alma?” Bernie said.

  Alma crossed her arms over her chest. “Not to me, Bernie.”

  “My sister isn’t implying anything,” Libby said.

  “She’d better not be,” Alma said.

  “We’re just wondering if you could help us find Amber,” Libby told her.

  Alma looked from one sister to another and back again. “This is why you came to my door at this time of night? This is why you disturbed my rest?”

  “Don’t you care about Amber?” Bernie said.

  Alma’s eyes were now slits. “What kind of question is that?”

  “Well, you didn’t seem very upset when I told you she was missing,” Bernie pointed out. “And you don’t seem very anxious to help us out now.”

  “That is because I have nothing to contribute. I don’t know where Amber is, and I can’t believe that you would think I would know. I also can’t believe that you think I had anything to do with her disappearance—if that, indeed, is what it is. Which I highly doubt,” Alma told her. She raised her hand. “How you can come to a conclusion like that is beyond me.”

  “I didn’t say that,” Bernie said.

  “You didn’t have to,” Alma retorted. “Your face said it for you. Just because I’m seventy-three doesn’t make me stupid, you know. If you want to talk to someone about Amber and Millie, you should talk to Rose and Sheila. Sheila hated Millie ever since she tried to steal her boyfriend away.”

  “Boyfriend?” Bernie couldn’t keep the wonder out of her voice.

  “What, Bernie? You think that only young people have sex lives?” Alma demanded. “You don’t think us older folk are entitled to them too?”

  “That’s not what I said,” Bernie protested.

  “You didn’t have to. It was in your tone of voice. As for Rose, I don’t think she ever forgave Millie for the comment she made about the lilac bushes she ran over. Plus, there was the small issue of the twenty dollars she borrowed from Millie and never returned.”

  “Twenty dollars?” Bernie said, lifting an eyebrow.

  Alma put her hands on her hips and stuck her jaw out. “You don’t think twenty dollars is worth bothering about?” />
  “It’s not that,” Bernie stammered. “It’s . . .”

  “A penny is a penny,” Alma interrupted. “If you had been through the Depression you would know that.”

  “But what about you, Alma?” Libby asked, figuring it was time she stepped up to the plate. “I understand that Millie got you thrown out of your quilting club.”

  Two red dots appeared on Alma’s cheeks. “Who told you that?” she demanded of Libby.

  “What difference does it make?” Libby asked.

  “It was Rose, wasn’t it?” Alma cried.

  Bernie noticed that Alma’s hands were clenched into fists. “Well, Alma, is what Rose said true?” Bernie asked.

  Alma took a deep breath and exhaled. Then she uncurled her hands and let them hang loosely at her sides. “Fine. It’s true. Millie did do that,” she admitted.

  “Were her charges true?” Libby asked.

  “Of course not,” Alma cried. “How can you even say such a thing?”

  “So you must have been pretty pissed,” Libby continued.

  “Wouldn’t you be?” Alma asked.

  “Yes, I would,” Libby replied.

  “It was a horrible thing to have done. Simply horrible.” Alma shook her head at the memory. “And all I was trying to do was make sure that Millie didn’t kill herself or someone else on the road. If I were she, I would have thanked me instead of doing what she did. There was absolutely no call for that. None. On top of everything else, she’s still on the road.” She patted her curlers with her right hand to make sure they were all in place. “Or was.”

  “Is that why you arranged for Millie to have an accident so she wouldn’t win the Bake for Life contest?” Libby asked Alma, carefully watching her face as she talked. “You figured it was poetic justice, and on top of everything else, you’d even the score a little. Plus, no one would suspect anything, given Millie’s driving record. Unfortunately, things didn’t work out as planned, but then they rarely do.”

  “That’s a ridiculous thing to say,” Alma scoffed.

  “I didn’t say it wasn’t,” Libby replied. “But that doesn’t necessarily make what I said any less true.”

  Alma sniffed. “Do you have any proof? I thought not,” she said when Libby and Bernie remained silent. “Coming to the door with accusations like this. You two should be ashamed of yourselves.” She shook a finger at them. “I don’t need to do anything to win that contest. I’m a way better baker than Millie ever was. Way better. Ask anyone. Millie had an inflated opinion of her abilities. All of her abilities, if we’re being honest.”

  “Does that apply to Amber too?” Libby asked.

  Alma made a dismissive motion with her hand. “Amber is a counter girl, not a baker. The whole idea of Amber taking Millie’s place is absurd. I don’t know what that woman . . .”

  “That woman?” Libby asked.

  “. . . Prudence.” Alma moved her hand in a circle when she caught the blank looks on Libby’s and Bernie’s faces. “You know. The producer.”

  “Penelope,” Bernie said. “Her name is Penelope.”

  “Fine. I don’t know what Penelope was thinking about when she allowed her in.”

  “It would definitely be better for you if Amber wasn’t in the contest,” Bernie observed.

  Alma’s nostrils quivered in indignation. She pointed to the door. “I’ve stood for this long enough. I want you two out, and I want you out now. I have been patient long enough.”

  “Or?” Bernie said.

  “Or I’ll call the police. If you want to bother someone, bother Rose or Sheila. Now get out or I’m calling. I need my rest.” Alma put her hand to her heart. “If I have an attack I want you to know it’s on you two.”

  Libby and Bernie left.

  “Does Alma have a history of heart disease?” Libby asked once they were in the van.

  Bernie snorted. “Don’t be silly. She’s as healthy as a horse.” She turned Mathilda on. “Rose Olsen’s house next,” she announced.

