Murder by the Slice

by Livia J. Washburn

  Sam called to a family going into the store, “You folks want to buy some cookies?”

  Phyllis leaned over to Carolyn and asked, “Who’s this Shannon that Marie was talking about?”

  “Shannon Dunston,” Carolyn replied. “She’s the president of the PTO board at Loving. And from what I hear, she runs things with an iron fist, as the old saying goes.”

  “That’s odd. Usually you try to get people to do things by being nice to them, especially when you’re relying on volunteers.”

  “That’s not the way Shannon looks at it. Although I shouldn’t say that, since I don’t really know her. I’m just going by what I’ve heard.”

  “Well, maybe with our help, she’ll get off Marie’s, uh, posterior.” Phyllis looked at the other three. “Right … guys?”

  Chapter 2

  “I have an idea,” Carolyn said as she came into the kitchen.

  From under the sink, where she was struggling to fit a pipe wrench around a balky pipe, Phyllis said, “That’s nice.”

  She could have hired a plumber to fix the leaking pipe. She could have even asked Sam to have a go at it. He had all sorts of tools and spent a lot of time building and repairing furniture on Kenny’s workbench in the big garage, and more than once he had told Phyllis he would be glad to help out with any handyman work that needed to be done around the house.

  But she was stubborn enough to feel that she ought to at least try to do it. This was her house, after all, and when Kenny was alive he had taken care of it. She owed it to his memory to continue the tradition.

  On the other hand, even when she got the wrench on the pipe, she couldn’t budge it. Years of teaching in the public schools had taught her to choose her battles wisely and be selective about which brick walls she picked to bang her head against.

  Dressed in jeans and a comfortable shirt, she scooted out from under the sink and placed the big wrench on the floor.

  “What on earth are you doing?” Carolyn asked.

  “Leaky pipe.” Phyllis pushed back several strands of graying brown hair that had fallen over her eyes, then reached up to grab hold of the kitchen counter and steady herself as she climbed to her feet.

  “You should let Sam do that.”

  Phyllis didn’t let on that she had come to the same conclusion. Instead she said, “You were saying something about having an idea.”

  “Oh, yes. About the bake sale at the carnival.”

  Several days had passed since their encounter with Marie Tyler at WalMart. During that time Carolyn had called some of their friends in the Retired Teachers Association, trying to line up people who could be counted on to supply goods for the bake sale. Of course, parents of the students at Loving Elementary would be asked to donate cakes and pies, too, but young people were so busy these days you couldn’t rely on them to provide enough help. Another lesson teachers quickly learned was that if something absolutely had to be done, you’d better be prepared to do it yourself.

  “Everyone does a regular bake sale,” Carolyn went on. “The RTA just did the one at WalMart.”

  Phyllis didn’t need to be reminded. It had been a long afternoon without many results. They had raised less than a hundred dollars.

  “People are tired of them. I think we need to do something different.”

  “All right,” Phyllis said. “What can you do different with a bake sale, though? The whole thing’s pretty cut-anddried.”

  Carolyn held up both index fingers. “We keep the auction where we get people to donate the fanciest, most elaborately decorated, most unusual cakes they can come up with and then auction them off to the people who attend the carnival.”

  An idea occurred to Phyllis. “You know, I saw something in a magazine—”

  Her mouth clamped shut. She had almost made a mistake.

  She had almost spilled a possible plan to an archrival.

  Phyllis and Carolyn were friends, of course. They had known each other for many years and shared this house for several. But that didn’t mean they didn’t also have a healthy sense of competition with each other. Both women had entered numerous baking and cooking contests, including the one at the Peach Festival held in Weatherford every summer, and at times the competition between them had become rather intense. Carolyn had emerged triumphant more often than not, and Phyllis tried to tell herself not to let that bother her, but it was difficult not to, sometimes.

  The previous summer, all that had taken a backseat to the tragedy at the Peach Festival and the other murders that had occurred, but those troubles were behind them now and Phyllis’s thoughts were turning to other matters. Even though the auction wasn’t exactly a contest, Phyllis had a feeling that her friend would try to come up with the cake that sold for the largest amount of money. That was in Carolyn’s nature.

