Erskine didn’t say anything now. He just stared down sullenly at the ground. Phyllis had a hunch he wouldn’t say anything, but rather as soon as possible would get lawyered up.
A car drove fast down the street and stopped with a squeal of tires. Joel Dunston jumped out of the vehicle, obviously upset and frightened by the sight of so many official cars parked in front of his house.
“What’s going on here?” he demanded. “What is all this?”
Behind him, Becca and Kirk got out of the car more slowly. Phyllis watched Kirk, saw him go stiff with fear at the sight of Lane Erskine in handcuffs.
“You’re Dunston, aren’t you?” the sheriff said to Joel. “It looks like the prisoner here had some stolen property stashed in your backyard shed. He was trying to move it while you were gone.”
Mike added, “There’s also a good chance that he’s the one who murdered your ex-wife.”
Joel stared at Erskine for a second, then turned to look at Kirk. “Did you know anything about this?”
Kirk had gone pale at Mike’s accusation of Erskine. He came up the driveway, shaking his head. “I didn’t,” he said hollowly. “I swear I didn’t.”
“He’s a damned liar!” Erskine burst out. “He knew the stuff was back there. He helped me steal it. We got in the school with a key that he had!”
Breath hissed between Kirk’s teeth. “You killed my mother, man? You killed my mother?”
Mike grabbed him as he leaped at Erskine, his hands outstretched and reaching for the prisoner’s throat. As Mike and another deputy wrestled him to the ground, Kirk sobbed, “You bastard! You bastard! You didn’t have to do that! I told you I could handle her!”
“Like you did a few years ago when she almost got both of us sent to jail? You’re a wimp, Warren. You’ve always been a wimp.”
“Save it all for your official statements,” Haney told them. He pointed at Kirk. “Put him in cuffs, too. We’re taking both of them in.” He looked at Joel and added, “Sorry, Mr. Dunston.”
Joel just stood there, an arm around Becca’s shoulders. He looked so stunned that he was barely able to comprehend what was going on. It had been one shock after another for him, for a good while now. Phyllis didn’t blame him for feeling overwhelmed.
Mike stepped up beside her and said quietly, “You and Sam will have to come in, too, Mom, so we can get statements from the two of you. You’ll need to run through the whole thing for us.”
She nodded. “Whatever I can do to help.”
“Looks to me like you already did more than help,” Sam said. “You solved the whole darn case.”
Yes, Phyllis thought, the truth had come out.
But as usual, the truth was less than completely satisfying.
“I don’t know if you want this anymore,” Mike said that evening as he handed a big plastic cake box to Phyllis. Inside the box was the jack-o’-lantern cake from the carnival. “It’s been sitting in the evidence room at the sheriff’s department for the past few days,” Mike went on. “It’s probably a little stale by now.”
“Thanks for bringing it back. It should still be all right.” Phyllis backed away from the front door. “Can you come in and sit down for a few minutes?”
Mike took off his hat as he stepped into the house. “Yeah, I figured you and Mr. Fletcher would want to hear how everything turned out.”
“The others are in the living room. I’ll put this cake in the kitchen and be right back.”
When she returned to the living room, she found Mike and Sam sitting in armchairs while Carolyn and Eve were on the sofa. Phyllis took the other armchair and asked, “What else have you found out?”
“Kirk Warren’s been talking all day, spilling everything he knows,” Mike said. “That’s not much of a surprise. He wants to cut a deal with the DA, of course, and he probably will. But he’s confessed to getting his mother’s key to the school and making a copy of it so that he and Erskine could burglarize the place. He said they still had the loot because the fence that Erskine usually used got busted a while back, and they were having trouble finding somebody else to take the stuff off their hands.” Mike shook his head. “They really weren’t very good criminals. If they hadn’t gotten caught this time, they would have sooner or later.”
“What about Shannon’s murder?” Phyllis asked.
“According to Kirk, she found the key he had, recognized
it, and figured out that he and Erskine were responsible for the burglary. She wanted Kirk to turn himself in and testify against Erskine, just like you thought, Mom. Kirk was dumb enough to tell Erskine that his mother was on to them, and Erskine threatened to kill her then and there. But Kirk talked him out of it and promised Erskine that he could handle the problem. I guess Erskine didn’t trust him, though. When he saw a chance to get rid of Mrs. Dunston, he took it.”
Sam asked, “Are you gonna be able to prove that?”
“We’ve got Kirk’s testimony that Erskine threatened to kill her, as well as the stolen property,” Mike said, “and our crime scene people recovered some tissue from under Mrs. Dunston’s fingernails that must have gotten there when she clawed at the killer as she was dying. I’m betting Erskine will be a DNA match for that tissue, and that ought to be all we need to tie him up nice and tight.”