  Chapter 18

  It took the sisters ten minutes to get to Rose Olsen’s house.

  “I think I like her house the best,” Libby said when she spotted the wooden bungalow with the wraparound porch that Rose called home.

  “Her garden is amazing,” Bernie observed. She’d been there last spring to deliver ten cheesecakes and three trays of assorted cookies for one of Rose’s open houses and had been blown away by Rose’s inventive use of the wild grasses lining the path up to the house, as well as the way Rose had combined foundation plantings and a perennial garden.

  “Rose really does love her plants,” Bernie said as she was debating whether to park on the street or in Rose’s driveway. “Someone told me she had a greenhouse built in her backyard. Maybe we should do something like that.”

  Libby was just about to remind her sister that she had a black thumb when she saw Rose’s garage door open and Rose’s vehicle come flying down the driveway in reverse. “Damn,” she said as she watched Rose reach the street, take a hard right, and speed down Danbury Road.

  “This definitely sucks,” Bernie agreed as she tracked the taillights on Rose’s vehicle disappearing around the bend. “She’s a better driver than I thought. And a faster one.”

  “I wonder what’s going on,” Libby murmured. Somehow, Rose didn’t strike her as the kind of person to go running off someplace. Especially given her age and the time of night, but obviously she was wrong.

  “Let’s find out, shall we?” Bernie said, and with that she drove into Rose’s driveway, made a right, and went after Rose.

  “You know we’re never going to catch her,” Libby observed. Rose’s vehicle could go at least eighty miles an hour easy, probably more, while Mathilda could make it to fifty at the very most. And she didn’t like doing that for very long.

  “Oh ye of little faith,” Bernie retorted. “Even if we don’t catch her, maybe we’ll be able to figure out where she’s going.”

  Libby grabbed for the strap and held on tight. “I wonder if she saw us parking. I wonder if that’s why she jetted out of her house.”

  Bernie shook her head. “Because she didn’t want to talk to us? I doubt it. She was probably in the garage by the time we pulled up.”

  “Although there are windows on the garage door,” Libby pointed out.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Bernie said. “The angle is wrong.”

  “Maybe it’s some sort of domestic emergency,” Libby suggested.

  “Maybe,” Bernie said automatically. She was concentrating on her driving and only half listening to what Libby said.

  “Or maybe,” Libby continued, “Alma called her and told her we were coming to talk to her.”

  Bernie grunted.

  “Of course,” Libby went on, “Alma did just point us in her direction.”

  “Yeah, but I bet Alma didn’t tell her that,” Bernie said as she got to the end of Danbury. She could see Rose’s silver vehicle under the streetlights in the distance. She’d taken a left and was about half a block away. “I think she’s heading for Twelve Corners, Libby.”

  “Maybe if we’re lucky we can catch up with her there,” Libby said.

  Twelve Corners was a large intersection with eight lanes of traffic leading off in all directions. Depending on the lane you were in, the traffic lights could take a long time to change.

  Bernie grimaced. “I don’t want to catch up with her. I want to follow her and see where she’s going.”

  “You think she’s going to Amber?” Libby asked. If you thought about it in purely physical terms, Rose was the strongest member of the group and thereby the most capable of an abduction and of putting the deer target in place and taking it down.

  “I think it’s a possibility,” Bernie said. “Anyway, we don’t have anything to lose.”

  Bernie sped up a little. She could see Rose’s vehicle was in the left lane waiting for the light to change so she could make a turn onto Riverside Street. A moment later, the light went gr
een and Rose sped off. Bernie cursed under her breath and gave Mathilda more gas. She went across three lanes of traffic, cutting off a truck in her path, but by the time she got to the light it had turned red again.

  “Drats,” Bernie said. This was a long light and she was positive that by the time it turned again Rose would be gone. Which she was.

  “What now?” Libby asked as Bernie made the turn onto Riverside.

  Bernie didn’t answer. She was too busy concentrating on the vehicles in front of her as she drove down Riverside. The traffic was relatively sparse, and she was hoping to catch a glimpse of Rose’s vehicle. After fifteen blocks she was forced to admit that wasn’t going to happen and she gave it up, turned Mathilda around, and headed back to Rose’s place.

  “Let’s take a look around her house,” Bernie suggested.

  “And see what?” Libby asked.

  Bernie shrugged her shoulders. “Probably nothing,” she conceded. “But as long as we’re this close, we might as well take a gander.”

  Libby looked at her watch. It was getting late and they were no closer to finding Amber now than they were when they’d started. “You know,” Libby mused, “the yoga teacher told us that Amber willingly got into the car that pulled up next to hers in the parking lot.”

  Bernie looked over at her sister. “Your point is?”

  Libby frowned. “Well, she could have gotten in the car with anyone. It could be the new guy she’s seeing, or his sister, or some old friend that she hasn’t seen since fifth grade. We don’t know that it was the car of one of the Christmas Cookie Exchange Club ladies.”

  “No, we don’t,” Bernie agreed. “But the odds are, given the circumstances, that it was. That’s the most logical conclusion and the one that I think it would serve us best to follow,” Bernie said as she pulled into Rose’s driveway.

  Libby opened her mouth and closed it again. Her sister was right. There was nothing more to say on the topic. Instead, she pointed to the security company sign planted near the door. It was half obscured by the snow. “I guess we could have saved ourselves a trip.”

  “We’re not breaking in, we’re just walking around. As far as I know, that’s not illegal yet,” Bernie countered as she turned off Mathilda, put on her gloves, buttoned her jacket, and got out of the van.