“I know.”
Olivia exhaled a sigh. “She was carrying a large purse, the one she used when she had lots of errands or was delivering a package somewhere. I remember because she opened it, looked inside, then snapped it shut. Then she glanced around the store again, but she stood rooted in one place as if she couldn’t remember why she’d come.
“I asked her, ‘Is there something special you’re looking for, Clarisse? We’ve gotten in several new spring collections since you were here last.’ She didn’t react, so I added that we’d received several vintage pieces from the 1970s Hallmark Peanuts collection. She perked up and asked to see them, so we walked over to the curio cabinet.”
Del interrupted, his voice muted. “Do you keep it locked? Just wondering.”
“I always try to, although I’d let Clarisse sort through it. The average shoplifter wouldn’t know the value of vintage cookie cutters—some can be worth hundreds of dollars—but serious collectors and antiques dealers do. At night, we lock the most valuable ones in the safe.”
“Good,” Del said. “Makes my job easier. Go on.”
“When I got out the Peanuts cookie cutters, Clarisse picked up one with Snoopy dancing. She held it for several seconds while she stared off into space. Finally, she said something like, ‘So gleeful,’ softly, almost to herself. Then she said to me, ‘I’ll take this one.’ As I walked over to the sales counter, she called to me, ‘I’m going to look around a bit.’ I looked over my shoulder, but she’d already turned her back on me.
“I said to her, ‘Of course, take your time,’ but she didn’t answer. I felt a bit . . . well, rejected. Clarisse had never acted so distant, not with me.”
Olivia picked at the remains of her salad. “I know it doesn’t sound like much, but in the last few months, Clarisse had been treating me almost like a daughter, taking me out to dinner, offering unwelcome advice. . . .”
Del chuckled. “Sounds about right.”
“The next thing she did during her visit on Tuesday was out of character,” Olivia said. “She asked me for some of our cookie recipes.”
“You said she didn’t bake,” Del said, sounding interested.
“I must have looked surprised, because she added that they were for Bertha. Even that didn’t make a lot of sense. When Clarisse wanted decorated cookies for a gathering, she always hired us to provide them. Anyway, I said, sure, I’d go make copies of them.”
“Anything else you can remember?”
“That’s about it. When I returned with the recipes, Clarisse had put another cookie cutter on the counter—a flower shape, I think. I wrapped it up, then walked over to her, and . . . You know, I thought I’d imagined this, but after Sam’s comment, I’m not so sure.”
Olivia pushed her plate aside, so she could lean on her elbows. Rubbing her temples with her fingers, she said, “Clarisse was standing in front of a collection of cookie cutters meant for baby showers—you know, baby booties, rattles, a rocking horse, that sort of thing. She was holding a baby carriage shape. I touched her lightly on the sleeve of her coat, and her head jerked up as if I’d startled her home from another world. She looked right at me. I’d swear she had tears in her eyes. But she recovered so quickly I thought I’d imagined it. Then today, Sam insisted that grandchildren were very important to Clarisse—except she’d never mentioned it to me.”
Del said, “Sounds like a safe, generic observation, the kind Sam often uses to elicit information. What mother doesn’t want grandchildren? However, what you saw might be helpful.”
Del was silent for a few moments. A wrinkle between his eyebrows told Olivia that he’d taken her seriously and was giving her observations some thought.
“You’re actually pretty good at this,” he said. “You have no idea how hard it is to get coherent details out of witnesses. I understand now why you’ve felt concerned. I might be able to put your mind at rest, at least partially.” Del leaned across the table and lowered his voice. “I’m going to tell you some information we’ve gathered since Clarisse was found. It hasn’t been very long, and we don’t yet have the autopsy and other test results, so this will be sketchy. Only here’s the thing, Livie, don’t tell anyone else, not even Maddie. Especially not Maddie. There are enough rumors out there already.”
“Of course I won’t,” Olivia said.
“It’s not that I don’t trust you, or even that this information will turn out to be important, but . . . well, we simply don’t know what we’re looking at here.”
“Del, are you saying that—”
“Keep your voice down.”
Olivia leaned closer and whispered, “Are you saying that there’s something suspicious about Clarisse’s death?”
“No, I’m not saying that at all. I’m pretty sure it was an accident, only . . . Look, I’ll tell you what I can, then you’ll understand why it’s important to keep this to yourself.”
Del glanced around the half-empty café and seemed satisfied. “Okay. It looks right now like Clarisse drank a full bottle of red wine the night she died. Bertha said Clarisse asked her to open the bottle and bring it to her study. She also said Clarisse normally drank no more than one glass of wine, and only with dinner. Clarisse had trouble sleeping, Bertha said, and she had a prescription for strong sleeping pills. Since she had trouble swallowing pills, she always crushed the sleeping pills and added them to liquid, usually water or orange juice. Bertha said she’d seemed troubled lately. The evening of her death, she had barely touched her dinner.”
“Which means,” Olivia said, “she was drinking wine and taking pills on an empty stomach.”
“Exactly. Bertha got up at about three a.m. to answer the shout of nature, as she put it, and saw the lights on downstairs. She found Clarisse on her study floor. She was lying facedown, halfway between her desk and the study door, as if she’d realized she was in trouble and had tried to get help.”
Olivia stared out the café window. The sky had been darkening all morning; rain would arrive before long. “So what you’re saying is that Clarisse was so disturbed, she didn’t realize or care that she was doing something really stupid?” Olivia’s mind flashed again to her many conversations with Clarisse. “I don’t know, though. . . . Clarisse could be stubborn, but she wasn’t ever stupid.”
Del shrugged. “We’ll see what the autopsy reveals. Right now I’m concerned about a third alternative, given what you and everyone else have told us about Clarisse’s state of mind. I want it kept quiet until we’ve had a chance to eliminate the possibility.” Del checked his watch. “I need to get back to the station. What you’ve recounted only supports what everyone else has said, that Clarisse was more distracted than anyone had ever seen her. We have to explore the possibility that Clarisse herself might have decided to—”
“No!” A couple of heads swiveled in their direction, and Olivia lowered her voice. “I know what you are going to say, but Clarisse would never choose to end her own life. She could face anything. Whatever was bothering her, she would have found a solution or gritted her teeth and carried on.”
Del reached over and touched Olivia’s arm for a brief moment. For some reason, it only made her angrier.
“I hope you’re right,” Del said. “Look, I know how much you want answers, but please don’t go out there on your own, asking questions that might fuel rumors. Clarisse had several life insurance policies, and we don’t want big-city insurance investigators getting the wind up while we’re still trying to figure out what happened.”
Olivia nodded her assent to a promise she wasn’t sure she could keep.
Chapter Three
After her unsettling lunch with Del, Olivia walked back to The Gingerbread House in a funk. She couldn’t accept the idea that Clarisse had died from an accidental overdose of sleeping pills and alcohol. Clarisse had been a nurse, for heaven’s sakes. And after her marriage, she and Martin had created a medical supply business that grew to be their largest, most successful venture. Clarisse had been far too knowledgeable to make such an ignorant and deadly error, no matter how preoccupied she was.