“How do you figure that?”
“Well, who else would have had any reason to hurt her? She was just a harmless old woman. And with her hip trouble, she could barely get around, even with her walker.”
“Which means a burglar wouldn’t have had any reason to kill her,” Phyllis said.
They all looked at her.
“Think about it,” Phyllis continued. “Agnes was no physical threat to anybody. She couldn’t go running out of the house and scream for the police. All a burglar would have to do was make sure she couldn’t get to a phone. He could have tied her up easily and gone right on about his business without any interference.”
“But if she saw him,” Mike pointed out, “she might have been able to identify him later. Some criminals are pretty callous about not leaving any witnesses behind, I’m sorry to say.”
“Well, that’s true,” Phyllis admitted. “The killer might have been a burglar. But he doesn’t have to have been.”
“Sounds to me like you’re thinkin’ a little too hard about it,” Sam said. “The police’ll find the fella, whoever he is. There’ll be some fingerprints or some other sort of evidence that leads ’em to him. You don’t have to worry about figurin’ this one out, Phyllis.”
Mike nodded. “Sam’s right, Mom. No need for you to even think about it.”
She looked back and forth between them and said with an exasperated frown, “For goodness’ sake, you two are acting like I go out looking for murders to solve. I’d just as soon never be involved in another murder again.”
“That sounds good to me,” Sam said. “Huntin’ killers is best left to the professionals.”
“You’re a fine one to talk,” Phyllis said. “You were the one who nearly got a knife stuck in you not that long ago, not me.”
But, of course, that incident had occurred while Sam was trying to keep someone whom she had identified as a killer from getting away, Phyllis reminded herself. So maybe her argument wasn’t that strong after all.
“Anyway,” she went on, “I’m in the hospital. I don’t think I can do much investigating from here, now, can I?”
A few minutes later, the nurse came back in and insisted that everyone except Mike leave. “We’ll go sit out in the waitin’ room,” Sam said.
“No, go on home,” Phyllis said firmly. “There’s no point in any of you wasting your time sitting around here. If I need you to do anything, I’ll let you know.”
“Are you sure?” Carolyn asked.
“I’m certain.”
“Well, then . . . all right. I don’t think you’ll be here very long, anyway.”
“Just overnight, probably,” Eve said. She linked arms with Sam. “Come along, dear. Hospitals give me the willies.”
She started to lead him out, but Sam reached back and patted one of Phyllis’s feet through the sheet, even though he looked a little embarrassed about doing it. It was a simple gesture, but it made Phyllis feel better.
The visitors hadn’t been gone long when Dr. Walt Lee came in. Walt was Phyllis’s family doctor, and she hadn’t really expected to see him. When she said as much, he smiled and replied, “When one of my patients shows up at the ER with a goose egg on her head and bad knees, they know to call me. I’ve checked the X-rays and your MRI results, and I don’t see anything to be worried about.”
Mike blew out his breath in a sigh of relief.
“Your knees are bruised, so don’t try running any races for the next few days,” Walt went on. He took a little flashlight from his pocket and shone it in her eyes, making her wince a little. “Possible slight concussion, but again, take it easy for a few days, and you’ll be fine. There’s no skull fracture and no bleeding in the brain, at least not that I can see. I want to run the X-rays and MRI past a radiologist and neurologist, just to be sure, but I’m confident they’ll agree with me. It helps that you’re as healthy as a horse to start with, Phyllis.”
“Thanks . . . I think. So, when can I get out of here?”
Walt replaced the light in his pocket, took out a pen instead, and scribbled instructions on her chart. “Tomorrow,” he said. “That’ll be plenty soon enough. I want you to stay here tonight where they can keep an eye on you.” He hung the chart back on the end of the bed and shook his head. “That was terrible about Agnes Simmons. She wasn’t one of my patients, but I’d seen her here in the hospital after she broke her hip. Do the police have any idea who killed her?”
