The Pumpkin Muffin Murder (21 page)

“That’s right! Say, you must really keep up with the real estate market if you know about that, Mrs. Newsom.”

“Well, I’m always on the lookout for good investments, you know,” she said. She thought dangling the prospect of potential investment money in front of Loomis, so to speak, would keep him talking.

“You couldn’t do better than that mall. When it goes in on the west side of town, once all the zoning issues are taken care of, it’ll be quite a boon now that the economy’s recovered. The slump around here was never as bad as it was in other places, you know.”

“I know,” Phyllis said, trying to sound like she knew what she was talking about. As a matter of fact, even during the economy’s bad times, it had seemed to her that Weatherford and the surrounding area just kept growing by leaps and bounds.

With a rueful chuckle, Loomis said, “I tried to talk Logan into letting me in on the main deal, but he had that pretty well sewed up. I’ve managed to get some of the leavings, though, in locations around the mall property. I should do okay.”

“I certainly hope so.”

Loomis laughed again. “Here I am, yammering on about business, when you called to talk to my wife. You should never ask a salesman about his job, I guess. I’ll go find Barbara.”

“Thank you.”

“Hang on.”

Phyllis heard him put the phone down. The few minutes while Ben Loomis went to look for his wife gave Phyllis time to think about what she had just learned. A full-fledged mall being built here in town was a big deal indeed. Weatherford had a lot of shopping developments, especially along the interstate, but the closest actual mall was twenty miles away, in Fort Worth. With the population growing like it was, Phyllis thought, such an enterprise would probably be a big success . . . and it would mean a lot of money for whoever handled the sale of the property.

Earlier she had toyed with the notion that Ben Loomis might have had something to do with Logan’s death. Now it appeared that the stakes were high enough to provide a possible motive. Someone would have to take over the NorCenTex Development deal. Phyllis needed to talk to Dana and find out whether Logan had any associates who could do so, or if the whole thing would be up for grabs again.

Of course, talking to Dana was dependent on her actually getting out of jail.

“Mrs. Newsom? Phyllis?”

That was Barbara Loomis’s voice. “Yes, Barbara,” Phyllis said. “How are you?”

“Not good,” Barbara said. “Have you heard that Dana’s been arrested? We found out when we went to the hospital to try to see her. I can barely believe it, but it’s true!”

“I know,” Phyllis said. “That’s why I’m calling. I’d like to talk to you and Dana’s other friends, so I thought maybe you could come by my house this afternoon? About three o’clock?”

“You want to talk about what we can do to help her?”

“Exactly.”

“Then I’ll be there,” Barbara said with grim determination. “I can call Jenna and Kendra and Taryn, too, if you’d like.”

“I’ve spoken to Kendra already and left messages for the other two.”

“I’ll make sure they’re there,” Barbara promised. “You can call it a council of war if you want, because if going to war is what it takes to clear Dana’s name, then that’s what we’ll do!”

A
Sunday afternoon in the fall usually meant that the Dallas Cowboys were playing, and in this part of the world, even for someone who wasn’t a football fan, it was almost impossible not to hear and read about the games. Phyllis, for example, knew that the Cowboys were playing one of their main rivals, the Philadelphia Eagles, that afternoon. She offered to meet with the ladies somewhere else in the house so that Sam could watch the game on the big TV, but he wouldn’t hear of it.

“The set in my room’s just fine,” he told her. “Me and Bobby can watch the game there, can’t we, Bobby?”

“Yep,” the little boy said. He had been tagging along with Sam for most of the day.

“Anyway, it doesn’t really matter,” Sam went on. “The Cowboys are probably gonna lose. I’ve never really forgiven ’em for gettin’ rid of Tom Landry the way they did.”

“Who’s Tom Landry?” Bobby asked.

Sam peered down at him for a long moment, then said, “Boy, your daddy’s been neglectin’ your education. You come along with me, and I’ll tell you all about Roger the Dodger and Dandy Don and Bullet Bob and, most of all, the Man in the Hat.”

Phyllis smiled as Sam led Bobby out of the living room.

“I’m sitting in on this meeting,” Carolyn announced.

“I’m not,” Eve said. “I have some errands to run, and Sunday afternoon is a good time to do them. There aren’t very many people out during the game.”

Phyllis nodded and said an all-inclusive, “That’s fine,” to both of them. She knew that Carolyn would want to be part of any effort to help Dana. The challenge would be to keep her from losing her temper and making things more difficult when they were dealing with the authorities.

The four teachers showed up only minutes apart. Phyllis had coffee and tea ready, along with some of the pumpkin muffins from the canceled contest. She hoped that none of the visitors would regard her serving them as being in bad taste.

When the six of them were settled in around the living room with cups of whichever hot beverage they preferred, Phyllis began by saying, “I suppose I should bring you up to date on what’s happened since Dana was arrested this morning.”

She told them about her conversations with Juliette Yorke and her visit to police headquarters to see Dana. When she described Dana’s tortured emotional state, expressions of anger and pity appeared on the women’s faces.

“They can’t get away with this,” Barbara said. “Is this lawyer you’ve arranged for any good, Phyllis?”

“I think so,” Phyllis replied. “She’s the only defense attorney I actually know, but she seems quite competent. And Detective Largo didn’t seem happy that Ms. Yorke was going to be representing Dana, so that bodes well, I think.”

“I agree,” Carolyn said. “That detective wouldn’t be worried if she didn’t think Ms. Yorke was a good lawyer.”

Phyllis went on. “I don’t know of any delicate way to put this, but how well is Dana fixed, financially? Can she afford to pay Ms. Yorke, or do we need to start thinking about raising funds for that?”

