A delightful holiday cozy mystery which originally appeared in the collection, Gingerbread Cookie Murder, is made available as an e-book single for the very first time!
Jaine Austen has been enlisted to help with her parents’ retirement community’s play The Gingerbread Cookie That Saved Christmas. Playboy Dr. Preston McCay is playing the role of the gingerbread cookie when he “accidentally” falls to his death during the final act. Now Jaine must figure out if one of the doctor’s jealous lovers was capable of murder.
[Originally published in Gingerbread Cookie Murder]
Release date:
October 1, 2023
Publisher:
Kensington Books
Print pages:
112
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On the one hand, Tampa Vistas is a lovely retirement community, replete with clubhouse, swimming pool, and Metamucil on tap. And I get to spend two whole weeks in Florida, lying around the pool, soaking up the sun, and occasionally nibbling on a Christmas cookie or three. On the other hand, I am normally clad at said pool in a Fashion Don’t capri pants set (compliments of my mother, a confirmed home shopping addict), listening to the palm fronds rustling and my parents driving each other nuts.
So it was with decidedly conflicted emotions that I stepped out into the baggage claim area of Tampa International Airport.
“Jaine, sweetheart!”
I looked over and saw my mom waving at me, clad in one of her ubiquitous capri sets, this one adorned with a sequined palm tree on her ample chest. Mom tips the height chart at five feet one and one-quarter inches (she insists on counting that quarter of an inch), so her capri pants were practically slacks.
“It’s so good to see you, honey!”
She wrapped me in a warm embrace, smelling, as she always did, of Jean Naté. And the minute I felt her powdery cheek against mine, all the minuses of my annual Christmas trip to Florida faded away.
It was good to be back.
“Oh, my!” Mom said. “You’re looking cuter than ever!”
This was not addressed to me, but to my cat, Prozac, who had accompanied me on the flight from Los Angeles, a hairraising tale in itself, sure to turn up in a future edition of When Bad Things Happen to Good People.
“Where’s Daddy?” I asked, looking around.
“Oh, that man is driving me crazy.”
Nothing new there. Sometimes I think my parents vowed to love, honor, and aggravate each other till death do them part.
Mom vented her latest frustrations on the drive home.
“You won’t believe this, sweetheart,” she said, nearly sideswiping a BMW with her Camry, “but your father ordered a Christmas tree from an infomercial!”
Of course I’d believe it. While Mom is hooked on the shopping channel, my father is an infomercial junkie. He’d buy bottled air if he saw it advertised on TV.
“He said he was tired of ordinary Christmas trees. He wanted something new and exciting. So he ordered a god-awful gold monstrosity of a tree. It was supposed to come weeks ago but first showed up this afternoon. He’s home putting it together as we speak. Did you ever hear of anything so silly? A gold Christmas tree! That’s like having a rubber chicken on Thanksgiving!”
Her rant was interrupted just then by a piteous moan from the cat carrier, which I’d set down in front of me.
“Darling Zoloft looks uncomfortable, sweetheart. Why don’t you let her out?”
“Her name is Prozac, Mom, and she’s got plenty of room in there.”
I was not feeling particularly loving toward my kitty at that moment. In spite of a tranquilizer strong enough to fell King Kong, she’d spent a good portion of the trip cross country howling at the top of her lungs, silenced only by the kitty treats I fed her every other minute.
By the time we landed in Tampa, even the screaming toddler in front of us was shooting me dirty looks.
“And besides, if I let her out, she’ll head straight for the accelerator. Trust me, you don’t want her loose in your car.”
“Don’t be silly, Jaine. I can tell just by looking at her that Zoloft is a perfect little lady.”
And then, in the middle of the highway, Mom reached over and flipped open the carrier door. I braced myself for imminent death, certain Prozac would be doing the merengue around the pedals, causing Mom to lose control of the car and go crashing into the nearest gasoline tanker.
But much to my surprise, Prozac stepped out daintily from her carrier and jumped into my lap, where she curled up into an obedient little ball.
“What did I tell you?” Mom said. “A perfect little lady.”
Prozac looked up at me with what I swear was a smirk on her face.
Sure have her fooled, don’t I?
“How’s my little Lambchop?”
Daddy untangled his long legs from a sea of gold tinsel branches and smothered me in a big bear hug.
Unlike Mom, Daddy is tall and skinny (if you don’t count his tummy paunch), Jeff to her Mutt. Back when he was in school, he was known as Curly for his thick brown ringlets—curls that I inherited and that for Daddy are now a distant memory.
