by K. J. Emrick
Wouldn’t Jerry flip over that? If his Chief was mad about the identity of the victim getting out, what would he think about a few dozen photos of the door showing up on social media with smiling tourists giving a thumbs up sign?
She laughed, and her customer at the moment laughed with her, and it seemed everyone was in a good mood. Odd, she thought, considering what they had found underneath this very building just yesterday. But even though Jozebus Merriam had been murdered, the murderer was long dead as well. This might be one mystery that she didn’t have to put a lot of thought or energy into.
Then again, someone had gotten into her store this morning, and gone downstairs. They had gone upstairs, too, since Cream had been let loose from the apartment to wander around down here until she got back. Cookie couldn’t understand what anyone would want in her apartment upstairs. Going down into the cellar made sense, in a way. They wanted to see the burial chamber that had been hidden under the streets of the town all this time. But her apartment? The most expensive thing up there was Clarissa’s laptop, and that was still there. So was everything else. It was almost like whoever it was had only gone up there to look around.
The thought of her undies drawer being pawed through by an intruder suddenly crossed her mind, but she banished it away. Clarissa’s room had been untouched too, near as they could tell, but what if…
Now that was a new thought, and one that disturbed her.
What if someone had come in looking for Clarissa?
In the kitchen, she stood up straight, staring blankly at the timer on the oven. In the romance stories, if someone wanted to get into the fair damsel’s room in the highest part of the tower, they had to climb up to her window.
And if her intruder had, in fact, been who she was thinking, that put a whole new spin on just about everything.
Calling out to Clarissa that she was going to take a break and run upstairs for a few minutes, Cookie undid her apron and tossed it over a stool at the island.
“Go ahead, Gram,” Clarissa told her. “I can handle this for a little bit.”
“Thank you, dear. Oh, Clarissa?”
“Yes, Gram?”
“Do you have your key to the front door?”
Clarissa looked at her a little strangely, but she reached into the front pocket of her jeans and took out the little key. “Sure. Right here. Why?”
“Oh, just in case. I won’t be but a few minutes.” Then she went up to the apartment, making sure to close the door tight behind her.
Cream met her immediately, hyper and excited at all the commotion downstairs. He licked at Cookie’s hand when she bent down to scratch under his chin. “Now, now,” she scolded. “None of that. I’ll have to wash my hands before I go back down. Lots of people to serve, you know.”
Her apartment was as big as the bakery space below, wall to wall, which meant there was enough space up here for two bedrooms and a full bathroom and even a sitting room where Cookie and Clarissa liked to hang out and watch television. The stairs from the bakery kitchen brought her into the dining area and the little kitchenette. They had repainted it in colors of blue and yellow not that long ago, but she was already growing tired of this mix. Her home shouldn’t look like an Easter egg.
Cream ran around her in circles before jetting over to his bed under the dining table, where he curled up and laid his head down on his paws. His black eyes watched Cookie’s every move.
Well. Nothing to see here, as they say. She forced herself to march right to Clarissa’s room and go inside. As usual, the girl’s bed was unmade. The rest of the room was fairly tidy, more so because Clarissa hardly spent any time in here than because she liked to be neat. It allowed her to see that nothing had been disturbed here though. The drawers to her dresser were closed tight. Pressing her lips together tightly at the unseemly thoughts running through her mind, she opened each drawer to find all the clothes neatly folded and put away in order.
She blew out a relieved breath. Now she could put away the thought of someone going through her teenaged granddaughter’s personal items.
Cookie decided to wash her hands from Cream’s enthusiastic greeting while she was at this end of the apartment. The bathroom was right here, so she stepped in and ran warm water from the sink.
As she soaped and lathered her hands, Cream came in. He sat in the middle of the floor and when she was just about to ask him what he was doing, he barked up at the wall.
“What’s the matter?” She turned the faucet off and dried her hands on the towel, leaning back against the sink to watch her Chihuahua. “What is it? Hmm?”
