“Tell me something I don’t know.” Olivia carried her find to the small bureau next to Greta’s bed. She switched on the reading lamp and began to unfold the paper.
Maddie’s right hand hovered close by, fingers twitching. “You’re going slowly just to drive me crazy, aren’t you?”
“Yep, out of sheer meanness,” Olivia said. “That, plus the fact that this paper is folded so small and tight, it’s tough to find an edge. It would help if I had actual fingernails.”
“Can’t help with that.” Maddie spread her fingers. “I trim my nails really short to keep them from stabbing the rolled cookie dough.”
“Okay, got it.” When Olivia fully opened the lined paper, it was about three-by-five inches and rounded on two corners. “If this belonged to Greta, she sure had tiny handwriting.”
“Let me see.” Maddie slipped the paper from Olivia’s hands. “Tiny and shaky,” she said. “And some of it is really light, as if the pen ran out of ink and was replaced with another. It looks like a page torn from a small notebook, the kind you might carry in your pocket to write down things you’re afraid you’ll forget. Can you read this writing? I’m too impatient.”
Olivia scanned the faint, scratchy marks on the paper. “It looks like a grocery list with some numbers. There’s a line separating the list from a number at the bottom, as if Greta had been calculating the total cost of several items. Except . . .” Olivia squinted at the numbers. “Something isn’t right.”
“Really?” Maddie grabbed the list and frowned. “I don’t think these add up. Or is that my math incompetence talking?” She handed the list back to Olivia.
“No, you’re right,” Olivia said. “Also, the total is huge, and there’s no decimal point or dollar sign. Of course, Greta might simply have left those off.”
“Maybe it isn’t a total. Maybe it’s a serial number, like on a computer or something,” Maddie said. “I’ll bet it fell into the drawer when she was putting stuff away. Which would make it officially unimportant and boring.”
Olivia slipped the paper into her pocket. “We need to get out of here. I’m glad we didn’t try to pressure Cody into searching the house. I think we can safely conclude that there’s no evidence here that someone facilitated Greta’s death.”
“Maybe,” Maddie said, “and maybe not. I went up to the attic and looked around. Very interesting. If you’re wondering how Greta managed to keep the house so free of clutter, I’m here to tell you: she crammed tons of stuff into the attic. She must have sent a zillion crates from Europe. Much of it isn’t unpacked yet, but what I saw took my breath away.”
“Such as . . . ?”
“Couldn’t we go up there, just for a minute?” Maddie took Olivia’s wrist and tried to pull her toward the bedroom door.
“Maddie, we really need to—”
“Pretty please with pearlized sprinkles on top? Come on, Livie, I promise you will be amazed. And you never know, we might gain some insight into Greta. Did I mention there are photos? Entire albums of them.”
Olivia hesitated. Photos might be helpful, especially if they dated back several decades and identified people by name. Despite the lack of evidence, Olivia couldn’t shake the feeling that Greta’s death had not been entirely natural. And Greta had called her for help. “Okay, let’s take a look at that attic, but we need to make it quick.”
“Yay!” Maddie slapped her hand over her own mouth. “Oops, sorry. Excessive enthusiasm.” She grabbed Olivia’s arm and pulled her about halfway down the hallway to a door. Olivia had assumed it was a linen closet. “Ta-da,” Maddie said as the door opened to reveal a staircase, complete with a sturdy railing running up to the top. “Hurry, there’s lots to see.” Maddie ran up the steps.
Olivia followed at a more conservative pace, remembering her mother’s frequent—and, unfortunately, accurate—reminders that she often tripped over her own feet. When she reached the top, Olivia paused, momentarily overwhelmed by the jumble of objects before her. Pale light from a small window caught the shiny sapphire blue bodice of a figure-skimming evening gown that hung on an open rack. Olivia thought of Constance’s ten-year-old photo of Greta in a similar gown. All the gowns on the rack, Olivia realized, were shades of blue. Had blue simply been Greta’s favorite color, or had she chosen the color because it drew attention to her mesmerizing eyes?
