Cookie Dough or Die

Chapter Twenty-five

Olivia and Maddie sat cross-legged on the floor of The Gingerbread House, lights dimmed, mourning over the crushed remains of their antiques cabinet. It lay where it had fallen the afternoon before, facedown, vintage cookie cutters snug inside.

“Like a mommy protecting her babies,” Maddie said.

“Let’s hope so.” Olivia stroked Spunky’s ears as he snuggled beside her. “From the size of those cracks in the side, I doubt the poor thing is reparable. I suppose we should turn it over and assess the damage to our cutters.” She took her time getting to her feet. The pain from her injuries had lessened, but her muscles felt stiff and tight.

Maddie hopped up and offered a steadying hand. Together, they pulled the cabinet onto its side. The contents clattered and tinkled into a heap on the floor. Maddie turned up the lights, while Olivia closed Spunky into the kitchen to keep his little paws off the glass shards. When she returned with a whisk broom, Maddie was already sorting vintage cookie cutters from broken glass.

After a half hour of work, interrupted only by whining from the kitchen, Maddie asked, “What time will everyone start arriving?”

“I suggested anytime after two.” Olivia checked the Hansel and Gretel clock on the wall. “We have somewhere between fifteen minutes and half an hour to get this cleaned up. Del called and said he’d come later. So will Hugh and Tammy. Mom and Jason will probably be on time, and Mr. Willard will bring Bertha along shortly. Del called this morning and filled me in on a few details from Edward’s confession. It seems Edward was getting desperate. Clarisse had found out from Faith’s letter—the part we didn’t see—that Jasmine died soon after giving birth to Hugh’s child.”

“But not that Edward killed her?”

“Not something you add to a letter asking a stranger to come rescue a grandchild she didn’t know she had.”

“Good point,” Maddie said. “Clarisse would have become very suspicious of Faith’s motives. So who was Faith?”

“Faith Kelly, Jasmine’s closest friend. Jasmine went to live with her after disappearing from Chatterley Heights. Apparently, Faith grabbed baby Lily and ran when Edward showed up. I wouldn’t be surprised if Jasmine told her to. Jasmine was smart; she probably began to suspect that Edward had lied to her about Martin wanting her to disappear forever.”

“One thing I don’t understand,” Maddie said. “If Faith wrote this letter saying she was dying of cancer, why did Clarisse hire a private detective agency to find Lily? Why not just get her from Faith?”

“Ah, because Faith collapsed and was rushed to the hospital before she could post the letter. Social Services took Lily. Faith never went home again. After she died, her landlady found the letter, already stamped and addressed, so she dropped it in the mail. It reached Clarisse nearly a month after Faith wrote it.”

“But if Clarisse never actually met Faith, how did she find out that Edward killed Jasmine?”

Olivia picked up a gingerbread man with a tilted hat and a red aluminum handle. She smoothed her fingers over the cool metal. “The same way we did: she searched the Internet. Clarisse had the advantage of knowing about when Jasmine died. She was so upset, she called Edward at that conference in Baltimore and said she was thinking about contacting the police. She couldn’t have been completely sure at that point which of her sons killed Jasmine, but she knew one of them was guilty, and I think she suspected Edward. He begged her to wait until he could talk to her. That’s why she asked Bertha for a full bottle of wine: she was expecting Edward.”

Maddie balanced on her rear and stretched out her arms and legs. “Pilates,” she said. “Your mom taught me.”

Olivia spotted a small crack in a plastic Hallmark Lucy and reluctantly added it to the pile of damaged cutters. Lucy still had value. Someone would love her, crack and all. As much as one could love Lucy. “It’s sad, really,” she said. “Because of his drive and intensity, Edward was a successful businessman, but he felt trapped in Hugh’s shadow. Then Edward met Jasmine and fell in love. And Hugh won again.”

“Love isn’t business,” Maddie said.

“So right,” Olivia said. “Love isn’t coolheaded and rational. Hugh would have defied his father to marry Jasmine, and of course, Clarisse would have been thrilled. But Edward couldn’t let go. He thought he could convince Jasmine that Hugh cared more about what their father thought than for her and her child. He wanted to look like her knight in shining armor. Edward was only trying to convince Jasmine to marry him instead of Hugh, but his lies about Martin’s disapproval frightened her into hiding. He still managed to keep tabs on her and tracked her down probably thinking he had one last chance to get her back into his life. But when she refused him, things turned violent.”

Maddie began filling two boxes, one with unscathed vintage cutters and the other with damaged ones, while Olivia whisked up the glass shards.

The Gingerbread House door opened, and Ellie Greyson’s head appeared. “Are we early? We brought food and drink, in the form of pizzas and wine. Jason brought beer, of course. I’ll warm some pizza in the oven, shall I?”

Lucas arrived, followed by Mr. Willard and Bertha with more wine and a sweet potato pie. “My mother’s recipe,” Bertha said. “And sweet potato is so good for you, too.”

