Dead Men Don't Eat Cookies (23 page)

Aunt Sadie touched Maddie’s arm, and said, “Dear one, would you take my cup? I’d like to see those darlings again, if I may. I might have an idea or two.” The slight tremor in Aunt Sadie’s hand caused the cup to rattle on its saucer. Maddie quickly rescued it, while Anita, with delicate care, transferred the cutters to Aunt Sadie’s lap. Olivia felt the hushed anticipation in the room. One by one, Aunt Sadie held the cutters in the palm of her hand and closed her eyes. A gentle smile played across her face as if each cutter were sharing its story with her.

After several minutes of silence, Aunt Sadie nodded and opened her eyes. “I don’t know if any of my wanderings will be helpful, Del, but here goes. I have always been fascinated by our Chatterley origins. Many years ago, I spent several summers helping to catalog items in the mansion. I do so hope the research can be completed someday.”

Much as she loved Aunt Sadie, Olivia wished she would skip the background and spill what she knew about those cutters. She hadn’t felt this impatient since her tenth birthday
party, when her parents made her wait to open up the ice skates she’d so wanted.

“I’m an old lady now,” Aunt Sadie said, “but I still remember a great deal of what I read so many years ago. I’m surprised by how much more returned to me as I held these cutters.” Aunt Sadie gently stroked the metal shapes on her lap before moving them to the table, where everyone could see them.

No one else spoke. Even Anita’s dark eyes widened with interest as Aunt Sadie pointed toward one of the cutters.

“Now,” Aunt Sadie said, “this sweet little three-petaled flower shape appeared in one of the diaries kept by Chatterley wives. You see, I was at loose ends after tutoring steadily during the school year, so every summer I volunteered to help sort through the contents of the mansion. The town had no funds to pay me, of course. This was after the last Chatterley had passed on. Or so we thought. Anyway, at the time, I was cataloging the contents of the mansion’s master bedroom.”

Aunt Sadie chuckled softly. “Bless those Chatterleys, they never parted with anything. I spent an entire summer on that room alone.” Aunt Sadie ran her index finger along the outline of the flower. “We discovered Charlotte Chatterley’s diary, which she’d written over the course of one year, 1859. During that period, she became pregnant and delivered triplet daughters.” Aunt Sadie picked up the cutter and held it up for everyone to see. “Charlotte commissioned this three-petaled flower from a local tin worker to commemorate the safe arrival of her daughters. Can you see the tiny curve at the top of each petal? It was meant to be a curl. Charlotte wrote in her diary that she was delighted with her curly-haired daughters, though her husband was greatly disappointed because she hadn’t produced three sons.” Aunt Sadie returned the flower cutter to her lap.

Olivia did some quick math in her head. “Aunt Sadie, did Charlotte live long enough to know Horace Chatterley?”

Aunt Sadie nodded. “Yes, indeed. She was his aunt, though not an especially fond one. In a much later diary, she described Horace as arrogant and rude. She predicted misery for his future wife.”

“I wonder if Charlotte would have predicted his murder,” Olivia said.

“The thought might have occurred to her,” Aunt Sadie said, “though she died well before Horace left his family for a string of younger women.” She selected two more cookie cutters, the boy and the girl. “I should point out that all five cutters are almost certainly one-of-a-kind.” She gave Anita a questioning glance.

Anita nodded. “Several are similar to common designs, but each has a unique aspect.”

Aunt Sadie placed the boy and girl shapes on the coffee table. “These two cutters go together.” When she slid the cutters toward each other, their outstretched hands interlocked.

“Ooh, how adorable,” Maddie said. “Who are those two?”

“These sweet little ones are very old. During my summer research, I found no mention of who first commissioned them, or when they were made. Dear old Frederick P. wasn’t much of a record keeper, and neither was his long-suffering wife. After a few generations, though, I started to notice irregular references to these cutters. Finally, I realized they were being passed down to the first-born Chatterley son on the occasion of his marriage.”

“Chatterley husbands tended to favor philandering,” Olivia said. “Maybe their wives weren’t so fond of those particular cutters. Did anyone mention their disappearance after Horace moved out of the family mansion?”

