The Pumpkin Muffin Murder

by Livia J. Washburn

  A long sigh escaped from Dana’s lips. Tears streaked her cheeks. She had cried quietly during both services. Now she turned away from the grave, lowered her head, and allowed Carolyn to lead her back to Phyllis’s car.

  Phyllis noticed that Ben Loomis hadn’t come to the cemetery. Either he had gotten a ride with someone else who wasn’t going to attend the graveside service, or else Barbara was going to leave here with one of her friends. The four of them stood there with wet, hollow eyes, waiting near Phyllis’s car. Each of them hugged Dana in turn when she came up to the vehicle. Dana seemed to accept the embraces and return them with gratitude, but Phyllis was no longer quite so sure about that.

  Jenna rested both hands on Dana’s shoulders and said, “We’re going to put all of this behind us now, Dana, do you understand? We’ll be at Mrs. Newsom’s tomorrow for Thanksgiving, and we’ll see you there.”

  Dana managed to nod. “I wish I could put it all behind me,” she said. “I really do.”

  “You can,” Jenna told her. “It may take a while, but you can and you will.”

  “I don’t know. I just don’t know anymore.”

  Phyllis watched closely. Did Dana suspect that her friends had been involved with Logan? She couldn’t tell. Dana didn’t act like it, but Phyllis had already been forced to consider the idea that Dana was a consummate actress, always keeping her real thoughts and emotions deeply buried.

  More drizzle began to fall. “We’d better go,” Phyllis said.

  “What time do you want us to show up tomorrow?” Kendra asked.

  “Oh, it doesn’t really matter. Carolyn and I are delivering canned goods and turkey dinners in the morning, and the rest of you are, too, I believe. Just come on over whenever you’re finished with that. We should be back by eleven or so, and even if we’re not, my friends Eve Turner and Sam Fletcher will be there.” Sam had offered to help them with the deliveries, but Phyllis didn’t think that was going to be necessary.

  Dana was going to go with them, though, Phyllis decided. She was going to keep a very close eye on Dana Powell from here on out.

  Chapter 34

  The cold front moved on out of the area Wednesday evening, taking the clouds and drizzle with it. The skies cleared during the night, so Thanksgiving morning was clear and crisp, with blue skies and temperatures in the upper thirties. As Phyllis walked out into her front yard to pick up the paper, fallen leaves rustled and crunched under her feet. All this day really needed to be perfect was the smell of burning leaves in the air, she thought as she took a deep breath, but of course no one burned leaves anymore, and certainly not in the city. It was against the law.

  So was murder, but that didn’t stop people from committing it, she thought.

  She had still drawn no conclusions about Dana’s guilt or innocence. She wanted to believe that Dana was innocent, but it was hard to get around the pile of evidence saying otherwise. First thing Monday morning, she was going to call Juliette Yorke and tell the lawyer about the NorCenTex Development deal. The sooner that was fully investigated, the better. It might wind up clearing Dana’s name.

  Today, though, was all about giving thanks and doing good. Phyllis had gotten up a little earlier than usual to fix breakfast and get the turkeys in the oven. For breakfast she made bacon and eggs with cranapple rolls. The turkeys could cook during the morning while Phyllis, Carolyn, and Dana were delivering canned goods and turkey dinners to the less fortunate.

  Sam and Bobby were talking football at the kitchen table over breakfast when Sam bit into one of the hot cranapple rolls and sighed. “Bobby, your grandmother is the best cook in all of Texas.” Then he went back to talking about the Cowboys, who would be playing the Washington Redskins in the traditional Thanksgiving Day contest. “It’s nearly always a good game,” Sam told the little boy. “Sometimes it goes right down to the final play.”

  Phyllis enlisted Eve to keep an eye on the turkeys as they cooked. Eve was a little leery of the idea.

  “You know I’ve never been much of a cook, Phyllis,” she protested.

  “You won’t actually be cooking anything,” Phyllis said. “Just make sure they don’t start to burn. They shouldn’t.”

  “But what if they do?”

  “Take them out,” Carolyn suggested dryly.

  “Well . . . all right.” Eve’s reluctance was obvious. “But I have somewhere to go later this morning, so you’d better be back by eleven like you said.”

  “You’re going somewhere on Thanksgiving?”

  “Yes, but I’ll be back for dinner.”

  “All right,” Phyllis said. She didn’t pry. What Eve did was her own business.

  Dana wasn’t sure she wanted to go along on the deliveries, but Carolyn wouldn’t take no for an answer. “It’s a beautiful day,” she insisted. “It’ll do you good to get out and about for a little while. Anyway, you devoted a lot of time and effort to preparing for this, Dana, and you deserve to reap some of the rewards.”

  “What rewards?” Phyllis asked.

  “The smiles of the people we’re helping, of course,” Carolyn said. “Especially the little ones. How can you not feel good about providing a Thanksgiving to remember for them?”

  She was absolutely right about that, Phyllis thought. Helping others was just about the best feeling in the world.