“I’m not much of a cook,” Lucas said as Maddie took his offering of potato chips and a carton of onion dip.

“I love a man who can shop.”

Two pizzas and a bottle of wine later, Olivia had shared what she’d learned from Del. Ellie was emerging from the kitchen bearing a third pizza when the front door opened and Del poked his head inside.

“We have someone we want you to meet,” Del said. He held the door as Hugh and Tammy entered. Hugh had one arm in a cast. In his good arm, he carried a lovely little girl with sapphire blue eyes and black curls falling loosely to her shoulders. She looked sleepy and a bit dazed. Hugh and Tammy didn’t appear to have slept much, either.

“We won’t stay for long,” Hugh said, “but I wanted all of you to meet Lily Chamberlain. My daughter. And while I’m at it, let me introduce my new wife, Tammy Deacons-Chamberlain.”

Lily hid her face against Hugh’s shoulder as well-wishers stampeded toward them. Olivia went right to Tammy. “I’m so happy for you,” Olivia said. “But when . . . how . . . ?”

“Oh, Livie, I wanted to tell you, but Clarisse was so against us being together. We thought if we got married and then told her, she’d have to accept it. But Clarisse died at the very worst moment. . . . I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. Hugh was worried about how it might look if we announced we’d gotten married the same day his mother died.”

“The same day?” So the argument she and Maddie had heard from Tammy’s bathroom when they’d announced their “engagement” had really been about revealing their marriage.

“Looking back,” Tammy said, “I wish I had told you. It would have cleared everything up more quickly and without . . .” She nodded toward the ruined antiques cabinet, lying splintered on the floor like the body in a murder mystery game.

“What you’re saying,” Olivia said, “is that you and Hugh had alibis?”

“Ironclad. Some of Hugh’s friends in Baltimore witnessed our marriage and then gave us a party. We stayed with them that night. We’ll have a real honeymoon later, of course.” Her eyes strayed toward Hugh. “We’re thinking we might take Lily with us. She has lost too many mothers; she needs stability.”

Our little Tammy is growing up. Olivia could almost hear those words coming from Maddie’s mouth.

Hugh, Tammy, and Lily left a few minutes later, followed by Mr. Willard and Bertha, then Ellie and Jason. Maddie and Lucas retired to the kitchen to clean up. Which left Olivia and Del. They settled into the nook armchairs.

Del refilled their wineglasses and answered her last few questions. “Roberta traced the disconnected phone number on Faith’s note. It led her to a small apartment, rented up until a month ago by Faith Kelly. She’d never reported Jasmine missing, probably to avoid losing Lily. Faith must have lived in fear while she raised Lily as her own.”

“But how exactly did Edward kill Clarisse?”

Del paused before answering. “He snuck into the house after rushing home from Baltimore and was careful to make sure that Bertha didn’t see him. He found his mother’s pills before heading up to her study. He confessed that he was trying to convince her not to go to the police with what she knew but he was sure it was useless, so he’d begun crushing up her pills into the wine he was pouring for her. Clarisse was pacing and too upset to notice.”

“Poor Clarisse. At least now her granddaughter is back with her family and Clarisse can be at peace. Thanks for keeping me in the loop.” Olivia sighed as the weight on her chest and the knot in her stomach began to dissipate for the first time since her friend was killed. “I know you didn’t have to. Oh, but wait, what about Sam? And my car?”

“Edward was checking in at Chatterley Heights pharmacy, which is owned by Chamberlain Enterprises, when Sam dropped off the mail. He heard Sam boast about knowing what was in the letter Clarisse received from the private investigator she’d hired to search for Jasmine. Edward claims he only wanted to put Sam out of commission for a while, not kill him. Edward had dropped off a check for the bequest his mother had left the food shelf, and he had seen the decorated cookies Olivia delivered earlier. He moved fast once the whole idea occurred to him. He managed to swipe some cookies from the food shelf without being seen, then laced them with a high-powered insulin enhancer he’d taken from the pharmacy. He just wanted Sam to back off.” Del leaned toward Olivia. “On the other hand, I think he was trying to do some serious damage to you when he punctured your brake line. He recognized your car while you were gathering those cookie cutters from the Chamberlain house. He really viewed you as an outsider meddling in ‘family affairs.’ He was also still resentful of your close relationship with his mother.”

Del stretched out his legs and yawned. “So have I answered all your questions?”

“Actually,” she said, “I do have one more.”

“Fire away.” Del leaned his head back and closed his eyes.

Olivia drained her glass in one large gulp. The loss of her friend and her own near-death experience combined with all of the chaos she had endured suddenly made Olivia realize that she wanted something more in her life, maybe someone . . .

“So,” she began and then paused to clear her throat. “Maybe, when our respective injuries have healed, we should go on a real date sometime.”

Del’s face reddened a bit as he sat up and said, “Livie Greyson, it’s about time you asked me a question I can gladly say yes to.”