The Candy Cane Cupcake Killer (12 page)

I
t was too late in the afternoon to go out and do any investigating today, Phyllis decided, and there was also the matter of the tabloid-TV crew lurking outside. If she left now, Felicity and her cohorts would follow her. Phyllis didn't want the reporter interfering.

So she went into the kitchen instead and put together the ingredients for the filling in the baklava macarons. It had to chill overnight, so once that was done and in the refrigerator, Phyllis strolled out onto the back porch and joined Sam and Buck in enjoying what was a mild afternoon for December. The sun was shining, and the air was just pleasantly crisp without being cold. The yard was covered with a dense carpet of fallen leaves from the tall post oaks. Phyllis knew they needed to be raked, but Buck enjoyed playing in them, racing back and forth and sending the leaves flying into the air.

Right now Sam was sitting in one of the rocking chairs,
reading an old Western paperback, while Buck lay at his feet, head resting on paws. The Dalmatian stood up as Phyllis came out onto the porch. He walked over to her to get his ears scratched as she sat down in the rocker next to Sam's.

Marking his place in the book with a finger, Sam asked, “Did you find anything?”

“Quite a bit, actually.” Phyllis scratched behind Buck's floppy black ears as she told Sam what she had discovered on the Internet. He sat up straighter, obviously interested.

“Shoot, from the sound of it, Loomis might've had half a dozen folks gunnin' for him,” he said when Phyllis was finished.

“Well, not quite that many, at least not that we know about. But there are definitely people out there who might have wanted to kill him.”

“I'd say it's a lot more likely he was the target than Barney. Barney didn't have any real enemies that I know of.”

“It might not hurt to look into that,” Phyllis said, “but I agree with you. Loomis is where we need to concentrate our efforts right now. Those cheerleaders from the high school were in the carriage, too, but it seems pretty far-fetched to me that somebody would want to shoot one of them.”

Sam grinned and said, “Unless it was some other cheerleader's mama. This
is
Texas, you know.”

“And sometimes the stereotypes are true,” Phyllis said, nodding. “So we can't rule them out, but we'll investigate the more likely theory first.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Sam said.

Even here on the back porch, they heard the doorbell ring
in the house. Carolyn appeared at the back door a moment later and said, “I didn't answer it, but I looked out and that woman from the TV show is ringing the bell again. I think we should call the police and complain.”

“She'll give up eventually,” Phyllis said.

Sam shook his head dubiously and said, “I'm not so sure about that. She looked mighty determined to me.”

“Well, then,” Phyllis said, “we'll just ignore her.”

•   •   •

That proved to be easier said than done. Felicity Prosper rang the doorbell and called on the phone the rest of the afternoon, off and on. The housemates tried to pretend they didn't hear, but it was a challenge.

Phyllis tried to distract herself by cooking, which had often worked in the past. She made a tomato and mozzarella salad and put that in the refrigerator. Then she started preparing a crustless spinach and bacon quiche for supper. It hadn't been easy getting Sam to admit that he liked quiche, especially one without a crust, but over time he had come around.

Carolyn had finished making her potato salad, but, like the filling for the baklava macarons, this particular recipe was better if it was refrigerated overnight. It was chilling so they could have it for lunch the next day.

While they were eating, they talked about Phyllis's article for
A Taste of Texas
rather than the McCrory case. She hoped to start writing it this evening so she could e-mail it to the magazine's editor in the next couple of days . . . assuming the macarons turned out all right, of course.

“Would you be willing to look it over for me when I'm
done with it, Eve?” she asked. “You were the one who taught English all those years, not me. I'm afraid my writing skills may not be up to snuff anymore.”

“I'd be glad to,” Eve said. “I don't think you have anything to worry about, though. I've always thought your spelling and grammar were just fine.”

“Maybe so, but I'd feel better if somebody who knows what she's doing checked it before I send it in.”

“Of course. Just e-mail the file to me whenever you're ready.”

That made Phyllis glance around the table at her friends. When you considered how old they all were, herself included, she thought they were fairly computer literate. Carolyn was the only one who didn't use the computer much, and she could when she needed to. Sam was practically addicted to YouTube, like a kid. He mostly watched clips of old sports highlights—“Back when the Cowboys were actually, you know, good,” as he phrased it—rather than music videos, though.

The thing was, none of them believed that just because they were retired, it was time to stop learning things. Phyllis enjoyed taking it easy now and then and figured she had earned that privilege, but she couldn't think of anything worse than just sitting and doing nothing for the rest of her life.

Of course, she had never dreamed that catching killers would turn out to be her retirement hobby, but life took some odd twists, no doubt about that.

The doorbell hadn't rung for a while, Phyllis realized. Neither had the phone. Phyllis hoped that meant Felicity Prosper
had given up and gone away. She didn't really expect that to be the case, but it would be nice if it turned out to be true.

Almost as soon as that thought went through Phyllis's mind, the sound of the doorbell filled the house again. She gave a mental groan. She had jinxed it.

“Just ignore her,” she said. “I won't have that woman in my house.”

After a minute of persistent ringing, the doorbell fell silent again. Then Phyllis's cell phone rang.

That was a surprise. Felicity had been calling the landline all day, leading Phyllis to suspect that was the only number the reporter had. When she slipped the phone out of her pocket and looked at the number, she recognized it as the cell phone belonging to her son, Mike.

“Hello?” she said.

“Mom, why aren't you answering the door?” Mike asked. “You're here, aren't you? The lights are on.”

Phyllis came quickly to her feet and said, “Yes, we're here. Hang on just a minute.”

