The next morning, Kate and Maxi hit downtown armed with cookies—and the news that the Cookie House would be reopening with an expanded menu.
“About time!” Amos Tully declared as they shared coffee out of paper cups in his storeroom. “That old fool was tying his hands behind his back. What’s a bakery without sweets? Really like these. What did you say they’re called again?”
“Rum butter cookies,” Kate said. “Similar to a traditional butter cookie, but with a kick.”
“Heh! Don’t want to let Sam get too close to these. That man likes his rum. Well, gotta get back to the store. Lemme know when you girls are open again. We’ll order up some more of these. And the chocolate chip, too.”
As Kate, Maxi, and Oliver walked the block in the cool morning air, Kate realized she recognized many of the faces. Even if she didn’t yet know their names. More often than not, folks waved or nodded. And were usually greeted with an enthusiastic wave or “Hiya!” from Maxi.
But the town was strangely devoid of tourists.
“Too early,” Maxi explained. “This is what we call local hour. Although it’s really more like two. Tourists don’t show up much before ten.”
Overhead, Kate heard the scream of seagulls on the briny breeze, as the sweet scent of tropical flowers mingled with the aromas of food—coffee, bacon, onions—from shops and restaurants prepping for the day. She felt a tingle of excitement.
“Let’s hit the pharmacy next,” Maxi said. “Annie’s researching Lord’s family tree to see if anybody interesting falls out. I’m curious to see if she found anything that could help Sam.”
“Any word on Lord’s will? There could be a few clues there.”
“Peter swore me to secrecy. So you can’t say anything. But they can’t find one.”
“You’re kidding. A guy with that much money? That doesn’t make sense.”
“They’re still looking. Could be they just haven’t found it yet. But Lord’s personal lawyer says he never made one. At least, not that he knows. And the guy who heads up his company’s legal department says Lord had one, but that he’d never actually seen it. It’s all a mystery. That’s why I want to find out what Annie discovered. But remember, the stuff Peter tells us we can’t share. At least, not yet.”
Kate mimed locking a key over her mouth. “I swear, on three dozen of my best cookies. Especially the Toll House.”
“Yeah, well a couple of those ‘dozens’ were nearly a few cookies short. I caught Javie and Michael trying to sneak some out of the boxes this morning. Peter had to have a little talk with them about respecting other people’s property. That big legal degree of his comes in handy sometimes.”
“Well, we did put cookies in front of children. That’s basically entrapment.”
“That’s what Peter said. Something called ‘attractive nuisance.’ Of course, he had chocolate chip cookies on his breath when he said it.”
A little bell tinkled as they opened the door to Kim’s Drugstore. Annie popped out of the storeroom. Her shoulder-length hair was damp.
“Hey, guys! Anything new on the Stewart Lord case?”
“We were gonna ask you the same thing,” Maxi admitted, presenting Annie with a box. “But we’re reopening the bakery this week, and we brought a little sample of some of the new stuff.”
“Cookies! Oh, this is great. I just got back from the beach, and I’m starving.”
“Two kinds,” Kate said proudly. “Chocolate chip and rum butter.”
“These are heaven,” Annie said, happily munching one. “Hey, how about some tea? Moms made a whole pot before she took off. Nokcha—green tea.”
“I’d love that,” Kate said.
“And I have a few treats for you, big guy,” Annie said, bending to scratch Oliver’s ear. “I can’t believe how fast he’s growing.”
In the back room of the pharmacy, Annie motioned them to a beautiful low teak table with matching chairs. Complete with a red area rug bearing a gold and blue geometrical pattern, the setup could have been straight out of a comfortable living room.
Annie saw Kate taking it all in and grinned. “We spend so much time at the shop, it pays to make it homey and comfortable. But you’ll discover that soon enough.”
She unrolled a straw mat onto the table, set out three delicate blue and white china teacups, and filled each from a pot of the same design.
“It’s the weirdest thing,” Annie said, putting the cookie box in the middle of the table. “I haven’t been able to find a thing on Lord before he came to this country. I mean, the last few years, all kinds of stuff in the papers. About him and his company. Most of it good, oddly enough. The business press loved him. And so did the banks. But nothing from his earlier life in London. Or the U.K., period. Did you guys manage to learn anything about Lord’s will? That might give me a few other names to search. Especially if he mentioned family members.”
“Nothing yet, but I’m hoping to hear something soon,” Maxi said quickly.
“What about the poison that killed him? Any idea what it was?”
Maxi paused, clamping her lips together. “I don’t have a copy of the report from the exam … the autopsy,” she said slowly, clearly caught between her conscience and her desire to clear Sam. “Not yet. But from what I hear—from a very good source—it was a drug, like you thought. A heart drug.”
“That would make sense,” Annie said matter-of-factly. “In the right circumstances, they calibrate heart function. In the wrong ones, they can wreck everything.”
“Someone at the book club said Lord starting popping up in the headlines around here about five years ago?” Kate asked.
“Yeah. South Florida got hammered during one really bad hurricane season,” Annie said, setting a bowl of water on the rug in front of Oliver, alongside three bone-shaped treats. “It was just one storm right after another. That’s about the time he moved in and started buying big. Before that, I found just a few scant references to him here and there. Mostly in business journals. He was part of some group that bought a couple of hotels. He had a minor partnership in a Missouri casino. Very minor, from the sound of it. He and a bunch of other investors bought and sold a few resorts and some condo buildings out west. But about five years ago, he went big-time. Buying on his own, instead of going in with other people. Putting his name out there. And that’s about the time he seemed to discover South Florida.”
“How old was he?” Kate asked.
Annie smiled. “I can’t even get a straight answer on that one. Some of the stories say he was forty-five or forty-seven when he died. Others, fifty or fifty-three. And I saw one blurb from years ago that, if you do the math—and I did—would have made him about fifty-seven. I never actually met him, so I have no idea.”
“No way he was forty-five,” Maxi declared.
“Yeah, from the view I had that one time at the bakery, I’d have said your fifty-seven was closest to the mark,” Kate said. “I wonder why the discrepancy?”
“Vanity,” Annie countered. “Plus, I hear the corporate world’s almost as bad as Hollywood. Once you hit a certain age, if you haven’t made your fortune a lot of doors close.”
“And fifty-seven is a little late to be the next wunderkind or hot new flavor of the month,” Kate mused.
“How’s Sam doing?” Annie asked quietly.
“Better,” Maxi said. “Now that he knows people are behind him. He has hope.”
“Moms and Pops are going to stop in and see him this afternoon. Moms wants to take him a home-cooked meal. She makes a ground-beef rice bowl that’s heaven. And she’s also fixing him some of her glazed chicken wings. Those things are seriously sick.”
“He’ll love that,” Maxi said. “With any luck, we might be able to fatten him up a little by the time he gets out. That man is too skinny. Not a good advertisement for a bakery—a scrawny baker.”
“Sam doesn’t know about the cookies, does he?” Annie asked, smiling.
“Nope,” Maxi replied, draining her teacup.
“I wouldn’t tell him just yet,” the pharmacist said in a hushed voice. “Plenty of time for that later.”