“Hank Austen!” Mom said, hands on her hips. “I can’t believe I’ve been gone all this time and you still haven’t put together the tree.”
“The instructions seem to be in Chinese,” he said, squinting through his bifocals at a flimsy instruction manual. “Either that or ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics. Anyhow, it’s a minor setback. I’ll tackle it again tomorrow and have this magnificent tree assembled in no time.
“Look, Lambchop!” He pointed to the gold mess at his feet. “It’s got lights and ornaments already built in. So we don’t have to bother decorating the tree.”
“But I like decorating the tree,” Mom muttered.
By now she’d whipped out the Dustbuster and was doing battle with the stray pieces of gold tinsel molting on the living room carpet.
“And check this out,” Daddy said, his enthusiasm undampened. “It’s got a revolving stand, so the Christmas tree will spin around.”
“Great,” Mom moaned. “We get to see how hideous it is from every angle.”
I have to admit, it was pretty repulsive. Even Prozac, who normally attacks Christmas trees with all the fury of a cranky Hun, took one sniff and walked away in disgust.
“Thank heavens we’re having Christmas dinner at Aunt Clara and Uncle Ed’s,” Mom sighed. “At least the relatives won’t have to look at it.”
“Let’s not argue over the tree, Claudia,” Daddy said. “Not when our little Lambchop is home.”
And indeed a temporary truce was struck while we settled down in the kitchen for a midnight snack. True, it was only nine p.m., but that’s practically midnight, Tampa Vistas Time.
“You hungry, sweetheart?” Mom asked.
Indeed I was, after the packet of stale peanuts a sullen flight attendant had hurled at me on the plane.
In no time, Mom whipped up some turkey and avocado sandwiches, tossing a big hunk of turkey to Prozac, who had been tailing her adoringly from the moment she approached the refrigerator.
“Mom, please don’t feed her human food. She’ll never go back to cat food if you do.”
“Oh, just this once, honey. How can I say no to such a darling kitty?”
Prozac shot me a triumphant look.
I had her at “meow.”
We spent the next hour or so catching up on family gossip, after which my parents turned in for the night.
As I watched them head down the hallway to their bedroom, Daddy’s arm around Mom’s waist, I marveled as I always did at how much they cared for each other in spite of their ongoing skirmishes.
I was in the guest bedroom, unpacking, when Mom toddled in wearing her Lanz nightie.
“I almost forgot to tell you the exciting news about the holiday play.”
Every year the gang at Tampa Vistas puts on a holiday-themed play, a mind-numbing affair that gives new meaning to the words general anesthesia.
Mercifully, I’d been able to doze through most of last year’s production of A Christmas Carol, featuring the world’s only Tiny Tim with liver spots.
“This year it’s an original play called The Gingerbread Cookie That Saved Christmas. And you’ll never guess who wrote it! Edna Lindstrom!”
I blinked in surprise. Mom’s good friend and next-door neighbor, Edna Lindstrom, was a dithery woman who spent most of her time knitting afghans and tea cozies—positively the last person on the planet I’d think capable of writing a play.
“Seeing as you’re a Hollywood writer and all, Edna wants you to take a look at it.”
Somehow my parents labor under the delusion that, because I live in L.A., I am a big-time Hollywood writer. No matter how often I tell them that I write freelance ads for a living, they insist on believing that I am a big cheese in la-la land.
“But, Mom, I don’t write plays. I write toilet bowl ads.”
(It’s true, I’m afraid. My biggest client is Toiletmasters Plumbers, serving the greater Los Angeles area since 1989.)
“Toilet bowl ads. Plays. It’s all the same. You’re still a professional writer. That’s why Edna wants your opinion. Maybe you can throw in a line here and there. I told her you’d be happy to. You don’t mind, do you, honey?”
Oh, dear. This didn’t bode well. I’d read my share of amateur plays, and I figured I was in for some rocky reading.
What I didn’t count on, of course, was the corpse that came with the final curtain.
There I found Daddy in his robe and slippers, reading the newspaper. Mom sat across from him in their red vinyl banquette, her hair still in curlers. Completing this cozy family tableau was Prozac, nestled on Mom’s lap, scarfing down a plate of sausage slices.
Prying her pink nose away from the plate, she gazed up at me in ecstasy.
We gotta come here more often!
“Don’t eat so fast, Zoloft, darling,” Mom cooed, “or you’ll get a tummy ache.”
“I thought you weren’t going to feed her any more human food.”
Mom shot me a sheepish smile.
“Oh, honey. How can one little sausage hurt?”
Trust me. By the end of the week, s. . .
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