“Exactly,” Jada said. “Dwight’s made quite a study of it. He would have made an excellent psychologist or psychiatrist if he hadn’t been called to the ministry. But that’s very important work, too, don’t you think?”
“Of course,” Phyllis agreed. She knew how proud Jada was of her husband, and with good reason. No one was better liked or did more good than Dwight Gresham.
He proved that over the next hour by arranging to have Lois placed in one of the local alcohol and drug rehabilitation centers. Phyllis thought that it was a sign of how much things had changed in the world that not only was such a facility located in Weatherford, but there was more than one of them. She remembered a time when people didn’t need to go to rehab.
Actually, there were probably quite a few people who had needed it . . . but those treatments weren’t available back then. So those unfortunates had drunk themselves to death instead, or died as hopeless drug addicts. Phyllis was a firm believer in the idea that the so-called good old days really had been better in a lot of ways . . . but she had to admit that progress had been made in some areas, too.
When the ambulance carrying Lois pulled out of the driveway and Blake followed it in his car, Phyllis stood for a moment on the front porch of the Horton house with Sam, Carolyn, Eve, Dwight, and Jada. Vickie Kimbrough hadn’t returned, but Phyllis thought she might have watched the ambulance leave from inside her house. Monte’s car still wasn’t in the driveway. He had missed all the excitement.
Phyllis almost wished that she had.
“I guess we’d better be going,” Dwight said. “I’ll stay in touch with the doctors at the treatment facility and go see Lois when she’s up to having visitors.”
Jada smiled and nodded. “Good night, everyone.”
When the preacher and his wife were gone, Carolyn said, “I hope you know that supper will be ruined by now.”
“We’ll throw it out,” Phyllis said. “There’s a pizza in the freezer that we can heat up.”
“Frozen, store-bought pizza,” Carolyn said. “Nothing says Christmas quite like that.”
Phyllis suppressed the urge to snap at her, knowing that it wouldn’t do any good. Carolyn really wasn’t as unsympathetic as she sometimes sounded. She just didn’t suffer fools gladly.
Lois Horton certainly fit into that category. Phyllis happened to be of the opinion that both alcoholism and depression should be considered diseases, but at the same time, plenty of people had been known to conquer those two demons. A person couldn’t give up and descend into near madness, the way Lois had done. You had to at least put up a fight.
But maybe she was being too judgmental, she told herself, never having had to deal with either of those plagues. She understood, though, why Carolyn lacked a great deal of patience with Lois. Phyllis felt sort of the same way herself.
Carolyn and Eve walked ahead as the four of them started back across the street. Phyllis found herself lingering behind, and Sam adjusted his pace to hers, although that couldn’t have been easy with his long legs. Phyllis turned her head and glanced at the shadowy area between the Horton house and the Kimbrough house. The glow from the neighborhood Christmas lights made it brighter than it would have been otherwise, but the shadows under the trees were still thick enough to hide something—or someone.
“Problem?” Sam asked.
Phyllis shook her head. “No, I suppose not. I was just thinking that a lot goes on in a neighborhood that you never see unless you’re looking for it.”
“I’d say you’re right about that. I’ve lived across the street from those folks for six months now, and I didn’t have any idea the lady was a drunk—and a violent one, at that.”
The way Lois had gone after Blake with that fireplace poker was another thing weighing on Phyllis’s mind. Lois had been at the cookie exchange and she hadn’t seemed to be drunk, but she’d probably had plenty of experience at covering up her condition. She could have slipped out, gone next door to Agnes’s house . . . Anyone who would try to crush her own husband’s skull with a poker was capable of choking an old woman to death, wasn’t she?
But why? Phyllis asked herself. What motive could Lois have possibly had for murdering Agnes Simmons? Maybe Agnes had found out about Lois’s drinking . . . but no one would kill somebody over that, would they?
Who knew what Lois was capable of when she was under the influence? Phyllis never would have dreamed that she would chase Blake around the room and try to kill him, yet obviously she had done just that.
