The Christmas Cookie Killer (27 page)

Phyllis didn’t think masked bandits were liable to break

down the front door and try to steal the check, but she had to admit that she would feel better if someone was keeping an eye on it while she and Sam got ready to go. She told Carolyn,

“Thank you. We’ll be right back.”

Sam was ready by the time Phyllis had her coat on and came back downstairs. In jeans, boots, and a brown leather jacket, he looked quite rugged and masculine, she thought. He picked up the envelope from the table and asked her, “My pickup or your car?”

218 •
LIVIA J. WASHBURN

“Let’s take your pickup,” Phyllis said. “If you don’t mind.”

“Wouldn’t have suggested it if I did.” He handed her the

envelope.

“Be careful,” Carolyn cautioned. “There’s a lot of crime this time of year.”

“I don’t think desperadoes will be roaming the streets between here and the church,” Phyllis said. “It’s only a few blocks.

We could walk it if the weather wasn’t so cold.”

“Just be careful—that’s all I’m saying.”

Phyllis nodded and said, “We’ll be back in a little while.”

This errand shouldn’t take very long. She hoped not, because she planned to make the stuffed zucchini this afternoon.

Sam’s pickup was at the curb. He unlocked it and they

climbed in, with him holding the door for her and then closing it when she was in. Such politeness wasn’t put on with Sam; it was just his nature.

When he turned on the engine, country music blared from

the speakers. “Sorry,” he muttered as he pushed the button that turned off the radio. “I like to crank it up when I’m by myself. I know you don’t care much for that goat-ropin’ music.”

“I just never understood the appeal of all that honky-tonking, getting drunk, and cheating on your spouse.”

“I never did any of that myself. I guess people like to listen to that broken-heart stuff so they can say, there but for the grace o’ God, go I. Their own lives don’t seem so bad when they hear about how bad other folks have it. That’s why some people like the blues, too.”

“I suppose so,” Phyllis said. “I like music that makes me feel better. Why don’t you turn the radio back on and see if you can find some Christmas music?”

Sam grinned. “I bet I can do that. Some of the stations around here went all Christmas, all the time, before Thanksgivin’.”

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The velvety notes of Mel Tormé singing “The Christmas

Song” filled the pickup’s cab as Sam drove toward the church.

Since it was so close by, he reached it before the song was over.

Phyllis felt a little disappointed. She liked Tormé’s version—not quite as much as Nat King Cole’s, but it was still very good.

The church offices were in a converted house next to the

sanctuary. The parsonage was on the opposite side of the

church. Sam parked in front of the office building, and he and Phyllis got out of the truck and went up the walk. No other vehicles were parked there. Phyllis didn’t see any lights burning inside.

“Looks like they may be closed up,” Sam observed.

“I was just thinking the same thing. But we can try here

first, anyway.”

The front door was locked when Sam tried it, and nobody

responded to his knock. He turned to Phyllis and said, “Guess we’ll try the parsonage.”

Phyllis had already seen that there was an SUV parked in

the driveway of the house where Dwight and Jada Gresham

lived, so she figured someone was home. If Dwight wasn’t there, she would give the check to Jada. All Phyllis cared about was that she didn’t have to hang on to it until Sunday.

They walked across the lawn in front of the church and

across the parsonage driveway, then followed the walk to the front door, which had a large wreath hung on it. That was the only Christmas decoration on the house, although a large manger scene was set up on the church’s front lawn.

Sam rang the doorbell, and a moment later Dwight

Gresham appeared, carrying a book in one hand with a finger stuck in it to mark his place. He looked surprised to see Phyllis and Sam, but he smiled at them as he said, “Hello, you two.

What are you doing out on Christmas Eve?”

220 •
LIVIA J. WASHBURN

Phyllis held up the envelope. “We brought you something.”

“A Christmas present? Really, you didn’t have to—”

“It’s not from us,” Phyllis said. “And it’s really not a Christmas present. It’s from Blake Horton. An offering for the

church.”

Dwight frowned. “From Blake . . . ? Goodness, where are

my manners? I’m keeping you folks standing out in the cold.

Come in; come in.” He stepped back from the doorway and

used the book to motion them inside the house.

