The Christmas Cookie Killer (31 page)

plunged his hands into his coat pockets. “Why in the world would a little bit of fuzz make you believe something so crazy as me having an affair with Vickie Kimbrough?”

“Because that would explain why you lied to me about the

videotapes.”

For the first time, the confused, annoyed veneer that Dwight was putting up cracked slightly, as he said, “V-videotapes?”

Phyllis nodded. “That’s right. You told me you brought videotapes of the church services by Agnes Simmons’s house every week so that she could watch them. But that’s impossible. Agnes didn’t have a VCR. She wouldn’t have known how to use one even if she did. She hated modern technology. She wouldn’t even have a microwave oven in her kitchen. Called it a newfan-gled gadget and didn’t want any part of it. She felt the same way about video equipment. Her TV is thirty years old, and there’s nothing on top of it except a lace doily and some pictures and knickknacks.”

“Well, you . . . you must be mistaken,” Dwight said, and now he was visibly shaken. “She had to be watching the tapes on something, because I took them by there every week—”

“No, that was just your story to explain why your car was in
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LIVIA J. WASHBURN

the neighborhood so often, in case anyone ever noticed it,”

Phyllis said. During her teaching career, she had seen enough children caught in lies to recognize the signs in Dwight, so she forged ahead with her theory. “You and Vickie started having an affair when you were counseling Vickie and Monte about the problems they were having because they couldn’t have children.

I doubt if it was your idea. But Vickie was vulnerable because of those problems, and because Monte is so emotionally distant and hardly ever home, and, well, these things happen.”

“Not to me,” Dwight said, but his denial rang hollow. “Not to me.”

“You went to see her one last time on Monday,” Phyllis

went on. “You told Jada you were going to pick up the church service videotape from me, but actually you went to Vickie’s house to tell her that the two of you couldn’t see each other anymore, at least not for a while. All the commotion that Agnes’s murder stirred up would make it too risky for you to come to her house. I’m not sure why the two of you didn’t just meet elsewhere—”

“Because she wouldn’t,” Dwight snapped, his voice ragged

with strain. He looked like he had been punched in the belly now. He lifted his hands to his face and covered it, so that his words were muffled as he said, “It had to be there. It had to be there in their own bed, or she wouldn’t be getting back at him enough.”

Phyllis was breathing hard, almost overcome by a mixture of shock and disappointment and even a little anger. She had known Dwight Gresham for years, had considered him a good man. She had hoped that he would deny the affair with Vickie and convince her that he was telling the truth. She had never wanted to be wrong so much in her life, but he had crumpled THE CHRISTMAS COOKIE KILLER
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under her accusations—and under his own guilt, she thought—

and confirmed her worst suspicions.

Only they weren’t the worst at all, Phyllis realized as something else clicked together in her mind. She gasped, and Sam put a hand on her arm as if to steady her.

“Oh, Dwight,” she said, “what you’d already done was bad

enough. Why did you have to kill Agnes, too?”

Chapter 22

S
am couldn’t contain himself any longer when he heard that.

He exclaimed, “Phyllis, you can’t mean that!”

But Dwight’s head had jerked up, his hands fell away from his face, and he stared at her with an awful certainty in his eyes.

He struggled to force words out and finally said, “How . . . how did you know?”

“The cookies,” Phyllis said.

“Cookies?” Sam repeated, still sounding shocked.

She nodded. “Vickie knew that the lime snowflake cookies

were mine. She said that you told her about them a few days earlier. She slipped there, admitting that she’d even talked to you, but I didn’t notice it then. It didn’t occur to me that you shouldn’t have known who baked those cookies, either, because when you mentioned them to Vickie, the recipe hadn’t been in the paper yet.

The only way you could have known was if you’d found out some other way. Agnes told you while you were making small talk with her, before you killed her. I’d just been over there and brought her a plate of cookies, and I mentioned which ones were mine.”

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Dwight started shaking his head. “Why would I want to kill a harmless old woman like Agnes Simmons?”

“Because she
wasn’t
harmless, not to you.” And not to most of the members of her family, Phyllis thought. “She found out somehow about what was going on between you and Vickie, and she threatened to tell Jada. That’s what I’m guessing happened, anyway.”

