by K. J. Emrick
“Thanks, Archie,” she told him. “I appreciate that.”
He balanced his plate on the knee as he reached over to the table for his cup. His button-up shirt seemed too hot for a warm day like this, but then again so did the thick dark hair he wore down past both shoulders. “No problem. Listen, the town’s going to catch wind of this. You should maybe go back to your shop and make sure that part of your kitchen is blocked off with… I don’t know. Boxes. Or blankets maybe, or cans of peaches or something. We don’t want tourists taking photos of the mysterious door that leads to the grave of Jozebus Merriam.”
One of the other selectmen made a sound in the back of his throat like he was gargling glass. “That’s a bit harsh, ain’t it Archie?”
“Harsh but true, James” Archie answered, picking his plate up again. “You want any help covering it up, Cookie? We’ll all come over if you want.”
James began shoving his fork into his pile of fruit salad, separating the strawberries from the melons. James was a regular at Cookie’s bakery, but only for whole grain raisin bagels. James was a health nut. Right now he was busy keeping his eyes turned away from her. He didn’t seem to share Archibald’s desire to come and help, but he didn’t argue either.
“That’s all right, Archie.” Cookie had just realized that her time at the centennial celebration had come to an end. “I can take care of it.”
“You mean we can take care of it,” Clarissa corrected her grandmother. “I think I can use those plant hooks in your ceiling to string a rope, and then it’s just a matter of hanging blankets like Archie said. No sweat, Grandma.”
“Well there you go.” Archibald shrugged like the matter was settled. “You’ve got a smart granddaughter there. But, if you change your mind, come find me. We’re all behind you.”
She wasn’t sure how to take that, but she decided to call it a good thing. “Thank you.”
He left to go throw out his trash, and Cookie made a beeline for the quickest way out of the park before anyone could corner her and talk about the dead man in her shop or offer to buy her business or anything else. Clarissa was only a step behind. Cookie was glad for the company, but she didn’t want to keep her granddaughter from her friends, either. “Clarissa, don’t you want to stay and wait for Hamish?”
“He’ll know where to find me… oh, wait. There he is.”
They saw him coming up the sidewalk toward the park, wearing that long dark coat of his over black denim pants and a white polo shirt. His version of dress clothes. The closer he got, the slower he walked, and it didn’t take long for Cookie to realize why.
The skin around his left eye was turning black and blue. His eyebrow was split. He’d taken a hit from something. Or, Cookie thought, more likely he’d taken a hit from someone.
“Hamish?” Clarissa said, stepping past Cookie to get to her boyfriend. “Oh, no! What happened?”
He pushed her hands away, turning his face to the side as if he could hide the injury. “It’s nothing, Clarissa. Don’t worry about it. Looks worse than it is, as they say. So, are we leaving already?”
Clarissa was at a loss. It was obvious that she wanted to say something but she either didn’t know what or she didn’t want to say it in front of an audience. Even if it was an audience of just her grandmother.
“Yes,” Cookie said, rescuing the moment from fatal awkwardness. “We were just leaving. We’re headed back to my bakery so we can get ready to open up for customers this afternoon.”
“All right,” he said, attempting a smile that ended in a wince. “I’ll join you.”
“No,” Clarissa said flatly. “We’ll be fine by ourselves. Why don’t you go back home and put some ice on that eye. Or a steak. Steak is supposed to be good for a black eye, isn’t it? You’re the chef. You tell me.”
“Yes,” he said, his voice carefully guarded. “Steak is good for a black eye.”
“Uh-huh. Know what else is good for that?” Clarissa folded her arms over her chest. “Telling your girlfriend the truth. What happened?”
Slowly, he folded his arms around her shoulders. She resisted at first, but Cookie saw the way she finally melted into him. “Clarissa,” he said, “I promise I’ll tell you all about it. But not now. Okay?”
“Then when?” she asked.
