Cookies and Scream (A Cookie Cutter Shop Mystery) (18 page)

“Um, well . . .”

“Oh, Livie, was he really angry?”

“Not exactly.” Olivia slid off the desk and began to pace. “We haven’t quite gotten around to telling him about the letters.” Olivia heard a moan across the phone connection. “Does it really matter at this point? Cody hasn’t tried to contact me. We’ve been speaking with Mr. Willard, and he hasn’t heard any rumors that Greta was murdered, so I assume—”

“Well, you and Mr. Willard assume wrong.”

From her mother’s agitated tone, Olivia decided silence might be the wisest choice.

“Livie, I am standing at the door to the yoga studio, and I really, really need yoga, so I’ll say this quickly. I wish you had told Cody earlier about Greta’s letters. It would have looked so much better. You see, I have a good friend who volunteers at Chatterley Heights Hospital. I ran into her during my morning jog. She told me that Cody decided to check with the Howard County crime lab about whether Greta should be autopsied, and they urged him to transport her body to them immediately. They performed the autopsy last night.”

Uh-oh
.

“Apparently, it’s complicated, but there’s a chance Greta did not die from natural causes,” Ellie said. “That’s all I know except my friend said something about the police searching Greta’s house. She didn’t know if they’d already conducted the search, or if they were planning to do so.”

Maddie’s and my fingerprints are all over Greta’s house.
“Okay, Mom. Thanks for telling me. And don’t worry. My attorney happens to be in the next room, chatting with Maddie.”

“Ah, dear Mr. Willard,” Ellie said. “At least you are in capable hands.”

“We’ll be fine, Mom. Only just to be on the safe side, you might want to double up on those yoga sessions.”

“Exactly what I was thinking, dear.”

Chapter Fifteen

The Gingerbread House would reopen in one day, and Olivia felt more than ready. The store, on the other hand, looked as if a gang of sugar-crazed children had used it as a playground. There was serious cleaning up to be done.

Olivia stood in the middle of the cookbook nook, envisioning a new display design, when she heard the front doorbell ring. Since most of their customers knew the store was closed on Mondays, Olivia considered ignoring the bell and staying where she was. She began to sort through her latest shipment of cookbooks, which she had deposited on a side table. As Olivia scooped up an armful of books, the doorbell rang again. Maybe it was her mother. It wasn’t Maddie. Lemon-scented air had begun to drift into the cookbook nook, which meant Maddie was busy baking in the kitchen.

Olivia unlocked and opened the front door, half expecting her mother to tap-dance past her into the foyer. To her surprise, the visitor was the young blonde with the exotic first name—Desirée. She was dressed for the heat in khaki shorts that showcased her long, shapely legs. A tight, pale-blue tank top molded itself to her slender, yet curvy, upper torso.

“Hello, welcome to The Gingerbread House,” Olivia said. “The store is closed today, but you are welcome to come in for a visit, if you wish. Let me find a place for these cookbooks, and I’ll show you around.” She deposited her load on an empty display table near the cookbook nook entrance and hurried back to the main floor, eager for a chat with the young woman who had looked so familiar to Greta Oskarson. Olivia found Desirée gazing through the glass doors of the locked cabinet, where they displayed the more valuable vintage and antique cookie cutters. Desirée was so engrossed in her examination of the cabinet’s contents that she started at the sound of Olivia’s shoes on the tile floor.

“Oh, sorry,” Desirée said with a light laugh. “I’m just so fascinated by these old cookie cutters that I go off into a dream world, you know?” She offered her hand to shake. “I’m Desirée Kirkwood, by the way. I attended your cookie event last Saturday, but you probably wouldn’t have noticed me.”

As Olivia shook the slender, perfectly tanned hand and gazed into her violet eyes, she thought how hard it would be not to notice Desirée.

Desirée turned back to the cookie cutters and said, “This display makes me think of my mother and my grandmother. During the holidays, I used to sit on a stool in the kitchen and watch the two of them make gingerbread cookies. They didn’t have really old cookie cutters, like, you know, antiques or whatever. I think my grandmother used to have some old ones, but they were long gone by the time I came along. After that, I think she collected box tops or something and sent away for some cheap ones. I think those cookie cutters were too flimsy to make it all the way to antique, you know?” Desirée’s sneering tone implied that inexpensive plastic or box-top cookie cutters were invariably worthless, though Olivia knew that cutter collectors searched long and hard for that elusive 1970s-era plastic cutter of Snoopy sitting on a pumpkin.

With a shrug, Desirée said, “The cookie cutters didn’t really matter to me, you know? At that age, I just cared about the cookies. I mean what kid doesn’t?”

