One Dead Cookie (16 page)

“Where did you say you worked, Howie?” Trevor’s voice was too smooth. “The local bank,
isn’t it? Funny how things turn out. Howie Upton, math genius, destined for great
success in the financial world…and here you are, thirty-four years old, a teller in
a small-town bank.”

Maddie must have reached hearing range, because she halted and stood quietly in the
grass. Olivia had to remind herself to breathe. She’d wondered about Howie’s lowly
position, too, but Trevor’s tone implied he possessed information that Howie wanted
to keep secret. Of course, Trevor’s insinuations might be wild guesses based on a
plausible-yet-fabricated theory about Howie’s failure to achieve what his schoolmates
expected of him. Either way, Olivia decided to keep her distance from Trevor Lane.
Although she found herself very curious about the past relationship among these three
men.

“I come bearing cookies,” Maddie announced heartily as she climbed the band-shell
steps. Exchanging a swift glance with Olivia, she handed the plate to Dougie, who
expressed delight as he selected a teal heart-shaped cookie. Dougie passed the treats
on to Trevor. “There’s plenty for seconds,” Maddie said. “I’ve been a busy baker.”

“How delightful,” Trevor said in his silkiest voice. He made a show of trying to choose
between a peppermint-striped wedding cake and a rose-covered chapel.

“Take both,” Maddie said.

“I believe I will, one for dinner and one for dessert. Thank you, Maddie.” With the
plate on his lap, Trevor picked up each cookie with long, graceful fingers and placed
them side-by-side on the palm of his left hand. “And by the way, don’t worry about
Lenora’s plan for you to provide even more cookies for her little amateur playlet.
We adore Lenora, of course, but she does occasionally mistake herself for the center
of the universe.”

“When everyone knows
you
are the center of the universe,” Howie said under his breath.

“Are you excited about your celebration and upcoming nuptials, Maddie?” Dougie asked.

“Sure,” Maddie said. “I always love a party. I get to wear a fantastic dress, be surrounded
by friends and total strangers…what’s not to get excited about? I hope you’re all
planning to be at Bon Vivant Saturday afternoon. There will be wine, cookies, and
little sandwiches with the crusts cut off.”

Olivia noticed that Trevor hadn’t passed the cookie plate on to Howie. She also observed
Howie’s stiff posture and wooden expression. Maddie must have noticed, too, because
she snatched the cookie plate from Trevor’s lap. After claiming a deep pink wedding
gown for herself, Maddie offered the plate to Howie. His shoulders relaxed as he reached
for a cookie shaped like a gift box wrapped in pink-striped icing.

“Be careful of your weight, Howie,” Trevor said. “You worked so hard to lose it.”

Trevor’s warning, delivered so casually, silenced everyone. Olivia froze, her own
cookie halfway to her lips. Maddie recovered first, and said lightly, “You’re too
skinny, Howie. And I’m not just saying that because I myself have
quite generous proportions.” Howie glanced up at Maddie with an expression that reminded
Olivia of Spunky when she gave him an extra treat.

“You both look great,” Dougie said. He chomped on his cookie and nodded in approval.
Before taking a second bite, Dougie lifted up his cookie heart, now minus one lobe,
to offer a toast. “To Maddie and Lucas,” he said, “and a long and happy life together.”

All but Trevor echoed the toast. Olivia noticed his tight jaw and narrowed eyelids.
Trevor Lane was very angry, which startled Olivia.
Why? Just because Maddie and Dougie tried to soften his nasty comment to Howie?

With a jerky movement, Trevor raised one of his cookies, as Dougie had done, and said,
“I wish you the very best of luck, Maddie, as you enter that challenging condition
known as married life. And may you be spared the fate suffered by Anna Adair, my good
friend Dougie’s former wife.”

“Wow, talk about drama,” Maddie said as she scooped up an assortment of gel food colors
and arranged the bottles on the kitchen counter. “Trevor’s mysterious line about Anna
Adair is such a great ending for a scene in a play. I was impressed. Trevor would
be totally convincing as Rhett Butler. I might have to start watching the soaps.”

