A Catered Christmas Cookie Exchange (A Mystery With Recipes) (18 page)

“That’s because Pearl’s nervous about the contest. She really wants to win it. She needs the money.”

“What about you?” Libby asked. “Do you need the money too?”

Lillian’s face darkened. “A hundred thousand would be nice,” she said. “I’m not going to deny it.”

“What would you do with the money if you had it?” Libby inquired.

“Move out to the country and raise alpacas,” Lillian said promptly. “Maybe get a few hens so I could have fresh eggs.”

“Is that why you were looking for Millie’s recipe book?” Libby asked. “So you could win?”

“I told you I wasn’t looking for Millie’s recipe book,” Lillian said.

“Then what were you looking for?” Bernie asked. “Her tax returns?”

“Anyway,” Lillian said, hitching up her pants, “I don’t need Millie’s recipe book to win.”

“Then what do you need it for? What were you going to do with it?” Bernie asked.

“You really want to know?” Lillian said.

“Yes, I really want to know,” Bernie replied.

“Fine, then. I was going to make sure that Amber didn’t find it. I was going to burn the dratted thing in my fireplace. But now I can’t, because it’s not here. What do you think about that?”

“Why would you do that?” Libby asked.

A red dot appeared on each of Lillian’s cheeks. “Amber shouldn’t be on the show baking Millie’s recipes—immortalizing them, if you will. Because the truth is Millie was a lousy baker. She thought she was so good and she wasn’t. No. Amber shouldn’t be on the show.”

“That’s the producer’s decision, not yours,” Bernie pointed out.

Lillian stamped her foot. “Well, she’s wrong.”

“You think you’re a better baker,” Libby asked quietly.

“Yes,” Lillian said, “I think I’m a way better baker than Millie. In fact, I’m probably the best of the whole bunch of them. I’m the only one who knows how to make puff pastry, and my chocolate cupcakes are better than anyone’s—and that includes the ones you sell at the shop,” she said, staring at Libby. “I could have been a professional baker too if I chose.”

“What stopped you?” Bernie asked.

“I don’t believe in doing things I love for money,” Lillian said.

Libby raised an eyebrow. “That’s an interesting point of view. Usually people are advised to do what they love and the money will follow.”

“That’s what I meant,” Lillian said. “For instance, I’m not in the contest for the money,” Lillian said. “Unlike Pearl. She’ll do whatever she can for a buck.”

“Like what?” Libby asked Lillian.

“Nothing illegal, if that’s what you’re getting at,” Lillian replied. “I just think it’s wrong to do things like work as a secret shopper so you can get people in trouble. That’s like being a scab for corporate America. She wouldn’t have to do things like that if she’d stop charging stuff. It’s a sickness. Pearl thinks that all the stuff she buys is going to make her happy, but it won’t. Material things never do.”

Bernie nodded. “Absolutely,” she lied, thinking of how unhappy she would be without Bloomingdale’s or Barney’s or Bergdorf’s. She guessed she was just shallow.

Libby was silent for another minute. Then she said, “How did you know that Pearl had Millie’s book?”

“I didn’t,” Lillian told Libby. “But when I picked her up to go to your place, I got out of my car to walk up and ring the doorbell and saw a page lying on her car’s seat.”

“You mean this page?” Bernie asked, taking it out of her bag and showing it to Lillian.

“Yes. That page. I recognized the handwriting. So then I knew.”

Bernie stifled a cough. She hoped she wasn’t getting sick. That would be, as her mother used to say, the icing on the cake. “So did you ask her about it?”

“Of course, I did,” Lillian responded.

“What did Pearl say?”

“She told me she’d sold the binder to Teresa.”

Bernie’s eyebrows shot up. “Teresa?” Of all the women in the Christmas Cookie Exchange Club, she was, in Bernie’s estimation, the most unlikely person to be involved in something like this. “You believed her?” she asked Lillian.

“What do you think?” Lillian sneered.

“I think you didn’t,” Bernie answered. “Otherwise, why would you be going through Pearl’s files? See,” Bernie continued when Lillian didn’t say anything, “this is why I get the big bucks.”

Now it was Libby’s turn. “So what were you going to do with the recipe book if you found it?” she asked, jumping to another line of questioning.

“I already told you,” Lillian said.

“Tell me again,” Libby said.

“I was going to burn it,” Lillian said. “Those recipes don’t deserve to live.”

“That’s a pretty strong statement,” Bernie said.

“But a true one,” Lillian replied.

“Did Millie deserve to live?” Bernie asked softly. If she’d hoped to get a reaction, she was sadly disappointed.

Lillian looked at her blankly and sniffed. “Let’s just say that, given her behavior in this life, I can’t believe her next one is going to be very pleasant.”

