A Catered Christmas Cookie Exchange (A Mystery With Recipes) (8 page)

“Then call them,” Bernie snapped as she continued her ascent. “I told you before I’m not stopping you.”

Libby sighed. She knew she could call, but she also knew that she wouldn’t call. For reasons that were unclear to her, she’d been letting her younger sister get her into trouble for as long as she could remember. Her mother used to tell her that it was up to her to set a good example for Bernie, but for some reason she couldn’t seem to say no to her.

When Bernie was halfway up the stairs, she halted and turned to Libby. “What room did Amber say the safe was in?” she mouthed.

“Millie’s bedroom,” Libby mouthed back, although she was positive that by now unless they were deaf, anyone in the house had to know that Bernie and Libby were there too.

“Which one is that?” Bernie whispered.

“I think Amber said it was the second on the left.”

“You think?” Bernie hissed.

“Yeah, I think.”

Bernie shook her head.

“Don’t give me that look,” Libby told her.

“What look is that?” Bernie asked.

“The ‘how could you be so dumb?’ look.”

“I wasn’t thinking that at all,” Bernie said as she continued her climb. “It’s not my fault if you suffer from low self-esteem.”

“What?” Libby squeaked.

“You heard me.”

“Where did you get that from?”

“Look at your clothes, for heaven’s sake.”

Libby glanced down at the sweatshirt, jeans, and boots she was wearing. “There’s nothing wrong with these. They’re appropriate. Which is more than I can say for yours,” she told Bernie. “High heels? A pencil skirt? A black cashmere sweater? That’s what I always wear in the kitchen.”

Bernie was just about to tell Libby she saw nothing wrong with her outfit when she heard someone yell “Now!” She started to run up the stairs. She’d just made it to the landing when the door to the room on the left was flung open and Alma Hall and Pearl Pepperpot came running out and flew past her. The whole thing happened so fast that Bernie didn’t have time to grab either of the women as they went by her. She just stood there, stunned.

“H
elp,” Pearl screamed as she came barreling down the stairs.

Libby jumped aside to keep from being knocked over by her. A few seconds later Alma Hall thundered down after her.

“Watch out,” Alma cried.

Libby instinctively looked around. She didn’t see anyone. By the time she glanced back, both women were running out the front door. As she watched, a silver car pulled up into the driveway, and Alma and Pearl jumped into it, and the car roared off. She heard the tires squeal as it cleared the corner, and then silence reigned once again. Later, when she was telling her dad what had happened, Libby estimated that from start to finish the incident had taken two minutes—at the most.

“What was that all about?” Libby cried as soon as she recovered from her shock.

“I think I can guess,” Bernie said. Her tone was grim. “And I’m really less than amused,” she added, continuing into the room Alma and Pearl had come out of.

Libby was right behind her. “It’s Millie’s bedroom,” Libby noted.

“No kidding.” Bernie indicated the safe standing open in the middle of the media unit. “Guess what’s not there?”

“The recipes?” Libby replied.

“Good call,” Bernie said. She cursed quietly. This was exactly what she hadn’t wanted to happen. She took a quick look around the room. Unlike in the kitchen, nothing was out of place. Therefore, she thought that whoever had opened the safe had known exactly where the recipes were. “I wonder how they knew the combination?”

Libby shook her head. “That’s an interesting question, given who we’re dealing with.”

“Exactly. I have to say that being on a TV show does not bring out the best in a lot of people,” Bernie observed.

“You think this is about the TV show?” Libby asked.

“What else?” Bernie replied. “Up until now everyone was acting perfectly normal, or as normally as they ever do.”

With that, she went over to Millie’s dresser and started opening the drawers.

“What are you looking for?” Libby asked.

“I don’t know,” Bernie confessed as she quickly closed the first drawer and opened the second. When she was done with the dresser she went through Millie’s closet. There was nothing in there except eight print dresses spaced exactly one inch apart and four pairs of black two-inch pumps in an even line. “Amazing,” Bernie said. “Who has a closet like this?”

“Someone who’s OCD or who’s been in the military,” Libby volunteered.

“I cannot conceive of wearing the same thing every day,” Bernie said as she closed the closet door.

“I can,” Libby said.

“I wouldn’t brag about that if I were you,” Bernie told her.

“So what do we tell Amber?” Libby asked, changing the topic.

Libby’s disinterest in clothes was an old bone of contention between them, and she wasn’t in the mood at the moment to discuss the subject with her fashionista sister.

Bernie put her hands on her hips and started tapping her foot on the floor while she considered Libby’s question. As far as she could see, they had two possibilities. They could continue searching the rest of the house, which seemed pointless, or they could go get the recipes from Pearl and Alma.

“So?” Libby asked again.

“So,” Bernie replied, her mind made up. “We don’t tell Amber anything yet. We find Pearl and Alma and get those recipes back. They’re not theirs to keep.”