Then there was the feeling Phyllis had about someone lurking between the houses, starting forward and then pulling back and disappearing. She didn’t know who that could have been . . . or, indeed, if anyone had actually been there. As nervous as she was these days, maybe she was seeing suspicious characters everywhere she looked—a potential murderer behind every door in the neighborhood.
That was no way to be. She shook off the feeling and linked her arm with Sam’s. “It was a terrible thing,” she said, “but it’s over. Now it’ll be up to Blake to take care of his wife.”
“I reckon he’ll be up to it,” Sam said. “When we were talkin’, I got the feelin’ that he really loves her. Folks will do ’most anything for somebody they love.”
“That’s true,” Phyllis said, and a thought that she didn’t particularly want leaped unbidden into her mind.
Some people will even kill for love.
Chapter 18
Christmas Eve morning dawned cloudy and considerably colder than it had been for the past few days. Phyllis had heard something on the news the night before about another cold front coming through, but she hadn’t really paid that much attention to the forecast.
Her thoughts had been too full of everything that had happened earlier in the day, from her discovery of Helen Johannson’s tragic and violent past, to the disturbing truth about Lois Horton being revealed, to the moment of possible paranoia on her part when she’d thought that she saw some mysterious figure lurking in the shadows. She’d been too concerned with all of that to worry too much about what the weather was going to be.
As the women sat at the table having breakfast, Sam ambled into the kitchen, looked out the window over the sink and studied the sky for a moment, and then sang in a deep voice, “Snooooooow,” just like Bing Crosby in White Christmas.
“It is not snowing,” Carolyn said.
Sam grinned at her. “No, but it looks like it might. Could be we’re gonna have a white Christmas after all.”
“I wouldn’t count on it,” Phyllis told him. “They’re rare around here.”
“I know that. I’ve lived in this area all my life, too. But it happens every now and then, and to me that sky looks like it’s got some snow in it.”
Carolyn snorted. “I’ll believe it when I see it.”
“I hope it does snow,” Eve said. “There’s nothing much more romantic than a nice soft snowfall on Christmas Eve.”
“You would think of it like that,” Carolyn told her.
“Somebody has to, dear. Otherwise there wouldn’t be any romance left in the world at all.”
“Yes, well, if that were true, the world might be a better place.”
Eve stared at her, aghast at the very idea. “Don’t even say such a thing,” she admonished Carolyn.
“Why not? Think about how much harm has been done in the world because of foolish romantic notions. What about the Trojan War? Even before that, and certainly ever since then, people have been fighting because of . . . of hormones! Either that or some misguided sense of honor that’s a close cousin to romance. And don’t get me started on all the murders that have been committed because of lust or jealousy or unrequited love. No, I think the world would be a much saner, safer place if romance would just go away.” She glared around defiantly at the other three and added, “Anyway, at our age it’s all a moot point, isn’t it?”
For a moment there was silence in the kitchen as none of the others rose to that challenge. Finally, Eve
said, “I’m not going to argue with you, dear . . . but you’re wrong.”
With that she rose and left the room.
Carolyn frowned and said, “I didn’t mean to make her mad. I’ve got a right to my opinion, don’t I?”
“Of course you do,” Phyllis said. “But that doesn’t mean the rest of us have to agree with it.”
“You don’t agree with me? After all the murders you’ve seen?”
Sam had heaped pancakes and bacon on a plate, and now as he poured himself a cup of coffee he said, “Seems to me we’re due for a change o’ subject here. I don’t know what sort of traditions you ladies have here, since this is my first Christmas in the house, but on Christmas Eve I’ve always liked to drive around and look at all the lights and decorations. Didn’t do it last year, but I think maybe I’d like to start again.”
Phyllis thought she knew why Sam had discontinued his holiday tradition. The previous Christmas had been only a few months after his wife had passed away, and obviously he hadn’t felt up to doing anything festive, especially something that he had been in the habit of doing with her.
