One Dead Cookie (25 page)

“Okay, but if the hammer you found this morning turns out to be the murder weapon,
wouldn’t that clear Wade Harald? Obviously, Wade couldn’t have whacked the band shell
this morning because he was in custody. Right?”

Del ran his fingers through his hair, a sign of frustration. “Livie, I wish it were
that simple. Wade might have tossed it away after the murder. Maybe someone else found
it, wanted to turn it in, but didn’t want to get involved. Or the hammer we found
might not be the murder weapon. And you might want to consider that someone left that
hammer at the band shell to create reasonable doubt about Wade’s guilt.” Del rolled
his shoulders in circles as if they felt stiff.

“You mean someone like Stacey Harald?” Olivia asked. “You think she sneaked out of
Mom and Allan’s house in the wee hours to plant that hammer?”

Del paused before answering. “Livie, I know you’re worried, but I promise you, we
are covering every angle. It’s just that…well, there’s no point in speculating until
we learn if the hammer we found is the murder weapon. Then we’d have to check alibis.
However, thanks to you and Spunky, we are closer to knowing when that hammer was delivered
to the band shell. You can understand why I don’t want anyone to get wind of—”

“I gave my word, Del, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Okay, then.” Olivia grumpily pushed aside her plate with the leftover whole-wheat
toast.

Del chuckled and snatched her hand again. “And thank you,” he said.

“For what? Doing my duty as a citizen?”

“That, too.” Del pulled her across the table for a good-bye kiss, longer this time.
“And for covering breakfast for me.” He slid out of the booth and into his uniform
jacket. “I’m sorry, Livie. I know I invited you, but I’ve been so busy, I haven’t
had time to get to the bank.”

“And you don’t use a credit or debit card,” Olivia said, “for reasons I’ve never understood.”

“Too easy to overspend. My salary isn’t great, and I’m afraid I don’t have your head
for math,” Del said with a sheepish smile.

“Jerk,” Olivia said, a bit louder than necessary.

Del chuckled. “I love you, too.” He grabbed his uniform hat and disappeared into the
breakfast throng.

*   *   *

F
rom a block away, Olivia knew something was wrong at The Gingerbread House. The store
wasn’t due to open for at least forty-five minutes, yet she recognized a number of
Chatterley Heights citizens standing on the porch. Additional clusters of people milled
around on the grass and the sidewalk. Lenora Dove was holding court amid a group of
camera-toting strangers. Olivia hesitated. She didn’t see Maddie’s unmistakable mop
of red hair. She must be inside the store.

Olivia quickly changed her route, scooting across the grass between the Chatterley
Café and a small toy store
next door. To keep out of sight, she walked two blocks north, then turned east and
continued until she reached the alley that ran behind The Gingerbread House. Olivia
scanned the alley and saw no signs of activity. She sprinted to the store’s back door.
Luckily, Lucas had installed a new lock as well as a peephole for those times when
Snoopy Sam Parnell made one of his surprise visits to deliver an “urgent package.”

Olivia reached The Gingerbread House without interference. She slid her key into the
lock and pushed. The door shifted, opened a crack, and stuck. Maddie must have used
the old latch. Olivia knocked, hoping no one was lurking nearby in the alley. She
thought she heard a gasp from inside the kitchen.

“Maddie? Are you in there? It’s me, let me in.”

Through the open crack, Olivia heard a soft, frightened voice ask, “Livie?” It sounded
breathless, like Bertha when her asthma was acting up. “Livie, are you sure it’s you?”

“Absolutely certain.” Olivia heard voices nearby, perhaps from the side yard. “Bertha,
hurry, let me in. Someone is coming.”

“Oh dear.” Hands fumbled with the latch and the door opened.

Olivia slipped into the kitchen and slammed the door behind her. She turned to see
Bertha looking far from her usual cheerful self. Her red cheeks alarmed Olivia, who
remembered how precarious Bertha’s health had been before she’d lost sixty pounds.
“Sit down and take deep, slow breaths,” Olivia ordered as she pulled out a kitchen
chair. She gave Bertha’s shoulder a gentle push until she sank onto the seat.

“My goodness, you wouldn’t believe—” Bertha gasped for air.

