“Maybe he woke up suddenly and panicked?” Maddie suggested.
“Maybe.” Olivia stroked her pup’s silky back to soothe him.
“Or it might be time to install that alarm system Del keeps urging us to go into hock for.” Maddie yawned. “I’m reconsidering the all-night baking idea. I think I’ll go home, grab a few hours of sleep, and get here early tomorrow morning.”
“Maybe you should sleep in my guest room,” Olivia said.
“Come on, Livie, this isn’t Baltimore. Besides, your mom has been teaching me some basic self-defense moves. Have you any idea how strong that teensy woman is? Maybe I should ask her to walk me home at night. Anyway, Aunt Sadie and Lucas will worry if I’m not there in the morning, and I don’t want to call and wake them. Tell you what, I’ll give you a ring when I’m safely home, so you won’t fuss all night.”
“Call the phone in the store kitchen,” Olivia said. “I’ll finish cleaning up and prep for opening tomorrow.”
They returned to the kitchen, where Maddie grabbed a full garbage bag she’d left next to the alley door. “I’ll call the instant I get in the door. You need your beauty sleep.”
“I’d feel better if you left that trash until morning,” Olivia said. “And go out the front door. It’s far better lit.”
“Will you stop fussing? Anyway, this stuff will start to stink if we leave it here. What would Bertha think of us?” Maddie opened the alley door wide and made a show of scanning the alley for movement. “Nope, no crazed murderers as far as the eye can see. Take a look for yourself.”
Maybe she had lived in Baltimore too long, but Olivia’s first couple years back home hadn’t convinced her that little Chatterley Heights was immune to big-city problems. “I’ll do more than ‘take a look’ at that alley,” she said. “I intend to watch you until you’re around the corner of the house.”
“Have it your way.” Maddie chuckled as she headed into the alley.
Olivia found her best friend’s attitude a bit, well, insulting, but they were both tired, so she let it pass. Everything would return to normal once the engagement party was a delightful memory. Olivia was looking forward to that moment. She watched from the doorway as Maddie dropped the garbage bag into the trash can and replaced the lid. She turned and waved to Olivia before skipping down the alley to the corner of The Gingerbread House, where she would cut through the lawn to reach the well-lit sidewalk. Olivia was tempted to sneak a peek through the store window to watch Maddie pass the building, but she figured Spunky would be making a racket if anything wasn’t right. Olivia closed, locked, and latched the alley door.
While she waited for Maddie’s call, Olivia dampened a cloth and began to clean the countertop in preparation for the next round of baking. If she set up the ingredients, they could hit the ground running and maybe finish a batch or two before they had to open in the morning. Knowing Maddie, she’d sleep a few hours and wake up with the energy of three cookie bakers. Olivia intended to get up early, but she wouldn’t even try to match Maddie’s—
The kitchen phone rang and interrupted Olivia’s rambling thoughts. She glanced up at the clock over the sink. Maddie had left only a few minutes earlier. Olivia lunged for the phone without checking the caller ID.
“Livie? Could you come to the door, please?” Maddie’s voice sounded more subdued than usual, but Olivia was so relieved to hear it she felt almost giddy.
“Sure, did you forget something?” Olivia carried the phone with her and opened the alley door as she spoke. No one was there. “Maddie? Where are you?”
“I meant the front door. Right now. Please?”
Olivia slammed the alley door, dropped the phone receiver on the kitchen counter, and sprinted into the store. She was halfway across the sales floor before it occurred to her she ought to have brought her cell, just in case. However, Maddie had her phone, and Spunky didn’t seem upset. In fact, the little guy was wagging his tail as he looked out the front window onto the porch. Olivia didn’t stop to confirm what Spunky saw, but she assumed it was Maddie. So maybe nothing was all that wrong.
The store’s front door, which led into the foyer, was locked and bolted, as was the door leading outside. It would take Olivia a couple minutes to open both. Spunky jumped down from his chair and trotted over to her.
“No, Spunks, you stay in here,” Olivia said. “If we need your ferocious help, I’ll come back and get you.”