“Well? Isn’t this gorgeous?” Maddie giggled like an excited little girl as she lifted the sapphire blue gown off its hanger and held it against her body. “It’s just the right length.” She twirled around. “Although I suspect it might be a tad tight through the hips. It’s sad that Greta won’t ever dance in this dress again,” Maddie said as she returned the gown to the rack.
“From what I saw of her current wardrobe, Greta wasn’t planning to attend any more balls.” Olivia saw a stack of albums on a shelf. “These must be her photos.” She picked an album with worn edges and opened it to random pages. Every photo showed Greta, in a variety of ball gowns, dancing in the arms of men who weren’t facing the camera. Olivia turned page after page. She saw a young Greta smiling, laughing, flinging her head back, looking somber. . . . She was always with a man, but again, the faces of her male companions were hidden. Olivia opened another album and found the same pattern.
“Maddie, did you look at any of these photo albums?” Olivia asked.
“I didn’t have time.” Maddie picked an album and flipped through the photos. “Wow. Greta was certainly the belle of the ball, wasn’t she? She must have had her very own photographer.”
“Or maybe Greta kept photos only if she was the center of attraction.” Olivia tried another album. “Same thing here. You know, I haven’t seen a single photo of Greta standing next to a man, as if they were a couple. Where are those husbands of hers?”
“Sadly and suspiciously deceased.” Maddie yanked a battered album from the bottom of a stack. She examined several pages, and said, “These show Greta as a teenager. She was a beauty, I’ll give her that.” Maddie flipped to the end of the album. “Here she is in Paris, I think.”
“Let me see,” Olivia said, peering over Maddie’s shoulder. “That’s Greta standing in front of the Arc de Triomphe. It’s on the Champs-Élysées in Paris.”
“Show-off,” Maddie said. “So maybe this dates from when Greta studied at the Sorbonne? Did I say that right?”
“Perfect,” Olivia said. “I suspect you’re right about the date, too. She looks quite young.”
“She could have been a model,” Maddie said. “Look at that tall, willowy figure and the long blond hair blowing in the wind.”
“If Greta had been a model,” Olivia said, “I’d understand all these photos better. It would have been natural for her to pose for any and all cameras, and photographers would gravitate toward her. Although I’d still expect some photos of her with loved ones.”
Maddie closed the album and slid it back on the shelf. “It’s sad . . . almost as if Greta never really had any loved ones. Maybe she loved only herself.”
“It certainly seems that way.” Olivia flashed back to the Gingerbread House kitchen before the cookie event they’d thrown to celebrate Greta’s arrival. Greta had struck her as self-contained. She had seemed distant . . . cold. Olivia flipped to the last page of the album she was holding. “Maddie, look at this one.” Olivia held the album with one hand and pointed to a photo of Greta sitting in a lounge chair on the deck of a ship. “She looks quite a bit older here, doesn’t she?”
Maddie took the album to study the photo more closely. “You’re right. Greta definitely looks middle-aged and not very cheerful. In fact, I’d swear she is sending mental daggers in the direction of whoever is taking the picture. Hey, there’s some lettering up high, over to the right of Greta’s head. I wonder if it’s the name of the ship she was on. Livie, hold this while I shine my flashlight on it.” Olivia complied. “The tops of the letters
are cut off,” Maddie said, “but it looks like ‘Alic’ to me. What do you think?”
Olivia peered at the letters under Maddie’s flashlight. “That’s what it looks like to me, too.”
“Maybe there’s something written on the back of the photo,” Maddie said.
“Be careful,” Olivia said. “The glue is old on those little photo holders.”
“When am I not careful?” When Olivia didn’t answer, Maddie said, “Okay, point taken. I’ll squeeze the photo really gently, and it should slide out. Ah, there we go.” She turned the photo over. “There’s some faded, scratchy writing here.” She shined her flashlight on the words. “Oh my. Here, tell me what you think this says. It’s possible my imagination went berserk.” Maddie handed over the photo and flashlight.
“I see what you mean,” Olivia said after staring at the words for some time. She even turned the writing upside down to make sure it didn’t produce a different message. “Dead and Buried.” Olivia handed the photo back to Maddie. “That has an ominous ring to it.”
