The Pumpkin Muffin Murder (30 page)

Dana didn’t want to join them, but she told Phyllis and Carolyn to go on and not worry about her. “I don’t think I could face a lot of people right now,” she said.

“I don’t blame you,” Carolyn told her. “Shopping at this time of year can be a little overwhelming.”

When they got there, the parking lot was even more crowded than usual. “You can tell that it’s a holiday in a couple of days,” Carolyn commented. “People are getting ready for it.”

“We’ll just have to brave the mob,” Phyllis said.

They went inside the store, and sure enough, there was something of a mob waiting for them. The aisles were crowded. Phyllis maneuvered her buggy carefully around the other shoppers. She paused as she passed the aisle where the candy was located and was about to go down it when Carolyn said, “I think we should get some more pumpkin pie filling.”

“You’re right,” Phyllis said as she turned the buggy around. She wasn’t sure if she would make any more pumpkin muffins, but she would probably bake at least one pumpkin pie. It wouldn’t be Thanksgiving without one.

By the time they reached the turkeys, Phyllis had bought more than she’d really intended to. There was still room in the buggy for the bird, though. She had to wait while several other women made their selections; then she leaned over the refrigerated case and looked for a good one. She hefted a couple of turkeys before deciding on one that was a little over ten pounds. With the twelve-pounder she already had defrosting in the refrigerator, that ought to be plenty of meat for the meal and a little left over, she decided.

They checked out and left the store, and as Phyllis pushed the buggy through the parking lot toward her car, she thought that there was something she’d forgotten to get. She nearly always felt that way when she went shopping, though, and as far as she could tell, she hadn’t actually forgotten anything. She told herself not to worry about it.

Phyllis spent the rest of the day happily baking several pies. Carolyn worked alongside her, and Dana came into the kitchen as well and joined in their conversation, which was heavily oriented toward past holiday celebrations. As Dana laughed and reminisced about things that had happened while she was growing up, Phyllis thought about how good this little slice of normalcy was for her. Phyllis hoped it would last through the holiday and on past it for a while. Dana needed to recover and get as much of her strength back as she could before the ordeal of defending herself from murder charges began again.

It didn’t help matters when Chief Whitmire called and asked for Dana. With a feeling of apprehension, Phyllis handed over the phone, then watched and listened as Dana replied in clipped tones to the chief’s questions, finally naming one of the town’s funeral homes.

Phyllis and Carolyn exchanged a glance. Logan’s funeral . . . of course, Phyllis thought. The police were finished with the body, and it was being released so that Dana could make funeral arrangements.

When Dana hung up the phone, the color was gone from her face again. “You know what that was about,” she said.

Phyllis nodded. “Logan’s funeral.”

“Yes. I . . . I need to call the funeral home. I’m sure I’ll have to go down there and talk to them. . . .”

Carolyn said, “I’ll come with you. You don’t have to handle all this by yourself, Dana. If there’s anything any of us can do, we want to.”

“That’s right,” Phyllis added. “Just let us know how we can help.”

“Thank you,” Dana murmured. “I’m not sure how I would have ever made it through this without the two of you.”

“You would have figured out a way,” Carolyn told her. “People are stronger than they think they are.”

Dana called the funeral home, and then she and Carolyn left to go there and make the arrangements. What a terrible juxtaposition, Phyllis thought, to have to have a funeral right around the same time as a holiday of giving thanks.

She tried to concentrate on her baking while Dana and Carolyn were gone, but it was difficult to do so. Bobby provided some distraction, though, when he came in from the garage with Sam and had to tell Phyllis all about what they’d been doing.

Finally, the two women returned. Dana, looking pale and drawn, went right upstairs. Carolyn paused in the kitchen and told Phyllis, “The funeral is tomorrow afternoon at three o’clock.”

“The day before Thanksgiving?”

“It was that or wait until Saturday, and Dana didn’t want to wait that long. She said she’d rather not have it looming over her for any longer than she had to.”

“Well, I can understand that, I suppose,” Phyllis said.

“School will be out tomorrow, so her friends can be there. The ones who are willing to stick by her, anyway. I’m not sure all of them will.”

“We will,” Phyllis said. “Someone will have to stay here with Bobby. I wouldn’t want to take him to a funeral without talking to Mike and Sarah about it first, and I don’t think he needs to attend this one, anyway.”

“Yes, it would probably bring up even more awkward questions than having Dana staying here with us,” Carolyn agreed.

“Do we need to have lunch for the family before the service?”

Carolyn shook her head. “Dana said she didn’t want to do that. She said she didn’t think she could face Logan’s family in a setting like that.”

“Don’t you think that makes her look even more guilty?” Phyllis asked with a frown.

“I don’t care. If that’s what she wants, then that’s the way things will be. Anyway, we know she’s not guilty, and eventually, everyone else will, too.”

Phyllis wanted to believe that, and she knew that Carolyn did, too, but for the first time, she thought that she detected just the faintest trace of doubt in her friend’s voice.

What if Dana was lying? Phyllis wanted to believe that she was a good enough judge of character not to be fooled easily . . . but what if that wasn’t true this time? Maybe Dana had played them all for fools.

What it all boiled down to, Phyllis thought, was a need to know the truth. Once that was out in the open, then either Dana would be as much a victim as her husband had been, or else she would be revealed as a cold-blooded murderer. Either way, it would be over.

With that thought whirling around in her head, it wasn’t easy for Phyllis to go to back to concentrating on pumpkin pies. But she managed.

T
he next morning dawned gray and overcast. Appropriate weather for a funeral, Phyllis thought. Another front had blown through, bringing with it clouds, occasional drizzle, and colder temperatures, a reminder that winter was not that far off.