Apparently, Spunky heard his mistress say they were going outside, because he wagged his tail with gusto. As she opened the store door, Olivia put her foot out to stop him. He leaped over it and pranced across the foyer to the front door. Olivia gave up. She picked Spunky up and held him tightly against her side while she fumbled with the deadbolt.
When Olivia flung open the front door, no one was there. Momentarily confused, she stepped out onto the porch and listened. She heard nothing. Spunky squirmed and strained his head around to the right, where the narrow front porch wrapped around the corner of the house. Maybe Maddie was there, out of sight? Why wasn’t she calling out?
Olivia felt Spunky stiffen as he sniffed the air. “What is it, Spunks?” Olivia whispered. He responded with a low growl. At the same time, he wagged his fluffy tail. “Maddie?”
“Livie, over here.” It was Maddie’s voice.
Olivia entered the curve in the porch as it rounded the southeast corner of the house. Her heart whacked at her ribs as if it were desperate to escape. When she saw Maddie, her first reaction was relief. Maddie leaned against the porch railing and stared out at the darkened park. She certainly looked unhurt. Yet she seemed oddly still, as if she’d been stunned.
Spunky growled again, but not directly at Maddie. He was focused on something behind her, just out of range. Olivia eased through the corner of the wraparound porch. She saw the wicker chair she enjoyed relaxing in after closing the store on a summer evening. She loved the full view it gave her of the town square.
It took Olivia several seconds to process the fact that someone else was seated in her spot. The chair’s wicker back curved around enough to hide the head and torso, but the hands and legs belonged to a man. A tall, well-dressed man. With a sinking feeling, Olivia recognized the khaki slacks and sleek burgundy loafers Trevor Lane had been wearing in the band shell earlier in the evening.
“Is he…?”
“Yes.” Maddie spoke in a whisper. “I couldn’t find a pulse. Trevor is very dead.”
“I see. Hush, Spunky.” With her free hand, Olivia rubbed the Yorkie’s ears to calm him. “Did you call Del?”
“Yes, right after I called you. I got him out of bed, but I really wanted Del here instead of someone else.”
“I can understand that,” Olivia said. “Would you take Spunky for a bit? Hold on tight, he’s in a mood.” She handed her restive pet over to Maddie, who clutched him to her chest.
Without turning around, Maddie said, “Please tell me you aren’t going to examine the body.”
“I was just wondering…” Olivia steeled herself before facing Trevor’s lifeless form. She didn’t see any evidence of blood. His shoulders slumped forward, his hands crossed right over left as if someone had arranged them. Trevor’s head hung down, so Olivia could see only his dark brown hair. Olivia knew better than to touch the body, but she forced herself to squat down to get a look at his face. “What’s that on his left cheek?”
“All I did was take his pulse,” Maddie said with an hint of panic. “I didn’t look at his left cheek or anything else. Why on earth would you?”
“Well, he died on my porch,” Olivia said. “Even if he was killed somewhere else, he was brought to my porch. I need to know why. Del will be here soon, and he’ll have called the crime-scene folks. I won’t have another chance.” She straightened, and said, “I’ll be right back.”
“Hey, you’re supposed to keep me from getting hysterical.”
“That’s what Spunky is for.” Olivia had left the front door unlocked, so she quickly reent
ered the foyer, where she kept a small antique desk with business cards. She had stashed a flashlight in the drawer in case she came home to find the electricity out, which happened during violent thunderstorms. She hoped no one had requisitioned the little flashlight for their own use. When she opened the drawer, the flashlight rolled forward. Now, if only the batteries hadn’t died…She’d bought good-quality flashlights from Heights Hardware and tried to change the batteries regularly, but somehow she always forgot this one. She tried the switch. The light flickered weakly, but it would be enough.
Del and the crime-scene personnel would object to an amateur messing with evidence. Olivia understood the importance of an untouched crime scene. On the other hand, if the mark on Trevor’s cheek was what she feared, she and Maddie might be sucked into the investigation through no fault of their own.
Olivia heard a faint siren in the distance. She almost wished Del would arrive and chase her off, so she wouldn’t have to do what she was about to do. Spunky whimpered for Olivia’s attention as she forced herself to kneel in front of the wicker chair. She pointed her flashlight up toward Trevor’s handsome, dead face. Her hand shook as a shiver went through her. The light died.