“Trevor Lane doesn’t like to be crossed, that’s for sure.” Olivia noticed the sugar
supply was running low and started a shopping list. “Dougie told me he was still in
love with his former wife. I would love to know what terrible fate befell her. I wonder
if Lenora knows.”

“I’m not sure we could trust Lenora’s version of anything, but I bet I can find the
information online.” Maddie fired up Olivia’s laptop, which doubled as the store computer.
“Although Trevor might have been ad-libbing to punish Dougie for contradicting him
when he told Howie
to watch his weight. Honestly, I feel like we’ve been in the middle of a joie de vivre
or something.”

After puzzling for a moment, Olivia said, “Well, this evening was intriguing in a
tense sort of way, but ‘enjoyment of life’ isn’t the description I’d have chosen.”

Maddie lifted her fingers from the computer keyboard. “Déjà vu?”

“Not unless you’d heard Trevor’s showstopping toast before this evening.”

“Ménage à trois?”

“Please stop.”

Olivia sat at her little kitchen desk, where she’d left a notebook in which she’d
been scribbling ideas for cookie recipes. The lavender cookie recipe was close, thanks
to her mom’s input, but she was ready to scratch the lemon verbena idea altogether.
Olivia felt as if the time pressure had frozen her brain. Maddie created recipe variations
all the time, but she never wrote them down. Too boring, she always said. Olivia enjoyed
recording her ideas. She liked to watch an idea develop into a project, even if the
goal was as mundane as reorganizing a shelf. Her current project, creating two new
recipes for Maddie’s engagement party, was far more intriguing than reorganizing a
shelf, but also a whole lot tougher. Olivia thought back to her business-school training,
specifically her class on entrepreneurship.
I’m supposed to think of this as a challenge, right? So why do I feel tempted to clean
the bathroom instead?

“Livie, do you know you’re mumbling to yourself?”

Olivia tossed her pen on the nearly blank page. “Let’s face it, I’m no good at making
up recipes.”

“Don’t be silly.” Maddie’s hands paused over the computer keys. “Here’s your problem:
you’re going at this like
it’s a school assignment that requires icky things like logical thinking. Making up
cookie recipes is really more like playing in a sandbox. Sometimes numbers are involved,
but once you get the hang of it, you can estimate. I’ll show you what I mean in a
minute. Give me a little more time to sate my curiosity about Trevor, Dougie, and
Howie, okay? I mean, it’s sort of your fault I’m doing this search.”

“Your rampant curiosity is
my
fault?”

“Well, not when I’m wondering, for example, what beets taste like in sugar cookies,
but you are the one who got me hooked on mysteries. Books aren’t enough for me anymore.
Now I need regular doses of mystery delivered right to my door. So go organize the
fridge or something while I get my sleuthing fix.” Maddie’s fingers hopped around
the keyboard. “And stop all that muttering about addictive personalities.”

Suddenly, cleaning out the freezer did sound like a good idea. Olivia began by extracting
an unlabeled container made of clear plastic. She pried off the lid and found two
cookies: a purple tree and a pink bell. The Gingerbread House had hosted a holiday
event in early December, nearly five months earlier. Way too long to keep fully decorated
cookies. She dumped the cookies and tossed the empty container into the sink. Next
she found a small, rusting tin so filled with ice crystals she’d need carbon dating
to identify the age of the contents.

“Eureka!” Maddie said.

Olivia tossed the tin and its contents into the wastebasket and abandoned her task.
“I remember now why I never clean the freezer,” she said. “It reminds me of digging
through layers of sedimentary rock. What did you find?”

“First, about Dougie Adair. I’ve been piecing together bits of his past from several
sites. The most recent stuff is from Hollywood gossip blogs. The bloggers write mostly
about
Trevor Lane, of course, but Dougie’s name pops up from time to time. There was no
mention of a wife, which made me really curious. I tried searching his full name,
Douglas Ray Adair, and I found some older records. It looks like he moved to New York
City in 1995 to try his luck at playwriting.”

