Cookies and Scream (A Cookie Cutter Shop Mystery) (15 page)

“Just these two, as far as I can tell,” Maddie said. “What are you thinking?”

“We need to read them all, and this might be our only chance to get our hands on them. The boxes aren’t very big, but I’d rather not risk being seen carting them away. Any idea how we might sneak the letters out of here?”

“Sure,” Maddie said. “I’ve got a bunch of covered cake pans in my trunk. If we’re seen, it’ll look like we were bringing early morning treats to leave at Greta’s door. I’ll go get a couple pans, while you get the letters ready. I found some string around here somewhere. Here it is.” Maddie handed over a ball of wound twine.

“I’ll put a few items inside these boxes,” Olivia said. “It might raise questions if we leave them empty. It’s obvious that Greta got rid of her boxes as soon as she unpacked them.”

“Greta was obsessively neat, so I suppose we should be obsessively careful,” Maddie said.

Olivia took a handful of letters from the box and frowned at them. “You realize it’s totally outrageous of us to walk off with these private letters.”

“Yeah, not to mention illegal and highly suspicious,” Maddie said. “It would spoil our fun, but should we leave the letters here?”

Olivia closed her eyes and tried to think. Rationality told her to leave the letters and get out. If Greta’s death had been treated as suspicious, she wouldn’t think twice about staying on the sidelines. “I don’t have an airtight rationale for taking these letters,” Olivia said. “But I have such a strong feeling that Greta was murdered. How, I don’t know. Why is unclear, too, but she certainly had a few enemies. Her return to Chatterley Heights seemed to rile up some old resentments, and maybe one of them was strong enough to trigger a confrontation. I’m counting on these letters to give us some background. If there’s nothing suspicious in them, I’ll let it go.”

“It’s ironic, isn’t it . . . Is ironic the right word?” Maddie’s freckled cheeks bunched as she frowned in concentration.

Chuckling, Olivia said, “I won’t know until you tell me what ‘it’ is.”

“Cody. We were so sure he’d go off on wild police chases to prove himself as a cop, but instead he accepted the emergency room doctor’s first explanation of Greta’s death. That kid isn’t suspicious enough to be a good cop.”

“Don’t be too hard on Cody,” Olivia said. “I’ll bet Del would have done the same, although he probably would have waited for the autopsy results before saying anything.”

“Do we know if an autopsy is being done?” Maddie asked.

“I assume so, unless . . . Let’s try to find out.”

“I can do that,” Maddie said. “I got on well with that poor, befuddled ER assistant, Bill, plus he owes me for the nonexistent injury to my foot.”

“But you should wait a bit,” Olivia said. “If it turns out that Greta was actually murdered, you’ll have drawn even more attention to yourself.”

“You never let me have any fun.”

“Let’s pack up these letters and get out of here,” Olivia said.

“I’ll be right back with the cake pans.” Maddie paused before heading down the attic staircase. “Livie?”

“Hm?”

“I wish Del were here.”

“I know,” Olivia said. “Me too.”

Chapter Thirteen

When Olivia’s cell phone alarm buzzed at nine a.m., she shut it off and pulled the covers over her head. Her early morning adventures with Maddie, first at the emergency room and then at Greta Oskarson’s house, had taken a substantial chunk out of her night. In fact, they had taken most of her night. After a fitful fifteen minutes, however, Olivia conceded that she was too agitated to rest any longer, so she got up.

Olivia’s first and most urgent order of business was taking Spunky for a walk. He had been cooped up and abandoned during much of the night; he would want payback, which meant a long, rambling exploration of the park and a variety of side streets, with stops to greet all his favorite fire hydrants. Olivia allowed her pup his heart’s desire. Olivia used the time to think about the previous night’s adventure and plan her day.

Olivia felt excited, curious, and squeamish as she thought about the stack of letters that waited on her kitchen table. No doubt about it, she and Maddie should not have taken Greta’s correspondence from her attic. In the glare of daylight, her reasons for doing so seemed contrived. Olivia had no solid reason to suspect Greta had been murdered. As far as Olivia knew, the emergency room doctors had found nothing suspicious. Would there be an autopsy? Time would tell. Meanwhile, she had the letters and no covert way of returning them, so she might as well skim through them.

When they’d finished their walk and returned to the apartment, Spunky plunked down on the kitchen floor to rest. Olivia luxuriated in a coolish shower before slipping into fresh shorts and a comfy T-shirt. A rejuvenated Spunky awaited her outside the bathroom door and trotted behind her into the kitchen.

“We’re running low on kibbles, Spunks,” Olivia said as she measured food into his bowl. “Remind me to put it on the list.” Spunky’s fuzzy little face disappeared into his bowl. Olivia fixed herself a large, strong pot of Italian roast. While Mr. Coffee finished his brewing cycle, Olivia scrambled and ate her one remaining egg. She really needed to start a grocery list. She loved to plan, but for some reason grocery lists failed to interest her.

