The Christmas Cookie Killer

by Livia J. Washburn

  When Detective Largo had left the house, Phyllis looked over at Mike and asked, “Did I really do wrong?”

  “Well . . . you should have told me about it, anyway.”

  “I was afraid the information might wind up hurting Randall, and I was already convinced that he didn’t kill Agnes. Besides, I don’t like to betray confidences.” Phyllis paused. “Will this make the police consider Crowe a suspect in Agnes’s murder, or will they just use it to make their case against Randall stronger?”

  Mike shrugged and shook his head. “I don’t know. That’ll be up to Detective Largo and Chief Whitmire and the district attorney, I suppose. I’ll say this, though . . . After tangling with the guy, I don’t have a big problem with the theory that he might have strangled Miz Simmons.”

  There was a major problem with that theory, as Detective Largo explained when she came back into the house a half hour or so later. “Crowe’s not talking about what happened tonight,” she said. “He claims he was never inside the house. He doesn’t have a good explanation for what he was doing in the backyard or why he ran, but he’s going to try to brazen his way through that part of it, anyway. I’m hoping we’ll find some fingerprints or other evidence to put him inside the house. When I asked him about last Saturday, however, he was more than willing to talk.”

  “Let me guess,” Mike said. “He has an alibi for the time of Mrs. Simmons’s murder.”

  Detective Largo nodded. “And a pretty strong one at that. He was locked up in the Dallas County jail. He was picked up on some outstanding warrants that morning and didn’t bond out until after six o’clock Saturday evening. I called Dallas and checked on that myself, and his story holds up.”

  “So he couldn’t have killed Miz Simmons.”

  “Not a chance,” Detective Largo said.

  Phyllis knew what that old expression about having the wind knocked out of your sails meant. That was exactly the way she felt now. Once Jimmy Crowe had been caught breaking into the Simmons house, she was sure that he would turn out to be guilty of the murder, too. Clearly, that wasn’t going to happen.

  So she was almost back where she had started, with the possibility that either Randall Simmons or someone from the neighborhood had committed the crime.

  Except . . .

  She knew something now that she hadn’t known before. She didn’t know what it all meant, mind you. She didn’t even know whether it was connected to Agnes’s murder.

  But someone had lied to her, and she wanted to know why. Until she knew that, she wasn’t going to say anything to Mike or to Detective Largo. The chance that she might ruin an innocent person’s life was too great. There was probably a perfectly reasonable explanation for everything.

  Either way, she was going to find out.

  “Well, after all that excitement, sitting and watching a movie on TV is going to seem pretty tame,” Carolyn said after Mike, Detective Largo, and the rest of the police were gone, taking Jimmy Crowe with them. The drug dealer/loan shark/burglar was going to be spending this Christmas in jail.

  “Actually, I can’t watch It’s a Wonderful Life right now,” Phyllis said. “There’s something else I have to do. I have to go out for a while.”

  Carolyn and Eve stared at her in surprise. “On Christmas Eve?” Carolyn asked.

  Phyllis nodded. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be gone long.”

  “If you need something else for dinner tomorrow, you’re too late. All the stores will be closed.”

  “This isn’t for dinner,” Phyllis said. She looked at Sam. “Would you mind coming with me?”

  “Figured I would,” he replied without hesitation.

  “Well, this has just been the oddest Christmas Eve ever,” Eve commented.

  Phyllis couldn’t argue with that. She was afraid that the odd part wasn’t over yet, either.

  She and Sam got their coats, and as she shrugged into hers, she froze momentarily and then gave a shake of her head. Now that the dam in her brain was broken, more facts were pouring through. Another possible connection between two things she had seen, several days apart, jumped out at her. Again, they might not mean anything, but the coincidences were piling up. When they did that, chances were that they weren’t coincidences at all.

  Sam suggested that they take his pickup, and Phyllis agreed. As they stepped outside, he said, “I figured from the way you looked a while ago, you had some things to think about on the way to wherever we’re goin’, so it’s best I handle the drivin’.”

  “Thank you, Sam. You’ve come to know me pretty well, haven’t you?”