Cream looked up at her, then turned back to the wall, and barked again.
No. Not the wall. The window.
This side of the apartment faced the back of the building, where there was a little parking area for her car and where the addition of the storage shed had been put in. It took Cookie a moment to realize what was different, and what was bothering Cream, but finally she caught on.
It had been so warm recently that Cookie had been leaving the full-sized bathroom window open during the day. It was closed now.
Although it was possible that Clarissa had closed it, Cookie thought she had a better explanation. One that explained a lot of things, including how someone had gotten into the bakery even with the front door locked.
Sliding the sash on the window open again, Cookie leaned her head out and looked down. Sure enough. She really wished she had thought of this before. Right under the bathroom window was the sloping roof of the storage shed. If someone got onto that roof, they could jump up and catch the lip of the bathroom window with a little effort. After that climbing inside would be a simple thing.
Cookie closed the window again. This time, she locked it.
She traced the rest of it in her mind. He came in here through the window, and out the apartment door. That’s how Cream got out and downstairs. Then, in the kitchen, he tore through the police tape to go down into the cellar. He was in a hurry, of course, because he couldn’t be sure that Cookie and Clarissa wouldn’t come back early. So as he was going down the stairs he slipped, or fell somehow, injuring himself on that bottom stair. Now he knows he has to get out. So he leaves, using the front door, and that was why it was unlocked when she and Clarissa came home.
It all fit. He didn’t have Clarissa’s key, because she still had it. Cookie had made her show it to her downstairs. So, this must have been how he got in.
So why was he downstairs in the cellar? What was he looking for?
Cookie hated the picture she had in her mind of him doing all this, but she remembered the blood at the bottom of the stairs, and she remembered something else.
His black eye. The cut in his eyebrow.
She went back out to the kitchen and sat down hard in a chair. Hamish. Clarissa’s boyfriend.
It was him that she was picturing in her mind. His behavior this morning certainly was suspicious. Add that up with his sudden injury, and the fact that he was late meeting Clarissa at the celebration in the town center, and how he refused to tell Clarissa how he’d gotten hurt. Cookie couldn’t help but think that the person who had been inside of her home this morning without her permission was her own granddaughter’s boyfriend. He was a tall, strong young man. He could have made it up to that bathroom window easily.
But… why?
She supposed only Hamish could answer that question for her. Should she confront him? Cookie remembered times in the past when she’d accused people of being involved in crimes when they weren’t. Including that wretched Benjamin Roth. There might be things the man is guilty of, but the ramifications of accusing him falsely had been bad. It would be worse now if she accused Hamish without proof. Guilty or not, Clarissa would never forgive her for even making the suggestion.
Looking back at the window, running through the situation in her mind again, Cookie came to the conclusion that she was going to have to talk to Hamish by herself. She wanted to talk to Jerry first if she coul
d, but that shouldn’t be a problem. After all, she didn’t even know where Hamish was right now.
***
As it turned out, she didn’t have to find Hamish. He came to her.
The customers had slowed to a trickle and then finally stopped around dinner time. Cookie had been planning on closing up around six anyway, so it seemed like the perfect time to lock the doors and take care of a few… errands. A phone call to Jerry had gone unanswered but she left him a voicemail asking him to call her back just as soon as he could.
It had been a bit awkward working the rest of the day with Clarissa. There was so much that Cookie wanted to ask but she didn’t dare say anything about her suspicions. Not yet.
Then as they were clearing off the tables together and talking about how great it was to do this much business in one day, and how they were going to have to bake like madwomen tonight to replace what they’d sold, the shopkeepers bell rang. The front door opened, and there was Hamish.
Cookie felt like she’d tried to swallow an entire package of saltine crackers all at once. She couldn’t speak. All she could do was smile at him and hurry back into the kitchen as fast as she could. Getting out ingredients they would need for baking more sweet treats later, Cookie eavesdropped on Clarissa and Hamish. If Clarissa knew that her grandmother was listening, she didn’t let it stop her from trying to get answers of her own.