“I…” He stood up straighter, still holding her but looking off across the park instead. “I have to go. I’ll call you later and explain. I promise.”
Then he was gone, his hands stuffed into his coat pockets and his steps quickly taking him into the crowd in the park.
Clarissa turned to Cookie. “What just happened?”
“I don’t know, dear,” was all Cookie could say. “He’s a man, and men often guard their feelings too close for their own good. Give him some time. If he hasn’t explained himself by the end of the day, I promise to beat it out of him with a rolling pin. How does that sound?”
“Only if you let me be the one to do the beating,” she humphed. “After all. He is my boyfriend.”
“Fair enough,” Cookie agreed. “You can hold the rolling pin. Now. What say we get over to the bakery?”
She was trying to make Clarissa feel better, of course. She succeeded, if only a little, but all the long walk back to her shop she had to wonder about Hamish’s behavior. It bothered her, and maybe what bothered her most was how much that little scene between him and Clarissa had reminded her of her ex-husband. Just before he up and left her, that was exactly the way things had been between them. Secrets. Unexplained behavior. Promises to talk about it later. She shuddered to remember it, and all the excuses she had made to herself while she tried to make that sort of behavior be all right.
Of course, it wasn’t all right. Allowing yourself to be lied to was never an okay thing. Cookie didn’t want that for Clarissa. She never wanted her granddaughter to go through the kind of heartache that she had. Hamish had never seemed the type, but could a girl ever really know?
Yes, Cookie told herself. She knew. With Jerry, she knew for certain. There was nothing that would ever make her think he was the kind of man to mistreat her or walk away, or hide secrets.
Then again, she would have said the same thing about Hamish just this morning.
She was still debating the issue in her mind as they made it back to the Kiss the Cook Bakery, and she wasn’t the only one. Clarissa was arguing with herself too. Cookie could see it written all over her granddaughter’s face. That boy better have one amazing explanation to give or Cookie might just skin him alive and broil him in his own juices.
Baking humor.
Clarissa opened the front door for them. She was halfway across the floor, headed to the kitchen, when Cookie called her back.
“Did you unlock the door?”
Turning on her heel, Clarissa blinked at her in confusion. “No. Why? It was already unlocked.”
“I locked it on my way out this morning.” Cookie thought back just to be sure. “I know I did.”
Clarissa stepped back, keeping very close to her grandmother. If the door had been unlocked in their absence, did that mean there was someone here in the shop?
Together, they made their way into the shop, moving around the tables where customers could sit and eat, stepping closer to the glass cases of the sales counter where freshly baked donuts and rolls and other items from this morning were out on display, waiting to be bought. Cookie began to wonder if maybe she was mistaken. Maybe she was thinking of some other morning when she’d been smart enough to lock the bakery up tight—
A small furry shadow raced out at them. They were wound so tight that they both jumped back before they realized it was Cream coming to greet them. His claws clackity-clacked against the tiled floor, and his tongue was hanging out of his mouth, and his tail wagged furiously.
Bouncing on his front feet, he yipped out a staccato message and then turned around to trot back into the kitchen.
“He was upstairs this morning,” Clarissa said.
“Ye
s, he was.” Now Cookie had no reason to doubt herself. The bakery had been locked up this morning. Cream had been upstairs in their apartment with the door closed.
Someone had been in the shop. But why…?
Following Cream into the kitchen, Cookie saw why.
The police tape around the secret door had been pulled away. One of the strips had been broken in two. The door was open.
Cookie immediately took out her cellphone to dial Jerry’s number, but then realized he would still be in his meeting with the mayor and the chief of police and Lord alone knew what would come of all that. Instead, she dialed 911 and waited for the dispatcher to pick up the call so she could explain what had happened.
So much for keeping this a secret, she thought to herself.
Chapter Four
“But what would someone be looking for down here?”
