“I don’t see how that could have any bearing on the murder, though.”
Melissa frowned in thought and after a moment said, “You know Lawrence made life miserable for Jason yesterday by humiliating him right out there in front of everybody. That’s not the first time something like that has happened on this picture, although that was probably the most glaring example of it. If Teddy’s in love with him—and look at her, she’s gazing at him like she’s a puppy!—she might’ve gotten so mad about Lawrence’s treatment of him that she decided to get back at him.”
“Maybe . . .” Phyllis said.
“And since Teddy’s a production assistant—a glorified go-fer—people are used to seeing her scurrying around everywhere carrying things. If she took a piece of pie to Lawrence, nobody would think a thing of it. They’d probably forget all about it five seconds after they saw it.”
Phyllis had to admit that Melissa’s theory made sense . . . except for a couple of things. Murdering Lawrence Fremont seemed like an awfully extreme reaction to his dressing-down of Jason Wilkes. And like seemingly everyone else involved in this case, Teddy had no reason to dress the corpse like a scarecrow and lug it across the park to the log cabin. Teddy might have been able to do that, physically, Phyllis thought, but it would have been difficult.
Eve said, “Maybe she didn’t intend to kill Fremont. She might have just meant to give him enough poison to make him sick and punish him for the way he’s been treating Jason. His death could have been an accident.”
Phyllis mulled that over and then nodded. “That seems plausible. One thing we haven’t addressed in any of this speculation . . . Where did the killer get the cyanide? That’s not something that anyone would just carry around.”
“Whoever did it had to have gotten it ahead of time,” Melissa said. “That means the poisoning was premeditated, whether the killer meant for it to be fatal or not.”
Sam looked over at Ronnie and said, “Sorry you have to listen to all this gruesome stuff.”
“Are you kidding?” the girl asked. “This is fascinating. And if I ever do become a cop, I’ll have to deal with death all the time.”
Carolyn said, “Not like this. Phyllis seems to attract it.”
Phyllis had long since learned not to let Carolyn’s comments like that bother her. She knew her old friend didn’t mean any harm. Besides, whether she wanted to admit it or not, what Carolyn said had quite a bit of truth to it. She had been involved in far more murders than anyone in her position ought to be. Most retired American History teachers never solved even one murder.
“Premeditation rules out Teddy,” Phyllis said, “at least as far as what Fremont did to Jason yesterday. If that had caused Teddy to go over the edge, she wouldn’t have had a chance to lay her hands on cyanide here in the park.” She waved a hand to take in their surroundings.
“Maybe, maybe not,” Melissa said. “There’s probably a maintenance shed around here somewhere that might have some insecticide in it, or something they spray on the plants, or who knows what else that might be poisonous.”
“A spur of the moment thing, using what was at hand?” Phyllis mulled that over. “It seems unlikely to me, but I suppose we can’t rule it out.”
Melissa smiled. “See, I’m starting to think like a detective. I knew spending all this time around you would come in handy, Phyllis. Once we start shooting again, I’ll be able to play you—I mean, Peggy Nelson—better than ever.”
“Meanwhile, we’ve got a cherry pie to eat,” Sam said. “I’m slicin’ the rest of this sucker.”
For the next few minutes, they concentrated on that, and the pie tasted as good as it looked.
“Could have used some homemade vanilla ice cream on it,” Sam commented, “but cherry pie’s hard to beat, ice cream or no ice cream. Of course, the same thing could be said of that pecan pie you baked, Phyllis. And I’m sure that spicy caramel apple pie would have been just as tasty. Lucky for all of us, pie isn’t a zero-sum game.”
“Oh, I know that from economics class,” Ronnie said. “Just because this pie is good, it doesn’t make any other pie less good.”
“Right. When it comes to pie, they’re all good.”
Carolyn laughed and said, “Not all. I’ve been responsible for a few misfires in my time.”
“Me, too,” Phyllis said, smiling. “Anyone who has ever baked anything has had a few disasters along the way that they’d just as soon forget about.”