“We don’t know,” Mike answered. “They didn’t when we left in the ambulance.”
“Oh, well.” Walt smiled again. “I’m sure they’ll find the killer. And if they don’t . . .” He looked at her and raised his eyebrows meaningfully.
“Good grief,” Phyllis said. “Not you, too.”
Chapter 4
Because of the risk of concussion, the nurses didn’t want Phyllis to go to sleep for a while. So Mike stayed there talking to her, long enough that she started to worry.
“Weren’t you working today?” she asked. “That was why you couldn’t come to the cookie exchange, you said.”
“Yeah, I was on duty,” he admitted, “but after I heard the emergency calls on the radio and recognized the address, I called in to the dispatcher to let her know what was going on. Sheriff Haney himself called back while I was on my way across town and told me not to worry about finishing my shift if you were hurt. He was going to send somebody to your house to pick up the cruiser.”
“Then, how will you get home?”
Mike thought it over and said, “Well, I guess I ought to call Sarah. She can come and get me and take me back to the sheriff’s department so I can get my car.”
“She doesn’t know what happened yet?”
Mike shook his head. “I guess not. Not unless somebody else called her, like Miz Wilbarger or Miz Turner.”
Phyllis and her daughter-in-law had a close relationship. How could she not love Sarah when Sarah so obviously made Mike happy? And Sarah had given Phyllis her first and so far only grandchild, the adorable toddler Bobby.
“You’d better call her now,” Phyllis advised her son. “She’s not going to be happy that you didn’t let her know what’s going on.”
“You’re probably right about that,” Mike admitted as he took his cell phone from his pocket. After a moment of fiddling with it, he made a face. “No signal in here. I’ll have to walk down the hall to get through to her. You’ll stay awake, won’t you? The nurses said it was important that you not go to sleep just yet.”
“Well, I don’t see why not, but I guess I’ll do what they say. You go ahead and make your call.”
Mike nodded and left the room. Phyllis sighed and leaned back against the pillows propped behind her, getting comfortable . . . but not too comfortable. She didn’t want to do anything to make her condition worse.
Despite that resolve, she felt her eyelids getting heavy and blinked several times, fighting the lassitude that was trying to steal over her. She was grateful when she heard the door of the room swing open. Either Mike was back already, or someone else had come to visit her.
A man’s voice said, “Knock-knock. Are you awake, Phyllis?”
A handsome, dark-haired man around forty put his head around the corner of the short hallway that led from the door past the closet and bathroom to the room itself. She smiled as she recognized him and said, “Come in, Brother Dwight. It’s good to see you.”
Dwight Gresham was the pastor of the local Baptist church Phyllis attended, just a few blocks from her house. He returned her smile as he stepped over to the bed and took her right hand in both of his.
“I heard about what happened. Are you all right?”
“Oh, I’m fine,” she said. “Just a bump on my noggin, basically. Nothing to worry about.”
“I don’t know about that,” the preacher said, growing more serious. “A head injury is nothing to mess around with.”
“Well, they’re being careful with me here; you can count on that.”
“Just overnight, according to Dr. Lee. For observation, you know.”
Dwight nodded. “I was here calling on some of the other folks from church who’re in the hospital, and when I heard you’d been admitted, I knew I had to come see you. What happened?”
Phyllis gestured toward the chairs and said, “Sit down and I’ll tell you all about it.” She was grateful to have somebody here to occupy her mind and keep her awake until Mike got back.
For the next few minutes, Phyllis gave him the details of the afternoon’s events. Dwight shook his head and muttered, “Dear Lord in Heaven,” several times during the story. “Poor Agnes,” he said when Phyllis was finished. “I know she hadn’t been to church lately because of her health issues, but she was still a faithful member. I took the videotapes of the services and dropped them off at her house on a pretty regular basis.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“Oh, yes, we have a homebound ministry, if you ever need to take advantage of it,” Dwight said. “In fact, given your current situation—”
“My current situation is that I’m going to be just fine,” Phyllis said. “Don’t worry, Dwight; I’ll be there in church next Sunday morning, as usual. I don’t think I’ll get out of here in time tomorrow to make it.”
