The Christmas Cookie Killer (19 page)

house.”

THE CHRISTMAS COOKIE KILLER
• 151

Frank gestured toward the metal swing hanging from chains attached to the porch roof. “It’s pretty warm for December.

What say we sit outside and talk for a few minutes?”

Phyllis considered the suggestion and then nodded. “All

right.” They moved over to the swing, which was big enough for three people to sit side by side, and as they settled down on it at opposite ends, she went on, “I’m glad to see that you look like you feel a little better now than you did the last time I saw you.”

“Oh, that’s just an act,” Frank replied with a shake of his head. “There’s only so much weeping and wailing a person can do. I ran out of mine. Claire hasn’t yet, though.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. If there’s anything I can do to

help . . .”

“That’s why I’m here.” Frank took a deep breath. “Mrs.

Newsom . . . Phyllis . . . I want to ask you to tell the police that you’ve thought it over, and you’ve decided that Randall wasn’t the person who hit you in my mother’s kitchen.”

Phyllis frowned at him. “But that would be a lie,” she said.

“I don’t
know
who hit me. I never saw him. And I never identified Randall as my attacker, either, for that very reason. I just don’t know.”

“But if you told the police that you
do
know, and it wasn’t Randall—”

Phyllis shook her head. “I just can’t do that. I’m sorry.”

Frank sighed and passed a hand over his face. “I didn’t

really think you would,” he said. “That’s why I’m going to have to do something I didn’t want to do.”

Phyllis felt a shiver of fear at his words. What did he mean by that vaguely threatening statement? She wondered where Sam was, and if he would hear her if she called for help.

“I’m going to have to tell you the truth,” Frank said. “All of it.”

152 •
LIVIA J. WASHBURN

Oh.
Well, that wasn’t quite as threatening, although it was still confusing. The best way to clear up that confusion, Phyllis thought, was to listen to what Frank had to say.

“Go ahead,” she told him. “I’m always glad to hear the

truth.”

Was he going to confess that
he
had killed his mother over that loan she’d refused him for his business? With Agnes dead, Frank might inherit enough money to save his store.

“You know Randall was charged with selling drugs over in

Dallas?”

“Yes,” Phyllis said. So this was going to be about Randall, and not a confession by Frank.

“Well, actually, it was possession with intent to sell, not actually dealing the stuff. And he had it, no doubt about that. The cops caught him red-handed. He was going to sell it, too. He was arrested before he had the chance.”

“Frank, I don’t see why you’re telling me this.”

“What you don’t know is
why
he got mixed up in that mess,”

Frank said. “He was forced into it.”

“By whom? Society?”

Frank waved a hand. “No, I never believed in all that crap.

A guy named Jimmy Crowe forced him to do it.”

“Did this man Crowe put a gun to Randall’s head?” Phyllis couldn’t contain her skepticism.

“No. Crowe put a gun to
my
head.”

Phyllis stared at the man beside her on the swing.

“Not literally,” Frank went on. “Just figuratively. But that was bad enough. He told Randall that he’d kill me if Randall didn’t work for him. Crowe’s a bad dude. He’s into all kinds of shady deals over in Dallas, mostly drug related. But he’s a loan shark, too, and that’s how Randall got on his bad side. He borrowed money from him and then couldn’t pay it back, so he was THE CHRISTMAS COOKIE KILLER
• 153

gonna have to work off the debt in Crowe’s main line of

business.”

“How do you know all of this?”

“Randall told me. Not back when it was all going on, but

just this week. He broke down while I was visiting him in jail and explained the whole thing to me.” Frank shook his head.

“Jail’s been rough on him. Since he already jumped bail once, the judge set his bond for the murder charge at a million bucks.

I don’t have that, and I can’t even get a bail bondsman to get him out. I don’t have enough assets to make it worth the risk, just a store that’s gonna go out of business soon, anyway, in a building I don’t own.”

“I’m sorry, Frank,” Phyllis said. “But I still don’t understand why Crowe would threaten you—”

“To make Randall go along with what he wanted. You see,

Randall gave the money that he borrowed to me, to help with the business. I didn’t want to take it, but Randall insisted. Lord, if I’d known where it came from . . .” Frank put his hands over his face and sat there for a moment before he could go on.