Phyllis couldn’t help but glance at the volume in Dwight’s hand as she and Sam stepped inside. She expected it to be a book of sermons or some other religious tome, but instead she saw it was a thriller by a popular author. Dwight saw where she was looking and chuckled as he closed the door. “Pure enter-tainment,” he said. “Can’t study the scriptures all the time, you know.”

“No, of course not,” Phyllis said, vaguely embarrassed that he had caught her checking out his reading material.

“Come on into the den,” Dwight said as he led them down

the hall. “I want to hear about this offering from Blake.”

The house was spotless as usual and smelled of pine. Phyllis glanced into the living room as they passed it and saw that it looked almost like a museum display. There was no indication that anyone actually
lived
there.

The den was a little more cluttered and homey, but not

much. As Dwight set his book down on a table beside a leather-covered recliner, Jada called from the kitchen, “Who was at the door, Dwight?”

“Phyllis Newsom and Sam Fletcher, dear,” he replied.

“They’re here in the den with me.”

“Oh.” Jada came into the room, wiping her hands on her

apron as she did so. She smiled a greeting to Phyllis and Sam THE CHRISTMAS COOKIE KILLER
• 221

and asked, “Can I get you anything? I have eggnog . . . nonalco-holic, of course.”

Phyllis shook her head. “No, thanks. We won’t be here but a minute. I hate to intrude on Christmas Eve, but I wanted to give this to Dwight.”

She handed him the envelope Blake Horton had left at her

house.

As Dwight opened it, Phyllis went on, “Blake’s going out of town, and he wanted to leave this to thank you for everything you did to help with Lois.”

“He didn’t have to do that,” Jada said as she came forward to her husband’s side. “Dwight’s job is to help people.”

“Well, Blake thought this could do some good for the

church.”

Dwight let out a low whistle of surprise as he slipped the check from the envelope and looked at the amount. “I’ll say it can,” he said.

Jada leaned closer. “Does that say five thousand dollars?”

“It does.” Dwight looked up at Phyllis. “Did you know how much this was for?”

She hesitated, then nodded and said, “Yes, that’s why I

brought it right over. I didn’t want to have that much money lying around over Christmas.”

Dwight didn’t ask whether Blake had told her the amount

of the check, and Phyllis didn’t explain that she had learned how much it was through snooping, first Carolyn’s and then her own.

He said, “Well, it’s not like it’s cash. The check is made out to the church. Anyone who stole it would have a devil of a time cashing it . . . so to speak.”

“Yes, I know, but I still didn’t want anything to happen to it.”

“Of course not.” Dwight tucked the check back into the en-222 • LIVIA J. WASHBURN

velope. “Thank you, Phyllis. It was very thoughtful of you to bring this over.” He tapped the envelope against his left hand.

“You know, I really ought to take this over to the office and lock it up in the safe. After you’ve gone to this much trouble to get it to me, I don’t want anything to happen to it, either.”

“That sounds like a good idea, dear,” Jada told him. “It can go into the bank with the regular deposit first thing Monday morning.”

Dwight nodded. “That’s what I’m going to do.”

Phyllis said, “We’ll be running along, then.”

“Before you go,” Jada said, “did Blake tell you how poor

Lois was doing?”

“As well as can be expected, I think. She’ll be in rehab for a while, and Blake’s not supposed to see her again right away, so he was going to spend Christmas with some of his relatives up in Gainesville.”

“That’ll be good for him,” Dwight said with a nod. “He can’t really do anything else to help her right away, so it’s probably best for him to get some distance.”

“It must have been terrible for him,” Jada said, “trying to cope with such erratic behavior. Still, when you’re married to someone, you have to stand by them no matter what. The vows
do
say for better or for worse.”

Sam said, “I don’t recall ’em mentionin’ anything about fireplace pokers, though.”

Jada smiled. “Well . . . within reason, of course. Some things you can’t forgive.”

Dwight went with Phyllis and Sam into the front hallway,

where he paused to open a closet door and take out a jacket.

“It’s been so warm this week, I haven’t needed a coat since Monday,” he said as he shrugged into it.

