Dead Men Don't Eat Cookies (2 page)

The workers shuffled closer to the wall to get another look inside. “You guys clear out,” Calliope said. “You can take the rest of the day off, with pay. Stop for lunch on your way out. Wait for me in the kitchen and don’t leave before I get there.” The men whooped. “And if I find out you’ve told anyone about what we discovered in that wall, I’ll fire you on the spot. Understood?”

The workers all nodded vigorously and filed out of the room.

“Everyone in Chatterley Heights will hear about these bones by sundown at the latest,” Maddie said. “You know that, right?”

“Sure, I know that,” Calliope said. “But I’m betting my threat will slow them down, maybe make them think twice. I’m paying them well, and they need the work.”

Jason and Calliope leaned the plywood against the wall, revealing a cavity more than a foot deep. The area seemed generous for a wall, but Olivia knew that walls had often been thicker in the past. No one spoke for a time. There wasn’t much to say because there wasn’t much to see beyond some bones. Olivia was too embarrassed to admit, at least in public, that she’d envisioned a skeleton more like the plastic one her family had hung on their front door every Halloween.

“Huh,” Maddie whispered. “Is that all there is?”

“Jeez, sorry to disappoint you guys,” Jason said.

Olivia felt something brush against her ankle. She glanced down to see Spunky sneak toward the cavity. His fluffy tail
swished with eager curiosity as he sniffed the air. “Spunky, no!” Olivia grabbed him and lifted his tiny body to her chest. “Those bones are not for you,” she whispered in his ear. He squirmed in her arms, clearly not convinced.

Olivia ran her finger over several small holes along the outer edges of the wall. “Are these nail holes? So that plywood was actually nailed to the wall?”

“It was,” Calliope said. “Sloppy job. I’d have re-plastered the whole wall. No one would have been the wiser, at least until the site was cleared for development. Even then, the bones might have been crushed by a bulldozer before anyone saw them.”

Olivia peered into the wall cavity, taking care not to step inside. “This area seems large for an inner wall,” she said. “Shouldn’t there be insulation or something?”

Jason snorted. “Inside walls don’t need insulation. However, despite the dumbness of your question, I agree that the space is larger than I’d have expected. My guess is this might originally have been a shallow storage closet. It goes along half the wall. There would have been another closet in the room sharing this wall to fill in the other half. For some reason, the closets in both rooms got plastered over to make them into walls. Don’t ask me why. Maybe the closets were disintegrating. Anyway, the building was abandoned years ago. Somehow the wall got damaged, and someone covered the whole thing with plywood. That’s all I can figure.”

“Let me have another look.” Calliope peered around the cavity. “You might be right, Jason. I’d say this wall has been through several renovations, mostly on the cheap. It started out good and solid. Then maybe somebody decided it used up too much valuable space and tried to make a closet out of it. Not a very good closet, but by then the inhabitants were probably too poor to need much storage space.” Calliope shook her head. “Too bad. This was a decent building once. I hate to see good construction go bad.”

“Forgive me for interrupting such a fascinating and poignant discussion of wall design,” Maddie said, “but I thought someone said the police were on their way. Did you give them the right address? Won’t they be here soon, and shouldn’t we put the plywood back?”

“Mom called 911,” Jason said. “The dispatcher said it might be some time before someone could get here. I guess there’s been a huge accident between here and Twiterton. That’s what’s occupying all the available police from several towns. The dispatcher decided that finding some old bones wasn’t a big emergency, so it could wait.”

“I know Del has been in DC at a conference,” Olivia said. “Did anyone get hold of him?” Sheriff Del Jenkins was, as her mother put it, Olivia’s “special friend.” Ellie was a sixties flower child who had once lived in a commune, but when it came to her daughter, she’d turned traditional.

“I called Del on his cell,” Calliope said. “He said he’ll drive back to town this evening, after he does some talk or other. He warned us not to touch anything, and we haven’t, except for removing the plywood covering. Del wants to look at the scene first before he calls in the experts. I mean, this guy’s been dead for years. Anyway, chances are he sneaked in here and died of natural causes.”

“But then why was he hidden in the wall?” Maddie asked.

Calliope shrugged. “This was a hangout for vagrants. My guess is they didn’t want any trouble, so they stuffed the body into a rotting wall, found an old piece of plywood, and nailed him inside.”

Maddie grimaced. “Wouldn’t it, um, smell?”

“The place probably didn’t smell great to begin with,” Calliope said. “A passed-out drunk might not care, especially if he had nowhere else to sleep.”

