The Christmas Cookie Killer (16 page)

All the extra vehicles were still parked next door at the Simmons house, Phyllis noticed. She supposed that Frank, Ted, Billie, and their families had planned to stay with Agnes through Christmas, but now that Agnes was gone and the funeral was over, would they all just return to their homes, leaving the old house locked up and empty behind them? After everything that had happened, Phyllis couldn’t imagine that they still wanted to stay here through Christmas.

On the other hand, Randall was still in jail here in Weatherford, and Frank and Claire probably wanted to be close to their son. It would be easier for them to stay in Agnes’s house than to make the drive back and forth from Dallas every time they needed to talk to Randall’s lawyer or appear in court.

Thinking about Agnes’s murder made Phyllis glance sud-

denly across the street at the Horton house. She wouldn’t have dreamed that Blake Horton was capable of giving his wife a black eye like that.

What else was Blake capable of that she never would have

dreamed? Phyllis wondered.

Then she told herself that suspecting Blake Horton was

crazy, absolutely crazy.

But the idea lingered in her mind anyway. There were so

many dangerous secrets that Agnes, perched there in front of her window, might have been privy to. . . .

Chapter 12

“T
hat’s a big ham,” Carolyn said as she looked at it sitting on the kitchen counter.

“Eighteen pounds,” Phyllis said.

Sam patted his flat belly under his flannel shirt. “Plenty of good eatin’, looks like.”

“Don’t start drooling yet—it’s for Christmas dinner,” Phyllis said as she opened the refrigerator and looked for a place to put the ham. She hadn’t really thought this out, she told herself.

There wasn’t a space big enough for the ham, so she would have to rearrange some things, maybe even throw out a few, so that she could fit it in. She added, “You know that. I’m not even going to cook it until Christmas morning.”

“Well, by then I’m sure gonna be ready for it,” Sam said

with a grin. “I’m lookin’ forward to Christmas like a little kid again.”

Eve said, “When you see my present, you’ll feel like a kid again, dear.”

Phyllis frowned as she bent to look into the refrigerator. She THE CHRISTMAS COOKIE KILLER
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wasn’t sure she knew what Eve meant by that. She wasn’t sure she
wanted
to know.

It took her about ten minutes to make a place for the ham.

When she went to pick it up from the counter, Sam stepped forward and said, “Let me handle that big fella for you.” He took it from the counter and slid it neatly into the space Phyllis had made for it.

Everything else from the store was already put away, so

there was nothing more to do at the moment. As Phyllis walked into the living room, her eye fell on the black box containing the videotape of the church service from the previous Sunday. She had watched it that same afternoon, after Dwight Gresham

dropped it off, and she’d called the church office on Monday morning to let them know she was finished with it. She’d expected someone to pick it up that day and had set it on the little table in the foyer. Since then she’d been busy enough that she’d forgotten all about it, and she was a little surprised to notice that it was still there.

“Goodness, I thought Dwight or one of the deacons would

have come by and gotten that tape by now,” she commented.

“It’s Wednesday. They need to get it to people who are actually homebound and really need it.”

“You let ’em know at the church that you were through with it?” Sam asked.

Phyllis nodded. “First thing Monday morning.”

“Who’d you talk to? The preacher?”

“No, I spoke to the church secretary, but she said she’d tell Dwight. I guess he must have forgotten to come by and get it.

He was busy with Agnes’s funeral and all.” Phyllis went to the phone, picked it up, and dialed the number of the church office from memory. It rang a couple of times before it was picked up and a familiar voice answered.

128 •
LIVIA J. WASHBURN

“Jada?” Phyllis said, a little surprised to hear the voice of the pastor’s wife.

“That’s right.”

“This is Phyllis Newsom. I didn’t know you worked in the

church office now.”

“Oh, hello, Phyllis,” Jada Gresham said. “I’m just filling in because Charlaine had to be out of town today. What can I do for you?”

“I just realized I still have the videotape of last Sunday morning’s service that Dwight dropped off here on Sunday afternoon for me to watch. I called Monday morning and told Charlaine that I was done with it, so I thought someone would have picked it up by now.”

“You still have the tape?” Jada sounded puzzled. “Dwight told me he was going to pick it up on Monday. I suppose it slipped his mind. He was working on the funeral service for poor Agnes Simmons, and he was upset about that. He was fond of her.”