“You’re basing all this on a
cookie
?” Dwight’s voice shook.

“Vickie was at the cookie exchange. She could have found out which ones you made there.”

“She could have,” Phyllis said, “but it hadn’t even been discussed yet when I discovered Agnes’s body and then was attacked.” She sighed and shook her head. “You didn’t have to hit me like that, Dwight. You could have really hurt me.”

“That’s right,” Sam said, an angry growl coming into his

voice. His hands balled into fists. He seemed to be convinced now that Phyllis was right about the preacher. “Killin’ that old lady was bad enough, but you shouldn’t have hit Phyllis,

mister.”

The last vestiges of Dwight’s stubborn denial faded away.

He sagged against one of the posts that supported the porch roof and lifted a shaking hand to rub at his temples. “You’re right,” he said. “Oh, dear Lord, you’re right. What have I done?

Phyllis, I . . . I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have hit you. I was in agony, worrying that I’d killed you, too.” With a visible effort, he straightened. “Why don’t you call your son, or that Detective Largo? I’ll tell them everything, how I strangled Agnes and then attacked you and—”

“Noooo!”

The screeching, heartrending cry made all of them jump.

As they turned toward the end of the porch, Jada Gresham came out of the shadows there. She must have gone out the back door
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LIVIA J. WASHBURN

and come around the house to eavesdrop on what was being

said on the parsonage porch, Phyllis thought, and there was no telling how much she had heard. She took a few halting steps toward them, in front of the picture window, so that the twin-kling light from the bulbs on the Christmas tree played over her stricken face.

Phyllis lifted a hand toward the younger woman. “Jada, I’m so sorry—”

“Not as sorry as you’re going to be!” Jada cried.

Then she leaped forward, her hand rising, and the brightly colored lights reflected on the broad blade of the butcher knife she clutched.

Phyllis was shocked, frozen in place. Sam was behind her, unable to get between her and Jada in time. But Dwight shouted,

“Jada, no!” and leaped forward, throwing himself in front of Phyllis as Jada thrust the knife out. He grunted and staggered back a step as the blade went into his body.

Jada screamed, let go of the knife, and turned to run, dashing across the front yard toward the church. Sam went after her, grabbing her and wrestling her to a halt in front of the manger scene. Jada fell to her knees as sobs racked her. “Dwight!” she cried. “Oh, Dwight, I’m sorry! All I ever meant to do was protect you! You . . . you had to carry on your good work. . . .”

Meanwhile, Phyllis had gotten her arms around Dwight and

helped him sit down with his back against one of the porch posts. He was breathing harshly and had his hands pressed to his midsection. He looked up at her and said, “Phyllis, I . . . I’m sorry.”

“It was her, wasn’t it?” Phyllis said, still shaken from the look of insane hatred in Jada’s eyes as the younger woman lunged forward with the knife. “I had that part of it wrong.
She
killed Agnes.”

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Dwight might have still tried to deny it, but at that moment he slumped to the side. Phyllis thought for a horrible second that he was dead, but then she pressed her fingers to his neck and found an erratic but fairly strong pulse. She pulled her cell phone from her pocket and punched in 911.

Then, as she waited for the operator to answer, she turned and looked at Sam standing over a sobbing Jada in front of the manger scene. Snowflakes still danced and swirled from the skies, surrounding them. The temperature must have dropped a little, because a few of the flakes were starting to stick now, creating a light dusting of white on the grass.

Maybe it was going to be one of those rare white Christ-

mases after all.

“We never got around to going out and looking at lights,” Mike said an hour or so later as he sat in the living room of Phyllis’s house. Phyllis, Sam, Carolyn, and Eve were all there, too.

“I’m sorry,” Phyllis said. “I guess I should have just let Detective Largo handle everything instead of calling you, too.”

“No, no, I wanted to know what was going on.” Mike gave

her a stern look. “In less than a week, you’ve been knocked out by a renegade preacher and then attacked by a crazy woman with a knife. You’re gonna have to start being more careful, Mom.”

“I promise you, none of it was my idea,” Phyllis said. “And at least I wasn’t stabbed. Poor Dwight.”

