The Pumpkin Muffin Murder

by Livia J. Washburn

  Clicking back to the search page, Phyllis scrolled down the links to newspaper stories that mentioned NorCenTex Development. There were quite a few of them. She had read some of them before Mike called and now checked out several more of them, confirming her impression that NorCenTex Development was primarily an investment holdings company that bought up failing or borderline commercial properties and made successes out of them. The company seemed to have a good track record at that.

  There was nothing, though, about a pending mallconstruction deal in Weatherford. If it was true, though, and she had no reason to doubt what she had heard from both Logan Powell and Ben Loomis, it would be a big step for the company, as Mike had pointed out.

  She couldn’t imagine what Logan could have done to jeopardize that deal—he had been hoping to cash in on it himself, in fact—but if circumstances had changed abruptly and Logan suddenly represented an obstacle to the mall, how far would the other people in the deal go to make sure it wasn’t ruined?

  Phyllis knew that was pure speculation on her part, but she thought it was a question worth asking . . . and answering. She wasn’t sure how to go about doing that, but she was going to give it some thought.

  Sam came into the room behind her and rested a familiar hand on her shoulder. “Thinkin’ about the case?” he asked as he looked at the list of links on the monitor.

  “That’s right. That was Mike on the phone a little while ago. I told him all about it.”

  “Let me guess. He told you to keep your nose out of the case and stay out of trouble.”

  Phyllis laughed and reached up to pat his hand where it rested on her shoulder. “How did you know?”

  “Hey, I got grown kids, too, who think I’m a dodderin’ old fool.”

  “Mike doesn’t think I’m doddering.”

  “Well, we’re in agreement on that. You’re about as far from dodderin’ as anybody I know.”

  “Can we stop using the word doddering?”

  “Fine by me. What did you tell him?”

  “That there probably won’t be anything going on in the case this week except Dana’s bail hearing. He agreed.”

  “So you didn’t actually promise not to nose around in the case?”

  Phyllis shook her head and said, “Not in so many words, no.”

  Both of them knew what she meant by that. Sam chuckled and tightened his grip on her shoulder for a second. “Here we go again,” he said.

  Chapter 25

  Phyllis had some vague plans for Monday morning, but before she could get started on them, the phone rang. Phyllis, Sam, Carolyn, Eve, and Bobby were in the kitchen at the time eating breakfast, and Carolyn was the closest to the phone, since she was up pouring herself another cup of coffee.

  She picked up the phone, checked the caller ID screen, and said, “It’s Dolly.”

  Phyllis stood up and held out her hand. “I called and left a message for her yesterday, asking her to call me back.” Carolyn handed her the phone, and Phyllis pressed the TALK button and said, “Hello.”

  “Phyllis? This is Dolly Williamson. I got your message. Sorry I wasn’t able to get back to you yesterday. I was tied up at church nearly all day.”

  “That’s all right,” Phyllis assured the former superintendent. “I was calling about Thanksgiving. I got to thinking about people who are going to be alone on that day, without families to gather around them.”

  “Oh, Phyllis! How lovely that you thought of me. I’d love to come and spend Thanksgiving with you and Carolyn and Eve. And Sam, too, of course.”

  Phyllis’s eyes widened in surprise. She hadn’t really meant to invite Dolly. She had just planned to ask her for suggestions of teachers who might be alone on the holiday. Dolly had grown children with families of their own, and they usually all got together on Thanksgiving.

  “You’re not going to be with your own family this year?” Phyllis asked.

  “No, they’re all flying off to Disney World or some such. Why anybody would want to spend Thanksgiving in some hotel, I don’t know, but what can you do? This younger generation certainly has a mind of its own.”

  The members of that “younger generation” Dolly referred to were middle-aged adults, since she was in her late seventies. Phyllis didn’t point that out, though. She did the only thing she could and made the best of the situation by saying, “Of course we’d love to have you spend the day with us, Dolly. In fact, I was thinking about inviting several teachers who might be alone otherwise.”

