The Candy Cane Cupcake Killer

by Livia J. Washburn

  Sam asked, “What about those hands? Any of them have a grudge against Barney? Any of ’em been fired recently?”

  “No, and I’d know if they’d had, since I handle the payroll. Look, I’m not out there all the time, so I don’t know everything that goes on, but Barney was pretty good about telling me if there was any trouble, and there hasn’t been. My impression has always been that the men who worked for him were very loyal to him. Sure, he could be loud and get after somebody if they fouled up, but they all respected him.”

  Allyson nodded and said, “I agree. I’d go so far as to say that most of the hands loved Dad.”

  Of course, Allyson is prejudiced in favor of her father, Phyllis thought. She would feel that way whether there was any basis in reality for it or not.

  Something else occurred to Phyllis, and she said, “You know, all of our thinking about this has hinged on the theory that your rifle was the murder weapon, Nate. But we’re not absolutely certain of that. I think we need to find out.”

  “How do we do that?” Felicity asked.

  “Mr. D’Angelo might be able to get the information. The district attorney has to reveal his evidence to defense counsel before the grand-jury hearing.” Phyllis paused. “Or perhaps you might be able to find out, Ms. Prosper.”

  “Me?”

  Phyllis smiled slightly and said, “District Attorney Sullivan might respond to a question if you asked it.”

  “You mean he might like seeing himself on TV?”

  “I think he’s the sort of man who might appreciate that, yes.”

  In fact, District Attorney Timothy Sullivan is an arrogant, self-satisfied, pompous windbag who once ordered me thrown in jail, Phyllis thought. But she didn’t say that. If a stunning female reporter shoved a microphone in his face and asked him a question, he would answer it, all right. And he would try to make himself look as good as possible while he was doing it, too.

  Felicity got to her feet and said, “Sounds like a good idea. Want to come with me?”

  “No. If Sullivan sees me with you, he won’t cooperate. We have some history.”

  “You mean he doesn’t like it that you’ve made him look like a fool in the past, when he’s prosecuted the wrong person,” Felicity said with a smile.

  “That sums it up pretty well,” Phyllis admitted.

  “Well, I know how to handle guys like that. Josh, go find Nick.”

  Josh scrambled to his feet and said, “Yes, ma’am.”

  “By the time I’m done with him,” Felicity purred, “we’ll know everything that District Attorney Sullivan does.”

  • • •

  Felicity, Josh, and Nick headed over to the courthouse and the district attorney’s office. Before they left, however, Phyllis brought out the baklava macarons that had been chilling overnight and passed them around. Everyone exclaimed over how good they were, and Phyllis was quite pleased with them herself.

  Allyson gathered the things she had brought with her so she and Nate could go home. While she was doing that, Nate said, “I appreciate everything you’ve been trying to do for me, Mrs. Newsom, and you, too, Coach. It’s starting to look like the deck is just too stacked against me, though.”

  “I don’t believe that,” Phyllis said.

  “Naw, the case against you is just a house of cards, if you want to throw card playin’ in there,” Sam added. “We’ve just got to find the right one and pull it out, and the whole thing’ll come tumblin’ down.”

  “I hope you’re right,” Nate said with a faint smile. Clearly he didn’t believe that was going to happen, though.

  Once the two of them were gone as well, Phyllis headed upstairs to put the finishing touches on her first draft of the column for A Taste of Texas. With everything else that had been going on, it would have been easy to forget about that, so she wanted to seize this opportunity. When she was done, she e-mailed the file to Eve so the former English teacher could proofread it.

  Then she gave in to curiosity and checked the true-crime websites that posted things about her and the cases in which she was involved. The furor over Barney McCrory’s murder had faded somewhat, she discovered. There were still a few recent comments on the blogs, but Nate’s arrest seemed to have diminished the interest. A few people who commented even expressed disappointment that Phyllis hadn’t solved this murder.