When he was able to continue, he said, “He told me that he was working as an engineer for a computer company in north Dallas and that he’d gotten an advance on money they owed him. We hadn’t talked much in recent years, and I knew he’d always been good with computers, so I believed him. Maybe I was just desperate enough to believe him. But then it didn’t work out, and that money was gone, too, and I needed to pay Randall back. So I asked my mother for help.” He shook his head. “But she turned me down.”

Phyllis had heard that part of the story. She hadn’t known it was just the tip of a particularly sordid iceberg.

“I told Randall I couldn’t get the money to pay him back. I didn’t have any idea it was really Crowe I’d be paying back. That
154 •
LIVIA J. WASHBURN

was when Randall dropped out of sight for good. He tried to hide out, not from his family, but from Crowe. But the guy found him, of course, and told him that he’d have me killed unless Randall did some errands for him—like delivering a bunch of drugs that Crowe was selling to some other lowlife. Crowe said that was only fitting, since I was the one who’d wound up with the money and now couldn’t pay it back.” Frank shrugged.

“So Randall did what he was told to do . . . and got caught at it. Then he dug himself an even deeper hole by skipping out on his bail and going into hiding. I don’t know what made him think of coming over here to my mother’s place. Maybe he

knew she’d hide him. She was always more fond of her grandkids than she was of her own kids. I’ll bet you never knew what a tyrant she was when we were little. Poor Billie cried herself to sleep nearly every night because of things that Mom said to her.

Told her she was ugly and stupid and would never amount

to anything. . . . Of course, she said the same things to me and Ted, but not as often as she picked on Billie. I guess she knew we were tougher and could take it better. But she sensed a weakness in Billie. . . .”

Frank’s voice trailed off, and he stared straight ahead, a vacant expression on his face as if his body was here but his mind wasn’t. Phyllis didn’t know what to say, so she sat there silently as the man beside her struggled to escape from the trap of his memories.

Finally a little shudder went through Frank’s bulky frame, and he turned his head to look at her. “You didn’t know about any of that going on, did you?” he asked with a faint, sad smile.

“No,” Phyllis admitted. “I’m sorry, but I didn’t.”

“Yeah, Mom was good at the sweet little old lady bit. And you know what? . . . After the three of us grew up and moved out and got married, she really
was
sweet most of the time, es-THE CHRISTMAS COOKIE KILLER
• 155

pecially after we all had kids. She doted on those grandchildren.

She was always after us to bring them to see her. We couldn’t hardly stand to be around her, though, so we didn’t visit very often. But when we did, she was like a different person. It was like none of the bad times ever happened.” Frank spread his hands. “I guess some people just aren’t cut out to be parents, but they can handle being grandparents okay.”

Phyllis nodded, still unsure what to say. She hadn’t been prepared for the sort of searing revelations she had heard from Frank Simmons, and the fact that she was hearing them while sitting in a front porch swing on a mild December day at Christ-mastime just made the whole experience more bizarre.

“So I’m not really surprised that she tried to help Randall,”

Frank continued after a moment. “Just like I wasn’t surprised when she reverted back to type when I asked to borrow that money. I could see it in her eyes. . . . It was a touch of glee, just a little touch, that I really was the failure she’d always predicted I’d turn out to be.”

“I’ve seen you for the past few days, Frank,” Phyllis said. “At the funeral, and next door. You were truly grieving for her. I could tell.”

“Well, of course I was. She was my mother. I loved her.” A bleak chuckle came from him. “That’s the problem. Some people, even when they treat you like crap, you just can’t stop lov-ing them. Even if you want to.”

But there was that old saying about there being a thin line between love and hate, Phyllis thought, and those words contained a lot of truth. She had heard hatred in Frank’s voice when he spoke about the way his mother had turned him down when he asked her for money. She could only imagine how he must have felt, a proud man who had accepted help from his son, only to be unable to repay that debt; forced to turn to his own
156 •
LIVIA J. WASHBURN

mother, only to be rebuffed . . . caught between two genera-tions, with failure on one side and rejection on the other. . . .

There was no telling what a man in that much pain might

do. Just no telling at all.

