Black and Blueberry Die (A Fresh-Baked Mystery Book 11) (2 page)

Phyllis was telling the truth when she said she remembered Danny Jackson. It would have been hard for her to forget the boy who had been her son’s best friend all the way through junior high and high school. Danny and Mike had set at Phyllis’s own kitchen table many times eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches or hot dogs or bowls of ice cream. She had driven them to football practice and Little League games and Boy Scout meetings. They had set in the living room watching sports on TV with Kenny, Mike’s dad and Phyllis’s late husband. Danny’s dad wasn’t in the picture—Phyllis didn’t know the details and hadn’t had any reason to pry into the boy’s home life—so Kenny had, at times, been like a surrogate father to him. To tell the truth, Phyllis remembered all of it vividly, more so than many of the things that had happened recently.

Of course, time had passed and best friends or not, the lives of the two young men had taken different courses. Mike had gone to college, majored in criminal justice, and become a sheriff’s deputy. Danny had gone to college, too, but only for a year before enlisting in the Army. He’d been deployed somewhere overseas but hadn’t seen any combat as far as Phyllis knew. After two “hitches”—Phyllis supposed they still called them that—he had returned to civilian life, gotten married to a girl he had dated while he was in college, and settled down in Fort Worth, evidently happy and ready to get on with his life.

Phyllis heard about those things in passing from Mike, but she remembered them well enough she’d been shocked when she heard, some months earlier, that Danny had been arrested for the murder of his wife.

“You know how when something bad happens, people always say they never knew it was coming?” Mike said.

“They used to say that,” Sam responded. “Now most folks say, ‘Oh, yeah, I always knew he was crazy and was gonna snap one of these days.’”

Mike shrugged and nodded. “Unfortunately, that’s true. It
does
seem like we have more obviously crazy and violent people these days. But in Danny and Roxanne’s case it was more of a surprise. They seemed happy. I saw the pictures both of them posted on Facebook. They were always doing things together and looked like they were in love.”

With her usual cynicism, Carolyn said, “Married couples get in the habit of
looking
like they’re in love. It makes things simpler and easier that way, whether it’s true or not.”

“I guess. I’m sure Danny and Roxanne had their problems. But if anybody had told me he was going to kill her, especially like...that...I would have said they were nuts.”

“She was beaten to death, wasn’t she?” Phyllis asked quietly.

Mike nodded. “Blunt force trauma. In fact, it was bad enough that, well, they had a little trouble identifying her.”

Carolyn leaned forward in her rocking chair and asked, “Were the authorities absolutely certain it was her who was killed? I mean, could it have been some other woman about the same age and shape and size...?”

“Her fingerprints were on file because she had a license to carry a gun. It was her, all right. No doubt about it. That other sort of thing only happens in books and movies.”

Phyllis frowned slightly and said, “Why would she carry a gun? Was she afraid of something...or someone?”

“Like Danny?” Mike shook his head. “No. Sometimes Roxanne closed up at the beauty parlor where she worked and took the day’s deposit to the bank. She just kept a little pistol in the car because of that and being out after dark. I doubt if she ever fired it except now and then on the range.”

“You said Danny wanted to talk to you,” Sam put in. “What did he tell you? Did he claim he was innocent?”

“He did. He said he loved Roxanne and never would have hurt her. But...he’s the one who found her body at the beauty shop and called 911. He was pretty disoriented when the cops got there—”

“Well, I would expect so,” Carolyn said, “if he found his wife murdered, after all.”

“But in any homicide where the victim is married, the spouse is always the first suspect,” Mike said. His face was grim. “Danny had a lot of...DNA evidence on him—”

“You mean Roxanne’s blood,” Phyllis said.

Mike sighed and nodded. “Yeah. He was covered with it. And he didn’t have any sort of alibi. Plus there were witnesses who said that Danny and Roxanne
had
been having trouble in their marriage after all, no matter what it looked like to their old friends. That was enough for Danny to be arrested and indicted. Why would the police look that hard at anybody else? I don’t think our detectives would have.”

“There was no one to testify on his behalf at the trial?”

“A few character witnesses,” Mike said with a shrug, “but nothing to contradict the physical evidence or discredit the few witnesses the state called. The trial really didn’t amount to much. The jury deliberated less than an hour. Danny was sentenced to thirty years for second-degree murder.”

Sam asked, “What did he say to make you think he’s not guilty? You’ve dealt with enough criminals to know that plenty of ’em deny what they did, up one way and down the other, even when they’ve been caught red-handed.”

