“I’m glad you’re on my side,” Olivia said. “I’ll keep my part of the bargain. Tomorrow I’ll talk to Del.”
“I’m relieved to hear that. I will sleep somewhat better tonight.”
The next morning, Olivia poked her head into The Gingerbread House a few minutes after opening. Maddie and Ellie were already helping customers, so she waved her travel mug at them and slipped away. Only two days left until Sunday, when she and Maddie would be hosting a cookie-cutter memorial service for Clarisse—and hoping to reveal her killer.
Before crawling into bed the night before, she had finished a nearly complete list of the cookie cutters she needed for Sunday’s memorial. Her energy surged as she drove toward the Chamberlain house. She felt more in control of her fate, no longer buffeted by events, especially those nasty attempts to cast suspicion on her for Clarisse’s murder. Now she had a direction, plans, cookies to decorate.... By the time Bertha met her at the front door, Olivia was floating in adrenaline.
As they climbed the stairs to the second floor, Olivia asked, “Were you the one who put away the cookie cutters Clarisse was looking at the night she . . . ?”
Bertha paused on a step, took a wheezy breath, and nodded. “I figured it was my job. Usually Ms. Clarisse did that, but, well . . .”
“Of course. I don’t suppose you remember where you put them? In which drawers, I mean?”
“Bless you, dear, I don’t even remember what they looked like. I was so upset and teary, I could barely see to find the room. I put those cookie cutters back anywhere I could find a free space. Why? Is it important?”
At the tone of alarm in Bertha’s voice, Olivia backpedaled. Bertha had sworn an oath of secrecy concerning Olivia’s visit; that was enough of a risk. The less she knew about the details, the better.
“Oh no, I’ll find plenty of cutters for Sunday, don’t worry.”
They reached the second floor, and Bertha opened the first door on the left. “Well, here we are, dear. I’ll leave you to it.”
Clarisse Chamberlain’s cookie-cutter collection filled an entire spare bedroom. Olivia had visited it on numerous occasions during her visits to the Chamberlain home, yet each time she entered the room a quickening rushed through her. Even now, with Clarisse gone, Olivia felt like a child crossing the threshold of a toy store.
Once Bertha closed the door behind her, Olivia turned in a slow circle, taking in the bureaus and cabinets that lined all four walls. She knew the history of each one. The older, smaller cabinets had belonged to Clarisse’s workingclass family, while the Victorian-style walnut dresser had survived through several generations of Martin Chamberlain’s well-to-do family. Other pieces were antiques, which Clarisse had purchased for her growing cookie-cutter collection.
During the year she and Clarisse had shared their passion for cutters, Olivia had seen perhaps a third of the collection. She had no more than half an hour to find the pieces she needed for the memorial event, so she couldn’t afford to dawdle. When her mother agreed to help out at the store yet again, she’d made it clear she did not intend to miss her book group at ten a.m.
Clarisse had loved both the cookie cutters and the act of organizing. Olivia knew that she would at times amuse herself by dismantling part or all of her collection and then reorganizing it. So even though Olivia had seen the insides of many drawers, their contents might have changed since then.
Olivia checked her short list of vintage cookie cutters, culled from the longer list of cutters on Clarisse’s desk. These were shapes she could not reproduce from the store’s inventory:
1. Dancing Snoopy *
2. Gingerbread Boy with Crown *
3. Gingerbread Man Running *
4. Gingerbread House *
5. Gingerbread Woman and Girl *
She remembered that Clarisse usually reserved the chests from her own family for her mother’s modest collection, as well as other cutters from the 1940s and 1950s. The walnut dresser and an old cedar chest were the only pieces from Martin’s family, and they had also contained some antiques.
Olivia began with the cedar chest. The heavy lid creaked as she lifted it, and she caught a fleeting whiff of mothballs. Inside, she found wooden trays lined with velvet and stacked on top of one another. The cutters were spaced evenly in rows across the trays. Each cutter bore an easily read identification tag. Bless Clarisse and her obsessive organization. She worked her way to the bottom two trays. There she found gingerbread figures, including the woman and the girl from her list.
One cookie cutter down and four to go.
Olivia turned to the walnut dresser, which had three large drawers and a mirror in a carved frame. Beneath the mirror lay a marble insert, flanked on each side by a small drawer. She pulled open the right drawer. It contained only one cookie cutter—a gingerbread house with a chimney. The shape was on her longer list, so she took it. She could have used a similar shape from the store, but it was good to have the well-used original.
She opened the small drawer on the left. It was empty. Naturally it wouldn’t be that easy.
Olivia moved on to the large drawers. In the top one, she found a maze of various-size boxes, arranged as tightly as possible. Some had clear plastic lids, several were collections with pictures of the cutters on the top, and the rest would have to be opened. Olivia said good-bye to the remains of her adrenaline rush.
By the time she’d reached the bottom of the top drawer, Olivia was in despair. So far, only two cutters matched her list. She checked her watch. If she didn’t leave in fifteen minutes, at the latest, Maddie would be on her own in the store. Maybe she’d be all right for a while, but not for too long.
Olivia tried to think of a way to shorten her search. She still needed three cookie cutters: gingerbread boy with crown, gingerbread man running, and the 1971 Dancing Snoopy, from a Hallmark collection. In a pinch, she and Maddie could make templates, but it wouldn’t be the same. She looked at the tightly packed second drawer of the walnut dresser and remembered Bertha’s comment that she’d put the cutters back wherever she could find room.
Olivia stood in the middle of the room and studied the remaining pieces of furniture. If I were Bertha, I’d make it easy on myself. Then she saw it—a small bureau in a sleek Scandinavian style. It screamed 1970s, and it was right next to the door. In the second drawer, she found an extensive collection of Hallmark Peanuts cookie cutters, including a rare Snoopy sitting on a pumpkin. Unable to help herself, Olivia picked it up, caressed it with her thumb, then yelled at herself for wasting precious time.
Within seconds, Olivia located the Dancing Snoopy she had sold to Clarisse. Snoopy was resting between the boy with a crown and the running gingerbread man. She checked her watch. If she left now, she should arrive at the store as her mother left for her book group.
Olivia stuffed her loot into a cloth bag she’d brought along and ran for the stairs. As she passed the living room, she saw Bertha wielding a vacuum cleaner. Olivia waved to catch her attention, then mouthed “Thank you.” Before Bertha could turn off the vacuum cleaner, Olivia escaped through the front door.
Only seven miles separated the Chamberlain home from the town of Chatterley Heights. However, the twists in the road and the hilly terrain could make the trip feel much longer. Propelled by a growing sense of urgency, Olivia had sprinted from the Chamberlain’s front door to her dusty old Valiant. Her tires spit gravel as she accelerated hard down the long driveway. Before turning onto the main road, she made a rolling stop and swung right.
Questions bounced around in Olivia’s head, forming an overwhelming to-do list. Was Jasmine Dubois truly the dark-haired dead woman found six years earlier near the Patuxent River? If so, was her death an accident or was she murdered? Had Clarisse found out about a murder as well as a grandchild?