A Catered Christmas Cookie Exchange (A Mystery With Recipes) (21 page)

“I don’t understand,” Libby said.

“I talked to Penelope and . . .”

“You talked to Penelope,” Bernie exclaimed. “She’s been calling us every half hour demanding to know if we’d heard from you.”

Amber hunched her shoulders and leaned forward. “Well, I wouldn’t tell her where I was, so I guess she was trying to find out if you knew anything,” she said.

“What does all this have to do with Penelope?” Sean asked.

“Well, she wanted me to be on the show and . . .” Amber stopped.

“We know that. Go on,” Bernie urged.

“She wanted me to bake Millie’s Meltaways.” Amber stopped talking again.

“Tell us,” Sean repeated, nodding encouragingly.

“I told her I didn’t know where the recipe was, and she told me she had overheard someone saying that Millie had hid an extra copy in her composting bin. Only they had looked and it wasn’t there.”

“Did Penelope remember who said it?” Libby asked.

“She mentioned Alma,” Amber said.

“So if it wasn’t there, how did you find it?” Sean asked.

Amber looked up, allowing herself a self-satisfied grin. “I remembered that Millie had two composting bins. One was in the garage, and the other one was out in the garden. Alma must have looked in the garage. If you didn’t already know that there was a composting bin in the garden, you would never have seen it. It was covered with a tarp, and there was snow on top of the tarp.”

“So you have most of the recipe?” Libby asked.

“Yes. Some animal nibbled part of the bottom half of the paper away, but I think I can recreate the last couple of steps and the baking time,” Amber said. She touched her nose ring.

“So why didn’t you tell us?” Libby asked Amber.

Amber twisted her hands together, then touched her nose ring again. “Penelope didn’t want me to tell you. She didn’t want me to tell anyone. She wanted it to be a surprise. She said it would be really cool if I just walked on the show and told everyone that I was taking my aunt’s place. That that would be good theater and would help the show’s ratings. She was going to pay me. How cool is that?” She asked Libby and Bernie.

“Pretty cool, I guess,” Bernie conceded.

“She said that maybe someone would notice me and I could get on some more TV shows because I had presence. She even said she’d ask the person who was responsible for what happened to Aunt Millie to come forward. That she thought she knew who she was. But that it had to be a secret because she didn’t want this person to know. She wanted to catch the expression on their face when she named them.”

Bernie’s face grew dark. “I really am going to kill Penelope,” she muttered.

“But then,” Amber continued explaining, “I wasn’t sure that I believed her.”

“Good call,” Sean interjected.

Amber flashed him a brief smile. “Especially about knowing who killed Aunt Millie. So I decided to do some investigating on my own. I just figured if I could find my aunt’s recipes, that would lead me to who killed her.” She slumped down in the sofa and ran a finger along its arm. “Guess I should have talked to you guys, huh?”

“Guess you should have,” Bernie said. She stifled a yawn. She was suddenly exhausted. The relief at finding Amber was making her crash, she thought. She hadn’t realized just how tense she’d been. “So you’ve figured out the recipe?” Bernie asked Amber.

“Yeah,” Amber replied, sounding more definite than she had a moment ago. “At least, I think I have. I’m pretty sure I know what brand of chocolate Millie was using.”

“That’s a big step,” Bernie said, “especially when you consider what’s on the market these days.”

“And I think I know what kind of shortening she was going to use.”

“Butter?” asked Bernie.

“Nope,” said Amber.

“Oil?” guessed Libby.

Amber shook her head.

“Crisco?” Bernie asked.

Amber shook her head. “Not even close.”

“Not lard, I hope,” Libby said.

Amber laughed. “Hardly.”

“Then what?” Libby asked, and then she amended herself. “No. Don’t tell us,” she said, “if you’re going to be in the show.”

Amber flashed her a sheepish smile. “I’d like to be, if it’s okay with you. I don’t want to cost you guys any more hassle.”

“It’s okay with me,” Libby said.

“And me,” said Bernie. “As long as you leave the investigating to us.”

Amber didn’t say anything.

“Deal?” Bernie prodded.

Amber thought for another minute. “Deal,” she finally said.

“Good,” Libby said, and she handed Amber the keys to Mike’s car and told her to go home.