“He told me he and Roxanne were about to go away together on a second honeymoon. More like a first one, actually, since they didn’t have much of a honeymoon when they first got married because Danny had just gotten out of the army and they didn’t have any money. Anyway, they were going to Las Vegas because they could afford it now, and Danny just sounded so...so happy about it. Even in jail, when he talked about what could have been, he sounded like it would have been wonderful. And then he started to cry.” Mike shook his head. “I just can’t believe he’d hurt her.”

Phyllis said, “People sometimes do things in the heat of an argument that they would never do otherwise.”

“I know. Believe me, I’ve worked in law enforcement long enough to know there’s no limit to the terrible things people will do, even when you think they never would. If somebody else was telling me this story about their friend and said that he couldn’t possibly be a murderer, I’d be skeptical. But...it’s me, and it’s Danny, and I believe him.”

For a long moment, none of them said anything. Then Phyllis asked, “Did Danny want you to come and talk to me about the case, Mike?”

He nodded. “Yeah. He knew I couldn’t do anything to help him, that it would be a conflict of interest and could get me in trouble. But of course he’d heard about you and some of the things you’ve done...I guess most people around here have heard about that. You’re kind of a celebrity, Mom, whether you like it or not.”

Phyllis
didn’t
like it. She had never set out to be a detective. She had lived nearly all of her life without ever solving any sort of mystery, other than figuring out who might have been cheating on tests in her eighth grade history class.

Then, over the past few years, what had been a pleasant retirement surrounded by friends and family had been disrupted by a series of crimes in which Phyllis had had no choice but to get involved. To help those she cared about, she had investigated those murders and eventually turned up the guilty party. She had been suspected of various things and even wound up in jail herself for a short time, but everything had always turned out all right in the end. At least, as all right as it could have, considering some of the tragic things that had occurred.

Mike went on, “Danny said he always thought it was cool that his best friend’s mom solved all those murders, but he never dreamed he would need you to help him someday.”

“He wants me to investigate his wife’s death.”

“It’s not an open case anymore,” Mike pointed out. “You wouldn’t get in any trouble with the law for poking around some.” He shook his head. “I hate to ask it, especially after I’ve spent all these years, well, fussing at you for getting mixed up in these things...”

Carolyn said, “You were just trying to look out for your mother. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

Sam said, “At least the crime took place in Fort Worth. The Weatherford cops and the Parker County sheriff don’t have anything to do with it.”

“I don’t really know that much about the case,” Phyllis said. “Just what you told me and what I read about it in the newspaper. I never even met Danny’s wife. I’m not sure where I’d start.”

“Just think it over,” Mike said. “If you don’t want to get involved, that’s perfectly all right. I understand completely.” He drank the rest of the lemonade in his glass and stood up. “I have to get moving. My shift starts pretty soon.”

“I will think about it,” Phyllis promised.

“Thanks, Mom.” Mike bent and kissed her forehead.

“Give my love to Sarah and Bobby.”

“Sure.” Mike lifted a hand in farewell. “So long, Sam. Thanks for the lemonade, Miz Wilbarger.”

He got in the sheriff’s cruiser and drove away. As they watched the car roll on down the street, Carolyn said to Phyllis, “If you don’t help his friend, it’s not going to be perfectly all right and he won’t understand completely, no matter what he says.”

“I don’t know,” Sam said. “Mike’s not the sort to hold a grudge.” He shrugged. “Still, when fellas play ball together, there’s a bond between ’em. It’s not like bein’ in combat with somebody, of course, but to a much lesser degree, there’s a feelin’ like you’ve gone to war together.”

“You’re both saying I should investigate Roxanne Jackson’s murder,” Phyllis said. “But what if I do, and I come to the conclusion that Danny really
is
guilty? That’s going to be awfully hard for Mike to accept.”

“At least he’ll know for sure,” Sam said. “That’s got to be a good thing in the long run. It’d be hard to spend the rest of your life havin’ doubts about something like that. It might gnaw at him to think he hadn’t done everything he could to help an old friend.”

Phyllis nodded and said, “That’s true.” She sighed. “It doesn’t appear that I have much choice. You know, enough time has gone by since that trouble last Christmas that I thought I’d never have to deal with any murders again.”

“And now you’re right back at it.” Sam grinned. “You know the old sayin’ about how the more things change—”

“The more Phyllis Newsom is up to her neck in murder,” Carolyn said.

When Phyllis was growing up, her parents always had a set of encyclopedias in the house, which she knew made her luckier than some children. Whenever she needed to look something up for her school work, she hadn’t had to go to the library or wait until she was back in the classroom, which had its own encyclopedias. She could do her research right at home.

She’d also been the sort of kid who would sit and read an encyclopedia for fun, which led more than once to her being called a weirdo and a bookworm, but she didn’t really care about that. Learning mattered more.

