A subdued Maddie returned to The Gingerbread House kitchen in less than an hour. When she began to page through a decorated cookie cookbook that she knew by heart, Olivia couldn’t stand the tension another minute. She needed Maddie at her best, not distracted and mopey. “How’s Lucas these days?”
Maddie’s eyes flitted up to Olivia’s face and down again. “Fine.”
“ ‘Fine’ is not an acceptable answer,” Olivia said. She heard the impatience in her own voice and didn’t care. “Tell me what is going on between you and Lucas. One minute he is the love of your life and the next he’s just . . . fine.”
“Come on, Livie, it’s no big deal. These things cool down, that’s all.”
“Not that fast and not without a reason.” Olivia filled Mr. Coffee with water, threw in some ground coffee, and snapped the switch. “Madeline Briggs, you and I need to talk.”
“I thought you were worried about Jason. Your brother, remember? Suddenly my love life is more important than your own brother’s actual life?”
“Don’t change the subject. Sit.” Olivia grabbed a chair and pressed it against the back of Maddie’s legs until she had to sit down.
“Hey,” Maddie said. “When did you get so bossy?”
“I’m an elder child, I was born bossy.” Olivia poured two cups of coffee and put one in front of Maddie. After delivering the cream and sugar, she said, “Look, Maddie, I’ve been watching you pretend to be your usual super-perky, enthusiastic self, but you’re unhappy. When you’re unhappy, it isn’t much fun around here.”
Maddie’s freckled face took on a sullen look as she sipped her coffee.
“Okay,” Olivia said, “here’s what I know. I know that Lucas asked you to marry him.”
Maddie’s cup rattled on its saucer. “How did you—?”
“Because Lucas is beyond upset. He talked to me about it. He wants to understand. He’s afraid of losing you. Maddie, you’ve been nuts about Lucas for years. What happened?”
Maddie poured herself another cup of coffee and stirred in silence.
Olivia said, more gently, “Lucas is a great guy, and he loves you. You know that. You will never convince me that you’ve suddenly lost interest in him. That isn’t you. You’re loyal. It took you a long time to get over Bobby after he broke your engagement that summer after high school, and Lucas is a much better person. Wait, is that it? Are you afraid the Bobby thing will happen again?”
Maddie dismissed the idea with a wave of her hand and a shake of her head. Progress.
“Then what?”
“Look, Livie, I really, truly don’t want to talk about this.”
“I get that.” Olivia drained the last of the coffee in her cup. If her taste buds were accurate, she had tossed in about twice the correct amount of ground beans. Her heart had picked up about thirty beats per minute. She started a second pot, lower octane. “This has something to do with your parents, doesn’t it?”
“What? How did you . . . ? Of course not.”
“Nice try,” Olivia said, “but I know you too well. You never want to talk about your parents. Maddie, I know how traumatic it is to lose a parent, and you lost both of them at a very young age. But there was something else going on, wasn’t there?” When Maddie said nothing, Olivia added, “Mom mentioned that she saw your mother a few times in those months before the accident. She said your mom seemed unhappy, that she was distracted, losing weight.”
Maddie stared toward the kitchen floor, sniffled once, and tears began to dribble down her cheeks. Olivia went to her and put a hand on her shoulder. Maddie said, “I hate this.”
“Yeah, I know.” Olivia said. “You probably hate me right now, too.”
“Yep.” Maddie ripped off a paper towel and blew her nose. “The least you could have done was wait until we’d started making cookies.”
“You’re right. I’ll undoubtedly rot in hell for that.”
“Works for me.” Maddie blew her nose again on another paper towel. “Ouch. Put tissues on the grocery list.”
“Will do. How about telling me what happened with your parents? You’ll feel better, I’ll feel better, we can get to those cookies, maybe save my brother’s life. . . .”
Maddie half-laughed. “Okay, all right. Quick version. Mom was depressed, and I guess she started drinking. Anyway, looking back on her behavior, that’s what I suspect. On the day of the accident, she was driving. Why, I don’t know. Dad usually did all the driving. No one told me the part about Mom being at the wheel until I’d finished college. Aunt Sadie let it slip one day. That’s about it.”