“So what do you think?” Bernie asked her dad and sister after Amber had left. “Do you think she’s telling the truth?”

Sean nodded. “Mostly, I think she is.”

Bernie got up and began clearing off the table. “Well, I know one of the things I’m doing tomorrow.”

“Make the meringue mushrooms for the bûches de Noël?” Libby asked.

“Besides that,” Bernie said. “I’m going to have a little chat with Penelope. That’s what I’m going to do.”

“This,” Libby said, “I want to see.”

T
he morning came too quickly for Bernie and Libby. Before they knew it, their alarms had gone off and they had dragged themselves out of bed.

“I don’t do well on three hours of sleep,” Bernie groused to Libby. She had poured boiling water over some freshly ground French roast coffee and was waiting to push the plunger down.

“Tell me about it,” Libby replied as she made herself and her sister two fried eggs each.

The eggs came from a friend of hers who raised Araucana chickens. The shells were pastel-hued, and the yolks were marigold yellow. As Libby put a dollop of olive oil in the pan and waited for it to heat up, she thought about how much she loved these eggs. How pretty they were. Then she broke four eggs into the oil and smiled as she listened to the popping and hissing sounds the oil made. When the eggs were done, she gently lifted them out with her spatula, put them on plates, and slid a couple of pieces of slightly stale French bread left over from the day before into the oil.

“We need the sustenance,” she explained to Bernie when she saw her sister looking askance at what she was making.

“No one needs that much sustenance,” Bernie replied, pushing down the plunger on the French press.

“I do,” Libby said as she took the bread out of the pan, put the eggs on the bread, and covered them with the salsa she’d made yesterday. Then she handed the plate to Bernie, who in turn handed Libby a cup of coffee.

“This will look great on my hips,” Bernie complained, digging in.

“Just be thankful you don’t have my hips,” Libby replied as she sprinkled some crumbly white cheese over everything.

Bernie was wise enough not to say anything. By her third bite, Bernie had to admit that Libby was right. She did feel better. She did have a long day in front of her. Egg whites and arugula just weren’t going to do it. To hell with her hips. She’d start on her diet after Christmas, when her life was calmer. When she was done eating, she loaded the plates into the dishwasher, then she and her sister got down to work. At seven o’clock, Amber came in, looking more than a little worse for wear, took her place behind the counter, and started stocking for the morning rush. At nine o’clock, Bernie took breakfast up to her dad, then went back to filling the orders for cakes and pies and cookies that were on the list for the day.

By one in the afternoon, the lunch rush had died down, and Bernie and Libby decided that things were in pretty good shape at the shop. They were free to canvass the sporting goods stores in the area, after which they would try to track down Penelope. Bernie had been attempting to call her, but so far she hadn’t answered Bernie’s calls. Or Amber’s, for that matter. The lady Bernie had spoken to at the production company Penelope worked for said she often got that way before a shoot.

“What can I say?” she’d ended with. “She’s a diva.”

“No kidding,” Bernie had said before she’d hung up.

“Maybe Brandon knows where she’s staying,” Libby said as she and Libby walked out of the shop.

Bernie gave her a sharp look. “Why do you say that?” she asked.

Libby shrugged. “Because he knows everything.”

“That’s what being a bartender means,” Bernie said.

“Did you think I meant something else?” Libby asked as she climbed into the van and started her up. Today was her turn to drive.

“Like what?” Bernie demanded.

Instead of answering, Libby reached over and turned on the radio. It seemed like a better course of action.

Bernie looked at her sister for a moment, decided not to pursue the conversation, and made herself busy fastening her seat belt. “At least Amber is back,” she observed, holding out a conversational olive branch.

“And George isn’t,” Libby said. “So that’s a double blessing.”

Bernie shook her head. “People just get blinded by the media,” she said, thinking of Amber’s conduct. “Dad is right. We have this group of little old ladies—who never cause any trouble . . .”

“That we know of,” Libby said.

“Fine. That we know of,” Bernie repeated. “But the point is that a television show comes to town and all hell breaks loose. It’s bizarre.”

“You’re right,” Libby said.

She didn’t say anything else. The roads were slippery, and she had to concentrate on her driving. Twenty minutes later, they arrived at Frontsmith Mall, where the first of the sports stores was located. They didn’t have any luck there. The clerk didn’t recall a woman of any age buying a deer target recently.

