A Catered Christmas Cookie Exchange (A Mystery With Recipes) (5 page)

“We have to go,” Libby yelled to Bernie as she rolled down the van’s window. “Amber just called. Millie’s, and she wants to talk to us.”

“About what?” Bernie called back.

“I don’t know,” Libby replied. “Amber didn’t say.”

“Good,” Brandon said. He began walking to his car. “Now maybe I can go back to sleep.”

“Is Marvin around?” Bernie asked Libby after she’d climbed back into their van and brushed the particles of sleet off her bangs. Brandon’s last comment had given her an idea.

“Yeah. Why?”

“I figure if he isn’t busy, he and Dad can drive over and see the target and the rope. Four eyes . . .”

“In this case eight . . .”

“Whatever . . . being better than two, or four.”

Libby nodded. She had to admit it was a good idea. “I’ll call and ask.”

“Good.” Bernie rubbed her arms with her hands in an effort to take off the chill. “Can’t you get the heat in this thing up any higher? My comforter is warmer than this.”

“Then maybe you should have brought it along,” Libby told her as she punched in Marvin’s number on her speed dial.

At least, Bernie thought as she settled back in her seat, the hospital would be warm.

T
he rain was falling harder now, coating the roadway and the trees with ice, so it took Bernie and Libby longer than usual to get to Longely General Hospital.

“You know you can go over twenty miles an hour,” Bernie said to Libby as they turned onto Route 42.

“I would if our tires were in better shape,” Libby shot back. Her hands clenched the steering wheel. She hated driving under circumstances like these, but she was damned if she was going to admit that to Bernie.

“They’re not that bad,” Bernie said.

“They’re not that good either,” Libby countered through gritted teeth. If they’d left a half hour ago, as she had wanted to, they wouldn’t be driving through this mess now.

“Do you want me to drive?” Bernie asked Libby.

Libby shook her head. “I’m fine,” she lied.

“You are so not, Libby.”

“I would be if you would stop asking me how I was every five minutes, Bernie.”

Bernie grimaced. “You blame me for this, don’t you?”

“What’s this?” Libby asked, feigning innocence.

“This being the fact that we’re on the road now.”

“Not at all,” Libby told her, lying again.

Bernie shrugged. “If that’s the way you want it.”

“It is.”

“Fine. Just remember I offered to drive.”

“Thanks, but I prefer to get there in one piece.”

“What’s that supposed to mean, Libby?”

“Exactly what you think it does, Bernie,”

“Let’s take a time out from each other,” Bernie suggested.

“Works for me,” Libby answered.

Bernie turned her head and gazed out at the passing scene, while Libby leaned over and clicked on the radio. The sound of Aretha filled the air. The sisters didn’t talk until ten minutes later when they hit Park Street, at which point Libby extended an olive branch.

“I hope this stops soon,” she said, pointing to an overhead power line that was bowed under the weight of the ice.

“But it is beautiful,” Bernie commented. “You have to admit that. The ice makes everything look magical.”

Libby snorted. “Yeah, but that’s not going to help if the power goes out. I think we need a backup generator in the shop,” Libby said, continuing with her original train of thought.

“Agreed,” Bernie told her. Libby was right. A power outage at the shop would be a disaster. They’d lose thousands of dollars’ worth of ingredients. Better not to think about it, Bernie decided, so she changed the subject. “I wonder what Millie wants to talk to us about?”

“She probably wants to know about her cookies,” Libby said, her eyes glued to the road as she slowly glided through a stop sign because it was safer than stopping. At this point she felt as if she were driving a large, lumbering beast.

Bernie brushed a lock of hair that had come loose from her ponytail off her forehead. “What are we going to tell her?”

Libby sighed. “Good question.”

“She’s going to be very upset when we tell her we can’t find them.”

“That is an understatement,” Libby observed. She was definitely not looking forward to this.

Neither sister spoke again until they’d pulled into the hospital parking lot.