“That doesn’t answer my sister’s question,” Libby said.

“I think it does,” Lillian said. “If you studied the teachings of the Buddha, you would understand what I am saying.”

“What I think you’re saying is that you decided to help her out of this life and on to her next one,” Bernie said to Lillian.

“Now you’re just being stupid,” Lillian told Bernie. “Whatever Millie got she brought on herself,” she said, and with that she walked out of the office, got her coat, walked outside, and drove home.

“So what do you think?” Bernie asked Libby after Lillian had left.

“I think there was no love lost between her and Millie . . .”

“. . . or her and Pearl,” Bernie added.

“That’s for sure,” Libby said. “I definitely would not like to have Lillian for my friend.”

“Neither would I,” Bernie agreed. “What is it they say about friends not letting friends drive drunk? Lillian was the one who suggested the bourbon. She was the main one who kept on pouring it in Pearl’s teacup.”

“Well, it is easier to search someone’s house if they’re passed out,” Libby pointed out.

“It certainly is,” Bernie agreed. “I can’t believe we helped her carry Pearl down the stairs.”

“Me either,” Libby said indignantly. She was quiet for a minute, then said, “I wonder if Lillian disliked Millie enough to kill her?”

“Or if it’s one of the other ladies?” Libby mused.

“Baking as a blood sport,” Bernie mused. “It certainly would never have occurred to me.”

T
he house Amber was renting a room in, 2235, was dark, and there were no cars in the driveway when Marvin and Sean pulled up to it. They were in the hearse because Marvin’s car was in the shop.

“The place looks really run-down,” Sean observed as he studied the house.

“It looks as if no one is home,” Marvin said, coasting into the driveway.

“That’s because they’re not,” Sean said. “Bernie told me Amber’s roommates work the night shift at the hospital. If you can call it that,” he added. In Sean’s mind,
clinic
would be a more accurate term. Still, it was a good place to go if you had a broken bone or a high fever.

“So, then, why are we here?” Marvin asked. “Why don’t we go straight to the hospital?”

“Because Amber might be here,” Sean told him.

“Whew,” Marvin said, the word tumbling out before he could stop it.

“Meaning?” Sean said.

“Nothing, Mr. Simmons,” Marvin stammered.

“It sounds like something to me,” Sean said.

Marvin pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose with his thumb.

“You should really get those fixed,” Sean told him.

“I know,” Marvin said. “I keep forgetting.”

“So are you going to tell me what you were going to say?” Sean asked after a short pause.

“I’d rather not,” Marvin said.

“Why is that?” Sean asked.

Marvin looked down at the steering wheel. “Because it’s stupid, and you might take it the wrong way.”

“Tell me anyway,” Sean commanded.

Marvin blushed. Even in the dark Sean could see his skin turning darker.

“I just thought you were thinking of breaking in,” Marvin confessed.

Sean’s eyes widened in mock disbelief. “Me, a former officer of the law?” He laughed. “I’m appalled and shocked that you would think I would consider something like that. No. I leave things like that to my youngest daughter.” Then he reached over and gave Marvin a playful punch on his forearm. “Don’t worry, kid. The night is still young. We may get to do that yet.”

Marvin sighed. One of these days, he would learn to keep his mouth shut. He gestured to the house. “Since no one is home, can we go now?”

“You know what the first requisite of a good investigator is?” Sean asked Marvin.

“No. What?” Marvin said.

“It’s patience,” Sean said.

Marvin didn’t point out that that was a quality Sean had very little of. Instead, he asked what the plan was.

“Amber’s roommates get off their shift around six. Now, what I’m figuring is that first we’re going to get out of this deathmobile of yours and see if Amber is here. If she’s not, we’re going to take a walk around the premises and see if we can spot anything of interest.”

“Like what?” Marvin said, wishing he’d brought his gloves along, because his hands were cold now and it was chilly out there.

“I don’t know. That’s why we’re looking,” Sean told him.

“I’d think it would be helpful if we knew what we were looking for,” Marvin said. It was not, in his opinion, an unreasonable thought.

“Yes, it would be.” Sean shot Marvin an annoyed glance. “But unfortunately we don’t know. If we knew, we could go straight for it.” Sean took a cigarette out of the pack in his jacket pocket and lit it.

Marvin coughed and waved the smoke away. “Would you mind opening the window a little?”

“Sorry,” Sean said, doing as he was asked. “You know,” he said after he’d taken another puff, “when I was head of the LPD . . .”

“LPD?” Marvin asked.

“Longely Police Department. I would have sent four or five guys out on this detail, but now I’m a civilian and there’s just us chickens.”