“I know what you mean,” Olivia said. “I was grown up before I became fascinated by the history and stories behind vintage and antique cutters.”

“Yeah.” Desirée nodded her head so vigorously that a curtain of long blond hair escaped from behind her ear and fell across her right eye. She swept it back with her index finger. Up close, Desirée looked older than she had during the store event. Olivia guessed her to be in her mid-thirties, despite her teenager-like manner of speaking. She was almost certainly a natural blonde. Olivia noted the roots, which ranged in color from pale to golden yellow, with some light brown mixed in. Those subtle variations in shading would be tough to create and maintain with dye.

“Say, I heard at your open house about some super-old cookie cutters that old lady collected.” Desirée clasped her hands together like an overexcited child. “You’re the one who’s supposed to be selling them off, right? Boy, would I ever love to see those. Are you going to, like, put them out on display or whatever?”

Increasingly, Olivia had the sense that Desirée was putting on an act. But why? Olivia had ceased to be charmed, but she pasted a smile onto her face and played along. “We haven’t yet decided how to handle the situation,” Olivia said. “The owner’s death has complicated matters. I believe the police are looking for her heirs.” Olivia had no idea if the police had even thought of searching for Greta’s heirs, or if there were any, but it was a good excuse for delaying the sale of her collection.

“Oh, of course, it’s so sad.” Desirée tilted her head and put on a mournful expression. “I saw her at your party, but I didn’t get to talk to her. Between you and me, she looked kind of old and tired. Maybe she sort of slipped away in her sleep?”

Olivia responded to Desirée’s probing question with a light shrug and a sad smile. Desirée’s expression shifted to neutral. She glanced at her watch, and said, “Well, if you do decide to show those antique cookie cutters, I’d really like to know about it. I’ll stop in again.”

“Do you live in the area?” Olivia asked. “I could put you on our email list.”

Desirée’s violet gaze darted sideways. “I’ll be around town for a while,” she said. “I like to come to Chatterley Heights now and then to shop at Lady Chatterley’s, you know? I just love their clothes.”

Lady Chatterley’s Clothing Boutique for Elegant Ladies was a popular destination for women of the wealthy variety. Olivia hadn’t pegged Desirée as a member of that elite shopping demographic, but she certainly had the figure to pull off even the slinkiest of Lady Chatterley’s silk gowns. Olivia could picture Desirée at one of the many balls Greta had attended. Perhaps there was a reason Desirée had looked familiar to Greta.

Maddie poked her head around the kitchen door. When she saw Desirée, she hesitated. Olivia sent the message, with a slight tilt of her head, that she wanted Maddie to join the conversation. Maddie nodded. She retreated into the kitchen and reappeared almost at once, carrying a plate of wildly decorated, daisy-shaped cookies.

“Hi,” Maddie said as she offered Desirée a cookie. “I didn’t get a chance to talk with you at the event on Saturday. I wanted to tell you how much I coveted that gorgeous outfit you were wearing. Although you looked much better in it than I would.”

Desirée waved a dismissive hand. “Naw, you’d look terrific in that dress. I’m too scrawny, or that’s what my mother always used to tell me. You’d fill it out better.”

“That’s one way of putting it.” Maddie put the plate of cookies on a nearby display table, within reach.

“Maddie is my business partner, and she’s also the baking genius,” Olivia said. “Maddie, this is Desirée Kirkwood. She has been asking about Greta’s cookie cutter collection.”

“Cool,” Maddie said. “Do you live nearby?”

Desirée shrugged. “I move around a lot for my job. I was in the area, so I crashed your event on Saturday. Fabulous cookies! Do you ever make cookies with really old cookie cutters . . . you know, like super-antique ones?”

If Maddie was caught off guard by the question, she hid it well. “My cutters do start to look like antiques from constant use, but no, I don’t use the really old ones. They can be fragile.”

“Yeah, they’re probably too valuable to risk breaking them or something, right?” When Maddie didn’t answer, Desirée added, “Well, anyway, these cookies are great, and I loved all those interesting foreign ones you served on Saturday.”

“I hope you had a good time,” Maddie said. “You seemed to be getting along well with Olaf Jakobson.”

Desirée snorted in derision. “That arrogant old jerk? I can spot his type a mile off. Thinks he can casually mention how rich he is, and women will throw themselves at him. Guys like him get really riled when a woman turns them down, so I played nice and made myself scarce.” Once again, Desirée checked her watch. “Well, I’d better let you get back to work. I’ll stop by again, before I leave town, to see if you’re going to sell that collection. It might be fun to find a cookie cutter or two that remind me of my mom and grandma, you know?” Desirée glanced back at the antiques cabinet. Her shrug implied the contents weren’t all that important to her. She spun around and headed toward the front door before Olivia could renew her offer to add Desirée’s name to the store’s mailing list.

