Cookie Dough or Die accsm-1

by Virginia Lowell

“Lightweight,” Maddie said. “What time is it, anyway?”

  “Exactly ten o’clock,” Olivia said, checking her cell. As if on cue, the phone in Olivia’s kitchen rang. “Who would . . .?” After the second ring, Olivia slid Spunky onto the sofa and hoisted to her feet. “That better not be Ryan.”

  “I thought your number was unlisted and unpublished,” Maddie said.

  “That would only slow Ryan down for a minute or two. He used to spend hours surfing the Internet. He could find my home number if he wanted to.”

  Maddie crossed to the front window, which offered a view of the front stoop. “No one out front,” she said. “I could take care of him for you.”

  “I really don’t want his head lopped off,” Olivia said.

  “You never let me have any fun.”

  “My ex-husband, my problem.”

  Olivia heard a male voice when she answered the phone, but it didn’t belong to Ryan. “Ms. Greyson, my name is Aloysius Smythe. I am a longtime personal friend of Clarisse Chamberlain and also her attorney.”

  “Oh?” Olivia held her hand over the receiver and whispered, “Clarisse’s attorney,” to Maddie.

  “I do apologize for calling so late on a Sunday evening. I only now returned to my office, and, as you will see, time is of the essence. I am calling in my capacity as executor of Clarisse’s will. As you may or may not know, in her most recent will, Clarisse included a bequest for you, Ms. Greyson.”

  “I had no idea,” Olivia said. “I’m speechless.”

  The attorney chuckled, then cleared his throat. “The reason I am calling so late is to invite you to dinner tomorrow, Monday evening, at the Chamberlain home, following the reading of the will. It was Clarisse’s desire that you be included as family, so I do hope you are able to attend both events.”

  “I can, as it happens, but I’m just very surprised. However, if Clarisse wanted me to be present . . .”

  “She did, Ms. Greyson. And so do I. Seven o’clock, then,” he said. “Casual dress.”

  Olivia replaced the receiver and turned to Maddie, who was bouncing on her toes with excitement. “Well,” Olivia said, “it seems that many of our questions about how Clarisse divided her estate will be answered within twenty-four hours.”

  Chapter Ten

  At six a.m. Monday morning, heavy, cold dew bent the grass in the Chatterley Heights town square. The iron gray dawn threatened a drenching soon, so Olivia had decided to sneak in a walk with Spunky. Through a break in the clouds, the rising sun spotlighted a black speck moving across the south end of the square, near Pete’s Diner. Spunky began to bark with all the intensity his tiny body could produce.

  “Spunky, that’s enough,” Olivia said. “Reasonable people are still trying to sleep.” Olivia herself had awakened before five, with questions tumbling over each other in her mind. Sensing her restlessness, Spunky had insisted on exercise.

  “Don’t make me come down there,” she said to Spunky. The threat failed. She gave up and watched as the black speck passed the band shell. It was fast approaching the statue of the town’s founding father, Frederick P. Chatterley, immortalized in the act of mounting his horse. When the creature reached the marble foot on which F. P. Chatterley had balanced for over two hundred years, it lifted its leg.

  Olivia laughed out loud, while Spunky skittered about and whimpered with eagerness to see his pal, Buddy, the aforementioned black speck. A taller figure was following Buddy at a run. That would be Deputy Sheriff Cody Furlow. When Spunky pulled hard on his leash and yipped, the Lab changed course and loped directly at them.

  Cody cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted, “Don’t move.” At least, that’s what Olivia thought she’d heard. It made sense, in a way. If she and Spunky ran, Buddy would shift into chase mode. Anyway, Buddy traveled like a locomotive at full throttle, so the escape option was moot. Olivia stood her ground as the Lab drew closer. Spunky backed up a step but wagged his tail, which Olivia took as a good sign. It was. Buddy slowed down to a trot, then stooped down to exchange sniffs with Spunky.

  “Morning, Ms. Greyson.” Deputy Cody sucked in air and shook his head. “Whew. Nothing like an early run. Hey, Spunks,” he said, squatting down to scratch Spunky’s ears. When he stood up, Olivia had to arch her neck to look up at him. He had to be at least six foot three. She was willing to bet he didn’t weigh much more than she did. Despite being in his midtwenties, Cody always reminded Olivia of a teenage boy whose weight hadn’t caught up with his sudden growth spurt.