“Do you miss it?” Marvin asked.

“Being the chief of police or being a policeman?” Sean asked.

“Both,” Marvin said as he watched the wind make the Christmas lights hanging on the eaves of the house next door sway.

Sean thought about his answer for a moment. Then he said, “I miss the sense of excitement and the feeling that I was helping people out. But I don’t miss the politics. I don’t miss those one single bit. Or the having to do what seemed right instead of what was right.”

“Libby said that’s why you lost your job, Mr. Simmons.”

“Did she?” Sean said, and he grabbed his cane, opened the door, and stepped outside. How he’d lost his job was a long, complicated story, one that he had no desire to share with Marvin now. The wind hit him, and he quickly buttoned up his coat.

By the time Marvin had turned the hearse’s engine off, put his collar up, exited the vehicle, jammed his hands into his pockets, and walked around to the passenger side, Sean had taken a last puff of his cigarette. He was extinguishing what was left of it under the heel of his shoe while he stood looking up at the second story of the house.

“I don’t see any movement in there,” Sean said. “Let’s knock on the door and see what happens.”

Which is what they did. No one answered. Sean tried again. There was still no answer.

“Amber could be a heavy sleeper,” Marvin suggested as he ducked his chin into his collar to keep out the wind.

“Not after this,” Sean said and he took his fist and pounded on the door.

There was no response.

“Amber, it’s Mr. Simmons,” he cried in a loud voice. “Come out. We need to talk.”

Still nothing.

“Well, if she’s inside, she’s definitely awake now,” Marvin said. “As are the neighbors.”

Sean looked around. He didn’t see anyone stepping out on their porch. “Maybe Amber just doesn’t want to come down and talk to us. Maybe she’s hiding in her bedroom,” Sean said as he rescanned the inside of Amber’s house for movement.

“At this point, I might be too,” Marvin observed.

Sean ignored him and tried the door. It was locked. “Drats,” he said to Marvin, “I left my lock picks at home.”

“Do you really have lock picks?” Marvin asked.

“What do you think?” Sean said as he opened the mailbox and took out its contents.

“Why are you doing that?” Marvin cried.

Sean shrugged. “Curiosity. Just junk mail,” he said after he’d gone through it all. But now he knew the names of the people who lived there.

“You do know that what you just did is a federal crime, don’t you?” Marvin informed him.

Sean grinned. “Then I guess you’d better not tell anyone, seeing as you’re my accomplice. Come on,” he told Marvin. “Let’s walk around this dump and see if we can see anything.”

“Like what?” Marvin demanded.

“I already told you, Marvin. Anything of interest,” Sean responded. “Who knows? Maybe Amber has her vehicle parked in the back. Maybe we’ll find the deer target there. Or a length of rope.”

“Do you really expect to find something like that?” Marvin asked.

“Well, we won’t know till we look, will we?” Sean responded in an exasperated tone.

Then he and Marvin walked around the house and peered in the windows on the first floor. All the lights were off, and they couldn’t detect any motion in any of the rooms.

“I just hope none of the neighbors report us to the cops,” Marvin muttered as they rounded the corner to the backyard. “Because if anyone looks suspicious, we do.”

Sean snorted. “I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. You worry too much. But if it’ll make you feel any better, no one is going to report us, because no one is going to see us. And you want to know why? I’ll tell you why,” Sean said without waiting for Marvin’s answer. “It’s because no one looks out their windows these days. No one pays attention to what’s happening around them. Everyone is too busy tweeting and texting and watching bad TV reality shows.
Ed Sullivan. I Love Lucy
. Now those were shows. Not the stuff that’s on the air now! Look what’s happened since
Baking for Life
came to town.”

“It hasn’t been good,” Marvin conceded.

“Not good?” Sean said indignantly. “It’s been horrible. And for what? Why did Millie die? Because someone wanted to win some stupid TV show, that’s why.” Sean poked Marvin in the shoulder with his forefinger for emphasis.

“So you don’t think it’s about money?” Marvin asked, rubbing his shoulder. For an old guy Sean was surprisingly strong.

“No,” Sean replied as he scanned the backyard. “I think it’s all about ego.” There was nothing of interest that he could see back here, just a coiled garden hose, a couple of chairs, and an old, rusted Weber grill that looked as if it had seen its last summer. “Okay,” he said to Marvin. “I think we’ve done everything we can do here. It’s off to the hospital.”

Marvin sighed in relief. At least it was warm in the hearse. On the way to the hospital Sean got a phone call from Libby. He was still mulling over the conversation when he and Marvin arrived at their destination.

“How are we going to find out where Amber’s roommates are?” Marvin asked as he parked in the almost-empty lot.