They had turned the emergency stanchion lights back on in the cellar. Of course, the police knew they would be coming back to do more investigating, so all of the lighting equipment was still there. Pole lights, cables, and heavy batteries on wheels to power it all. Of course, all of it was down in the cellar because the stone stairway was too narrow and squat to put the pole lighting in. That meant the crumbling steps were left in darkness.
Which was probably why someone had tripped and fell on them.
Jerry, back from his meeting, knelt at the bottom stair with her, him on his knees and Cookie trying to be as lady-like as she could while squatting down in her dress. Together they examined the dark splotch across the sharp lip of the bottom riser. It was irregular at the edge, the stone cracked and worn by the passage of feet and of time, but there was no doubt about what had happened.
“That’s blood,” Jerry declared, standing up again and wiping his palms on themselves to clear away the dust. “Blood that wasn’t there yesterday. I don’t know why someone wanted to get in here so bad, Cookie, but they didn’t make a clean getaway. That blood will tell us who it was.”
At the back of Cookie’s mind there was a terrible thought forming. She just hoped she was wrong.
“Maybe they just wanted to see it for themselves,” Cookie suggested, although looking around the space now she had to admit they would be sorely disappointed if that’s what they came here for. The body was gone. The clothing had been bagged and removed. There were still a few scrap pieces of newspapers on the floor but even most of those had been taken away. Even the chair was gone. Everything the crime lab could possibly need to piece this mystery together had been carefully taken as evidence, leaving only the empty space with its hard dirt floor and stone walls.
Jerry looked around the cellar with her. “Well, I do know there’s been a few newspaper reporters asking for access to this place. A photograph would be worth a lot of money in the right hands. At least until the story dies down.”
“Great.” Cookie put a hand to her head. “Can we just get out of here? I swear the first thing tomorrow I’m calling a contractor in to pour cement in this hole and make it go away for good.”
“Not until the investigation is over,” Jerry said, shaking his head at the idea. “Sorry, but this is a crime scene. Twice now, as a matter of fact. Once for the murder, and once for the breaking and entering.”
“But that’s the thing,” Cookie told him. “There was no breaking. Entering, sure, but there’s no sign that anyone actually had to break in. The front door is still intact, it was just unlocked. None of the windows are broken. Nobody forced their way in.”
“So you think someone had a key?” Jerry asked her.
She hesitated, because that was exactly what she thought, but that lead her back to that niggling little thought forming at the back of her mind and she did not like that one bit. “Yes,” she finally admitted.
“Who has a key? You, me… Clarissa?”
“Yes. Just those three, but I can’t see any other way to get into my shop.” She put a hand over to her forehead. “Enough about this for now. I’m supposed to open my front door to the public in a half an hour and I need to get ready. That is, if anyone’s ever going to want to step foot in here again.”
He took her hand and led her upstairs with him, careful to step over the bottom riser completely and over to the left of the next step up to avoid a couple of splatters. “Don’t be so negative Cookie. I think you’ll be surprised about your town.”
“Oh, I think I know my town very well, thank you.” She was glad when they were at the top of the stairs again and out of that horrid cellar. “They run and hide at the first whiff of trouble. After a week I’ll be broke—again—and wondering if I have to sell. Benjamin Roth will get his wish. You just wait and see. Now then, you still haven’t told me about your meeting with the mayor.”
They came out of the stairway and through the hidden doorway, pushing aside the blankets that Clarissa had hung up for her while she and Jerry had been looking around downstairs. Now, in the kitchen again, Jerry made sure the blankets kept well clear of the stove before picking up the coffee pot and pouring himself a cup of hot, dark coffee. “There’s not much to tell,” he said.
“Oh, I doubt that very much,” Cookie argued. “I doubt the mayor and the chief kept you in there with George Merriam for an hour and a half without having something to say.”
“I’m not saying there wasn’t anything said,” Jerry clarified. “I’m just saying there’s not much I can tell. I’m not fired, so that’s the good news.”
“What’s the bad news?”