“So . . . I guess I need a longer version because I’m not connecting the dots. Did you start worrying that marrying Lucas would turn you into a drunk?”
Maddie heaved a huge sigh. “If you’re going to force me to talk about this, I really, really need to be baking.”
“Okay by me. As you can see, I’ve lined up the ingredients. The butter is at room temperature. You only have to fire up the mixer.” Olivia waved toward the neat line of flour, sugar, and extracts.
Maddie was already mixing flour and salt in a bowl, which she set aside near the mixer. “Mom was depressed. I know that much because I remember hearing one of her friends use the word, and I asked Mom what it meant. She said she was just feeling a little sad and not to worry about it. Dad was traveling a lot for work. I don’t know, maybe she was lonely. Mom and Dad had always been so close, at least until those last few months. Dad seemed to be gone all the time, and Mom must have stopped eating because she lost a lot of weight.”
“Do you think she might have been seriously ill?” Olivia put the flour away and refilled their coffee cups.
“No, Aunt Sadie would have told me. I do have to wonder if my dad was having an affair. That’s something I would never be able to dredge out of Aunt Sadie. She thinks I’m still ten and terribly vulnerable.”
“She loves you.”
“Yeah, I know.” Maddie yanked another towel off the roll. Her nose had turned red from the roughness of the paper.
While Maddie washed her hands, Olivia took a roll of toilet paper from the kitchen storage cabinet. She tore off the paper cover and plunked the whole roll on the table next to Maddie.
“Here’s the irony, though,” Maddie said as she measured sugar into the mixer bowl. “Hand me the butter, will you?”
“Irony?”
Maddie opened the wrapper and scraped globs of soft butter into the bowl with the sugar. “Mom and Dad were going off for a weekend away together the day they died. They were driving to the mountains, planning to stay in the same place they went for their honeymoon.”
“Maybe they were trying to work things out?”
“What I remember so vividly was that when Mom leaned over to kiss me good-bye, I smelled her perfume. It was the first time I’d seen her smile in a long time. That was the last time I saw her.” Maddie switched on the mixer, indicating she was done talking about her parents, and lowered the spinning blades into the sugar and butter.
Olivia reached for a hunk of toilet paper.
While Maddie made noise in the kitchen, Olivia picked up her cell and headed for the kitchen door. When Maddie paused the mixer and glanced up at her, Olivia said, “I want to call Del and find out what happened with Heather.” Maddie nodded and went back to work.
Spunky was curled in a ball on the padded seat of an antique chair near the large front window. His head lifted when he saw Olivia. “Hey, you lazy bum.” Spunky wagged his fluffy tail and tried to lick Olivia’s face as she picked him up. When she sat on the brocade-covered seat, Spunky circled in her lap and collapsed into a ball again. Olivia wove her fingers into the silky fur that tended to fall over his eyes. Time for a trim. Spunky sighed with contentment as Olivia massaged his ears and stared out the window at the park. The setting sun lent a warm glow to the collection of copper cookie cutters hanging from tiny suction cups on the window. Sometimes she felt as if she lived in a real gingerbread house . . . exc
ept, of course, the oven was used only to bake cookies. Olivia had a feeling this might be her last contemplative moment for some time.
With her free hand, Olivia opened her cell phone and called Del. He answered immediately. “Livie, are you okay?”
“Fine, Del, really. I don’t think Heather was actually aiming her truck at me. Did you find her?”
“We did, although we can’t take much credit for it. She’d pulled over only a few miles from her farm. We found her curled up on the front seat, balling her eyes out. Getting anything coherent out of her took some time. She cried all the way back to the station and through most of the interview.”
“Was I right? Is she a suspect?”
“We consider her a suspect, yes.”
In her excitement, Olivia shifted suddenly, causing Spunky to tumble off her lap.
“That’s good news for Jason,” Del said. “Heather has a motive but no alibi. A knife similar to the murder weapon was part of the loot you found in her barn, so she might have had access to another in the same set. That’s not for general consumption.”