“We’re here,” Libby announced as she shoehorned Mathilda into the parking space that was the nearest vacant one to the door and turned off the van. It shuddered to a stop after making an awful grinding noise. “I guess she doesn’t like this weather either,” Libby observed.

“Who does?” Bernie replied.

As she looked at the building, she thought about the fact that neither she nor Libby had been here since their mother had broken her arm—that is, unless she counted the time the three-year-old she had been babysitting for had squeezed half a tube of toothpaste into her ear. God, what a nightmare that had been. Who would have thought that anyone could even do something like that? She certainly hadn’t. It had been the last time she’d babysat. Not that anyone had asked her since then.

“At least it’s not sleeting anymore,” Libby said.

“I’m not sure this is much better,” Bernie said as the wind blew the rain sideways. She watched as a gust of wind plastered a newspaper against the hospital’s foundation plantings. “Maybe we shouldn’t have asked Marvin and Dad to run out.”

“They’ll be fine,” Libby assured her. “Marvin told me he’s taking the hearse.”

Bernie laughed. “Dad will be so pleased.” She flipped up her hood. “We have to go.”

“Absolutely,” Libby agreed, putting her hood up as well. “Amber’s waiting.”

But the two women continued to sit there. They’d hit a wall. They were cold and wet and tired and finding it difficult to move.

“On the count of three,” Bernie said.

“Make that five,” Libby said. “Or better yet, ten.”

“Five,” Bernie said.

“Okay. Five,” Libby grudgingly conceded.

Bernie began counting down. “One. Two. Three. Four. Five.”

At which point Libby and Bernie threw open their respective doors and ran into the hospital lobby.

“It really is awful out there,” Bernie said as she pushed her hood back and followed Libby to the elevator. “Do we know where we’re going?”

“We do.” Libby showed her the text Amber had sent her while they were in transit.

Amber was pacing up and down outside the ICU when Libby and Bernie walked up the corridor. One look at Amber’s face and Bernie knew.

“I think we’re too late,” she whispered to Libby.

“I think so too,” Libby whispered back as Amber came rushing up to them.

“Millie’s gone,” Amber told them, tears pouring down her face.

Bernie and Libby reached over and hugged Amber to them.

“She made me promise you would find her murderer,” Amber said.

“Murderer?” Libby asked. “Is that what she said?”

“More or less,” Amber replied. She blinked her eyes and looked down at the floor.

Libby was about to ask her what she meant by that, but before she could, Bernie glared at her and Libby bit her tongue. Her sister was right, she decided. This was not the time to cross-examine Amber.

“You will, won’t you?” Amber begged, lifting her head and looking from Libby to Bernie and back again. A tear trickled down her cheek. “Promise me that you will.”

“Of course we will,” Bernie said, looking at Libby. “Won’t we? Won’t we?” she repeated when Libby didn’t answer.

“Absolutely,” Libby said. “But Amber,” she continued in a gentle voice. “Maybe the police are better suited to investigate your aunt’s death.”

Amber sniffled. “They’re not going to.”

“Why not?” Bernie asked.

“Because they’re saying Millie’s death was an accident. They’re saying she shouldn’t have been driving.” Amber started crying again.

“I’m so sorry,” Bernie said as she and Libby hugged Amber to them again.

“Me too,” Amber managed to get out while Bernie stroked her hair and told her that things would be all right and that she and Libby would do whatever was necessary.

The three of them stood in the hallway while people eddied around them, giving them a wide berth.
As if grief is contagious,
Libby thought.

Finally, Amber stopped crying and disengaged herself from Bernie and Libby. “One other thing. Millie wanted you to get her recipes and give them to me.”

“Okay,” Bernie said. “We can do that.”

“As soon as possible,” Amber said. “Like today.”

“Why the rush?” Bernie asked.

Amber sighed. “She didn’t say, but I think she was afraid that someone was going to try to steal them.”

“What do you think?” Bernie responded, deciding that this was more of Millie’s paranoia.

“I don’t know.” Amber pulled at her braids. “She was sounding crazy, but, after all, look what happened.”

