A Cookie Before Dying (18 page)

“Point taken.” Olivia had almost reached The Gingerbread House, so she stopped under a tree to finish her call. “Either way, we know the dancer encountered a man who tried to assault her, and it’s likely that man was Geoffrey King. We know he’d been hanging around The Vegetable Plate at night, and we know he was violent. Who knows, maybe he made a habit of accosting any woman he met.”

“Did you say you thought the dancer’s hair was white?” Del asked.

“That’s what Maddie said, and Ida mentioned a white head, too. They might have been fooled by a veil of some sort, though.” When Maddie appeared in the front window of The Gingerbread House, hands on her hips, Olivia said, “Del, I need to get back to work. Why did you ask about the dancer’s hair color?”

“Because Geoffrey King, from what we’re learning about him, didn’t strike me as the kind of guy who’d pay any attention to a woman older than late twenties. He seems to have left behind a string of angry sweet-young-things.”

“Lots of suspects,” Olivia said. “Anyway, he might not have been interested in her. Maybe he was threatening her.” Maddie started waving her arms toward Olivia. “Gotta go, Del. Maddie is having a breakdown.”

 

 

“
I
thought you’d never get back.” Maddie tried and failed to rake her fingers through her wildly disarranged hair. “You wouldn’t believe . . .”

Olivia took it seriously when Maddie was not her usual what-me-worry? self. “What’s wrong?”

“You would not believe . . .”

“Yes, we’ve covered that. Now tell me what’s wrong.” Olivia pulled Maddie by the wrist through the store and into the kitchen, where she pushed her frazzled friend onto a chair. Handing her a cup of coffee, Olivia said, “Okay, deep breath, that’s it. Now speak.”

Maddie took a swallow of coffee and said, “I’m all right. All morning I’ve been panting to hear everything about Jason and the murder, but now we’ve got a situation on our hands. And yes, I take responsibility. I should have started the cookies earlier, and I should never have planned that stupid vegetable event just to poke fun at Charlene. So it’s all my fault, I’m a terrible businesswoman, mea culpa. See? I can speak some French, too.”

“That was Latin,” Olivia said and wished at once that she hadn’t. Maddie looked like she might be on the verge of tears. Olivia pulled over a chair and sat facing her. “Maddie, Maddie, friend of my youth and forever, you can tell me. What’s going on? Has something happened to Lucas? Or your aunt Sadie?”

“No, nothing like that.” With an impatient shake of her head, Maddie increased the volume of her hair by a third. “It’s about the baby shower at Gwen and Herbie’s this evening. Gwen called. You know that Heather was supposed to host the shower, right? I mean, they are neighbors and best friends, too. Well, Heather called Gwen and said she’d come down with a bad sore throat. Gwen said she sounded really bad. With Gwen being so pregnant, there’s no way she could risk getting a bad virus. What if something happened to the baby? So Gwen asked if I could take over and run the show from their house, Herbie and Gwen’s. I said ‘sure,’ because I figured I’d have time to decorate the cookies and get them dry enough to transport, and Bertha could take care of the store.”

“Okay, so what’s the hitch?”

“Well, first we’ve been busier than usual because of the murder last night and you finding the body. Bertha was here, and your mom showed up to help while you were talking to Jason, but I swear some customers were only here to pump your mom about you and the body and Jason. So I was out on the floor all morning and through lunch. Your mom wants to hear every detail of your visit with Jason in jail, by the way.”

So much was happening so fast, Olivia felt as if her visit to her jailed brother must have taken place yesterday. And her mother was still waiting to hear about it. “And . . . ?” she asked.

After a huge sigh, Maddie said, “And I promised Gwen I’d deliver the cookies by about four and stay to help her set up. She wasn’t expecting to host the shower at their house, and what with her being so very, very pregnant . . .”

Olivia glanced up at the clock over the sink. “So we have about an hour and a half to finish decorating the cookies? They won’t all be dry, but we can lay them out in cake pans for transport. They will probably be fine for a seven p.m. event. I know you finished some cookies this morning. How many are left to be decorated?”

“Um. . . .” Maddie’s eyes swiveled around the kitchen worktable, which was covered with cooling racks of undecorated cookies. The kitchen counter, behind them, was lined with more plain, baked cookies on sheets of parchment paper. Then Maddie cast a bereft glance at the refrigerator. Olivia guessed it held many, many more cut-out shapes yet to be iced. “I finished six,” Maddie said. “So, well, seven and a half dozen.”

