The Candy Cane Cupcake Killer (23 page)

The day was sunnier and warmer than the last time they had visited the site, but the place still had a certain bleakness to it. The acres of gravel and rows of trucks just didn't hold
much warmth. As they neared the gate in the fence, Sam asked, “Are we goin' in?”

“Yes, go ahead,” Phyllis told him. “I only see one car parked at the office, and it's one that was here the other day. It must belong to that lady who took over for Jaycee Fallon.”

“Looks like Loomis doesn't actually spend much time here,” Sam commented as he parked the pickup in front of the office.

“He's probably too busy with county business . . . or hiding out from other people who want to serve him with lawsuits.”

When they went inside, the same gray-haired woman looked up from the desk behind the counter. She must have remembered them, because she said, “Oh, you just missed Mr. Loomis! You're not having very good luck catching him here.” She shook her head. “Not that it would have done you much good. I asked him about making a contribution to the Lions Club, but he said he couldn't afford it right now.”

“Well, we appreciate your checking with him,” Phyllis said. “I was wondering . . . Do you think any of the companies he leases trucks to might be willing to contribute? If you had a list of them . . .”

The woman frowned and said, “I don't know if Mr. Loomis would want me sharing that information.” She shrugged and went on. “Then again, the company logo is on all the trucks, along with the names of the companies that lease them, so it's not like it's any great secret.”

“That information would certainly be helpful,” Phyllis said.

“The problem is, a list like that doesn't really exist. I'd
have to go through the files and put it together, and I'm not sure I have time.”

“If you handle the billing, maybe you remember some of them,” Phyllis suggested. “It doesn't have to be a complete list. Just a few more places for us to try.”

The woman thought about it and then nodded. She said, “I could do that, I suppose. We lease trucks to several of the regional supermarket chains.” She named them. “There are some oil-field supply companies and energy companies, like Cherokee and Anderson Brothers and Winchell and Devstar and Hawkins Supply. They get all of their trucks from us. Oh, and one of the hardware-store chains and any number of construction companies. Aren't you going to write these down?”

“Of course,” Phyllis said. She fumbled in her pockets. “I just don't seem to have any paper or a pen.”

The gray-haired woman shook her head and said, “I'll write them down for you.”

“Thank you so much.”

The woman spent several minutes making a list of companies that did business with Cross Timbers Transport. She said, “I wouldn't be doing this if it weren't for a good cause.”

“I know the children will be very grateful on Christmas morning,” Phyllis said. She made a mental promise to get several of those angels from the Angel Tree and make sure they
had good Christmases. Even doing that, she might still feel a little guilty for using the Lions Club's project in this manner.

But saving an innocent man from prison and finding a killer are good causes, too, she reminded herself.

The woman handed the sheet of paper over the counter and said, “There you are.”

“Thanks again,” Phyllis said as she took it.

“We're much obliged,” Sam added with a nod. They turned toward the door.

It opened before they could get there, and a woman stormed into the office. She demanded, “Where is he? Where is that lying, no-good—”

She stopped short at the sight of Phyllis and Sam standing there. Phyllis recognized her right away. She had seen two pictures of this woman, albeit taken fifteen years apart.

The blonde standing there with an angry expression on her face was Jaycee Fallon.

“S
orry,” Jaycee muttered without much sincerity. She looked around Phyllis and Sam at the woman behind the counter and went on. “He's not here, is he?”

“No, he left a little while ago,” the woman said. “Was he expecting you?”

Jaycee laughed and said, “Are you kidding? If Clay knew I was coming, he'd run the other way as fast as he could. That's why I tried to catch him here. He owes me, the son of a—”

“Please,” the woman said. “I know how upset you are with him, Jaycee, but there's nothing I can do about it.”

Jaycee nodded and sighed.

“I know,” she said. “I'm sorry, Martha. I don't mean to take it out on you. I'm just frustrated because I know how slick Clay is. He's going to weasel out of all his responsibilities somehow. And I . . . I . . . don't know how I'm going to get through this.”

She put her hands over her face as it unexpectedly crumpled into tears.

The gray-haired woman—Martha, Jaycee had called her—hurried out from behind the counter and put an arm around the blonde's shoulders.

“Oh, dear,” she said as she steered Jaycee toward the little leather sofa against one wall. “What in the world is wrong?”

They seemed to have forgotten that Phyllis and Sam were still there, which was just fine with Phyllis. She hated to see anyone as upset as Jaycee obviously was, but sometimes when people were caught up in such an emotional state, they revealed more information than they intended to.

“I—I've just been to the doctor,” Jaycee said as she sat down on the sofa with Martha. “I was pretty sure already, but now it's certain . . .”

“You're pregnant?” Martha whispered.

Jaycee swallowed hard and nodded.

