“Yeah, me, too,” Sam said from the sofa. “Why don’t you come over here and sit down? Might be good to just put the whole thing out of your head for a spell. Sometimes your brain works better when you’re not thinkin’ about something.”
“You could be right,” Phyllis said as she turned off the monitor and stood up. She moved to the sofa, sat down beside him, and leaned her shoulder against his. That felt good. “I don’t think my brain wants to work anymore, though, especially on some murder. This is not how I expected to be spending my retirement years, Sam.”
“Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition.”
“What?”
He waved a hand and said, “Just somethin’ I saw on TV once. What I mean to say is that life’s always gonna have some surprises waitin’ for us, some good, some bad, and we just have to do the best we can with ’em. Twenty years ago, if anybody had asked me what I thought was gonna happen between then and now, anything I might’ve come up with sure wouldn’t match how things have really turned out.”
“Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”
“It’s just a thing,” he said with a shrug. “But I’m sure not complainin’ about how it’s all turned out.”
“Neither am I,” Phyllis said.
Chapter 17
Phyllis wasn’t surprised when her phone rang the next morning and the display told her that Jimmy D’Angelo was the caller.
She had just checked the spicy caramel apple pie that was cooling on the counter and found that it was almost ready to go into the container so she could take it to the park for the contest at the festival. She had gotten up early that morning to bake it. In a perfect world, she would have tried out the recipe before now, but this was far from a perfect world. If this pie didn’t win or even get an honorable mention, no harm done, of course. These competitions were strictly for fun, as far as she was concerned . . . and another contest of some sort was always right around the corner.
She thumbed the icon on the screen to answer the call and said, “Good morning, Jimmy. I hope you have news.”
She didn’t specify good new or bad news. As Sam had said the night before, you had to take what came and make the best of it.
“Good morning,” D’Angelo said. “Yeah, I’ve got news. Ms. Cordell will be out on bail soon. Her release is being processed now. But it wasn’t easy. Since the charge is first-degree murder, and since she’s from out of town—and Hollywood, at that—the judge really thought she was a flight risk. I talked him out of it, though. That’s how good I am.”
“Thank you, Jimmy.”
“Bail was half a mil, though.”
“Good grief,” Phyllis said. “That much?”
“His Honor was thinking three-quarters at first. I got a bondsman buddy of mine to go along with the five hundred grand, but I’m not sure he would’ve taken on the larger amount, so I was glad I haggled the judge down.”
“What did Julie tell you? Is she going to plead not guilty?” Phyllis held her breath a little as she waited to hear if Julie had admitted killing Lawrence Fremont. Surely she hadn’t, if D’Angelo had gone to the trouble of getting her bail set and arranged.
“She claims up and down that she’s innocent, and I believe her. Of course, she’s an actor, so it’s her job to make people believe what she’s saying. That complicates things.”
“But your instincts say she didn’t do it?”
“My gut does. Same thing. I thought that maybe when they turn her loose, we’d come over there and sit down with you and Sam. You two are my top investigators, after all.”
“That’s fine.” Phyllis glanced at the clock on the kitchen wall. “If you can make it in the next hour.”
“You have somewhere to be?”
She looked at the pie on the counter and said, “We’re going to the Harvest Festival.” She felt bad because she was thinking about a pie contest when Julie Cordell’s very freedom was at stake, but she had gone to the trouble of baking this one and wanted to enter it.
“Okay,” D’Angelo said, sounding a little annoyed. “Anyway, here she comes now, so we’ll be there in just a little while.”
“Thank you again, Jimmy.”
“Hey, what better publicity for a guy like me than defending a Hollywood star against a murder rap?”
He hung up, and Phyllis went to finish getting dressed before D’Angelo and Julie got there. She told Sam that they were on their way, too.
She had just put the pie in the container when the doorbell rang. Leaving the lid off of it, she went to the foyer and opened the door. Jimmy D’Angelo stood there with Julie beside him. His hand rested lightly on her arm. Her face showed the strain of the night she had just spent in jail.