Melissa said, “It’s the same with movies. Lordy, I’ve made some that never show up anywhere except in the middle of the night on local digital channels desperate to fill up airtime. You can’t even find ’em on YouTube, and I’m glad of that.”
Eve nibbled the last of the filling from her slice of pie, leaving a curving remnant of edge crust. As Phyllis watched her set that down on the paper plate, she thought about what Detective Largo had said earlier. The crime scene techs had found a piece of crust in Lawrence Fremont’s motor home, the last link in the series of circumstantial evidence that they claimed pointed to Julie Cordell as the killer. Phyllis was pretty sure it wasn’t possible to recover fingerprints from pie crust, but she wondered if they might be able to get any DNA from it. She knew from talking to Mike and other investigators in the past that such tests were a lot more difficult and time-consuming—not to mention usually less conclusive—than they were made out to be in movies and TV, but it might be worth talking to Isabel Largo again and making sure the police weren’t overlooking anything.
Phyllis ate the last bite of her pie—including the crust—and starting gathering up the plates and plasticware so they could go into one of the big trash cans scattered around the park.
“I’ll help you with that,” Ronnie volunteered.
Sam patted his stomach and said, “I think maybe I’ve had a mite too much to eat today. There was just so much good food, though, and I wanted to try all of it.” He looked around. “They should’ve set aside part of the park and brought in a bunch of comfortable recliners so old guys like me could rent one of ’em and take a nap. That would’ve raised quite a bit of money, I’ll betcha.”
Carolyn said, “How could anyone possibly take a nap with all this hubbub going on?”
“Have you met Sam?” Eve asked.
He grinned. “Background noise makes for some of the best nappin’.”
Phyllis and Ronnie dumped the trash they had gathered into a nearby can. “I need to go make a phone call,” Phyllis said. “The rest of you go ahead and do whatever you’d like. I’ll catch up to you in a little while.”
“Is something wrong?” Carolyn asked.
“No, just something I need to check on,” Phyllis said. She didn’t mind sharing her ideas with the others, but in this case it was entirely possible Detective Largo would refuse to even speak with her, so there was no point in saying anything.
Sam started to get to his feet. “Be glad to help you, whatever it is,” he offered.
Phyllis waved him back down and smiled. “Just sit there and digest your pie.”
“I suppose I can handle that.”
Phyllis walked across the park toward the parking lot, thinking it would be a little quieter up there. The crowd wasn’t quite as big as it had been earlier in the day, and it would thin out more as the afternoon went on, but a lot of people were still there, talking, laughing, and generally having a good time. A certain level of noise went with that.
She stopped at the edge of the lot and got out her cell phone, which had Isabel Largo’s number in it from a previous case. Phyllis called it, listened to it ring, and figured the call was probably going to go to voicemail. There was a good chance Largo wouldn’t want to talk to her right now, after their brief and none too friendly encounter earlier in the day.
Then Phyllis frowned as she realized she was hearing the detective’s phone ringing not only through her phone, but a ringtone was playing somewhere very close by, creating a rather discordant sound. She looked around and was surp
rised to see Isabel Largo getting out of a car parked a few spaces away. Phyllis thumbed her phone to end the call.
Largo walked over to her and said, “Whatever it is you want, Mrs. Newsom, we might as well do this in person since we’re both right here. I saw you coming in this direction a minute ago and wondered if you were looking for me.”
“I didn’t even know you were here at the park anymore,” Phyllis replied honestly.
Largo shrugged and said, “I thought I’d swing back by and see how things are going. The festival helps out a worthy cause.” She nodded over her shoulder toward her car. “I brought a bag of canned food to donate.”
“I’m glad to hear that. But the reason I was calling you is because I thought of a question I wanted to ask.”
“Something else that’s going to undermine the police department and its investigation?”