“If you remember, call us,” Bernie said, writing out her name and phone number on a scrap piece of paper for the clerk.

“I will,” the clerk promised.

He was wearing a bemused expression on his face, and Bernie was positive he was going to tear up the paper with their names and phone numbers and throw it in the trash as soon as they left the store.

“We should have business cards,” Libby observed as they left the mall. “We’d look more professional that way.”

“We do have business cards,” Bernie said. “They just have the store name on them.”

“We should get other ones printed up,” Libby replied as they headed toward their van.

“What should they say?” Bernie asked. “Amateur detectives at work? Nancy Drew, Inc.?”

“Okay, I get it,” Libby told her sister as they climbed into Mathilda.

It went the same way at the next three places they stopped. None of the clerks remembered a woman buying a deer target.

“Well, that was a waste of time,” Libby was saying when Bernie’s phone rang.

She fished it out of her bag and looked at it. “It’s Penelope,” she told Libby and took the call.

Libby watched her sister nod her head as she listened to what Penelope was saying.

“We’ll be right over,” Bernie finally replied. “It’ll take us just a minute. We’re right around the corner,” she lied. “No, I insist,” she added and clicked off.

Libby raised an eyebrow. “What was that all about?”

Bernie grinned. “Nothing, really. I said we’d be right over, and Penelope said that wasn’t necessary, and I said that it was. I really want to speak to her in person,” Bernie said with a vehemence she usually reserved for commenting on Spandex and plastic shoes. Then she added, “By the way, they’ve changed the location of the show. It’s going to be at the high school auditorium now.”

“Nice of Penelope to tell us,” Libby said.

“Yes. Isn’t it, though? Anyway, she’s over at the high school checking sound and camera angles for tomorrow night, so let’s saddle up and get going.”

“This is going to be interesting,” Libby murmured as she started Mathilda, backed up, and drove over there.

It was a little after three, and the high school halls were empty by the time Libby and Bernie arrived. The first person they saw when they entered the auditorium was Penelope’s assistant. Bernie had figured her for her early twenties when she’d seen her at RJ’s, and she decided she was correct in her assessment. She was tall and thin, with copper-colored, ear-length, curly hair, heavy black eyebrows, and a sharply defined chin.

She was wearing your standard TV crew garb, jeans, a black T-shirt, and a plaid flannel shirt, and as Bernie watched the woman testing the speakers she couldn’t help feeling as if she’d seen her in another context, but she didn’t know what that was.

“Hi,” Bernie said, approaching the woman. “Is Penelope around?”

“Yeah,” the assistant said, glancing up. “She’s here somewhere.”

Bernie studied her face for a minute and said, “I have the feeling I know you from somewhere.”

The woman laughed. “Everyone always says that. I guess I have a common face.”

“I guess you do,” Bernie conceded. “Although not in a bad way,” she hurriedly added.

Penelope’s assistant laughed again. “It’s okay. I know what you meant.”

“Did you go to school here?” Bernie asked, still trying to place the woman.

The woman shook her head. “Sorry. Do you shop in New York?”

Bernie nodded. “I do. Why do you ask?”

“I used to work as a salesgirl in Barney’s, and you look like someone who shops there. Maybe that’s where you saw me.”

“Maybe,” Bernie agreed to be polite, although she didn’t think that was the case.

The woman wiped her right hand on her jeans and extended it. “By the way, I’m Terri,” she said. “That’s Terri with an
i
, not a
y
. My family moved around a lot, and when I started school they’d see my name and assume I was a boy.”

Bernie smiled. “That must have been annoying,”

“A little,” Terri allowed. “I always wanted to have a name like Sue or Nicole. Something definite gender-wise.”

“Well, my name is Bernie, and this is my sister, Libby,” Bernie said, introducing themselves.

Terri nodded and ran her hair through her curls. “You’re two of the judges, right?”

“Right,” Libby said. She was just about to say something else when Penelope came through the auditorium side door. She looked, Libby decided, as if she hadn’t slept for a week. Her hair was sticking straight out, she wasn’t wearing any makeup, and her skinny jeans and black turtleneck made her look even thinner than she already was, which was saying a lot.