“Watch and learn, kiddo,” Sean told him. “Watch and learn. You are about to see a master at work.”

Marvin started to snicker, caught Sean’s look, and managed to stifle it. When they got inside, Sean looked around. The waiting room was empty.

“Slow night,” he said to Marvin before he walked over to the woman sitting behind the admitting desk. “Which for us is a good thing.”

Marvin noticed that the woman’s face lit up when she saw Sean.

“You’re not sick, I hope,” she asked him as he drew nearer.

“I’m not since I saw you,” Sean said, and she blushed. “You haven’t aged a bit, Adele.”

“Neither have you, Sean,” Adele said. She straightened the collar of her nurse’s uniform and cocked her head.

“You’re too kind, Adele.” Sean favored her with a brilliant smile, put his arms on the ledge, and leaned on them. “I was wondering if you could do me a favor.”

“If I can,” Adele answered.

“Wonderful.” Sean leaned in more and told her what he wanted. Marvin could see Adele’s head bobbing as she listened to what Sean was saying.

“I know this is a little irregular,” Marvin heard Sean say.

“No. No. No.” Adele giggled. “Not a problem. Not a problem at all. Especially since nothing’s going on here. Why don’t you wait over there”—Adele said, indicating some chairs up along the far wall—“while I page them.”

“You are my angel,” Sean said, and he blew her a kiss and sat down in one of the seats she had indicated.

Marvin followed him, his mouth open in astonishment. Sean looked at Marvin’s expression and laughed. “Didn’t think the old guy still had it, did you?”

“It’s not that,” Marvin stuttered. “I just . . .”

“Let me tell you something,” Sean said, cutting him off. “Never underestimate the power of charm. It works. It works on the young and the old. It works when other things don’t. They didn’t call me Sean the Smooth for nothing back in the day.”

“Did they really?” Marvin asked.

“No.” Sean laughed. “They didn’t, thank God. But I was pretty good.”

Ten minutes later, two of the three people Adele had paged walked into the waiting room. Sean got up and walked toward them.

“Who’s Mike and who’s Rudy?” Sean asked them.

“I’m Mike and he’s Rudy,” Mike said, pointing first to himself and then to Rudy.

“Where’s your other roommate?” Sean asked.

Mike shrugged. “She’s cleaning now. What do you want with us, anyway?”

“I’m Mr. Simmons, Bernie’s and Libby’s dad,” Sean said, introducing himself.

Mike clapped his hand over his mouth, “Oh my God,” he said. “It’s about Amber, isn’t it?”

“It certainly is,” Sean said.

“I told you we shouldn’t have done it,” Rudy said to Mike. “I told you it was a bad idea.”

“Shut up, Rudy,” Mike hissed.

“What’s a bad idea, Rudy?” Sean asked.

“Don’t tell him, Rudy,” Mike said.

“Why not?”

“Because we’re going to be in trouble.”

“You’re going to be in more trouble if you don’t,” Sean said, his voice sounding like the cop he had been.

Rudy looked at Mike, then he looked at Sean and licked his lips.

“Don’t,” Mike urged.

“Hey, I’m the one who’s going to be in trouble here, not you.” He turned to Sean. “Okay, Mr. Simmons, I lent her my car,” he said.

“Was this before or after my daughters visited you?”

Rudy looked abashed. “After. She showed up and she was really,” he hesitated trying to find the word, “really . . . out of it.”

“So you lent her your car?” Sean asked. “I think that would be the last thing I would do.”

Rudy absentmindedly rubbed the tattoo on his forearm. The movement made the green and yellow snake move. “She wasn’t out of it as in being drugged out or anything. She was just very intense. She said she needed to borrow my car so she could find those recipes. She said she had to find them, because if she found the recipes she’d find out who killed her aunt. I felt bad for her. What else could I do? Besides, she’d lent me a couple of hundred bucks last month. I figured I owed her.”

“He did,” Mike said.

Sean looked from Mike to Rudy and back again. “Can either of you tell me where Amber is now?”

“Don’t know,” Mike said a little too promptly for Sean’s taste.

“I have no idea,” Rudy added.

“Seriously,” Mike said.

Sean did his cop stare. They both studied the clock on the wall instead of replying.

“So she hasn’t called you?” Sean asked after a few moments.

“Nope,” Rudy said. He was trying for jaunty, but Sean discerned a catch in his voice.

“She’s off with your car, and the fact that she hasn’t checked in is okay with you?” Sean asked Rudy, trying to hide his delight. Obviously, he still had it in this sphere as well.

“It definitely is, Mr. . . .”

“Simmons,” Sean told him, resupplying his name. “Because it wouldn’t be okay with me.”