Death Bakes a Pecan Pie

by Livia J. Washburn

  A familiar stocky figure emerged from a newly arrived vehicle in the parking lot and started along one of the concrete paths. The man saw Phyllis and the others and detoured over to the picnic table.

  “Why do I get this unmistakable feeling of déjà vu?” Chief Ralph Whitmire asked. “How are you, Mrs. Newsom?”

  “Better this time than last, Chief,” Phyllis answered honestly. “I’m not the one who found the body.”

  “But there really is a body?”

  “Oh, yes. Lawrence Fremont, the director of the movie that was shooting here today.”

  Whitmire sighed. “When I heard that people from Hollywood were going to be making a movie out of Ms. Turner’s book, the craziest thought crossed my mind.”

  “That there might be a murder?” Carolyn asked.

  “Well, yes. I told myself that would never happen, though. Clearly, I was wrong.”

  “It hasn’t been ruled a homicide yet,” Phyllis pointed out. “The medical examiner hasn’t even gotten close to the body.”

  Whitmire cocked his head in acknowledgment of that, but he didn’t appear convinced. Phyllis couldn’t blame him for thinking the worst. That was an occupational hazard.

  “I’ll go see what Detective Largo has found out so far,” the chief said. “And I’ll try to soothe any ruffled feathers those Hollywood bigwigs have.”

  Carolyn said, “One of those Hollywood bigwigs might be a murderer.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  As Whitmire walked toward the crime scene, Phyllis thought about what Carolyn had just said. In all likelihood, one of the members of the movie company was the murderer, assuming that Lawrence Fremont had been murdered. It was just too far-fetched to think that someone local would have had a reason to kill the director, especially under such bizarre circumstances. The visitors from Hollywood hadn’t even had all that much interaction with the citizens of Weatherford. The likelihood of one of them having a grudge worthy of murder was almost non-existent.

  Almost, Phyllis told herself . . . but in a murder investigation, it didn’t pay to rule out anything too soon.

  Gradually, the crowd in the park began to thin out. People were questioned and released once the police had their contact information.

  “Oh, look there!” Ronnie exclaimed. “The cops have got that guy in handcuffs.”

  It was true. Two officers were leading away a glum-looking man in his thirties. Phyllis had never seen him before, at least that she could recall.

  “Do you think he’s the murderer?” Ronnie went on.

  “That’s not likely,” Carolyn said. “Chief Whitmire and Detective Largo are still down there by the log cabin talking to the movie people.”

  “And it looks like the medical examiner is just starting to examine the body,” Eve added.

  Phyllis said, “It’s more likely that man had an outstanding warrant and was taken into custody when he identified himself.”

  “But I saw that guy earlier,” Ronnie said. “He was one of the extras, like Granddad and me. Are you seriously saying that somebody who’s wanted by the cops would risk getting arrested by showing up to be in a movie?”

  Sam grinned and said, “The lure of fame and fortune is overwhelmin’. Wouldn’t surprise me if they picked up more than one fella here today who’s been dodgin’ a warrant.”

  “You’re probably right, but I think if I was wanted by the law, I’d be more careful than that.”

  “Just don’t ever do anything you’d have to go on the lam from,” Sam advised.

  “Yeah, I’ll try not to,” Ronnie said dryly.

  Eve was right about the medical examiner. The crime scene techs had finished their work. The two ambulance attendants who had accompanied the ME to the scene moved the body, laying it out on a couple of hay bales for a preliminary examination. Phyllis was glad she and the others were sitting far enough away that they couldn’t see any details.

  The medical examiner didn’t take long. The attendants lifted the corpse and moved it into a body bag on a gurney sitting in the dogtrot. One of them zipped the bag closed, then they rolled the gurney along one of the walkways toward the parking lot.

  “Will they take the crime scene tape down so the festival can go on tomorrow?” Ronnie asked.

  “Would people still come when a murder’s been committed here?” Melissa asked.