“Come in,” Phyllis said. “Julie, I’m so sorry you’re having to go through this.”
D’Angelo ushered Julie into the house and on into Phyllis’s living room. She sank wearily into one of the comfortable armchairs.
“I’ll get you some coffee,” Phyllis said, “and there are muffins left from breakfast.”
“They gave us breakfast in jail,” Julie said in a dull voice.
From the arched entrance between the living room and the foyer, Sam said, “Whatever it was, it wasn’t as good as Phyllis’s muffins. One of them will make you feel better.”
“I can vouch for that,” D’Angelo added. He patted his ample stomach.
He was a short, stout man in his forties with a lot of thick, very dark hair. His accent marked him clearly as not a native Texan, but since coming to Weatherford he had established himself as a top defense attorney and a good friend to Phyllis and Sam. They had worked with him on a number of cases.
Julie managed to summon up a faint smile and said, “All right, I’ll have one of those muffins. And some good coffee would be wonderful. Thank you.”
“Comin’ right up,” Sam said. He disappeared down the hall toward the kitchen.
“Could I get some, too?” D’Angelo called after him.
“Sure thing!”
Phyllis sat down across from Julie and asked, “Are you all right? They treated you okay?”
“Other than arresting me for murder.” A spark of life came back into Julie’s eyes. “A murder I didn’t commit!”
“We all know that,” Phyllis told her.
“Nobody really bothered me, though,” Julie went on. “The cops were polite enough, and they put me in a cell by myself, so it’s not like they threw me in the drunk tank or something. And Mr. D’Angelo showed up to help me almost before I knew what was going on.” She smiled at the attorney, then said to Phyllis, “I really appreciate you asking him to represent me.”
“We knew you’d need an attorney,” Phyllis said, “and Jimmy’s the best.”
“How did you even find out about—” Julie stopped short, then said, “Ohhhh. You talked to Melissa, didn’t you?”
“She came over here a short time after you were arrested and told us all about it.”
“She wants you to find Lawrence’s killer and clear my name, doesn’t she? And she wants to help you do it.”
“Well . . . yes.”
“I know her pretty well,” Julie went in. “She couldn’t really stop talking about that yesterday evening, and seeing me handcuffed and marched off that way probably just made her even more determined.” She smiled fondly. “I need to let her know that I’m all right. I’m sure she’s worried.”
“I’m sure she is, too,” Phyllis agreed. “Right now, though—”
“Right now, folks need to try these muffins,” Sam said as he walked into the room carrying a plate with several of them on it. Carolyn came along behind him with cups of coffee for Julie and D’Angelo. She had been in the kitchen when Sam got there.
For a few minutes, silence mostly reigned in the living room as the visitors sampled the muffins. Sam, who was nearly a bottomless pit where food was concerned, helped himself to one as well, although he’d already had two at breakfast, Phyllis recalled. D’Angelo washed
down the last bite of his muffin with a sip of coffee, then said, “We need to talk about the case.”
Phyllis, who was keeping an eye on the time, nodded and said, “Yes, we do.”
Before they could begin, however, the doorbell rang again. Carolyn went to answer it and came back with Melissa Keller.
“Julie!” Melissa said. Julie stood up and the two of them embraced. Melissa stepped back and went on, “I came to talk to Phyllis, but I had a feeling you might be here, too.” She turned to D’Angelo and held out her hand. “I’m Melissa Keller.”
“Jimmy D’Angelo,” he introduced himself. “It’s an honor to meet you, Ms. Keller. I enjoy your work.”
“I hope we all enjoy yours,” Melissa said as she shook hands with him. “That’ll mean you’ve gotten rid of this crazy murder charge against Julie.”
“We were just about to discuss that . . .”