A cluster of wrinkles gathered between Aunt Sadie’s pale eyebrows as she thought back to her summer in the Chatterley mansion. “Not that I remember,” she said. “I wasn’t able to read all the family diaries, and there were other writings, as well. If it’s important, I believe many of those papers are still
stored upstairs in the mansion’s attic.” With a wistful sigh, Aunt Sadie said, “Someone really ought to finish reading all those fascinating journals.”

Anita squirmed in her chair, impatient to move on. “What about those last two cutters?” she asked, nodding toward the remaining shapes. “One looks like a pregnant pig, and the other is beyond my comprehension. I’m usually quite good at identifying cookie cutter shapes.”

Aunt Sadie clapped her hands like an excited child. “I saved those two for last. I must admit, I was rather proud of myself when I identified these shapes so many years ago.” She picked up the portly pig. “This guy was commissioned by Caroline Chatterley in 1805. What looks like pregnancy is actually meant to represent the portly figure the Chatterley men often achieved as they entered middle age.”

“Whoa,” Maddie said. “Pigs are naturally portly. This fellow is downright bloated. I’m guessing Caroline had issues with her husband. Now I think of it, I don’t remember ever hearing about a Chatterley wife who actually liked her husband.”

“Oh, I do believe that Imogene truly loved Henry Chatterley,” Aunt Sadie said. “Although it’s true that Henry was not a typical first-born Chatterley man. In fact, when I ran across references to him elsewhere, it was clear he’d always maintained his slim figure.”

Olivia flashed back to Aunt Sadie’s story about Henry Chatterley. “He actually changed his surname to Jones, right? So in a sense he rejected the Chatterley legacy. I wonder . . .”

Del snapped to attention. “Remember, I didn’t grow up in Chatterley Heights, so I’ve never heard anything about Henry Chatterley. Tell me.” He listened while Aunt Sadie repeated her story about Henry’s marriage to Imogene Jones. “So Henry Chatterley became Henry Jones,” he said. “Jones is a common name. Aunt Sadie, do you know what happened to Henry after he took his wife’s name? Did he disappear? Is that what you were wondering, Livie?”

“Partly,” Olivia said. “I was also wondering if Henry might have had anything to do with his father’s murder.”

“Oh, I’m sure that isn’t true.” Aunt Sadie sounded genuinely alarmed. “Henry was such an honorable man. He became a successful attorney, and he used his earnings to help his mother and siblings after Horace lost what was left of the family fortune in the stock market crash. I can’t believe he would murder his own father, no matter how irresponsible Horace had been. What would he gain, after all?”

Del shrugged. “Rage can make people do things they wouldn’t even consider under other circumstances.”

“Well, I’ll never believe it,” Aunt Sadie said.

Del wisely dropped the subject.

Aunt Sadie picked up the last of the five antique cookie cutters, a confusing combination of curves, corners, and stemlike protrusions. “I’ll admit, I would never have identified this shape without help from Abigail Chatterley’s personal diary.”

“Abigail?” Maddie took the strange cutter from Aunt Sadie’s palm. “Wasn’t Abigail the first Chatterley wife, the one married to Frederick P.? That would mean this cutter dates back to the early 1700s, and it doesn’t look anywhere near old enough.”

“No, Maddie, dear.” Aunt Sadie retrieved the cutter. “This is a much newer cutter, commissioned by a second Abigail Chatterley. She traced the outline in her journal, but she neglected to mention what it was. I thought perhaps she was simply doodling. Abigail was artistic, you see. She did lovely free-form embroidery. We found her work in a cedar chest in one of the mansion bedrooms. As I remember, we moved that chest to the attic. I assume it was preserved with care during the mansion’s more recent renovation.”

“Lucas would have seen to that,” Maddie said. “I’ll ask him. But, Aunt Sadie, who was this second Abigail? Would she have known Horace?”

“Oh, didn’t I say?” Aunt Sadie reluctantly handed the
cutter to Del. “She was Horace’s mother. Poor woman. She must have been mortified when Horace deserted his wife and children for a younger woman.”

“A
scarlet
woman, too,” Maddie said. “At least, that’s what Abigail must have thought.”