Phyllis explained to Bobby that there was something she and Carolyn and Eve had to do that afternoon, but that he could stay there with Sam. She didn’t go into any detail, and he didn’t seem to want any. He just said, “Okay, Gran’mama,” and she was grateful once again that he had been easy to take care of during this difficult time.

The service was being held at the funeral home. Phyllis offered to drive all of them, since hers was the largest and most comfortable car. Dana rode in the front passenger seat, and on the way there that afternoon, she said, “I’m dreading this.”

Carolyn leaned forward from the backseat to rest a hand on her shoulder. “I know you are. Just be strong and remember that we’ll all be right there for you.”

Dana wore an elegant black suit and looked every inch the grieving widow. The contrast with her dark clothes made her face seem even more washed out. Despite the overcast day, she slipped a pair of sunglasses out of her purse and put them on. Maybe she wanted to hide eyes that were red rimmed from crying, Phyllis thought.

Or maybe she just didn’t trust anyone to see the expression in her eyes.

That nagging thought was disturbing. Ever since the day before, Phyllis hadn’t been able to shake the idea that maybe she was wrong this time, that her instincts had failed her and she was harboring a killer in her home. Goodness knew, the evidence pointed to Dana. There were some unexplained questions, mostly about Logan’s business and that NorCenTex Development deal, but was there enough in that to create any real doubt?

Phyllis wasn’t thinking about the sort of reasonable doubt that was enough to keep a person from being convicted in court. Someone could be guilty of a crime and still be acquitted, simply because the state had failed to provide enough evidence against them. So far, despite her digging into the case, Phyllis still hadn’t found anything to indicate that someone besides Dana had had a good reason to kill Logan and the knowledge needed to do so in the manner that had been employed by the murderer.

Was a hunch enough? Phyllis asked herself. Because that was really all she had, a hunch that Dana wasn’t guilty, other than the feeling that she wasn’t looking at something from the proper angle.

There weren’t many cars at the funeral home when they got there. Of course, it was early yet. The funeral director met them at the door with his usual comforting smile and took charge of Dana, expecting to lead her to a small room where the family would wait for the service to begin.

Dana balked at that. “I don’t want to wait with Logan’s family,” she said, her voice shaking a little. “I hope you understand.”

“Of course,” the man murmured. It was his job to act like he understood, whether he really did or not. “We have another small waiting room, Mrs. Powell. Come with me.”

Dana turned her head and said, “Carolyn, can you . . . ?”

“Of course,” Carolyn replied without hesitation. She looked at the funeral director. “If that’s all right?”

“Yes, please, Mrs. Wilbarger, come with us,” the man said. He led both of them down a hallway and through a door.

“I hate funerals,” Eve said to Phyllis as they stood in front of the double doors of the chapel. “Weddings are so much more fun.”

“If Carolyn were here, she’d say that you ought to know, you’ve had so many of them,” Phyllis said.

Eve laughed softly. “Thank you, dear, for taking up the slack. That’s exactly what she would have said, and it makes me feel better to hear it. I’m going to get married again one of these days, you know.”

“I don’t doubt it,” Phyllis said, although as far as she knew, Eve wasn’t even dating anyone at the moment, which would make getting married a little harder.

They went into the chapel, where a few people were already sitting. Solemn music played very quietly from hidden speakers, just loud enough to hear without really intruding itself onto a person’s consciousness. Phyllis and Eve took seats near the front and waited. They hadn’t been there long when Ben and Barbara Loomis came in.

“Do you mind if we sit with you?” Barbara asked.

“No, of course not,” Phyllis said. Barbara sat down next to her, with Ben on the other side of his wife.

“How are you?”

“Getting ready for Thanksgiving,” Phyllis said in reply to Barbara’s question. “We just have to get through this first.”

“Yes. It’s a terrible thing to have the day before, isn’t it?”

Phyllis nodded. She looked over at Ben and saw that he wasn’t his usual jovial self today. Well, who would be in a funeral home?

Ben didn’t look sad, though. He looked angry, as if he didn’t want to be here and Barbara had forced him to come. Maybe that was because he would rather be working, Phyllis thought.

Or maybe it was because there was something to the theory that had popped into her mind a couple of nights earlier, the possibility that something had been going on between Logan and Barbara. Phyllis could understand why a man might not be too happy about being forced to attend the funeral of his wife’s lover.

She was getting
way
ahead of herself, she thought. Dana had suspected Logan of cheating, and Barbara and her husband were having some sort of trouble between them, but those two facts weren’t necessarily connected.

Something occurred to Phyllis, something that Barbara had said in the restroom there at the school that she’d meant to ask her about. This wasn’t a very good place to do it, but she didn’t know when she’d get another chance. Keeping her voice low, she leaned closer to Barbara and said, “A couple of days ago, you mentioned something about Dana’s condition. What did you mean by that? She can’t be pregnant. She told me she can’t have children.”

“Pregnant? Oh, no, it’s nothing like that. But she’s not in good health at all. To tell you the truth, I never expected her to outlive Logan. He was so vital, so full of life, and she was so fragile.”

Fragile?
Other than being a little too slender, Dana seemed to be in perfect health, Phyllis thought. But then she remembered back to how Logan had seemed to her, and she never would have dreamed that he had so many medical problems.

“You mean they were both in bad health?”

“What?” Barbara frowned. “No. Logan was fine. He was the one who had to take care of Dana all the time.”

Phyllis drew in a deep breath. She thought back quickly over everything she had read in the newspapers and seen on television about Logan’s death. Nothing had ever been said about the cause of death, although in the absence of an official statement, the stories had hinted that Logan might have been poisoned. The authorities were keeping the exact cause of death to themselves for the moment, although Phyllis knew it. Barbara Loomis, clearly, did not.