  And in her own, too, Phyllis was forced to admit as she realized why she was being secretive about what she had seen in the magazine. She didn’t want Carolyn stealing her idea.

  “What were you saying?” Carolyn asked.

  “Never mind,” Phyllis said with a wave of her hand. Carolyn was still holding up both index fingers. “So, what was your idea that would make it different?”

  “We can have a contest, too.”

  Here we go, Phyllis thought. “A contest?” Carolyn had gotten around to that even more quickly than Phyllis had expected.

  “Yes, but not with the fancy cakes. Those will just be for show, and for the auction.”

  “Okay,” Phyllis said, not sure now where Carolyn was going with this.

  “The contest will be to see who can come up with the best-tasting healthy snack.”

  Phyllis frowned. “Healthy snack? Isn’t that an oxymoron?”

  “It doesn’t have to be.” Carolyn waved her hands with enthusiasm. “Think about it, Phyllis. When we were teaching, didn’t you absolutely hate seeing what those poor children put in their mouths all the time? Twinkies and potato chips and candy bars and on and on, everything either packed with sugar or salt, nothing but empty calories and fat. It was awful. And most of the time it was the parents who put those things in their kids’ lunches.”

  Phyllis knew that Carolyn was right, at least to a certain extent. Kids had never eaten healthy, not back in the sixties and seventies when her own son, Mike, was a little boy and not now. But Phyllis had tended to worry more about her students who came to school with nothing to eat, rather than the ones consuming junk food. Then there were the students who were abused or sick … When it came to children, there were definitely enough worries to go around.

  “So you think we should have a contest for healthy snacks?”

  “That’s right. Everyone who wants to enter would pay a small entry fee … a donation to the school, really, is what it amounts to … and the people who come to the carnival would have to pay to be the judges. A couple of tickets would entitle them to sample all the entries, and then they could vote on which one was the best. At the end of the carnival, when we auction off the cakes, we’ll also announce the big winner of the contest.” Carolyn beamed. “Everyone likes snacks. And everyone likes a contest, too.”

  Maybe she was right, Phyllis thought. It wouldn’t cost anything to try, and again, it was a variation from the run-ofthe-mill bake sale. She wasn’t sure how well the idea of healthy snacks would go over with the kids, though. The lit tle Twinkie-munchers liked their goodies crammed full of sugar and sodium and fat.

  “So you’ll enter, Phyllis?”

  “I don’t know. I have a lot to do around here.”

  Carolyn waved a hand at the sink. The cabinet doors were still open underneath it. “What, fixing leaky pipes? You should leave that to someone who knows what he’s doing.”

  Phyllis caught that reference to he. “You think a woman can’t fix a pipe? You think we’re just suited for baking and things like that?” She knew she sounded irritated. She couldn’t help it.

  “I never said that. I just assumed you’d want another chance to try to b
eat me at something.”

  “Oh, you’re entering the contest, are you?”

  “I certainly am.”

  “Even though you’re in charge? Doesn’t that strike you as being a conflict of interest?”

  “Not at all,” Carolyn said. “All the entries will be assigned a number, and they’ll be judged anonymously. We won’t know who came up with the winning snack until it’s all over.”

  Phyllis was tempted; she truly was. Although she got tired of losing to Carolyn, she enjoyed their competition. This time, though, she was going to remain above the fray, as the old saying went.

  Anyway, she had a much better idea for a fancy decorated cake than she did for a healthy snack that kids probably wouldn’t like, anyway.

  She shook her head and said, “I’ll donate a cake for the auction, but I just don’t have time to come up with something for the contest. I’m sorry, Carolyn. Right now I have to get back to this job.” She knelt, picked up the wrench, and crawled under the sink again.

  “You’re sure?”

  “I’m sure.” Phyllis’s reply sounded hollow inside the

  cabinet. She lifted the heavy wrench and again fit it around the pipe.

