A Cookie Before Dying (2 page)

Spunky sniffed at a nearby paper snowball. When a gust of hot wind shifted it, he leaped backward and yapped furiously.

“Spunky, hush. It’s Sunday morning. Sensible people are trying to sleep.”

Spunky pounced on the ball. Clutching it in his teeth, he growled and shook his head back and forth. As she crossed the lawn to join him, Olivia leaned down and scooped up one of the papers. She snatched the end of Spunky’s leash from the ground and looped it around her wrist so she could use both hands. The paper was so saturated with humidity, it made no crinkling sound as she smoothed it on her thigh.

“What fresh hell is this?” Olivia’s words hung in the still, heavy air. Spunky whimpered and skittered around her feet as she stared at the huge capital letters across the top of the notice:

Olivia reached into the pocket of her shorts, slid out her cell, and speed-dialed Maddie Briggs. Maddie answered on the second ring and, as usual, began chattering at once. “Hey, I was thinking, wouldn’t it be fun to have an early morning store event and serve breakfast cookies?”

“Breakfast . . .”

“Cookies, right. Like egg-shaped cookies, wavy slices of bacon, toast and sweet rolls and sausage links and coffee cups and—”

“Got it,” Olivia said. “Don’t forget the slices of cold pizza.” She had recently acknowledged her addiction to pizza for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and bedtime snacks. As of yet, she hadn’t determined whether any intervention was called for. “And empty merlot bottles,” she added. “They were all over my kitchen this morning.”

“Ouch, don’t remind me,” Maddie said. “So shall we bake today? We have that nice new freezer to fill, and I long to wield a rolling pin once more.”

“First, you need to get right over here and take a look at The Gingerbread House lawn,” Olivia said. “It might make you want to wield that rolling pin for another purpose.”

“Intriguing,” Maddie said. “What’s up?”

“Something odd and disturbing. You’ll want to read it for yourself.”

“Read? Did someone spray-paint naughty words on the grass? Read them to me. You can abbreviate if you’re embarrassed.” When Olivia hesitated, Maddie added, “Right now, Livie. As in this instant. I’m dying of curiosity here.”

Olivia brushed dew-limp hair off her forehead with the back of her hand. “Not spray paint. Paper. The lawn is covered with balled-up paper notices. I’m holding one of them. The two-word heading is ‘Sugar Kills,’ which ought to give you the general idea. And I bet I can guess who wrote it.”

“Charlene Critch, rhymes with—” A fierce round of Yorkie yapping drowned out Maddie’s voice.

“Spunky agrees with you,” Olivia said. “He is barking in the direction of the store next door. The store that is not the Heights Hardware.”

“Ah, The Vegetable Plate,” Maddie said. “Spunky is such a discerning little creature. Read me the rest of it.”

“Hm?”

“Charlene’s rant, Livie, what else does it say?”

“I think Spunky’s on to something,” Olivia said.

“Yes, we’ve established that. Now, I beg of you, read.”

“I thought I saw a light go on and off upstairs in The Vegetable Plate,” Olivia said. “Isn’t Charlene using the top floor for storage?”

“It’s six thirty in the morning. Charlene’s probably up there sharpening her fangs for a breakfast of raw rutabaga. Or maybe that’s where she keeps a secret stash of chocolate, or her printing press, or—”

“I don’t think so. Charlene’s car isn’t in her spot, and she lives fifteen miles out of town. Hush, Spunky,” Olivia commanded as she picked him up and tucked him into the circle of her arm. She unlocked the front door of The Gingerbread House and pushed the squirming dog into the foyer. Spunky spun around and leaped for the door, but Olivia managed to close it in time.

“Sorry, Kiddo, I’ll be right back.” As Olivia headed across the damp lawn toward the The Vegetable Plate, she realized her cell phone was squawking. “Maddie?”

“Who else would it be? What the heck is going on?”

