Cookies and Scream (A Cookie Cutter Shop Mystery) (2 page)

Chapter Two

Olivia awakened to sunshine, heat, and a phone ringing next to her ear. She groaned and slid her head under the pillow. When the ringing stopped, Olivia lifted the pillow. After a few seconds of reorientation, she remembered she was home from vacation and sleeping in her own bedroom, which was hot and way too bright. She had been so exhausted she’d neglected to adjust the air-conditioning or pull down the blinds.

Spunky lay curled at the foot of Olivia’s bed. He lifted his head, ears perked, and waited to see if his mistress was serious about getting up. When she turned on her side and closed her eyes, Spunky snuggled deeper into the covers.

The cell phone rang again. Olivia considered throwing it across the room, but that would require effort. She managed to fumble for her phone, flip it open, and mumble an irritable greeting, all without lifting her head.

“Livie? Sounds like you had a bit too much merlot last night.”

Olivia struggled to focus her mind. “Constance? That you?”

“That me,” said Constance Overton, sole proprietor of the Chatterley Heights Management and Rental Company. “You cut your vacation short, I hear.”

“Yes, I’m aware of that,” Olivia said. “How did you know?”

“You sound crabby, so I’m guessing you got in fairly late. To answer your question, several citizens reported spotting your unmistakable PT Cruiser this morning between two and five a.m.”

“I got back just after two.” Olivia attempted to sit up. She failed. “Did you wake me up to report that the entire town of Chatterley Heights knows I’m back? Am I supposed to be amazed? Or is this yet another attempt to punish me for stealing your boyfriend in high school, which, as you well know, I did not do.”

“
Really
crabby,” Constance said with her throaty laugh. “No, Livie, I did not call to torture you, though it’s always such fun. I have some information you will need quickly. We decided it wasn’t necessary to bother you on vacation, and Bertha didn’t want to leave you a note, in case . . . well, Bertha felt responsible for the store’s safety, since she was the last staff member to leave town. So she thought it more prudent, given the circumstances, to wait until she returned to town, rather than leave a note for you on the counter. However, you came home early, so the responsibility falls on my competent, yet shapely, shoulders.”

“Bertha? Information? Hold on a sec.” Suddenly, Olivia felt wide awake. She swung her legs out of bed so fast that Spunky yapped at her. “Constance, does your information have anything to do with cookie cutters? Specifically, a wall safe filled to the brim with amazing antique cutters I’ve never seen or even heard about before?”

For once, Constance sounded surprised. “You checked your safe in the middle of the night? Why? I mean, were you simply being cautious?”

“Hard to explain, and it doesn’t matter. Tell me what’s going on.” Olivia held the cell to her ear while she gathered clean clothes with her free hand.

“Long, yet fascinating story,” Constance said. “Have you had breakfast? No, of course not. I’m at Pete’s Diner. My meal hasn’t arrived yet. Get here in ten minutes; we can eat and talk.”

“Spunky really needs a run. He’s been cooped up in a car.”

“Well, run him through the park and over to Pete’s. I’m confined to a wheelchair, after all. Spunky can be my companion dog and sit on my lap.”

“Are you sure Pete will be okay with—?”

“Nine minutes and forty-five seconds. Step on it.”

*   *   *

O
livia arrived at Pete’s Diner in just under twelve minutes, after the world’s fastest shower and a run with Spunky through the town square. They had stopped only once, at the statue of the town’s founder, Frederick P. Chatterley, memorialized forever in an attempt to mount his patient horse. Frederick P., as the portly gentleman was called by affectionate and amused townsfolk, was a popular destination for the Chatterley Heights canine community.

Olivia held Spunky tightly against her chest as she entered Pete’s Diner. Pete had cranked up the air-conditioning to its highest setting. The welcome coolness swirled around Olivia, carrying the delicious scents of strong coffee, bacon, and freshly baked cinnamon rolls.