“But I thought you’d decorated several dozen on Sunday. Or was it Monday?”

“Both,” Maddie said. “But most of them were, um, fruit and vegetable shapes. I thought I’d have plenty of time to make baby shower shapes, and I did get them all baked. Well, mostly. I defrosted a couple dozen round shapes to fill out the order for eight dozen. I figured I could pipe some smiling baby faces on those. Or something. I’m really, really sorry, Livie.”

Olivia missed her mentor and friend, Clarisse Chamberlain. Clarisse would have told her not to waste time on recriminations, face problems head-on, and when all else fails, chalk it up to experience. “Maddie, my friend,” Olivia said, “when the going gets tough, the tough start decorating cookies. Here’s the plan.” She emptied the grounds from their Mr. Coffee and inserted a clean filter. “You rev up that mixer and churn out some royal icing while I check in with Mom about Jason. I’ll keep it brief; there isn’t much hopeful news. We will decorate like crazy for an hour, which is all we’ll have by then. I can rig something up in my PT Cruiser to transport the cookies, and I’ll deliver whatever we’ve finished by four. I’ll stay and help Gwen prep her house for the shower while you finish up the cookies.”

Maddie was already yanking royal icing ingredients off shelves. “I can drive the rest of the cookies to Gwen and Herbie’s farm after I close, but I can’t be in the store helping customers. Can you entice Bertha to stay the afternoon?”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

While Maddie snapped the beaters into the mixer, Olivia poked her head into the store. Bertha was behind the sales counter ringing up a sale. Olivia joined her and bagged a set of cookie cutters for a customer who was checking her watch. Before another customer could move within earshot, Olivia said, “Bertha, remember when you mentioned you could handle the store on your own for a while if Maddie and I got tied up with events? Well, now’s your chance. We’re in a crunch with this baby shower, so how about time-and-a-half for this afternoon, plus managerial experience, plus our undying gratitude?”

Doubt flickered in Bertha’s eyes as she asked, “I’d love to try, but would I be completely alone?”

Business had lightened up since that morning. The customers who remained were skimming cookbooks and examining cookie cutters with genuine interest. One woman was taking a close look at the red mixer with so many attachments even Maddie didn’t know what they all did. “Maddie will be working in the kitchen until closing,” Olivia said, “in case you have an emergency question. And I thought I’d talk to my mom about . . .” As if Ellie had heard, she emerged from the cookbook nook, spotted Olivia, and aimed right for her. From Ellie’s expression, it was clearly time to break the news about Jason’s insistence that he had murdered Geoffrey King. “Hang on, Bertha, I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

Olivia met her mother halfway and said, “Let’s talk in private.” Olivia led the way out the front door and into the foyer, where she unlocked the door leading to her apartment. At the top of the stairs, she unlocked her apartment. A ball of fur catapulted through the door the instant it opened. Olivia grabbed Spunky’s middle as he flew past. “I banished him to the apartment this morning before racing off to visit Jason.” Holding the whimpering, squirming dog, she led her mother to the living room.

“Let me,” Ellie said, taking Spunky from Olivia’s grasp. The Yorkie calmed down at once. Olivia was impressed. Even in her agitated state, her mother could calm a beast driven to escape.

“I’m sorry it’s been so frantic,” Olivia said, “and it’s about to get more so. Mom, I’m really sorry, but I have to get right back down to help Maddie in the kitchen. We’ve got a crisis with Gwen and Herbie’s shower. Could you possibly help Bertha mind the store this afternoon? Maddie will be in the kitchen working like a madwoman until—”

“Yes, of course I will, but what about Jason?”

“Jason . . .” Olivia threw up her hands and flopped down on the sofa. “Jason is an idiot.”

“At the moment, I’d have to agree with you,” Ellie said as she sat next to Olivia. Spunky settled in her lap and curled into a ball. “So I assume he won’t recant his ridiculous confession?”

“Nope. And he still won’t talk to you or Allan.”

“Oh Livie, what are we going to do? How can we get Jason out of this horrible mess?” Tears filled Ellie’s eyes and spilled down her cheeks. Spunky sat up in her lap and whimpered.

Fighting her own tears, Olivia put an arm around her mother’s shoulders. “I don’t know. I’ll find a way.” It was a rash promise, but failure was unthinkable.