She wondered if people these days still bought encyclopedias. She had a set, but they were close to twenty years old and she hadn’t given any thought to replacing them.

Probably she could find a newer set cheap somewhere on the Internet, she mused as she sat down at the computer in the living room that evening.

But encyclopedias wouldn’t tell her anything about Roxanne Jackson’s murder. For that she had to rely on what Sam called “Google-fu”.

Since Roxanne had been a beautician and her husband ran a paint and body shop, there hadn’t been a lot of media coverage about her murder. As a firm believer in the idea that all human lives were important, Phyllis didn’t think that was fair, but she was also pragmatic enough to know it was true. The case had received a little interest because Roxanne had been killed in an upscale salon on the west side of Fort Worth patronized by a number of old-money clients who lived in the area, but the media would have paid a lot more attention if it had been one of those wealthy matrons who’d wound up dead, not the young woman who did their hair.

Danny and Roxanne had lived in the country, west of the loop that ran around Fort Worth. They had bought an old farmhouse set back about a quarter of a mile from the county road and remodeled it themselves. Danny was handy about things like that, and Roxanne had pitched in willingly to help.

On the night of Roxanne’s murder, Danny had worked late at his shop to finish up a job, but he’d been there alone, his partner having left earlier. There were no witnesses to prove when he’d left the shop. Knowing that Roxanne was also working late, he had stopped and gotten take-out food for them, then decided to drive by the salon and see if she was still there. He hadn’t really thought she would be, but seeing her car still in the parking lot, he had stopped and gone in to see if she was all right.

Unfortunately, Roxanne had been far from all right.

The police had found the paper sack of cold burgers and fries sitting on the floor just inside the salon’s unlocked door. Later, during questioning, Danny had said that he dropped them there in shock when he walked in and found his wife’s bloody, battered corpse lying in front of the hair dryers.

He had run and knelt beside her and grabbed her to see if she was alive. That was how he had come to get her blood all over his hands and shirt. All he could think was that someone had broken into the place to rob it and found Roxanne there, causing the intruder to panic and kill her. It was a story that could have been true...

“Figured that’s what I’d find you doin’,” Sam said from behind Phyllis. He moved gracefully and quietly, as always, like the athlete he had once been, but she didn’t jump in surprise. Sam’s voice never made her do that.

“Well, I told Mike I would think about it,” she said, “and I can’t really do that unless I have the facts of the case.”

“I got the dishwasher loaded,” Sam said as he stepped up beside her chair. That was one of the jobs he usually tried to take care of. He rested his left hand lightly on her right shoulder and went on, “Findin’ out much?”

Phyllis sighed and shook her head.

“Not really.” Quickly, she sketched in what she had learned so far, then continued, “Unfortunately, that’s about all there is to it. The newspaper story says evidence at the scene led police to believe that Danny was involved in his wife’s death, but it doesn’t go into detail about what that evidence was. There’s also a mention that the marriage was ‘troubled’, whatever that means, but again the story doesn’t elaborate.”

“Carolyn would probably say all marriages are troubled.”

Phyllis looked around to make sure her old friend wasn’t in earshot, then said quietly, “Carolyn takes a jaundiced view of a lot of things. She’s probably right, though, just not to the degree she believes she is. No marriage runs smoothly all the time.”

Sam shrugged and said, “I reckon that’s true, unless the two people just flat don’t give a damn about each other anymore. It’s hard to work up the energy to fight if you don’t really care.”

“I suppose.” Phyllis couldn’t imagine such a thing. “Anyway, I’m not sure there’s anything here to go on. I can’t even make a guess about whether the police misinterpreted the evidence when I don’t know what the evidence was.”

“It would be in the trial transcript, wouldn’t it?”

“It would have to be. The prosecution made enough of a case for the jury to convict Danny almost right away.”

“Trials are public,” Sam pointed out.

“Yes, but getting a transcript of the testimony isn’t exactly easy, especially for a civilian who has no connection to the case.”

“And you can’t use Mike’s name, because that’d get him mixed up in it and you don’t want that.”

“I certainly don’t,” Phyllis said. “He took a big enough chance just talking to me about the case. Sheriff Haney has been, well,
tolerant
of me getting involved in certain cases, but there’s no point in pushing my luck. Or Mike’s luck.”

“Well, then, it looks like you may have to tell Mike that you can’t do anything for his friend after all. Seems like it’s sorta out of your hands.”

“Maybe.” Phyllis frowned in thought. “I haven’t made up my mind completely yet. I think I’m going to have to sleep on it.”

“That’s usually a good idea. Don’t know how well you’ll sleep with no air conditionin’, though.”