As Olivia lowered the flashlight, it flicked on again. She must have jolted the batteries when her hand shook. Keeping her movements steady, Olivia raised the flashlight and aimed it toward the left side of Trevor’s face. The mark on his cheek looked like a hammer drawn with a dark substance, perhaps charcoal. Whoever killed Trevor hadn’t been satisfied with leaving this strange symbol. The murderer had added a final touch: a decorated cookie stuffed into Trevor’s mouth. Olivia wondered if he’d died first or been left alive long enough to experience this final humiliation. “Oh dear,” Olivia whispered.
“What? What?” Maddie spun around, and Spunky yelped.
“Maybe you should take a look at this.” Olivia offered her flashlight to Maddie.
“Do I have to? Couldn’t you just tell me?” Maddie took a step toward the wicker chair. She hesitated, as if caught between horror and curiosity.
“Of course, I could describe it to you, only I could use your expert opinion. Please, Maddie?”
“Expert?” Maddie was starting to sound like herself again.
“You’ll understand when you see Trevor’s cheek. But hurry, I can hear a siren. We don’t have much time. Then I’m afraid we’ll have to compose ourselves and play innocent, at least for a while. I guarantee Del will ask us questions about this.”
“Geez, now I really have to look at him. I don’t want to be caught off guard.” Maddie exchanged a jittery Yorkie for the flashlight and dropped quickly to her knees in front of Trevor’s body. When the flashlight conked out, Maddie shook it. “These things are crap,” she said. “Lucas stopped carrying them in the hardware.”
“Now you tell me,” Olivia said.
Maddie got the flashlight going again and wasted no time. “Whoa,” she said as she examined Trevor’s face. “Okay, I see what you mean. This’ll take some explaining. I wonder if it was one of ours.”
“I suppose…I mean, that cookie sure looks like one of ours, but anyone could have taken it at any time during the last couple days.”
Maddie switched off the flashlight and stood up. “I’m not talking about the cookie.”
“Wait, you mean you know something about the hammer drawing on Trevor’s cheek?” Olivia found herself talking to air. Maddie had already slipped into the foyer to return the flashlight to its storage place.
As the siren announced the imminent arrival of the police, Maddie reappeared. “Livie, it isn’t a drawing of a hammer,” she said. “It’s the imprint of a cookie cutter shaped like a judge’s gavel, and it is burned onto his cheek.”
Chapter Ten
It was nearly three a.m. when Olivia, Maddie, and Del settled in the Gingerbread House kitchen. The crime-scene investigators had finally left for the lab, and Trevor Lane’s body was bound for the morgue. Olivia and Maddie had permission to open the store at its usual time. They hadn’t yet decided whether that would be such a good idea. Once word spread around Chatterley Heights that Trevor Lane had been found dead on The Gingerbread House porch—and it would spread, they had no doubt of that—hordes of citizens would crowd into the store wanting only to satisfy their avid curiosity. Olivia was tempted, oh so tempted, to keep the store closed. They could bake all day, which might give them a fighting chance of finishing the cookies for Maddie and Lucas’s engagement party in two days.
Olivia poured three cups of freshly made coffee and delivered them to the table. After seeing the damage to Trevor Lane’s face, she couldn’t bring herself to prepare a plate of decorated cookies. No one asked for any. “Del, please tell us. Was Trevor poisoned with one of our cookies?”
Del’s eyebrows shot up, revealing tired, red eyes. “No, Livie, it would seem Trevor was killed by a hammer blow to the back of the head.” Del opened his notebook. “Okay, let’s go over this step-by-step. Maddie, you found the body, so we’ll start with you. If you left the store by the alley door, how did you notice him in the dark? The way he’d been placed in that chair, I doubt you’d have seen him as you walked around the side of the house.”
Maddie wrapped her hands around her warm cup as if she felt chilled. “Livie leaves the porch light on at night, which I used to think was a good idea.” She shivered and sipped her coffee. “Even so, you’re right, I wouldn’t have noticed the…Trevor if I hadn’t looked back at the store from the front lawn. I’m not really sure why I did look back.” Maddie looked puzzled and tired, and her mop of red hair had lost its fizzle. Tangled curls hung loosely around her face as if the energy had drained out of them.