“I’m sure you’re right and it’s nothing,” Olivia said, “but I’m going to peek through the display window of The Vegetable Plate, just to make sure everything looks normal.” Olivia glanced up at the top floor of the store and saw no lights. When she reached the front display window, she cupped her hands around her eyes and pressed her nose against the glass. The Vegetable Plate’s sales area occupied the former parlor of a modest Victorian summer home. Unlike The Gingerbread House, Charlene Critch’s store had no other windows scattered around the room, so Olivia could make out only the sales counter plus a few outlines of display tables.

“Maddie? Are you still there?”

“Waiting impatiently.”

“I can’t see much inside The Vegetable Plate. Maybe I imagined the light upstairs, or it could have been the sun reflecting off the glass. I’ll make sure the front door is . . .” The doorknob turned in Olivia’s hand. “Uh oh.”

“What does ‘uh oh’ mean, Livie? Livie?”

With a light push, Olivia opened the door a few inches.

“Livie, speak to me. Now.” Maddie’s voice seemed to leap out of the cell phone.

“Keep it down, Maddie. I’m betting Charlene forgot to lock her door. I’ll poke my head inside and take a quick look around. I’ll make sure everything is okay, don’t fuss. I’ll lock the front door on my way out.”

“Livie, don’t wander around in there alone. What if there’s a burglar inside, or a maniacal killer? At least wait for me, I’ll be right there.”

“Stop fretting. I’ll be fine.”

“I’m out the door, Livie. Don’t hang up.”

“Uh huh.” Olivia hung up. She eased open the front door and listened. Hearing nothing beyond the usual creaking associated with old houses, she entered and shut the door behind her. The store went pitch dark. Olivia remembered a light switch located to the left of the entrance. She felt for it along the wall and flipped on the overhead lights. Her hand closed around her cell phone as she took in the condition of The Vegetable Plate.

Charlene Critch was neat and precise, from her personal grooming to her store inventory. The Vegetable Plate exemplified a place for everything and nothing even slightly out of place. Not now, though. Right inside the front door, Olivia had nearly crunched several bottles of vitamin supplements tossed on the floor. On the wall behind the cash register, Charlene’s favorite poster—YOUR MOTHER WAS RIGHT: EAT YOUR VEGETABLES!—hung like a limp tablecloth from one remaining tack. A wall bookshelf, normally stuffed with health food cookbooks, was empty, its contents strewn on the floor, spines broken and covers bent.

The door to Charlene’s cooler stood wide open. Organic cheeses and ready-to-eat tofu sandwiches lay in a pile on the floor, as if someone had swept them out of the cooler in one movement. The cool air dissipated quickly in the hot room. Olivia reached out to close the door but changed her mind. The scene suggested a hurried, impatient search by an intruder who might have been careless enough to leave fingerprints.

Only one item appeared untouched—Charlene’s cash register. Had the intruder assumed the cash would be locked in a safe overnight? Or maybe cash wasn’t the motive for the break-in. Except there hadn’t been an actual break-in, had there? Olivia examined the front door lock and saw no damage. Either the intruder possessed a key or Charlene had left the store unlocked Saturday evening. Olivia tried to imagine Charlene forgetting such an important detail—or any detail, for that matter—and failed. Charlene loved The Vegetable Plate. Olivia thought about how she’d feel if she walked into The Gingerbread House one morning and found her beloved cookie cutters tossed on the floor and stepped on, her precious cookbooks and baking equipment ripped and smashed. Her heart would crumple. Impossible as Charlene could be, Olivia felt a surge of empathy for her.

Olivia flipped open her cell phone, intending to call Chatterley Heights’ sheriff, Del Jenkins. Hesitating, she listened to the store. Had she heard a sound coming from the hallway that led to the kitchen? The Vegetable Plate was smaller than The Gingerbread House, having only a few rooms downstairs and a dormer upstairs. The kitchen at the back of the store led out to a tiny, overgrown back yard.

There it was again. Olivia heard a faint click, like magnets catching as a cabinet door opens or closes. She shut the cover on her cell phone. If the kitchen was in the same chaotic state as the sales area, Charlene might be back there straightening up. Maybe she’d already phoned the sheriff.