“Goodness, don’t let me stop you.” Melissa’s eyes fell on the plate of muffins sitting on the coffee table. “Did you make those, Phyllis?”
“Actually, no. They’re Carolyn’s.”
“I know you’re a wonderful baker, too, Carolyn, so I’m going to help myself. The rest of you go ahead with what you were doing.”
D’Angelo stayed on his feet and faced all of them as he said, “I hope you’ll forgive me, Ms. Cordell, but I’m going to fill Phyllis and Sam in on what I’ve learned, and I’ll have to be kind of blunt about some things.”
Julie nodded. “I understand. There’s nothing quite as blunt as being arrested.”
“I talked to Isabel Largo and to the assistant district attorney who got the arrest warrant. The warrant was issued largely on the basis of motive, since all the physical evidence is still being examined. Largo and the ADA were both cagey about it, but my hunch is that they don’t have any eyewitness testimony to tie you to the killing, Ms. Cordell. The cops were feeling some pressure to make an arrest, though, and they settled on you instead of your niece, although I’m not quite sure why.”
“Your niece?” Phyllis repeated.
Julie sighed and nodded. “Becca Peterson. She’s my sister’s daughter.”
“I didn’t know that,” Melissa said in a surprised tone.
“Neither did I,” Phyllis said.
“Not that many people do,” Julie said. “Becca has a very independent streak. She didn’t want anybody thinking that she got cast in roles because of my influence. Although Lord knows why she would think that. I don’t really have any influence. No aging character actress does.”
“You’re more than that,” Melissa protested.
Julie shook her head and said, “Not really.”
Melissa frowned, leaned forward, and asked, “Then the rumors about Lawrence and Becca are true?”
“They are. He pressured her into having an affair with him. Becca wanted to break it off, but Lawrence wouldn’t allow that. It would have been too big a blow to his pride. He had to be the one to decide when it was over. She told him she would go public with her accusations, and he said he’d ruin her in Hollywood if she did.”
“In this day and age?” Carolyn said. “I don’t think he’d have the power to do that. In fact, I’d say it’s the other way around. Much bigger men than Lawrence Fremont have been taken down by accusations like that.”
Julie nodded and said, “That’s true. But Becca backed off anyway. She didn’t want to take the chance, just as she was getting her career established.”
“So the cops decided that you took care of the problem for her,” D’Angelo said.
Julie shook her head and said, “I wouldn’t have done that. I may have hated Lawrence Fremont, but I wouldn’t have killed him.”
“Of course you didn’t, honey!” Melissa said. “The whole idea is crazy.”
“I don’t believe they can prove that you did,” D’Angelo said. “It’s best that we never even go to trial and risk it, though.” He looked at Phyllis and Sam. “That means finding out who really killed the guy.”
Phyllis said, “I know you’d probably like to go back to the hotel, Julie, so you can get some actual rest . . .”
“I need a shower first,” Julie said. “I know it wasn’t really that bad, but just being in jail . . .” She shuddered. “It makes a person feel dirty.”
“It certainly does,” Carolyn agreed fervently. “I know.”
“The police have established that Lawrence Fremont was poisoned by cyanide, and that it was probably put into a piece of the pecan pie I took to the park yesterday,” Phyllis went on. “The killer must have put that pie right into his hand and watched him eat it, just to make sure it didn’t wind up being eaten by some innocent person.”
“And to watch him die,” Melissa added. “Whoever it was must have taken some satisfaction in that, otherwise they wouldn’t have chosen such a method.”
The same thought had occurred to Phyllis the night before. She nodded and said, “I think Fremont must have been in the motor home he was using when that happened. It was parked across the street, so the killer must have gotten the pie from the craft services table, walked across the park and the street to the motor home, and knocked on the door. Fremont let the killer in and took the pecan pie and ate it.”
“Maybe the killer claimed the pie was a peace offerin’,” Sam suggested. “That’d mean that he—or she—had had trouble with him in the past.”