Libby went over and peered inside the safe. It was empty. There was nothing inside it, not even a speck of dust. “This just gets weirder and weirder,” she said. “I can understand if all this fuss was about the recipe for Oreos or Sara Lee cheesecakes. But Millie’s Meltaways?”

“Millie’s
Majestic
Meltaways,” Bernie corrected. “Let’s not forget the ‘Majestic’.”

“Fine. Millie’s Majestic Meltaways. Millie’s recipe book? Please. There has to be something else going on here. But what? That’s the question.”

“I told you,” Bernie said as she turned and marched out of the room and down the stairs. “This isn’t about money. This is about being on TV. It’s about ego. In this case, a cigar really is a cigar.” She stopped at the door and turned to Libby. “I’ll tell you something else. I’ll bet you anything that the person driving the getaway car was Rose Olsen.”

“It could have been Sheila,” Libby suggested as she followed Bernie out of the house.

Bernie locked up. “Sheila drives a green Subaru.”

“Since when?”

“Since two months ago. No. It’s Rose. Has to be. She’s the only one of the bunch who drives a car that color.”

“I still can’t believe that those women are doing this,” Libby said.

Bernie opened the door to their van and jumped into the driver’s seat. “It is pretty amazing, isn’t it?” she replied. “One doesn’t expect this kind of behavior from suburban matrons—at least not these. We’re not talking
Desperate Housewives
here. We’re talking women in their seventies. Which just goes to show one is never too old to make a complete idiot of oneself.”

“Maybe seventy is the new forty.”

“In that case,” Bernie said, “you and I are in our teens.”

“You mean we’re not?” Libby deadpanned.

Bernie laughed. “Well, Brandon does say that sometimes I act like I’m twelve.”

“I don’t think I would have believed it if I hadn’t seen it,” Libby said, returning to the original subject as they zoomed out of the driveway.

“Me either,” Bernie said.

“Where are we going?” Libby asked her.

“To Rose’s house, of course. I’m going to take the shortcut over by Lakeview.” Bernie looked at her watch. Rose had a ten-minute lead on them—at most. Bernie was pretty sure she could make up the difference. First of all, Rose was a slow driver, and second, the shortcut she was going to use took at least ten minutes off the drive. “If we hurry we can beat her.”

“If she’s not there?” Libby asked.

“Then we’ll either wait in her driveway or go to Alma and Pearl’s houses.”

“Just as long as you don’t kill us in the process,” Libby said, thinking of the condition of the roads Bernie was suggesting. They were unlit country roads, little more than gravel, two-lane jobbies that were full of potholes.

Bernie just grunted and put her foot down on the gas. Mathilda began to groan and buckle. From the sound of her, Libby guessed that they were up to forty miles an hour, which was faster than the van liked to go.

“Be nice to Mathilda,” Libby implored as Bernie drove out of Millie’s driveway and sped down Clark. “She’s the only vehicle we’ve got.”

“I’m aware of that,” Bernie snapped. She kept her eyes on the road. Four blocks later they turned onto Route 31. Darkness engulfed them.

“We know where they live. I don’t see what the big hurry is,” Libby told her as she clutched the edge of her seat. She could feel the van going up and down. Was that a shock that just went? She wasn’t sure. But whatever it was, it felt as if it was going to be expensive to fix.

“The big hurry,” Bernie told her as she steered around a large pothole by going into the opposite lane, “is that I want to catch them as they get out of the car while they still have the recipe book.”

“You think they’re going to just hand it over to us?”

“If I have anything to do with it they will,” Bernie said through gritted teeth.

“This is insane,” Libby protested. “Rose could have picked the women up and be dropping them at their places now.”

“Maybe,” Bernie allowed. “But I think that they left their cars at Rose’s house.”

“Why?”

“Because that’s what makes the most sense.”

“Which they would do since they’re acting in such a logical manner,” Libby observed.

“Maybe you’re right,” Bernie admitted as she took a sharp left onto Voorhees Hollow. “But I don’t care. I’d just like to surprise them, if I can. I feel it’s the least we can do, given what they did to us.”

“I’m all for revenge, but not at the expense of Mathilda,” Libby objected.

“Mathilda will be fine,” Bernie assured her sister.

“I hope so,” Libby said. “But I’ve got to say that that high-pitched whining I’m hearing at the moment doesn’t sound fine to me.”

“Even if worse comes to worst, and I’m not saying it’s going to, you’ve been saying for a while now we need to get a new vehicle.”

“But not like this,” Libby shot back. “And not now,” she said, thinking of all the catering jobs they had lined up. Christmas and New Year were their busiest times of the year, followed by Easter and Valentine’s Day.

“It’ll be fine,” Bernie repeated. “You worry too much.”

“And you don’t worry enough,” Libby retorted.

Bernie just grunted and kept her eyes on the road. They were reaching a tricky spot, and she needed to focus on navigating through it and not ending up in a ditch on the side of the road. Three minutes later, Bernie took a right onto McClellan, and streetlights appeared.