“Dougie mentioned living in New York City. How was his luck?” Olivia lifted a clean
mixing bowl from the dishwasher and used a kitchen towel to wipe off any moisture
that hadn’t evaporated during the energy-save dry cycle.

“Really bad,” Maddie said. “In the late nineties, a couple of Dougie’s plays got produced
way, way off Broadway. I found some scathing reviews.”

“How far off Broadway?”

“One of them was in New Jersey.” Maddie peered at the screen. “Listen to this: ‘Mr.
Adair may have intended to tell a tale of unrelenting darkness and despair, and I
must admit that he succeeded, in as much as the audience longed for the lights to
go on and despaired of ever seeing the final curtain.’”

“Ouch.”

“No kidding,” Maddie said. “I suspect the reviewer stole those words from someone
else, but still…I’m sticking to decorated cookies. Everybody likes decorated…Whoa.”

“What did you find?” Olivia dropped her towel in the dishwasher and scooted a chair
next to Maddie.

“This looks like a 1999 obituary list of people in the arts.” Maddie pointed at a
short entry in a series of death notices. “It says here that ‘
Anna Adair, twenty-three, died unexpectedly at her home in New York. Cause of death
unknown. Anna was a poet, married to writer Douglas R. Adair, who was out of town
at the time of her death.
’ Evidently, Dougie found her when he returned home. Golly. What Trevor said about
Dougie’s wife sort of implied that she might have killed herself, didn’t it?”

“I wonder if…” Olivia shook her head to clear it. “My friend, your engagement bash
is in two days, and we have a lot of work to do before then. Our curiosity can wait.”

“Point taken.” Maddie put the computer to sleep by lowering the lid. “This is unsettling
and wildly fascinating, but we have fabulous cookies to invent and produce in practically
no time. Fire up the trusty Artisan, and let’s get to work!”

*   *   *

B
y midnight, Olivia felt more hopeful that her promised wedding gift to Maddie and
Lucas might materialize in time, even though Maddie had contributed a good portion
of the creativity. In the Gingerbread House kitchen, the luscious aromas of lemon
and lavender competed for dominance. Olivia’s legs felt wobbly, and even Maddie’s
pace had slowed down to that of an average human, but they had accomplished a miracle.
They’d created at least one promising original cookie recipe.

“Your idea for speeding up the experimentation process was pure genius,” Olivia said.
“I was afraid it would take weeks to come up with an edible recipe. I would never
have thought of mixing quarter batches until we got the texture and flavor right.”

“Aw shucks. I couldn’t have done it without your superior math skills.” Maddie sampled
a barely cooled cookie. “I do believe we’ve done it,” she announced. “Here, taste
this and tell me what you think.”

Olivia bit into a heavenly melding of lemon and lavender flavors. “The texture came
out just right this time, and the lavender flavor is pretty good. Maybe we could lighten
it a bit. And I’m fine with ditching the lemon verbena idea and sticking with good
old lemon cookies. I’ll save the lemon verbena for green beans or something.”

“Yeah, like you ever cook vegetables,” Maddie said.

“Hey, I have a can opener, and I know how to use it.” Olivia sat at her desk with
pen and paper. “Do you have an estimate of how many guests might attend your engagement
party?”

“Livie, that would be math. How many people live in Chatterley Heights and the surrounding
countryside?”

“Too many. Hand me the laptop, would you?” Olivia woke up her computer, looked up
the population of Chatterley Heights, and added in what information she could find
about the areas nearby. “Several thousand,” she concluded, “not including nearby towns
like Clarksville, where I know you have some friends. I do recall suggesting that
you use the invitation-only approach.”

“I get it, Livie; you told me so. Only it wouldn’t have worked because Binnie took
it upon herself to advertise the event in both
The Weekly Chatter
and her infernal blog. All I can hope is that most people would rather die than do
anything Binnie Sloan tells them to do.”

“I doubt Binnie’s following goes much beyond Chatterley Heights, anyway,” Olivia said.
“I guess we’ll just have to bake as many cookies as humanly possible, and when they’re
gone, they’re gone.”