  “Well enough to know you’ve figured out who killed Agnes Simmons,” he said.

  “No, not necessarily. But I have some questions that need to be answered.”

  “Tonight? On Christmas Eve?”

  Phyllis nodded. “I don’t think I could sleep or enjoy Christmas without knowing the truth.”

  As Sam started the truck’s engine, he asked, “You reckon we’d better call Mike and ask him to meet us wherever we’re goin’? I’d hate to ruin the evenin’ for him more than it’s already been ruined, but if we’re goin’ to see a killer . . .”

  “I’m sure I’m wrong about everything,” Phyllis said. “There has to be an explanation for the things I saw. I’m not going to ruin someone’s life just because I’m confused about a few things.”

  Sam hesitated, then nodded. “All right. I reckon I trust you. You usually know what you’re doin’.”

  Phyllis hoped that Sam’s trust was justified. But more than anything else right now, she hoped that she was just a crazy old woman who had leaped to some false conclusions.

  “Look at that,” Sam said as he pointed to a wet spot on the windshield. “It’s finally started to snow.”

  As he flicked the headlights on, Phyllis saw that was true. Big fluffy snowflakes were visible as they swirled down gracefully through the cones of light.

  “Where to?” Sam asked.

  “The church,” Phyllis said. “The parsonage, actually.”

  Sam looked over at her in surprise and said, “The parsonage?”

  Phyllis nodded. “That’s right. I have to ask Dwight about something.”

  After a moment, Sam nodded and put the pickup in gear. They drove off into the lightly falling snow.

  It took only a few minutes to reach the church and the parsonage. The office building and the sanctuary were dark, of course, except for the spotlights that illuminated the cross on the front of the church and the manger scene on the lawn, and those were set up on timers. Quite a few lights were burning inside the parsonage, however, including strings of brightly colored bulbs on the tree that was visible through the picture window. The curtains were drawn back so that the Christmas tree could be seen from the street.

  Sam parked in the driveway. As he and Phyllis got out of the pickup, Phyllis noted that the snow was falling more heavily now, but as Carolyn had predicted, it seemed to be melting as soon as it hit the ground. The temperature just wasn’t quite cold enough for the flakes to freeze. Still, it made a beautiful evening that much lovelier. The snowfall and the Christmas lights and the manger scene all combined to create a tableau that looked like it ought to be on a picture postcard.

  But as always, ugliness could be lurking behind beauty. It was wise to never forget that, Phyllis thought, depressing, but wise.

  “I hope you know what you’re doin’,” Sam said quietly as they went up to the door.

  “I hope I don’t,” Phyllis said.

  Then she rang the doorbell.

  She supposed that Dwight and Jada weren’t expecting any company this late in the evening on Christmas Eve. It took several moments for someone to come to the door. When it finally swung back, Dwight stood there with a puzzled look on his face, peering out at them through the glass of the storm door, which he opened immediately.

  “Phyllis, Sam,” he said, “I didn’t expect to see you again until Sunday. What can I do for you?”

  “I n
eed to ask you some questions, Dwight,” Phyllis said.

  “Sure, come on in—”

  “Actually, I was thinking maybe we could talk out here,” she suggested.

  That puzzled Dwight even more, if his deepening frown was any indication of his reaction. “I guess so. Let me get my coat.” He looked past Phyllis and Sam and added, “Hey, it’s snowing.”

  “This won’t take long,” Phyllis said.

  Dwight closed the storm door and took a step back to get his coat from the hall closet. Jada must have asked him who was there, because he turned and called loudly enough for them to hear through the glass, “Phyllis Newsom and Sam Fletcher need to talk to me for a minute.”

  Phyllis heard Jada’s response. “Them again?”

  Dwight didn’t say anything to that. He shrugged into his coat, stepped outside, and closed both doors behind him. “Now, what’s this about?” he asked, and the faint note of impatience in his voice indicated that even his easygoing nature found this intrusion on Christmas Eve to be a little irritating.

  “I just need to know a couple of things,” Phyllis said.

  “Shoot.”

  “Are you having an affair with Vickie Kimbrough?”