“Did she say who she thought would steal the recipes?” Bernie asked.

Amber swallowed and shook her head.

“Are you sure?” Bernie gently inquired.

Amber blinked back tears. “I don’t know. Maybe she did. But in the end I couldn’t understand what it was she was trying to say. She just kept squeezing my hand and mumbling things. I should have tried harder. I should have listened more closely.”

“You were doing the best you could,” Libby reassured her. “Did she say anything else? Anything at all?”

“She just talked about people being out to make sure she didn’t win the bake-off.” Amber looked down at the floor and then up at the sisters again. Bernie decided that without her makeup Amber looked about ten. “She made me promise to take her place in the contest.”

Bernie raised an eyebrow. Somehow she didn’t think the other members of the Christmas Cookie Exchange Club would be pleased.

But if Amber noticed Bernie’s expression, she ignored it and plowed ahead. “She also told me that she’d hidden her recipe for Millie’s Majestic Meltaways in the composting bin, so in case you guys didn’t find the cookies, I could make a new batch. You didn’t find them, did you?” Amber asked in a pleading tone.

“No, Amber,” Libby answered. “I’m sorry, but we didn’t. I think they’re gone.”

Bernie shifted her weight from one foot to the other. Her right knee was starting to bother her again. She should really go back to doing her exercises. Of course, she could always give up wearing heels, but that wasn’t going to happen.

“Did Millie say anything about a deer?” Bernie asked Amber.

Amber looked at Bernie as if she was crazy. “A deer?”

“Yes. A deer,” Bernie repeated. “A buck, to be specific.”

Amber wrinkled her nose. “A buck?”

“That’s a male deer,” Bernie explained. “The kind with antlers.”

“Like what?” Amber asked.

“Like seeing one in the road,” Bernie answered.

“Do you think that’s what made her go into the tree?”

“I don’t know, Amber,” Bernie told her. “It’s certainly possible.”

Amber shook her head. “No. She didn’t say anything like that. At least not that I understood.”

“Exactly what did she say?” asked Libby for the second time.

She’d found that if you asked a question enough times, the odds were you’d get some kind of answer. Her dad claimed that it took people a while to remember things, especially if they were under stress, and over the years Libby had learned that he was correct.

Amber nibbled on her fingernails while she thought. “She was rambling on about things.”

“What things?” Bernie asked, picking up on Libby’s lead.

“Things like how Lillian needed to lose weight, and how Barbara’s hairdo was horrible, and how they wouldn’t photograph well on the TV show, and that they should do something about that. Then Millie started talking about how she was going to get her hair done and get a nose job when she was rich and famous and maybe buy a place down in Florida and invite me to it for the holidays.”

“So she was mostly talking about the Christmas Cookie Exchange Club members and the TV show?” Libby asked.

“Completely. Except she told me she wants you to have her cinnamon bun recipe. She thought maybe it would help you increase sales because her recipe is so much better than yours. She said even you and your sister know that.”

Libby and Bernie couldn’t help laughing. Millie always had to have the last word. Especially when it came to baking. In this case she had.

“We’ll name them Millie’s buns,” Bernie said, giving a warning glance to Libby to stop her from objecting. Even though Libby was the kindest person imaginable, she took her food extremely seriously.

Amber grinned. “She would like that.”

“Good,” Bernie said. “Then it’s settled.”

After all, Bernie thought, what was the harm? It would make Amber happy. She’d just make a few additions and deletions before she sold them at the shop. Maybe change the proportion of flour and butter and eggs. Add a little more cinnamon, a little less sugar. Little things like that. Not that she’d tell Amber what she was going to do. Sometimes, honesty really wasn’t the best policy. Or, at least, it wasn’t the kindest policy.

T
he wind had died down and the rain had stopped by the time Marvin and Sean arrived at the scene of Millie’s accident. Marvin carefully parked the hearse on the side of the road, well away from the blind curve, and turned off the ignition.