She hurried up the hall to the front door, flipped on the porch light, and looked out the narrow side window. Sure enough, Mike stood there in his deputy's uniform with a look of concern on his face.

Phyllis opened the door and told him, “Come on in. I'm sorry you had to stand out there. We, ah, haven't been answering the door today.”

“Why not?” he asked as he stepped into the foyer.

Phyllis looked past him and saw that the TV van was gone from the curb again.

Mike noticed that. He was naturally observant and his job
had made him even more so. He said, “Does not answering the door have anything to do with the van that drove off as soon as I pulled into the driveway?”

“It does,” Phyllis said as she closed the front door. “The sight of your patrol car must have scared them off. Although they were probably getting pretty tired and hungry, too, after being out there most of the day.”

“Who?”

Sam, Carolyn, and Eve had followed Phyllis from the kitchen. It was Sam who answered Mike's question by saying, “TV vultures. A gal reporter and some fellas from one of those tabloid shows.”

Mike frowned.

“They were trying to interview you about the McCrory case?” he asked.

“That's right,” Phyllis said, heaving a disgusted sigh. “The woman referred to me as Texas's Elderly Angel of Death.”

Mike still wore a concerned frown, but the corners of his mouth twitched a little.

“Oh, go ahead and laugh!” Phyllis told him. “It's completely ridiculous.”

Mike allowed himself to smile, but he didn't actually laugh. He said, “Yeah, it is sort of ridiculous. You know what those shows are like, though. They go way over the top about everything. They're just trying to get bigger ratings.”

“Well, come on in and sit down. We were just finishing up supper. I think there's one piece of quiche left.”

“No, that's all right, I can't stay. Maybe if you've got any of those famous cupcakes left, though, I could take one with me.”

“You mean the candy cane cupcakes? How do you know about them?”

“Isabel mentioned them. I think Chief Whitmire must have told her about them. He said something about sitting around and eating cupcakes in the interrogation room. That's not something that happens every day.”

“I see,” Phyllis said. She had wondered before if she ought to worry about Mike's friendship with Isabel Largo, who was a detective on the Weatherford police force. There didn't seem to be anything between them except the camaraderie of fellow law-enforcement officers, although they worked for different agencies. But Isabel was a young, attractive single mother, and Mike was a healthy young man . . .

A healthy young man who seemed to be quite happily married to his wife, Sarah, the mother of their son, Phyllis's grandson, Bobby. Phyllis told herself not to be so suspicious. She needed to save that for ferreting out murderers.

That thought prompted her to ask, “Is Detective Largo handling the McCrory case now?”

“It's still the chief's case officially, but he's got her covering some of the bases.” Mike looked over at Sam and said, “I'm sorry about your friend.”

“Thanks. We're gonna get whoever's responsible.”

Mike frowned again, looked at Phyllis, and said, “You're looking into this, Mom? I thought you and Sam were just witnesses.”

“It's a little more than that,” Phyllis admitted. “How much has Detective Largo told you about the case?”

“Not much. Isabel isn't a strictly by-the-book cop, but she doesn't bend the rules too far, either. I know what the public knows.” He shrugged. “And maybe a little more, like the lab got some pretty good ballistics results from the bullet that killed Mr. McCrory. If they recover a suspected murder weapon, they shouldn't have any trouble determining if it matches up with the bullet.”

“If you've got a few minutes, I'll get those cupcakes out and pour you a cup of coffee, too,” Phyllis suggested.

“I'll make the time,” Mike said without hesitation. “I want to hear about this.”

The five of them sat down around the kitchen table. Over candy cane cupcakes and coffee, Phyllis and Sam recounted everything that had happened so far.

When they had covered all that she could remember, Phyllis said, “So, you see, Mike, it's not really like those other times. We're working for Mr. D'Angelo, so we have a right to investigate the case.”

“I don't know,” Mike said slowly. “It seems a little iffy to me. This guy Nate hasn't been charged with anything yet.”

“People who think they may fall under suspicion of a crime have a right to hire a lawyer, don't they?”

“Sure. But that also makes them look a little more guilty.”

Carolyn said, “Why should it? People have figured out by now that they have to look out for their own best interests when it comes to the legal system. No one else will.”

In the past, Mike had taken polite exception to some of Carolyn's adversarial attitudes about the law. This time he said
to Phyllis, “I just don't want the two of you getting into any trouble.” He shrugged. “Although by now I guess you ought to know what you're doing. Do you have any suspects of your own?”

Phyllis and Sam exchanged a glance; then Phyllis said, “We've been wondering if Barney McCrory wasn't really the murderer's intended target.”

Mike cocked his head a little to the side and said, “Now, that's an interesting idea. I didn't get the impression from Isabel that they were considering anything except a straightforward investigation of McCrory and anybody who might have reason to want him dead. But it was a long rifle shot—several hundred yards. It's certainly possible the killer could have just missed.” Mike paused. “But who was he aiming at?”

“Clay Loomis,” Phyllis said.

Mike's eyebrows arched in surprise. As an employee of the county, he definitely knew who Loomis was. He said, “Loomis was sitting behind McCrory in the carriage, wasn't he?”

“That's right. At that distance, the killer's aim wouldn't have had to be off by very much for him to hit Mr. McCrory instead of Clay Loomis.”

“Who would want to shoot a county commissioner? They're a pretty innocuous bunch most of the time.”

Phyllis explained about the mudslinging election campaign, the divorce petition, and the lawsuit by Loomis's business partners. Mike began to nod, almost as if against his will.