  They are giving up too soon, she thought, but at the same time, she understood the feeling.

  As Nate had said, the deck was stacked.

  But the antidote to frustration is action, she told herself. Instead of just sitting around waiting to hear from Felicity, maybe there was something else she could do. She went downstairs and found Sam at his workbench in the garage, sanding a piece of wood. She couldn’t tell if he meant to build something with it or if he was just passing the time, like she had been.

  “Let’s go take a look at Loomis’s trucking company again,” she said.

  “What for?” he asked.

  “Just a hunch.” Really, she needed to be doing something instead of sitting here, spinning her wheels. “He leases trucks to various companies, right?”

  “Yeah, that’s the way I understand it,” Sam said, nodding slowly.

  “Maybe we can find out what some of those companies are. That might give us more leads to someone who’d have a grudge against him, and if we could connect that person back to Nate . . .”

  A grin spread across Sam’s face as he said, “That might be the connection you said was missin’.”

  “Exactly.”

  Her restlessness, her need to be out and moving around, had actually led her to come up with an idea that might hold some promise. They already had an abundance of suspects, just not the right ones.

  So, the only answer was to keep looking.

  Phyllis told Carolyn where they were going; then she and Sam left in his pickup, heading north out of town toward the headquarters of Clay Loomis’s company.

  The day was sunnier and warmer than the last time they had visited the site, but the place still had a certain bleakness to it. The acres of gravel and rows of trucks just didn’t hold much warmth. As they neared the gate in the fence, Sam asked, “Are we goin’ in?”

  “Yes, go ahead,” Phyllis told him. “I only see one car parked at the office, and it’s one that was here the other day. It must belong to that lady who took over for Jaycee Fallon.”

  “Looks like Loomis doesn’t actually spend much time here,” Sam commented as he parked the pickup in front of the office.

  “He’s probably too busy with county business . . . or hiding out from other people who want to serve him with lawsuits.”

  When they went inside, the same gray-haired woman looked up from the desk behind the counter. She must have remembered them, because she said, “Oh, you just missed Mr. Loomis! You’re not having very good luck catching him here.” She shook her head. “Not that it would have done you much good. I asked him about making a contribution to the Lions Club, but he said he couldn’t afford it right now.”

  “Well, we appreciate your checking with him,” Phyllis said. “I was wondering . . . Do you think any of the companies he leases trucks to might be willing to contribute? If you had a list of them . . .”

  The woman frowned and said, “I don’t know if Mr. Loomis would want me sharing that information.” She shrugged and went on. “Then again, the company logo is on all the trucks, along with the names of the companies that lease them, so it’s not like it’s any great secret.”

  “That information would certainly be helpful,” Phyllis said.

  “The problem is, a list like that doesn’t really exist. I’d have to go through the files and put it together, and I’m not sure I have time.”

  “If you handle the billing, maybe you remember some of them,” Phyllis suggested. “It doesn’t have to be a complete list. Jus
t a few more places for us to try.”

  The woman thought about it and then nodded. She said, “I could do that, I suppose. We lease trucks to several of the regional supermarket chains.” She named them. “There are some oil-field supply companies and energy companies, like Cherokee and Anderson Brothers and Winchell and Devstar and Hawkins Supply. They get all of their trucks from us. Oh, and one of the hardware-store chains and any number of construction companies. Aren’t you going to write these down?”

  “Of course,” Phyllis said. She fumbled in her pockets. “I just don’t seem to have any paper or a pen.”

  The gray-haired woman shook her head and said, “I’ll write them down for you.”

  “Thank you so much.”

  The woman spent several minutes making a list of companies that did business with Cross Timbers Transport. She said, “I wouldn’t be doing this if it weren’t for a good cause.”

  “I know the children will be very grateful on Christmas morning,” Phyllis said. She made a mental promise to get several of those angels from the Angel Tree and make sure they had good Christmases. Even doing that, she might still feel a little guilty for using the Lions Club’s project in this manner.

