A Catered Christmas Cookie Exchange (A Mystery With Recipes) (15 page)

“Here,” she said as she brushed the snow off and handed it up to Libby. “This should help.”

“You want me to stand on this?” Libby asked.

“No. I want you to sit on it.”

“I’m going to break my neck. Why can’t you do this?”

“Because I’ll still be too short. You’ll be fine,” Bernie told her. “You can do this. It’s not as if I’m asking you to do handstands.”

“I must be nuts,” Libby grumbled as she did what Bernie suggested.

The chair wobbled as Libby stood on it, but Bernie held onto it and it stayed put. The added height was enough, and Libby was able to shimmy her way onto the roof. Once she got there, she walked over to the skylights and brushed the snow away from them. Then she squatted down to get a better look.

Both of the skylights were set flush to the roof, each of them ringed with a rubber thingy—Libby knew they had a name, but she didn’t know what it was—that had been designed to keep the elements out. Fortunately, the seals weren’t that tight, and Libby managed to get her fingers under the rim of one of them and pull. To her surprise, the skylight came up a little. She pulled harder, and the skylight came up enough so she could wiggle her way in. She looked down. From what she could see, the place was empty.

“I don’t see Amber,” she called out to Bernie.

“Can you see the whole area?” Bernie asked.

“Not really,” Libby admitted, feeling guilty that at this moment all she wanted to do was get off the roof.

“Let’s make sure,” Bernie called back.

“Easy for you to say. I’d like to see you make this drop in four-inch heels,” Libby grumbled under her breath.

“I heard that,” Bernie said. “It’s not that far.”

“It is to me,” Libby replied.

Bernie ignored the comment. “I’ll meet you at the door,” she told Libby, who sighed the sigh of the long-suffering.

Libby tried to give herself a pep talk. “After all, how bad can it be?” she told herself, thinking of all the movies she’d seen where the hero had done this. “Bernie’s right. It’s not that far down,” she said to herself. “If I hang by my hands and let myself drop, it’ll be fine.”

Only it wasn’t.

It might have been if Libby had had the strength to hang by her hands. But not being a gymnast or a stunt double, she didn’t. Instead, her fingers slipped, and she tumbled to the ground. Fortunately, she landed on her rump, an area that was well padded. It was the only time in her life that she was grateful for what her mom used to call her big caboose.

“Are you okay?” Libby could hear Bernie calling from the other side of the door.

“No, I’m not,” Libby replied as she hauled herself up and dusted herself off.

“It sounded as if you fell. Did you?”

“I could have broken my neck,” Libby snapped. Her ankle was not happy, but at least she hadn’t fractured it, she thought, as she made her way to the door to let Bernie in. Thank God for small favors.

“You look fine to me,” Bernie told Libby once she’d stepped inside.

Libby scowled. “Well, I don’t feel fine.” And she didn’t. Her rear end was hurting.

“Where’d you land?”

“I’m not telling you,” Libby replied. She really didn’t want to hear her sister’s comments.

Bernie tapped her fingers on her thighs. “Let me think. You’re walking around, you didn’t break anything so I’m guessing . . .”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“You landed . . .”

Libby held up her hand. “Don’t say it.”

Bernie closed her mouth. A moment later she opened it again. “On your . . .”

“I mean it,” Libby told her sister before Bernie could get the next word out.

Bernie threw up her hands. “I wasn’t going to say anything about your you-know-what.”

“Yes, you were.”

“Fine, Miss Sensitive,” Bernie told her sister as she brushed the snow off her jacket. “Then let’s talk about this place. Is that okay?”

“There’s nothing to talk about,” Libby griped. “I told you there was nothing here when I was on the roof.”

Bernie extended her hand in a graceful gesture and did a half bow. “As usual you were correct, oh elder sister of mine. But at least we can eliminate the place now.”

“I guess you have a point,” Libby reluctantly agreed, even though her pride was still injured.

She knew her dad would agree as well. He always said that what you eliminate could be as important as what you find. She thought about that as she looked around. The pool house was a large, one-room affair with a bathroom off to the left and a galley kitchen off to the right. The main room was furnished with sofas and chairs with dust covers on them, while the coffee table was an embossed large, round, metal tray set on wooden legs that looked as if it came from Morocco.

There was no evidence that anyone had been here for quite a while, but just to make sure, Bernie decided to take a quick look through the kitchen, while Libby took the bathroom. Libby was glancing through the medicine cabinet, which contained, among other things, an old box of Band-Aids, a bottle of peroxide, and a mummified, nearly empty tube of toothpaste, when her sister yelled, “Libby.”