“Where is Cody?” Olivia asked. Chatterley Heights’ deputy sheriff, Cody Furlow, was an eager investigator, though he could be indecisive at times. Olivia also knew
that Del wanted to give Cody a chance to gain confidence and experience.

“Cody’s dad had a heart attack during the night,” Jason said. “I heard about it from Ida this morning at Pete’s Diner. Ida said Cody took off early this morning. She knew that because he’d left a message ordering a take-out breakfast, which he picked up just after the diner opened at five-thirty a.m. He had it half eaten before he got out the diner door. Ida was impressed.”

“Ida doesn’t impress easily,” Olivia said. “Poor Cody. He probably just wanted to get to his dad as fast as possible. So Chatterley Heights is currently without any police protection?”

“Jeez,” Jason said, “don’t be such a wimp. This town doesn’t need 24–7 police protection. Besides, you’ve got me and Cal.”

“So good to know,” Olivia murmured. “Why is Alicia so convinced those are her father’s remains?” Olivia directed her question to Calliope.

“I’ll show you.” Calliope squatted down and pointed toward some thin, curved bones that Olivia guessed were ribs. She and Maddie leaned in as close as they could without disturbing the scene.

“Is that a necklace?” Maddie asked. “I think I see a thin piece of chain.”

Calliope nodded. “When I mentioned seeing a chain, Al burst into sobs. She refused to come over and take a look, but she said she’d given her father a necklace with a silver chain. That’s all it took to convince her these bones were his. Maybe Ellie can get more out of her.”

“Mom has a talent for wheedling information.” Olivia arched her neck to get a better look at the chain. “I don’t suppose someone brought a flashlight?”

“I never leave home without one. Hang on a sec.” Calliope returned with a hefty cordless spotlight.

Olivia held her breath as Calliope aimed the spotlight at the narrow floor inside the wall. For an instant, the pile of bones seemed to brighten and stir, as if light were all they’d
needed to restore them to life. The thin length of chain, on the other hand, looked dirty and dull. Olivia leaned forward to follow its path over a rib and behind a thicker bone she couldn’t name. “I think something might be attached to that chain,” she said. “Calliope, can you shift the light a bit to the right so I can see behind that bone? Good, that helps.”

“I’m about to explode,” Maddie said. “What do you see?”

Olivia craned her neck. “I’m not positive, but I think it’s . . . Maddie, you won’t believe this. I think it’s a tiny cookie cutter.”

“Be serious,” Maddie said.

“Really, it looks like a tiny cookie cutter with a back.”

“Let me see.” Maddie nudged Olivia aside.

“I’m five-seven, and I can barely see it,” Olivia said. “You’re shorter than I am.”

“Only by an inch, and besides, I’m more flexible.”

“I’m five-eight,” Calliope said. “That makes me taller than both of you. Step aside.” She left the spotlight on the floor pointing toward the remains.

In the interests of fact finding, Olivia and Maddie yielded to Calliope’s superior height. Besides, Olivia reasoned, Calliope knew a cookie cutter when she saw one. Olivia retrieved the spotlight and aimed it directly at the area where she had spotted the tiny object nestled among the sad bones.

Calliope dropped to her hands and knees, her neck muscles straining as her eyes followed the path of the thin chain until it dropped out of sight. “Lift the light higher,” Calliope ordered. With a curt nod, she said, “Livie was right.”

“A cookie cutter on a chain?” Maddie asked. “That sounds really uncomfortable, especially for a guy. Are we sure these bones belonged to a man? Shouldn’t we ask Alicia’s mother about what happened to her husband before we leap to conclusions? Not that I don’t enjoy speculating, of course.”

Calliope sat back on her knees and brushed dust off her hands. “Her mom doesn’t care what happened to him, as long
as he is gone forever. Anyway, that’s what Alicia says. She and her mom don’t get along. Alicia is living at home until she can save enough money to afford an apartment of her own. Meanwhile, she tries not to be home when her mom is there. They rarely speak to each other.”

“Wow,” Maddie said. “You’ve lived in Chatterley Heights for less than a year, and already you know more about the place than I do.”

“Ellie told me,” Calliope said. “Once I decided she was worth listening to, I started picking up all sorts of interesting stuff. I don’t listen much when she tells long stories, though. I get bored.”

“I hear you,” Olivia said. “Although there’s usually a point to those stories, if you can hang on till the end.”

