by K. J. Emrick
Suspended or not, Jerry went right to the inner door, ignoring the words “Employees Only” spelled out clearly in block letters, and jammed his key in with a sharp twist. He was full of thunder and Cookie was just glad there was no one inside at any of the three desks. The celebration party was still going on, she reminded herself, and that meant the officers working today would all be out keeping things running smoothly around town. The inside of the office was as quiet as a tomb.
“Nobody’s here,” Cookie said to him. That wasn’t unusual for Widow’s Rest. Even when there wasn’t a celebration going on, there were lots of times when only one officer was working on a shift and the building was left empty. “Jerry, let’s go to the park, okay? Chief Santimaw is probably there.”
“No,” a strong male voice interrupted them. “I’m right here.”
A hallway led further back into the building, where other doors led to other rooms. One of them was open, and there stood Chief Rick Santimaw. Short and stocky, he filled the corridor with his presence and his barrel chest and his thick arms that strained against the short sleeves of his blue uniform shirt. His head had been shaved for as long as Cookie had known him, although his handlebar mustache had gone gray sometime in the last few years.
“You’re suspended,” he growled at Jerry. “Go home.”
Jerry ignored him. “Got something I need to ask you, Chief.”
“Ask me tomorrow. I’m busy today.”
Oh, good grief, Cookie thought to herself. Any more of this and she’d be swimming in testosterone. Why did men always have to compare their yard sticks? “Chief Santimaw, we just wanted to ask you about the newspaper copies you borrowed from the library.”
Rick turned his beady black eyes on her. He loosened his black tie. He adjusted his leather duty belt with its gun and its handcuffs and its radio. It was obvious he was stalling. “The newspapers? What about them?”
“Why’d you take them out of the library?” Jerry asked.
The chief shrugged. “It’s a library. You’re supposed to check things out.”
“Well, that’s true,” Cookie said, “but you see, those CDs with the newspapers from the early 1900s aren’t supposed to leave the library. They’re supposed to stay there for everyone to use.”
“That so?” Rick asked, as if he really didn’t care.
Cookie smiled, trying to keep the tone friendly, but somehow it seemed to have the opposite effect on Rick. “You don’t get to come in here and accuse me of stealing from the town library!” he blurted out. “I am the Chief of Police, and I will take anything I please from any place in Widow’s Rest I feel like when it is evidence in an ongoing investigation! You two can both just check your tone, turn your butts around, and get out.”
Cookie felt the heat of his anger as if it were a physical thing. She wanted to take a step back, but she made herself stand her ground and face him. Or rather, she made herself keep her spot on the floor. “So the newspaper articles about the fire in Widow’s Rest are part of the investigation into Jozebus Merriam’s murder?”
Rick threw a hand up in the air and then let it slap back down against his thigh. “I don’t have time for games, Cookie. Of course they’re part of the investigation. Although no one used the word murder! Not officially, anyway. I’m sure that’s why you and my suspended officer here went to look at the records yourselves. Only, here’s the thing. I’m the police chief. It’s my job to oversee investigations. You—” He pointed at Cookie. “—are a baker. It’s your job to make puff pastries. And you—” He thrust his finger at Jerry. “—are on suspension. It’s your job to go home and sip iced tea!”
Jerry’s face reddened by degrees. Cookie felt like giving the high and mighty Chief Rick Santimaw a piece of her mind, too, but she knew it wouldn’t do any good. He was in charge here. If she was going to get any information from him at all, she was going to have to use more honey than oil. “Can we at least look at them?” she asked sweetly. “We can leave them right here with you.”
“No,” he growled, “you may not.”
“And why’s that?” Jerry asked.
“Because I…” Rick broke off abruptly, blinking at them like he suddenly realized he’d said too much.
Cookie stared at the police chief. She had the very distinct impression that the end of his sentence was going to be because I don’t have them.
Taking in a breath Rick started over, barely restraining his arrogant contempt even so. “I’ve had enough of this conversation. The two of you need to leave this station, right now. You just remember Jerry that you’re suspended now but that could lead to you getting fired if you don’t watch your step. Cops who get fired don’t get their pensions. Now both of you, get out of here, and stop poking your nose around this case!”
He stood there waiting for them to go. Cookie took Jerry by the hand and gently encouraged him to do as the chief said. They obviously weren’t going to get anywhere here. They’d just have to figure out some other way of getting at the information they needed. Jozebus must have been murdered for a reason, and whatever that reason was had been important enough for Rick to take those CDs from the library and hide them. Maybe even give them to someone else. It was obviously important if Chief Santimaw wanted to keep the information from them. She doubted that if it was something simple and innocent, he’d be rushing them out of the building now.
Cookie watched him as they went. The anger he had been so quick to whip up was quickly spent, leaving behind something a different sort of expression. She tried to decide what it was. Confusion. Surprise? Maybe a little bit of both, and something else as well.
At the door leading out to the lobby, Cookie hesitated long enough to say one thing more.
“I was talking to the mayor earlier, Rick. I told her that we think Hester Merriam killed Jozebus. Her own husband. Now, what do you suppose that would mean?”
