One Dead Cookie (18 page)

“I see. Hush, Spunky.” With her free hand, Olivia rubbed the Yorkie’s ears to calm
him. “Did you call Del?”

“Yes, right after I called you. I got him out of bed, but I really wanted Del here
instead of someone else.”

“I can understand that,” Olivia said. “Would you take Spunky for a bit? Hold on tight,
he’s in a mood.” She handed her restive pet over to Maddie, who clutched him to her
chest.

Without turning around, Maddie said, “Please tell me you aren’t going to examine the
body.”

“I was just wondering…” Olivia steeled herself before facing Trevor’s lifeless form.
She didn’t see any evidence of blood. His shoulders slumped forward, his hands crossed
right over left as if someone had arranged them. Trevor’s head hung down, so Olivia
could see only his dark brown hair. Olivia knew better than to touch the body, but
she forced herself to squat down to get a look at his face. “What’s that on his left
cheek?”

“All I did was take his pulse,” Maddie said with an hint of panic. “I didn’t look
at his left cheek or anything else. Why on earth would you?”

“Well, he died on my porch,” Olivia said. “Even if he was killed somewhere else, he
was brought to my porch. I need to know why. Del will be here soon, and he’ll have
called the crime-scene folks. I won’t have another chance.” She straightened, and
said, “I’ll be right back.”

“Hey, you’re supposed to keep me from getting hysterical.”

“That’s what Spunky is for.” Olivia had left the front door unlocked, so she quickly
reentered the foyer, where she kept a small antique desk with business cards. She
had stashed a flashlight in the drawer in case she came home to find the electricity
out, which happened during violent thunderstorms. She hoped no one had requisitioned
the little flashlight for their own use. When she opened the drawer, the flashlight
rolled forward. Now, if only the batteries hadn’t died…She’d bought good-quality flashlights
from
Heights Hardware and tried to change the batteries regularly, but somehow she always
forgot this one. She tried the switch. The light flickered weakly, but it would be
enough.

Del and the crime-scene personnel would object to an amateur messing with evidence.
Olivia understood the importance of an untouched crime scene. On the other hand, if
the mark on Trevor’s cheek was what she feared, she and Maddie might be sucked into
the investigation through no fault of their own.

Olivia heard a faint siren in the distance. She almost wished Del would arrive and
chase her off, so she wouldn’t have to do what she was about to do. Spunky whimpered
for Olivia’s attention as she forced herself to kneel in front of the wicker chair.
She pointed her flashlight up toward Trevor’s handsome, dead face. Her hand shook
as a shiver went through her. The light died.

As Olivia lowered the flashlight, it flicked on again. She must have jolted the batteries
when her hand shook. Keeping her movements steady, Olivia raised the flashlight and
aimed it toward the left side of Trevor’s face. The mark on his cheek looked like
a hammer drawn with a dark substance, perhaps charcoal. Whoever killed Trevor hadn’t
been satisfied with leaving this strange symbol. The murderer had added a final touch:
a decorated cookie stuffed into Trevor’s mouth. Olivia wondered if he’d died first
or been left alive long enough to experience this final humiliation. “Oh dear,” Olivia
whispered.

“What? What?” Maddie spun around, and Spunky yelped.

“Maybe you should take a look at this.” Olivia offered her flashlight to Maddie.

“Do I have to? Couldn’t you just tell me?” Maddie took a step toward the wicker chair.
She hesitated, as if caught between horror and curiosity.

“Of course, I could describe it to you, only I could use your expert opinion. Please,
Maddie?”

“Expert?” Maddie was starting to sound like herself again.

“You’ll understand when you see Trevor’s cheek. But hurry, I can hear a siren. We
don’t have much time. Then I’m afraid we’ll have to compose ourselves and play innocent,
at least for a while. I guarantee Del will ask us questions about this.”

“Geez, now I really have to look at him. I don’t want to be caught off guard.” Maddie
exchanged a jittery Yorkie for the flashlight and dropped quickly to her knees in
front of Trevor’s body. When the flashlight conked out, Maddie shook it. “These things
are crap,” she said. “Lucas stopped carrying them in the hardware.”