  But saving an innocent man from prison and finding a killer are good causes, too, she reminded herself.

  The woman handed the sheet of paper over the counter and said, “There you are.”

  “Thanks again,” Phyllis said as she took it.

  “We’re much obliged,” Sam added with a nod. They turned toward the door.

  It opened before they could get there, and a woman stormed into the office. She demanded, “Where is he? Where is that lying, no-good—”

  She stopped short at the sight of Phyllis and Sam standing there. Phyllis recognized her right away. She had seen two pictures of this woman, albeit taken fifteen years apart.

  The blonde standing there with an angry expression on her face was Jaycee Fallon.

  Chapter 23

  “Sorry,” Jaycee muttered without much sincerity. She looked around Phyllis and Sam at the woman behind the counter and went on. “He’s not here, is he?”

  “No, he left a little while ago,” the woman said. “Was he expecting you?”

  Jaycee laughed and said, “Are you kidding? If Clay knew I was coming, he’d run the other way as fast as he could. That’s why I tried to catch him here. He owes me, the son of a—”

  “Please,” the woman said. “I know how upset you are with him, Jaycee, but there’s nothing I can do about it.”

  Jaycee nodded and sighed.

  “I know,” she said. “I’m sorry, Martha. I don’t mean to take it out on you. I’m just frustrated because I know how slick Clay is. He’s going to weasel out of all his responsibilities somehow. And I . . . I . . . don’t know how I’m going to get through this.”

  She put her hands over her face as it unexpectedly crumpled into tears.

  The gray-haired woman—Martha, Jaycee had called her—hurried out from behind the counter and put an arm around the blonde’s shoulders.

  “Oh, dear,” she said as she steered Jaycee toward the little leather sofa against one wall. “What in the world is wrong?”

  They seemed to have forgotten that Phyllis and Sam were still there, which was just fine with Phyllis. She hated to see anyone as upset as Jaycee obviously was, but sometimes when people were caught up in such an emotional state, they revealed more information than they intended to.

  “I—I’ve just been to the doctor,” Jaycee said as she sat down on the sofa with Martha. “I was pretty sure already, but now it’s certain . . .”

  “You’re pregnant?” Martha whispered.

  Jaycee swallowed hard and nodded.

  “I told Clay a couple of weeks ago that I thought I was, and he said . . . he said it wasn’t his. I told him it had to be, but he didn’t believe me. And he was really rude about it! That’s why I got mad and threatened to sue him for sexual harassment.” Jaycee clenched her right hand into a fist and thumped it against her knee. “I am not going to let him get away with not taking responsibility for this. I’ll keep him in court from now on, if that’s what it takes to make him stand up and do what’s right.”

  Martha shook her head and said solemnly, “It won’t do you any good, dear. Between you and me, he’s broke. I’m not sure if he’ll even be able to pay my salary this month.” She seemed to realize the two of them weren’t alone and shot a glance at Phyllis and Sam. “Oh, my. Please pretend you didn’t hear that. I had no right to speak out of turn.”

  “Don’t worry,” Phyllis said. “It’s none of our business. Right, Sam?”

  “That’s right,” Sam said. “In one ear and out the other.”

  “Thank you,” Martha said.

  Jaycee frowned at them and asked, “Who are you people?”

  Martha said, “They’re collecting donations for the Lions Club. You know, for the Christmas Angel Tree.”

  “Oh, sure.” Jaycee sighed. “My kid may wind up being one of those angels in a few years, if his father doesn’t provide for him. And from the sound of it, he won’t. Or can’t.”

  “It’s none of my business, but I’d be tempted to shoot a man like that,” Phyllis said. It was a leading comment, and she wanted to see how the blonde would react to it.

  “You and me both!” Jaycee responded with a hollow laugh. “That’s about what Clay deserves, all right. If I’d ever shot a gun in my life, I’d be tempted to get one and put a hole in him. Like I said, though, I’ll deal with him in court. It just won’t be as satisfying as shooting him would be.”