“Goodness, I hope so,” Eve said. “It’s terrible to think that people like that are running around loose.”
“What about Nicole?” Phyllis asked.
“Who?”
“Lane Erskine’s daughter.”
Mike made a face. “Oh, yeah. He had shared custody with the mother, who’s been in and out of jail several times for possession and solicitation. What a pair to have for parents. Anyway, I think Child Protective Services will probably try to place her in foster care. The mother doesn’t need to have sole custody, that’s for sure, and there’s a real good chance Erskine won’t be out of jail any time soon, if ever.”
“I hope it all works out,” Phyllis said with a sigh. “The poor child certainly wasn’t to blame for any of it.”
Carolyn asked, “What about the money that was stolen from the PTO? Was any of it recovered?”
“Most of it was still in the cash box,” Mike replied. “So that’s one good thing that came out of this, anyway.”
“That’s right,” Carolyn said. “Now they won’t have to
have a bake sale or something to try to make up for what they lost!”
It was late when Sam came into the kitchen as Phyllis was closing the refrigerator. She had just poured herself a small glass of milk. The house was quiet, Carolyn and Eve having already turned in for the night.
Sam wore pajamas and a bathrobe, as did Phyllis. He smiled at the glass of milk in her hand and said, “Ah. Great minds work alike.”
“You’re thirsty, too?”
“A little.” He got a glass from the cabinet and opened the refrigerator. “I’m more of an orange juice man, myself, though.”
When he had poured his juice they stood there, leaning against the counter on either side of the sink and sipping from their glasses. After a moment he asked, “What are you gonna do about Marie Tyler?”
“I thought you had something on your mind,” Phyllis said. “Do you mean, am I going to tell her about Russ and Shannon?”
“Yep.”
Phyllis didn’t answer for a moment. Then she said, “I don’t think so. What would be the point?”
“Might save Marie from some trouble down the road. I don’t have too high an opinion of her husband.”
Phyllis finished her milk, washed the glass, and put it in the drainer next to the sink. “Neither do I, but she probably knows him a lot better than we do. Maybe he’ll keep that wandering eye of his under control from now on.”
Sam didn’t look convinced of that, but he nodded. “I guess folks have enough trouble making a go of life these days without lookin’ for problems.” He drank the rest of his orange juice, turned to the sink to wash out the glass, and p
ut it in the drainer next to hers. That brought him close enough to her so that he could reach over to where she had a hand resting on the counter. He laid his hand on top of hers, but left it there only for a second before he patted it and said, “Good night, Phyllis.”
“Good night, Sam,” she said. He smiled at her and left the kitchen. She heard the stairs creaking a little as he climbed them. The autumn wind brushed a branch against a window somewhere.
She was smiling, too, as she turned out the light.
PeanutButter-andBanana Cookies
1
⁄4 cup sugar
1
⁄2 teaspoon baking powder 1
⁄4 cup firmly packed
1
⁄2 teaspoon baking soda
brown sugar 1 cup quick-cooking oats 1
⁄2 cup margarine or butter,
softened 1 egg 1 medium banana, mashed 1 cup all purpose flour
1
⁄2 cup peanut butter 1
⁄3 cup applesauce
Preheat oven to 375° F. In a large bowl, combine the sugar, brown sugar, margarine, and egg; beat well. Add the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt; mix well. Stir in the oats, peanut butter, applesauce, and mashed banana. Drop the dough by heaping teaspoonfuls 2 inches apart onto cookie sheets covered with parchment paper, or lightly greased. Bake for 12 to 14 minutes or until light golden brown. Remove from cookie sheets and cool completely.
Carolyn’s Low-Fat Pizza Rolls
1 package Pillsbury 2 tablespoons grated
low-fat croissants parmesan cheese 4 tablespoons pizza sauce 4 tablespoons diced 4 tablespoons grated turkey pepperoni
mozzarella cheese
Preheat oven to 375° F. Carefully open and unroll the croissant dough until you have a rectangle. Be careful not to separate the dough at the perforations. If it does separate, just pinch it back together. Spread the pizza sauce evenly over the dough; then sprinkle the cheeses and pepperoni on the sauce. Reroll the dough like it was before. Cut the roll into 8 even slices. Lay the slices about 2 inches apart on a lightly greased cookie sheet. Bake for 18 to 20 minutes or until light golden brown. Remove from cookie sheet and serve warm.