“I’ll say.”
“How old do you think Greta is in that picture?” Olivia shined her flashlight on the photo in Maddie’s hand.
“Hard to tell, given the expression on Greta’s face,” Maddie said. “That scowl might be adding years to her features. I must say, her clothes are downright frumpy. That floral skirt just sort of hangs. Wait, is that a conch shell necklace? I’ll bet this photo was taken in the mid-nineties. So Greta might have been in her early to mid-fifties. I wonder if the photographer was her last husband. Do we know his name or what happened to him?”
Olivia shook her head as she slid the photo back in place. “We are woefully ignorant about any and all of Greta’s unfortunate husbands. Let’s put that information on our computer search list.”
“Oh goodie! Isn’t it lucky that I excel in computer searches? They are such fun.” Maddie took the album from Olivia. Starting at the first page, she flipped through to the end. “Did you notice that Greta aged from maybe early twenties to her fifties through this album? No photos of men, but what do you want to bet this is her husband album?”
“You might be right,” Olivia said. “From Greta’s expression, she seems irritated with the photographer, yet she kept the photo. It’s so odd that Greta never kept photos of the men in her life. Maybe she was left with unpleasant memories of all of them.”
“I’d like to know how many of them actually died in questionable circumstances.” Maddie replaced the album on the shelf. “I’m betting it was more than one.” She wiggled her fingers and said, “I can’t wait to get to a computer.”
“We’d better wrap this up soon,” Olivia said. “Let’s look around quickly and get out of here.”
“Sounds like a plan.” Maddie scanned the remaining shelves.
Olivia peered into partially unpacked boxes until she found one containing two bundles of envelopes, some with foreign stamps, others sent from the United States. She picked up one of the packets and flipped through the envelopes.
“What did you find?” Maddie asked, looking over Olivia’s shoulder.
“I’m being idly curious, that’s all,” Olivia said. “These letters all seem to have postmarks from the 1970s and 1980s. I was wondering if . . . Yep, there it is.”
“There what is?”
“A letter from Clarisse Chamberlain. Then nothing more from Clarisse.”
Maddie whistled. “You’re thinking about that story Bertha told us, aren’t you . . . the one about Greta’s European affair with Martin Chamberlain while poor Clarisse was home with her chicken-poxed sons?”
“I am.” Olivia picked up another packet. “I’m also thinking that Greta said little about her life. She wasn’t with us for long, but still . . .”
“Maybe she had a lot to hide?” Maddie picked up another small box and looked inside. “These are letters, too. Some of the envelopes contain several letters from the same person. For such a reserved woman, Greta sure corresponded a lot.”
Olivia shrugged. “In a letter, you can be whoever you want, if you are cunning enough. My impression is that Greta was very, very cunning. I wonder why she decided to come back to Chatterley Heights. She had to know she would encounter people who knew about her past, and maybe even a few enemies.” Olivia checked the time on her cell phone. “We’ve been here too long. How many boxes of letters are there?”
“Just these two, as far as I can tell,” Maddie said. “What are you thinking?”
“We need to read them all, and this might be our only chance to get our hands on them. The boxes aren’t very big, but I’d rather not risk being seen carting them away. Any idea how we might sneak the letters out of here?”
“Sure,” Maddie said. “I’ve got a bunch of covered cake pans in my trunk. If we’re seen, it’ll look like we were bringing early morning treats to leave at Greta’s door. I’ll go get a couple pans, while you get the letters ready. I found some string around here somewhere. Here it is.” Maddie handed over a ball of wound twine.
“I’ll put a few items inside these boxes,” Olivia said. “It might raise questions if we leave them empty. It’s obvious that Greta got rid of her boxes as soon as she unpacked them.”
“Greta was obsessively neat, so I suppose we should be obsessively careful,” Maddie said.
Olivia took a handful of letters from the box and frowned at them. “You realize it’s totally outrageous of us to walk off with these private letters.”
“Yeah, not to mention illegal and highly suspicious,” Maddie said. “It would spoil our fun, but should we leave the letters here?”