  Phyllis had all her attention fixed on Dwight’s face, which she could see plainly in the glow that spilled over from the spotlights on the manger scene, but she assumed that Sam was staring at her in surprise.

  Dwight wasn’t. He stiffened, his eyes opening wider, but he didn’t seem terribly shocked by the question.

  “What in the world makes you think that?” he asked.

  Instead of answering, Phyllis pointed out, “You’re not denying it.”

  “Why should I bother denying something so ridiculous? I’m a happily married man.” Definite anger roughened Dwight’s voice as he went on, “I’m Vickie’s pastor, not her lover. Why would you even ask such a question, Phyllis?”

  “Earlier today you had a bit of pink fuzz on your coat, a coat you hadn’t worn since Monday, you said. On Monday, Vickie was wearing a pink sweater with the same sort of fuzz on it. A piece of it could have easily gotten stuck on your coat if you were, say, hugging her.”

  Dwight’s eyes narrowed. “That’s observant of you, but hardly conclusive of anything. There could be dozens of fuzzy pink sweaters in Weatherford. Maybe even hundreds. For all you know, my own wife could have one.”

  Phyllis shook her head and said, “With her red hair, Jada would never wear a pink sweater.”

  “That still doesn’t mean anything,” Dwight said as he plunged his hands into his coat pockets. “Why in the world would a little bit of fuzz make you believe something so crazy as me having an affair with Vickie Kimbrough?”

  “Because that would explain why you lied to me about the videotapes.”

  For the first time, the confused, annoyed veneer that Dwight was putting up cracked slightly, as he said, “V-videotapes?”

  Phyllis nodded. “That’s right. You told me you brought videotapes of the church services by Agnes Simmons’s house every week so that she could watch them. But that’s impossible. Agnes didn’t have a VCR. She wouldn’t have known how to use one even if she did. She hated modern technology. She wouldn’t even have a microwave oven in her kitchen. Called it a newfangled gadget and didn’t want any part of it. She felt the same way about video equipment. Her TV is thirty years old, and there’s nothing on top of it except a lace doily and some pictures and knickknacks.”

  “Well, you . . . you must be mistaken,” Dwight said, and now he was visibly shaken. “She had to be watching the tapes on something, because I took them by there every week—”

  “No, that was just your story to explain why your car was in the neighborhood so often, in case anyone ever noticed it,” Phyllis said. During her teaching career, she had seen enough children caught in lies to recognize the signs in Dwight, so she forged ahead with her theory. “You and Vickie started having an affair when you were counseling Vickie and Monte about the problems they were having because they couldn’t have children. I doubt if it was your idea. But Vickie was vulnerable because of those problems, and because Monte is so emotionally distant and hardly ever home, and, well, these things happen.”

  “Not to me,” Dwight said, but his denial rang hollow. “Not to me.”

  “You went to see her one last time on Monday,” Phyllis went on. “You told Jada you were going to pick up the church service videotape from me, but actually you went to Vickie’s house to tell her that the two of you couldn’t see each other anymore, at least not for a while. All the commotion that Agnes’s murder stirred up would make it too risky for you to come to her house. I’m not sure why the two of you didn’t just meet elsewhere—”

  “Because she wouldn’t,” Dwight snapped, his voice ragged with strain. He looked like he had been punched in the belly now. He lifted his hands to his face and covered it, so that his words were muffled as he said, “It had to be there. It had to be there in their own bed, or she wouldn’t be getting back at him enough.”

  Phyllis was breathing hard, almost overcome by a mixture of shock and disappointment and even a little anger. She had known Dwight Gresham for years, had considered him a good man. She had hoped that he would deny the affair with Vickie and convince her that he was telling the truth. She had never wanted to be wrong so much in her life, but he had crumpled under her accusations—and under his own guilt, she thought—and confirmed her worst suspicions.

  Only they weren’t the worst at all, Phyllis realized as something else clicked together in her mind. She gasped, and Sam put a hand on her arm as if to steady her.

  “Oh, Dwight,” she said, “what you’d already done was bad enough. Why did you have to kill Agnes, too?”