  “What a wonderful idea! Who did you have in mind?”

  “Well, Jenna Grantham mentioned that she couldn’t afford to fly back home to Wisconsin. . . .”

  “I know Jenna. Lovely girl.”

  Phyllis wasn’t surprised that Dolly was acquainted with Jenna. Dolly might be retired, but she kept a finger on the pulse of the school district. Phyllis sometimes thought that Dolly knew every teacher who had ever taught in Weatherford, going all the way back forty years or more and continuing right up to the present day. She was familiar with a lot of teachers from surrounding districts, too, such as Sam, who had taught at Poolville for most of his career.

  “What about her friends Taryn Marshall and Kendra Neville? I know they’re both single, but I don’t know what their plans are for Thanksgiving.”

  “Let me find out about that,” Dolly volunteered. She loved to organize things, so the offer came as no surprise to Phyllis. “I’m sure I can come up with some other teachers who’d be glad to have a place to go for Thanksgiving, too. How many people can you handle? A dozen?”

  Phyllis had been thinking more along the lines of three or four guests, but she had to admit that a dozen would help fill the house up and make it feel more like an old-fashioned Thanksgiving. She said, “Around a dozen would be good.”

  “But of course we can’t expect you to prepare a dinner for that many people all by yourself.”

  “I won’t be,” Phyllis said. “Carolyn will be helping me.”

  “That’s still not enough. I can bring my baked mashed potatoes with sour cream and cream cheese. They’re wonderful. I’ll tell everyone who’s coming to bring a side dish or dessert. How will that be?”

  It would certainly be easier if everyone pitched in by bringing food, Phyllis thought. And that was something of a tradition at family get-togethers, too. This was shaping up to be a bigger affair than she had expected, but she found herself looking forward to it.

  “All right, that’s fine,” she told Dolly.

  “This will be fun. It’s a wonderful, generous idea on your part, Phyllis. Now, you just relax and let me handle all the details.”

  “Okay,” Phyllis said with a smile. Despite her age, Dolly was a force of nature, like a blizzard or a typhoon. There was no stopping her, and it was a waste of time and energy to try.

  “All right, I’ll stay in touch, and I’ll let you know exactly who’s coming and what they’re going to bring.”

  “That’s fine, Dolly, thank you.”

  They said their good-byes and hung up. As Phyllis replaced the cordless phone on its base, Carolyn said, “You just got steamrollered by Dolly, didn’t you?”

  Sam grinned and put in, “I always thought of her as more like a velvet sledgehammer.”

  Phyllis thought both of those descriptions were pretty accurate. She said, “Dolly sort of invited herself for Thanksgiving, and she’s going to line up some other teachers who’d be alone for the holiday otherwise. We may have a dozen people here.” She looked around the table. “I hope that’s all right with the rest of you. I mean, this is your home, too.”

  Sam shrugged. “The more the merrier, as far as I’m concerned.”

  “I think it’s a fine idea,” Eve said.

  “We don’t have to cook for that many people, do we?” Carolyn asked. “I don’t really mind, but I’ve spent a lot of Thanksgivings where I hardly got out of the kitchen all day.”

  Phyllis shook her head. “No, we’ll just prepare like we would have anyw
ay, although I might go ahead and cook an extra turkey. But everyone who comes is supposed to bring a covered dish, so we should have plenty of food.”

  Bobby asked, “Who’s Dolly? What’s a covered dish?”

  “Dolly is the lady that all of us used to work for,” Phyllis explained. “Except for Sam, because he taught in a different school district.”

  “But I know her,” Sam added. “Dolly knows all the teachers for miles around.”

  “And a covered dish is food,” Phyllis went on. “People make green-bean casserole, Jell-O salad or desserts, things like that, then cover the dish with aluminum foil and bring it with them so that everybody can have some of it.”

  “That sounds good,” Bobby said. “Well, maybe not the green-bean part.”

  Phyllis smiled. She was about to tell him that she could prepare green beans so that he would like them, but the phone rang again first. This time she was the closest, so she picked it up and saw that Juliette Yorke was calling.

