The Christmas Cookie Killer

by Livia J. Washburn

  Dwight might have still tried to deny it, but at that moment he slumped to the side. Phyllis thought for a horrible second that he was dead, but then she pressed her fingers to his neck and found an erratic but fairly strong pulse. She pulled her cell phone from her pocket and punched in 911.

  Then, as she waited for the operator to answer, she turned and looked at Sam standing over a sobbing Jada in front of the manger scene. Snowflakes still danced and swirled from the skies, surrounding them. The temperature must have dropped a little, because a few of the flakes were starting to stick now, creating a light dusting of white on the grass.

  Maybe it was going to be one of those rare white Christmases after all.

  “We never got around to going out and looking at lights,” Mike said an hour or so later as he sat in the living room of Phyllis’s house. Phyllis, Sam, Carolyn, and Eve were all there, too.

  “I’m sorry,” Phyllis said. “I guess I should have just let Detective Largo handle everything instead of calling you, too.”

  “No, no, I wanted to know what was going on.” Mike gave her a stern look. “In less than a week, you’ve been knocked out by a renegade preacher and then attacked by a crazy woman with a knife. You’re gonna have to start being more careful, Mom.”

  “I promise you, none of it was my idea,” Phyllis said. “And at least I wasn’t stabbed. Poor Dwight.”

  “Poor Dwight, nothin’,” Sam said. “The fella hit you on the head. Could’ve hurt you real bad. Don’t forget about that.”

  Phyllis shuddered. “I won’t. I’m afraid I won’t forget about any of this for a long time.” She looked at Mike. “You’re sure the doctors said that he’s going to live?”

  “That’s the report I got,” he said with a nod. “He passed out because he lost quite a bit of blood, but the knife missed all the vital organs. He’ll be fine to stand trial for attempted murder and being an accessory after the fact, plus whatever else the DA can find to charge him with. Obstruction of justice, maybe.”

  “I don’t think he was really trying to kill me,” Phyllis said. She still had a hard time believing that she was saying such things about someone she had considered such a fine man.

  But maybe it was dangerous to think that way, she reminded herself, to blind yourself to someone’s flaws because of the good they did. Jada Gresham had committed murder because she believed her husband did such important work that not only did she forgive him for his affair with Vickie Kimbrough, but she also thought he had to be protected from having that affair brought out into the open.

  “Let me get this straight,” Carolyn said. “They both confessed to killing Agnes Simmons?”

  Mike nodded. “Yeah, but Mrs. Gresham’s story holds together a lot better. The preacher was just trying to protect his wife when he said that he did it. That’s what I think, anyway.” He leaned forward in the armchair where he was sitting and clasped his hands together between his knees. “Mrs. Gresham said she told Mrs. Simmons she wanted to take a closer look at some fancy stitching on that robe belt. Mrs. Simmons gave it to her to look at, without knowing that she was handing over her own murder weapon. Mrs. Gresham got behind her, looped the belt around her neck, and . . .” Mike shrugged. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to get so graphic.”

  “All because of an affair?” Eve said. “Goodness, in this day and age that doesn’t seem like something worth killing over.”

  “But Dwight is a minister,” Phyllis pointed out. “If it became public knowledge that he was having an affair with a member of his congregation, and that it started while he was counseling the woman and her husband . . . well, the church would have had no choice but to let him go, if he didn’t resign in shame.”

  “And that meant he wouldn’t be able to help people anymore,” Mike said. “Mrs. Gresham kept coming back to that again and again in her statement. She seems to honestly believe that he does so much good, she had to forgive him. She told him he had to break it off with Mrs. Kimbrough, though, and she wasn’t happy when she found out that he’d still been seeing her. After all, she’d killed Mrs. Simmons to keep her from telling anybody else about the affair.”

  “Agnes was the one who told Jada?” Carolyn asked.