  Chapter 22

  Sam couldn’t contain himself any longer when he heard that. He exclaimed, “Phyllis, you can’t mean that!”

  But Dwight’s head had jerked up, his hands fell away from his face, and he stared at her with an awful certainty in his eyes. He struggled to force words out and finally said, “How . . . how did you know?”

  “The cookies,” Phyllis said.

  “Cookies?” Sam repeated, still sounding shocked.

  She nodded. “Vickie knew that the lime snowflake cookies were mine. She said that you told her about them a few days earlier. She slipped there, admitting that she’d even talked to you, but I didn’t notice it then. It didn’t occur to me that you shouldn’t have known who baked those cookies, either, because when you mentioned them to Vickie, the recipe hadn’t been in the paper yet. The only way you could have known was if you’d found out some other way. Agnes told you while you were making small talk with her, before you killed her. I’d just been over there and brought her a plate of cookies, and I mentioned which ones were mine.”

  Dwight started shaking his head. “Why would I want to kill a harmless old woman like Agnes Simmons?”

  “Because she wasn’t harmless, not to you.” And not to most of the members of her family, Phyllis thought. “She found out somehow about what was going on between you and Vickie, and she threatened to tell Jada. That’s what I’m guessing happened, anyway.”

  “You’re basing all this on a cookie?” Dwight’s voice shook. “Vickie was at the cookie exchange. She could have found out which ones you made there.”

  “She could have,” Phyllis said, “but it hadn’t even been discussed yet when I discovered Agnes’s body and then was attacked.” She sighed and shook her head. “You didn’t have to hit me like that, Dwight. You could have really hurt me.”

  “That’s right,” Sam said, an angry growl coming into his voice. His hands balled into fists. He seemed to be convinced now that Phyllis was right about the preacher. “Killin’ that old lady was bad enough, but you shouldn’t have hit Phyllis, mister.”

  The last vestiges of Dwight’s stubborn denial faded away. He sagged against one of the posts that supported the porch roof and lifted a shaking hand to rub at his temples. “You’re r
ight,” he said. “Oh, dear Lord, you’re right. What have I done? Phyllis, I . . . I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have hit you. I was in agony, worrying that I’d killed you, too.” With a visible effort, he straightened. “Why don’t you call your son, or that Detective Largo? I’ll tell them everything, how I strangled Agnes and then attacked you and—”

  “Noooo!”

  The screeching, heartrending cry made all of them jump. As they turned toward the end of the porch, Jada Gresham came out of the shadows there. She must have gone out the back door and come around the house to eavesdrop on what was being said on the parsonage porch, Phyllis thought, and there was no telling how much she had heard. She took a few halting steps toward them, in front of the picture window, so that the twinkling light from the bulbs on the Christmas tree played over her stricken face.

  Phyllis lifted a hand toward the younger woman. “Jada, I’m so sorry—”

  “Not as sorry as you’re going to be!” Jada cried.

  Then she leaped forward, her hand rising, and the brightly colored lights reflected on the broad blade of the butcher knife she clutched.

  Phyllis was shocked, frozen in place. Sam was behind her, unable to get between her and Jada in time. But Dwight shouted, “Jada, no!” and leaped forward, throwing himself in front of Phyllis as Jada thrust the knife out. He grunted and staggered back a step as the blade went into his body.

  Jada screamed, let go of the knife, and turned to run, dashing across the front yard toward the church. Sam went after her, grabbing her and wrestling her to a halt in front of the manger scene. Jada fell to her knees as sobs racked her. “Dwight!” she cried. “Oh, Dwight, I’m sorry! All I ever meant to do was protect you! You . . . you had to carry on your good work. . . .”

  Meanwhile, Phyllis had gotten her arms around Dwight and helped him sit down with his back against one of the porch posts. He was breathing harshly and had his hands pressed to his midsection. He looked up at her and said, “Phyllis, I . . . I’m sorry.”

  “It was her, wasn’t it?” Phyllis said, still shaken from the look of insane hatred in Jada’s eyes as the younger woman lunged forward with the knife. “I had that part of it wrong. She killed Agnes.”