Answers that Cookie wanted to hear as well.
“Where have you been all day?” was Clarissa’s first question.
“Sorry,” Cookie heard Hamish saying. The word was muffled, like he was kissing her cheek when he said it. “I had some things to take care of. A few friends wanted to see me.”
“Oh. All right.” Clarissa didn’t sound like she quite believed him. “Friends. I see. So. Are you ready to tell me about that black eye?”
“Clarissa…”
“Hamish,” she answered back, mimicking his tone of voice. “Babe, you can’t just not tell me about this. You got hurt!”
“It’s nothing, Clarissa. Really.”
“Then were you fighting with someone? Is that it?”
No, Cookie wanted to butt in. He wasn’t fighting. He was falling down my secret stairs and cutting his face open on the stones down there!
After another moment of pause, Hamish dodged the question again. “Tell you what. Why don’t I take us out to dinner tonight? There’s that great place in Morton that serves that chicken linguine that you love so much.”
Cookie cringed, holding a bag of flour in one hand and a bag of sugar in the other. She did not like the idea of Clarissa being alone with Hamish right now. By his own admission he was hiding something. Even if Cookie was wrong—and she prayed that she was—he was still keeping secrets. Funny how far that particular table had turned. Yesterday Cookie couldn’t stop singing Hamish’s praises. Today she wanted distance between the two of them.
As it turned out she didn’t need to worry about it. “I’m not going to dinner with you,” Clarissa said, “until you tell me what’s going on, Hamish Carpenter. Talk to me. Please?”
Cookie dared to peek out, and saw the two of them staring each other down. An immovable object and an unstoppable force. Finally, Clarissa reached up to put her hands on the sides of Hamish’s face, and then push up on her tiptoes to kiss him. Then they just held each other, and Cookie breathed a sigh of relief. Everything was still perfect in her granddaughter’s world. Looking at her and Hamish now, it was hard to believe that her granddaughter’s boyfriend could be all that bad.
But why would he—why would anyone—need to get into that empty cellar so badly? What was down there that was so important?
Now that was a new idea. What if Hamish hadn’t gone into the basement just to have a look see. What if he’d gone down there… looking for something?
Her cellphone rang on the countertop nearby. Before she picked it up she set down her flour and sugar and tried to remember why she’d picked them up in the first place. Jerry’s name was on the display.
“Jerry, hey,” she said, keeping her voice low so Hamish and Clarissa wouldn’t hear. “Are you close?”
“I wasn’t headed your way,” he said. “I was going back to the station. Do you need me to come over?”
“Always,” she said with a little smile. “But right now… I need to run something by you.”
“So go ahead.” His voice was stiff and sort of detached, like his mind was on something else. “Run it by me.”
“I kind of need to do it in person. Jerry, I think I might know who was in my shop this morning.”
“Really? Okay.” He was quiet for a few long seconds. “I’ll be over as soon as I can, Cookie. I’ve got to stop at the office first.”
The way he said that… “Why? What’s going on at the station?”
“Well.” He chuckled harshly. “I’m about to be suspended.”
“What?” Cookie felt the room tilt around her and she reached out for the chair to steady herself. “I couldn’t possibly have heard you right. There’s no way you just said you were about to be suspended.”
“No, that’s what I said.” She could hear his car braking to a stop, and she imagined he was there at the police station already. “Apparently the mayor and the chief were a little more upset about me leaking the information about our victim than I realized.”
“But you didn’t!” she argued, her voice rising higher. “George guessed who the body belonged to. It wasn’t hard. You don’t think half the town had that figured out already?”
“I know, I know.” He sighed. “But the chief doesn’t look at it that way.”
“And the mayor?” She couldn’t believe Quinn would go along with this. Not that she knew a lot about their town’s new mayor, but she didn’t seem the type to be so arbitrary. “Let me talk to her. I can talk to her, Jerry.”