  Phyllis had told Sam they wouldn’t need his help with the deliveries, but she did accept the loan of his pickup when he offered it. She had driven the truck before, so she wasn’t worried about handling it. It would certainly be easier to load and unload the boxes of canned goods and the boxed turkey dinners from the back of the pickup. Carolyn took her car, too, though, so all three of them woudn’t have to crowd into the front seat of the pickup.

  Satisfied that everything was under control and proceeding as it was supposed to at the house, Phyllis headed for the Methodist church with Carolyn and Dana following her. When they got there, they found the place busy as people pulled into the parking lot and backed up to the side door of Fellowship Hall to load the boxes they would soon deliver.

  Dolly Williamson was there supervising, of course, standing beside the open door with a clipboard in her hand. Everybody was talking and laughing, and holiday spirit filled the air.

  “Good morning,” Dolly greeted them. “Happy Thanksgiving.”

  “Happy Thanksgiving to you, too, Dolly,” Phyllis said. “We’re ready to make our deliveries.”

  “You have your list of addresses?”

  Carolyn took it from her purse. “Right here. I even looked up the streets I wasn’t familiar with on the Internet.” She sounded proud of herself, and Phyllis thought she had a right to. Carolyn had never been that comfortable navigating her way through the Web.

  “All right.” Dolly stepped just inside the door and pointed to one of the stacks of boxes lined up along the wall. “Those are yours right there.”

  None of the boxes was all that heavy. It didn’t take long for the three women to carry them out of the building and place them in the back of Sam’s pickup. When they were ready to go, Phyllis said to Carolyn, “You lead the way, since you have the list. I’ll follow you.”

  Carolyn nodded in agreement and got into her car, along with Dana, while Phyllis climbed behind the wheel of the truck.

  Little old lady, indeed! she thought with a smile as she started the pickup and listened to the throaty roar of its engine. She’d like to see a little old lady handle a beast like this.

  The next two hours went quickly as Phyllis followed Carolyn from address to address. At each stop, they unloaded a box of canned goods and other nonperishables, along with a boxed turkey dinner. The families receiving them were grateful, although some were more effusive in their thanks than others. Some of the people seemed a little uncomfortable, and Phyllis didn’t blame them. It was hard for some people to take charity. They were willing to do it, though, in order for their children to have a good Thanksgiving and also so they could eat well for a while. In some c
ases, the donated food might be just what a family needed to tide them over until their situation improved.

  They finished the deliveries shortly after ten thirty. Carolyn said, “I need to swing back by the church and let Dolly know that we dropped off everything just like we were supposed to. Do you want to come with me, Dana, or would you rather go back to the house with Phyllis?”

  “I think I’ll just go on back to the house,” Dana said. She looked at Phyllis. “If that’s all right with you?”

  “Of course it’s all right with me,” Phyllis said. “I’ll be glad for the company.”

  “See you in a little while, then,” Carolyn called as she got into her car.

  Phyllis unlocked the pickup’s passenger door for Dana. As they started back toward the house, Phyllis suddenly realized one of the things she had forgotten at the store a couple of days earlier.

  “Oh, darn,” she said. “I’ve been meaning to pick up some candy for you.”

  “Candy?” Dana repeated.

  “Peppermints,” Phyllis said. “I assume since you had them all over your house, you liked them, too. Unless—” Phyllis broke off for a second, then said, “Oh, goodness, Dana, I’m sorry! I didn’t even think. Under the circumstances, you probably don’t want any.”

  “I don’t want any, regardless of the circumstances,” Dana said. “I don’t like peppermints.”

  Phyllis glanced over at her. “It was just Logan, then, who ate them?”

  Dana nodded. “That’s right. Oh, I had some from time to time. He was always trying to get me to eat some of them, especially when we were out. I guess he thought it wouldn’t look as odd, him sucking on them all the time, if I was doing it, too. I didn’t hate them or anything, so I’d usually take one or two just to keep from causing a scene when we’d be at a PTO meeting or something like that.” She laughed but didn’t really sound amused. “If I never eat another peppermint in my life, that’ll be just fine with me.”

  “Well, then, I guess it’s a good thing I got distracted at the store the other day and didn’t buy any of them. I would have felt foolish offering them to you when you don’t even like them.”

  “Oh, I probably would have taken them. I’m in the habit, after all.”

  Phyllis didn’t say anything else about the peppermints and wished she hadn’t brought up the subject in the first place. She was more suspicious of Dana than she had been, but at the same time, her instincts compelled her to make a guest in her home just as comfortable as possible.

  It was a few minutes before eleven when they reached the house. Phyllis parked the pickup at the curb in front and took note of the fact that there weren’t any strange cars parked in front of the house yet. Some of the guests would probably start showing up soon, though. Dolly wouldn’t arrive until all the volunteers had checked back in and let her know that their deliveries had been carried out.

  They went in through the front door. Eve was waiting in the living room with her purse. “I have to go,” she said. “I’ll be back in a couple of hours. The turkeys didn’t burn.”