“Oh, I’m not so sure.” A tremor slowed Aunt Sadie’s hand as she tried to push an errant lock of gray hair off her forehead. “Remember, it was Henry, Abigail’s grandson, who took care of the family his father had abandoned. And he did so with Imogene’s full approval. In the end, the family Horace left behind fared far better than he did. There’s a certain justice in that, don’t you
think?”

Olivia and Maddie practically floated across Aunt Sadie’s porch after the fascinating evening they’d spent discussing cookie cutters from the Chatterley collection. They didn’t notice the chill until they began their walk back to The Gingerbread House. The moment they left the shelter of the porch, a forceful wind nearly knocked them sideways.

“How long did that meeting last, anyway?” Maddie had to raise her voice to be heard over the rustling trees. “It feels like winter out here.”

Olivia pulled up the collar of her jacket. “We should have dressed warmer. No walk for Spunky this evening. He gets nervous in high winds.”

“Not fond of them myself,” Maddie said. “Let’s fire up the computer and do some research. Maybe the wind will die down later. I hope Alicia has found shelter. If she’s with that Jack guy, she’s probably okay. From Polly’s description, he sounded like a reasonable fellow.”

Olivia buried her hands in her jacket pockets as they walked past the closed businesses along Park Street. “Del
doesn’t seem too worried about Alicia. Maybe there’s been progress, and Del thought we knew about it. We should check our emails when we get back to the store.”

As they came in sight of The Gingerbread House, Maddie said, “Jeez, this wind is bad. Let’s run.” She took off, and Olivia followed behind, swearing to herself that she would go back to regular runs around the park to get her muscles in shape. Spunky would benefit, too. He might work off a few of those extra treats he got from customers and . . . well, just about everyone.

By the time Olivia dragged herself up the front steps to the porch, she was thoroughly winded, although warmer. Maddie had run ahead and reached the porch, where she was staring at the front door. Olivia paused to catch her breath, but Maddie didn’t move. “Don’t you have your key?” Olivia asked. She reached into her jacket pocket. “If you’ll move aside, I’ll unlock the door.”

“Interesting,” Maddie said.

“Not the response I was expecting.” Olivia looked around Maddie’s mass of windblown hair. “Oh no, not again,” she moaned. “Another tack hole in my lovely door . . . What does the note say?” Maddie pulled out the tack and handed over the note. “At least it’s easier to read this time,” Olivia grumbled. Written with blue pen in neat cursive, the note read:
Please tell everyone to stop worrying about me and leave us alone. Jack is nice. He’s been telling me stories about my dad and helping me find out what happened to him. Alicia
.

“Livie, please tell me we were never that young and dumb.” Maddie produced her own key and unlocked the front door.

“Of course we were.” Olivia scurried into the foyer and slammed the door behind them. “We were once naive teenagers, too. On the other hand, there’s a chance Alicia is right that Jack is trying to help her.”

“Then why won’t he show himself in public like a person
whose face isn’t on a wanted poster?” Maddie unlocked the door of the store, reached inside, and flipped on the sales floor lights.

Olivia ran a hand through her wind-tangled hair as she followed Maddie into the store. “I don’t understand why they need to deface my lovely antique front door with tacks. Why couldn’t Alicia have left a cell phone message like a normal person?”

“Maybe she didn’t want to deal with talking to you in person.” Maddie led the way into the kitchen.

“I guess I can understand that.” Olivia nodded toward the kitchen phone. “We have several messages on the landline, but they’re probably all from my mom. I don’t have the patience to listen to them right now. I need to brush my hair.”

“Yes, you do,” Maddie said. “I’ll leave mine alone. Brushing would only encourage it.” She pointed to the red tangle of curls, which was twice its normal height. “I’ll check the messages.”

“Shout if you hear anything interesting.” Olivia headed for the tiny kitchen bathroom, where she kept a supply of toiletries. Leaving the door open, she worked a brush through her tangled auburn hair, then lightly dampened it to help the waves recover from wind shock.

“No important phone messages,” Maddie called from the kitchen, “but Binnie has gone bonkers again.”

