Virginia Lowell - A Cookie Before Dying

“Buddy sounds unhappy. Serves him right for running away.” Spunky leaped out of Olivia’s arms and ran to the bedroom door, which was closed to keep in the cooler air. Olivia sat on her bed and speed-dialed Cody’s cell. The call went to voice mail. “Cody? This is Olivia Greyson. It’s—” She checked her cell. “It’s one twenty a.m., and I think Buddy ran off again. Unless he’s home with you, he’s probably the dog I can hear howling from the town square. Anyway, Spunky thinks it’s him. Good luck.”

Hoping her job was done, Olivia flopped back on her bed. Spunky had other ideas. He scratched the closed door, whimpering piteously. Olivia groaned. “All right, I’ll make another call, but I’m not opening that door.” Still on her back, she punched in her speed-dial code for the police department. She got a recording telling her to dial 911 for an emergency. At the end of the message, she was instructed to press “one” to leave a message for the Chatterley Heights Police Department. She questioned whether Buddy on the loose would qualify as 911-worthy. However, it couldn’t hurt to leave a message for Cody.

While Spunky paced between the door and the window, Olivia closed her eyes. She had done her duty, which ought to help her relax and fall asleep. She envisioned wading into a chocolate lake dotted with pink and yellow sugar sprinkles. She swam to the opposite shore and entered a real gingerbread house, minus the child-eating witch. The air smelled like ginger and cloves and cinnamon, and the shelves were stocked with iced gingerbread. She reached for a piece and felt how moist and light it was as she bit into it. A tiny sound made her glance down at her feet, where a marzipan puppy with licorice eyes gazed up at her. As she broke off a bit of gingerbread to give him, she became aware of an almond smell and realized the puppy was melting from the heat in the kitchen. The oven door was open and heat was pouring out, which meant the wicked witch was—

A breath-stopping howl reached her through the open bedroom window. Spunky answered with his own version, which sounded more like an extended yap.

“Thank goodness I didn’t adopt a beagle,” Olivia said. She rolled over on her stomach. “You’re really worried, aren’t you, Spunks?” With tiny, galloping steps, Spunky ran to the bed, leaped onto it, jumped back down, and ran back to the window.

“What’s more to the point,” Olivia said, “you aren’t going to let me sleep until we rescue Buddy. Though Lord knows what we’ll do with the brute if we do manage to capture him.” She slipped into jeans and a T-shirt and slid her cell phone into her pocket. She tried to pick up Spunky before opening her bedroom door, but he wiggled free and raced for the front door of the apartment. He held still long enough for Olivia to hook a leash on his collar, then stood on his hind feet and strained toward the door. “I’m worried, too,” she told him as they headed out into the night. “I hope it isn’t Cody he’s howling over.”

Dense, wet fog rolled in as they made their way across the town square, with Spunky barking and Buddy howling back. A vivid streak of lightning sliced the sky south of the park, followed by a loud boom and, a few seconds later, a long rumble. As all the lights in and around the town square blinked out, Olivia realized a major storm was moving in . . . and the booming sound hadn’t been thunder. She hadn’t thought to grab a raincoat, and she didn’t even own a flashlight. She needed to start taking the Weather Channel more seriously. It would be too time-consuming to go back for rain gear. Better to find Buddy as quickly as possible and race back to the now darkened Gingerbread House. If the storm hit too fast and hard, they could all take shelter in the band shell.

The combination of dark and fog made it tough to determine direction, though a flash of lightning nearby illuminated the outline of the band shell. Olivia didn’t catch sight of Buddy, though. She loosely held Spunky’s leash and allowed him to lead her, which he did with fierce terrier determination. She was glad he weighed only five pounds and had minuscule legs, or he would have yanked her off her feet and dragged her through the damp grass.

Without hesitating to sniff the air, Spunky pulled Olivia around the band shell and toward the statue of Frederick P. Chatterley. As they passed the horse’s rump, Olivia was able to make out Buddy’s large form sitting on his haunches, his head lowered. He lifted his head as they neared. When he recognized Spunky, Buddy barked once and lowered his head again. He edged his front legs forward until his belly reached the wet grass, raised his head to the dark sky, and howled with a mournfulness that made even Spunky pause. Lightning slashed the darkness, illuminating the south end of the town square. A split second later came the rumbling of thunder. Olivia shivered as foreboding sliced through her. In that moment of light, she had seen a human form sprawled motionless on the grass, inches from Buddy’s front paws.

With Spunky beside her, Olivia ran toward Buddy and knelt on the damp grass. “Cody?” Even as she whispered the question, Olivia realized that the prone form was not Deputy Cody. Cody was a skinny six-foot-three. She touched the man’s jacket, then drew her hand away, remembering her rudimentary forensics. The material had felt like leather. Under his jacket, this man had the broad shoulders and muscled build of a weight lifter. He lay on his stomach, his face hidden from view. His head was bare, and his dew-soaked hair looked black.

Instinctively, Olivia reached toward his neck to feel for a pulse, then pulled back as she touched cold skin. A wave of revulsion turned her stomach. Spunky was braver, or at least more compelled by curiosity. He trotted around the dead man and sniffed his hand before Olivia yanked him back. Buddy’s mournful brown eyes watched her as if expecting the human to take charge.

“Stop being such a wimp,” Olivia muttered. “I meant me, not you,” she said to Buddy. As the first raindrops landed on her back, she opened her cell and punched in 911.

Soaked to the skin, Olivia huddled between Spunky and Buddy, peering into the darkness to avoid looking at the dead man nearby. “I guess this is a two-dog night, huh, guys?” Neither dog laughed. Olivia heard a shout from somewhere close by, but the rain was falling so furiously she couldn’t see more than a couple feet in any direction. The second shout was even closer, from somewhere to her left. “Hello?” she called.

“Where are you? Can’t see a thing in this mess.” It was Del’s voice, worried and irritated and very welcome.

“Del, it’s me, Livie. I’m—We are south of the band shell, right before you get to the statue.”

Del sounded quite close and even more cross when he shouted, “Why on earth aren’t you inside the band shell?” He arrived right behind her, panting but dry under a large umbrella. “Here, hold this,” Del said, handing the umbrella to Olivia. He took off his raincoat and wrapped it around Olivia’s trembling shoulders. Pulling on crime-scene gloves, he leaned over the prone body and felt for a pulse. “He’s dead.”

“I know.”

Del pulled a flashlight from his uniform jacket pocket and squatted down, playing the light slowly over the body and along the soaked ground. Olivia tried not to watch, but she couldn’t help herself. Del seemed interested in the area around the man’s left shoulder. Olivia saw nothing but dark, wet grass. Del carefully lifted the man’s shoulder off the ground enough to see beneath it. The grass, protected from rain by the man’s chest, glistened with a dark liquid. Blood.

“Try to keep the umbrella over him, Liv. The scene is enough of a mess as it is.” Del dialed his cell with his thumb. “I’m going to start with the assumption that you did not kill this man,” he said as he waited for an answer to his call.