The last thing he needed was an accident with the company car, even if it was his company. Well, his and his dad’s company. Mostly his dad’s, if you wanted to be accurate, although one day it was going to be his. And an accident would be particularly bad today, not that it was good any day, but in a little while he had to drop Mr. Simmons back at his house and pick up a client, as his father liked to put it, from the hospital morgue.

“Well,” Marvin said to Sean, after he’d checked the time on his phone. He was still golden.

“Well what?” Sean replied as he looked out at the stretch of woods in front of him.

Listening to Bernie and Libby, he hadn’t been able to decide whether the scenario they were proposing was valid or not, but now that he was here, he was beginning to form an opinion. There was definitely no substitute for seeing something yourself instead of relying on other people’s descriptions, he decided. He’d thought so when he’d been the Longely chief of police, and he thought so now.

“Well, what do you think?” said Marvin.

“I think it’s a strange place to set up a deer target,” Sean replied as he buttoned up his jacket and put on his gloves. “And a strange time too, as long as we’re on the subject.”

“Why a strange place?” Marvin asked. He’d never done any hunting and had absolutely no idea what a deer target looked like, much less that something like that even existed.

“Because,” Sean explained, pointing to a sign lying face-down on the ground that neither Bernie nor Libby had seen, “this land is posted. You can’t hunt here, for openers, let alone go tromping through it. So that’s a biggie.”

“Do you think someone took the sign down?” Marvin asked.

“Well, they could have, but it would be kind of a silly thing to do.” Sean paused for a moment to take a last sip of the coffee he’d taken from the shop. Then he recapped the thermos, took a bite of his apple-walnut muffin, and continued. “That’s the kind of behavior that could get you shot. No. The sign probably just fell down. Another thing,” he said, setting the thermos on the floor. “Usually—in fact, almost always—when you set up a deer-hunting target you do it in a field, you don’t do it in the woods. That way, if you don’t hit the target, you can find your arrow, a thing you want to do since arrows are expensive. You really don’t want to lose them.”

“People really hunt deer with bows?” Marvin asked.

Sean confined his comment to a “Yes, Marvin, they do.”

“Isn’t that kind of mean?”

“You think shooting them is any better?” asked Sean.

“I hadn’t really thought about it much,” Marvin confessed.

“Then how about we concentrate on the matter at hand?”

“I am.”

“No. You’re not. You keep interrupting.”

“Sorry,” Marvin said.

“Okay, then.” Sean broke off another piece of muffin and popped it into his mouth. “On the other hand,” he went on, after he’d swallowed, “if you are a member of a bow-hunting club you’d go to the club to practice, and those places do set up multiple deer targets in the woods, but they mark off how many yards away the target is.” Sean took a third bite of his muffin and put the rest back in the paper bag. “So the problem, as I see it, is that neither of those two scenarios can explain what Libby and Bernie found—a single deer target twenty feet away from the road. That makes no sense, unless it was used for the purpose that Libby and Bernie think it was.”

Marvin gave him a strange look.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” Sean demanded.

“No reason, really. I’m just surprised. You sound as if you know a lot about this.”

Sean laughed. “I do. I used to hunt. I belonged to a bow club when I was a kid.”

“Really, Mr. Simmons?” Marvin said as he eyed Sean’s muffin.

“Yes, really, Marvin.”

Seeing Sean eat had reminded Marvin that he hadn’t had any breakfast that morning. “I don’t suppose you have any more of those?” Marvin asked wistfully.

“As it so happens, I do.” Sean reached in the paper bag and brought out another muffin. “Here. Have this.”

“Thanks, Mr. Simmons.” Marvin took a bite of the muffin and sighed in pleasure. He could eat Libby’s muffins all day long. Of course, he could eat her pies and cookies and biscuits all day long too. Which was why he’d gained twenty pounds in the last year. “I didn’t know that you hunted.”

“Neither do my daughters,” Sean told him. “There’s no reason you should tell them.” He could just hear Libby now—“Dad, how could you have hunted poor, innocent Bambi?” She’d gotten upset when he’d used traps to catch mice.