  Cody’s smile faded as he said, “I’m real sorry about Ms. Chamberlain. Del says you were friends.” His eyes, nearly the same warm brown as Buddy’s, shifted to his feet.

  “It’s still hard to take in. Cody, do you mind if I ask you a question? About Clarisse’s death, I mean?”

  “I guess, but the sheriff knows more about it than I do.”

  “But you were with Del when . . . ?”

  Cody nodded. “I was on duty when the call came through, so I called Del right away, like I’m supposed to. I picked him up on the way.”

  “I keep wondering. . . . Del said Clarisse was on the floor, as if she’d tried to go for help. Was that your impression, too?”

  “Well, I’d never contradict Del, he’s got a lot more experience than me, but since you ask, I wasn’t so sure. I mean, yeah, she looked like she’d fallen on her way to the door, but her arms were lying straight beside her. Del doesn’t think it means anything. Only I thought that, you know, she’d have tried to break her fall or something.”

  “Might she have been unconscious before she landed?”

  “That’s what Del thinks, because she’d drunk all that wine, and with the pills. Which makes sense, of course.”

  “Was the wine bottle on her desk?”

  “That’s another thing,” Cody said. “It was right beside her, with a little wine spilled out onto the rug. Didn’t seem right to me.” He had lost all hint of reserve by this time, and his words came in a rush. “See, the bottle was almost empty, so why would she take it with her? And if she drank a whole bottle of wine with all those pills, how could she even stand up?”

  A sudden flush spread across Cody’s cheeks, as if he’d realized he shouldn’t be sharing his own speculations with a mere citizen. “Del said it wasn’t enough to go on and not to speculate. He said to wait for the evidence.”

  “I see what you mean,” Olivia said. “I suppose we might never know for sure. But your observations are very insightful.”

  The deputy’s tense shoulders relaxed. “I keep trying to learn more. I want to be a police detective. That’s my dream, I guess you’d call it. Detectives pay attention to little things, so that’s what I do. And the more I looked at those photos, I more I thought—”

  “Wait, there were photos?” Olivia had blurted out the question without thinking, but to her surprise Cody did not seem flustered. If anything, he looked irritated. “I don’t mean to intrude,” she added quickly. “All I know is what I read in mysteries.” She willed herself not to react to Cody’s derisive snort. “I suppose the sheriff ordered photos of the scene to be on the safe side? In case there was any question about it being something other than an accident?”

  “Del didn’t order any photos,” Cody said. “He said not to bother, it was clearly an accident. I took those photos on my own.”

  Two thoughts occurred to Olivia: Cody was irritated with Del, not with her, and she’d need to be careful how she approached Del for any more information. Could Del have a hidden agenda, some reason all his own for wanting Clarisse’s death to look like an accident? Olivia had a hard time believing that, but what if . . . ?

  “See, I’m taking this online crime scene investigation course,” Cody said. “So I went ahead and took photos anyway, for practice. It’s what you’re supposed to do whenever there’s a sudden death that might be foul play. Del is smart, but really, how many murders have we had in Chatterley Heights? I heard about one back in the 1800s, a jealous husband
or something like that, and maybe a couple others, but not since I was born.”

  “Something tells me I’m not in Baltimore anymore,” Olivia said.

  “Huh?”

  “Never mind,” she said. “I think it was a good idea to take photos. I have trouble believing that Clarisse is gone. Would you be willing to let me see your photos? It might help.” Her reason sounded flimsy to Olivia, but it was the best she could come up with on short notice.

  “Are you sure?” Cody asked. “Won’t it upset you to see her so . . . I mean . . .”

  “Her death is what upsets me. Maybe seeing the photos will help me accept and understand it better.”

  “Well, if you think they’ll help. I used my digital camera, so I could download the photos and email them to you, if that’s okay.”

  “That would be fine.” Olivia found an old receipt and a pen in her jacket pocket. “Here’s my email address. Thanks so much, Cody. And maybe we shouldn’t mention this to anyone?”

  “Especially Del,” Cody said, pocketing the paper. “I’m pretty sure he’d kill me if he found out.”

