“Do you know what was in it?” Olivia asked.
Bertha shook her head, and a tendril of gray hair escaped from the tight bun at the nape of her neck. “Sam handed me the mail at the door, and I delivered it straight to Ms. Clarisse. Before she opened it, she asked me to leave. Usually she opened all the mail with me there, so she could hand me the household bills and such like. Anyway, right after that she got quieter.”
“What happened to that envelope? Do you know?”
Bertha looked at her with red-rimmed eyes. “I never saw it again. And mind you, I looked for it. I should have asked Ms. Clarisse directly, but I figured she wouldn’t tell me anything. I knew it was bad news, had to be.”
“Could Clarisse have been ill?” Olivia asked. “Maybe seriously ill?”
Bertha snorted. “That girl had the constitution of a workhorse. Why, she had her physical only last month. I drove her, so she could get her eyes checked at the same time. I was right there when her doctor told her she passed everything with flying colors. He said her blood pressure belonged in a textbook, it was so perfect.”
“Did you mention the envelope to the police?”
Bertha shook her head firmly. “I didn’t like the questions they were asking: Was Ms. Clarisse getting confused? Was she depressed? All that nonsense. Even if she did make a mistake with her sleeping pills, that doesn’t mean she was senile.”
“What about Hugh and Edward? Did you hear either of them say anything about Clarisse getting bad news or being worried about something?”
“Oh those boys,” Bertha said in an indulgent tone. “They don’t notice things.”
“By the way,” Olivia asked, “where are they?”
“They came home today because of what happened, then back to Baltimore for the end of some business conference they were at all week. We can’t bury Ms. Clarisse until the police give her back to us, so the boys are keeping busy. They’ll be home tomorrow.” Bertha opened the refrigerator. “I made their favorite, blueberry pie. Had to use frozen blueberries, but it’ll taste the same.” She cut two slices, slid them onto plates, and brought them to the table.
Olivia was stuffed, but Bertha would be insulted if she turned down dessert. She got through half of it before saying, “Bertha, this is so delicious, but I’m too full to finish. Could I take the rest home for a bedtime snack?”
Bertha, who had finished her slice, put Olivia’s leftovers in a plastic container and left it on the table. While she covered the pie plate with plastic wrap, she said, “There’s something I didn’t tell the police. It probably isn’t anything, but . . . well, Ms. Clarisse did mention your name.”
“My name? When?”
“A couple weeks back, it was. When she got that other envelope in the mail.”
“Wait. Clarisse received a previous envelope?”
Bertha avoided Olivia’s eyes. “I didn’t think about it until now because the first envelope didn’t make her so upset. Right after we went through the bills, she opened that envelope in front of me and pulled out a letter. She looked sort of startled as she read it and then put it right back in the envelope. I never saw that one again, either. Then a few days later, I passed her office and she was having one of her little talks with Mr. Martin.” Bertha saw Olivia’s confusion and added, “I wouldn’t tell this to the police, but you are family, or near like it. When Ms. Clarisse was chewing on a problem, she’d discuss it with Mr. Martin’s portrait—you know, the one that hangs over the fireplace in her office.”
Olivia knew it well. Clarisse’s husband had died years earlier of a massive heart attack at the age of fifty-seven. The portrait showed a handsome man with a confident smile, an older version of Hugh, his elder son. Clarisse once told her that chain smoking killed her husband, and Olivia remembered noticing the ghostly swirl forever spiraling from the cigarette in Martin’s painted right hand. Clarisse used to claim she could smell the memory of that smoke.
“That evening,” Bertha said, “I was passing the office and heard her talking to Mr. Martin about her will. Oh, they used to argue so about whether Hugh or Edward should run the businesses, or who should run the biggest one, and so on. Mr. Martin wanted the boys to work together, which is what they’ve been doing. They disagree most of the time, but it didn’t matter because Ms. Clarisse was in charge.”
“And now she isn’t,” Olivia said.
“I heard her tell Mr. Martin she wanted to change her will and leave one of them in charge, but she hadn’t decided which one. She knew Mr. Martin would pick Hugh, if he had to pick, but Clarisse thought Edward worked harder.”
Olivia didn’t know Hugh and Edward very well, since they spent most of their time running the family businesses. “I don’t understand—do you think this has something to do with her death?”
With an impatient shake of her head, Bertha gathered up the dirty plates and shifted them to the kitchen counter. “I’m not sure what to think, only Ms. Clarisse was all of a sudden talking about grandchildren. I don’t know why she didn’t like Tammy; that girl would have brought some life to this house. If Ms. Clarisse wanted grandchildren soon, why did she make Hugh break up with Tammy?”
Yet only a few hours earlier, Tammy had shown off her new dress to Olivia, delirious with joy in anticipation of wearing it for Hugh Chamberlain. “And why did Clarisse mention me?”
Bertha looked at her with surprise. “Well, you know how much she loved you. I heard her say she wanted one of the boys to marry you. I heard her clear as day, talking to that picture. She said, ‘I’d never trust Tammy Deacons to handle a situation like this, but Livie could do it. Now all I have to do is find her.’ That’s the only time I thought Ms. Clarisse might be going round the bend—I mean, she only had to go to The Gingerbread House to find you. Does that make any sense?”
“Not to me,” Olivia said. “Not to me.”
Chapter Four
Olivia found herself muttering as she and Spunky finished a chilly and hurried Saturday morning walk. Normally she kept her thoughts confined within her own mind, so this was not a good sign. Could it be true that Clarisse had wanted Olivia to marry one of her two sons? In the abstract, this wasn’t an unnatural desire on Clarisse’s part. Knowing of Olivia’s divorce, Clarisse might have avoided any reference to the notion, waiting for time to heal.
Spunky yapped sharply, and Olivia realized she’d stopped walking. “Sorry, Spunks, Mom’s a bit distracted,” she said. Which isn’t like me. Maddie was the distractible one, the creative genius chasing after every sparkling idea that flashed across her brain. Olivia focused. She observed, gathered information, considered options, handled situations. She was good at reading people, which had served her well in her business ventures. With a chagrined jolt, Olivia realized that, when it came to understanding Clarisse, these skills might have let her down.
What else had she misunderstood about Clarisse? Was it possible she’d missed the earlier signs that Clarisse was upset and distracted? Distracted enough to drink an entire bottle of wine and lose track of how many pills she’d taken?
A car honked three times with staccato insistence, and Olivia’s feet nearly flew off the pavement.
“Hey, Sis. Thinking of crossing the street anytime this millennium?” Olivia’s brother, Jason, poked his head through the open window of his pick-up truck and gave her The Look. Olivia had once tried to explain The Look to Maddie. Without the benefit of siblinghood, however, Maddie didn’t get it.
Olivia had been standing at a crosswalk like a life-size sculpture, lost in doubt. Spunky must have grown concerned, because he’d sat quietly on the pavement, gazing up at her. Probably wondering if it was time to hit the road and find a more reliable human companion.
A van filled with squabbling children stopped behind the pickup truck. The driver, a thirtyish woman with clumps of blonde hair escaping from a ponytail, narrowed her eyes at Jason. With the speed and precision of a race car driver, Jason maneuvered his truck to the curb next to Olivia. The woman hit her accelerator with a force that sucked the children against the backs of their seats. Instinctively, Olivia gathered Spunky into her arms and held him tightly.