“That sounds lovely,” Phyllis said. “Usually we just have a quiet evening at home on Christmas Eve, but it might be nice to go out and see all the lights. There seem to be a lot of them this year.”
“That does sound nice,” Carolyn agreed in a grudging tone. “Maybe Eve will be over her snit by then and want to come along, too.”
“I’m sure she would if you asked her to,” Phyllis said.
“Well . . . maybe later. After she’s had a chance to cool off.”
Phyllis let it go at that. Carolyn could think whatever she wanted to, but Phyllis refused to believe that the world would be better off without romance. She and Kenny had had their ups and downs, of course, the same as all couples did, but overall they’d had a long, happy marriage that Phyllis wouldn’t have traded for anything in the world. And even though Kenny had been gone for several years, she still missed him and occasionally still caught herself thinking that she was going to ask him about something or tell him some funny thing that had happened to her during the day. At first, moments like that had caused her pangs of grief and loss, but by now the pain had dulled and she realized all it meant was that she would carry his memory . . . would carry him . . . with her forever.
And that was all right. That was the way it should be.
At the same time, just because she would always love Kenny didn’t mean that there was no room in her heart for anyone else. The driving passion of youth might be gone, but there were even deeper longings that the young knew nothing about. She thought about a late-night moment she had shared with Sam Fletcher in this very kitchen a couple of months earlier, a simple moment when he had rested his hand on hers as they stood side by side at the counter. That touch, brief though it had been, had brought smiles to both of their faces, and a few times since then, when they were alone, his hand had squeezed her shoulder for a second or she had reached over and brushed her fingertips against his arm as they passed. Whatever was between them had grown slowly, and it might never progress any further than where it was right now . . . but it might, she realized, and for the first time she was willing to admit that to herself. She thought about how nice it would be to ride around with Sam, looking at Christmas lights, and a tiny shiver went through her, announcing its presence for the first time in . . . in . . . well, in she couldn’t remember when!
It felt good, too.
“And when we get back,” Carolyn was saying as Phyllis forced her thoughts to return to the kitchen, “we’ll watch our old tape of It’s a Wonderful Life, as usual.”
“Sounds mighty fine to me,” Sam agreed.
“Yes,” Phyllis said. “It certainly does.”
She hoped that nothing happened before tonight to ruin those plans.
Around the middle of the morning, the doorbell rang, and when Phyllis opened the door she found Blake Horton standing on the porch, his breath fogging in the cold air.
Phyllis opened the door and said, “Come in, Blake. I was wondering how you were doing this morning.”
Blake smiled a little as he came into the house and Phyllis closed the door. “You mean you were wondering how Lois is doing.”
“Well, that, too,” Phyllis said. “But I really was wondering about you, as well.”
“I’m fine—or as fine as I can get, anyway, under the circumstances. I thought you’d like to know that I saw Lois a little while ago, and she’s doing better.”
“Oh, I’m so glad to hear that. How long will she have to stay . . . where she is?”
“It’s all right to call it rehab. That makes it sound like she might have broken a hip or something.” Blake’s smile took on a pained look. “She begged me to get her out of there and take her home. She said she couldn’t spend Christmas locked up like that. But the doctors all agree that she still has a long way to go. She’ll probably be there until after New Year’s, at least.”
“I’m so sorry,” Phyllis told him, and meant it.
“So am I, but I keep telling myself it’s for the best. If I can get her back, healthy and happy, that’s the best Christmas present I could ever hope for, even if it’s after Christmas by the time I get it.”
“We’ll be praying for Lois . . . for both of you.”
Blake took a deep breath. “That’s another reason I came over here, to ask if you’d pass along my appreciation to Dwight Gresham. You know that Lois and I have never been, ah, very faithful about going to church. But Dwight was right there to help us, anyway, when we needed him.” Blake reached inside his coat and took out an envelope. “Could you give this to him? It’s a check.”
Phyllis hesitated. “I’m sure Dwight doesn’t expect any sort of payment. . . .”