  Olivia took the stairs two at a time up to her apartment, with Spunky struggling to keep up. Before taking off her jacket, she woke up the laptop at her bedroom desk and checked her email. For once, Spunky wasn’t interested. He jumped onto Olivia’s bed and collapsed into a ball of boneless dog flesh.

  Aside from a plea from her mother that she pick up a dozen eggs on her way to brunch, Olivia had no new mail. Not surprising, since only about seven minutes had elapsed since she’d left Deputy Cody in the town square. Under ordinary circumstances, Olivia considered herself a patient person. These were not ordinary circumstances. Clarisse’s death had never made sense to her, neither as accident nor as suicide. With Cody’s photos, she might find another possibility. She wasn’t eager to discover signs that Clarisse had been murdered, but if she was murdered, Olivia would never be content until she’d found the truth.

  Staring at her email inbox would only frustrate her, so Olivia decided to spend some time downstairs in The Gingerbread House. Spunky didn’t so much as flicker an eyelid when she slapped her laptop shut. Olivia figured he’d be out for several hours thanks to all that exercise, but she added food to his bowl and gave him fresh water. When he did wake up, he’d be one hungry pup. On her way out, she picked up her laptop.

  Olivia’s mind churned nonstop as she unlocked the store and turned the lights on low. Several of the display tables needed reorganizing, a job she always enjoyed, but first she had to wrap up the cookies she and Maddie had decorated the previous evening. The Food Shelf opened at nine a.m. weekdays, so Olivia could drop off the cookies and run some errands before arriving at her mom and step-dad’s house for brunch.

  A second switch outside the kitchen allowed her to turn off the store lights, but Olivia decided to leave them on dim. She hoped Maddie might see them and stop in, so the two of them could look over Cody’s photos when they arrived.

  Olivia switched on the kitchen light and realized she had some cleanup to finish. She and Maddie had washed the baking equipment, then left it in the sink strainer to dry. Leaving her laptop on the kitchen desk, Olivia finished putting everything back in its assigned storage spot, scrubbed out the sink, and cast a critical eye around the kitchen. Not bad—except for the large worktable, which showed sprinklings of flour and numerous bits of cookie dough, evidence of how absorbed they’d been in their brainstorming about Clarisse’s death.

  For once, Olivia didn’t care about the state of the kitchen. She knew she wouldn’t be able to refocus until she’d checked her email again. As she threw her used dishtowel in the laundry bag, she heard something through the kitchen door. She couldn’t remember locking the store’s front door behind her. Maybe a customer had wandered in, thinking the store was open.

  Maddie. Of course, it had to be Maddie. Granted, she wasn’t usually so quiet, but she had packed away a fair quantity of merlot the previous night. Several glasses more than Olivia, and she wasn’t feeling all that perky herself. Maddie was lucky she still lived at her Aunt Sadie’s house, so she could walk home.

  Olivia yanked open the kitchen door and said, “Hi there—” Someone was indeed standing at the sales counter, leafing through a pile of opened mail Olivia had left for later attention, but it wasn’t Maddie or a customer. It was Sam Parnell, decked out in his mail carrier uniform and holding a small clutch of envelopes in his left hand. From the expression on his face, he hadn’t heard her movements in the kitchen.

  “What are you doing? That is private mail, and you of all people . . .” Olivia was so angry the words got stuck in her throat.

  Even in the dim light, Olivia could see the fiery flush that covered Sam’s face. The paper in his hand fluttered to the counter. “I wasn’t . . . I mean . . .” Sam Parnell’s voice wasn’t deep to begin with, but now it had slipped into high tenor. He cleared his throat and said in a more controlled tone, “Your door was unlocked, the inside door to the store, I mean. It’s always locked on Mondays. I usually come in the front door and slip your Monday mail through the mail slot.” He twisted around and pointed to the slot in the middle of the store’s door. As if she might not have been aware of its existence.

  Olivia mentally prepared to slice him in half with a few well-chosen words. She had to admit some satisfaction as she watched Sam’s bony face take on the look of a rat that had found itself cut off from all available methods of escape. And then a thought poked through her righteous rage—Sam loved gossip. He might be useful.

  Olivia stepped into the store and flipped the light on fully. “Let’s start over,” she said. “I was about to make a pot of coffee. How about joining me? I’ve been back in town all these months, and we haven’t had any chance to chat.” That one minor role in a high school melodrama had been time well spent.