  “I hope things work out for you,” Phyllis said. She put a hand on Sam’s arm and urged him toward the door. We got what we came here for, she thought. Actually, they had gotten even more. Jaycee barging in like this had been a stroke of luck.

  As they were pulling away in the pickup, Sam said, “Well, we already knew that gal had a grudge against Loomis. I reckon now she’s got even more of a reason to be mad at him.”

  “And she said she already suspected she was pregnant a couple of weeks ago, well before the parade,” Phyllis mused.

  “You think she was lyin’ about never havin’ fired a gun, just to keep anybody from gettin’ suspicious of her?”

  Phyllis gave that some thought, then said, “I don’t think so. She had no idea who we really are, so she wouldn’t have had a reason to think we might suspect her of anything. Not only that, but if she was pregnant, then killing Loomis wouldn’t do her any good. You can’t sue a dead man for child support.”

  “So, we cross her off the list?”

  “Tentatively,” Phyllis said. She looked down at the piece of paper in her hand. “And we need to talk to Nate again and see if he has a connection to any of the companies on this list. If his rifle really is the murder weapon, then the killer had to know that he owned it and where to find it.”

  “Headin’ back to the house, then?”

  “Yes. I’ll see what I can find out about these companies on the Internet.”

  After driving for a few moments, Sam said, “You know, from everything we’ve heard about the dire straits ol’ Loomis is in, it seems almost like he’d be the one desperate enough to kill somebody.”

  “Yes, it does,” Phyllis said as she frowned in thought. “But we know Loomis couldn’t have killed Barney McCrory. Besides, he doesn’t profit from McCrory’s death in any way, and he was in some danger himself when McCrory was shot.”

  “Yeah, I know. It was just a stray thought.”

  And not a bad one, Phyllis decided. Under different circumstances, Clay Loomis certainly would fit the profile of a potential suspect. As things stood, though, Phyllis couldn’t see how the theory would work.

  It kept lurking in the back of her brain anyway as Sam drove back into town.

  • • •


  Carolyn and Eve hadn’t heard anything from Felicity by the time Phyllis and Sam returned. Phyllis headed for the computer to start checking out the names Martha had given her at the Cross Timbers Transport office.

  It seemed too far-fetched to think that somebody from one of the major grocery-store or hardware chains would have tried to murder Clay Loomis and accidentally shot Barney McCrory instead, so she concentrated on the smaller companies Martha had written down. Most of them were construction companies or energy companies based in the area.

  Devstar, for example, was owned by a man named Devin Scott, and its headquarters was in Fort Worth. Anderson Energy was owned by three brothers of that name from Mineral Wells. Hawkins Supply operated out of Granbury. Phyllis spent more than an hour on the computer and didn’t discover anything the least bit suspicious about them or any of the other companies she checked out. All of them seemed to operate in an honest and aboveboard manner, with no trace of controversy about their dealings.

  And nothing that would seem to tie in with murder, either.

  Eve came into the living room and said, “I’ve gone through that file you sent me, Phyllis. I didn’t see anything wrong with it.”

  “No spelling or grammar mistakes?” Phyllis was surprised.

  “Oh, I moved a comma or two,” Eve said. “Nothing really important. You just can’t expect a former English teacher to go through something someone has written and not make a correction or two. It’s instinct, you know.”

  Phyllis understood. She was the same way when someone made a historical reference that was wrong. She kept her mouth shut most of the time, though. She wasn’t being paid to set people straight about history anymore.

  “Anyway, I sent the file back to you,” Eve went on. “It’s very good, by the way. The recipe makes scrumptious cookies, and you wrote about it in a very clear, easy-to-understand manner.”

  “I can’t tell you how relieved I am to hear you say that. This is the first thing I’ve actually written for publication, and I wasn’t sure if I was up to it.”