“See,” she said to Libby, “we made it.”

“This time,” Libby replied as she massaged her hand. She’d been gripping the seat so tightly her fingers were cramped.

“You always have to get the last word in, don’t you?” Bernie remarked.

“I try,” Libby said.

Three cross streets later, they came to Meadowbrook, the enclave where Rose lived. Meadowbrook was one of the older areas in town and was being considered for a historical designation. Three-quarters of the houses there had been built by a developer called Winnifred Brown.

He was an adherent of the Arts and Crafts movement, which meant that most of the homes in the five-square-block area sported oak trim throughout the interior, beamed ceilings, and small-paned windows. The area had traditionally attracted those of the artistic persuasion, so it wasn’t surprising that that’s where Rose Olsen had chosen to live when she’d moved up here from New York City.

Four minutes later, Bernie and Libby were in sight of Rose’s house. They watched as Rose pulled into her driveway.

“Am I good or am I good?” Bernie crowed to Libby as she came to a screeching halt behind the silver Subaru.

“You’re lucky.”

“I’m also good.”

“Fine. If it makes you feel any better, you’re good,” Libby told her sister as Bernie jumped out of the van and raced toward Rose’s vehicle.

“What do you think you’re doing?” she asked Rose as Rose opened the car door.

“Going home,” Rose said. She peered up at a glowering Bernie. “Is something wrong, my dear? You look a little upset.”

“You could say that.” Bernie bent down a little. She could see Alma in the front seat and Pearl in the back. “How are you ladies tonight?”

Pearl tittered. “We’re fine. Thank you so much for asking.”

“How’s poor Amber doing?” Rose asked.

“Amber is doing fine,” Bernie said, “all things considered. Of course, she’d be doing even better if she had her aunt’s recipe book and the recipe for the cookie Millie was going to submit for judging.”

“What difference does it make?” Alma asked, her face crinkled in genuine puzzlement. “She’s not in the contest.”

“She may be,” Bernie told her. “She’s asking the producer if she can take Millie’s place.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Rose blurted out, echoing Barbara’s and Teresa’s sentiments.

“Not really,” Bernie said. “Not if you think of it from the producer’s point of view. It would introduce a sentimental note into the proceedings. Probably boost the ratings,” she added, rubbing salt in the wound, so to speak.

Before Rose or Alma could say anything else, Pearl jumped into the conversation. “Amber doesn’t have the recipes?” Pearl said, shaking her head. “I could have sworn that she did.”

“No. She doesn’t,” Bernie replied, “as you well know.”

“I don’t understand what you mean,” Pearl said in an injured voice from the backseat of the Subaru.

Rose turned to her. “It’s okay,” she told her. “The jig is up.”

“What jig?” Pearl asked. “What are you talking about?”

Rose turned back to Bernie. “Pearl’s had a long day,” she explained to Bernie. “Sometimes she tends to get a little confused.”

“I do not,” Pearl huffed. “That’s a horrible thing to say.”

Bernie ignored her. “So have Libby and I,” Bernie said to Rose. “It started at five-thirty in the morning, but of course our day didn’t include breaking into our friend’s house.”

“Oh dear.” Rose turned off her car. “We didn’t break in. The door was open when we got there.”

“Sure it was,” Bernie said.

Rose pointed to herself, Alma, and Pearl. “Look at us. Do you suppose any of us are capable of breaking into someone’s house?”

“Frankly, I don’t know what to think anymore,” Bernie told her.

“Neither do I,” Libby added, having come up behind her sister.

Rose sighed. “I suppose,” she said to Bernie, “that we owe you and your sister an explanation about why we were in Millie’s house.”

“I’d very much like to hear it,” Bernie said.

“Me too,” Libby added.

“What I want to know,” Alma said as she exited the car, “is how did you get here so fast?”

“We took Route 31 and Voorhees Hollow,” Libby informed her.

Rose got out of her car. “Oh dear,” she said. “That’s such a dangerous road. You could have had an accident. Plenty of people have. It’s supposed to be haunted. Did you know that?”

“No,” Bernie said, “I didn’t.”

“Well, I’m just glad both of you are safe,” Rose told her. “That’s the important thing.”

“I think so too,” Bernie said as she studied the three women standing before her.

Alma was small and slightly stooped, with a crown of fluffy white hair that reminded Bernie of a bichon frisé she’d once had, while Pearl was heavyset, with breasts that came into the room before she did and brightly dyed red hair that always veered toward the orange. Rose looked like the ballet dancer she’d been in her younger years. Her posture was erect and her hair was, as usual, drawn back in a tight French twist. Looking at the three women, Bernie thought that what Rose had said was true. She couldn’t believe any of them had broken into Millie’s house. They didn’t fit the profile. On the other hand, there was no denying they’d been there.