Marvin grinned. “I haven’t told them about your smoking, have I, Mr. Simmons?”

“That’s because you want to keep going out with my daughter,” Sean told him.

“This is true,” Marvin replied.

Sean folded his arms across his chest. “However, you did tell them about my driving your dad’s Taurus.” He still hadn’t quite forgiven Marvin for that one. The girls had gotten quite a bit more upset than his actions had warranted, in his opinion.

“That wasn’t my fault,” Marvin protested.

“Then whose was it?” Sean demanded. “Curious George’s?”

“Yours,” Marvin stammered. “You didn’t bring the car back when you said you would and I got scared. I thought something had happened to you.”

“Marvin, you worry too much,” Sean told him.

“I know,” Marvin said, hanging his head and making Sean feel guilty about what he’d said.

“Although,” Sean said, “I suppose there are worse faults to have.” Then he opened his door, took his cane, and stepped outside.

It was chilly and damp, and he was glad he’d zipped up his coat. He scanned the gravel and the ground in front of him. It was uneven and full of tree roots and rocks, and for a moment he regretted saying yes to Libby about doing this, because walking on the forest floor could be a problem for him, even with the cane. Not that he’d ever have said that to his children. Hell, he would have said, “No problem,” if they’d asked him to walk over hot coals or go through a swamp filled with water moccasins.

“How far in did Libby say the target was?” Sean asked Marvin.

“Twenty feet or so,” Marvin replied.

He wasn’t looking forward to walking through the woods either, though for different reasons than Sean. He had on his good suit and shoes, because after he did the morgue pickup, he had to officiate at the Russell funeral, and it would never do to have dirt on his shoes or on his pants. It would be seen as a sign of disrespect. Unfortunately, he didn’t have time to change.

“Let’s get started, then,” Sean said, and he took a step into the forest.

Marvin quickly came up beside him. Although Marvin tried not to make it obvious, he was ready to catch Sean in case he tripped or fell. He knew that Sean knew what he was doing, and Marvin also knew that on one level Sean appreciated the possible help, while on another level it made him angry that he needed it, so it was better to pretend it wasn’t happening. They were just two guys walking around in the woods together.

Marvin stifled a cough. “Millie’s daughter called.”

“And?” Sean asked, his eyes on the ground.

“She and her brother have decided to do the funeral at our place.”

Sean waited.

“They want her cremated. No viewing. No memorial service. No nothing.”

“No autopsy either?” Sean asked.

“Nope. The daughter doesn’t want one, and since cause of death is going down as a car accident, it’s not necessary.”

“I guess we can construe from what you just said that Millie didn’t enjoy good relations with her son or daughter,” Sean commented as he stepped over a tree root.

“I think that would be a fairly accurate statement.” Marvin bent down and flicked a wet leaf from his trouser cuff. “But then I don’t think anyone liked Millie very much. She was a very grumpy person.”

“She wasn’t to Amber,” Sean pointed out.

“That’s what Libby tells me,” Marvin said.

“I think everyone else was afraid of her,” Sean mused.

“You’re kidding,” Marvin said, picturing Millie in her print dress and orthopedic shoes. This was not someone who engendered fear in his mind.

Sean shook his head. “No, I’m not. She was the J. Edgar Hoover of the Christmas Cookie Exchange Club. She had the goods on everyone, and she wasn’t afraid to use her information to get what she wanted.”

Marvin snorted. “What could she have possibly wanted?” he asked. “This was a woman who didn’t dress particularly well, or have a fancy house or car, or take big vacations. From what I could see, her biggest deal was Christmas and making cookies for everyone.”

Sean stopped and looked at him. “I think she wanted power. As with a capital P. Some people just like to have power over everyone else. They just like the idea that they can make people squirm,” Sean said, thinking back to an incident several years ago when she had tried to have her neighbors arrested because their two-year-old used to cry in the middle of the night and Millie claimed the baby was doing it on purpose to keep her up.

