Ellie appeared beside Olivia, providing a gentle air of support. “Livie dear, shall we begin closing? It’s past five.”
Binnie Sloan, however, was immune to hints. “On another topic,” she said, “I hear you were involved in a single car accident yesterday. Ran right into that guardrail we locals like to call the Drunk Stopper. Care to comment?”
Alienating the press was starting to sound more appealing. Sensing his mistress’s rising irritation, Spunky bared his teeth. Olivia had never seen him do that before. Ellie wove her fingers into the fur on his neck and stared into his eyes. Ellie must have lost her magical touch, though, because Spunky’s growl turned menacing.
Without comment, Binnie headed for the door, her lips pressed into a thin line. When the door closed behind her, Spunky relaxed at once. Ellie rubbed his ears and said, “What a good, good boy you are. Olivia, are you quite sure that you’re feeling all right after that dreadful accident? Your brother said—” Spunky’s tail beat a staccato rhythm against Olivia’s arm.
“Mom, I’m completely fine, I promise you. What just happened here?”
Ellie smiled. “Merely an experiment in dog whispering, dear. Now, if I hurry, I can make my poetry group on time. You two have fun decorating cookies this evening. Don’t stay up too late.”
The Gingerbread House kitchen smelled of orange zest, cookie dough, and pepperoni pizza, with an overlay of French roast coffee. Racks of cutout cookies covered half the worktable, and most of the remaining space was disappearing fast as Olivia gathered the ingredients for royal icing.
Maddie had brought along her Aunt Sadie’s trusty twenty-year-old Artisan stand mixer. “This calls for the big guns.” She gave it a loving pat. “So let me get this straight,” she said. “You don’t want me to have too much fun decorating these cookies?” Maddie was wearing jeans ripped across the knees and a tight T-shirt that said, “Born to Gambol,” in case there was any doubt.
“I want the shapes to be recognizable,” Olivia said. “If we hope to see anyone react to our designs, they’ll have to know what they’re looking at.”
“So I could decorate a baby carriage with, say, magenta, as long as it still looks like a baby carriage?”
“Sure, within reason. But I have some ideas for specific cookies.” Olivia pointed to the nearest rack, which held cookies in the shape of a hooded baby carriage on wheels. “Any color is fine, but make sure some are blue and some are pink. If there’s a grandchild out there, we don’t know the gender.”
“Check.” Maddie picked up the revised cookie cutter list Olivia had left with her:
CLARISSE’S COOKIE CUTTERS
1. Hooded Baby Carriage on Wheels
2. Small Angel
3. Dancing Snoopy *
4. Jasmine Flower (Added by Olivia)
5. Jasmine Vine with Flowers (Template added by Maddie)
6. Six-petaled Flower
7. Gingerbread Boy with Crown *
8. Gingerbread Man Running *
9. Gingerbread House *
10. Gingerbread Woman and Girl *
11. Coffin Shape
12. Witch’s Hat
13. Round Tree
14. Dove
15. Nutcracker
UNIDENTIFIED
16. Shield? Coat of Arms?
17. Apple? Bell Pepper?
18. Flower? Grass in Wind? Head with Wild Hair?
“Those little angel shapes,” Olivia said, “make some boys and some girls. And a few of each should have black hair.”
“Aha. Like Jasmine, you mean.” Maddie scribbled a note on her list.
“Exactly. Ditto for the gingerbread mother and daughter. But we should represent other hair colors, too.”
“How about navy blue? Or violet?
“Uh, sure.”
“Puce?”
“Have you been chewing coffee beans again?”
Maddie smirked. “Sorry, it’s the excitement. Carry on.”
Olivia wished she, too, felt the thrill of the chase, but all she could muster was fierce determination. Besides, the ibuprofen had barely touched the aching throughout her body. She rubbed her neck as she pointed toward the right side of the table. “The gingerbread boy wearing a crown—Clarisse must have acquired that cutter before I met her. It was distributed by Robin Hood Flour in the 1980s. She might have gotten hers that way. I wonder if she used it when Hugh and Edward were growing up. Her little boys.” Olivia’s legs felt spongy, and she braced herself against the table edge.
“Hey, you should be back in bed,” Maddie said. She dragged a chair over and pushed Olivia into it. “Listen, tell me what you want, and I’ll do the decorating. If you’re serious about this unveil-a-killer event tomorrow, you’ll need more strength than this.”
Olivia knew her weakness had as much to do with sadness as with pain. “No, even you can’t finish all this decorating and plan the event alone. We need to talk it through while we work. I can rest later, when this is over.”
“Okay, but if anyone has to stay up most of the night, it’s going to be me. Got it?”
“Won’t be necessary.” Olivia drained her coffee cup. “Okay. Gingerbread boy with crown. He could represent either or both of the Chamberlain brothers, or maybe a grandson. Make the crown stand out. I have a feeling that might be important.”
Maddie refilled her own cup and Olivia’s. “I’d better explain this shape,” she said, pointing to a rack of cookies that looked like clouds. “I know you gave me an eight-petaled flower cutter to represent a jasmine flower, but I wasn’t sure anyone would recognize it, even if we use white icing. So I made a roundish template with a stemlike bottom. I’ll pipe icing into vine and flower designs.”
“Good idea. If that doesn’t work, we’ll have to drop a hint.” Olivia thought of her mother. She wasn’t eager to put her mother in danger, but if anyone could drop a hint without raising suspicion, it was Ellie Greyson-Meyer.
“Any idea what the six-sided flower is supposed to be?” Maddie asked.
“That one puzzles me. I suppose Clarisse might have used it to represent Jasmine, but it doesn’t seem the best choice. Jasmine flowers have so many petals; that’s why I gave you the eight-sided flower shape instead of the six.”
“Let’s leave it for now and move on.” Maddie started collecting measuring cups and spoons. “I need to move. You talk. I’ll whip up a batch of icing.”
Olivia retrieved her laptop from the desk, brought it to the table, and sank onto a chair. “Maybe we can get some ideas from this.” She lifted the laptop lid to reveal Deputy Cody’s photo of Clarisse’s desk. “See that one?” Olivia pointed to a cutter shape in the lower-left corner. “That looks like Snoopy Dancing.”
“Hallmark, 1971, red plastic,” Maddie said. She cut open a bag of meringue powder and measured out four teaspoons.
“I’m almost positive Clarisse thought of Sam Parnell as Snoopy, like everyone else in town.” Olivia touched the red image on the screen. “She bought this cutter right here, the last time I saw her. I remember she held it in her hand and said something like, ‘So gleeful.’ She was talking to herself, so it was hard to make out.”
“You think she meant Sam or Snoopy?”
“Maybe both. Sam did look pleased with himself when he told me about seeing the word ‘grandchild’ in the private detective’s letter to Clarisse.”
“Vague enough for me,” Maddie said. “Anyway, Snoopy is off to the side in the photo, so Clarisse probably hadn’t thought much about it yet. In fact, look at this gap here.” She drew her finger in a circle around the laptop screen. “It’s like when I work a jigsaw puzzle. First, I group pieces that might go together. Then in the middle I put the pieces that suggest a design to me.”
Olivia arched her eyebrows in surprise.
“What? I can be organized when it’s really important.”
In the interest of time, Olivia let that pass.
Maddie opened a new box of confectioners’ sugar. “I’m only saying, if Clarisse was using cookie cutters to work through a problem, wouldn’t she single out the most important cutters first?”