“I’ll bear that in mind.” Calliope rolled off her knees and stood up, demonstrating an agility that made Olivia feel old, even though she was at least a decade younger. “About that necklace,” Calliope said. “It looks like a sappy Valentine’s Day cookie cutter shaped like a heart with an arrow through it. I don’t think it’s a real cutter, though. It’s even smaller than a fondant cutter, and it isn’t deep enough to cut through rolled dough. I’d say it was meant to represent a cookie cutter but thin enough to function as a charm. I’ll bet Jason’s farm—for which I hold the mortgage, at least until he pays me back—that the pierced heart shape had a personal meaning for whoever once owned those bones.”

“I agree,” Olivia said. “Why else would a man, assuming these bones do belong to a man, wear a cookie cutter image of a pierced heart around his neck?”

Calliope leaned against the wall. “Alicia told me something right before she started all that crying. She said her father was ‘wearing her heart,’ like he’d promised her. Mind you, she hadn’t seen the charm. None of us had at that point, but it sure looks like this necklace could be the one her father wore. Of course, for all we know it was her dad who killed the person these bones belonged to, and then he threw the necklace in
there to convince everyone he was dead. He might have assumed it was worthless costume jewelry.”

“Maybe it is,” Maddie said.

Calliope shook her head. “The charm is tarnished, just like the chain, but it has held up well. From what I can see, it looks well crafted. I’m betting the whole thing is made of silver. It isn’t gold, but still, he could have gotten something for it, enough to buy a meal, anyway. For a vagrant, that’s a lot.”

“If those bones really are Alicia’s father, whoever nailed his body inside that wall didn’t take the necklace,” Olivia said. “Why not, I wonder.”

“The real question,” Maddie said, “is do we wait for Del to get here, like good little girls, or do we start asking questions on our own?”

Olivia grinned. “Do you even have to ask?”

Before joining Calliope and her crew for lunch, Olivia and Maddie felt they should try to secure room number eight, where the skeletal remains lay as they’d been found, untouched. The lonely bones could rest for another day or so, at least until the police removed them for analysis.

While Olivia held Spunky, Maddie rifled through a satchel slung over her shoulder. “There’s no way to lock the door to this room,” she said, “so I asked Calliope for a roll of duct tape and scissors. I’ll stretch some tape across the door as a warning to stay out. That’s the best we can do for now. Hey, when we see Del, we should ask him to requisition some crime scene tape for us. You know, for next time.”

“There will be no next time,” Olivia said.

“You said that last time.” Maddie cut long strips of duct tape and crisscrossed the closed door in three places. “That ought to do it.” She stood back to admire her work. “No, wait a minute.” Maddie drew a rag from the pocket of her jeans and used it to wipe off the doorknob. “If anyone besides Del
breaks through the tape and goes into the room, we’ll have their fingerprints.”

Olivia arched one eyebrow at her best friend since age ten. “You’re enjoying yourself, aren’t you?”

“You bet,” Maddie said. “Solving a crime is almost as much fun as baking and decorating cookies. This time I don’t feel so sad. Those are old bones, so it’s not like finding the body of someone who was alive just a little while ago. But, Livie, maybe we’ve jumped the gun a bit . . . if I may mention a gun or any other weapon, which, by the way, we didn’t find with those bones.”

“It could have been removed.” Olivia paused on the staircase to look up at her friend. “If that was your unique, roundabout way of saying this might not have been an actual murder, then I agree we can’t be sure. Only it does seem odd that someone would stuff a body inside a wall and nail up a sheet of plywood to cover the hole. The building had already been abandoned. If the death was natural, the body could probably have remained out in the open. To me, it looks like someone wanted to hide the body but didn’t have much time.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Maddie said. “Still, even if this was murder most foul, it didn’t happen recently, or we would have found a body instead of bones, right? So this feels more like we’ve stumbled upon an archeological site. It doesn’t upset me.”

Olivia wasn’t sure she agreed. She had felt a rush of sadness when she’d first seen those bones, even though she hadn’t known Alicia’s father . . . assuming they belonged to him. Discovering a recent murder victim, especially if she’d known the person, would have disturbed her more deeply. Yet Olivia couldn’t forget that those bones had once been a living person. At the same time, she had to admit she’d always experienced a surge of satisfaction whenever she and Maddie helped bring a murderer to justice. Okay, maybe a tiny thrill, too . . .

Maddie bounced down the staircase and headed toward the kitchen. Olivia followed at a more conservative pace. On their
way up, she had noticed how creaky the stairs were. She had visions of putting her foot through a step, and she didn’t trust the wobbly banister to save her. The old boarding house would need a lot of work before it could reopen as the craft school that kept expanding in her mother’s fertile imagination.

