Tammy gazed up into Hugh’s face and said, “Okay. If it would make everyone more comfortable.”
“Great, let’s do it,” Hugh said. As he and Tammy moved to two chairs across the table from Olivia, Hugh said, “The soup looks delicious, Bertha. You’ve outdone yourself, and that takes some doing.”
Once Bertha had filled everyone’s soup bowl, quiet descended, interrupted only by murmured appreciation or the occasional slurp. Olivia cherished the peaceful moments. She had a feeling they wouldn’t last.
At the end of the soup course, Bertha left to fetch the main course and side dishes. Mr. Willard gathered up the soup bowls and nearly empty tureen and followed her into the kitchen. Olivia watched his back disappear with the uncomfortable sense that she was now on her own in enemy territory.
“Olivia, I feel as though I barely know you.” Olivia’s head snapped around in surprise as she realized it was Edward who had spoken. “Although now it appears you were my mother’s best friend for the past year.”
“I don’t know about that,” she said. “And do call me Livie. Everyone does.”
“That is quite a large inheritance for someone who doesn’t know if she was a best friend.”
“My brother is inclined toward bluntness,” Hugh said, in his smoothly modulated voice. “He doesn’t actually know he is being rude. What Edward means is that Mother’s bequest to you caught us all by surprise.”
“What I meant was, you had to have known about it. Which makes me wonder how much influence you had over her and whether she was really of sound mind.” Edward fixed her with a stare that felt like a mind probe. Intense—wasn’t that the word she kept hearing when anyone tried to describe Edward?
“Really, Edward, is this necess—”
“Yes, Hugh, it is necessary. How do we know she didn’t take advantage of Mother? Obviously, given how she died, she must have been slipping mentally.”
“Edward!”
“Maybe you figured that out, Livie?”
“That’s enough, Edward.” This time the voice belonged to Tammy. The take-charge Tammy, not the love slave. “Livie is our guest, and I’ve known her practically my whole life. She would never, ever do such a thing.” This was also the Tammy who earlier had accused Olivia of practically the same crime. Okay, Tammy had only questioned Clarisse’s mental faculties, not Olivia’s intentions. But it had felt the same.
Ignoring Tammy’s attempt at intervention, Edward kept his razor eyes aimed at Olivia. It was time, she decided, to take the offensive. In a nice way, of course.
“It seems to me,” Olivia said, “that if Clarisse had been slipping mentally, someone in the family would have noticed it before her death, not after. She taught me a great deal about business, and I can promise you that her mind was sharp and clear.” Before she could think better of it, she added, “However, I did notice that she seemed worried the last few days of her life. She certainly wasn’t failing intellectually, but something had upset her deeply. Any idea what it was?”
“Livie,” Hugh said, “I promise you, we had no idea Mother was upset. Perhaps we should have been more observant, but—”
“You seem to be the only one who thought Mother was upset,” Edward said.
“No,” Olivia said, “Bertha thought so, too.”
“What did I think?” Bertha pushed the kitchen door wide with her ample posterior to allow Mr. Willard to deliver a large platter holding a generous roast, surrounded by potatoes and carrots. Bertha followed him to the table, carrying a gravy boat and a loaf of bread.
“We were discussing Mother’s state of mind last week, before her accident.”
Trust Edward to be brutally blunt , Olivia thought.
“Oh, let’s not talk about that,” Bertha said. “Not tonight.”
In deference to Bertha’s request, dinner conversation had been minimal and dull. The meal itself was superb and gave Olivia an unaccustomed longing to learn to cook. She could bake nearly anything, but the cooking of wholesome food had never interested her. Maybe she could take lessons. Or she could simply adopt Bertha.
Her taste buds might be delighted, but Olivia longed to probe for more information. At least she had observed some suggestive family dynamics, especially between Hugh and Edward Chamberlain. However, she needed more if she wanted to pin down the circumstances of Clarisse’s death.
After several glasses of wine and many compliments about her cooking, Bertha radiated content. “It’s time for dessert,” she announced. “No, no, I’ll bring it myself,” she said as Mr. Willard pushed back his chair to help her. “I worked on this all day yesterday, as a special tribute to Ms. Clarisse, so I expect you all to have at least one.”
Once Bertha was out of earshot, Tammy groaned and said, “I suppose I’ll have to eat one, but I won’t be able to fit into my new dresses.”
“A bite is all it will take to keep Bertha happy. She understands how small you are,” Hugh said, soothing but with an undercurrent of paternalism.
Bertha opened the kitchen door, once again by pushing with her backside. “Ta-da,” she warbled as she turned around. With a happy, loopy grin, she presented a large platter holding a precarious pyramid of decorated cookies.
Olivia was too stunned to speak. There was silence all around, interrupted once by a titter that sounded like Tammy’s voice. Mr. Willard frowned in the direction of the dining room ceiling, his thin fingers tapping a silent rhythm on the edge of the table. He knows what happened to Sam Parnell , Olivia thought, but he wasn’t expecting this to happen .
Across the table, Hugh tried to look composed and benign but couldn’t stop himself from shifting in his seat. Tammy’s eyes grew wide at the sight of the cookies. She quickly dropped her head and began drawing light little circles on the tablecloth with one pink fingernail. Because everyone had faced toward the kitchen when Bertha emerged with dessert, Edward was behind Olivia. She couldn’t see his face. He hadn’t made a sound since Bertha’s arrival.
Bertha lowered the heavy platter to the table. “Now, I know this isn’t a traditional dessert, but Ms. Clarisse dearly loved her cookie cutters, so I borrowed a few. Not any of the valuable ones, of course. I found some recipes you must have given her, Livie. I used the one with the grated orange zest in the dough. Took me right back to my childhood, it did.”
It was very clear to Olivia that Bertha had heard nothing about Sam Parnell. On the other hand, she was sure that Hugh, Edward, and Tammy had, and the presence of the cookies made them distinctly uncomfortable. Whether they were squirming because the cookies had been made by the very cutters that now belonged to Olivia or because one of them was being reminded of what they had done to Sam, not to mention Clarisse, Olivia couldn’t be sure. But if one of the guests around the table—or two or even three of them—murdered Clarisse, she began to wonder if cookies and cookie cutters might be her best tools to catch a killer.
Chapter Fifteen
It was ten p.m. by the time Olivia returned from dinner at the Chamberlain home, and all she could think about was the soft, cool feel of her sheets as she slid into bed. There was Spunky, of course; he’d be whining to go out before she got her key in the lock. However, if he wanted a run, he was out of luck.
Olivia unlocked the front door and found the light on in the foyer. Maddie must have forgotten to turn it off when she left. They’d have to repeat that little talk about the energy bill. As she reached for the light switch, she noticed the corner of a piece of paper sticking out under the door to The Gingerbread House. She knelt down and managed to claw out a four-by-six recipe card, with The Gingerbread House imprinted at the top and a color drawing of a gingerbread woman holding a large spoon. In the space provided for a recipe, a scrawled note read, If this note is here, so am I. Come in & talk to me. M.