“Understood.” Spunky lifted his front paws to Olivia’s knees, scouting out the possibility of regaining her lap. She patted her thigh, and he jumped up. “Did you find out if Heather knew about the stolen goods in her barn?”
“Denied all knowledge. Claims she didn’t know someone was hanging out there, that she rarely entered that barn.”
“I’m inclined to believe her,” Olivia said. “No horses, no cats . . . Heather loves animals. She’d have no reason to trek way out to a run-down barn unless there were animals to care for. Except . . .”
“What?”
“Well, I suppose she might have seen the stuff if she decided to check out the condition of the folding chairs. Gwen said Heather had volunteered to bring them to the baby shower. That’s why I was there, to get those chairs.”
“Thanks. I’ll follow up on that. For now, we had to let her go. We had no evidence linking her to King’s murder. However, since she has no alibi for the night of the murder, she stays on the list. Do I dare hope you will let me take it from here?”
With a light laugh, Olivia said, “One can always hope. I do have a request, and it has nothing to do with the murder. I know how busy you are, but could you see if you can find any information about the car accident that killed Maddie’s parents? They lived in Clarksville when they died, but maybe you know someone who could dig up some details? Maddie won’t check for herself, she doesn’t want to know.”
“But you think she should?”
“Long story, Del. Let’s just leave it that Maddie needs to work through a few things before she can move on to another stage in her own life. I’d like to help her do that.”
“I’ll see what I can do. Are we still on for tomorrow evening?”
“Tomorrow? Friday?”
“Tomorrow would be Friday, that is correct. Dinner?”
“Oh gosh, Del, I’m so sorry. I sort of . . .”
“Forgot. I get it,” Del said, a touch of curtness edging into his voice. “Did you make other plans?”
“Well . . . The Gingerbread House might be staying open late tomorrow for sort of a special event.”
“Sort of a special event? Is it, by any chance, the sort of event where a guest might suddenly get whacked with a blunt object?”
“Del, you are so suspicious. Although you’re a cop, so it’s understandable, and besides, you’re probably on the right track. We have so little time. I can’t help thinking there are folks who know more than they realize. I’m looking for a way get that information as fast as possible. I might decide it won’t work.”
“Well, let me know if you want me to hang around. Meanwhile, I’ll put Cody to work on the Briggs’ car accident.”
“Oh, and I have one more request.”
“Which is?
“It’s about Jason.” Olivia hesitated, searching for the right phrasing. When it eluded her, she went for blunt. “Jason needs to be here tomorrow evening. Now hear me out, Del. You and Cody can watch him every minute, as long as you’re subtle about it.”
With an exaggerated sigh, Del asked, “Are you planning to tell me why you think this bad idea is actually a good one?”
“Of course,” Olivia said. “I want everyone to think Jason has been cleared.”
“Again, why?”
“So that I can clear him, of course. Thanks, you’re the best.” Olivia closed her phone before Del could respond.
A moment after Olivia hung up her cell, Maddie burst through the kitchen door. “Livie, that ex-husband of yours is on the line. I told him you’d been sold into slavery, but he ignored me. He always ignores me. You have to talk to him.” Maddie disappeared into the kitchen without waiting for a response.
“Sorry, Spunks, you’re on your own again.” Olivia scooped him out of her lap and nestled him back onto the seat alone. He curled into the warm spot she’d left behind.
When Olivia entered the kitchen, Maddie had the mixer going as close as possible to the phone receiver. With a rhythmic splat-splat, the paddle whacked the ingredients into a smooth dough. Maddie slid the mixer farther away but didn’t turn it off as Olivia lifted the phone receiver.
“Ryan?”
“What is that racket? Can’t Maddie do that someplace else? I’m on the phone.”
“You’re actually in The Gingerbread House kitchen, Ryan.” However, Olivia shot Maddie a pleading look, and the mixer stopped.