Constance Overton, owner of the Chatterley Heights Management and Rental Company, had bought the old place for a song, or more like half a stanza. However, Constance wouldn’t have taken it for free if she’d thought it couldn’t be put to a profitable use. Luckily, she had offered Calliope and Ellie a rent-free year, so they could focus their efforts and resources on yanking the building up to code—if it didn’t fall down first.

When Olivia opened the kitchen door, she felt as if she’d barged in on a party. She held on tightly to Spunky. He was used to shoppers roaming around the store, but Olivia kept him in her apartment whenever she and Maddie hosted an event. She was afraid someone might trip over the little five-pound pup.

The noisy room felt crammed, though it was at least twice the size of the Gingerbread House kitchen. Calliope, Jason, and the other workers slurped coffee, devoured sandwiches, and snatched cookies so quickly that Ellie was searching the refrigerator for more food. At the kitchen counter, Alicia slapped cheese and lunchmeat between slices of buttered bread. Sandwiches piled higher and higher, rapidly filling a large platter. On the table, a second platter was emptying fast. When a worker grabbed the last sandwich, Alicia swapped the plate for a loaded one, then began making more sandwiches.

Maddie, who’d beat Olivia to the kitchen, had nearly finished filling the reservoir of a new twenty-cup coffeemaker. She measured ground coffee into the basket and flipped the on switch. “Want a sandwich?” Maddie asked as she joined Olivia.

“Are there enough to go around?” Olivia watched the workers swoop up the newly delivered sandwiches as if they’d worked sixteen hours straight without stopping for food.

“There’s plenty, if we act quickly.” Maddie snatched two sandwiches from the tray and handed one to Olivia. “Those guys will eat anything they see, but they aren’t really starving. Ellie said they went through two trays before I got to the kitchen. She was delivering a third tray to the table as I walked in. Alicia took over for her, and . . . well, as you can see, those appetites know no bounds.” Maddie nodded toward the new tray, which now held only one sandwich. In an instant, a beefy hand grabbed that last sandwich.

“Yikes,” Olivia said. “Lucky thing Calliope is footing the bill for food.”

“No kidding. Your mom said she plans to do some major grocery shopping and restock the fridge this afternoon, so the workers won’t starve tomorrow—assuming the police allow them to go back to work, that is.”

“They might be able to work in other areas of the building,” Olivia said. “After all these years, there can’t be much evidence left to find, except maybe inside that wall. But we’ll see what Del says.”

When Calliope spied the empty plate on the table, she called a halt to the feeding. “All right, you guys, gorge on your own time. I’ll call all of you tomorrow if, and only if, the police won’t let us into the house. Otherwise, assume we’ll be working. Be here at eight a.m. and not a minute later.” The worker who had scored the last sandwich stuffed half of it into his mouth as he scraped his chair back from the table.

“Wow, you’re a tough boss,” Maddie said as the kitchen door slammed behind the last of the workers.

Calliope shrugged. “I know what hard work looks like, and most of those guys aren’t even trying. They think a woman boss is a pushover. They’ll think differently when I’m through with them.”

“You go, girl,” Ellie said.

When her mother bumped fists with Calliope, Olivia had to sit down. “I feel a bit light-headed,” she said softly to Maddie. “The atmosphere is thin in this alternate universe.”

As soon as Calliope arrived in Chatterley Heights after a nomadic life in Europe, she’d moved into the Greyson-Meyers house, Olivia’s childhood home. Olivia’s stepfather, Allan Meyers, was Calliope’s cousin on his mother’s side. The living arrangement had not gone well, especially for Ellie. For a time, Olivia had worried that her normally self-contained mother would lose her carefully centered mind. However, fate and building projects intervened. Calliope had vacated the Greyson-Meyers home to move in with Olivia’s brother, Jason. Calliope was helping him renovate his new farmhouse and barns, in addition to overseeing the transformation of the crumbling old flophouse.

Once they were no longer under the same roof, Ellie—petite, intuitive, and yoga obsessed—had bonded with the tall, forceful, and blunt Calliope over a dream for a new arts and crafts school in Chatterley Heights. Calliope, who was wealthy and loved to work with her hands, provided and subsidized the materials and workers. Ellie had taken charge of overall planning for the school. She adored learning new crafts even more than she loved her yoga classes, although she had no intention of choosing between them. Calliope had drawn up plans for the building renovation that included a specially designed room for yoga enthusiasts. The two vastly different women had become friends. Olivia, however, continued to hold her breath, because when it came to families, you never knew.

“We might as well clean up the kitchen and get back to The Gingerbread House,” Maddie said. “Calliope, I’ll put these cookies in cake pans and store them in the fridge. They should keep you and the guys supplied for the week, as long as you dole them out daily and don’t let anyone know where they are kept. We’ll be working in The Gingerbread House through Saturday. Our own baking time will be devoted to keeping our customers happily in a mood to buy anything from cookie cutters to expensive mixers.”

