Diva Wraps It Up, The (16 page)

Dear Natasha,

I’m hosting my first cookie swap this year and can use all the advice I can get!

Love Cookies in Christmas Cove, Maine

Dear Love Cookies,

The most important thing is to assign a specific type of cookie to each participant. That way you won’t end up with half a dozen of the same type of cookie, and it will be harder for cheaters to buy them at the store.

Natasha

Twiggy and Jonah ran into my foyer. Alex watched from the kitchen doorway.

A red dress clung to Sugar’s ample curves, barely covering her bottom. She breathed heavily, her bosom heaving. Her eyes met Jonah’s and lingered a beat too long.

“Shh, Kat’s asleep,” said Twiggy. “Has something else happened?”

Sugar squeezed her forehead with both hands. “In all the commotion, I thought she’d been lost. Patty said she was with you, but the police wouldn’t let me into your place, and I didn’t know where she was.”

Jonah rested his hand on her back. “Kat is fine.” He spoke soothingly in a low voice, almost as if the two of them were in private. “We thought it would be better if she wasn’t in the middle of the sadness at Baxter’s house tonight. Come on upstairs with me and have a peek at her.”

“She really ought to be home in her own bed,” said Sugar. “I know
I
would sleep better.”

“This way.” Jonah took Sugar’s hand into his, gave it a squeeze, and led her up the stairs.

Twiggy’s face blazed. Instead of being her usual kind self, she clenched her fists, hunched over, and tiptoed up the creaky stairs behind them. If she meant to surprise them, she wouldn’t. They would hear her coming.

Alex’s eyes met mine. “Trouble brewing there?” he whispered.

I wrinkled my nose. “I’m afraid so.”

The three of them returned shortly, without Kat. Sugar decided not to wake her, apologized for bursting in on us, and went home.

Twiggy relaxed, but she didn’t take her eyes off Jonah.

Alex lingered after Jonah, Twiggy, and Claudine went up to bed, and Liza and Nina headed home.

“You were awfully quiet tonight.” I tucked the last plate into the dishwater.

“Just trying to figure this thing out.” He wrapped his arms around me from behind and spoke softly into my ear. “Sophie, was Gwen wrapped sloppy, like I would have done it? Or neatly? Ends nicely folded and taped?”

“You’re thinking of Natasha?”

“So it
was
a tidy job. That doesn’t mean it was Natasha. You could have wrapped Gwen neatly, I’m sure.”

I recognized teasing in his tone of voice.

“Or Jonah,” Alex mused. “He must wrap packages at the store all the time.”

“Jonah?” I whispered. “But he didn’t have a motive.”

“We don’t know that. Anyone who lived upstairs in the apartment over the garage had super-easy access to Natasha’s wrapping stuff.”

“So you don’t think it was Natasha.”

“I didn’t say that. How did you get into the garage?”

I shrugged. “Easy. The door to Natasha’s workshop was unlocked, and I just walked in.”

“That doesn’t exactly limit the possibilities.”

I turned to face him. “So you think you have to pin it on someone else to get your client off the hook?”

He chuckled. “I don’t plan to
pin
it on anyone. Are you afraid?”

“Of what?”

“Maybe you haven’t heard. There’s a killer loose in your neighborhood.”

My thoughts flew to Patty.
If
she had murdered Gwen, and that was a very big
if
in my mind, then the rest of us, with the possible exception of Baxter, were safe. She just wanted her children.

“No, this was a targeted killing. Gwen appears to have aggravated a good number of people. Someone planned it, don’t you think? The killer knew he had time to wrap her without being interrupted.”

“It always comes back to Natasha. How’s Mars at wrapping?”

“He avoids it at all costs. He’s very big on asking stores to gift wrap.”

Alex took a deep breath. “Mmm, you smell nice.”

“I had a big date tonight.”

“Anyone I know?”

“Nope. Some guy I met last summer. He’s out of town a lot. Probably a drug dealer.”

“You sure know how to pick losers.” He leaned in to kiss me. “See you tomorrow?”

“I’ll probably be serving breakfast here at the boardinghouse in the morning if you want to stop by.”

“Maybe. If I get my drug shipment tonight.”

I locked the door behind him when he left. He had a good point about the wrapping paper being neat. Neither Nina nor Mars could have wrapped Gwen so perfectly. Not that they were suspects. How well could Baxter or Patty wrap? Patty hadn’t been here for very long. Would she know about Natasha’s craft room? Maybe her daughter, Bethany, had told her about it. After tamping out the fire, Mochie and I went up to bed.

Mochie pawed at my head, waking me out of a deep sleep. I groaned and rolled over, ignoring him. He crept around to the top of my head and tried again, batting a soft paw on my forehead. I opened one eye. Three in the morning. I pulled the covers over my head.

Mochie squirmed underneath the feather comforter and bumped his head against my chin.

I sat up. “You’re not going to let me sleep unless I feed you, are you?”

He scampered to the bedroom door, his tail twitching impatiently while I pulled on a fuzzy green bathrobe. Bleary-eyed, I followed him down the stairs and staggered into the kitchen.

I was reaching into a cabinet for a can of cat food when someone spoke. I shrieked, suddenly wide awake, and hit the light switch.

Twiggy said, “I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to scare you. I hope I didn’t wake you.”

“No problem. Mochie was hungry.” Though from the way he circled Twiggy’s ankles, I had a feeling he’d woken me because he heard her go downstairs. The sound of the can being opened didn’t get his attention, confirming my suspicions.

“Having trouble sleeping?” I asked.