“That’s better. Livie, listen, I’ve got great news. The clinic is moving along faster than we ever anticipated, and we might be able to open in a month. I need to talk to you about that as soon as possible. I’ll stop by tomorrow evening. We can go out to dinner somewhere. I know there isn’t much in that little town, so we’ll head out and find something more interesting. I’ll pick you up at seven. I’ve got a lot—”
“Ryan, stop, take a breath. I’m glad the clinic plan is going well, but tomorrow is impossible for me. I have other plans.”
“Cancel them. This is important.”
“My plans are important, too, and I resent your—”
“Look, Livie, I don’t have time to argue. I’m meeting tonight with a backer, and I can’t be late. You and I have something very important to talk about, and it can’t wait any longer. So I’ll see you—”
“Ryan, do not come here tomorrow, do you hear me? Ryan?” Olivia slammed the phone on its cradle. “He hung up on me. Can you believe that?”
“Oh yes,” Maddie said, “I can believe it. If he does show up, can I punch him in the nose? Or perhaps a more sensitive spot?”
“I can’t worry about Ryan right now.” Olivia flopped down on a chair. “We have only one more day to come up with something, anything, that will keep Jason from being taken away and booked for Geoffrey King’s murder. I need to think.”
“How can I help? Or I can be very quiet, if that would be better.” Maddie retrieved a box from the top of the refrigerator and twisted off the lid. It took a few moments for Olivia to realize that Maddie was laying cookie cutters on the kitchen table.
“Are those new?” Olivia moved her chair closer.
“I can’t get that ballerina out of my head,” Maddie said. “So I ordered all the ballet cookie cutters I could find. I guess that makes it official; I am a cookie cutter addict. They are so fun and calming and . . . Livie?”
“Hmm?” Olivia held a cookie cutter in the shape of a leaping ballerina. “Does this step have a name?”
“Jeté,” Maddie said.
“That’s French.”
“Is it? I guess I knew that once.” Maddie began to roll out a ball of cookie dough she’d been cooling in the refrigerator. After several moments of silent concentration, she glanced at Olivia, who was still staring at the leaping ballerina cutter. “Livie, you have that look on your face. What’s up?”
Olivia slid the ballet cookie cutters toward Maddie. “Let’s use only these cutters for tomorrow evening’s eve
nt.”
“Fine by me,” Maddie said.
“How early can you be up tomorrow morning?”
Maddie glanced up from her half-rolled dough.
“This is me, remember? I can stay up all night. Why?
Olivia flexed her tight shoulders. Worrying about Jason was getting to her. However, a good night’s rest would have to wait. “I haven’t returned Constance’s key to her,” she said. “We can still get into the dance studio.”
“I thought Raoul was only gone on Thursdays,” Maddie said.
“Rumor has it he goes to early Mass every weekday morning, followed by confession after Friday Mass. Any idea how long confession takes?”
With the back of her hand, Maddie pushed an errant lock of curly hair off her forehead, leaving a streak of flour behind. “According to one of my Catholic friends, the goal is to get in and out with some Hail Marys and a few Our Fathers, but if she’s feeling really guilty about something, confession can stretch to maybe fifteen minutes. But she usually makes an appointment for one of those. If Raoul goes after Mass, there’s probably a waiting line.”
“Well then, we’ll have to be efficient,” Olivia said. “I need to find the ballerina of the park, and I’m assuming she doesn’t go to Mass with Raoul.”
Maddie dipped a ballet shoe cookie cutter in flour and positioned it on her rolled dough. “If we actually find her at home, won’t she tell Raoul?”
“I don’t think so,” Olivia said as she selected a cookie cutter in the shape of a ballerina performing an arabesque. She dipped it in flour and handed it to Maddie. “Anyway, I’m guessing the woman will be out cold while Raoul is gone. I researched those pills I found next to Valentina’s bed. They were powerful sleeping pills. I suspect Raoul has been drugging her. I would love to know why.”
Maddie looked up from her cookie cutting, emerald eyes sparkling. “Wow. Do you think keeping her drugged might have something to do with King’s murder? Like maybe Raoul has some reason he doesn’t want her to be seen and identified? Maybe King got mixed up with mobsters. Maybe Raoul and the ballerina saw him and now they’re in the Witness Protection Program!”
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