Olivia opened the small wall safe hidden behind the kitchen desk and began to count out bills and coins for the cash register. She scooped up the money and dropped it into a zippered bag. Maddie had moved on to another cookie, so Olivia decided not to interrupt until she’d set up the register and was ready to help. However, as she approached the door to the main sales area, Maddie looked up.
Maddie capped the tip of her pastry bag. “I called Bertha to come in for opening. We’ll probably be swamped again, and I need to concentrate,” she said. “You, sit.”
“What’s up?” Olivia asked as she pulled over a chair.
Maddie hauled herself up on the kitchen counter. “Since when don’t you tell me instantly the moment something important happens, like, you find a dead body in the town square?”
“Maddie, of course I was planning to tell you every detail, but this is the first chance I’ve had, and you were working so intently. . . .”
“When I say ‘tell,’ I mean call or throw pebbles at my window to wake me up, whatever works. Do you know how I found out about your little nighttime tripping-over-a-murder-victim escapade? Sitting at the breakfast table with Aunt Sadie, that’s how. She got a call from a friend in the gossip chain. She almost choked on her oatmeal. She’s nearly seventy, you know. She can’t handle that kind of shock.”
“Your aunt Sadie was chewing oatmeal while talking on the phone?”
“Don’t change the subject.” Maddie had been narrowing her eyes at her best friend since the age of ten. “If you must know, I overslept, so Aunt Sadie got it into her head that I was dying of consumption or something. She insisted on making me oatmeal, which in my opinion is only good for cookies. Now stop stalling and tell me everything, every minute detail, even if Sheriff Del swore you to secrecy. Especially if Del swore you to secrecy.” She slid off the counter and retrieved her pastry bag. “I’ll decorate,” she said. “You talk.”
Olivia spilled the whole story and felt better for it. When she’d finished, she poured herself the last cup of coffee, added generous amounts of cream and sugar, and started another pot.
As Maddie piped a cookie with baby pink icing, she asked, “So do you figure this Geoffrey is the jerk who gave Charlene a black eye?” Her head was bent over her cookie. “Because, between you and me, much as I dislike Charlene, I wouldn’t blame her if she iced him. It was probably self-defense, anyway.”
“There’s one detail I haven’t told you yet,” Olivia said. “It might point to a suspect. I just hope it isn’t one of us.”
Maddie paused to glance up at Olivia. “Tell me at once. It might be interesting to be a suspect . . . for about five minutes,” she said, smoothly picking up her icing where she’d left off.
“I think Geoffrey—if that’s who he turns out to be—was holding a cookie cutter when he died. Anyway, I saw something in his hand that looked like the edge of a cutter.”
Maddie frowned but did not interrupt her flooding. “What was it made of?”
“The light was bad,” Olivia said, “but it looked like tin.”
“Like our missing Duesenberg.”
“Yup. I plan to have a quiet chat with Jason as soon as—” The kitchen phone rang. Olivia was within reach, so she answered. “Mom, am I glad to hear from—”
“Yes, dear, but you won’t be glad to hear my news.” Ellie’s normally calm voice sounded tight, as if she were holding herself together. “I’ve just had a call from the sheriff. Your brother has been arrested on suspicion of murdering Charlene’s ex-husband, Geoffrey King.”
“What? No, not Jason, not in a million years. Del is out of his mind.”
“Normally, I would agree,” Ellie said, “but Jason turned himself in. Livie, he has confessed to murder. And according to the sheriff, my own son refuses to speak to me. You’ve got to get down there and talk some sense into that boy. Please, Livie, right away. I’m on my way to The Gingerbread House; I’ll take care of the store, you talk to your brother. Only please hurry.”
“I’m out the door. I’ll call Mr. Willard from my cell. We need an attorney pronto.”
Aloysius Willard Smythe, attorney at law, was waiting outside the police station when Olivia arrived. Mr. Willard, as he was generally called, did not look his usual calm self. His long, thin fingers fidgeted with the buttons on his suit coat, and his quick, dark eyes roamed restlessly until he recognized Olivia striding toward him.
“This is a terrible turn of events,” Mr. Willard said as he patted Olivia’s shoulder like a concerned uncle. “Your poor mother must be frantic with worry.”
“As am I,” Olivia said. “I could throttle Jason, the bonehead.”
Mr. Willard’s gaunt face blanched. “Do you believe that your brother might actually have committed—?”
“No, of course not,” Olivia said. “Jason isn’t a murderer, just an idiot. I do believe that he is afraid Charlene Critch might have killed her ex-husband. I’m fairly certain this Geoffrey King gave her a black eye, probably not for the first time, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he’d been threatening her with worse.”
“Ah, I see,” said Mr. Willard. “In which case, the law would go much easier on Ms. Critch than it will on Jason.”
“Which makes my brother an idiot. Right. Anyway, now we have to figure out how to help him. I doubt he’ll help himself, not unless the real killer is arrested and turns out not to be his precious Charlene.”
“Do you happen to know if Jason might be able to produce an alibi?” Mr. Willard asked in a fatalistic tone, as if he suspected it wouldn’t be that easy.
“I haven’t a clue,” said Olivia. “Even if he could, he won’t.”
Mr. Willard waved his hand toward a bench behind them. “I suggest we sit for a few moments to develop our strategy. As you know, I do not practice criminal law, but I know several excellent defense attorneys, should the need arise. I can handle the preliminaries, but meanwhile we—meaning you, since you know your brother better than I—must think of a way to convince him to say no more without benefit of counsel.”
Olivia wanted more than anything to storm into the jail and stuff a rag in Jason’s mouth, but she agreed to sit down and work out a strategy. “A plan is a good idea,” she said. “I always feel better when I have a plan.”
For several minutes, they sat side-by-side on the wooden bench, Mr. Willard with his fingers laced together on his lap, Olivia in barely contained panic. The only plan she could think of involved bribing the police department with dozens of decorated cookies in law enforcement shapes. Bright blue service revolvers came to mind. Maybe some tulip red squad cars trimmed with gold luster dust paint, and of course a jail cell with bars formed from silver dragées. Olivia envisioned Jason’s stubborn, frightened face behind the bars. She slowed and deepened her breathing to clear her mind of lovely iced distractions. Jason needed her, whether he’d admit it or not.
“I have something of a plan,” Olivia said, “but you might not like it. I know Sheriff Del will hate it, so I don’t intend to tell him. He’ll figure it out, of course.” She shrugged her shoulders. “But there isn’t much he can do about it.”
“Ah,” said Mr. Willard. “You intend to find out who actually killed that unfortunate young man. And how might that intention convince young Jason to cease confessing at once?”
“Because Jason knows I can do it. Last spring he actually said how impressed he was when I helped solve a murder. I think that’s the first and only time he has ever acknowledged that I might have a functioning brain. And he knows I love him, even when I can’t stand him, so he knows I’ll never give up. The hardest part will be convincing him that I’m not convinced Charlene killed her ex-husband.”