Virginia Lowell - A Cookie Before Dying

The door to Olivia’s right was closed. Attached to the doorjamb, she noticed a chain latch, the kind one might install on a front door to allow a resident to peek through without allowing access inside. Only this lock was on the outside of the door. Maybe it was left over from the era of the seamstress sisters? They’d grown old here; maybe one of them developed Alzheimer’s and began to wander at night. She’d have to ask her mom. The metal didn’t look worn, but the lock might have been used for only a short time.

Olivia tried the doorknob. It turned smoothly. Her heart quickened as she gently pushed the door inward and looked inside. The room was cluttered with discarded clothing, and there could be no doubt that it belonged to a woman. That woman was the ballerina in the park, the woman she’d seen waltzing in Raoul’s arms. As she picked her way around piles of clothing, Olivia speed-dialed Maddie.

“Livie, don’t worry, I’ve finished the cookies for Heather, and the store is quiet at the moment. So tell me everything.” Maddie’s voice was breathy with excitement. “Did you get into the dance studio? Did Constance Overton demand her vengeance after all these years?”

“I’ll tell you about Constance later,” Olivia said. “Long story. Anyway, she gave me a key and I am at this moment in the bedroom of our mysterious ballerina.” She waited for Maddie’s squeal to subside. “I’m at a small desk in the corner. No papers, just a laptop, maybe three or four years old.” Olivia lifted the lid. “Turned off,” she said. “Too bad.”

“Now if you’d brought me along,” Maddie said, “I’d fire that thing up in no time. I could probably even guess her password.”

“I don’t doubt it.” Olivia took in the rest of the bedroom. “From the state of this room, I’d say our girl has issues. Apparently, she has never heard of a clothes hanger. Or else there are none left. The closet is stuffed. I envy her wardrobe, though. So thoroughly diaphanous. She has a sewing machine set up. It’s an old Singer, must have been left by the previous owners. And there are piles of lovely fabrics.”

“Ooh, she found the stash,” Maddie said. “Aunt Sadie once told me the sisters kept a huge supply of gorgeous fabric in their attic. She always wondered what happened to it.”

Olivia picked up a pill bottle from a bedside table. “Listen to this, Maddie. Our ballerina takes pills. The label is for some generic drug with a multisyllabic name. I don’t recognize it. Hang on a sec.” She put down the phone and rummaged in her pocket for something to write on. She found an old receipt. Using a fabric marking pencil, she jotted down the drug name. She replaced the pill bottle as she’d found it and retrieved her cell.

“Maddie, you would love the closet. It’s crammed full of costumes. Not just dancing dresses, but actual costumes with headdresses and capes and . . . Wow, there must be twenty pairs of toe shoes and even more pairs of ballet slippers in here. Our dancer must have been a real ballerina. Maybe that scar on her face ended her career and made her unstable.”

“We might be able to dig something up on the Internet,” Maddie said. “That’s my specialty.”

“One more question for you, Maddie, and then I need to hang up. Did your aunt Sadie ever say anything about what happened to the sisters who owned this place? Did they sell it and retire to Florida or something?”

“It was sad,” Maddie said. “The older sister went senile, and the younger one tried to take care of her and the store at the same time. It was too much stress for the younger sister. She had a massive heart attack. Aunt Sadie said it happened on a weekend, so it was Monday before anyone realized something was wrong. The police broke into the store and found older sis wandering around half-dressed and agitated. Younger sis was dead on the floor of the kitchen. Why?”

“I’ll tell you later,” Olivia said. “I’m behind schedule. See you soon.” She closed her cell and took one last look around the bedroom. The costumes in the closet were tightly packed, but it wouldn’t hurt to look through them. Olivia’s watch read ten twenty, which left plenty of time to question Heather Irwin about the stolen items found in her barn.

Olivia set to work, moving through the costumes one by one, luxuriating in the fine silks and satins as they slid through her hands. She remembered wanting to be a ballerina when she grew up . . . until the first time she tried to dance en pointe in real toe shoes. Her poor little toes felt crushed as her entire weight balanced on those wooden tips. She lasted about a week before deciding to switch to horseback riding. That hurt, too, but not as much.

When Olivia was about three fourths of the way through the costume collection, she came to a dress composed of many translucent layers of white fabric. This might be the costume she and Maddie saw the ballerina dance in that night in the park. The next dress was white, also, as well as several more beyond it. Olivia examined each, not sure what she was looking for. After three more costumes, she found it—a large rip down the bodice and into the skirt. Olivia took the dress from the closet and held it under the bedside light. The rip could have happened during a struggle.

Reluctantly, Olivia slid the dress back on its hanger. Del would want to know everything she had found, but she wanted to put off her confession as long as possible. Del was beginning to trust her, or at least she hoped he was. He wouldn’t be happy to learn she’d been riffling through belongings without their owner’s permission.

Olivia was finishing her inspection of the dance costumes when her cell phone rang. It was her mother. She answered at once.

“Livie, it’s . . . You’ve got to come right away. I don’t know what to do.”

“What is it, Mom? You sound upset.”

“Of course I’m upset. You would be, too. They are taking Jason away.”

“Away? Who are ‘they’?”

“The police, of course. The ones from Baltimore or Howard County, I don’t know. I only know they are taking him away to be charged with murder. Del said they’ve found some evidence that Jason killed Geoffrey King.”

Olivia entered the Chatterley Heights police station and felt as if she’d stumbled into an Agatha Christie novel, adapted for the stage, with her mother performing the role of Miss Jane Marple. Ellie Greyson-Meyers, all four-foot-eleven inches of her, single-handedly faced off two uniformed police officers. She stood between them and her son, apparently using reason to delay the inevitable. Olivia cringed when she saw Jason’s hands and feet so tightly shackled he could barely shuffle. He looked young and frightened; she wanted to ruffle his hair and comfort him. She moved toward him, and at once an officer stepped in front of her. Del gave her a slight shake of his head.

“Livie, thank God you’re here,” Ellie said. “Allan left town at the worst possible moment. You talk to them.”

“Mom, I’m not sure what I . . .”

“Tell them they can’t take Jason away. His confession was a lie, he’s admitted that.”

Sounding tired, Del said, “They have some evidence, Ellie.”

“What evidence?” Ellie said. “And it had better be good.” She planted her fists on her hips, straightened her spine, and gave the officers a hard stare. Miss Marple, Olivia thought, with a hint of Dirty Harry.

The two officers exchanged a quick glance before the taller of them said, “Blood evidence. I guess the crime lab found your son’s blood on the deceased’s shirt. Now we’d better get going, and you need to get out of the way, ma’am.”

“Wait a minute,” Olivia said, stepping closer to her mother. “It was storming the night Geoffrey King was murdered. I ought to know; I found his body, and it was soaked. How did the lab extract a clear blood sample?”