“Poor Dwight, nothin’,” Sam said. “The fella hit you on the head. Could’ve hurt you real bad. Don’t forget about that.”

Phyllis shuddered. “I won’t. I’m afraid I won’t forget about any of this for a long time.” She looked at Mike. “You’re sure the doctors said that he’s going to live?”

“That’s the report I got,” he said with a nod. “He passed out
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LIVIA J. WASHBURN

because he lost quite a bit of blood, but the knife missed all the vital organs. He’ll be fine to stand trial for attempted murder and being an accessory after the fact, plus whatever else the DA can find to charge him with. Obstruction of justice, maybe.”

“I don’t think he was really trying to kill me,” Phyllis said.

She still had a hard time believing that she was saying such things about someone she had considered such a fine man.

But maybe it was dangerous to think that way, she reminded herself, to blind yourself to someone’s flaws because of the good they did. Jada Gresham had committed murder because she believed her husband did such important work that not only did she forgive him for his affair with Vickie Kimbrough, but she also thought he had to be protected from having that affair brought out into the open.

“Let me get this straight,” Carolyn said. “They
both
confessed to killing Agnes Simmons?”

Mike nodded. “Yeah, but Mrs. Gresham’s story holds to-

gether a lot better. The preacher was just trying to protect his wife when he said that he did it. That’s what I think, anyway.”

He leaned forward in the armchair where he was sitting and clasped his hands together between his knees. “Mrs. Gresham said she told Mrs. Simmons she wanted to take a closer look at some fancy stitching on that robe belt. Mrs. Simmons gave it to her to look at, without knowing that she was handing over her own murder weapon. Mrs. Gresham got behind her, looped the belt around her neck, and . . .” Mike shrugged. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to get so graphic.”

“All because of an affair?” Eve said. “Goodness, in this day and age that doesn’t seem like something worth killing over.”

“But Dwight is a minister,” Phyllis pointed out. “If it became public knowledge that he was having an affair with a member of his congregation, and that it started while he was THE CHRISTMAS COOKIE KILLER
• 259

counseling the woman and her husband . . . well, the church would have had no choice but to let him go, if he didn’t resign in shame.”

“And that meant he wouldn’t be able to help people any-

more,” Mike said. “Mrs. Gresham kept coming back to that

again and again in her statement. She seems to honestly believe that he does so much good, she had to forgive him. She told him he had to break it off with Mrs. Kimbrough, though, and she wasn’t happy when she found out that he’d still been seeing her.

After all, she’d killed Mrs. Simmons to keep her from telling anybody else about the affair.”

“Agnes was the one who told Jada?” Carolyn asked.

“Yeah. Mrs. Gresham happened to be visiting Mrs. Sim-

mons one day, and she said something about her husband bringing those church videotapes for her to watch. Mrs. Simmons said he never brought tapes to her, that she didn’t even have a VCR. That made Mrs. Simmons suspicious, so she started keeping an eye out for the preacher. Sure enough, it wasn’t long before she spotted him sneaking into the Kimbrough house when Mr. Kimbrough wasn’t home. She drew her own conclusions

from that—accurately, as it turns out—and called Jada Gresham, told her to come over last Saturday afternoon. Mr. Gresham knew from the way his wife was acting that something was

wrong, so he followed her over there and came in the back door while Mrs. Gresham was talking to Mrs. Simmons in the living room. Mrs. Simmons wanted her and Mrs. Gresham to go to

the deacons and tell them what Mr. Gresham was up to. She insisted they had to, and nothing Mrs. Gresham said could change her mind, even when she told the old lady that she forgave him for cheating on her. Mrs. Simmons said it had to come out.”

Remembering some of the things she had heard about the

way Agnes had treated her family, Phyllis could believe that.

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Agnes had had a vicious streak in her, there was no getting around that fact.

“Mr. Gresham claims he came in then and killed Mrs. Sim-

mons,” Mike went on, “but the evidence doesn’t support that. I think he’ll break down and tell the truth sooner or later.”

Sam said, “Either way, I reckon the charges against young Randall Simmons will be dropped?”