  “Hello? Ms. Yorke?”

  “That’s right,” the lawyer said, “but you might as well call me Juliette. I just wanted to let you know that Ms. Powell will be arraigned at nine o’clock, and I plan to ask for bail at that time. I think it would be a good idea for you to be there, in case I need to show that she has the support of some solid citizens in the community.”

  “Of course,” Phyllis said. She could pick up with her other plans later. “I can do that. Should I bring Carolyn with me? What about her friends who are still teaching? It’s kind of short notice for them to get substitutes. . . .”

  “I think you and Ms. Wilbarger will be sufficient. I don’t see any need to take those other ladies away from their jobs. And I know this is short notice for you, too, so I appreciate it.”

  Phyllis glanced at the clock and saw that it was a few minutes past eight o’clock. “That’s all right. We’ll be there.”

  Juliette gave her the number of the courtroom, which was in the district court building a block off the square in downtown. Phyllis still thought of it as the old post office building, which it had been for years before the post office moved to a larger facility on the south side of town.

  “Who’ll be where?” Carolyn asked as Phyllis hung up the phone.

  “You and I are going to Dana’s arraignment and bail hearing.” Phyllis looked at Sam and Eve. “I hate to ask the two of you to be responsible for looking after Bobby again. . . .”

  “Shoot, it’s no problem,” Sam said. “I got boards that need sandin’. I reckon he can handle a piece of sandpaper without hurtin’ himself, can’t he?”

  Bobby looked at Phyllis and nodded eagerly. She smiled and said, “I’m sure that will be all right.” She drank the last of the coffee from her cup, then told Carolyn, “Now I guess we’d better go and get ready.”

  They made it to the courthouse with a little time to spare and found Juliette talking to a slender, dark-haired man in a gray suit just outside the courtroom. Phyllis and Carolyn kept their distance until the conversation was over. The man didn’t seem too happy as he walked away, and Juliette didn’t look pleased, either. She was in her thirties, with chestnut hair pulled back in a conservative style. She wore glasses and carried a briefcase, and her dark green suit over a white blouse, along with her low heels and lack of jewelry except for a watch, marked her as all business. The few times Phyllis had met the woman, Juliette had struck her as being perhaps a little too tightly wound. But when people’s lives and well-being were in her hands, maybe that was a good thing.

  Juliette smiled thinly as she nodded to Phyllis and Carolyn. “Ms. Newsom. Ms. Wilbarger. Thank you for coming.”

  “We’re on time, aren’t we?” Phyllis asked.

  “Yes, court won’t be in session for another ten minutes or so. That was the district attorney I was just talking to.”

  “I thought I recognized him. Is it too much to hope that you were able to make a deal regarding bail for Dana?”

  “I’m afraid so.” Juliette shook her head. “He’s going to ask that she be denied bail.”

  “On what grounds?” Carolyn asked. “Dana’s certainly no danger to the community.”

  “He’s going to argue that the method used to kill Logan Powell was so ingenious that it demonstrates Dana’s ability to slip out of this jurisdiction if she wants to. In other words, he’s going to say that she’s a flight risk.”

  Carolyn snorted. “That’s absurd. Her job and all her friends are here. She’s not going anywhere.”

  “The school district isn’t going to allow anyone who’s charged with a felony to teach elementary children, certainly not when that felony is murder,” Juliette said. “So she won’t have a job until her name is cleared. And friends won’t count for as much as family would have with the judge, I’m afraid. Still, we’ll play the cards we’re dealt. I think there’s a good chance that the judge will see things our way. It’ll be up to his discretion, though.”

  “If you need to call on us as character witnesses, feel free,” Phyllis said. “That’s why we’re here, to help Dana in any way we can.”

  Juliette suddenly cocked her head slightly to the side, as if an idea had just come to her. “If you mean that, I may know of a way,” she said.

  “Whatever it takes,” Phyllis said. “What did you have in mind?”