“Now you tell me,” Olivia said.

Maddie got the flashlight going again and wasted no time. “Whoa,” she said as she
examined Trevor’s face. “Okay, I see what you mean. This’ll take some explaining.
I wonder if it was one of ours.”

“I suppose…I mean, that cookie sure looks like one of ours, but anyone could have
taken it at any time during the last couple days.”

Maddie switched off the flashlight and stood up. “I’m not talking about the cookie.”

“Wait, you mean you know something about the hammer drawing on Trevor’s cheek?” Olivia
found herself talking to air. Maddie had already slipped into the foyer to return
the flashlight to its storage place.

As the siren announced the imminent arrival of the police, Maddie reappeared. “Livie,
it isn’t a drawing of a hammer,” she said. “It’s the imprint of a cookie cutter shaped
like a judge’s gavel, and it is
burned
onto his cheek.”

It was nearly three a.m. when Olivia, Maddie, and Del settled in the Gingerbread House
kitchen. The crime-scene investigators had finally left for the lab, and Trevor Lane’s
body was bound for the morgue. Olivia and Maddie had permission to open the store
at its usual time. They hadn’t yet decided whether that would be such a good idea.
Once word spread around Chatterley Heights that Trevor Lane had been found dead on
The Gingerbread House porch—and it would spread, they had no doubt of that—hordes
of citizens would crowd into the store wanting only to satisfy their avid curiosity.
Olivia was tempted, oh so tempted, to keep the store closed. They could bake all day,
which might give them a fighting chance of finishing the cookies for Maddie and Lucas’s
engagement party in two days.

Olivia poured three cups of freshly made coffee and delivered them to the table. After
seeing the damage to Trevor Lane’s face, she couldn’t bring herself to prepare a
plate of decorated cookies. No one asked for any. “Del, please tell us. Was Trevor
poisoned with one of our cookies?”

Del’s eyebrows shot up, revealing tired, red eyes. “No, Livie, it would seem Trevor
was killed by a hammer blow to the back of the head.” Del opened his notebook. “Okay,
let’s go over this step-by-step. Maddie, you found the body, so we’ll start with you.
If you left the store by the alley door, how did you notice him in the dark? The way
he’d been placed in that chair, I doubt you’d have seen him as you walked around the
side of the house.”

Maddie wrapped her hands around her warm cup as if she felt chilled. “Livie leaves
the porch light on at night, which I used to think was a good idea.” She shivered
and sipped her coffee. “Even so, you’re right, I wouldn’t have noticed the…Trevor
if I hadn’t looked back at the store from the front lawn. I’m not really sure why
I did look back.” Maddie looked puzzled and tired, and her mop of red hair had lost
its fizzle. Tangled curls hung loosely around her face as if the energy had drained
out of them.

“Think,” Del said. “Did something catch your attention, like a movement or a sound?”

Maddie’s face puckered as she relived those dreadful moments. Olivia felt so sorry
for her friend, she almost wished she had found the body instead. Almost.

“I think I heard a rustling sound,” Maddie said, “and I just turned automatically.
Yes, I remember now. I thought maybe Spunky had come to the window to see me off.
He’s such a friendly little guy.” Maddie’s eyes teared up. “I’m so glad he wasn’t
outside.”

“Okay,” Del said, “so you turned around toward the window because you thought Spunky
might be looking out at you?”

“Yes. Except the curtains were closed, and I could see that they weren’t rippling,
which they would have been doing if Spunky had wormed around in front of them. That
dog is incapable of being still unless he’s napping, and even then…” Maddie held her
coffee cup suspended in midair as if she’d forgotten to take a sip.

“Did you hear any sounds after that?” Del asked. “Or maybe you saw a movement out
of the corner of your eye?”

Maddie lowered her cup and shook her head. “Nothing after that, I’m sure of it. Right
away, I noticed the chair on the porch wasn’t empty. I saw…legs. I thought…I don’t
know what I thought, except at first I didn’t feel scared. This is Chatterley Heights,
after all. Besides, Livie is the one who finds bodies, not me.” Maddie slapped her
hand over her mouth. “Sorry, Livie, that just popped out.”