  “You’d be surprised,” Carolyn said. “Death brings notoriety with it, and most people have a morbid streak. They want to see where something happened, even if it’s something bad.”

  Melissa nodded and said, “Of course, I ought to know that. People still drive around Hollywood looking for the graves of movie stars, and they flock to places where famous crimes took place.”

  “You know what Mencken said about nobody ever goin’ broke underestimatin’ the taste of the American public,” Sam said. “If the cops let ’em go ahead with the festival, the park’ll be full of people again, mark my words on that.”

  “I hope they do,” Carolyn said. “Murder or no murder, the more we can help out people who are going hungry, the better.”

  No one could argue with that.

  As Detective Largo finished questioning them, the others involved in the movie drifted over to the table. Those already sitting there scooted over to make room on the benches. Julie was first, then Heidi Lancaster and Robert Harkness. Phyllis noted that Harkness was careful to sit on the other side and at the other end of the table from Melissa. She wondered why such animosity existed between them. Harkness seemed like a decent, friendly fellow, and Melissa, despite her crazy idea about her and Phyllis investigating Lawrence Fremont’s murder, had been very sweet and down to earth so far.

  Julie said, “That detective warned us not to discuss the case. We’re not going to abide by that, are we?”

  “We’ve already been talking about it,” Melissa said. “Who do you think could have done it?”

  Julie shook her head. “I don’t have any idea. Lawrence rubbed people the wrong way a lot of the time, but I don’t know anybody who actually hated him enough to kill him.”

  “Becca might have,” Harkness said.

  Julie snapped an angry look at him. “What do you mean by that?”

  “I mean I’ve heard rumors about the two of them.”

  “Oh, shoot, there are always rumors about everybody,” Melissa said. “You can’t put much stock in them. You probably wouldn’t know it, since you come from Australia and haven’t been working over here all that long, but the gossip about Lawrence goes back years. Decades even.”

  Carolyn said, “That’s what I don’t understand. Every time there’s some new scandal about a producer or a director or somebody like that abusing his position of power, it turns out people were aware of it for a long time. Why didn’t anyone speak up before now?”

  “Because it’s a bottom-line business,” Melissa said. “And as long as the bottom-line is healthy, people are reluctant to rock the boat.” She shrugged. “And there’s a certain sense that, well, that’s just the way things are. The way they’ve always been. I’m not saying it’s right, but . . .”

  “Folks have a hard time goin’ against tradition,” Sam said, “even when it’s a bad tradition.”

  “Exactly.”

  Julie glared at Harkness and said, “Don’t go around spreading rumors about Becca. She’s a nice girl.”

  The actor held up his hands defensively. “I didn’t mean anything. And I didn’t even mention her name to that police detective.”

  “Fine,” Julie said with a curt nod.

  Phyllis had taken note of the way Julie leaped to Becca Peterson’s defense. That struck her as a little odd. Maybe Julie and Becca were friends, although nothing had been said about that so far.

  A commotion over by the stone building that contained the restrooms drew Phyllis’s attention then. Two uniformed officers headed toward the log cabin, and between them was Jason Wilkes. Each of the officers held one of Jason’s arms as if to keep him fr
om getting away. As they came closer, though, Phyllis got the impression that it was more a case of hanging on to him to make sure he didn’t fall down.

  “There’s Jason,” Eve said, having seen the same thing as Phyllis. “Oh, dear, he doesn’t look good.”

  The others turned in that direction, and Harkness said, “I believe the poor fellow’s as drunk as a skunk.”

  That was Phyllis’s assessment, too. Jason’s stumbling gait, red face, and general air of dishevelment made it pretty obvious. She wondered if he had been holed up in the restroom, drinking, ever since the confrontation with Lawrence Fremont that morning. Earlier, Deanne hadn’t known where he was, and that would explain his disappearance.

  The officers brought Jason to where Chief Whitmire and Detective Largo were standing. When they let go of him, he swayed and they had to grab hold again. Largo made a face and shook her head. She pointed to one of the nearby tables. The officers marched Jason over there and sat him down. Slowly, he leaned forward until his head rested on the concrete table.