  Before Juliette could explain, though, the district attorney walked back past them, opened the door of the courtroom, and went in. “You’ll see,” Juliette said to Phyllis. “Right now, it’s time to get started.”

  Chapter 26

  Phyllis had never liked being in a courtroom. They were intimidating by their very nature. Things happened there that could determine the course of a person’s life from that point on. The atmosphere was often solemn and a little scary, sort of like a hospital.

  Yet the people who worked there every day, the judges and bailiffs and clerks, often joked around with each other, trading quips and stories about their personal lives. Phyllis understood that—the surroundings were commonplace to them—but it still struck her as odd and somewhat unsettling.

  There was no levity going on in this courtroom today. The district attorney sat at one of the tables in front of the judge’s bench and talked with a severe-looking woman who was probably an assistant DA. Juliette Yorke waited alone at the other table. Quite a few people sat on the benches behind the railing that separated the rest of the courtroom from the tables and the judge’s bench. As Phyllis and Carolyn found a place to sit, Phyllis thought that court was sort of like church, too, with those pewlike benches. Nobody was going to pass the plate, though.

  Phyllis knew that several dozen cases might be arraigned this morning, most of them minor offenses ranging from petty theft to possession of drugs. Normally a case might have to wait several weeks or even longer after the arrest before arraignment took place, which was why bail hearings usually preceded arraignments. Because of the seriousness of the charge against Dana, Juliette Yorke must have been able to get the case added to the docket on short notice, Phyllis thought.

  She wouldn’t have known so much about court procedures if she hadn’t heard Mike talking about various cases. Also, she had been called as a prosecution witness on several occasions when her efforts had helped uncover the identity of a murderer.

  Looking around at the other people on the benches, Phyllis saw that many of them looked worried, and her heart went out to them. Some of them were there with relatives while others were defendants themselves. Some might well deserve whatever course the legal system took, but others had simply made mistakes, maybe never even been in trouble with the law until they did something without thinking. Phyllis could feel sorry for them and hope that their lives worked out better from now on.

  After a few more minutes, the bailiff called out, “All rise.” Everyone stood as the judge came in through a door to the left of his bench. He was a short, fair-haired man in late middle age. Phyllis didn’t know him. He took his place behind the bench and leaned
forward to say into the microphone in front of him, “Please be seated.” With a rustle of clothes and feet, the spectators followed that instruction.

  The lawyers remained on their feet, though, and the district attorney half turned to motion toward the bailiff, who nodded and opened a door behind the court clerk’s desk. Phyllis’s breath hissed between her teeth as a couple of uniformed female officers brought Dana into the courtroom and escorted her over to the table where Juliette Yorke waited for her.

  Dana was still dressed in her own clothes. They were starting to look pretty wrinkled and shapeless by now. Phyllis couldn’t tell if she was wearing any makeup, but she had brushed her hair. That didn’t really make her look much better, though. Her face was still stunned and haggard. She wore handcuffs, and a chain attached them to a ring on a broad leather belt strapped around her waist, so she couldn’t raise her arms very high. At least she didn’t have shackles on her ankles, Phyllis noted.

  The court clerk read the case number and the charge. This was the most high-profile case, so they were getting it out of the way first. The judge looked over the paperwork the bailiff had given him and then asked, “How does the defendant plead?”

  “Not guilty, Your Honor,” Juliette Yorke said.

  The judge looked directly at Dana, who stood next to Juliette, and said, “Is that a true plea, Ms. Powell?”

  “It is, Your Honor,” Dana said. Phyllis could tell from the rote sound of her voice that Juliette had coached her on what to expect and how to respond.

  The judge picked up a pen and marked off something on a document. The mundane nature of the proceedings when it was Dana’s life at stake bothered Phyllis. She knew that was the nature of the system, though. The courts had to have their routines and paperwork in order to function.

  “All right, you’re being bound over for a grand jury hearing,” the judge went on. “The grand jury will decide whether there’s enough evidence against you to warrant an indictment on the charge of murder in the first degree. Do you understand that, Ms. Powell?”