“We all were,” Phyllis agreed. “If you could mention it to him . . .”

“Of course.”

“I don’t want any of the people who watch it on a regular basis to miss seeing it.”

“Don’t worry about that,” Jada assured her. “I’ll see to it that Dwight takes care of it.” She laughed. “And it’s not like that’s the only videotape the church owns. If everyone’s not through with it by Sunday, we’ll just use another one.”

“All right; that’s fine. Thank you, Jada.”

“Anything else I can do for you? How are you getting

along?”

“I’m pretty much back to normal,” Phyllis said, “so I can’t think of a thing.”

“Well, try not to overdo it. You can’t be too careful with head injuries.”

THE CHRISTMAS COOKIE KILLER
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Phyllis thanked her again and hung up. She said to Sam,

“Honestly, you’d think I had a fractured skull or something, the way people keep worrying about me.”

“That’s because folks care about you,” Sam said. “A lot.”

She looked at him. “Really?”

“No doubt about it,” he said with a nod.

Phyllis and Carolyn were in the kitchen that afternoon, getting ready to make some pies for their Christmas dinner, and Carolyn’s daughter’s, too, when the doorbell rang. Eve had gone out, Phyllis knew, and Sam was in the garage, puttering around at the workbench, so she said, “I’ll see who that is.”

“Good,” Carolyn said. Her hands were covered with flour

from the pie crusts she was working on. You could buy perfectly good pie crusts at the grocery store now, but Carolyn, being Carolyn, preferred the ones made from scratch.

Phyllis left the bowl of pumpkin and the spices she was

about to mix with it on the counter next to the ingredients Carolyn had laid out for her chocolate pecan pies. She went to the front door, looked through the little window in it, and saw a woman she didn’t recognize standing on the porch.

“Hello,” she said as she opened the door. “Can I help you?”

“Mrs. Newsom?” The woman was around forty, Phyllis

judged, slender in a gray wool skirt and jacket over a plain, cream-colored blouse. Her brown hair, which had a few lighter streaks in it, was pulled back in a rather severe style. Her best feature was a pair of intense green eyes that were made to seem even larger than they were by the silver-rimmed glasses she wore. She carried a briefcase in her left hand.

“Yes, I’m Phyllis Newsom, if that’s who you’re looking for,”

Phyllis replied with a nod.

“My name is Juliette Yorke, with an E. I’m an attorney.”

That didn’t surprise Phyllis at all. Juliette Yorke
looked
like a
130 •
LIVIA J. WASHBURN

lawyer, and a no-nonsense one, at that. Phyllis glanced down at her shoes. Low heeled, conservative, and comfortable. Again, not a surprise.

“What can I do for you, Ms. Yorke?”

“Would it be all right if I came in and talked to you for a few minutes about the murder of Agnes Simmons?”

Phyllis stepped back. “Oh, of course. Goodness’ sake, where are my manners? And just a few days before Christmas, at that!

Please, come in, Ms. Yorke.”

Once they were sitting in the living room, Phyllis on the sofa and Juliette Yorke in one of the armchairs, the lawyer put her knees primly together and placed the briefcase on her lap.

She snapped the catches back and opened it.

“I’m representing Randall Simmons,” she said, “and I’d like to record this conversation, if that’s all right with you, Mrs.

Newsom.”

“You mean like a deposition? Shouldn’t the district attorney or one of his assistants be here if you’re going to do that, Ms.

Yorke?”

Juliette Yorke’s lips tightened a little. “Your son is a deputy sheriff, isn’t that right?”

“Yes, he is.”

“We met during the Dunston case. I represented Lindsey

Gonzales.”

“Oh, of course,” Phyllis said. “I remember Mike mentioning you.”

“I suppose having a relative in law enforcement is why you know about such things as depositions.”

Juliette Yorke’s accent, and her rather stiff demeanor,

showed that she wasn’t from around here, Phyllis thought. She said, “I know it probably wouldn’t be a good idea to discuss the case against Randall with you, at least not without someone here THE CHRISTMAS COOKIE KILLER
• 131

from the district attorney’s office. So I don’t want you to record what we’re saying.”