“It’s an offering. For the church. I figured he could put the money to good use.”
“Oh. Oh, of course.” Phyllis took the envelope. “I’ll see that he gets it.”
Blake smiled and nodded. “Thanks. I’d drop it off there myself, but I’m going to stay with my brother and his family up in Gainesville until after the holiday. The doctors said I couldn’t see Lois again until sometime next week.”
“That’s going to be hard for both of you.”
“Yeah, but I keep telling myself it’ll all be worth it.”
“I’m sure it will,” Phyllis said.
Blake said his good-byes and left. Phyllis laid the envelope with the check in it on the hall table, thinking that she probably wouldn’t get to the church to give it to Dwight until sometime early the next week. That would be soon enough, she thought.
Less than an hour later, the doorbell rang again. They were getting plenty of visitors today, Phyllis told herself as she went to answer it. This time the man standing on the porch when she opened the door turned out to be the burly Frank Simmons.
“Just wanted you to know that we’re all leaving, Mrs. Newsom,” Frank said after Phyllis had invited him in and taken him into the living room. “Of course, you probably would have figured that out when you saw that all the cars were gone from next door.”
“You’re not staying until after Christmas?”
Frank’s smile was sad. “Well . . . there’s not really any reason to, is there?”
“Oh, I’m sorry, Frank. I didn’t think—”
He lifted a hand. “No, no, that’s all right. Don’t worry about it, please. Sometimes it’s hard for me to remember that she’s gone, too. But Ted and Billie and I all talked about it, and we decided that our families would rather spend Christmas at home instead of staying here, so we’ll be heading out after a while.”
“How’s Randall?”
Frank shrugged. “All right, I suppose. As all right as he can be, locked up in jail and charged with murder. But except for a sore throat, he’s pretty much recovered from . . . what he tried to do. I talked to both Detective Largo and Ms. Yorke this morning, and they said there was no reason for me or the rest of the family to stay aro
und right now. The grand jury won’t meet until after the New Year. That’s the next step, the grand jury hearing to see if Randall will be indicted for the murder.”
“And he has to stay in jail until then?”
“Yeah, since we couldn’t raise the bail bond for him. I’ve put my store up for sale, and if I can sell it, I . . . I hope to get enough to bail him out and to pay his legal bills.” Frank shook his head. “But I don’t know. It’s hard to get much money for a failing business.”
Phyllis said, “I don’t want to pry into things that are none of my business, but . . . your mother’s estate . . . ?”
Frank shook his head again. “Won’t be settled until sometime in January, if not longer than that. And she didn’t leave much except the house, which means it’ll have to be sold in order to divide up the proceeds between the three of us, and there’s no telling how long that’ll take or how much it’ll sell for.”
Phyllis thought the Simmons house ought to be worth quite a bit. It was old, but it was large and solidly built and in a good state of repair, on a decent-sized lot with quite a few big old trees, close to downtown. She thought it might bring a couple of hundred thousand dollars, at least.
But as Frank had pointed out, that money would be slow in coming, and he’d indicated that when it did it would be split into three equal shares among him and his brother and sister. By then Frank’s business in Dallas might have gone under entirely, if he hadn’t been able to sell it. Randall would probably still be awaiting trial, which meant his legal expenses would be ongoing. Phyllis had no idea how much Juliette Yorke charged, but the woman was a lawyer. Her services wouldn’t come cheap.
“Well, I hope it all works out for you,” Phyllis said. “I’m sorry for everything that happened, Frank.”
He gave a rueful shake of his head. “None of it was your fault. If Randall just had any sense—” He broke off and waved a hand in dismissal. “Ah, it’s way too late to be wishing that now. If the boy had had any sense, he wouldn’t have gotten in so much trouble to start with. Now he’s gonna be convicted of murder, and he’ll be lucky if he doesn’t get the death penalty. I mean, his own grandmother, for God’s sake!”
The Christmas Cookie Killer Page 19