“What?” Libby called back.

“Get over here.”

“What’s going on?” she asked when she reached the kitchen.

“You gotta see this,” and Bernie pointed to the inside of the refrigerator.

“What is it? Tell me.”

Bernie nodded toward the refrigerator with her chin. “Just take a look.”

“Is it gross?”

“You’ll see.”

Feeling slightly apprehensive, Libby scooted around the open refrigerator door and did as her sister had requested. Her jaw dropped. “Good grief,” she whispered.

“Good grief is right,” Bernie said.

“I
can’t believe it,” Libby exclaimed.

“Neither can I,” Bernie said.

The two sisters stared at the inside of the refrigerator. It was filled with prepackaged cookie dough, prebaked pie shells, canned frostings, prepackaged rolls, and a couple of cans of Crisco.

“Libby, is this the pool house of the lady who prides herself on baking everything from scratch?” Bernie asked.

“I believe so, Bernie.”

“Who scorns prebaked anything?”

“That would be correct, Bernie,” Libby said, as she picked up a can of Pillsbury rolls, read the contents, and put them back. It’s not that she had anything against prepackaged items—they were perfectly fine in a pinch—but they had listened to Sheila rant and rave about them for all these years!

“God,” Bernie said. “Our Sheila is a closet junk eater.”

“Amazing,” Libby said. “I feel as if we’ve just discovered that one of our neighbors . . .”

“Is married to three wives,” Bernie said, finishing the sentence for her.

“Or,” Libby said, “that an Orthodox Jew’s favorite snack is a cheese and bacon hamburger or that a vegan loves a big porterhouse steak.”

“Or,” Bernie added, “that someone who preaches the virtues of a raw diet actually cooks his meals in a slow cooker or that a nutritionist lives on a diet of Twinkies and Coke.”

Libby laughed. “I’ve got to say I’m feeling really shocked.”

“So am I,” Bernie said, thinking of all those times Sheila had cross-examined her on the provenance of the ingredients they used at A Little Taste of Heaven.

“And betrayed,” Libby said.

Bernie didn’t answer. She was too busy rooting around in her bag, looking for her phone. “I’m going to take pictures,” she announced.

“Why?” Libby asked.

“Because you never know,” Bernie answered.

“You never know what?” Libby asked.

“When the opportunity for blackmail will present itself,” Bernie explained as she rooted around in her purse, looking for her phone.

“If you carried something smaller than a trunk, you wouldn’t have so much trouble finding things in there,” Libby pointed out.

Bernie just grunted. “Got it,” she said triumphantly a moment later, and she began clicking away. “I’m done,” she said after she’d snapped twenty pictures with her camera phone and closed the refrigerator door. “Now I think it’s time to go.”

She was in the process of slipping her phone back in her bag when Sheila Goody came barreling through the pool house door.

“Ah ha! I knew I’d find you two here,” she said, advancing on Bernie and Libby. “I knew you couldn’t leave well enough alone.” She shook her finger at them. “I warned you. I told you I was going to call the police on you, even if it does mean postponing the
Baking for Life
contest because they’re going to have to find two new judges.” She took her phone out of her jacket pocket and brandished it around as if it were a weapon.

“I wouldn’t be so hasty with that call if I were you,” Libby said.

Sheila put her hands on her hips. “Really?” she said. “Are you not on my property without my permission? Did you not break into my pool house? That’s breaking and entering. I will make sure that you are punished to the full extent of the law.”

Bernie turned to Libby. “Are you scared?” she asked her sister.

“Terrified,” Libby replied. “You?”

“Equally so,” Bernie replied.

Sheila raised her phone. “If I were you, given the circumstances, I’d be a little less sarcastic and a little more polite.”

“I might be and so would Libby,” Bernie told Sheila, “if we hadn’t seen the contents of your refrigerator.”

Libby watched, fascinated, while the color drained out of Sheila’s face. She’d heard the expression, but she didn’t know it was for real.

While Sheila tried to rally, Libby put her hand to her heart and told her, “Seeing what was in there made me feel betrayed and shocked.”

“That’s how I felt too,” Bernie added. “And it takes a lot to shock me.”

“That’s true,” Libby said. “It does.”

Sheila took a step back. “I don’t use that stuff,” she stuttered. “I keep it for the men who work here.”