 

 

“
H
ow are we going to spring your brother from jail?” Maddie asked as she piped a pink yawn onto a round baby-face cookie.

“Cute,” Olivia said, glancing at the cookie. She was relieved that Maddie, after her bout of panic and guilt, had thrown herself into the task of decorating nearly eight dozen cookies in less than three hours. Together, they’d been able to finish almost two dozen already, and it was only two forty-five. “I’m afraid Jason will have to experience incarceration for some time, since he refuses to help himself. It’ll take time to dig up anything that might be useful.”

“But you have a plan, right?” Maddie looked up from the sparse blue hair she was piping onto another round baby-face cookie.

“Nope.”

“You have no plan? That’s worrisome,” Maddie said. “What did Del have to say?”

“That his hands are tied.” Olivia hated to keep secrets, especially since Maddie could be very helpful with problem solving. However, a promise was a promise. Del would stop trusting her if she revealed anything that might affect his investigation. On the other hand, there was no law against being sneaky. “Until I think of something, maybe we should work on our own mystery—what happened to Clarisse’s Duesenberg cookie cutter?”

“I looked everywhere I could think of,” Maddie said. “Unfortunately, I’ve run out of places to search. I mentioned it to Bertha—casually, so she wouldn’t get upset. She hadn’t seen it, didn’t even know it had disappeared.” Maddie picked up a cookie she had just finished. “You’ll love this one.”

“Hm?” Olivia was piping red and navy dots on a baby carriage.

“Who does this remind you of?” Maddie held the cookie under Olivia’s gaze. It looked like a baby face with blue dots for eyes, messy clumps of yellow hair, and a jagged red mouth.

“Now that’s just mean,” Olivia said.

“Yet cathartic. I’d eat it, but we need every cookie.” Maddie placed baby Charlene next to a pink-and-red teddy bear.

Olivia added her baby carriage to the row. “How sure are you that Charlene won’t be at the baby shower this evening?”

“Positive. Gwen gave me the invitation list, in case I was inspired to match any cookies to guests or their kids.”

“Can I see that list?”

“Sure, as long as you read and decorate simultaneously and with equal efficiency.” Maddie opened a kitchen drawer and drew out a folded sheet of paper, which she unfolded and placed next to Olivia. “We are on this list, in case you were worried.”

Olivia selected a baby bootie for her next project and gathered pastry bags of baby blue and navy icing. Since Gwen and Herbie had declined to learn their baby’s sex, Olivia and Maddie had decided to use a variety of icing colors. Before removing the covers from the metal tips, she put aside her pastry bags to look through the names on Gwen’s list. Charlene Critch wasn’t there, as Maddie had promised, and neither were Charlie Critch and Olivia’s brother, Jason. Her mother and stepfather were listed with “regrets” next to their names. They would be too upset to feel like socializing. Otherwise, at least half the people on the list had been in The Gingerbread House during the infamous “harvest” event on Tuesday.

“Excellent,” Olivia said, picking up her bag of baby blue icing. “I feel the onset of a plan.”

“Oh goodie,” said Maddie. “Do I get to help?”

“Check in with me when you bring the rest of the cookies to Gwen and Herbie’s house. By then I should know if it’s a dud.”

 

 

O
livia parked her silver PT Cruiser in the alley outside the kitchen of The Gingerbread House. She had bought it used, in excellent condition, and she loved its roominess. She’d splurged and had The Gingerbread House logo painted on both sides. Whenever she opened the car door, she smelled a faint spiciness left over from the dozens of decorated cookies she and Maddie had delivered to private events.

By three thirty, Olivia and Maddie had managed to finish decorating four dozen of the eight dozen cookies for the Tuckers’ baby shower. Olivia had packed them in single layers inside sheet cake pans to allow the icing to continue to harden. She wedged the pans in the back seat so they wouldn’t shift around during transport.

Before starting the car, she took a small flashlight from her pocket and wedged it into the glove compartment. Having learned her lesson the night before, she’d called Lucas at the hardware and asked him to drop off half a dozen flashlights of various sizes.

Gwen and Herbie Tucker owned a small farm west of town, about a fifteen-minute drive from The Gingerbread House. Olivia checked her watch. It was already ten minutes to four, but she couldn’t afford to speed, in case she hit a bump and sent the cookies flying. Before starting the PT’s engine, she called the Tuckers’ number from her cell and left a message that she was on her way.