Jada had followed them into the hall. She plucked some-

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thing off the shoulder of Dwight’s jacket. “What in the world have you been getting into?” she asked with a laugh.

He glanced down at the bit of pink fuzz in her hand and

shrugged. “Beats me. Probably came off some Christmas decoration somewhere. They’re all over this year. People are really in the holiday spirit.”

“Well, I’ll throw this away, and you should be more careful in the future.”

That was just like Jada, Phyllis thought, not wanting even a harmless bit of fuzz to fall on her floor.

“Be right back,” Dwight said to his wife. He went out with Phyllis and Sam and walked with them toward the church offices.

They stopped at Sam’s pickup while Dwight went on to the building. “See you Sunday morning,” he called over his shoulder.

“We’ll be there,” Phyllis said.

“Have a merry Christmas!”

“You, too,” Sam called in return.

They drove off while Dwight was unlocking the front door

of the office building. “Nice fella,” Sam commented.

“He certainly is. And I’m glad that
he’s
got to worry about taking care of that check now, not me.”

“Said he was gonna put it in a safe, didn’t he?”

“That’s right. There’s a little safe in the main office where the offerings are kept after they’re collected, along with some of the church’s important papers. In case of fire, you know. The property deeds and everything really important are in a safety deposit box at the bank.”

“Sounds like you know a lot about it.”

“I worked part-time in the office for a while after I retired from teaching,” Phyllis said. “Then I decided that if I was going to be retired, I was going to be really retired. Somehow, though, I manage to stay almost as busy as I ever was.”

224 •
LIVIA J. WASHBURN

“Solvin’ murders, here, lately.”

Phyllis sighed. “Not this one, I’m afraid.” A thought oc-

curred to her. She had discovered some things she hadn’t had a chance to tell Sam about, so she said, “Why don’t you drive around for a while, if you don’t mind. I need to talk to you without Carolyn and Eve around.”

“Sounds serious,” Sam said with a slight frown. He turned at the next corner and drove west along a residential street, toward the old Chandor Gardens. “Shoot.”

For the next few minutes, as Christmas music played softly from the pickup’s radio, Phyllis filled him in on what she had discovered about some of the neighbors and laid out her suspicions, none of which were really strong enough to deserve the name. Sam listened quietly and attentively, and Phyllis concluded by saying, “I don’t really know what to make of any of it. Randall Simmons is still the one most likely to have killed Agnes, but all my instincts tell me that he’s innocent. At the same time, nothing points strongly enough to anyone else for me to take what I’ve found out to Mike or Detective Largo.”

Sam nodded and said, “Oscar Gunderson, huh? Who’d’a

thunk it?”

“You can’t say anything about Oscar or Helen. I have to respect their privacy. I only told you because . . .”

Her voice trailed off as she realized that she confided in Sam for the same reason she had always confided in Kenny. She felt an easy trust in him, the sort of trust you only felt for someone with whom you were very close. Like a spouse or . . .

“Yeah,” Sam said, his voice a little rough. “I know what you mean. Don’t worry, I won’t say anything to anybody about those folks. It’ll be like you never told me.”

“I appreciate that. But since you
do
know, what do you think? Could any of those people have killed Agnes?”

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“My impulse is to say no,” Sam replied. “But you remember that business last summer. I never would have guessed who committed those murders.”

“No,” Phyllis said. “I never would have, either.”

“I wouldn’t pretend to be an expert on murder, but it seems to me that most of ’em are committed by people you’d expect to be killers. By that I mean criminals, like armed robbers, and folks who are on drugs, or people who go out and get drunk and get into fights. I’ve heard cops say that the simplest answer, the one you’d expect to be true, is nearly always the right one.”

Phyllis nodded. “Yes, I’ve heard Mike say that.”

“But that doesn’t account for
all
the murders in the world,”

Sam went on. “There’s a small percentage where it’s more com-plicated than that, where you’ve got things goin’ on under the surface. That’s where your secrets come in, and your folks who lash out and kill when they get pushed into a tight enough corner. Thing of it is, they’re the ones who decide when things get bad enough to do something like that. The breakin’ point for them might be a whole lot different than it would be for somebody else, so you can’t really predict what’s gonna happen.”