“Oh, there you are,” Penelope said, advancing toward them. “Can you two be here an hour early? We’d like to do a little press conference thingy.”

“Press conference?” Libby squeaked. She hadn’t counted on this.

“Yeah.” Penelope said. “Not a big deal.” Then she looked Libby up and down. “I assume you’ll be wearing something a little . . . nicer tomorrow night.”

“She will,” Bernie told Penelope before Libby could say anything. “I’ll see to it.”

Penelope checked her phone. “I can’t believe how much I have to do before tomorrow.”

As if on cue, Terri bobbed her head at Bernie and Libby. “I’m checking the lighting,” she told Penelope. Then she scurried away.

Penelope pursed her lips as she looked at Terri retreating. “That one,” she reflected, “has been nothing but trouble. Of course,” she added, “this whole show has been nothing but trouble. From the moment we came to town, all we’ve had has been bad luck. It’s just been one thing after another.”

“Why did you come to Longely?” Libby asked.

“Why indeed?” Penelope said. She checked her phone again. “Because I was told to.”

“By whom?” Libby inquired.

“By the head of this production company, if you must know. He’s friends with some local lady, and I guess she suggested it, and he thought it was a good idea. You appeal to the older crowd, you get the holiday thing in there, you get the Northeast. We haven’t done anything in this neck of the woods for a while.”

Bernie took a step forward. “Why did you do what you did with Amber?” she asked Penelope without any preamble.

“Do what?” Penelope inquired.

“Have her disappear like that.”

Penelope’s eyes widened. “So you found her?”

“No thanks to you,” Bernie told her.

Penelope gIanced at her watch. “I didn’t have her do anything. She took off on her own. In fact, I’ve been trying to get hold of her too.”

“My sister and I have been worried sick,” Bernie said. “We thought that Amber had been kidnapped.”

“By whom?” Penelope sniggered. “A bunch of old ladies? Get a grip.” Penelope looked at her watch again. “Anyway, I merely suggested the idea to her. She was the one who took the suggestion and ran with it.”

“But why did you suggest it?” Libby asked, genuinely puzzled.

Penelope looked at her as if she had an IQ of fifty. “Drama.”

“Drama?” Libby repeated.

“Yes, drama,” Penelope said impatiently. “We’ve already got that going with Millie’s death. Amber’s appearance was going to amp things up another notch.”

“I still don’t get it,” Libby declared.

Penelope snorted. “What’s not to get? Amber would have come out on the stage, and you would’ve gasped and yelled and cried, and we would have used it. And now, as I said, I’m going to have to think of something else, because let’s face it, watching seven old ladies competing to see who gets the prize for baking the best cookie is snoozeville.”

“Well, it certainly would have boosted your ratings to reveal Millie’s killer on your show,” Bernie observed.

Penelope made a dismissive sound. “I assume that Amber told you that?”

“Indeed she did,” Bernie said.

“That’s not what I said to her,” Penelope replied.

“Then what did you tell her?” Libby asked.

“I told her it would be cool if that happened. I didn’t say it would happen.” Penelope looked at her watch again. “I am seriously running out of time here. Terri!” she yelled.

Terri came running out on the auditorium stage. “Yes?”

“Take these two,” Penelope said, gesturing to Bernie and Libby, “and show them where they’re sitting.” She turned back to Libby and Bernie. “Got to go,” she told them.

“I’m late, I’m late for a very important date,” Bernie chanted softly as she watched Penelope practically run out the door.

Libby turned and looked at her sister. “Huh?”

“She reminds me of the White Rabbit in
Alice in Wonderland
. You know, always running?”

“I wonder,” Libby murmured.

Now it was Bernie’s turn to look at her.

“I wonder if she engineered Millie’s accident as a publicity stunt,” Libby mused.

“I don’t think even she’s capable of something like that,” Bernie said. “She’s a self-absorbed nit, but that would indicate a depth of self-absorption that’s just plain scary.”

“Pathological,” Libby said.

Bernie nodded. She thought about whether what Libby was postulating could be true as Terri showed them where she and Libby would be sitting. She was still thinking about it when she and Libby walked out the door and Bernie spotted the production company van parked in the driveway. And that’s when it hit her.