“A little.” She sniffled and wiped her nose with a tissue. Twiggy seemed tiny and frail in her flimsy white robe. A nose as red as Rudolph’s marred her face.

I took milk out of the fridge and poured enough for two mugs into a pot. “Gwen or Jonah?” I asked.

“Probably both.” Claudine spoke from the doorway. “Do you have enough milk for one more, Sophie?”

“Of course.” I added milk to the pot. “Would you like hot chocolate or a splash of Amaretto or Baileys Irish Cream in your milk?”

Simultaneously, they said, “Baileys!”

Claudine ran her hand across Twiggy’s hunched shoulders and hugged her. “I’m so sorry, honey.”

“I didn’t think anyone else had noticed.”

Claudine sat down at the table. “Sugar isn’t exactly meek. She and Gwen are nothing short of brazen when it comes to men.”

I poured the hot milk into three chunky red Waechtersbach mugs adorned with Christmas trees and white stars and brought them to the table, along with a bottle of Baileys and a platter of assorted cookies from the swap.

As I sat down, Twiggy asked, “Did Jonah’s father have affairs?”

“No, sweetheart. He was a very good man. Better than I deserved, probably.”

I doubted it. In her powder blue bathrobe, silver hair curling around her ears, Claudine was the picture of a perfect grandmother.

I wanted to tell Twiggy she must be mistaken. Jonah seemed like a nice guy. But I had seen him in the alley with Sugar. “Are you sure?” I asked. “Maybe nothing has happened yet.”

“After the cookie swap yesterday, Jonah went to make some deliveries. I left Claudine in charge of the store and followed him. He didn’t take the van – he walked. And he wasn’t carrying anything to deliver.” Twiggy poured a double dose of Baileys into her mug. “He met Sugar at a bar on King Street. They talked in a cozy little niche in the back, where I’m sure they sat so they wouldn’t be noticed.” Her shoulders curled forward. “I can’t compete with someone like Sugar. She’s voluptuous and seductive, and I’m such a skinny little squirt.”

“Hey, don’t put yourself down,” I said. “Do you know how many of us would love to be skinny? You’re adorable.”

“I don’t know what to do. Do I talk to him and tell him that I see what’s happening? Or do I just ignore it?” She moaned. “Oh, I know I can’t close my eyes and just hope for the best.”

Claudine pursed her lips. “When Jonah was born, I promised myself that I would never interfere with the life decisions he made for himself. I didn’t want to be like my parents, the kind who hover over a child trying to steer him where
they
want him to go. But I think I should make an exception. Whatever he feels for Sugar won’t be lasting. I don’t want him ruining his life over a silly temporary infatuation.”

“Do you think that’s what it is? An infatuation? I could deal with that. I think.” Twiggy bit into one of Natasha’s cookies. “Ugh. What are these? They taste like dirty shoes covered in chocolate.” She gasped. “Gosh, I hope they’re not your cookies, Sophie!”

“Natasha baked those,” I assured her.

Claudine tried a corner of the cookie. “Do you think she baked them to annoy Gwen?”

Anything was possible, but I doubted that was Natasha’s intent. “Natasha thinks she has a superior palate to the rest of us. We don’t know what’s good.”

Claudine laughed so hard that she clapped her hand over her mouth. “How do people get these inflated notions about themselves? That’s hysterical. The next time I cook something for dinner that none of us like, I’ll trot it right over to Natasha and tell her it’s haute cuisine.”

“Try one of Gwen’s bars,” I suggested.

Twiggy cut one in half, tasted it, and offered the other half to Claudine. “These are great!”

In a second she sagged again. “I hate confrontations. Jonah is leaving me no other choice, though. I thought this would be such a wonderful Christmas, with the store doing so well, and with Claudine here—instead it’s going to be the worst Christmas ever.” Twiggy choked and coughed. “What a horrible person I am. Gwen is dead, and I’m carrying on about my husband being interested in another woman. I can still try to save my marriage, but Gwen . . . She’ll never see Kat grown up. And Kat won’t have a mom. I can’t imagine anything more sad.”

“Who would have done such a heinous thing?” Claudine wrapped both her hands around her mug. “I heard about the argument between Gwen and Natasha, but it’s impossible to imagine Natasha being that crazy. She might be obnoxious—”

“And opinionated,” added Twiggy. “And nosy, and pretend to be better than the rest of us, but down deep, I think Natasha has a good heart.”

“Gwen must have done something to anger somebody big-time.” Claudine sat back. “I’m just grateful Edith Scroggins didn’t go online and badmouth Rocking Horse Toys like she said she would. The Internet can be dangerous. It’s too easy to make accusations and say ugly things in the heat of the moment. People need to learn to take a breath and understand the ramifications of what they put out for public consumption.”

Claudine was as sweet as my Baileys-infused hot milk. Yet when she mentioned Edith, I had to think of the mouse that disappeared from Edith’s house and reappeared in the garage where I had found Gwen. Claudine had been angry and had rightfully stood up to Edith. Surely she hadn’t entered Edith’s house and stolen the mouse from her. And if so, why had it wound up in Natasha’s workroom? Suddenly, I felt a little bit wary of the sweet lady with the charming smile.

“How long did you say you’ve been in town?” I asked.

“About a month.”

Long enough to play some tricks on Edith. “Did you know Edith when you lived here as a child?”

“Gracious, no. It seems as if everyone I knew has moved away. It’s all so different now. After the holidays, when things slow down at the store, I’ll try looking up some friends. But so far, Jonah and Twiggy have been keeping me busy! And now we have to take care of this little matter with Sugar . . .”

I hoped that wasn’t as sinister as it sounded.