“First, breathe,” Olivia said. “Then you can talk.” By now, she could hear voices
outside in the alley. She glanced back at the door and realized she’d closed the old
latch but had neglected to flip the new lock. The latch should hold, but she wasn’t
about to take the chance. The lock made a faint clicking sound as she secured it.
From the chattering outside, Olivia assumed someone had heard. Well, they’d have to
hack down the door to get inside the kitchen.

Olivia felt as if she’d wandered into a vampire movie. She pulled over a chair for
herself and said, “Okay, Bertha, you may now speak. What the heck is going on here?”

“Oh, Livie, it’s the strangest thing,” Bertha said. “Maddie and Jennifer and I were
restocking shelves, getting ready to open, you know? I looked out the window. For
no particular reason, you understand, just to admire the morning. We weren’t due to
open for over an hour, and with three of us there at one time, well, there wasn’t
any reason to go rushing about—”

Olivia began to regret giving Bertha permission to speak.

“—and anyway, there she was!” Bertha shuddered. “She was on the porch with her face
up against the window, staring right at me with that awful grin that makes her look
like the Bride of Frankenstein. I nearly fainted.”

“Whoa, wait a moment, are you talking about Lenora Tucker?”

“I certainly am,” Bertha said. “Or whatever her name is today. I thought I’d have
a heart attack right then and there. I guess I sort of screamed, and Maddie came running.
Then I looked back at the window, and there were more of them!”

“More…people?”

“If you can call them that,” Bertha said. “Leeches, that’s
what I’d call them. Horrible clingy things trying to suck our blood. They had cameras,
and they started flashing away right through The Gingerbread House window. Binnie
was there, too, with that skinny little niece of hers holding up a camera bigger than
she was. Maddie quick closed the curtains for the little window, but there’s no thick
covering for the big front window. Jennifer and I tried to find a sheet or something.
We finally gave up. We’ve been pretending to ignore them. The kitchen door to the
alley was locked, but I bolted it, too, because you never know what creatures like
that will do.” Bertha’s breathing began to slow down. Sharing her horror had weakened
its power.

Olivia was relieved to see Bertha’s color return to normal. “Why are they being so
persistent? What can they possibly want from us? And why don’t they just call and
ask like normal people?”

“They did,” Bertha said. “We found a million phone messages when we got to the store
this morning, so we turned off the message machine and let the dang thing ring its
silly head off. Those monsters finally gave up and came on over to the store, thinking
they’d just walk right in. They want to hound Stacey and her kids, that’s what they
want. Like the poor things don’t have enough trouble and strife. Lenora Tucker got
it in her head that you’d spirited them off somewhere. She convinced those ruffians
you must be hiding them in the store or maybe your apartment. I’m surprised they haven’t
scaled the walls and broken in.”

Olivia almost suggested boiling oil but censored herself in time. “Did you call the
police department?”

“All we got was a recording,” Bertha said with disgust. “We decided it wasn’t worth
bothering 911, as long as the locks held. Maddie said we should wait for you.”

Olivia sat next to Bertha and pondered what to do. The
first idea that popped into her head involved a cookie and a long nap with Spunky
snuggled behind her knees. It was a tempting course of inaction. With great reluctance,
she let the notion drift away. “Well,” Olivia said, “I guess we have about half an
hour to think of some way to get rid of them. I suppose it ought to be legal.”

With an appreciative laugh, Bertha said, “Don’t see why they deserve to be treated
with kid gloves. I didn’t say anything to Maddie because it isn’t my place, but I
learned a thing or two taking care of Clarisse’s two sons all those years. You know
I loved Clarisse like a sister, but she spoiled those boys. They got everything they
wanted. They’d beg and whine, and Clarisse would just give in. She knew she wasn’t
doing them any favors, letting them get so selfish and demanding. One day we had a
long talk about it. Clarisse decided to let me take over. From then on, those boys
had to get past me if they wanted something.”

“That was smart,” Olivia said, not sure where Bertha’s story was leading. “I’m guessing
you said no a lot more than Clarisse did?”

“You bet I did, and it was all for their own good, because I really did love those
boys.” Bertha went quiet for several moments, lost in her memories. A tentative knock
on the alley door brought her back.

Olivia looked through the peephole in the door. No one was there. She assumed it was
a reporter staying out of sight in hopes she’d open the door to check the alley. “It’s
nothing,” she said, to reassure Bertha.