In silence, Olivia and Maddie watched through the large front window until they saw Desirée walking across the Gingerbread House porch. As Desirée bounced down the front steps, Maddie said, “That was an interesting little interlude. I wonder what she really wanted.”

“I could hazard a guess,” Olivia said. “To start with, I suspect she is a lot smarter than she wants to appear. She was really pouring on the young dumb blond stuff.”

“Didn’t your mom think Desirée is about our age?” Maddie asked. “She sure doesn’t act like it. Did you notice how she slipped out of character now and then?”

Olivia nodded. “Before you came out of the kitchen, Desirée was pumping me for information about Greta’s collection. I’m wondering if she has some personal interest in it. Or maybe she is a collector pretending to be ignorant.”

Maddie shook her head. “I could see Desirée’s face when she took that last look at the cookie cutters in our cabinet. I think her interest is personal. For just a split second, she looked like she was going to cry.”

*   *   *

O
livia pushed the “start” button for the dishwasher and began to fill the kitchen sink for the few items that required hand washing. “Need any help decorating those cookies?” she asked Maddie, who was sliding a pan of cutout cookies into the oven.

“I’m mostly just baking now.” Maddie set the timer and began to gather up the cooled cookies, which she packed carefully in two covered cake pans. As she stowed the second pan in the freezer, she said, “We have plenty of decorated cookies to last us a while, even if we suddenly have busloads of customers. The ones I’m freezing should supply us for the rest of the week. We can decorate those when we need them. So now we should add some serious computer research to our agenda, or we’ll never figure out who helped Greta Oskarson to her grave. I realize the actual cause of Greta’s death is confusing, but I think someone got the process started. I want to find that someone.”

“As do I.” Olivia sank onto a kitchen chair. “I feel bad about Cody, though. I like him, and I know Del thinks he has what it takes to become a good sheriff, but he needs to make quicker decisions. As you said, it’s a confusing case, and I suspect Cody is trying too hard to do everything right.”

“I have an idea,” Maddie said. “What if we figure out who is responsible for setting Greta’s demise in motion, and then we somehow hand the pertinent information over to Cody? Was that applause I heard?”

“Actually, the timer for the oven just dinged,” Olivia said.

“Close enough.” Maddie grabbed an oven pad and rescued the cookies before they browned too much.

“I’m not sure how we would accomplish your plan, but I like the thought.” Olivia opened the lid of her laptop. “I’ll fire up the computer.”

“Goodie!” Maddie clapped her hands. “It’s about time.” But before the screen had finished waking up, a raucous buzzing sound in the kitchen signaled that someone was leaning on the front doorbell. “What wretched timing,” Maddie said when the irritating noise finally stopped. “Well, maybe it’s your mom. We can bring her back here to help.”

“I’ll check.” Before Olivia had reached the kitchen door, the buzzer went off again. It occurred to her that her mother would never press the front doorbell with such indelicate force. Olivia was glad she had left Spunky snoozing upstairs in her apartment; she had a feeling their visitor was the sort who might send Spunky into a protective yapping fit. Calliope Zimmermann came to mind. A second later, Olivia knew she had wronged Calliope. She saw the impatient visitor’s figure through the large front window that provided a view of the store’s front porch. Olivia pretended she hadn’t seen Olaf Jakobson’s face glaring in at her, but she knew he had seen her, so she had no choice. She had to answer the door.

“Most businesses are open on Mondays,” Olaf said. “Most businesses know they need to keep their customers happy.”

Olivia ignored his snide tone. With a faint smile, she said, “May I help you, Mr. Jakobson?”

“I’m here to buy a cookie cutter,” Olaf said. “Money is no object.”

Olivia tightened her lips to keep from laughing. “Cookie cutters tend to be affordable for most people.” She could tell that Olaf wasn’t planning to give up and leave, so she stepped aside to let him enter the foyer. Olaf was a tall man, on the husky side. Olivia had to move quickly to avoid being knocked backward as he pushed past her into The Gingerbread House.

“That isn’t the type of cookie cutter I have in mind.” Olaf planted himself in the middle of the sales floor with his back to Olivia. “I want the kind of cookie cutter that isn’t affordable for most people, and I’ll need it at once, gift wrapped. Show me what you’ve got. Better yet, just pick an expensive one and wrap it right away.” When Olivia didn’t rush to do his bidding, Olaf turned around and scowled at her. “I’m in a hurry, and I’m not accustomed to waiting.”