“I told Clay a couple of weeks ago that I thought I was, and he said . . . he said it wasn't his. I told him it had to be, but he didn't believe me. And he was really rude about it! That's why I got mad and threatened to sue him for sexual harassment.” Jaycee clenched her right hand into a fist and thumped it against her knee. “I am
not
going to let him get away with not taking responsibility for this. I'll keep him in court from now on, if that's what it takes to make him stand up and do what's right.”

Martha shook her head and said solemnly, “It won't do you any good, dear. Between you and me, he's broke. I'm not sure if he'll even be able to pay my salary this month.” She seemed to realize the two of them weren't alone and shot a glance at
Phyllis and Sam. “Oh, my. Please pretend you didn't hear that. I had no right to speak out of turn.”

“Don't worry,” Phyllis said. “It's none of our business. Right, Sam?”

“That's right,” Sam said. “In one ear and out the other.”

“Thank you,” Martha said.

Jaycee frowned at them and asked, “Who are you people?”

Martha said, “They're collecting donations for the Lions Club. You know, for the Christmas Angel Tree.”

“Oh, sure.” Jaycee sighed. “My kid may wind up being one of those angels in a few years, if his father doesn't provide for him. And from the sound of it, he won't. Or can't.”

“It's none of my business, but I'd be tempted to shoot a man like that,” Phyllis said. It was a leading comment, and she wanted to see how the blonde would react to it.

“You and me both!” Jaycee responded with a hollow laugh. “That's about what Clay deserves, all right. If I'd ever shot a gun in my life, I'd be tempted to get one and put a hole in him. Like I said, though, I'll deal with him in court. It just won't be as
satisfying
as shooting him would be.”

“I hope things work out for you,” Phyllis said. She put a hand on Sam's arm and urged him toward the door. We got what we came here for, she thought. Actually, they had gotten even more. Jaycee barging in like this had been a stroke of luck.

As they were pulling away in the pickup, Sam said, “Well, we already knew that gal had a grudge against Loomis. I reckon now she's got even more of a reason to be mad at him.”

“And she said she already suspected she was pregnant a couple of weeks ago, well before the parade,” Phyllis mused.

“You think she was lyin' about never havin' fired a gun, just to keep anybody from gettin' suspicious of her?”

Phyllis gave that some thought, then said, “I don't think so. She had no idea who we really are, so she wouldn't have had a reason to think we might suspect her of anything. Not only that, but if she was pregnant, then killing Loomis wouldn't do her any good. You can't sue a dead man for child support.”

“So, we cross her off the list?”

“Tentatively,” Phyllis said. She looked down at the piece of paper in her hand. “And we need to talk to Nate again and see if he has a connection to any of the companies on this list. If his rifle really is the murder weapon, then the killer had to know that he owned it and where to find it.”

“Headin' back to the house, then?”

“Yes. I'll see what I can find out about these companies on the Internet.”

After driving for a few moments, Sam said, “You know, from everything we've heard about the dire straits ol' Loomis is in, it seems almost like
he'd
be the one desperate enough to kill somebody.”

“Yes, it does,” Phyllis said as she frowned in thought. “But we know Loomis couldn't have killed Barney McCrory. Besides, he doesn't profit from McCrory's death in any way, and he was in some danger himself when McCrory was shot.”

“Yeah, I know. It was just a stray thought.”

And not a bad one, Phyllis decided. Under different circumstances, Clay Loomis certainly would fit the profile of a
potential suspect. As things stood, though, Phyllis couldn't see how the theory would work.

It kept lurking in the back of her brain anyway as Sam drove back into town.

•   •   •

Carolyn and Eve hadn't heard anything from Felicity by the time Phyllis and Sam returned. Phyllis headed for the computer to start checking out the names Martha had given her at the Cross Timbers Transport office.

It seemed too far-fetched to think that somebody from one of the major grocery-store or hardware chains would have tried to murder Clay Loomis and accidentally shot Barney McCrory instead, so she concentrated on the smaller companies Martha had written down. Most of them were construction companies or energy companies based in the area.

Devstar, for example, was owned by a man named Devin Scott, and its headquarters was in Fort Worth. Anderson Energy was owned by three brothers of that name from Mineral Wells. Hawkins Supply operated out of Granbury. Phyllis spent more than an hour on the computer and didn't discover anything the least bit suspicious about them or any of the other companies she checked out. All of them seemed to operate in an honest and aboveboard manner, with no trace of controversy about their dealings.

And nothing that would seem to tie in with murder, either.

Eve came into the living room and said, “I've gone through that file you sent me, Phyllis. I didn't see anything wrong with it.”

“No spelling or grammar mistakes?” Phyllis was surprised.