  “Well, all right.” Carolyn’s footsteps retreated from the kitchen. Phyllis decided to wait a few minutes to be sure she was really gone before scooting out from under the sink.

  Before she could do that, more footsteps entered the kitchen, heavier ones this time, and Sam Fletcher’s deep voice asked, “What are you doin’ under there, Phyllis?”

  She knew that she probably looked utterly undignified. Not only that, but she could tell that her shirt had hiked up a little as she moved around, revealing a few inches of bare belly. She tugged it down and said, “One of the pipes is leaking.”

  “Want me to take a look at it?” He hunkered down so that he could peer into the cabinet under the sink.

  Something about lying there like that with Sam so close by made her uncomfortable. She slid out, but that pushed her shirt up again and she had to grab it and pull it down. “Please,” she said as she sat up. “I don’t know whether to tighten it or loosen it or what to do.”

  He took the wrench from her and lay down on his back, putting his head and shoulders into the cabinet. Phyllis remained where she was, sitting on the kitchen floor beside him.

  “Carolyn looked a little disappointed when she came out of here,” Sam commented as he worked with the wrench.

  “She wanted me to enter a cooking contest she’s going to put on at that school carnival.”

  “Another contest, eh? You going to enter?”

  “No, I don’t think so. She’s doing a cake auction, too, and I think I’d rather do that.”

  “Well, I’m sure you’ll come up with something mighty fine.”

  “Oh, it doesn’t really matter. It’s just to raise money for the PTO.”

  “And braggin’ rights, I expect.”

  Rather than respond to that comment, Phyllis leaned over and looked under the sink. “Do you know what’s wrong with it?”

  “Might need a new washer… .” Sam tugged on the wrench. Something cracked, and suddenly water spurted out, splattering over his face. “Oh, shoot! Phyllis, cut the water off! Wait—never mind—I got it!” He twisted something on one of the pipes, and the water slowed to a trickle, then stopped entirely.

  “What a mess,” Phyllis said as Sam scooted out from inside the wet cabinet.

  “Sorry.” He raked dripping hair out of his eyes. “I’ll get a towel and mop it all up. I’m afraid plumbing’s just not my strong suit.”

  “Don’t worry about it. I should have called somebody to take care of it to start with.”

  “I’ll pay for a plumber. I’m the one who cracked that pipe.”

  “Oh, no, you were just trying to help. It’s my responsibility.”

  “I insist—”

  Eve walked into the kitchen at that moment and stood there for a couple of seconds looking at them as they sat side by side on the floor, both splattered with water, Sam’s head soaked.

  “My,” Eve said coolly, “what have you two been doing?”

  Without waiting for an answer, she turned and walked out of the kitchen.

  The level of awkwardness in the room immediately rose. It shouldn’t have, Phyllis told herself. It wasn’t as if Eve had walked in and found them rolling around on the floor in each other’s arms or anything like that. Phyllis liked Sam and enjoyed his company, and she knew the feeling was mutual, but that was all there was to it. Both of them were too … mature … to be thinking about anything else.

  “I’ll get that towel,” Sam said as he climbed to his feet. He paused to extend a hand to Phyllis. “Let me help you up.”

  “I’m fine, thanks.” She grabbed the cabinet and pulled herself up as she had before. She didn’t meet Sam’s eyes, and she noticed that he wasn’t making an effort to look at her, either. She wasn’t sure whether she ought to feel relieved or disappointed about that.

  Relieved, she decided. Definitely relieved.

