“You keep up with Chatterley Heights gossip?” Olivia asked with genuine surprise.
“I try. It helps me anticipate problems.” Del frowned at the floor. “I’ve learned a lot about the Chamberlain family in the last few days. The general consensus was that Clarisse was opposed to Hugh marrying Tammy. It seems she was very vocal about it during the last few days of her life. It’s odd, though, no one was really sure why.” Del narrowed his eyes at Olivia. “So I was thinking, outside of her family, you probably knew the most about what went on in Clarisse’s mind.”
Olivia hesitated. If she told Del what she and Maddie had overheard and what Clarisse had left for her in the store, it might convince him to delve more deeply into Clarisse’s death. On the other hand, Tammy and Hugh hadn’t admitted any wrongdoing. What if there was an innocent explanation for their conversation? Olivia needed time to think.
“I wish I could help,” Olivia said. “I have no idea why Clarisse disapproved of Tammy.”
Maddie appeared, holding Lucas’s hand. “We’re out of here,” she said to Olivia. “Hey, Del, nice duds.”
“Right back at you, Maddie.” With a quick movement, Del pushed aside his shirt cuff and checked his watch. “I need to get back to the station. Cody gave up part of his Sunday so I could come to this gathering.”
So why exactly did you come? Olivia thought but didn’t say.
“How about I walk you home, Livie?” Del stood and reached a hand toward her. “After all, I believe I am supposed to be your date.”
Chapter Nine
“You grab the cookies from the freezer,” Maddie said. “I’ll get out the mixer and start throwing together some royal icing. Ah, there’s nothing like decorating cookies to fire up the synapses.”
“The entire freezer is stuffed with undecorated cookies,” Olivia said.
“Get out the package of round ones. We can do anything we like with those.” Maddie whistled “Stars and Stripes Forever” while she yanked confectioners’ sugar and meringue powder off shelves and clattered through the measuring spoons. Pausing in the middle of the piccolo part, she said, “Note to shopping-list maker: we’re out of lemon extract. I’m using orange, unless you have serious reservations.”
“Orange is good.” Olivia unpacked the frozen cookies and placed them on racks to thaw. The stand mixer whirred, a sound that always gave her a warm, cozy feeling. She and her mother, whose energy and enthusiasm rivaled Maddie’s, had made dozens of holiday cookies together every year until Olivia left for college. The sharp sweetness of the orange extract, the sheen of royal icing, even the flour and confectioners’ sugar that dusted the table around the mixer—all of it brought back those safe, protected years of childhood, before marriage and divorce, before the suspicious death of a friend.
“I’m having brunch at my mom and stepdad’s house tomorrow,” Olivia said. “I was planning to ask Allan about Clarisse, but now I’m thinking he might have some insights about Hugh.”
“Such as?” Maddie was racing to divide the icing into lidded bowls so it wouldn’t dry out.
“Such as, how skilled a businessman is Hugh? Clarisse said once that each of her sons inherited part of Martin’s genius, but not all of it.”
“Clarisse was no slouch when it came to business,” Maddie said. “Bring over the food color gels, would you? You can start coloring, if you want.”
Olivia brought over some small bottles and arranged them in a spectrum of color next to the covered containers of icing. She selected her favorite, teal. She added one drop to a portion of icing and stirred, watching the blue-green color swirl and spread through the light buff icing.
“I wonder how well Clarisse understood her sons,” Olivia said.
Maddie collected a pile of pastry bags and a box of metal tips. “Where’s this leading?”
Olivia added one more drop of teal and stirred. “It occurred to me that we need to know about Clarisse’s will, and if she was planning to change it. I know that Martin’s will gave Clarisse control over all their businesses, with instructions that she equally involve both sons in running them. She had pulled back a bit in the past year to give Hugh and Edward more experience.”
“Clarisse was planning to retire? Hard to believe.” Maddie was already coloring her second container of icing a gentle peach, a dramatic contrast to the color she chose first, a rich burgundy.
Olivia tightened the lid on her teal icing. “I doubt she was thinking about retirement. I think she was testing them. That’s why I’m wondering about her will. What if she was planning to give one of her sons control over all the Chamberlain businesses, or at least the bigger ones?” She opened another icing container and added a drop of purple. “That would be a great motive for murder.”
“Lucas went to school with Hugh, and Edward is only two years younger. I could ask him what he thinks of them. I know he’s quiet, but he’s very observant.”
“Have I said he wasn’t?”
With an irritated sigh, Maddie said, “No, not you. Tammy made some comment to me about my being ‘so vibrant,’ like I was going to overwhelm poor, shy Lucas.”
“It might actually have been a compliment,” Olivia said. “In most circles, vibrant is considered a good thing.”
“Not in Tammy’s circle of one.”
“All righty, then.” Olivia twisted the lid back on her final contribution to the icing choices and started filling pastry bags.
“You can start piping if you want,” Maddie said. “I’ll make the flood icing.”
The whirring of the mixer discouraged conversation for a time. When it stopped, Maddie said, “You know what I’d like to know? I’d like to know why Clarisse disliked Tammy so much. I mean, aside from the obvious. I have to admit, she and Hugh are a good fit. He doesn’t appear to have a spine, and Tammy has at least two of them. If I’d been Clarisse, I’d have been relieved Hugh had found someone so strong willed. She’ll push him to succeed, you wait and see.”
“I hadn’t thought of that,” Olivia said. “Mom told me Clarisse did approve of Tammy before Jasmine came along. You’d think Clarisse would have been disappointed in Jasmine when she up and left. Tammy was the loyal one.”
Olivia finished piping the outline of a Yorkshire terrier on a round cookie. She put the bowl of brown icing back with the others and pulled up a chair to rest her back. “If Clarisse’s death was a suicide, which I still don’t accept, what might have led her to it?”
“Which was more important to her?” Maddie asked. “Her sons or her family businesses?”
Olivia wanted to say that of course Clarisse’s sons were her top priority, but could she? Clarisse had said little to her about Hugh and Edward. She’d often talked about her husband with admiration, even when she was recalling how he drove her crazy at times. But Hugh and Edward? Olivia wondered if Clarisse had loved her sons unreservedly, or if, ultimately, they had disappointed her.
“A Sunday evening well spent,” Olivia said. “I’m so glad we didn’t open a health food store.” “Here, here,” Maddie said, holding aloft her empty wineglass.
After decorating and boxing up all but a few of the cookies, they had retired to Olivia’s upstairs apartment for debriefing. They both slouched on the sofa, their bare feet resting on the coffee table, having consumed a plate of turkey sandwiches and several cookies. Spunky cuddled between them.
Olivia retrieved the merlot bottle from between her feet and refilled both their glasses. She lifted the cookie plate, now mostly crumbs. “Only one cookie left, and it’s Spunky. Shall we share him?”
At the sound of his name, Spunky’s head popped up.
“Sorry, kiddo,” Olivia said. “Cookies are not good for your tiny digestive system. I don’t intend to stay up all night nursing you.” As she snapped the cookie in half, one chunk broke off and fell on the sofa. Spunky grabbed it with his teeth and swallowed before Olivia could stop him.