Bernie lifted an eyebrow. “You hire bakers?”

“No. No.” Sheila sought to clarify. “I’m talking about the men who work on the grounds.”

“You mean the undocumented workers to whom you pay a pittance?” Bernie asked sweetly.

“That’s not true,” Sheila protested. “I pay them the going rate.”

Libby laughed. “Surely you can come up with a better story than that?”

“That I pay my workers the going rate or that I bake cookies for them?” Sheila asked.

“Both,” Bernie said.

Sheila raised her hand. “I’m telling the truth. I swear I am. Sometimes I bake the men cookies. It’s a nice gesture.”

“It is, but it would be even nicer if you paid them a living wage,” Bernie said. “Even if I believed you,” she continued, “which I don’t, what you’re saying is that you give them dreck and keep the good stuff for yourself.”

“No. No. No,” Sheila protested. “It’s a time thing. I don’t have time to bake for them from scratch. And they like these. They do. That’s what they eat at home.”

“How many people do you employ here anyway?” Libby asked, deciding not to tackle the implications of the last part of Sheila’s statement. “You have enough stuff in the refrigerator to feed an army.”

“It’s because of the way I buy it,” Sheila said. By now she was wringing her hands.

“Which is how?” Bernie asked.

“At Sam’s Club.”

“We don’t have a Sam’s Club in Longely,” Libby pointed out.

“I go to one over in New Jersey,” Sheila confessed.

“That makes sense,” Libby said. “If I were you, I wouldn’t want anyone to see me buying that stuff either.”

“It’s not like that,” Sheila said, even though it was. Her voice had begun to quiver.

“Then what is it like?” Bernie asked. “Tell us. We’d really like to know.”

“Yes, we would,” Libby added.

“I don’t think I want to talk to you two anymore,” Sheila said as she folded her arms across her chest.

“I have something that might change your mind,” Bernie told her.

“Nothing is going to change my mind,” Sheila asserted.

“Nothing?” Bernie asked.

“Nothing,” Sheila said firmly.

Bernie drew back the corners of her mouth in a smile. “Are you positive?”

“Absolutely,” Sheila replied.

“You might change your mind when you see these,” Bernie said to Sheila, at which point she took out her phone and showed her the photos she’d just taken. “What do you think?” Bernie asked her. “Should I post these on my Facebook page? Or maybe I should tweet?”

“Please, don’t,” Sheila cried.

“I’ll tell you what, Sheila,” Libby said to her. “You answer our questions and we’ll forget about what’s in your refrigerator. How’s that?”

“Which we can’t do if the police are involved,” Bernie reminded her. “On the other hand, if you want to call them on us, be my guest.”

Sheila waved her hands in the air to silence Bernie. “Don’t be ridiculous. No police. Absolutely not. I don’t know what I was thinking, making a threat like that. Millie’s death must have affected me more deeply than I realized.”

“Evidently,” Libby said.

“After all,” Sheila continued, “I have known the woman for thirty years.”

“That’s a long time,” Libby agreed. “By the way, where’s Rose?”

“She went home,” Sheila said. “She was tired and upset and wanted to get into bed and go to sleep.”

“Fair enough,” said Bernie, who was all of those things as well and would give anything to be asleep in her bed at the moment. “Okay. Here’s my first question. Did Rose really run out to buy walnuts and vanilla?”

Sheila bit her lip and looked down at the floor.

“I wonder what the other members of the Christmas Cookie Exchange Club would make of the chocolate chip cookie dough I found in your refrigerator or of the pre-made pie shells?” Bernie mused after a minute had gone by and Sheila hadn’t said anything.

“Please don’t,” Sheila said.

“What I do is entirely up to you,” Bernie said.

“Let me explain,” Sheila pleaded.

“I’d love to hear it,” Libby said. “And I hope this explanation is better than the one you just gave us. What were you thinking?”

“I don’t know,” Sheila said. “I really don’t.”

“How long does it take to whip up a batch of chocolate-chip cookies, Sheila? Ten minutes? Fifteen at the most.”

“I know, Libby. Forgive me. I lost my way.”

“You certainly did,” Libby told her. “So let me repeat my first question. Did Rose go running out of her house to buy walnuts and vanilla?”

“No,” Sheila mumbled.

“Why did she?” Libby asked.

Sheila twirled her diamond studs around, then folded her arms across her chest and tucked her hands into her armpits. “She got a call.” Sheila’s voice was barely audible.