“We’ll be fine,” Ellie said. “Thanks to both of you for all your work setting up the kitchen. The room looks lovely.
Maddie, once we open the school, you will be available to teach cookie baking and decorating, won’t you?”

“Hey,” Olivia said, “what about me? I’m almost as good a cookie baker as Maddie is.”

“Yes, of course you are, dear.” Ellie gave her daughter a gentle smile and turned aside to consult with Calliope.

“I think I’ve been insulted,” Olivia said.

Maddie grabbed her cell phone from the counter and pushed Olivia through the kitchen doorway. Once they were out of earshot, Maddie said, “I think Calliope might be rubbing off on your mother. Either that, or Ellie isn’t getting her optimal dose of yoga. However, I suggest we wait and see. Right now the two of them are obsessed with this building project. Once that’s completed, your mom will surely revert to her sensitive, intuitive self.” Maddie’s cell phone rang, and she glanced at the caller ID. “I’ll bet this is for you, Livie. I’m getting used to fielding calls for you, though I do wish you would try to remember your cell when you leave your apartment.”

“Who is it from?”

“Del.” Maddie handed her phone to Olivia and closed the front door of the old building.

“Hey, Del, it’s me,” Olivia said as she negotiated the cracked stone steps. “Or did you really mean to call Maddie?”

Del chuckled. “Nope. I’ve adjusted to your forgetfulness. When your cell goes to voice mail, I call Maddie. So I understand we need to touch base about some skeletal remains. I already talked to the crime scene crew about how to handle the evidence. I’m now heading toward Chatterley Heights. I should be back—”

Olivia paused on the sidewalk. “You’re driving, aren’t you? You know how I feel about that. It scares me.”

“Sorry, Livie, but honestly, traffic is practically at a halt, and as I keep telling you—” The blast of a horn came through loud and clear.

“Call back when you are safely parked,” Olivia said. “Assuming you’re still alive.” Without hanging up, she handed Maddie’s phone back to her.

“Hi, Del,” Maddie said as they turned the corner and headed north on Park Street. “You can talk to me. I deeply believe in the superior multitasking abilities of our intrepid police.” She listened for a while. “Okay, we can do that. Are the guys allowed to work on the renovation tomorrow? Yeah, that’s what I thought. Calliope installed new locks and deadbolts on all the outside doors. You’ll have to get keys from her or Ellie. I put duct tape across the door of the room in question, so it should be all right, assuming the murderer isn’t still alive, in town, and willing to break and enter. Was that extended horn blast aimed at you? I take back my compliment about your multitasking abilities. Bye.” Maddie hung up and shook her head. “Men.”

“Amen to that,” Olivia said. “What were you supposed to tell me?”

“Del assured me I did the right thing to tape the door, although I’m pretty sure he was trying not to laugh.” Maddie slid her cell phone into her jacket pocket. “When he gets back to town, he’ll take pictures of the scene. Then he’ll secure the door somehow and put real crime scene tape across it. He said the guys can probably get back to work soon, but he’ll let Calliope know when. They will probably have to work downstairs for a while. Del will close off the upstairs until the crime scene folks remove the remains and anything else they will need. The lab is overwhelmed at the moment, so this is a lower priority case.”

“Does that mean Del will be in charge of the investigation?” Olivia asked.

Maddie clapped her hands. “Ooh, I hadn’t thought of that. If Del is the lead investigator, that means we, through you, will have a front-row seat. I’ve always wanted to solve a cold case. They always sound so . . . historical.”

“Yes,” Olivia said, “that would be due to the ‘cold’ part. But just because Del and I are involved doesn’t mean he’ll share his investigation with me. A case is a case, cold or not.”

Maddie paused as they reached the sidewalk in front of The Gingerbread House. “Remember, Livie, Del did lighten up a bit last summer, after we helped Cody solve a murder while Del was out of town.” Maddie drew her car key from her jacket pocket. “I’m parked a block north on Park Street, so I shall bid you adios. Was that Spanish or French? Never mind, the important thing here is that Del will need our help with the case of the bones in the wall. He didn’t move to Chatterley Heights until around 2006, right? So he doesn’t have a long personal memory of this town and its inhabitants. He’ll need our superior insight into the town’s many secrets. Anything we don’t know, we can wheedle out of your mother or my aunt Sadie. You and I are essential to this investigation. You can start working on Del this evening during dinner.” Maddie turned to leave.