Uh-oh
. Olivia quickly smoothed some moisturizer on her wind-chapped cheeks and rejoined Maddie, who had fired up the laptop. Olivia requisitioned a chair and joined her. “I don’t see any incriminating photos on the screen,” Olivia said. “What has Binnie done this time?”

Maddie opened Binnie’s nefarious blog. “She seems to have lost interest in publishing her weekly rag. I kind of miss
The Weekly Chatter.
It was more carefully written, plus it appeared only once a week. Binnie goes overboard on this blog. She thinks she can write anything about anybody, no matter how nasty. In her newspaper, at least she mostly stuck
to innuendo. Also, she used punctuation, so a person could make sense of the snide remarks.”

“When this investigation is all over,” Olivia said, “we must have a forceful talk with Binnie. I’ll see if I can get in touch with Ned. Maybe she can help.”

“Does Ned actually talk?” Maddie’s fingers began to fly around the keyboard. “Ah, there it is.”

“There what is?” Olivia sat back for a panoramic view. “Oh, I see. It’s a photo collage. Is that Ned’s work? It’s really very good. How on earth did you—?”

“Simple,” Maddie said. “And I didn’t have to hack. I found a photojournalism contest sponsored by American University. Ned is taking classes there. Let me check something.” Maddie clicked in silence for a few moments. “Oh wow,” she said. “I knew Ned was good, so I figured she might have placed in that contest, but hey, she actually won first place. No wonder she is trying to distance herself from her crazy aunt.”

“Her crazy aunt is paying for her education,” Olivia said. “I can’t believe I’m defending Binnie Sloan.”

“I think I’ll print this collage. I like it.” Maddie pressed a key, and the color printer sprang to life.

“I wish I’d thought to make a copy of that first note I found tacked to the front door,” Olivia said. “Although the writing was so light and scratchy, it might not have copied well.”

“It copied beautifully.” Maddie grinned as she opened a drawer used for storing towels. “I forgot about this until now. That note sat around until you left for lunch, so I scanned it into the computer and made a couple copies. Ta da!” She handed a copy to Olivia, who squinted at it under the lamp on her desk. She could see the scratches following the last letter of the note, the “r” at the end of the word “cutter.” “Do we have a magnifying glass?” Olivia asked.

“We do.” Maddie rummaged through the junk drawer and produced what looked like a glass stick with a small, round magnifying glass on the end. “Aunt Sadie needed a more powerful one for her embroidery, so she gave this one
to me. I use it when I need to be precise about placing a tiny decoration on royal icing. It’s important to be compulsive,” Maddie added.

“Especially when you
are
impulsive,” Olivia mumbled under her breath.

“What was that?”

“Thanks!” Olivia took the magnifier from Maddie’s hand. “I’ll let you know if I have a eureka moment.”

“And I shall begin creating dozens of amazing cookies for all those lovely events we’ve been scheduling. We are going to be insanely busy as the holidays approach,” Maddie said. “We need to wrap up this mystery soon.”

“Uh-huh.” Olivia squinted at the scratches, an idea forming in her mind.

“You’re so cute when you lose touch with reality,” Maddie said as she opened a container of sugar.

“A flashlight might help,” Olivia muttered to herself.

“Jeez, and they say I’m the one who gets lost in my own little world.” Maddie added butter to the mixing bowl.

“I’m sorry, what did you say, Maddie?”

“I said there’s a flashlight in the storage closet, bottom shelf, right-hand side.” Maddie put in her earbuds and began to hum off-key as Olivia left the kitchen.

When Olivia returned, flashlight in hand, the slapping sound of butter and sugar blending together drowned out Maddie’s musical attempts. Olivia settled at the little kitchen desk, where she hunched over the copied note, flashlight in one hand and magnifier in the other. When she’d examined the original note, the marks after the last letter had barely been visible. They’d appeared to be random. Del had assumed the author was trying, perhaps frantically, to expose more pencil lead. Presumably he had wanted to add another line or two of explanation to his cryptic note. That had made sense at the time.

Olivia held the magnifying glass closer to the paper to look for minute details. She realized there were many more
scratches than she’d thought. They were tiny, thin, and relatively close together, as if they were meant to form a pattern. She examined the entire surface of the note and saw no other marks.