“Lord, who didn’t Lawrence have trouble with?” Melissa said. “A couple of years ago, he and Bob Harkness punched each other out on the set one day. I wasn’t there because I wasn’t in that picture, but from what I heard, it was quite a brawl.”
D’Angelo asked, “Who’s this Harkness? The name’s familiar, but I can’t place him.”
Sam looked around, maybe to make sure Eve wasn’t in the vicinity to correct him, Phyllis thought, then said, “He plays me in the movie. Seems like a pretty good guy.”
Melissa blew out a breath of air at that comment.
Phyllis seized the opportunity to ask, “Why is it that the two of you don’t get along, Melissa?”
“Picked up on that, did you? Of course you did. You’re the detective. Look, I’m not saying that Bob Harkness is a bad guy, and I’m certainly not saying that he’s a killer, but he’s the most arrogant son of a . . . gun . . . I’ve ever run into, and that’s saying a lot because I’ve worked in Hollywood for the past thirty years! I did a guest shot on that series he did for one of the streaming platforms, and he starts trying to give me lessons on how to improve my performance. They kept having to reshoot scenes because he couldn’t even talk like an American instead of a dang Aussie half the time, and he’s lecturing me on acting! Well, I told him what he could do with his advice.” Melissa paused and smiled ruefully. “And now I’m getting carried away, aren’t I? It’s just that when you’ve been around as long as I have, it really rubs you the wrong way when somebody with a fraction of the experience starts telling you how to do things.”
Jimmy D’Angelo said, “The important thing here is that this Harkness has an old grudge against the victim. He had a reason for wanting Fremont dead, too.”
“What about Earl Thorpe?” Phyllis said.
Melissa and Julie both looked at her. “Earl?” Julie said. “He’s the sweetest guy in the world.”
“He really is,” Melissa agreed.
“But he’s the assistant director, and he’s been doing a lot of work on the picture that Fremont should have been doing. Fremont would have taken the credit for it, too.”
“You bet he would have,” Melissa said.
“But now Thorpe has taken over the picture,” Phyllis continued. “That’s bound to reflect well on him . . .”
She stopped as she saw Melissa shaking her head.
“Alan said this morning that he’s already talking to Clive Walker about finishing the rest of the picture once we get back to Austin.”
“Who’s Walker?” D’Angelo asked.
“Another A-list director. Well, high B-list
, anyway. Alan trusts Earl to shoot the rest of the footage we need to get here, but he’s not going to turn the whole thing over to him.”
Phyllis said, “Would Thorpe have known that, though?”
“Well . . . he could have hoped that Alan would give the job to him, I suppose.”
“That’s another motive. Fremont has been making life miserable for those screenwriters, too. There’s no real shortage of suspects.” Phyllis turned to Julie again. “What about an alibi? Where were you during lunch yesterday? That must have been when the killer took the pie to Fremont.”
“I was with the rest of the cast most of the time,” Julie said.
“But not all the time?” D’Angelo asked.
“Not every minute,” Julie snapped. “I went to the restroom, and I walked around the park some. You stand and wait so much when you’re shooting a picture, so I like to move around when I get the chance.”
“I feel the same way,” Carolyn told her.
Phyllis nodded slowly and said, “With so many people in the park, and so much going on, it’s going to be very difficult for the police to find anyone who can state definitively that they saw anyone doing anything.”
“Especially at a particular time,” D’Angelo added. “We can cast reasonable doubt on any such testimony. Still, it’s mighty hard to prove a negative in the minds of a jury.”
Julie put her hands on her knees, sighed, and said, “Can we postpone the rest of this discussion? Honestly, I’m exhausted, and I just can’t think straight right now.”
“Of course you can’t,” Melissa said. “I’ll take you back to the hotel and get you settled in.”
“And we need to get to the park,” Phyllis said. “The festival should be getting underway already.”
Death Bakes a Pecan Pie Page 13