  Chapter 3

  As soon as she got a chance to do so in private, Phyllis found the magazine where she had seen the idea for a fancy decorated jack-o’-lantern cake. It started with two Bundt cakes— white, chocolate, or even pumpkin spice—with the flat sides layered together. Then it was covered with orange frosting to make the cake resemble a pumpkin. Chocolate frosting was then used to form the mouth, nose, and eyes of the jacko’-lantern. The illustration in the magazine showed an icecream cone in the middle for the stem, but Phyllis thought it might be cute to frost a cupcake green for the stem. It didn’t appear to be a project that would be terribly difficult to do, and yet the finished product had a striking appearance. Even though school carnivals weren’t allowed to be called Halloween carnivals anymore, the one at Loving Elementary was going to take place only a few days before that spooky holiday. The jack-o’-lantern cake would tie in perfectly. Surely someone would be having a Halloween party and would think a pumpkin cake was perfect for it. That would increase the chances of bids. The more Phyllis thought about it, the more she was convinced that was what she wanted to make. She told herself she would go to the store the next day and get the ingredients. She would have to practice. Like most things in life, any baking project was a process of trial and error, something that beginning cooks sometimes didn’t understand. You couldn’t expect everything to turn out right the first time.

  But she couldn’t cook much until the water was back on in the kitchen, so instead the next day was spent dealing with a plumber who replaced the cracked pipe and the worn-out washer that had caused the problem in the first place.

  Eve was still acting rather cool toward her and Sam. During the months Sam had lived here, Eve had flirted with him every chance she got, and while Sam had certainly been polite and friendly toward her, he hadn’t responded in any other way—at least not as far as Phyllis knew. Maybe Eve was getting tired of having her advances go unreturned. Maybe she had read more into the situation in the kitchen than had really been there. Phyllis didn’t know about that, but she sensed that saying anything about it to Eve might do more harm than good. It would be better to leave the situation alone and let it blow over in its own good time.

  Or as her father probably would have put it, Don’t poke that bear with a stick.

  That evening the phone rang, and when Phyllis answered it, Marie Tyler was on the other end. She asked to speak to Carolyn, who talked to her for several minutes before hanging up. Carolyn turned to Phyllis and said, “That was Marie. They’re having a planning meeting for the carnival at the school tomorrow, and she wants us to come.”

  Phyllis frowned. “Us?”

  “Actually, she just asked me to attend, but I wish you’d come, too, Phyllis. When we were teaching, you were always better at dealing with parents than I was.”

  Phyllis made an effort to keep her eyebrows from going up in surprise. It wasn’t like Carolyn to admit that anybody was be
tter than her at anything. Something had to be bothering her. Phyllis thought about asking her what it was, but she knew Carolyn would tell without asking if she wanted Phyllis to know what was bothering her. Instead, Phyllis said, “I suppose I could go along.”

  “Thank you.” Carolyn hesitated. “To tell you the truth, after all the stories I’ve heard about Shannon Dunston …” Her voice trailed off and she shook her head. “I just thought it might be a good idea to have some moral support there.”

  Phyllis remembered the comments Marie had made about Shannon when they were talking at WalMart. “How did someone people don’t seem to like very much wind up getting elected president of the PTO?”

  “No one else wanted the job, I imagine. You know how hard it is now just getting people to serve on the board, let alone as officers.”

  Phyllis nodded. She was sure Carolyn was right. More families had both parents working than they did a few years earlier. She imagined it would be hard to take off work for the things the PTO did at the schools all through the year. Bosses probably wouldn’t understand losing their employees to Santa’s Workshop or the Spring Book Fair.

  The next morning they took Phyllis’s car and drove out to Loving Elementary. Weatherford had grown so much, with housing developments sprawling all around the previously undeveloped outer edges of the city, that several new elementary schools had been built in recent years to relieve the overcrowded classrooms in the old ones. The new schools were located a short distance out of town, close to where the students actually lived. This was a fairly new way of doing things. When Phyllis had first started teaching, more than forty years earlier, schools had always been built in a central location, and students who lived in outlying areas were forced to come to them, rather than the other way around.

  Oliver Loving Elementary School was on a farm-tomarket road off the old Fort Worth highway. It was built in the shape of a large T. The hallways where the classrooms were located ran to the right and left from the lobby at the front entrance. Straight ahead was another hallway with the gym on one side and the office, the library, and the cafeteria on the other. In front of the school was a small parking lot, with a larger lot off to one side where the bus lane was located.