He laughed. “All right. I know it’ll take a lot to keep you from attending services. But being hit on the head might do it.” He grew more serious again. “You didn’t see the man who hit you?”
“No, not at all.” Phyllis didn’t say anything about that glimpse of the heel of a man’s shoe, since she still wasn’t completely sure she hadn’t imagined it.
“Well, I hope they catch him, whoever he was.” Dwight sighed and shook his head. “I know it’s not very Christian of me, but when I think about how that man killed Agnes and tried to kill you . . . Well, I know the Lord says that vengeance is his, but I wouldn’t mind being the instrument of that vengeance, maybe.”
“Oh, goodness, don’t say that! I’m sure the police will find him.”
Phyllis wasn’t really certain, however. She hadn’t been able to give them much to go on, and if the killer hadn’t left any physical evidence at the crime scene, there was a chance that he would get away with it.
Mike came in a moment later and looked a little surprised to find the preacher there. “Hello, Dwight,” he said as they shook hands. “Word’s already gotten to the church about what happened?”
“I don’t know; I was here at the hospital already, visiting some other patients, when I heard about your mother being admitted.”
Mike nodded. “Appreciate you stopping by.”
“I was glad to. Why don’t we have a word of prayer before I go?”
Phyllis and Mike bowed their heads, and Dwight said, “Lord, we ask that you watch over Phyllis and guide the doctors and nurses in caring for her and restoring her to health, and we ask as well that you show mercy on the soul of Agnes Simmons and welcome her into your kingdom. Thank you for all the blessings you have bestowed upon us. We ask these things in Jesus’s name . . . amen.”
“Amen,” Mike murmured.
Dwight took Phyllis’s hand again and said, “If there’s anything at all I can do for you . . .”
“I’m fine, Dwight, but thank you.”
He smiled, nodded, and lifted a hand in farewell to Mike. “See you later,” he said as he went out.
“Did you get hold of Sarah?” Phyllis asked her son.
Mike nodded. “Yeah, she’s coming right over.” He chuckled and added, “You were right; she wasn’t very happy that I didn’t call her until now. She said she would have been here sooner if she’d known.”
“There wasn’t any need for that. I swear, I don’t know why everybody’s making such a fuss over me.”
“Well, it could be because we love you.”
“Oh, go on with you,” Phyllis said.
But inside, a nice warm feeling went through her. It was good to know that people cared. Sometimes life got so busy that nobody had time anymore to say things like that. You might know it anyway . . . but it was good to hear it, too.
She wondered how long it had been since somebody from Agnes Simmons’s family had said, “I love you,” to her. Phyllis hoped that it hadn’t been too long. . . .
Now they’d never get that chance again.
Rather than bringing Bobby to the hospital, Sarah had left him with their friends next door, the parents of a toddler who often shared playdates with him. Mike wasn’t surprised that Sarah was still a little cool toward him when she came into his mother’s room. She visited with Phyllis for a while, asked if there was anything she could do to help, and promised to come back early the next morning so that she could help when Phyllis was released and ready to go home.
“You two go on now. I’ll be fine,” Phyllis told them. “Goodness, it must be past suppertime already. You need to go eat.”
“What about you?” Mike asked.
“I’m sure they’ll bring me something.”
He made a face. “Hospital food.”
“Oh, it’s not that bad. Of course, it’s not like my own cooking. . . .”
Mike was reluctant to leave, but when she threatened to get up from the bed and shoo him out, he finally agreed to go. As they left the room and started down the hall, he took Sarah’s hand.
“I’m still a little put out with you,” she said. “I can’t believe you didn’t think to call me sooner.” Her voice softened as she went on, “But you must’ve been really scared, huh?”