“Oh, goodness, I think she can pay,” Jenna said. “Logan was doing really well in his business, and Dana’s been teaching long enough that she makes a pretty good salary, too.” She looked around at the others. “Don’t you think?”

They all nodded, and Barbara said, “Money shouldn’t be a problem, as long as the district attorney doesn’t try to freeze their assets or something like that.” She frowned. “Can he do that if she’s charged with murder?”

“I don’t know,” Phyllis said. “That’s something I can ask Ms. Yorke the next time I talk to her, though.” She paused, then said, “There’s something else I need to be blunt about. Detective Largo believes that Dana killed Logan because he was having an affair. Do any of you know anything about that?”

Kendra stared wide-eyed at Phyllis and asked in a voice that had a little surprised squeak in it, “Are you saying that the police think Logan was cheating with one of
us
?”

“What?” Phyllis stared back at her for a second, then exclaimed, “Oh, no! That’s not what I meant at all! I just wondered if Dana had ever said anything to you about being suspicious of Logan.”

“She never said anything to me,” Barbara said, “and anyway, I don’t believe it. Logan had his faults—to be honest, he sort of neglected Dana in favor of his work most of the time—but I don’t think he was cheating on her.”

“I never heard anything about that,” Taryn said, and Kendra chimed in, “Neither did I.”

Phyllis said, “Detective Largo claims that it doesn’t matter whether Logan was really cheating. She says that if Dana believed he was, that’s enough to constitute a motive.” She glanced over at Carolyn. “And we know that she
did
believe it, because she fought with Logan about it at the park on Friday night and then said something about it to Carolyn and me yesterday morning before his body was discovered.”

“That’s terrible,” Barbara murmured as she looked down at the floor and shook her head. “I’m surprised she kept it from us like that. We were all so close. But honestly, she never said anything to me about suspecting Logan of such a thing.”

“So none of you would have any idea whether or not it was true?”

Jenna said, “Even if it was, I don’t see how it’s going to help matters to dig up a bunch of dirty laundry now. Say that you proved Logan was fooling around. Wouldn’t you just be making the police’s theory stronger?”

“Not necessarily,” Phyllis said. “You see, if we’re assuming that Dana didn’t kill him—”

“She didn’t,” Carolyn said.

“Then the unavoidable conclusion is that someone else killed him,” Phyllis continued. “It seems to me that the most likely suspect would be the woman he was having an affair with. Maybe she wanted Logan to leave Dana, and he refused.”

The four teachers exchanged long looks; then Barbara shook her head. “I’m sorry, Phyllis,” she said. “We’d help you if we could, but we just don’t know anything about that.”

Phyllis was disappointed, but she had no choice but to believe them. She knew it was entirely possible that Dana had held in all her worries about Logan and never shared them with her friends. Phyllis hoped she could ask Dana about that directly, once Dana was out of jail. Until she heard differently, she was going to hope for the best and assume that Juliette Yorke would be able to arrange bail.

“All right,” she said. “None of you know whether Logan was having an affair or not. What
can
you tell me about him? What do you know about his business, his background, anything that might give someone a reason to want him dead?”

“Well, he was in business, right?” Taryn said. “He’s bound to have had some enemies.” She glanced at Barbara. “No offense. I don’t mean to say that Ben has enemies.”

Barbara laughed and shook her head. “None taken, because of course he does. Anytime someone’s successful, there’s going to be somebody out there who’s jealous of that success, at the very least. Or someone who thinks that they’ve been done wrong. And I know from experience that real estate can be pretty cutthroat. I’m not saying there’s anybody out there who’d like to murder Ben, but I’m sure there are people who wouldn’t mind seeing him fail or even go broke. They’d get a big kick out of it, in fact.”

“But not Logan Powell, right?” Phyllis said.

“No, not Logan. They were friends, even if they were competitors. Oh, Logan might have felt a little resentment if Ben snapped up some juicy deal he had his eye on, and vice versa, but—” Barbara stopped short, her eyes widening. A look of anger appeared on her face. “Wait just a minute! You’re not saying that
Ben
could have had something to do with Logan’s death!”

“Not at all,” Phyllis said quickly, although in truth she hadn’t ruled out that possibility. She needed Barbara as an ally, though, so she tried to smooth the waters by saying, “I was thinking about some of the other people involved in Logan’s business. Do you happen to know, was he a one-man operation, or did he have some associates?”

Barbara seemed slightly mollified by Phyllis’s explanation. “It was Logan’s business, all the way. He had a secretary and a bookkeeper, but he was the only agent at his firm. He always said that he liked being a lone wolf. That way all the responsibility was his, but so were all the rewards.”

Phyllis nodded as she filed away that information. The fact that Logan didn’t have a partner who could take over for him or anything like that removed one possible motive and suspect.

Unfortunately, that brought them right back to Logan and Dana’s marital troubles as the most likely motive for his death.

“What about Logan’s family? Where was he from? Did you know about all his medical problems and his drinking?”

“His drinking?” Kendra repeated. “I don’t think I ever saw Logan take a drink.”

“He always seemed very fit to me,” Jenna said. “What sort of medical problems?”

Phyllis looked around at them and realized that they didn’t know how Logan had been killed. No one had told them the details of the case, so all they really knew was that Dana had been arrested. Detective Largo had given Phyllis the results of the autopsy and the forensics tests in confidence, and against her better judgment, as she had made clear. Phyllis wasn’t sure she felt comfortable about betraying that confidence, even though she had already done so to a certain extent by bringing up Logan’s medical history.

“I can’t really say any more . . . ,” she began.

That brought a chorus of angry objections from the four teachers. “We’re Dana’s best friends,” Jenna declared. “If you know something about how Logan died, you can tell us, Mrs. Newsom.”

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said what I did. I don’t want to jeopardize her defense.”