“Think,” Del said. “Did something catch your attention, like a movement or a sound?”
Maddie’s face puckered as she relived those dreadful moments. Olivia felt so sorry for her friend, she almost wished she had found the body instead. Almost.
“I think I heard a rustling sound,” Maddie said, “and I just turned automatically. Yes, I remember now. I thought maybe Spunky had come to the window to see me off. He’s such a friendly little guy.” Maddie’s eyes teared up. “I’m so glad he wasn’t outside.”
“Okay,” Del said, “so you turned around toward the window because you thought Spunky might be looking out at you?”
“Yes. Except the curtains were closed, and I could see that they weren’t rippling, which they would have been doing if Spunky had wormed around in front of them. That dog is incapable of being still unless he’s napping, and even then…” Maddie held her coffee cup suspended in midair as if she’d forgotten to take a sip.
“Did you hear any sounds after that?” Del asked. “Or maybe you saw a movement out of the corner of your eye?”
Maddie lowered her cup and shook her head. “Nothing after that, I’m sure of it. Right away, I noticed the chair on the porch wasn’t empty. I saw…legs. I thought…I don’t know what I thought, except at first I didn’t feel scared. This is Chatterley Heights, after all. Besides, Livie is the one who finds bodies, not me.” Maddie slapped her hand over her mouth. “Sorry, Livie, that just popped out.”
Olivia patted Maddie’s other hand. “Not a problem. I’ll assume you’re hysterical.”
“Thanks. I think.” Maddie’s cheeks had regained a hint of color. “I might never eat a decorated cookie again.”
“Nonsense,” Olivia said. “I have it on the best authority that decorated cookies counteract the effects of shock. Also, I’m pretty sure they cure the common cold.” Olivia selected three iced cookies shaped like wedding cakes. She put each cookie on a plate, handed one to Del, the second to Maddie, and saved the last for herself.
Maddie stared at her plate. “Livie, remember when we were all in the band shell? We passed around that plate of cookies? Trevor took two cookies and held them on his hand, like this.” Maddie placed her wedding cake cookie on the palm of her left hand.
“I remember,” Olivia said. “He a
te one and made that awful toast with the other one.”
“Do you remember their shapes?”
Olivia shook her head. “I think one had peppermint stripes. Usually I can remember cookie shapes. It must be shock.”
“A peppermint-striped wedding cake and a rose-covered chapel,” Maddie said.
“What is it, Maddie?” Del asked. “Are you thinking the cookie in Trevor’s mouth might have come from the plate you took to the band shell?”
Maddie shook her head. “Just the opposite,” she said. “Livie, you probably can’t remember the icing colors because all the cookies I brought were dark pink. I got enthusiastic and made too much rose pink icing, so I used the extra to decorate a bunch of cookies that hadn’t turned out absolutely flawless. Not that I’m a perfectionist.”
“And the cookie in Trevor’s mouth was blue,” Olivia said. “At least what we could see of it.”
Del scribbled something in his notebook. “Can you remember the last time you offered blue cookies in the store?”
Maddie grimaced. “Unfortunately, yes. It was yesterday afternoon, when Lenora descended with Trevor and Dougie in tow.”
“And most of the citizens of Chatterley Heights showed up to see them,” Olivia said.
“So just about anyone could have taken that cookie,” Del said, rubbing his chin. “Or gotten it somewhere else.”
“Tell me the flavorings in that cookie,” Maddie said, “and I can probably tell you if it was one of ours. If you can determine what shape it was, that’ll help, too. I used blue icing on lots of cookies, but only on two shapes.”
“Which were?” Del asked, his pen poised over his notebook.
“One was a gift box with a blue ribbon, and the other was a little girl in a pale blue dress with a darker blue sash. She was supposed to represent a flower girl.”
“Got it,” Del said. He closed his notebook. “I’ll check with the crime lab about the shape. Now what about the gavel imprint on Trevor’s cheek? How sure are you that it was made with a cookie cutter?”
One Dead Cookie Page 13