“Morning, Ms. Greyson.” Deputy Cody sucked in air and shook his head. “Whew. Nothing like an early run. Hey, Spunks,” he said, squatting down to scratch Spunky’s ears. When he stood up, Olivia had to arch her neck to look up at him. He had to be at least six foot three. She was willing to bet he didn’t weigh much more than she did. Despite being in his midtwenties, Cody always reminded Olivia of a teenage boy whose weight hadn’t caught up with his sudden growth spurt.
Cody’s smile faded as he said, “I’m real sorry about Ms. Chamberlain. Del says you were friends.” His eyes, nearly the same warm brown as Buddy’s, shifted to his feet.
“It’s still hard to take in. Cody, do you mind if I ask you a question? About Clarisse’s death, I mean?”
“I guess, but the sheriff knows more about it than I do.”
“But you were with Del when . . . ?”
Cody nodded. “I was on duty when the call came through, so I called Del right away, like I’m supposed to. I picked him up on the way.”
“I keep wondering. . . . Del said Clarisse was on the floor, as if she’d tried to go for help. Was that your impression, too?”
“Well, I’d never contradict Del, he’s got a lot more experience than me, but since you ask, I wasn’t so sure. I mean, yeah, she looked like she’d fallen on her way to the door, but her arms were lying straight beside her. Del doesn’t think it means anything. Only I thought that, you know, she’d have tried to break her fall or something.”
“Might she have been unconscious before she landed?”
“That’s what Del thinks, because she’d drunk all that wine, and with the pills. Which makes sense, of course.”
“Was the wine bottle on her desk?”
“That’s another thing,” Cody said. “It was right beside her, with a little wine spilled out onto the rug. Didn’t seem right to me.” He had lost all hint of reserve by this time, and his words came in a rush. “See, the bottle was almost empty, so why would she take it with her? And if she drank a whole bottle of wine with all those pills, how could she even stand up?”
A sudden flush spread across Cody’s cheeks, as if he’d realized he shouldn’t be sharing his own speculations with a mere citizen. “Del said it wasn’t enough to go on and not to speculate. He said to wait for the evidence.”
“I see what you mean,” Olivia said. “I suppose we might never know for sure. But your observations are very insightful.”
The deputy’s tense shoulders relaxed. “I keep trying to learn more. I want to be a police detective. That’s my dream, I guess you’d call it. Detectives pay attention to little things, so that’s what I do. And the more I looked at those photos, I more I thought—”
“Wait, there were photos?” Olivia had blurted out the question without thinking, but to her surprise Cody did not seem flustered. If anything, he looked irritated. “I don’t mean to intrude,” she added quickly. “All I know is what I read in mysteries.” She willed herself not to react to Cody’s derisive snort. “I suppose the sheriff ordered photos of the scene to be on the safe side? In case there was any question about it being something other than an accident?”
“Del didn’t order any photos,” Cody said. “He said not to bother, it was clearly an accident. I took those photos on my own.”
Two thoughts occurred to Olivia: Cody was irritated with Del, not with her, and she’d need to be careful how she approached Del for any more information. Could Del have a hidden agenda, some reason all his own for wanting Clarisse’s death to look like an accident? Olivia had a hard time believing that, but what if . . . ?
“See, I’m taking this online crime scene investigation course,” Cody said. “So I went ahead and took photos anyway, for practice. It’s what you’re supposed to do whenever there’s a sudden death that might be foul play. Del is smart, but really, how many murders have we had in Chatterley Heights? I heard about one back in the 1800s, a jealous husband or something like that, and maybe a couple others, but not since I was born.”
“Something tells me I’m not in Baltimore anymore,” Olivia said.
“Huh?”
“Never mind,” she said. “I think it was a good idea to take photos. I have trouble believing that Clarisse is gone. Would you be willing to let me see your photos? It might help.” Her reason sounded flimsy to Olivia, but it was the best she could come up with on short notice.
“Are you sure?” Cody asked. “Won’t it upset you to see her so . . . I mean . . .”
“Her death is what upsets me. Maybe seeing the photos will help me accept and understand it better.”
“Well, if you think they’ll help. I used my digital camera, so I could download the photos and email them to you, if that’s okay.”
“That would be fine.” Olivia found an old receipt and a pen in her jacket pocket. “Here’s my email address. Thanks so much, Cody. And maybe we shouldn’t mention this to anyone?”
“Especially Del,” Cody said, pocketing the paper. “I’m pretty sure he’d kill me if he found out.”
Olivia took the stairs two at a time up to her apartment, with Spunky struggling to keep up. Before taking off her jacket, she woke up the laptop at her bedroom desk and checked her email. For once, Spunky wasn’t interested. He jumped onto Olivia’s bed and collapsed into a ball of boneless dog flesh.
Aside from a plea from her mother that she pick up a dozen eggs on her way to brunch, Olivia had no new mail. Not surprising, since only about seven minutes had elapsed since she’d left Deputy Cody in the town square. Under ordinary circumstances, Olivia considered herself a patient person. These were not ordinary circumstances. Clarisse’s death had never made sense to her, neither as accident nor as suicide. With Cody’s photos, she might find another possibility. She wasn’t eager to discover signs that Clarisse had been murdered, but if she was murdered, Olivia would never be content until she’d found the truth.
Staring at her email inbox would only frustrate her, so Olivia decided to spend some time downstairs in The Gingerbread House. Spunky didn’t so much as flicker an eyelid when she slapped her laptop shut. Olivia figured he’d be out for several hours thanks to all that exercise, but she added food to his bowl and gave him fresh water. When he did wake up, he’d be one hungry pup. On her way out, she picked up her laptop.
Olivia’s mind churned nonstop as she unlocked the store and turned the lights on low. Several of the display tables needed reorganizing, a job she always enjoyed, but first she had to wrap up the cookies she and Maddie had decorated the previous evening. The Food Shelf opened at nine a.m. weekdays, so Olivia could drop off the cookies and run some errands before arriving at her mom and step-dad’s house for brunch.
A second switch outside the kitchen allowed her to turn off the store lights, but Olivia decided to leave them on dim. She hoped Maddie might see them and stop in, so the two of them could look over Cody’s photos when they arrived.
Olivia switched on the kitchen light and realized she had some cleanup to finish. She and Maddie had washed the baking equipment, then left it in the sink strainer to dry. Leaving her laptop on the kitchen desk, Olivia finished putting everything back in its assigned storage spot, scrubbed out the sink, and cast a critical eye around the kitchen. Not bad—except for the large worktable, which showed sprinklings of flour and numerous bits of cookie dough, evidence of how absorbed they’d been in their brainstorming about Clarisse’s death.
For once, Olivia didn’t care about the state of the kitchen. She knew she wouldn’t be able to refocus until she’d checked her email again. As she threw her used dishtowel in the laundry bag, she heard something through the kitchen door. She couldn’t remember locking the store’s front door behind her. Maybe a customer had wandered in, thinking the store was open.