Constance Overton, lovely as ever, sipped coffee in her usual spot, which gave her the best view in the diner. Pete had installed a special table, higher and wider than usual, to accommodate her wheelchair. As Constance greeted Olivia with a regal nod of her head, a lock of wavy blond hair brushed her cheek. Constance looked cool in a pale blue silk blouse with short sleeves that revealed her slender, muscular arms. Her crystal-blue eyes held a hint of amusement as she watched Olivia struggle to hold on to five pounds of excited, wiggly Yorkshire terrier.

“There’s no need to crush the poor guy,” Constance said. “Pete has given permission for Spunky to sit with us, as long as he’s with me. So hand him over.”

“If you say so, but keep hold of his leash.” Spunky went eagerly into Constance’s arms and nestled on the soft shawl covering what remained of her lap after a serious automobile accident had taken her legs. As a real estate and business agent, Constance had become quite wealthy. Olivia wondered if she had investigated the possibility of prosthetic surgery to help her become more mobile, but she wasn’t comfortable bringing up the topic. Though the two of them had smoothed over their high school animosity and become friends, Olivia felt there would always be a distance between them. She wasn’t sure why.

Ida, a waitress at Pete’s Diner since well before Olivia was born, shuffled over to their table. “Heard you were up driving till all hours,” Ida said. “If your mother were in town, she’d have something to say about that.”

“My mom always has something to say,” Olivia said, “although I don’t always understand what she’s talking about.”

Ida rattled a cup and saucer on Olivia’s place mat and filled it halfway with coffee. “I’m not surprised. Kids never listen. They go off and do whatever they want. Next thing you know, they want to put you in a home, never mind you’ve been working for more than sixty years. You want your usual?”

“Um, sure,” Olivia said. “I’ll have the scrambled—”

“Scrambled eggs with cheese, two strips of bacon, and toast. My memory’s sharp as it always was. Kids. . . .” Ida shook her head vigorously, loosening a thin strand of iron- gray hair from her tightly wound bun. She ignored it.

As Ida trudged toward the kitchen, Constance grinned at Olivia. “I knew you’d never make it here in under ten minutes, so I told Ida to hold my breakfast until you arrived.” Constance reached into a leather pouch attached to her wheelchair and extracted a file, which she handed to Olivia. “Take a look at this,” she said. “It’s a partial list the owner sent me before her arrival in Chatterley Heights. The full list is in my safe. I will give you the original when we meet with her. I’ll keep a copy.”

Olivia wanted to ask who this mysterious “owner” was, but her interest in the cutters themselves got the better of her. She opened the file and began to skim through the first of several typed pages. They were mostly antiques, as far as she could tell from the descriptions. Someone must have done a great deal of digging to uncover the history of each cutter. Olivia spotted a listing for a German tin cutter in the shape of a thin-tailed heart. “I think I saw this cutter,” Olivia said, pointing to the listing. “She tried to get away when I opened the Gingerbread House safe, but I captured her. She’s hidden in a drawer. I managed to slam the safe door shut before the whole pack of cutters could escape.”

“My, my,” Constance said. “Cookie cutters are like little people to you, aren’t they? Rebellious little people, it seems.”

Olivia laughed. “They are usually quite well behaved, although I can’t vouch for their behavior when I’m not around.” Flipping to the second page of the list, she said, “Okay, so this is a long list of rare antique cookie cutters. They all originate in Europe, as far as I can tell. But there are many more cutters listed here than could possibly fit inside my little safe.”

“The rest of them are secured in the more substantial safe in my office,” Constance said. “I’m sure you realize how valuable these cookie cutters are.”

“Oh, I realize that all right.” Olivia felt light-headed with excitement. “Most are quite old, some more than two hundred years. I’ve read about similar cutters, but I haven’t heard that anyone has spotted them in decades. I assumed they had all been snatched up by private collectors. Apparently, I was right.”

Constance leaned across the table to see the list. She smiled when she saw where Olivia was pointing. “Bertha and I went through that whole list and put the most valuable items in my safe. That cutter was one of them.”