Sean looked around. All he saw were tree trunks and gray sky. So where was this deer target Libby and Bernie were going on about? He was positive they’d gone in about twenty feet, just as Bernie and Libby had said they should.

“Are you sure this is where the deer target was?” Sean asked, turning to Marvin.

“That’s what Libby said,” Marvin replied.

“That’s what I heard too. Why don’t you call and ask her to make sure,” Sean ordered.

The last thing he wanted to do was spend any more time than he had to tromping around in the woods. Even though he was pleased to see that he hadn’t slipped and that his footing was stable, he still wasn’t entirely comfortable.

“I can do that,” Marvin told him.

“Then do it,” Sean snapped.

Marvin opened his mouth to say something, thought better of it, and punched in the numbers instead. “Yup. This is the place,” Marvin said when he got off the phone.

Sean looked around. “Well, I don’t see it.” Of course, he wasn’t entirely surprised. Measurements and directions weren’t his daughters’ strong suits.

“Neither do I,” Marvin agreed. “It looks like a deer, right?”

“Correct. After all, it is a deer target, right?”

“Right,” Marvin muttered.

“What did you think it was going to look like?”

“I didn’t really think much about it,” Marvin confessed. Actually, he’d thought they were looking for a target tacked to a tree, but he would rather have died than confess that to Libby’s dad.

“Well,” said Sean. “These things look exactly like a deer, and they are usually made of plastic, so they’re hard to miss.”

“I knew that,” Marvin told him.

Sean smiled. “Sure you did,” he replied, giving his possible future son-in-law a pass, as he watched Marvin dig into the pocket of his coat and take out his phone again.

“We have to get going soon,” he announced after he’d checked the time.

“Give me ten more minutes,” Sean told him, and then he said, “Why don’t you wear a watch? It would be simpler to glance at your wrist than have to dig your phone out of your pocket every time you want to know what time it is.”

Marvin shrugged. “I just got out of the habit of wearing one, I guess.”

Sean sighed. He would never understand this generation. Ever. They kept on saying they were making things easier, but really they were making them more complicated. Oh, well. He stood there for a moment, looking around the forest. He didn’t have a clue which direction to take. The best thing to do, he decided, was to walk in ever-widening circles. That way they would cover as much territory as possible in the time they had.

He and Marvin started walking once again, keeping their eyes on the ground and the brush around them. They saw tree roots, dead leaves, and rocks. Occasionally, they came upon discarded beer and soda bottles and fast-food wrappers, but not that many of them, Sean observed. But why should there be? These were definitely the woods less traveled. They weren’t near anything. In truth, these woods weren’t particularly attractive as far as woods went.

They were on their last circle when Sean thought he spotted something lying next to a rock that didn’t look as if it belonged there. He went over and prodded it with his cane.

Marvin came up behind him. “What is it?” he asked.

“Don’t know,” Sean said. “Pick it up and let’s find out.”

Marvin looked at it. It was covered with dirt, and he would rather not have touched it. However, since he realized that this was not an option, he bent from the waist and gingerly picked it up with his fingertips, making sure to hold it away from his suit. It was surprisingly heavy, he thought, as he handed it to Sean. Sean weighed it in his hand.

“It’s a hoof,” he said. “A plastic hoof.”

“From the deer target?” Marvin asked.

“I’d think so,” Sean said. “What else would it be from?”

“So that means someone took the target,” Marvin said.

“Well, it didn’t just disappear into space,” Sean said, who was busy calculating the time between when Libby and Bernie saw it and now. “Of course,” he added, “it is possible that the owner came back and got it.” Although privately he doubted that was the case. That would have been too big a coincidence, and he didn’t believe in coincidence.

“Are you going to call and tell Bernie and Libby?” Marvin asked.

“In a couple of minutes,” Sean said. “Right now I want to go back and see if the rope is still there.” He handed the hoof to Marvin. “Here. You carry this,” he told him. “I have my cane to deal with.”