  Sam had the dazed look of someone dropped into an alternate universe. “Well, uh . . .” He waved his hand at the mail sack hanging over his left shoulder.

  Olivia decided to misinterpret. “That thing must weigh a ton. Why don’t we go into the kitchen; you can leave it on the table while we have coffee.” She gave him a delighted smile. “Isn’t this the most perfect timing? I mean, I’m almost never in the store on Monday mornings, and here you are, ahead of schedule. You usually don’t reach here until about ten, and it’s . . .” Olivia pushed up the sleeve of her sweater to check her watch. “It’s not even eight o’clock.” She opened the kitchen door and waved him inside.

  “Okay, sure, thanks,” Sam mumbled. He slid the mail sack off his shoulder as he shuffled into the kitchen.

  Only minutes earlier, Olivia would have laid odds that Sam Parnell would never willingly enter her kitchen for a chat, let alone thank her for inviting him. However, she had watched Sam’s expression transform while she delivered her spiel. The sharp edges of his face seemed to soften, and his small, pale eyes assumed a puppylike quality. At a certain point, Olivia had stopped acting. However, empathy aside, she fully intended to learn what she could from Snoopy Parnell.

  A few minutes later, Olivia had the Mr. Coffee fired up and dripping. “I think I can produce a cookie or three,” she said, glancing over at Sam. He’d pulled his chair right up to the edge of the kitchen table, where he sat like a schoolboy with his hands on the tabletop, fingers interlaced.

  When the coffee was ready, Olivia filled two mugs. “Do you take milk or sugar?”

  “Black,” Sam said. “None of that muck for me.”

  “Here you go,” Olivia said, setting a steaming mug in front of him. She placed a plate holding six decorated cookies within his reach. She added milk and sugar, lots of both, to her own mug. “I go for the muck, myself,” she said lightly.

  Sam made no comment.

  “I have to admit,” she said, as she pulled up a kitchen chair opposite Sam, “I envy you your job. I mean, you get to be outside all day, plenty of exercise, lots of contact with people. You must have seen and heard everything b
y now.” Olivia sipped her coffee, watching Sam over the edge of her cup.

  Sam’s shrug conveyed agreement rather than modesty. “Folks have no idea how much we see and hear. We’re sort of invisible to most people, like a doorman or a waiter or something.” An edge of resentment had crept into his voice. “Hardly anyone knows they’re supposed to tip me at Christmas.”

  Olivia clucked her sympathetic disapproval and silently vowed to tip anyone who ever delivered anything to her. “I guess I’ve been one of those people,” she said. “I hope you will accept these cookies as a late Christmas gift?”

  To Olivia’s relief, Sam gave her a broad grin and selected a second cookie. She noticed his teeth were crooked, especially his two upper-front teeth, which virtually overlapped. Had he grown up too poor for braces? She couldn’t remember.

  “Ms. Chamberlain, now,” Sam said, his mouth still full of emulsified cookie. “Mind you, I’m real sorry about what happened to her and not to speak ill or anything, but she wouldn’t so much as look me in the eye, let alone offer me a cookie.” A chunk of his cookie broke off and dropped to the tabletop. Sam picked it up and ate it. “Bertha, though, she sometimes invites me in for warm stew on cold days.”

  “Let me warm up that coffee for you,” Olivia said. Sam relaxed against the back of his chair and allowed himself to be served.

  After refilling cups, Olivia slid onto her chair and leaned toward Sam. “I imagine the police were eager to pick your brains after Clarisse died. I mean, you’d be in the best position to know all sorts of things, like whether she’d received any mail that might have upset her? I think there was some speculation about whether her businesses were suffering in this economy, so maybe she was getting overdue bill notices or letters from collection agencies.” A blatant lie, but at least it was a place to start. “Clarisse could have hidden those things from Bertha or her family, but not from you.” Olivia held her breath, hoping she hadn’t gone overboard.

  Sam responded with a short, angry “Ha.” Resentment puckered his face and seemed to taint the sweet orange air in the kitchen. “You’d think so, wouldn’t you.” It wasn’t a question. “That Sheriff Jenkins, he looks right through me like I’m nothing but smoke. He was like that in high school, too. Thought he knew all there was to know and nothing else was important.”