“That’s just it,” Phyllis said coolly. “You’re not investigating anymore, are you? You’ve arrested Julie Cordell, so there’s not any point in continuing.”
“We’re going to develop all the evidence we can,” Largo snapped.
“Even if it clears Ms. Cordell, instead of strengthening the case against her?”
“We want to make sure we have the right person. We’re just trying to get justice, that’s all.”
“Then we’re working toward the same end,” Phyllis said. “I was thinking about the pie crust you said you found in Lawrence Fremont’s motor home.”
She glanced toward the spot where the motor home had been parked the day before. Today a couple of pickups were parked there, their owners having come to attend the Harvest Festival. There was nothing to indicate that a murder had taken place in that spot.
“What about that pie crust?” Largo asked. “We already knew from the autopsy that Fremont ate cyanide-laced pecan pie. The evidence we found proves that Julie Cordell handled pecan pie. Finding the crust in the motor home just nails down the place where she gave it to Fremont.”
“What about DNA?” Phyllis asked. “Is that piece of crust being tested?”
“To prove that Ms. Cordell handled it? That’s actually not a bad idea.” Largo paused. “That’s why we sent it to the lab last night.”
“Oh,” Phyllis said. She tried not to feel too crestfallen. In the long run, it was good that Largo wasn’t cutting corners. “What if the tests show that someone else handled the slice that Fremont ate, instead of Julie?”
“Then I’m sure your friend D’Angelo will be able to use that to Ms. Cordell’s advantage. We should get the results back long before the case comes to trial. If they prove someone else is guilty, then I assume D’Angelo can get the charges against Ms. Cordell dropped.”
“But in the meantime, Julie has to have that cloud hanging over her head.”
“That’s the way the system works,” Largo said.
Phyllis couldn’t think of any argument to make against that statement. Like it or not, if she couldn’t come up with anything to clear Julie’s name sooner than that, they would have to wait for the results of the DNA test and hope for the best.
“Just out of curiosity, how big was the piece of crust they found?” she asked. “Was it a complete arc from the whole slice?”
“No,” Largo said. She reached into her pocket, took out her phone, and swiped the screen a couple of times. Then she held it out so Phyllis could see the photo displayed on it. “That’s it right there. It was only about an inch and a half long.”
Phyllis looked at the segment of pie crust for a long moment and then nodded. “That appears to be from one of my pecan pies, all right,” she said.
“And the one you brought was the only one in the park yesterday,” Largo said. “That’s pretty definitive, I’d say.” She tucked the phone away. “Was there anything else you wanted to talk to me about, Mrs. Newsom?”
Phyllis shook her head. “No, I don’t believe so. It just occurred to me to ask you about the DNA test.” She managed a mile. “I’m glad you’d already thought of it.”
Detective Largo nodded but looked like she didn’t really believe the sentiment Phyllis had just expressed. “I’m going to walk around a little now.”
“And I need to get back to my friends. Thank you, Detective.”
“For what? I didn’t help your case a bit.”
“Well, you never know,” Phyllis said.
Chapter 21
She found her friends at a display put up by the local quilting club, and the colorful quilts reminded Phyllis of her old friend Mattie Harris, who had been quite the quilter. That put her in mind of the Peach Festival held every summer in Weatherford and how one of those celebrations a number of years earlier had ended in tragedy. That was the first time she had been called on to solve a murder, and she never would have dreamed how things had gone since then. Not in the proverbial million years.
“These are gorgeous!” Melissa enthused over the quilts. “It must have taken ages to make some of them, they’re so intricate.”
“Quilting takes a considerable commitment of time,” Carolyn said, “but it’s very relaxing and also very satisfying when you’re finished and you look at what you’ve created.”
“I imagine so. I feel sort of the same way when I watch a movie I’m in, although I don’t ever really do that anymore. I haven’t watched one all the way through in years.”
“Why not?” Eve asked.