The lawyer sighed, lowered the lid of her briefcase, and

closed the catches. “I suppose we have nothing to talk about, then.”

Phyllis didn’t feel any particular liking for Juliette Yorke, but her natural hospitality prompted her to say, “Would you like something to drink while you’re here? Or maybe some cookies?

I hate to think that your trip over here was for nothing.”

Juliette Yorke leaned forward as if she was about to get to her feet. “No, thank you,” she said. But then she stopped and leaned back in the armchair instead, and her severe expression eased a bit. “Actually, I skipped lunch,” she said. “A cookie sounds wonderful.”

Phyllis stood up. Since she had so many cookies on hand,

she’d been keeping a plate with an assortment of them on the coffee table so that people could stop by and graze on them any time they were passing through the living room. She picked up the plate and held it out to the lawyer. “Take as many as you like,” she told Juliette Yorke.

The woman hesitated. “They all look so good.” She pointed at one of the cookies. “What kind is that?”

“It’s a gingerdoodle,” Phyllis explained, glad that Juliette Yorke had picked that one. “Like a snickerdoodle, only it has ginger in it, too. It was Agnes’s recipe, in fact. She got the idea after I told her about using ginger to make spicy peach cobbler a while back. Agnes wanted a cookie that was more mellow than a gingersnap but still had the taste of ginger.”

As a matter of fact, Phyllis had submitted the gingerdoodle recipe to the newspaper contest for Agnes, dropping off the recipe and samples of the cookies when she left her own entry at the newspaper office.

132 •
LIVIA J. WASHBURN

Juliette Yorke shook her head as she picked up one of the gingerdoodles. “I’m afraid I don’t know what a snickerdoodle is.”

Phyllis tried to contain her surprise. “No offense, Ms. Yorke, but you must not have grown up in Texas.”

“Pennsylvania,” the lawyer said around the small bite of

cookie she had taken. “Philadelphia.” She swallowed. “But it’s entirely possible they have snickerdoodles there, too. I just never baked cookies.”

“Never?” Phyllis couldn’t imagine spending forty years or so on this earth without ever baking a batch of cookies.

“Well . . . only the kind that come in a can in the refriger-ated section of the grocery store, and not very many of those.”

She took another bite. “This is good.”

“You’ve missed a lot of fun if you never made cookies. Why, I remember my mother teaching me when I was little how to mix up a batch of cookie dough and roll it out and use a cookie cutter to cut out each individual cookie. . . .” With a shake of her head, Phyllis let her voice trail away, then said, “But you didn’t come here to talk about cookies, did you?”

Juliette Yorke finished the last bite, then said, “No. I came to talk about how an innocent young man is in a lot of trouble for something that he didn’t do.”

Aware that she probably shouldn’t respond to that, knowing that Juliette Yorke was using a lawyer’s wiles to draw her into talking, Phyllis said anyway, “Randall is hardly innocent. He skipped out on his bail on drug charges in Dallas County. That’s not in dispute.”

The younger woman shrugged. “He hasn’t been found

guilty on those drug charges, and certainly no case has been proven against him in the murder of his grandmother. He’s supposed to be considered innocent until proven guilty. And THE CHRISTMAS COOKIE KILLER
• 133

defaulting on a bail bond is hardly in the same category as those other offenses.”

“No, I suppose not,” Phyllis agreed. “You’re his lawyer. Has he confided in you?
Did
he kill Agnes?”

“I’ve entered a plea of not guilty in the matter of Mrs. Simmons’s death. That’s a matter of public record.”

“What about the drug dealing and bail jumping?”

For a moment Juliette Yorke didn’t answer, and Phyllis assumed she was following the lawyer’s credo that if you never said anything, you didn’t have to deny anything. But then the woman surprised her again by replying, “We’re considering a plea of no contest to those charges in return for a reduced sentence.”

“Then he
is
a drug dealer!”

“You don’t know the whole story, Mrs. Newsom,” Juliette

Yorke said, “and you don’t really know my client at all.”

Phyllis wasn’t going to lose her temper with a guest, even a lawyer, so although her voice was cool, her tone was polite as she asked, “And how long have
you
known Randall, Ms. Yorke?”

The younger woman shrugged. “I only met him a few days

ago, true, but in my line of work I’ve learned how to size up people pretty quickly.”