“It would mean,” he said, his voice almost calm, “that the two of you need to stop trying to investigate this case. Leave it alone, Cookie. Now, get out. And lock the door behind you.”
Thankfully, Jerry waited until they were out in the parking lot before he blew his top. “Stodgy old fool,” he grumbled. “Idiotic, bumbling bureaucrat. Somebody needs to teach that man that our town is more important than his career!”
Cookie couldn’t really disagree. Rick Santimaw might be a few years younger than her or Jerry but he acted like he was two hundred. Stuck in his ways, unwilling to listen and yes, stubborn.
“Let’s not worry about him right now,” Cookie suggested.
“How can I not worry about him?” Jerry exclaimed as they made it back to his car. He gestured wildly with his hands back at the police department. “He’s my boss. At least, he is now. Until he decides to fire me he is. So, my boss is sitting on information that is obviously very key to this investigation and he doesn’t seem to have any idea why he took it out of the library in the first place!”
“At least,” she said absently, “not that he’s saying.”
“What?”
She shook her head. Rick must have had a reason for taking the newspaper CDs out of the library. He just wasn’t telling them. “Jerry, why don’t we go back to the bakery? I’ve got some other things I need to tell you.”
“I thought your bakery isn’t open this morning.”
They got in the car together, and she flashed him a bright smile. “It’s always open for me and the man I love.”
“No, I just mean, we could go somewhere to talk if you want. To the park, or maybe to the ice cream shop.”
“No, not the ice cream shop,” she said. “That woman who runs it isn’t my favorite person. I don’t think I’m hers, either.”
“Okay, okay. Not there. We could go to the park though. If you want to.”
“There’s too many people there now. I want to be alone. With my fiancé.”
Her fingers felt over her engagement ring. It felt nice there on her finger. At first it had been a little awkwa
rd wearing part of a wedding band set again, but she was so used to it now that half the time she forgot it was there. The other half, just touching it boosted her spirits.
Looking down at what her fingers were doing, Jerry settled back in his seat. “Do you ever regret it?”
“Regret what?’
“Agreeing to marry me,” he said. “I mean, I don’t think you were expecting it and I sort of ambushed you on the cruise ship. You had nowhere to go to get away from me. You might have just said yes so my feelings wouldn’t be hurt. Maybe you just wanted to keep the peace until you could get back on dry land and get away from me.”
She gently backhanded his arm. “Don’t be stupid. I said yes because I love you and I want to be married. I’ve had plenty of time to run away if I wanted. I’m still here. You’re my best friend. I can’t think of anyone else I’d rather say yes to.”
“Oh. So it’s because there’s no one else?”
Cookie rolled her eyes. “Come over here and kiss me, you big dope.”
She hoped that the feel of her lips against his, and the heat in her fingertips as they slid across his cheek, would convince him there was only one reason why she had agreed to marry him. They were perfect together. He had stuck by her when her business looked like it was going to fail. She would stand by him now that his job was in danger. This was what they did for each other, and this was why she would always love him.
Because no matter how Mayor Quinn Fieldberg tried to convince her, she understood all too well how close to being fired a suspension was. Especially in the world of policing.
With a last nuzzle of her forehead against his, Cookie sat back in her seat. “Now. Is your head clear enough to listen to me?”
“Uh-huh.” The crooked smile she’d left behind on his lips said his mind was anything but clear. He was thinking of something, but it certainly wasn’t anything to do with murder and old newspapers.
“All right. Then let’s drive back to my bakery. Clarissa is there, and I think she needs to hear all of this as well.”
“Oh,” he said, a little disappointment in the word.
“What?”
“Well, you said that you wanted to be alone with your fiancé.”
She put her hand over his on his thigh. “Later. I promise. Clarissa has friends in this town now. I’m sure I can convince her to go visit one of them while you and I have some alone time.”
“Okay. I suppose I can be grown up and wait. What is it you need to tell me?”
The engine started and they pulled out on the street, and Cookie finally had a chance to tell him what she’d been thinking. “About how Hamish is the one who snuck into my bakery and broke the seal on the secret door. And, about a little family history I learned while sharing some Danishes with George Merriam.”
***
Clarissa’s eyes flashed. “But how could he know?” she asked her grandmother for the second time.
Cookie had laid out the whole thing for her granddaughter and Jerry while sipping hot cocoa in the kitchen of her bakery. She figured chocolate would make news like this easier to take. Chocolate usually made everything better.
Not this time.
Clarissa hadn’t touched her cup. With her arms folded defensively over her chest, she had fluctuated between being irate and trying to use cold logic to prove her grandmother wrong. Hamish couldn’t be the one who broke into the cellar. He wouldn’t do that. He was a great guy, a great boyfriend, and how dare Cookie suggest such a thing? So now, she asked her a third time. “How could he know there was anything down there at all?”
“I don’t think he did, dear.” Cookie was being as patient as she could after giving the same answer again. “I think he was just looking for anything he could find. To sell, possibly. From what I understand photographs of that door and that room would sell for a tidy sum.”
At her feet, Cream haruphed his agreement.
“He doesn’t need money!” Clarissa laughed. “And even if he did that doesn’t prove anything. What makes you think he was the one who did this, anyway?”