  “Well, Jason’s accounted for,” Melissa said, “but we still don’t know where Deanne is, do we?”

  “We talked to her earlier,” Eve said. “I haven’t seen her since then, though.”

  Alan Sammons and Earl Thorpe trudged over to the table to join them. Sammons said, “The detective says that we’re all free to go, for now. We won’t be doing any more shooting today, that’s for sure.”

  “Are you suspending the picture, Alan?” Melissa asked.

  Sammons shook his head. “No, not yet. I’m still hoping we can salvage something.” He laughed, but it was a humorless sound. “To be honest, I can’t afford to shut down production. What a mess. Can’t afford to stop, can’t afford to go on. But we will, somehow.”

  Thorpe said, “The park will still be decked out for the festival when it’s over, won’t it? Maybe we can get the shots we still need afterward. We got quite a bit of crowd footage in the can already, so we wouldn’t need a lot of extras, just a handful. Most of what was left to shoot was with the principals.”

  Sammons rubbed his chin and frowned in thought. “Maybe . . . if the city will allow us to come back and shoot, say, day after tomorrow or even next week. I don’t think the cops are going to let us leave right away, so we might as well put the time to good use.” He nodded decisively. “Earl, you’ll take over for now. Is that all right with you?”

  “Whatever it takes to save the picture,” Thorpe said.

  Sammons looked around at the cast members. “Any objections?”

  “Not from me,” Melissa said, and the others shook their heads.

  “It’s settled, then. As soon as we can work out the details, we’ll shoot the other scenes we need to do here, then head back down to Austin to wrap up the rest of the picture. I’ll need to make some calls . . . and of course some of this depends on what the cops will let us do . . .” Sammons drew in a deep breath and added, “For the sake of this picture and all of us, we’d better hope that old saying is right.”

  “What old saying?” Harkness asked.

  “The one about there being no such thing as bad publicity!”

  Chapter 14

  Since Isabel Largo had said it was all right for them to leave, Phyllis and the others stood up and got ready to head for the parking lot. As they did, it occurred to Phyllis that she hadn’t retrieved her pie plate from the craft services table.

  “You two can go on to the car,” she told Carolyn and Eve. “I’ll be there in a minute.” Sam and Ronnie would go back to the house in Sam’s pickup, of course.

  She walked toward the portable tables where the food had been set out, but before she got there she saw that crime scene tape had been strung up around them and a uniformed officer was standing outside the tape, keeping an eye on things. He noticed her coming in that direction and asked, “Can I help you with something, ma’am?”

  Phyllis studied the tables. Some of the food still remained, mostly fruit. The rest had been eaten at lunch. She could see her pie plate at the end of the table where she had left it. The cover had been removed, and the plate was empty now except for some crumbs of crust that remained.

  “That’s my plate—” she began, pointing at it.

  The officer held up a hand to stop her. “Sorry, ma’am, it’ll have to stay there for now. Detective Largo says that everything on these tables is considered evidence. I’m sure you’ll be able to get it back sooner or later.”

  As soon as she had seen the crime scene tape, Phyllis had thought the same thing about evidence. And that told her something.

  The food wouldn’t be important unless the police suspected Lawrence Fremont had been poisoned. Melissa had said that she hadn’t seen any blood or wounds on Fremont’s body, so if he hadn’t died of natural causes, poisoning was the most logical conclusion.

  Clearly her pie had been a success, Phyllis thought, since it was all gone. Under the circumstances, though, that was scant comfort.

  “Thank you,” she said to the officer, then turned and walked toward the parking lot. It was just a pie plate, after all, she told herself. If she never got it back, it wouldn’t matter.

  “Problem?” Carolyn asked when Phyllis got into the Lincoln and shut the door.

  “No, I just went to get that pie plate and container. But the police are going to impound everything that was on those tables as evidence, I guess.”

  “Of course! That man was poisoned, just like I said.”