To be on the safe side, Olivia approached the kitchen as softly as she could, sidestepping a trail of broken mugs that used to read, DRINK YOUR VEGGIES! Luckily, she had worn her running shoes. Not that she ran much in August. In the sweltering heat, not even her fetching little Yorkie could convince her to go for a jog.

The kitchen door was the type that swung in and out to facilitate carrying heavy, hot casseroles into the dining room and stacks of dirty plates back to the kitchen sink. Olivia nudged the door a fraction, enough to allow a peek into the kitchen. She could see a narrow swath across the room to the back door, which hung open. At first, she heard nothing. Maybe an animal had wandered inside and caused all this damage while hunting for food. No, only an animal of human height and dexterity could have ripped a poster off a wall and opened the cheese cooler. Besides, a hungry animal wouldn’t have left the cheese on the floor, neatly wrapped.

Olivia eased the kitchen door open wider to reveal a row of cabinets along the wall. No one was in sight, but now she could hear a faint shuffling sound. She inched the door farther, a millimeter at a time.

“
Damn
.” The whispered curse dripped venom yet was so soft that Olivia couldn’t tell whether the voice was male or female. If she could only get a glimpse of a foot or a shoulder . . .

“I’ll
kill
her.” This time the voice sounded male, but Olivia didn’t recognize it.

A crash, followed by the tinkling of broken glass, startled Olivia into backing away from the kitchen door too quickly. The door swung toward her, then back into the kitchen. Now Olivia was the one cursing to herself. She’d announced her presence to the intruder. He would either run away or barge through the door toward her, and it would happen fast.

Olivia backed aside from the swinging door while she flipped open her cell phone. She had the police department on speed dial, so she didn’t bother with 911. When the kitchen door didn’t move, she assumed the intruder had escaped out the back. By the first ring, Olivia had crossed the empty kitchen, glass crunching beneath her feet. She ran out the open door in time to see a man’s back disappear into a line of arborvitae.

“Chatterley Heights Police Department. Sheriff Jenkins speaking.”

It was the voice Olivia had hoped to hear. “Del, it’s me. There’s been a break-in at The Vegetable Plate. I just saw a man run through the back yard, heading north.”

“On my way,” Del said. “Can you describe the guy?”

“I only saw his back from a distance, but he looked and moved like a fairly young man. He was tall, I’d say, and slender, athletic. Dark hair. Jeans and a blue T-shirt.”

“How dark was his hair? How long was it? Was it shaggy? Neatly cut?”

Olivia closed her eyes and remembered the man’s hair lifting as he ran. “Dark brown, I’d say, not black. Professionally trimmed. It wasn’t really short, but not long and shaggy, either.”

“Nothing else?”

“Sorry.”

“Okay, I’ll send out an APB and be there as soon as possible. You stay in The Gingerbread House and I’ll come talk to you later.”

“Del, I’m—”

“I mean it, Livie. Sit this one out, okay?” The sheriff’s cell phone clicked off.

Too late for that. Olivia figured it would take Del no more than a few minutes to realize she couldn’t have seen the intruder run off if she’d been in The Gingerbread House—she didn’t have a view of Charlene’s back yard. Del would be irritated, but so be it. The two of them had been tiptoeing around each other in an almost-relationship since the previous spring, when Olivia had become embroiled in the investigation of her dear friend Clarisse’s death. She knew his concern for her was real, but could she help it if crime popped up right next door?

On her way back through The Vegetable Plate kitchen, Olivia left cabinet doors hanging and tried to avoid the broken glass. She’d already tampered enough with the scene, though for a good cause. She didn’t envy Charlene having to clean up the mess. Maybe she and Maddie could lend a hand; it might improve their relationship with her.

“OH. MY. GOD.” Charlene’s voice, petulant at the best of times, punched the air with such force that Olivia stepped backward. She crunched a pile of glass shards loud enough to be heard through the closed kitchen door. “What was that?” Charlene shrieked. “Oh my god, he’s still here.”

“Knock it off, Charlene, it’s probably Livie.” The swinging door opened, and Maddie appeared. “Wow.” She took in the emptied cupboards and broken glass. “Who won?”

Charlene pushed past Maddie. “Oh my God, did
you
make this mess?”