  “Yeah. Mrs. Gresham happened to be visiting Mrs. Simmons one day, and she said something about her husband bringing those church videotapes for her to watch. Mrs. Simmons said he never brought tapes to her, that she didn’t even have a VCR. That made Mrs. Simmons suspicious, so she started keeping an eye out for the preacher. Sure enough, it wasn’t long before she spotted him sneaking into the Kimbrough house when Mr. Kimbrough wasn’t home. She drew her own conclusions from that—accurately, as it turns out—and called Jada Gresham, told her to come over last Saturday afternoon. Mr. Gresham knew from the way his wife was acting that something was wrong, so he followed her over there and came in the back door while Mrs. Gresham was talking to Mrs. Simmons in the living room. Mrs. Simmons wanted her and Mrs. Gresham to go to the deacons and tell them what Mr. Gresham was up to. She insisted they had to, and nothing Mrs. Gresham said could change her mind, even when she told the old lady that she forgave him for cheating on her. Mrs. Simmons said it had to come out.”

  Remembering some of the things she had heard about the way Agnes had treated her family, Phyllis could believe that. Agnes had had a vicious streak in her, there was no getting around that fact.

  “Mr. Gresham claims he came in then and killed Mrs. Simmons,” Mike went on, “but the evidence doesn’t support that. I think he’ll break down and tell the truth sooner or later.”

  Sam said, “Either way, I reckon the charges against young Randall Simmons will be dropped?”

  “The murder charge will. He’s still in trouble for jumping bail over in Dallas County, not to mention the original charges against him there. But at least he won’t be facing the death penalty anymore.”

  Phyllis was glad to hear that. It was time the Simmons family got some good news for a change.

  “Dwight must have panicked when he saw what Jada had done,” she said. “He was probably trying to hustle her out of there when I came in. I’ll bet she was in the kitchen, too, when I walked in there and he knocked me out.”

  “Yeah, that’s what he says happened,” Mike agreed, “but how did you know it was him who hit you and not Mrs. Gresham?”

  “If it had been Jada,” Phyllis said, “she probably wouldn’t have stopped until I was dead.”

  Mike thought about that for a second and then gave a grim nod. “Yeah. I think you’re probably right.”

  Carolyn shook her head in seeming amazement and said, “She loved him enough to not only forgive him but also to kill for him. That’s hard to believe.”

  “She loved the Lord that much, and she thought that Dwight was doing the Lord’s work,” Phyllis said. “I think she had put him on a pedestal for so long that she couldn’t really believe it, even when she was confronted with the evidence that he was just as human and fallible as anybody. Anyway, think about her house and the way she dressed and everything else about her.”

  “What about it?” Mike asked.

  “It had to be perfect,” Phyllis said. “Everything had to be perfect. And when it wasn’t . . . she would do whatever she had to in order to make it that way again.”

  A solemn silence descended over the room, broken after several long moments by Eve saying, “You know, I don’t think I feel much like watching It’s a Wonderful Life anymore.”

  Mike put his hands on his knees and pushed himself to his feet. “Well, I’m going home and spending what’s left of Christmas Eve with my wife and son, and I’m not even gonna think about murder again until I have to.”

  Sam stood up as well and clapped a hand on the younger man’s shoulder. “That’s a mighty sensible way to look at it, if you ask me.” He turned to Phyllis, Carolyn, and Eve. “And I think we ought to go ahead and watch the movie. There’s always bad things happenin’ all over the world, but Christmas is still Christmas. It’s got a
magic all its own, and one part of it is that it helps you forget for a while about those bad things and remember the good.”

  Phyllis felt her spirits lifting a little. “Sam’s right,” she said. “We should try to salvage as much of our Christmas as we can.”

  “But it’s late,” Carolyn objected.

  Sam grinned. “I reckon we’ll all turn in early enough so that we won’t keep Santa from showin’ up.”

  Mike grimaced and said, “Oh, man. I almost forgot. Santa’s still got to assemble a tricycle tonight! I better get going.” He hugged Phyllis, kissed her cheek, shook hands with Sam, and then impulsively hugged Carolyn and Eve, too. “Good night, everybody,” he called as he went out. “And merry Christmas!”

  “Merry Christmas,” Phyllis whispered after him.