“Because your safe is so superior to mine?”

Constance grinned. “Now, now, this is not a contest.”

Ida arrived at their table and plunked down their breakfast plates. Olivia felt torn between avid curiosity and a growling stomach. Curiosity won. “Okay, Constance, put down the fork. What’s going on here?”

Constance’s laugh sounded rich and husky, with a hint of triumph. “This has been fun,” she said, “but I suppose I should take pity on you and spill the story.” She took a quick bite of her scrambled eggs before reaching back into her leather pouch for a manila envelope. “Chatterley Heights has a new permanent resident,” Constance said as she opened the envelope. “She arrived last Saturday, the very day you left on your vacation. Her name is Greta Oskarson.” Constance extracted a photo and handed it to Olivia.

While she nibbled a slice of bacon, Olivia studied the excellent photograph of an attractive middle-aged woman wearing an off-the-shoulder ball gown. The pale blue satin of the gown appeared to match perfectly with the woman’s icy blue eyes. “This is our new resident?” Olivia asked with astonishment. “Are you sure she came to the right place?”

Constance almost choked on her coffee. “It’s true, Chatterley Heights hasn’t hosted many fancy dress balls since the days of Frederick P., but I guarantee Greta came here on purpose. I asked her for a photo for my files. Greta insisted that’s the only one she could come up with on short notice. It’s about a decade old. At the time, she was married to Count Something-or-other. Her fifth marriage, she said. She’d started off with a count when she was eighteen, and I think there was yet another count somewhere in her marital history. Maybe two. I don’t know, I lost count of Greta’s counts. I really wasn’t terribly interested until she began to discuss her waxing and waning fortune. She appears to be fairly well off at the moment, since she was able to purchase a home outright. However, she worries about her financial future, probably because she experienced some rough patches in the past. Now Greta has come home to retire, which is where you—”

Ida materialized at the table, wielding a pot of fresh coffee. “Well, I’ll be,” Ida said as she snatched the photo out of Olivia’s hand. “That’s Greta Oskarson, all dolled up. She doesn’t look like that now, does she? If she’s smart, she won’t show up in here again. I might accidentally spill hot coffee on her.” Ida left before her startled listeners could ask what she meant.

“This just gets more and more interesting,” Constance murmured as she spread raspberry jam on her toast.

Olivia added cream and sugar to her coffee and settled back in her chair. “Okay, Constance, I think you’d better start at the beginning. Who is Greta Oskarson, and why would she want to retire in little Chatterley Heights instead of, say, the Côte d’Azur? Her name sounds vaguely familiar, but I’ve never seen her before, at least as far as I can remember.”

Constance polished off her toast and washed it down with coffee. “Greta left Chatterley Heights long before you were born. Greta’s name might seem familiar to you because Clarisse probably mentioned her. Greta would have been a few years older than Clarisse, but they bonded over their shared passion for cookie cutters. Both of them had become avid collectors.”

Olivia no longer winced at a casual reference to her murdered friend, Clarisse Chamberlain, but she still felt the loss. “So Greta grew up in Chatterley Heights? And she left at eighteen to marry a count?”

“Correct, more or less,” Constance said. “I think she ran off to Europe at eighteen and found her count after she got there. She was a bit vague about the order of events.”

“But . . . Clarisse would have been younger than eighteen, and I know for a fact she didn’t start collecting cookie cutters until her early twenties, after she married Martin.” Olivia picked up the photo and studied it. Greta Oskarson did not look the least bit familiar to her.

Constance opened a small quilted bag, decorated with embroidery, and withdrew a handful of bills. “Breakfast is on me. Business has been good lately. And I need to get back to it. I have a lot of work to do before the weekend; Saturday and Sunday are busy days for realtors.”

“Thanks for breakfast, Constance, but you can’t have told me the whole story about Greta and her cookie cutters. I want every last detail.”

As if on cue, Ida appeared again with her ever-present pot of coffee. She filled their cups and left without a single acerbic comment.