“Luckily, we have fans, and it’ll be cooler by morning. I grew up sleeping with no air conditioner going, even in the hottest part of the summer.”

“So did I, but you get used to bein’ comfortable.”

“That’s true.” She was very comfortable with most parts of her life, Phyllis mused, but sooner or later things were going to change. She might not like it, but it was inevitable.

So it only made sense to enjoy life as long as she could, she thought with a smile as she reached up and patted Sam’s hand where it rested on her shoulder.

••●••

“What’s this?” Carolyn asked as she came into the kitchen the next morning and found Phyllis working at the counter.

“Gluten-free oatmeal muffins in a cup,” Phyllis said. “Just an idea I came up with. I thought I might put it in the magazine.”

For a while now, she had been writing a monthly column for the magazine
A Taste of Texas
, which had been a favorite publication of hers and Carolyn’s for a long time. They had entered many of the magazine’s recipe contests without winning, but they still enjoyed the friendly competition.

Then Phyllis had not only won, but the editor had also offered her the job of writing a column. That had been fun, although occasionally she got a little nervous about the deadlines.

If Carolyn resented Phyllis’s success, she hadn’t displayed it. Of course, it probably helped that Phyllis had showcased a few of Carolyn’s recipes, always giving her full credit for them.

“You just mix oatmeal, egg, oil, and milk in a large cup and then microwave it. You can throw in some chocolate or fruit or nuts and make a quick breakfast that’s not just plain. I’ve got some blueberries and cream cheese in these and sweetened it with maple syrup.”

Sam had come into the kitchen in time to hear the tail end of the conversation. He grinned and said, “I’m not sure what you’re talkin’ about, but it sure sounds good. And that coffee smells mighty good.” He poured himself a cup. “Drinkin’ hot coffee while the A/C’s out and the house is warm. That’s Texas for you. Never too cold for iced tea or too hot for coffee.”

“You’re just addicted to caffeine,” Carolyn said as she poured a cup as well. “And don’t make some crack about the pot calling the kettle black. I never claimed
not
to be addicted to caffeine. How can you teach school for all those years and not be?”

Sam had on a pair of blue jeans this morning, as well as shoes and socks. His t-shirt was a Poolville High School shirt, where he had taught and coached for many years. Carolyn wore a lightweight housedress while Phyllis was in capris again, although she wore a t-shirt, too, instead of a short-sleeved blouse like the day before.

There was room in the big microwave for all three cups of the oatmeal she had prepared. She placed them on the turntable, closed the door, and pushed buttons to start them cooking. She’d already had part of a cup of coffee. She picked it up from the counter and went to join Sam and Carolyn at the table.

As she sat down, the cell phone in her pocket began to ring. As she reached for the phone, she tried to remember the last time the landline had rung when it
wasn’t
a telemarketer or some sort of survey.

“A little early for someone to be calling, isn’t it?” Carolyn said.

“I hope it’s not the air conditionin’ guy cancellin’,” Sam said.

“It’s not,” Phyllis told them. “It’s Jimmy D’Angelo.”

That bit of news caused Sam’s bushy eyebrows to rise. Carolyn frowned and said, “That lawyer?”

Phyllis didn’t respond to that. Instead she thumbed the icon on the screen and said, “Hello?”

She heard D’Angelo’s familiar accent on the other end of the connection. He had grown up, attended law school, and started his career as an attorney somewhere in the Northeast. Phyllis hadn’t asked him for any details about that or how he had come to be practicing law in Texas. In a couple of the cases in which Phyllis had become involved, D’Angelo had represented suspects charged with murder, suspects Phyllis had eventually proven to be innocent. In the course of those investigations, the attorney had asked Phyllis and Sam to work as consultants for him. Sam liked to joke that that made them private eyes. Phyllis didn’t think so, at least not legally, but helping D’Angelo did give them some official standing and opened a few doors that might otherwise have remained closed.

She listened to D’Angelo now and said, “Yes, as a matter of fact, I
am
familiar with it” and “How did you—” and “We were about to sit down to breakfast” and “Yes, I suppose we could. When?” She nodded, even though the lawyer couldn’t see that, and went on, “Yes, of course.”

Then she hung up and looked at Carolyn and Sam. Carolyn said, “What in the world was that all about?”

Instead of answering directly, Phyllis said, “You were going to be here this morning, weren’t you?”

“Actually, I plan to be here all day.”

“Do you mind letting the air conditioner man in when he gets here?”

“No, but where are you and Sam going to be?”

Sam said, “I’ve got a hunch, but it sounds sorta crazy.”

“Maybe not,” Phyllis said. “Mr. D’Angelo wants to talk to both of us, Sam—about Roxanne Jackson’s murder.”

The microwave dinged to signal that it was done.