  She was up early the next morning. There was a lot to do to get ready for Christmas dinner. Phyllis turned the oven on and took out the ham. She removed the plastic and rinsed the ham in the sink, then placed the meat in a large, shallow roasting pan.

  She dug through the drawer of utensils and found her meat syringe, and then opened the bottle of cola. It was a little difficult to fill the syringe with the drink because it kept foaming up and little of the cola would go into the syringe. After a few trials and errors, Phyllis discovered the best way of filling the syringe and injected the cola into the ham over and over. When she had as much of it in the ham as she could get, she basted the ham with what was left in the bottle.

  If it had been a regular day, she would have left it at that, but she felt like the ham needed to look better, so she opened a can of pineapple rings. With toothpicks, she stuck pineapple rings on the top and sides of the ham. She sprinkled brown sugar on the rings and the ham. Again with toothpicks, she placed a cherry inside each pineapple ring and then stuck some cloves in the pineapple rings. She covered the pan with aluminum foil and put it in the oven.

  Carolyn joined her in the kitchen just a few minutes later, and for a couple of hours both women were very busy, before the late risers, Sam and Eve, came downstairs. Phyllis thought Sam looked adorable in his pajamas and robe, with his hair still a little rumpled from sleep, like a little boy, especially when he looked at the pile of presents under the tree in the living room, grinned, and said, “Santa’s been here, all right.”

  “All those presents were there before,” Carolyn pointed out.

  “Yeah, but the milk and cookies are gone.”

  “What milk and cookies?”

  Sam tapped the side of his nose, winked at her, and said, “Exactly.”

  Carolyn rolled her eyes, shook her head, and went back to the kitchen, muttering something about men who never grew up.

  “I’ve got the coffee on, and there are pancakes and bacon for breakfast,” Phyllis told Sam and Eve. “We’ll have the tree after we eat, if that’s all right.”

  “Fine with me,” Sam said. He took a deep breath. “That coffee smells mighty good.”

  Phyllis went to the front window and looked out for a moment before returning to the kitchen. She had been so busy all morning, she hadn’t really paid any attention to what things looked like outside. She had to smile when she saw the thin layer of snow on the ground. In some parts of the country, this would barely qualify as a white Christmas, she supposed, but for Texas it wasn’t bad at all. And the sight of the snow made her feel even better about being inside a warm, snug house with her friends.

  The morning passed leisurely, with all of them gathering in the kitchen to eat breakfast and then adjourning to the living room to open presents. Everyone was pleased with their gifts, especially Sam, who grinned at the stack of DVDs and books and said, “This’ll keep me busy for a while.”

  Then it was time for Phyllis and Carolyn to get back to the kitchen and continue working on the preparations for the Christmas feast. Carolyn chopped all the fruit for the salad while Phyllis mixed the dough for the dinner rolls. Carolyn put the salad in the refrigerator as Phyllis covered the bowl of bread dough and placed it in a warm place to rise. Phyllis checked on the ham, which had been cooking since early that morning, and announced that dinner would be around one o’clock . . . two at the latest.

  Mike, Sarah, and Bobby arrived late in the morning, smiling and bundled up against the cold. Bobby chattered away about all the presents Santa had brought him, including a shiny new tricycle that he loved so much he’d had to bring it with him. He rode it up and down the front walk while Mike and Sam kept an eye on him and Sarah pitched in to help with the last-minute chores in the kitchen. The sweet potato casserole and the scalloped potatoes went into the oven with the ham for the last hour, even though the cooking temperature for the vegetables was a little different from that for the meat. They would just cook the side dishes for a little longer than the recipes called for.

  Carolyn started making her green bean casserole. She explained to the others that she had a new recipe using fresh green beans and mushrooms rather than the canned ones. She showed them the recipe she had written down on a card. Phyllis thought it sounded like it would taste better than the old recipe. She definitely would be putting some on her plate.

  The women worked together, talking about family and friends. It seemed like no time at all had passed when the green bean casserole was assembled and the ham had finished cooking. Phyllis took the baked ham out of the oven and placed it on the counter to cool a little before slicing. It was time to crank up the heat on the oven and warm up all the dishes made ahead of time.