Bernie leaned forward so she could hear better. “From whom?” she asked.

“From Pearl,” Sheila answered, her voice cracking a little.

“What did Pearl want?” Libby asked.

Sheila began wringing her hands again. “It’s complicated.”

“I bet it is,” Libby said.

Sheila remained silent. She began rocking back and forth. Libby looked at her. For a nanosecond, she wondered if she and Bernie weren’t being too hard on her. After all, Sheila was in her seventies, but then she thought about Amber and about Millie. Anger took over, and she wanted to slap her. But Libby suppressed the urge and tried for an understanding tone instead. “That’s okay,” Libby told Sheila. “We have all the time in the world, don’t we, Bernie?”

“Absolutely, Libby. Do you want to sit down?” Bernie asked Sheila.

Sheila shook her head and studied a small crack in one of wooden floor slats. After a moment, she lifted her head and began to talk.

“Rose was the one who met Amber at the strip mall,” Sheila said in a resigned tone.

“Why did she do that?” Bernie asked.

“Because Amber asked her to, because she’d heard that Rose might have her aunt’s recipes.”

“Millie’s Meltaways?” Libby asked.

“Those and the recipe book,” Sheila replied.

“And?”

“I already told you that the recipe for the Meltaways was gone when we got there.”

“And Millie’s recipe book?”

“That was gone too. But Amber didn’t believe Rose. She insisted she was lying. She demanded to speak to Pearl, so Rose took her there.”

“Why didn’t Amber follow Rose? Why did she get into her car?”

“Because the engine light in Amber’s car had come on, and she was afraid it would stall out again. I guess it had been going on for a while.”

“True,” Libby said. Amber had been having trouble with her car for the last couple of months. It was one of those electrical problems that are extremely difficult to diagnose and fix.

“So Rose took Amber to Pearl’s house?” Bernie said.

Sheila nodded.

“Then what happened?” Bernie asked. She was having trouble believing what she was hearing.

“Nothing. She dropped Amber at Pearl’s house and went home.”

“Just like that?” Libby said.

“Yes. Just like that,” Sheila replied.

“So how was Amber going to get home?” Bernie inquired.

“I don’t know,” Sheila told them.

“Didn’t you ask?” Bernie said. “I know in your position I would have asked.”

Sheila shrugged. “I’ve been busy. I haven’t had a chance to talk to Rose and find out.”

“I’m supposed to believe that?” Bernie said.

“It’s true,” Sheila insisted.

Bernie studied her, and Sheila returned her look.

“I haven’t spoken to her until tonight,” Sheila insisted.

“Fine. What did you two talk about?” Bernie said.

“The best kind of cookie sheets to use. Whether cassia or true cinnamon is better as a flavoring. Whether one can substitute waxed paper for parchment paper in a pinch. Things like that.”

“I find that difficult to believe.”

Sheila shrugged. “Then don’t.”

“So you didn’t talk about Millie?” Libby asked.

“Well, yes, we did,” Sheila conceded. “We talked about how sad what had happened to her was. We talked about the fact that she shouldn’t have been driving.”

“What else?”

“About the TV show and how much it meant to her.”

“And Amber,” Libby said. “Did you talk about Amber?”

“A little,” Sheila conceded.

“What did you say about her?”

“That her aunt’s death had affected her.”

“In what way?” Bernie asked.

Sheila remained silent.

“In what way?” Bernie repeated.

Sheila threw up her hands. “She just . . . she was obsessed with finding Millie’s recipes and her killer.”

Bernie and Libby exchanged looks.

“She used those words?” Bernie asked.

“That’s what she said to Rose,” Sheila told Bernie.

“Why did Rose agree to speak to Amber?” Bernie asked.

“Because Amber threatened her.”

“With what?” Libby exclaimed. She couldn’t imagine Amber threatening anyone.

“You can’t repeat this,” Sheila said.

“We won’t,” Bernie promised. “Right, Libby?”

Libby raised her hand. “Swear.”

Sheila leaned forward and lowered her voice a notch. “Amber said that she was going to tell Rose’s neighbor’s wife that she was having an affair with her husband.”

“Dan?” Bernie squeaked.

“How did you know that?” Sheila cried.

“We met him,” Libby told her. He wanted to know what we were doing looking in Rose’s garage.

“Amazing,” Bernie murmured.

“It’s not that amazing,” Sheila said tartly. “We’re not dead yet, you know.”