Olivia patted Maddie’s other hand. “Not a problem. I’ll assume you’re hysterical.”

“Thanks. I think.” Maddie’s cheeks had regained a hint of color. “I might never eat
a decorated cookie again.”

“Nonsense,” Olivia said. “I have it on the best authority that decorated cookies counteract
the effects of shock. Also, I’m pretty sure they cure the common cold.” Olivia selected
three iced cookies shaped like wedding cakes. She put each cookie on a plate, handed
one to Del, the second to Maddie, and saved the last for herself.

Maddie stared at her plate. “Livie, remember when we were all in the band shell? We
passed around that plate of cookies? Trevor took two cookies and held them on his
hand, like this.” Maddie placed her wedding cake cookie on the palm of her left hand.

“I remember,” Olivia said. “He ate one and made that awful toast with the other one.”

“Do you remember their shapes?”

Olivia shook her head. “I think one had peppermint stripes. Usually I can remember
cookie shapes. It must be shock.”

“A peppermint-striped wedding cake and a rose-covered chapel,” Maddie said.

“What is it, Maddie?” Del asked. “Are you thinking the cookie in Trevor’s mouth might
have come from the plate you took to the band shell?”

Maddie shook her head. “Just the opposite,” she said. “Livie, you probably can’t remember
the icing colors because all the cookies I brought were dark pink. I got enthusiastic
and made too much rose pink icing, so I used the extra to decorate a bunch of cookies
that hadn’t turned out absolutely flawless. Not that I’m a perfectionist.”

“And the cookie in Trevor’s mouth was blue,” Olivia said. “At least what we could
see of it.”

Del scribbled something in his notebook. “Can you remember the last time you offered
blue cookies in the store?”

Maddie grimaced. “Unfortunately, yes. It was yesterday afternoon, when Lenora descended
with Trevor and Dougie in tow.”

“And most of the citizens of Chatterley Heights showed up to see them,” Olivia said.

“So just about anyone could have taken that cookie,” Del said, rubbing his chin. “Or
gotten it somewhere else.”

“Tell me the flavorings in that cookie,” Maddie said, “and I can probably tell you
if it was one of ours. If you can determine what shape it was, that’ll help, too.
I used blue icing on lots of cookies, but only on two shapes.”

“Which were?” Del asked, his pen poised over his notebook.

“One was a gift box with a blue ribbon, and the other
was a little girl in a pale blue dress with a darker blue sash. She was supposed to
represent a flower girl.”

“Got it,” Del said. He closed his notebook. “I’ll check with the crime lab about the
shape. Now what about the gavel imprint on Trevor’s cheek? How sure are you that it
was made with a cookie cutter?”

“I’m virtually positive.” Maddie shivered. “It was burned on his skin, wasn’t it?
Olivia thought it might be a charcoal drawing.”

“No, the image was definitely burned on,” Del said. “Have you sold a gavel-shaped
cookie cutter recently, or ever?”

Olivia shook her head. “Clarisse’s collection includes a whole set of legal-themed
cutters, but I haven’t had a reason to use them. In fact, I’ve never taken them out
of storage. So far there hasn’t been much demand for events with a legal theme.” She
suppressed a nervous giggle as she envisioned a cookie party to welcome an ex-con
home from prison.

Del flipped his notebook shut. “That’s enough for now. I may have more questions once
I hear what the medical examiner has to say.”

“You know where to find us,” Olivia said. “We’ll be the ones with confectioners’ sugar
in our hair.”

With a faint smile, Del said, “I’ll allow you to keep baking, and I promise not to
eat the inventory.” He gave Olivia’s cheek a light stroke with his fingertips before
reaching for his uniform hat. “You two get some sleep. I recommend you keep the store
closed tomorrow. Lie low, try not to answer the phone. I don’t want everyone in town
pumping you for information.”

Maddie and Olivia exchanged quick glances. They both knew that nothing could protect
them from the intense curiosity of Chatterley Heights residents.