Olivia closed her eyes and tried to think. Rationality told her to leave the letters and get out. If Greta’s death had been treated as suspicious, she wouldn’t think twice about staying on the sidelines. “I don’t have an airtight rationale for taking these letters,” Olivia said. “But I have such a strong feeling that Greta was murdered. How, I don’t know. Why is unclear, too, but she certainly had a few enemies. Her return to Chatterley Heights seemed to rile up some old resentments, and maybe one of them was strong enough to trigger a confrontation. I’m counting on these letters to give us some background. If there’s nothing suspicious in them, I’ll let it go.”
“It’s ironic, isn’t it . . . Is ironic the right word?” Maddie’s freckled cheeks bunched as she frowned in concentration.
Chuckling, Olivia said, “I won’t know until you tell me what ‘it’ is.”
“Cody. We were so sure he’d go off on wild police chases to prove himself as a cop, but instead he accepted the emergency room doctor’s first explanation of Greta’s death. That kid isn’t suspicious enough to be a good cop.”
“Don’t be too hard on Cody,” Olivia said. “I’ll bet Del would have done the same, although he probably would have waited for the autopsy results before saying anything.”
“Do we know if an autopsy is being done?” Maddie asked.
“I assume so, unless . . . Let’s try to find out.”
“I can do that,” Maddie said. “I got on well with that poor, befuddled ER assistant, Bill, plus he owes me for the nonexistent injury to my foot.”
“But you should wait a bit,” Olivia said. “If it turns out that Greta was actually murdered, you’ll have drawn even more attention to yourself.”
“You never let me have any fun.”
“Let’s pack up these letters and get out of here,” Olivia said.
“I’ll be right back with the cake pans.” Maddie paused before heading down the attic staircase. “Livie?”
“Hm?”
“I wish Del were here.”
“I know,” Olivia said. “Me too.”
Chapter Thirteen
When Olivia’s cell phone alarm buzzed at nine a.m., she shut it off and pulled the covers over her head. Her early morning adventures with Maddie, f
irst at the emergency room and then at Greta Oskarson’s house, had taken a substantial chunk out of her night. In fact, they had taken most of her night. After a fitful fifteen minutes, however, Olivia conceded that she was too agitated to rest any longer, so she got up.
Olivia’s first and most urgent order of business was taking Spunky for a walk. He had been cooped up and abandoned during much of the night; he would want payback, which meant a long, rambling exploration of the park and a variety of side streets, with stops to greet all his favorite fire hydrants. Olivia allowed her pup his heart’s desire. Olivia used the time to think about the previous night’s adventure and plan her day.
Olivia felt excited, curious, and squeamish as she thought about the stack of letters that waited on her kitchen table. No doubt about it, she and Maddie should not have taken Greta’s correspondence from her attic. In the glare of daylight, her reasons for doing so seemed contrived. Olivia had no solid reason to suspect Greta had been murdered. As far as Olivia knew, the emergency room doctors had found nothing suspicious. Would there be an autopsy? Time would tell. Meanwhile, she had the letters and no covert way of returning them, so she might as well skim through them.
When they’d finished their walk and returned to the apartment, Spunky plunked down on the kitchen floor to rest. Olivia luxuriated in a coolish shower before slipping into fresh shorts and a comfy T-shirt. A rejuvenated Spunky awaited her outside the bathroom door and trotted behind her into the kitchen.
“We’re running low on kibbles, Spunks,” Olivia said as she measured food into his bowl. “Remind me to put it on the list.” Spunky’s fuzzy little face disappeared into his bowl. Olivia fixed herself a large, strong pot of Italian roast. While Mr. Coffee finished his brewing cycle, Olivia scrambled and ate her one remaining egg. She really needed to start a grocery list. She loved to plan, but for some reason grocery lists failed to interest her.
“Sorry, that’s all for now,” Olivia said to her pup, who was staring into his empty bowl as if he were willing it to refill itself. “We’re going to work in the living room. Or rather, I’ll work, and you may snooze.” Olivia broke a Milk-Bone treat in half. “Come on, boy.” Spunky abandoned his empty bowl and followed his treat into the living room.
Cookies and Scream (A Cookie Cutter Shop Mystery) Page 14