“Anyway,” Frank resumed, “that’s the story. That’s why Randall did what he did. So you see, Phyllis, he’s not really a bad kid. Those drug charges aren’t as bad as they look. He was just trying to protect me. The bail jumping . . . that was just a matter of being young and scared and stupid. But none of that makes him a killer. Randall would never hurt anybody, especially his grandmother. And he wouldn’t have attacked you. I’m sure of it.

That’s why I thought . . . maybe if you knew the whole story . . .

you could see your way clear to sort of help him out.”

“I wish I could, Frank,” Phyllis said. “I can’t lie to the police, though.” She paused. “And are you sure that this story about the loan shark . . . well, are you sure that it’s true?”

A frown creased Frank’s forehead. “Randall’s too scared to be lying now. Anyway, that lawyer of his, Ms. Yorke, he told her about it, too, and she checked out that guy Jimmy Crowe with some contacts of hers in Dallas. He’s as bad as Randall said he is. That’s why Randall was so scared when he spotted Crowe over here in the neighborhood a few days ago. He was afraid Crowe had found him.”

“Wait a minute,” Phyllis said as she leaned forward. “Crowe was here in the neighborhood?”

“Yeah. Randall was watching from the attic window and saw him drive past.”

“When was this?”

“Last Thursday. And then Crowe was back on Friday. But

he didn’t hang around, just drove along the street a few times and then disappeared, Randall said. I think he found out that Randall’s grandmother lived here, and he was staking the place THE CHRISTMAS COOKIE KILLER
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out in case Randall showed up. He didn’t know Randall was already hiding in the attic.”

“He still wants the money that he’s owed,” Phyllis mused.

“Yeah, that’s what I figure, too.”

“Do the police know about this?”

Frank shook his head. “Randall’s too scared to tell them. He doesn’t want Crowe to know that he ratted him out. He’s afraid that he’s gonna be sent to prison, and he knows that with the contacts Crowe has in the penitentiary, he’d be dead in a month or less if Crowe gave the order. Ms. Yorke’s been trying to convince him to spill the whole story, but so far he won’t do it.”

“But you just told me.”

“Yeah. It’s a calculated risk, I guess you’d say. I wanted your help, Phyllis, so I figured you deserved to hear the truth.”

“You’ve put me in a bad position,” she told him, her voice a little prickly with anger. “If the police ask me whether I know anything else about Randall, I’ll have to tell them what you told me.”

“It wouldn’t be admissible in court. It’s just hearsay.”

“Yes, but it would be enough to put them on Crowe’s trail and maybe tie him in to the murder.” Phyllis paused. “Or is that what you really want, Frank? Did you tell me all this
hoping
I would go to the police?”

Alarm leaped into his eyes. “Good grief, no! I don’t want to make Crowe’s grudge against Randall any worse, either. I just thought . . . oh, Lord, I didn’t think. I didn’t think it through far enough. I was just desperate to come up with something that might help him. Instead, I . . . I may have doomed him.”

Again, he covered his face with his hands.

The whole thing would have seemed lurid and melodra-

matic, Phyllis thought, if it hadn’t been real. Real life sometimes put soap operas to shame when it came to convolutions and emotional turmoil.

158 •
LIVIA J. WASHBURN

She said, “Take it easy, Frank. I’m not going to run to the police, at least not right now.”

He lowered his hands and looked over at her. His eyes were wet. “You’re sure?”

“I’m certain. I want some time to think about everything

you’ve told me. Of course, if they come to me and ask me about it, I’ll have no choice but to tell them the truth, as far as I know it. But they’ve already questioned me several times, and I don’t see any reason why they’d want to ask me any more questions right now.”

Frank wiped the back of his hand across his eyes. “Thank

you. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate that. I . . . I’m sorry I came over here and asked you to lie.”

“You’re at your wit’s end, I know,” she said with a nod. “You just want to do anything you can to help your son.”

“That’s right.”

“Goodness knows, I’d feel the same way if Mike was in

trouble.”

A rueful smile appeared on Frank’s face. “Mike would never get in trouble like this. He’s a good kid. Always has been.”

Phyllis smiled back at him. “I can’t argue with that.”