“Sorry, that’s all for now,” Olivia said to her pup, who was staring into his empty bowl as if he were willing it to refill itself. “We’re going to work in the living room. Or rather, I’ll work, and you may snooze.” Olivia broke a Milk-Bone treat in half. “Come on, boy.” Spunky abandoned his empty bowl and followed his treat into the living room.

When Olivia tossed the Milk-Bone into the air, Spunky leaped for it. “Oh, well done, Spunks,” Olivia said as he caught the treat in his teeth. She threw the remaining piece across the living room, and the little Yorkie sprinted toward it. After his morning workout and a meal, Spunky was ready for a nap. He jumped up on the sofa and snuggled into a corner.

Olivia removed Greta Oskarson’s letters from the covered cake pan, and piled them on her living room coffee table. She sorted out any letters written in a language other than English, which accounted for more than about half the envelopes. Olivia’s task would not take nearly as long as she’d thought. She stored the non-English envelopes in one cake pan, which she slid on top of her refrigerator as if it contained cookies. After freshening her coffee, she returned to the living room sofa.

Olivia started sorting the remaining envelopes by year, creating one pile for each year. The earliest legible postmark she could find was dated 1968. The letter would have arrived after the death of Greta’s first husband, the count who drowned after falling off their yacht. Olivia resisted the impulse to read the letter immediately. The next earliest date was five years later, 1973. By 1976, Greta was receiving at least one letter a year from English-speaking correspondents, and often three or four more. Olivia wondered if Greta had kept only selected letters.

Olivia paused when she recognized Clarisse Chamberlain’s handwriting. Torn between curiosity and sadness, she placed the envelope on the table without opening it. Olivia still missed her friend and their long talks. Clarisse had been forthright and insightful. Olivia was quite curious about what she’d had to say to or about Greta. However, organization first.

As Olivia picked up the next envelope, her cell phone rang. She glanced at the caller ID, and answered. “Hey, Maddie, are you up?”

“I’m up, as well as down . . . downstairs in the foyer, that is. I am holding a large pizza with everything, so hightail it down here and let us in.”

“Us? Do you mean you and the pizza?”

“Okay, the three of us: me, the pizza, and Ellie.”

“You brought my mother along?” Olivia groaned as she flopped back against the sofa. “I thought we were keeping this whole episode between the two of us.”

“Well, it’s the three of us now. Or the four of us, actually. I discussed everything with Aunt Sadie this morning. Trust me, Aunt Sadie and your mom will be really helpful, and both of them can keep stuff to themselves. If Aunt Sadie weren’t in a wheelchair, I’d have brought her along, too. However, I promised I’d call her if we need any incisive insights. Come on, Livie, let us in. Cold sausage and pepperoni are not appealing.”

“Oh, all right.” Olivia closed her phone with more snap than usual. However, she had to admit that her one-egg breakfast was long gone. “You stay where you are,” Olivia said to Spunky. “I’ll be right back upstairs with two of your best buddies.” Either Spunky understood her every word, or he was too drowsy to respond. Olivia made her escape quickly, before he realized she was leaving the apartment.

Ten minutes later, the three women settled on Olivia’s sofa with plates of pizza and a roll of paper towels. Spunky yapped happily at Maddie and Ellie before he snuggled between them for part two of his nap.

“I suggest we finish eating before we get to work,” Ellie said. “We don’t want to drip tomato sauce on these letters. It wouldn’t look good.”

“It won’t look good to who?” Olivia asked.

“Whom, dear,” Ellie said. “It won’t look good to whom.”

“Whatever.” Olivia took an extra big bite of pizza.

“If these letters are as important as we think, we will have to turn them over to the police.” Ellie selected a second slice of pizza, a narrow sliver with very little meat. “I see you’ve organized the envelopes by date, Livie. That takes me back to your childhood. You used to arrange your stuffed animals by size, the largest in the middle, the next largest on either side, and then smaller and smaller ones fanning out like wings. So artistic.”

“And obsessive-compulsive,” Maddie said.

Olivia took revenge by snagging the largest remaining slice of pizza.

Ellie unfolded her small, slender body and stretched. “I feel nourished and refreshed,” she said. “I’ll wash my hands while you two finish eating. Then I want a look at those letters.”

“I’m full,” Maddie said, “and tingling with curiosity. Let’s get cracking.”

Olivia felt guilty about usurping the big slice of pizza, but it didn’t stop her from finishing the entire piece. She hadn’t realized how hungry she was. After gathering up the empty pizza box and plates, she headed for the kitchen. Maddie followed.

“I’ll get Mr. Coffee up and running,” Maddie said. “I don’t suppose you have any cookies lying around? I promise not to drop buttery crumbs on the evidence.”

“As it happens, I froze a whole batch of lemon cutouts before I left on vacation. You know, in case I needed a midnight binge after the drive back. They aren’t iced, of course; I sprinkled sparkling sugar on them before I baked them.” Olivia reached into her freezer and dug out a covered cake tin. “The cookies will take a while to thaw.”

“I like them frozen,” Maddie said.

By the time Olivia and Maddie returned to the living room with trays of coffee and cookies, Ellie was already engrossed in one of Greta’s letters.