“Yeah,” he said. “I didn’t know what was going on at first, only that my mom had been hurt somehow. And then after I got to the house, everything was kind of hectic. It was the same way here, what with all the tests they were doing. . . . Anyway, I’m sorry.”
“Apology accepted.” As they reached the parking lot, Sarah went on, “Bobby’s all right where he is for a while. You want to stop and get something to eat, like your mom said?”
“Sure. But I want to make a stop somewhere else first.”
Sarah looked over at him. “And where would that be?”
“The police station. I want to see if Chief Whitmire’s found out anything yet about the killer.”
Sarah hesitated for a second and then nodded, as if she knew it wasn’t going to do any good to argue with Mike right now.
The headquarters of the Weatherford Police Department was on the opposite side of the street that ran by the hospital, just a few blocks away. It took Mike and Sarah only a couple of minutes to get there. When they went inside and he asked at the main desk for Chief Whitmire, the officer on duty said, “The chief ’s gone home. What did you want to see him about, Deputy?”
Mike was still wearing his uniform, of course. Sarah was in jeans and a denim jacket, with her blond hair pulled back in a ponytail, looking more like a teenager than a mom in her middle twenties.
Mike explained about his connection with the Simmons case, and said, “I was just hoping that the chief could tell me if the investigation has turned up anything yet.”
“Detective Largo is in charge of that case. She’s here.” The officer picked up a phone, talked on it for a moment, then said to Mike, “She’ll be right out.”
Mike nodded his thanks, then walked over to some chairs with Sarah. They didn’t sit down, just stood there waiting. Sarah asked, “Do you know this Detective Largo?”
Mike shook his head. “Nope. But the PD’s grown so much, I don’t know all the officers anymore. Shoot, I don’t hardly know all the deputies these days.”
“The curse of progress.”
“Tell me about it.”
A Hispanic woman with short dark hair came through a door into the lobby of the police department. She looked at Mike and asked, “Deputy Newsom? I’m Isabel Largo.”
Mike shook hands with her and introduced Sarah. Mike said, “I was hoping you could tell me something ab
out the investigation into the murder of Agnes Simmons and the attack on my mother.”
Largo frowned. “I’m fairly new to the department, Deputy, so I’m not sure about the protocol here. I know that Chief Whitmire and Sheriff Haney like to cooperate, but you have no official standing in this case. You’re just a relative of one of the victims, as far as the police department is concerned.”
Mike kept a tight rein on his temper. “I appreciate that, Detective, but I’m not trying to poach your case for the sheriff’s department.”
After a moment of considering the matter, Largo nodded. “Come on back. Both of you,” she added with a smile for Sarah.
She took them down a hallway and into a cramped office with a single window that looked out on the brush-choked creek running behind the police department building. Not much was visible, though, since a thick December dusk had settled over Weatherford.
Largo nodded Mike and Sarah into straight-backed metal chairs in front of the paper-cluttered desk. The only personal touch in the office was a small photo cube on top of a filing cabinet. It was turned so that the only picture Mike could see was of a grinning, round-cheeked baby.
Largo sat down and opened a file folder that was already on the desk. “We’re still waiting on the report from Crime Scene,” she said, “so all we’ve got so far are the interviews from the canvass. We talked to everyone who was at your mother’s house for that Christmas party—”
“It was a cookie exchange,” Mike said. “Not really a party.”
“People milling around, talking, eating cookies, and drinking punch . . . sounds like a party to me,” Largo said. “Not a very exciting one, mind you, but still . . . Anyway, we interviewed them and everyone else we could find at home for a couple of blocks either way. Some of them didn’t even know Mrs. Simmons. The ones who did told us that she was just a harmless old lady and couldn’t imagine why anybody would want to hurt her.”
“Did anybody who wasn’t at my mother’s house see anything suspicious going on in the neighborhood? Anybody sneaking around the Simmons house or something like that?”
The Christmas Cookie Killer Page 4