“Anyway,” Bertha said, “that’s my long way of saying we’ve been hiding in this store
like skittish cats. Well, it’s time to bare our claws. We can’t let those vultures
control us.” Bertha slapped her plump knees. “They don’t have the right to keep us
from doing our jobs.” With an emphatic
nod of her head, Bertha added, “I can tell you, I’m in a mood to give those creatures
what for if they even try.”

Olivia was tired of hiding. She liked the idea of going on the offensive, but she
wished she had a clue what “what for” meant. “Vultures play by their own rules,” she
pointed out. “They will poke and prod and snap their cameras, hoping one of us breaks,
lets something slip. You and I and Maddie will probably hold up under the pressure,
but I don’t know Jennifer well enough to predict how she might react.”

“You let me handle Jennifer,” Bertha said. “I’ll give her a good talking-to and keep
an eye on her.”

According to the kitchen clock, The Gingerbread House was due to open in twenty minutes.
They couldn’t afford to stay closed for another day. Besides, the thought that Binnie
and her ilk could keep them trapped inside infuriated Olivia. “We’ll open on time,”
she said. “Bring the others in here right now. We’ll have a meeting to set the rules.
I’m counting on you to monitor Jennifer, but I realize the situation is unpredictable.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Bertha said. She sounded like a drill sergeant itching to whip the soldiers
into shape. Olivia imagined the consternation Clarisse’s spoiled sons must have felt
when they’d heard that tone and known the gig was up.

“I’ll leave a message for Del and Cody,” Olivia said. “And I do believe I’ll give
my mother a quick heads-up.”

*   *   *

P
romptly at nine a.m., Olivia unlocked the door of The Gingerbread House. Olivia and
Maddie were prepared to handle the main sales floor, while Bertha and Jennifer were
assigned to defend the cookbook nook. Olivia had brought an eager Spunky downstairs
to yap and nip at
heels. She intended to hold on to him for the entire ordeal. Once the press had crowded
into the store, she would lock the door to keep out customers, if there were any.
After that, they’d wing it.

“Places, everyone,” Olivia announced. She took a deep breath and opened the front
door of The Gingerbread House. To her relief, the first person to slip inside was
her mother, Ellie Greyson-Meyers, dressed in heels and a tailored suit. “Mom? What…?”
Spunky jumped out of Olivia’s arms, but it didn’t matter. No rabid throng of sensation
mongers surged through the door behind Olivia’s mother.

A sleek black ribbon held Ellie’s neatly brushed hair back from her face, transforming
her former-hippy hairstyle into a professional look. “Good morning, Livie, dear,”
she said. “I’ve been having a lovely chat with your eager visitors, but I’m afraid
quite a number of them decided they couldn’t stay any longer.” Ellie hooked elbows
with her daughter and spun her around to face the front window. Olivia nearly lost
her balance. Wielding remarkable strength for one so tiny, Ellie kept the two of them
upright. “Now you can understand why I wouldn’t let you take tap dancing as a child,
don’t you, dear?”

“Unfair,” Olivia said. “You caught me off guard.” She did a double take when she looked
out on the empty front porch. “I could have sworn I saw the press swarming outside.
How did you get rid of them?”

“You may not be aware of this, Livie, but I am a trained negotiator. While you were
living in Baltimore, poor little Chatterley Heights went through rather a bad patch.
Several new families had moved into town, you see. They were perfectly nice people,
but I’m afraid they, as well as their offspring, were rather openly critical of small-town
life.”

“I imagine that didn’t go over well?”

“You imagine correctly,” Ellie said. “Sadly, several school fights erupted, neighbors
squabbled…. So sad. Several of us brought in a lovely young man to train us in the
fine art of mediation.”

“I also imagine you were top of the class.”

“I was the only one who finished the class, dear.”

“Okay, but how did you convince the press to leave us alone? Although, not all of
them, I’m afraid,” Olivia said as Binnie and her niece Ned barged through the front
door. Lenora Dove lingered in the open doorway, gazing out at the departing press
vans.

“Oh, Bertha is more than equal to Binnie and Ned,” Ellie said. “As for the others,
I simply applied the art of negotiation, and they decided on their own that it would
be best to withdraw.”