“Not fair, Mom,” Olivia said. “You could have waited for us. Reading those letters was my idea, after all.”

“Yes, dear, and I’ll remember that when we are arrested for possessing stolen property.” Ellie selected a bunny-shaped cookie with purple sprinkles, nibbled off the tip of an ear, and returned to her reading. Olivia rolled her eyes toward Maddie, who smirked.

Olivia flopped onto the sofa. “Okay, Mom, how many letters have you already finished and what did they say?”

“Hm?” Ellie’s eyes remained focused on the pale gray sheet of stationery in her hand. Her other hand held her cookie in the air, as if the bunny were reading alongside her.

Olivia plucked the cookie from her mother’s hand. Ellie’s head snapped toward her hand, then to her cookie in Olivia’s hand. Ellie’s hazel eyes narrowed, a danger sign that her daughter remembered well from her childhood. She was prepared. When her mother’s small hand shot out to snatch the cookie, Olivia whipped it out of reach. “Talk,” Olivia said, “or you’ll never see your bunny again.”

Ellie shifted to the lotus position, closed her eyes, and took several long, deep breaths. She opened her eyes and smiled. “Ah, much better. Now Livie, if you wanted to know what I’ve learned from this letter, you only needed to ask.”

“I did ask. You ignored me.”

“Oh.” Ellie’s forehead puckered. “I must have been too absorbed to hear you. Ah well, I shall work on improving my awareness of my surroundings. Now, about this letter . . .” Ellie retrieved the gray paper. “It is written in English, but the syntax is odd. More Germanic than English, I think, though I haven’t your gift for languages, Livie. You got that from your father. He was able to decipher entire bird conversations.”

“Yes, Dad was awesome,” Olivia said. “Now, about that letter . . . ?

“This letter is signed ‘Gerhard,’ Ellie said. “That’s all, just a first name. At least, I assume it’s a first name. Anyway, it sounds German to me, although I suppose it could be Scandinavian.”

“Ellie, I’m perishing of curiosity,” Maddie said. “What does the letter actually say?”

“Well, it reads like sort of an angry love letter. Hopeless love, that is . . . and very, very angry.” Ellie twirled a lock of long, gray hair around her index finger. “It’s such a shock when someone turns out to be so very different from the person she appears to be.”

Olivia wished she’d snatched the letter, rather than the cookie, from her mother’s hand. “Agreed, Mom, but what does the letter—”

“I’m getting to that, Livie. Give me a chance.” Ellie skimmed through the letter again. “It begins rather abruptly by telling Greta to be patient, that her gift is on the way. That seems an odd way to offer a gift to a lady, which is why I sensed anger. Maybe Gerhard sent Greta a gift right before she broke it off with him, and there was no way he could stop it from arriving. Then there’s more about how valuable the gift is, and he hopes Greta is happy with it. So odd to harp on the value of a gift to a loved one. Usually one emphasizes the sentimental value.”

“Maybe Greta wasn’t really a ‘loved one’ to Gerhard. Can I see that?” Olivia held out her hand, and her mother gave her the letter. “You’re right, this reads oddly. German isn’t my language, but I don’t think this phrasing results entirely from syntax issues. There’s some odd word usage, too. Listen to this: ‘
I trust the value of this trinket will be of satisfaction to you. And that it will be the end of the matter.
’ It sounds a bit . . .”

“Like code!” Maddie bounced on the sofa and clapped her hands before grabbing two more envelopes.

“I was going to say it sounds a bit formal, not what you’d write to a loved one,” Olivia said.

“Here’s another one.” Ellie waved a sheet of blue paper. “This letter says, ‘I am enclosing the item you desired so much. Though I assume I will never hear from you again, yet a part of me does not regret our time together.’”

“I might have one like that, too,” Maddie said as she skimmed a page of crisp, white stationery. “Listen to this: ‘Words cannot express my disappointment and my feeling of betrayal. You had only to ask, and I would have given you anything. Nevertheless, I am sending, under separate cover, the gift you crave.’”

“There’s a distinct theme in these letters,” Olivia said. “It sounds to me as if the mysterious Greta Oskarson obtained her considerable wealth from more than just a series of wealthy husbands. I suspect she was also a prolific blackmailer.”

“Ooh, blackmail,” Maddie said. “Now things are getting interesting.”

“Our visit to the ER wasn’t interesting enough?” At once, Olivia wished she hadn’t opened her mouth.

Ellie’s eyes widened. “The emergency room? Why? What happened? I thought you called 911 for Greta. Are you two all right?”

“It’s nothing, Mom. We’re fine.”

Ellie sprang off the sofa and glared down at her daughter. “Olivia Greyson, you told me all you did when Greta called was to call 911. What else happened last night? Tell me at once.”

“Oh, all right, Mom, but we’re wasting time. I went to the emergency room because . . . well, Greta’s phone connection went dead while I was talking to her, and I didn’t know what had happened. So I called 911 and then hopped in my car. I heard the ambulance and followed it to the emergency room. I kept trying to get an update from the nurse or receptionist or whatever she was. She stonewalled me, never mind I was the one who called 911. I wasn’t a relative.”