  A little after one o’clock, Eve set the table while Phyllis took the golden brown dinner rolls out of the oven. Carolyn and Sarah started putting various dishes on the table. There were so many bowls and platters, it took careful placement to get all the food in the middle of the table.

  When everyone sat down to eat at about one thirty, the dining room table was full. Phyllis looked around at the smiling, happy faces and thought that more than the table was full.

  Her heart was, too.

  It was as fine a meal as she could remember, even if she did say so herself. The ham was so tender that it practically fell off the bone, and the cola gave it a wonderful sweet taste, but not too sweet. The wild rice and cranberry stuffing was perfect, and the sweet potato casserole delicious, as were all the other side dishes. By the time they had finished eating, they were all stuffed. Carolyn said, “My goodness, I’m so full, I can’t even eat any dessert.”

  “Well, I’ve been accused of havin’ a hollow leg,” Sam said, “but I think I could do with a piece of pumpkin pie. Just not too big of one. I’ll have to try the chocolate pecan pie a little later,” he added with a smile.

  “Same here,” Mike said.

  After the leftovers had been put away and the dishes had been rinsed and put in the dishwasher—Mike and Sam volunteering to take care of that chore—Carolyn took the extra pies and left to spend the rest of the day at her daughter’s house. Eve, yawning, said that she was going upstairs to take a nap. Mike, Sarah, and Bobby sat down on the sofa in the living room so that Bobby could watch an animated Christmas movie on TV, and within half an hour all three of them were sound asleep, with Bobby snugly nestled between his parents.

  Phyllis walked out to the kitchen to make sure nothing that needed to be done had been neglected. Sam strolled after her, and when he saw the plate of cookies sitting on the counter, he reached out to get one of them.

  “You can’t possibly still be hungry,” Phyllis said as he took a bite of the lime snowflake sugar cookie.

  “Well, I’m not starvin’,” Sam admitted. He propped a hip against the counter. “But these are mighty good cookies. Hard to pass ’em up.” He took another bite, then said, “Life’s taught me that if you pass up too many good things, then they start to pass you by.”

  “I suppose that’s true,” Phyllis said as she leaned back beside him. “A person only gets so many opportunities in life.”

  Sam took the last bite of cookie in his hand. “Yep.”

  “Sam . . .�
�� She started to turn toward him.

  But he was already turning toward her, and his arms went around her and his lips met hers, and as he kissed her she tasted the sweet crystals of sugar from the cookie that still clung to his mouth.

  Then she rested her head against his chest and his hand lay on her back, and he whispered, “Merry Christmas, Phyllis.”

  She smiled as she remembered something that went all the way back to her childhood. Each Christmas, she had paused to wonder what the next Christmas would be like, to think about all the things that might happen between now and then.

  “Merry Christmas, Sam,” she whispered, and thought that for the first time in a long while, she was really looking forward to finding out what the next year would bring.

  Recipes

  Lime Snowflake Cookies

  ¾ cup butter or margarine, softened

  1 cup granulated sugar

  1 teaspoon key lime juice

  1 egg

  2 cups all-purpose flour

  1½ teaspoons baking powder

  ¼ teaspoon baking soda

  If your butter is not softened, place it in a microwavable bowl and heat just until soft. Mix sugar with butter; then add lime juice. Break egg into bowl containing sugar mixture. Whip slightly to distribute egg white and yolk. Stir until mixture is evenly moist. Sift together and add the three dry ingredients. Stir by hand until a dough forms. Wrap in waxed paper and chill in refrigerator, about 1 hour until firm.

  Heat oven to 350 degrees F.

  Roll chilled dough out until flat and ¼ inch thick. Use cookie cutters to make shapes. If you don’t have a snowflake cookie cutter, you can cut freehand with a knife to make each cookie a little different. Dust with granulated sugar to make the cookies sparkle.

  Bake cookies for 10 to 12 minutes, or until edges just begin to turn light golden brown. Do not for overbake. Cool 1 minute, and then remove from cookie sheet and place on a rack to cool completely.