“I already explained that. He has a black eye and a cut on his face, and there was fresh blood downstairs on that step. The timing tells me it was him.”
Cream cocked his head to one side, lifting an ear up, obviously questioning her conclusion. So much for support, Cookie thought to herself.
Building up all the teenage indignation she could, Clarissa leaned her elbows on the center island and set her jaw. “What if there’s a simple explanation for his black eye?”
“Then we’d love to hear it,” Jerry said. His cup was already empty. It had been a very long conversation. “Because it seems to me that he would have told you what happened to his eye if there was a simple explanation.”
“What do you know?” Clarissa snapped. “You don’t know Hamish. He’s the best thing that ever happened to me. He loves me.”
“So does your grandmother. Have you ever known her to say anything to intentionally hurt you?” He’d been standing behind Cookie this whole time without saying a word, lending her his silent support, but now he asked the obvious question. “Come on, Clarissa. You’re a smart girl. Why hasn’t he told you how he got that black eye?”
“Because… because he doesn’t want to!” Clarissa blurted out. “He doesn’t have to tell me everything!”
Jerry’s hand came to rest on Cookie’s shoulder. “Yes, he does. If he really loves you, then he would. You don’t keep secrets that big from someone you love.”
Cookie brought her hand up to his, and their fingers laced together. When she did, Cream put his paws up on her leg to remind her that it was him who loved her first, and he’d never lied to her, not even once.
“Well, that’s just peachy,” Clarissa said sarcastically. “Even you, Cream? You’re all against me on this? Whatever. I say he’s innocent. You’re just guessing it was him. He got hurt. So what? That doesn’t mean… you can’t prove it was… I mean… Hamish didn’t do anything!”
“Hamish didn’t do what?”
All three of them stopped and looked over at the door from the kitchen to the front room. Hamish was there, his expression pinched around the black and blue and yellow splotch of his bruise. He looked like he hadn’t slept at all. His long coat was rumpled. His hair needed a comb.
Cream stepped his way out around the island counter. When he saw who it was, he backed his way up until he was hidden from view again.
After a moment where time seemed to hang suspended on a string, Clarissa hopped down from her stool and went over to Hamish. She threw her arms around him and held on tight, like one of them needed the extra support. Cookie wondered which one of them it was.
Hamish was still waiting for an answer, and Cookie wondered about the wisdom of confronting him with everyone’s temper’s running so high. As she debated with herself, Cream ran over to the secret door that was still hidden behind the hanging blankets, sniffed at the opening to the stairway, and growled.
He was right. Cookie gave Jerry’s hand one last squeeze before she met Hamish’s glare. “What we’re saying,” she said, “is that there was someone in my shop here yesterday morning. This person got in through the window in my apartment. They came down here, and they went downstairs.”
“Into the cellar?” Hamish moved into the kitchen, standing with his arm around Clarissa’s shoulders. “You think I broke in here to go romp around the cellar? You saw me, Cookie. When they brought the body up? I didn’t even want to go down there when the place was full of police officers. Why would I break in by myself?”
“Well, there was no breaking,” Jerry said, echoing Cookie’s words from yesterday. “But yeah, son. We think maybe it was you that—”
“I’m not your son!” Hamish shouted back at him.
“Hamish …” Clarissa’s eyes were wide in the face of his shouting.
“What makes you think I’d want to go down into a cellar, Cookie? Huh? You don’t think I’ve got better things to do with
my time than skulk around your basement?”
Cookie didn’t know what to say at first. This outburst was so very unlike Hamish. He was always so respectful and polite. She had never seen him angry. Even back when they had first met and Cookie had accused him of trying to hurt Clarissa. She’d been wrong, and Hamish would have had every right to be mad at her, but if anything he’d been painfully polite.
So what had him so hot under the collar now?
“That’s what I told them,” Clarissa was saying. “I told them you didn’t do it. They’ve got no proof.”
Jerry cleared his throat. “How’d you hurt your eye, Hamish?”
His hand went up to the side of his face. “What does that matter?”
“Because we’ve got fresh blood on the stairs down there. You’ve got a busted up face and a cut that probably bled plenty. So, you can understand where Cookie would draw the obvious conclusion.”
Hamish’s face had gone paler still. “It’s not my blood down there.”
“The crime lab will tell us that,” Jerry promised. “In the meantime, you still haven’t told us how you hurt yourself, if it wasn’t in this cellar. You want to tell us now?”
“No,” was the answer.
“Hey,” Clarissa said to Hamish, “it’s okay. You can tell us.”
“I don’t want to talk about this,” he hissed at her, untangling their arms. “Just drop it, okay.”
“Hamish …”
“I said, I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Young man,” Cookie said to him, “I have always thought the world of you. But now someone has come into my home, and violated the place where I live. There was a dead man under my home and someone had a very big interest in getting down there for something. Now, if you were looking to take pictures of the secret cellar where one of the town’s most famous citizens died so you could sell them for money I would understand but you need to tell us—”
“I didn’t do anything!” he shouted, curling his hands into fists.
“Then tell us what happened,” Clarissa pleaded.