If the author had wanted to expose more pencil lead, rubbing the wood on paper was more likely to tear the paper. And Jack might have had a pocketknife. That would have worked much better. What am I missing?

What if those marks weren’t random? What if they’d been added for a purpose?

Olivia abandoned the flashlight and magnifier.
Mom would tell me to stop trying so hard . . . to let it come to me.
She leaned against the back of her chair and closed her eyes, hoping for quick clarity and insight. What she got was clutter. She could almost hear her mother’s voice telling her to let the clutter drift away.
Easy for you, Mom.

“Livie?” It was Maddie’s voice. “Is it past your bedtime?”

Olivia scraped back her chair and twisted around. “I was trying to clear my mind, like Mom is forever suggesting.” As Olivia turned back to her desk and reached for the mysterious note, she heard a tiny ping, like a muted bell; only it came from inside her own head. Olivia knew at once what she’d been missing. “I’m an idiot,” she said.

“Really?” Maddie abandoned her mound of freshly made cookie dough and joined Olivia. “Does this mean I get to feel superior, or are you about to reveal a profound, eternal truth that I probably won’t comprehend?”

Olivia laughed, though mostly at herself. “I’ve been struggling to find meaning in those scratches at the end of this note. It doesn’t make sense that they’d accidentally cluster this way. But I’ve been too close to it. And by that I mean too close physically, holding a magnifying glass in one hand and a flashlight in the other. I was seeing the trees quite clearly, but I totally missed the forest.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Maddie said as she dragged a kitchen chair next to Olivia.

“Then you won’t be disappointed. Watch.” She picked up the magnifying glass, but instead of holding it close to the paper, she backed it away.

Maddie looked through the glass and shrugged. “I still don’t get it.”

Olivia opened the desk drawer and rooted around until she came up with a pencil. “Watch this,” she said. “If you connect all those little scratches, this is what you get.” Using the pencil, she traced a light “S” that was several times the size of the other letters.

Maddie tilted her head as she studied the note. “You get a gigantic squiggle?”

“Um . . .” Olivia felt a pinch of self-doubt. She had to admit, it did look rather like a big squiggly line. Was she making something out of nothing? Were the scratches meaningless?

“Ooh, wait, I get it!” Maddie’s wild red hair fluffed in all directions as she bounced up and down with excitement. “You’re right, it’s a forest and trees thing. If you read the whole note now, it says ‘
If you want to know what happened to Kenny Vayle, follow the cookie cutterS.
’ It must be referring to those antique cutters the police found under Kenny’s bones. “So that means . . .” Frown lines gathered between Maddie’s flour-dusted eyebrows. “Do the police know for sure who wrote that note, or are we just assuming it was the mysterious Jack? Would a drifter have heard of the Chatterley cookie cutter collection? If we didn’t have a clue that part of the Chatterley collection was hiding inside the boarding house wall, how would . . . Oh.” Maddie’s already pale skin lost any hint of color. “The person who wrote the note must have seen those cutters. Are you saying that Alicia has gone off with the man who killed her father?”

“I’m saying we shouldn’t rule him out, although if we assume this Jack fellow did write that first note, he has to be considered a suspect. Alicia thinks he’s ‘nice,’ but can we trust her assessment? At the very least, he must know about those extra cutters. On the other hand, it seems unlikely that
Kenny Vayle’s killer would have volunteered any information that would tie him to the death. It was such a strange, indirect clue, though. I can’t help but wonder . . .” Olivia ran a hand through her hair. “Why would Jack take the risk of leaving that note?”

“And why would he go to such pains to hide its true meaning?” Maddie asked. “He must be really, really afraid of someone.”

*   *   *

A
t
eleven p.m., Olivia stood up to stretch. She had been hunched over her desk for two hours, catching up on paperwork. Maddie had spent the time baking cookies in puppy and kitten shapes for an upcoming fund-raising event at Chatterley Paws. As she removed the last sheet of playful puppy-shaped cookies from the oven, a cloud of orange-scented warmth permeated the kitchen.