Virginia Lowell - A Cookie Before Dying

For my sister, for years of cookies and laughter

With each passing year, I grow more appreciative of the remarkable people who have touched my life. As always, I am endlessly grateful to my writer’s group: K. J. Erickson, Ellen Hart, Mary Logue, and Pete Hautman. Many, many thanks to my editor, Michelle Vega, for her perceptive insights and her understanding during a difficult time. The staff at Berkley Prime Crime are the best of the best. A special thanks to the third Saturday potluck group for decades of friendship and fun. And, of course, my love and gratitude to my father and Marilyn, my sister, and my husband.

Olivia Greyson flicked a droplet of sweat off her forehead before it could dribble into her eyebrow. At six a.m. and already eighty-eight degrees, she hadn’t expected to look out her bedroom window and find her front lawn covered in white. Browned dead grass maybe, but not crinkly white balls.

Perhaps she shouldn’t have stayed up so late the previous night, Saturday or not. She and Maddie had brainstormed dozens of themed cookie cutter events for The Gingerbread House, enough for months to come. Maddie Briggs, best friend since childhood and now Olivia’s business partner, had been in fine creative form, bubbling up ideas like a red-haired volcano. The effort had required a plate of decorated cookies and a generous amount of merlot. Very generous, judging from the empty bottles Olivia had rinsed and stowed in the recycling bin. In her own defense, one of the bottles had already been opened and used for cooking and salad dressing.

As Olivia stared at her lawn, a memory from high school popped into her mind. She and Maddie and a couple guy friends had TP’d a friend’s house one night. The friend’s parents hadn’t found it funny, and Olivia and Maddie spent hours throwing out gobs of toilet paper after the guys left them to take the blame. If that was toilet paper on the lawn of The Gingerbread House, she would not give up until the culprits were caught and forced to clean it up. Olivia opened one window and unhooked the screen, letting fingers of hot, sticky air reach into her bedroom. The air conditioner in her bedroom might be approaching extinction, but at least it dried the air. She poked her head outside. Nope, there were no telltale lengths of tissue hanging from tree branches, and the shapes on the lawn looked crunched up, not round like rolls of toilet paper.

Olivia knew she’d have to go outside to investigate. She slipped into the last clean casual items in her summer wardrobe, red shorts and a pink tank top. A glance in the mirror confirmed that the colors were wrong for her auburn hair and medium complexion. An obsession with clothes wasn’t one of Olivia’s vices; however, this outfit was destined for the Chatterley Heights thrift shop. Right after she caught up on the laundry.

Olivia slapped the end of her unmade bed and two silky ears poked up from a fold in the blanket. “Come on, you lazy hunk of fur.” Spunky, her little rescue Yorkshire terrier, yawned. “Yeah, I know it’s early, but we need to look at something outside.” At the word “outside,” Spunky wriggled out from the covers, leaped to the floor, and followed his mistress down the hallway. His nails clicked on the tile floor of the kitchen as he trotted toward his empty food bowl.

“First things first.” Olivia measured Italian roast into the Mr. Coffee, poured in some water, and hit the switch. She fed Spunky before heading down the hallway to the bathroom. By the time she returned, Mr. Coffee was spitting his last drops, and Spunky had licked his bowl shiny. With a whimper, he raised his big, brown eyes and cocked his head at Olivia.

“You are such a con artist. Do you really think I won’t remember that I just filled your bowl?” Olivia slid his leash from a wall hook and shook it. “Come on, Spunky, adventure awaits.”

Olivia lived above her store, The Gingerbread House, in the top floor of a small Queen Anne for which she proudly held a mortgage. At least her debt level had dipped a bit. She’d used part of an inheritance from her dear friend, Clarisse Chamberlain, to pay down the mortgage and refinance at a much lower interest rate. Before her death, Clarisse had encouraged Olivia in her dream of opening The Gingerbread House, the only store in town that specialized in cookie cutters. Olivia liked to think that Clarisse would approve of her decision to use some of her inheritance to secure the future of her business.

Now Olivia had the mystery of the white August lawn to solve, and she hoped it would turn out to be more comedy than tragedy.

When she and Spunky reached the foyer at the bottom of the staircase, Olivia tried the door leading to The Gingerbread House to make sure it was locked. It was. The front door lock and deadbolt were secure, as well. So a break-in hadn’t accompanied whatever detritus awaited on her front lawn.

Olivia had barely opened the front door when Spunky squeezed through the crack. With all the strength in his five-pound body, he yanked sharply at his leash and managed to break from Olivia’s grip.

“Spunky! You get your fuzzy little butt back here right now.” True to his terrier nature, Spunky ignored her. Olivia was about to yell more forcefully when she stopped short, reminding herself that whoever had littered The Gingerbread House lawn might still be lurking about, perhaps with a camera and tape recorder. She didn’t relish the idea of seeing herself on YouTube.

Olivia scanned her lawn in puzzlement. Apparently, someone had crunched up dozens of papers and tossed them around the entire front yard of The Gingerbread House. Olivia knew crunched-up paper when she saw it, and she was looking at lots of it. As far as she could tell, none of the other stores around the town square had suffered the same insult. It must have happened after two a.m., or Maddie would have noticed when she’d headed for home.

Spunky sniffed at a nearby paper snowball. When a gust of hot wind shifted it, he leaped backward and yapped furiously.

“Spunky, hush. It’s Sunday morning. Sensible people are trying to sleep.”

Spunky pounced on the ball. Clutching it in his teeth, he growled and shook his head back and forth. As she crossed the lawn to join him, Olivia leaned down and scooped up one of the papers. She snatched the end of Spunky’s leash from the ground and looped it around her wrist so she could use both hands. The paper was so saturated with humidity, it made no crinkling sound as she smoothed it on her thigh.

“What fresh hell is this?” Olivia’s words hung in the still, heavy air. Spunky whimpered and skittered around her feet as she stared at the huge capital letters across the top of the notice:

Did you know:

• Sugar is the leading cause of obesity, heart disease, and diabetes?

• Eating sugar causes cancer?

• If you eat sugar while you’re pregnant, it causes birth defects?

• You’ll have to run five miles to work off one cookie? Ten miles if the cookie is iced?

Join me at The Vegetable Plate every Tuesday evening from 7:00 to 8:00 to learn how to take your life back from the DEMON SUGAR. We’ll talk about ways to escape its clutches and live sugar-free forever. We’ll confront the agony and devastation of Sugar Addiction. And we’ll share recipes.

Refreshments will be served: herbal teas and fresh organic vegetables.

Olivia reached into the pocket of her shorts, slid out her cell, and speed-dialed Maddie Briggs. Maddie answered on the second ring and, as usual, began chattering at once. “Hey, I was thinking, wouldn’t it be fun to have an early morning store event and serve breakfast cookies?”