“It’s already done, Cookie. It’s just a matter of crossing the t’s and dotting the i’s.” A door opened, and closed. “Don’t worry about it. We’ll talk when I get done, all right? I love you.”
The call ended, leaving Cookie holding a silent phone to her ear.
“Gram?”
Clarissa was standing in the doorway to the front room, and from the expression on her face Cookie could tell that she’d heard most, if not all of what had just been said.
She dropped the phone back on the counter, wanting to throw the thing as hard as she could against the wall for all the good that would do her. “Clarissa, would you be a dear and help me start the baking for tomorrow? I’ve got so much work to do and I have no idea how I’m going to get all of it done.”
A single tear squeezed itself out from the corner of her eye, even as she tried to keep a brave face for Clarissa’s sake.
She got out mixing bowls and measuring spoons and vanilla, because she always needed vanilla and there was just never enough of it around. When she set it all out on the island counter, Clarissa was still standing in the doorway.
“Well?” she asked her granddaughter with forced sweetness. “These cupcakes aren’t going to bake themselves.”
“Not until you tell me what’s going on,” Clarissa said, stubbornly holding her position. “I won’t let you dodge that question too. Did you say Jerry’s getting suspended?”
No sense hiding it from her. The girl was just as tenacious as herself, she noted with an odd mix of pride and exasperation. She picked up a wooden spoon and put it in the biggest of the ceramic mixing bowls before measuring in four cups of flour. “Clarissa, dear, this really is nothing for you to worry about.”
“Says you. You’re my grandmother, and Jerry’s your fiancé, which means in a couple of months he’s going to be my grandfather, too.” She came in to stand right next to Cookie. “I think that makes it my business. Now. What are we making? We can bake and talk about it at the same time.”
Cookie hugged her. “You really are the most wonderful granddaughter a woman could ask for. Let’s make a big batch of chocolate chip muffi
ns first. Those always sell with no problem.”
“So?” Clarissa asked as she got out the bag of chocolate chips.
With a sigh, Cookie relented. “Yes, it looks like he’s going to be suspended. I think it’s a crock of fudge, if you ask me, but there it is.”
Clarissa shook her head as she cut the bag of chips open. “That’s so unfair.”
“You know it, and I know it.” After thinking for a moment, Cookie added, “And I think maybe Mayor Fieldberg knows it, too. It doesn’t sound like that will be enough to save him though.”
“There’s got to be something we can do.” That was from Hamish. He was leaning back against the wall, listening to their conversation. Every so often he’d cast a glance over to the blankets hiding the secret door.
Cookie narrowed her eyes at him. What was he expecting to see? “If there’s anything to be done,” she told him, “Jerry will let us know about it later. Well. Hamish. Care to show me some of those culinary school skills that you’ve been learning?”
He accepted an apron from Clarissa and after washing his hands thoroughly began pulling ingredients he would need over to his side. Apparently, he’d been worried that his offer of help would be turned down, after refusing to tell Clarissa where his black eye came from, but he was more than willing to pitch in. Cookie watched as he lined the ingredients up in order, from smallest container to largest. He saw the two women watching him, and laughed. “I know, I know. It’s kind of OCD of me. It’s just a habit I picked up in school. This way I won’t wonder where anything is or if I’m reaching for the right stuff. Saves me a lot of time.”
“Except for the time it takes to set it up,” Clarissa mentioned, obviously not ready to cut him any slack.
“True enough,” he admitted, rubbing absently at the bruise around his eye, “but I think my way works pretty well.”
Clarissa snorted at that, but she ignored the obvious bait. “So Grandma, what did you want to talk to Jerry about?”
Cookie kept her eyes from darting over at Hamish. Mostly. Thinking fast, she came up with a different reason, other than how the object of her suspicion was standing right here with them in the kitchen. “I wanted to ask more about the mysterious disappearance of Jozebus Merriam.”