  “Maybe,” Phyllis said as she turned the key in the ignition. As she backed out, she saw the crime scene van parked next to one of the motor homes across the road. That would be the one occupied by Lawrence Fremont, she thought. The technicians were probably in there combing through it for evidence, too.

  ◄♦►

  Sam’s pickup pulled into the driveway before the garage door finished lowering behind the Lincoln. Phyllis caught sight of it in the rearview mirror and pushed the button on the remote control to stop the door’s descent. Another push raised it again.

  Sam and Ronnie joined them in the garage. As they went into the house, Ronnie said, “I’ll bet all my friends have heard about what happened, but I’m gonna post some pictures anyway.” She was already poking at her phone’s screen as she went through the kitchen.

  “I don’t know about the rest of you,” Carolyn said, “but I could use some coffee.”

  “Sounds good to me,” Sam said.

  The other three sat down at the table while Carolyn started the coffee brewing. Phyllis said, “I never noticed, did the police question all of you as well?”

  “Yeah, while you were talkin’ to Detective Largo and Ms. Keller,” Sam said. “One of the uniforms did it.”

  “There wasn’t anything we could tell him, though,” Eve said. “Just the same thing you did, I’m sure, Phyllis. And then he took our names and numbers.”

  Carolyn pulled out the other chair and sat down. “You’re going to have to write a book about this, Eve. A novel about a murder committed during the making of a movie based on a novel about a murder that was committed in real life—”

  “Stop,” Eve said, putting her hands to her head. “I’m getting dizzy!”

  “Art imitates life,” Sam said. “Or is it the other way around? This is startin’ to remind me of that scene in Citizen Kane where Orson Welles walks in front of the mirror and you see dozens of him fadin’ away into infinity.”

  “Does that mean the murder cases are never going to end?” Carolyn asked.

  “I hope that’s not the way it is,” Phyllis said with a fervent sigh. “Did Ronnie enjoy the day, at least before everything that happened this afternoon?”

  Sam nodded and said, “She sure seemed like it. You know she said that about maybe gettin’ involved with some little theater group and takin’ drama in college. She mentioned the same thing to me before she said it to y’all. It’s good to see her excited about something. She never has really talked much about what her plans are for th
e future. Maybe she’ll be a famous actress.”

  “I’m not sure that’s something I’d encourage,” Carolyn said. “I mean, these Hollywood people seem nice right now, but the place has been known as a . . . a den of debauchery for a hundred years now! I’m sure a lot of that image is overblown, but Hollywood never would have gotten such a reputation if there wasn’t some truth to all the sordid gossip.”

  “Some people believe that all writers are degenerates, too, you know,” Eve said.

  Carolyn just shrugged.

  Phyllis said, “Ronnie’s still young enough that she’ll probably change her mind a dozen times about what she wants to do with her life. It’s too soon to worry about that.”

  The four of them had just gotten their coffee and settled down around the table again when the doorbell rang. Phyllis wasn’t expecting anyone, but she stood up and said, “I’ll see who it is. No need for the rest of you to get up.”

  She walked down the hall, past the living room, into the foyer. Through the narrow window at the side of the door, she saw a nondescript sedan parked at the curb in front of the house. When she leaned to the side, she could see who was standing on the porch.

  Detective Isabel Largo.

  Phyllis’s first thought was that there had been a break in the case. Would the detective stop by to tell her about that if it was true? Possibly. Despite the momentary irritation Largo had displayed when she found out that Phyllis was involved, the two of them had been on reasonably good terms in the past. Later, after Largo had questioned Melissa Keller, she had seemed almost friendly. Phyllis hoped the detective was here to deliver some good news.

  But of course, there was only one way to find out.

  She opened the door and said, “Hello, Detective. Won’t you—”

  Phyllis fell silent when Largo held up the thing she was holding and asked, “Is this yours, Mrs. Newsom?”

  It was Phyllis’s pie plate—or at least a pie plate that looked like the same one—sealed up in a large, clear evidence bag.