Looking embarrassed, he stared deep into his cup and chose his words carefully. “Er, the chief suggested that we close your bakery so that we can go over the entire building with a fine-toothed comb for evidence.”
“What!” Cookie said it so loud that Cream came trotting down the stairs to stare up at his human friend and tilt his head to the side, just to make sure she was all right. He’d been staying upstairs more often now that they’d uncovered this door. “Jerry, you can’t let them close my bakery completely!”
“I don’t really have a lot of say in the matter,” he shrugged.
“Well, did you tell them this is my livelihood?”
“Of course.”
“Did you tell them that I’ve been living in this building for years and that Fran lived in it before me and that if there was any kind of evidence to find up here it’s been lost to a dozen or more renovations and industrial strength cleansings?”
“As a matter of fact,” he said, a little defensively, “I did. Cookie—”
“I can’t believe this!” she exploded, earning herself a bark from Cream. “Not only do I have to worry about the town not wanting to come in and buy my baked goods, but now I have to worry about the mayor shutting me down just because the police chief asked her to? Oh, no. You wait until I get over there and talk to Quinn Fieldberg myself. I’ll make sure she knows that no one is shutting me down short of a court order and even then they better have the National Guard on standby because as God as my witness—!”
“Cookie!” Gently, Jerry took both of her hands and pulled them together in front of her, standing so that he was looking straight down into her eyes. “Listen to me, will you? Of course I said all of that. I stood up for you. Quinn agreed with us. She’s not going to make one of her town’s most well-known businesses shut down in the middle of the centennial celebration. Or ever, was the way I took it. Just relax. Calm down.”
“Yeah, Grandma,” Clarissa said from the door to the front room. “Relax. We’ve got to open up for your customers.”
Cookie looked down at the floor and concentrated on taking several slow, long breaths. This was outrageous! The thought of shutting down and having to find some other way to make a living… she had thought all of that was behind her. The shop had been doing so well! Now, everything was evaporating like heavy cream set to boil. And did Clarissa just say they had to open up?
She looked up at the wall to check the round plastic clock. It was only twelve-forty-three. “Clarissa, dear, we
aren’t supposed to open until one o’clock. Don’t worry, it’s not like people are lining up around the block to get in here.”
There was a big smile on the girl’s face as she stepped back so Cookie could look past her, to the front door. “But, Grandma. That’s exactly what they’re doing.”
Cookie looked, but she didn’t believe it. She stepped out into the front room to get a better view, but she still didn’t believe it.
At the front glass door under the pinstripe awning, and all along the sidewalk, people were lined up, smiling in at her and waving, some of them taking selfies of themselves against the front window with the Kiss the Cook Bakery name written on it with stick-on letters, along with the motto: “Where there’s cake, there’s happiness.”
Jerry stepped up beside her and gave her a sideways hug. “I’ll tell you about the rest of the meeting later. Right now, you’ve got customers.”
“Yes,” Cookie agreed. “It appears I do.”
Things were busy after that. Cookie had to fight back tears of relief as the line through her store kept coming and going. The tables in the main room were always full, and Cookie and Clarissa were taking turns going back and forth to the kitchen to put the next pot of coffee on or put another ready-made tray of cinnamon buns in the oven.
“The Irish Crème cupcakes are almost gone,” Clarissa said at one point.
“Put out the carrot cake ones,” Cookie suggested.
“Already sold out.”
“Then the salted caramel buttercream.”
“Can you believe all this?”
Cookie could only smile. It was too much to hope for. It was simply wonderful.
Of course, there were a thousand questions about the body in the cellar, from both her neighbors and the visitors to the celebration alike. She knew most of these people were here hoping to catch a sneak at the cellar door, or anything else that they could gossip about, but frankly she didn’t care why they were here. They were here, and they were spending money, and that was what was going to let her sleep tonight. She had half a mind to let everyone form a line and charge five dollars for a tour through the kitchen to see the door behind the hole in her wall. Ten dollars to take a picture standing next to it.