“Well . . . you wouldn’t sit down and reread your book from start to finish just for fun, would you, now that it’s been out for a while? You know all the stuff that went into it, and all the good and bad things that happened while you were writing it, and the magic just isn’t there the same way it is for somebody who comes to it fresh. Basically, you’d rather read somebody else’s book instead of the one you wrote. It’s the same way with movies.”
Eve nodded and said, “That makes sense, I suppose.”
“Well, I figure on watchin’ more of your movies, now that I know what to look for,” Sam said.
Melissa laughed. “Oh, honey, just be careful! Like I said, there are some stinkers in there!”
Phyllis said, “I know they’re going to finish making this movie with a new director, but what about any movies that Lawrence Fremont was supposed to direct in the future? I assume he had other projects in development.”
“I’m sure he did, but the production companies will just hire somebody else. It’s possible that if a project is in the early stages, they might cancel it, but if there’s a way to salvage things—and make money—Hollywood will find it.”
Phyllis didn’t doubt that.
“If I had more space, I’d buy one of these gorgeous quilts and take it home with me,” Melissa went on.
“You could buy one and have it shipped to Los Angeles,” Carolyn told her.
“I could, couldn’t I? Which one do you think I should get?”
For the next several minutes, they looked over the quilts and discussed which one Melissa should buy. Phyllis took part in the conversation, but only distractedly. Her brain was still too full of the murder case, and her thoughts were whirling.
Once Melissa had made up her mind about the quilt, she approached the two older ladies who were running the booth and told them which one she wanted to buy. She offered the price written on the tag attached to the quilt, and one of the ladies said, “Don’t you want to haggle a little first?”
Melissa laughed. “I’m not much of a haggler, honey. When I see something I want, I just go after it. Oh, and I’ll need you to ship it to L.A. for me, too.”
“Well, I suppose we can do that . . .”
The transaction was completed in a few minutes. The group moved on to see the rest of what there was to see in the park, although they were getting close to having seen it all. Around four o’clock, Carolyn said, “I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m getting tired. It’s been a long day.”
“Yes, it has,” Phyllis agreed. “I think I’m ready to go home and rest.”
&nb
sp; “Sounds good to me,” Sam said. “I’m not as young as I used to be.”
Ronnie said, “Technically, I suppose I’m not, either, but I am still young. Is it all right if I stay here and some of my friends will bring me home later?”
“Would these be friends that I know?” Sam asked.
“Sure. Jennifer and Megan. You remember them from last year when you were a substitute teacher at the high school.”
“Yeah, that sounds like it’ll be all right.”
“Thanks, Granddad.”
As Ronnie hurried off into the crowd, Phyllis asked Sam, “Do you really remember who Jennifer and Megan are?”
“Well, not really,” he admitted. “When it comes to teenage girls, they’re all named Jennifer and Megan, aren’t they?”
“Don’t worry, I know who she means, and they’re good kids.”
Sam nodded. “I figured if it was anything to worry about, you’d speak up.”
Phyllis turned to Melissa and asked, “Are you going back to the hotel?”
“Yes, I think so. I want to check on Julie and make sure she’s doing all right. She said she was just going to sleep most of the day, since she didn’t get much rest last night in jail.”
“When you see her, tell her not to worry.”
“I can tell her,” Melissa said with a dubious shake of her head, “but I’m not sure she’ll believe me.” She smiled. “But with you digging into this case, Phyllis, I’m sure it’s just a matter of time until you’ve nabbed that killer!”
◄♦►
After eating all they had during the day, no one was really in the mood for supper, so they skipped having an actual meal and everyone was free to fend for themselves. Phyllis wasn’t the least bit hungry, so she headed for the computer instead of the kitchen.
She was curious about Lawrence Fremont’s career, having become convinced that the key to the whole thing would be found there. Her research had delved into his background already, but this time she concentrated on the movies and TV shows he had directed. She was glad Sam had told her about IMDb, because it was easy for her to use that website to track the course of Fremont’s directorial career, right from the start.
Death Bakes a Pecan Pie Page 16
