Christmas Cookie Murder. Leslie Meier

She paused for breath and shook her head. “I hope he chokes on them. I hope the cholesterol clogs up his blood vessels and he has a stroke and lies there paralyzed for days and nobody finds him until he rots. And when they find him the rats will have been chewing on him…”

      “These cookies look really good,” said Lucy, taking a platter covered with plastic wrap from her.

      “It’s the most wonderful recipe,” said Lee, hanging up her jacket on the hall coat tree. “They taste great and believe it or not, they’re low fat and have hardly any sugar. They’re actually good for you.”

      Lucy raised a skeptical eyebrow. Lee took her role as the wife of a dentist very seriously, and was known for using recipes that were good for you but didn’t necessarily taste very good.

      “Sounds like a miracle.”

      “It really is—oh, Lucy, do you mind if I just run upstairs to use the loo?”

      “Of course not,” said Lucy, mentally crossing her fingers. So far, the plumbing seemed to be holding up but she didn’t want to risk any disasters. “Please use the downstairs powder room instead. Do you know where it is?”

      “Sure thing.”

      Lee dashed off through the kitchen, while Lucy added her platter of cookies to the others on the table. It was filling up, Lucy saw with satisfaction, surveying the array of homemade baked goods. The women had packed the cookies in sandwich bags, each holding six cookies, and a few had decorated them with bright holiday ribbons and stickers. The table was so crowded, in fact, that Steffie’s little brochures had disappeared from sight.

      “So, what’s it like to be the proud mother of a genius?” asked Lydia, striking up a conversation with Rachel. “You must be so proud of Richie.”

      “I am,” admitted Rachel. “But I was proud of him before we got the letter, too.”

      “You don’t have to be modest,” said Lydia. “Harvard is the top American college, after all.”

      “There are plenty of other good schools, too,” said Pam, who was growing tired of hearing about other people’s kids. “Adam wants to go to Boston University, or maybe Northeastern.”

      “MCU’s awfully good, too,” said Andrea. “Especially if you have a full scholarship like Tim does.”

      “And a lot of kids can’t take the pressure at a place like Harvard,” continued Pam. “They crash and burn.”

      “That’s right,” added Steffie. “There’s a lot of alcohol abuse at those fraternities. Was it Harvard? Maybe it was MIT. I’m not sure which, but I remember reading that a freshman died from alcohol poisoning.”

      “That was MIT,” said Lee, joining the group. “But I don’t think Harvard’s much better. It certainly didn’t do much for Steve, I can tell you that.”

      There was a sudden commotion as Rachel dropped her coffee cup, shattering the cup and saucer and spilling the coffee on the rug. “Oh, I’m so sorry, Lucy,” she said, dropping to her knees and attempting to clean up the mess with a holiday napkin.

      “Here, let me take care of that,” said Lucy. As she knelt beside Rachel, she saw that tears were filling her eyes. “It’s nothing…” began Lucy, reaching for more napkins. “We spill stuff all the time—why do you think I’m having this little do by candlelight?”

      Rachel giggled, and Lucy gave her a quick hug. She didn’t think for a minute that Rachel was crying over spilt coffee; she had been upset by her friends’ meanness.

      “Don’t pay any mind,” whispered Lucy, taking the sponge Franny was offering her. “They’re just jealous.”

      “Oh, I know. But I’ve really had to bite my tongue tonight, let me tell you. Especially with Andrea,” hissed Rachel, picking up the broken pieces of china and handing them to Franny. “To listen to her, you’d never know Tim isn’t quite the paragon she wants everyone to think he is.”

      “He isn’t?” Lucy was definitely interested.

      “No. He was arrested last week for driving under the influence. He’s in big trouble.”

      “My goodness,” said Franny.

      “How do you know?” asked Lucy.

      “They hired Bob to defend him.” Bob, Rachel’s husband, was a lawyer.

      Rachel’s hand flew to her mouth as she rose to her feet. “Don’t tell anybody, okay? I’m not supposed to know about this—client confidentiality and all that.”

      “Your secret’s safe with me,” said Lucy, now standing and scanning the table for the brochures. She finally found them under Franny’s Chinese noodle cookies. Making sure no one was watching, she lifted the plate and scooped up the brochures, wadding them into a ball along with the sodden napkins. Then she turned, intending to throw the whole mess into the kitchen garbage.

      “Oh my goodness, Lucy,” said Lee, suddenly appearing at her elbow. “Who brought those awful Chinese noodle cookies? Can you imagine making something as unhealthy as that in this day and age? What could she have been thinking? Those things are full of saturated fat and all sorts of preservatives. Talk about empty calories!”

      Lucy looked across the table toward the sideboard, where Franny was refilling the teapot, and saw her hurt expression.

      “Oh, I don’t know,” said Lucy, catching Franny’s eye. “I can’t resist them myself—and it’s only once a year.”

      That’s right, she told herself. Christmas only comes once a year, thank goodness. And with any luck, she’d never have to have this blasted cookie exchange again. How could she have forgotten? It was the same thing every year. Somebody always went home with hurt feelings. Of course, this year looked to be something of a record in the hurt-feelings department. It was all Sue’s fault, she decided. If she’d gotten to the party on time, she could have helped keep the combatants apart. As it was, if she didn’t arrive soon, thought Lucy, blood would probably be shed.

      In the kitchen, Lucy tossed the pamphlets into the bin under the kitchen sink. The last thing she wanted was for Andrea to see them; remembering her swollen eyes when she arrived, Lucy was sure she was enormously upset about Tim’s arrest. All that bragging about the MCU scholarship was her way of putting on a brave front.

      Of course, nobody was more competitive than Andrea when it came to kids. As much as Lucy sympathized with her, and dreaded finding herself in the same situation, she couldn’t help feeling just the teeniest bit that Andrea was getting her just desserts.

      Lucy was far too superstitious ever to brag about her children; the most she would do was modestly accept a compliment on their behalf. That wasn’t Andrea’s way. Ever since Tim caught his first Wiffle ball, gently lobbed by his father, she had hailed him as a superb athlete. Her friends had listened patiently through the years as she had provided a play-by-play narration of his achievements. In his mother’s eyes, Tim could do no wrong. He was perfect. He was, thought Lucy, too good to be true.

      Returning to the dining room, Lucy poured herself a cup of coffee and propped a slice of cake on the saucer. Then she followed the group into the living room, where they had settled to enjoy their refreshments. Lee was making the most of this opportunity to reap her friends’ sympathy by making sure they all knew the details of Steve’s latest transgressions.

      “He told his lawyer that there’s no reason for me to get the stove because I never lifted a hand to cook a home-cooked meal in the entire seven years we’ve been married—can you believe it?”

      Receiving clucks and murmurs of sympathy from the group, she continued. “I mean, we entertained at least once a week and I thought nothing of whipping up beef Stroganoff or coq au vin for his dental-society colleagues and their incredibly boring wives, not to mention chicken wings and homemade pizza—with sundried tomatoes, I might add—for his annual Super Bowl bash. This stuff didn’t all just appear,