Jack-O’-Lantern Cake
3 cups granulated sugar 2 tablespoons baking powder 11⁄2 cups butter 1
6 eggs 2 drops red food coloring 2 tablespoons vanilla extract 4 drops yellow food coloring 41⁄2 cups all-purpose flour
1⁄2 cups milk
Preheat oven to 350° F for metal or glass pans, 325° F for dark or coated pans. Grease and flour 2 12-cup Bundt pans and 1 individual muffin tin. In a large bowl, cream the sugar and butter; then beat in the eggs one at a time. Stir in the vanilla. In a medium bowl, combine flour and baking powder, then add to the creamed mixture and blend well. Add the milk and food coloring, mixing until batter is smooth and a light creamy orange. Fill the 2 muffin tins 2⁄3 full. Split the rest of the mixture between the 2 Bundt pans. Bake muffins for 12–18 minutes and the Bundt cakes 35–40 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Cool completely.
Orange and Green Frosting
8 cups powdered sugar 2 teaspoons vanilla extract 1 cup (2 sticks) softened 8 drops red food coloring
butter or margarine 16 drops yellow food coloring 1 cup shortening 6 drops green food coloring 1
⁄4 cup milk
In a large bowl, beat the powdered sugar, butter, and shortening at low speed until blended. Beat in the milk and vanilla on medium speed until smooth. If necessary, stir in the milk a few drops at a time. Remove and reserve 1⁄3 cup of the frosting. Add red and yellow food coloring to the remaining frosting; blend well to make orange frosting. To make pumpkin shape, place 1 cake, rounded side down, on a serving plate. If necessary, before assembling, trim cakes to form flat surfaces. Spread the top with some of the orange frosting. Place second cake, rounded side up, on top of first cake. Frost cakes with orange frosting. Add green food coloring to the reserved frosting. Blend green frosting well. Frost the bottom of the cupcake and position on top, forming the stem of the pumpkin.
Chocolate Frosting for Face
1 square (1 ounce) 1 cup powdered sugar
unsweetened chocolate, 1–2 tablespoons boiling
chopped water
1 teaspoon butter or
margarine
Heat the chocolate and butter in a small saucepan over low heat until melted, stirring constantly. Blend in powdered sugar and 1 tablespoon water. Beat until smooth. Add additional water, a teaspoon at a time until it’s the proper spreading consistency. Cool until less than body temperature while planning face details. Use a toothpick to make light indentions into the orange frosting to sketch out the face. Fill a plain-tipped pastry bag with the frosting. Create your own unique jack-o’-lantern face with the chocolate frosting.
Carolyn’s Giant Hostess Cupcake
2 dark chocolate 1 jar (7 ounces) cake mixes marshmallow creme
Preheat oven to 350° F for metal or glass pans, 325° F for dark or coated pans. Grease the sides and bottom of a 10inch angel food cake pan and a 10-inch springform pan. Prepare cake mixes using instructions on backs of boxes. After beating the batter, pour ⁄ of the batter into the angel food 4 cake pan. Pour the remaining ⁄ into the springform pan. 4 Bake cake in springform pan 15 minutes. Cake is done when a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Bake cake in angel food cake pan for 45–50 minutes. Again check with toothpick. (Dark or coated pans may take 3–5 minutes longer.) Cool in pan on wire rack for 15 minutes. Cool completely before frosting.
Trim tops of both cakes to make completely flat surfaces. Place cake from angel food cake pan on plate with trimmed top up. Fill the center hole with marshmallow creme. Use some of the excess creme to ice the top, being careful to not get too close to the edge. The layers should stick together, but you don’t want to be able to see any of the creme once the top layer is on. The cake from the springform pan goes on top, bottom up. This should be a thin layer to give a good, flat surface for the icing and to cover the marshmallow creme.
Ganache Chocolate Icing
4 squares (4 ounces) semisweet chocolate, chopped 1
⁄2 cup whipping cream
1
⁄4 cup powdered sugar
Place the chopped chocolate in a medium bowl. In a small saucepan, bring whipping cream to a boil. Pour the cream into chocolate and stir until chocolate is completely melted. Let frosting cool until it doesn’t feel warm to the touch. Pour icing on top of cake, covering the top completely and letting it run off the edges. Spread some along the edges, covering where the small top layer joins the main cake. If too much icing has drizzled onto the edges of the cake, just wipe off the excess with a paper towel. You want the icing just along the top like a Hostess cupcake. Put the cake in the refrigerator until the icing is firm.
White Icing
1
⁄3 cup powdered sugar 1 teaspoon milk
Mix powdered sugar and milk in a small bowl until smooth. Add drops of milk if needed to get the right consistency. Fill a plain-tipped pastry bag with the white frosting and decorate with a squiggle across the top of the cake.
Note: Freeze leftover cake trimmed from the top of cakes to use later, crumbled on ice cream or pudding.
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