“Oh, I moved a comma or two,” Eve said. “Nothing really important. You just can't expect a former English teacher to go through something someone has written and not make a correction or two. It's instinct, you know.”

Phyllis understood. She was the same way when someone made a historical reference that was wrong. She kept her mouth shut most of the time, though. She wasn't being paid to set people straight about history anymore.

“Anyway, I sent the file back to you,” Eve went on. “It's very good, by the way. The recipe makes scrumptious cookies, and you wrote about it in a very clear, easy-to-understand manner.”

“I can't tell you how relieved I am to hear you say that. This is the first thing I've actually written for publication, and I wasn't sure if I was up to it.”

“Oh, you are,” Eve assured her. “You certainly are.” She looked out the front window and added, “That TV reporter is back.”

Phyllis looked, too, and saw Felicity getting out of the van. Josh followed her as she came up the walk toward the house. Nick stayed in the van. He is probably going to try to catch a nap, Phyllis thought.

She had the front door open before Felicity could ring the bell. It was hard to tell from the reporter's face what she had found out from District Attorney Sullivan, if anything. It was possible that Sullivan had refused to talk to her, although Phyllis still thought that was unlikely.

“Come in,” she said. “Were you able to talk to the district attorney?”

“Oh, I talked to him, all right,” Felicity replied. “I just wish what I'd found out was better news.”

After that statement, what Felicity had to report was pretty much a foregone conclusion. As she and Josh sat down in the living room, along with Phyllis and Sam, Felicity told them, “The test bullet from Nate's rifle matches the one they took out of Barney McCrory's body. There's no chance that it wasn't the murder weapon.”

“Sullivan came right out and admitted that?” Phyllis asked.

“Not at first. I had to flatter him for a while. That man's really full of himself, isn't he? I'm not sure I've ever seen anybody that vain.”

Josh glanced away as Felicity said that, Phyllis noted. She suspected it was because Josh thought Felicity ran a pretty close race with Sullivan in the vanity department. Though that didn't seem to stop Josh from having a crush on her. For a young man, Felicity's drop-dead-gorgeous looks would make up for a lot of shortcomings in her personality.

“Anyway, once I convinced him I thought he was the greatest district attorney on the face of the earth, he was more than happy to let me in on the details of his latest legal triumph,” Felicity went on. “He's got all the evidence he needs to convict Nate Hollingsworth, he said, including the murder weapon. I asked him if he meant Nate's rifle, and he said yes, that the ballistics evidence was conclusive. He made me promise not to broadcast that until he gives me the go-ahead, of course. Said that for now everything he told me was off the record.” She snorted contemptuously. “Sure, I won't broadcast
anything. I won't broadcast anything until we can blow his case right out of the water!”

“I hope you're right,” Phyllis said. “Sam and I went back out to Loomis's trucking company to look around some more, but we didn't find out anything useful. In fact, I think we may have eliminated Jaycee Fallon as a suspect.”

She went over what they had learned from Martha, and then told Felicity and Josh about how Jaycee had barged into the office, looking for Loomis.

“She's pregnant by him?” Felicity said. “And he claimed he wasn't the baby daddy. That made her so mad she dumped him, but now she wants him to pay up. Yeah, that just about rules her out as a suspect. Loomis wouldn't be any good to her if he were dead!”

“If he's as broke as the woman running his office claims, he won't be any good to her alive, either,” Phyllis said. “In fact, with people coming after him from all directions, it sounds like his troubles are just going to multiply if he doesn't come up with some cash flow.”

Felicity frowned and said, “Being in a corner like that is enough to make anybody a little desperate. Desperate enough to kill somebody, maybe.”

“That's what I thought. But it's physically impossible for Loomis to have killed Barney McCrory.”

“He could have paid somebody to do it,” Josh said. The other three looked at him. “I mean, if he had a reason to.”

“That's the other problem,” Phyllis said. “McCrory's death doesn't benefit Loomis in any way that I can see. The only connection between them is that they were both on that carriage for the Christmas parade.”

Felicity blew out an exasperated-sounding breath and said, “We just go around and around with this, and all the evidence still points to Nate. Maybe we're wrong about him.”

“We're not,” Sam declared. “That boy is no murderer. Somebody got his rifle, used it to kill Barney, and put it back in that camper to frame him.”

“That's a neat little theory, but it's not worth a thing if there's no evidence to back it up. It's just wishful thinking.”

The same possibility had nagged at Phyllis, but every instinct she possessed told her that Nate was innocent. She had to decide if she trusted and believed in those instincts.

Maybe I'm just too stubborn for my own good, she thought. But the idea of giving up didn't sit well with her. It wouldn't hurt to keep looking into this case. Christmas was coming, and, as always, celebrating the holiday properly would take some time, but it was still more than two weeks away. There would be plenty of chances to put up the Christmas tree and the other decorations.