  “Thanks,” Phyllis said, but Eve was already on her way out the door. Phyllis shook her head. Just when things looked like they might get back to normal, more strangeness reared its head.

  The wonderful smell of the turkeys cooking filled the house. “I need to get the dressing started,” Phyllis said to Dana. “Come into the kitchen and give me a hand?”

  Dana hesitated, then nodded and smiled. “Sure, why not?”

  Sam and Bobby clattered down from upstairs and came into the kitchen right after Phyllis and Dana. Bobby said, “We watched the parade! Santa Claus was there, Gran’mama! And a bunch of great big balloons, and Sam says now there’s gonna be a dog show! I like doggies!”

  “I do, too, Bobby,” Phyllis told him.

  “Everything go all right with you ladies?” Sam asked.

  Phyllis nodded. “Yes, we made all our deliveries without any problems. Thanks again for the loan of your truck.”

  “You’re welcome. Need a hand here in the kitchen?”

  “No, I think we can handle things just fine. Carolyn will be back in a few minutes, too.” The phone rang, so Phyllis nodded to Sam and added, “You can answer that, if you want to.”

  Sam picked it up, said “Hello,” listened for a moment, then turned to Phyllis. “It’s Carolyn. She wants to know if somebody named Jenna is here.”

  “Jenna Grantham?” Phyllis asked with a frown. “No, not yet, but she should be soon.” She held out her hand, and Sam gave the phone to her. “Carolyn, what’s this about Jenna?”

  “She never showed up to make the deliveries she was down for this morning,” Carolyn said at the other end of the line. “Dolly says she tried to call her but didn’t get an answer. One of the other volunteers took those deliveries when he came back to check in.”

  “That’s odd. Maybe Jenna’s sick.”

  “I know where she lives,” Carolyn said. “I can go by there and check on her.”

  “That’s probably a good idea. Let me know if you need any help.”

  Phyllis said good-bye and hung up the phone. Dana asked, “What was that about Jenna?”

  “She didn’t show up at the church this morning to take her deliveries,” Phyllis said. “Dolly was worried about her, and I think Carolyn is, too. She said she’d go by Jenna’s place and make sure she’s not sick or anything.”

  “I hope she’s all right,” Dana said, and she sounded like she meant it.

  Phyllis got to work on the stuffing she intended to make: a cranberry stuffing ring and a pan of traditional corn bread stuffing. So she didn’t think any more about Jenna. As usual when she was working in the kitchen, her thoughts seemed to clear a little. There was nothing like doing some pleasant but familiar activity to focus the brain. There were so many little things that had bothered her over the past week, but she brought up the most recent one.

  “You said that Logan always tried to get you to eat some of his peppermints?” she asked Dana.

  “That’s right,” the younger woman answered with a puzzled frown. “I’m not sure I want to talk about Logan, Phyllis. Everything about him is still really painful.”

  Phyllis nodded. “I know, and I’m sorry. Did he only do that when the two of you were out in public?”

  For a long moment, Dana didn’t reply. Then she said, “Now that I think about it, I believe that’s right. They were always around at home, of course, but he didn’t try to persuade me to eat any of them there.”

  “I wonder why that was the case.”

  “I’m sure I don’t have any idea,” Dana said.

  “And you never found your missing keys, did you?”

  “No.” Dana shrugged. “They’re gone for good, I guess. I need to get the locks on my house changed. I should have done that already.”

  The pieces of a theory were shifting around in Phyllis’s head. Mentally, she tried them one way, then another, and although they were beginning to form a picture, it wasn’t a recognizable one yet.

  “Are you in good health, Dana?”

  “What?” Dana looked really confused now. “My last checkup, the doctor said I’d live to be a hundred. Why in the world would you think I was sick?”

  “Logan was, but he didn’t look it.”

  “No, that’s true—”

  The phone rang again, and Phyllis recognized Carolyn’s cell number on the caller ID as she picked it up. “Hello?”

  “Jenna’s not at her apartment,” Carolyn said, and there was a definite edge of worry in her voice. “Or at least she’s not answering. Do you think I should call the police?”

  The doorbell rang before Phyllis could answer. She didn’t know whether Sam and Bobby had gone back upstairs to watch TV in Sam’s room, but she didn’t hear the set in the living room. “Hold on a minute,” she told Carolyn. Carrying the phone with her, she walked up the hall from the kitchen and went to the front door.

  When she opened the front door, relief w
ent through her. Jenna stood there on the porch, a smile on her face and a rectangular plastic container in her hands. “Sorry if I’m late,” she said. She lifted the container. “I baked some muffins of my own.”

  On the phone, Carolyn asked, “Is that—?”

  “Yes,” Phyllis said. “You can stop worrying. Jenna’s here.”

  Chapter 35

  “Who was worried about me?” Jenna asked as she came into the house, carrying the container of muffins.

  Phyllis had said good-bye to Carolyn and broken the connection. “That was Carolyn,” she said. “She’d gone to your apartment to make sure you were all right because you didn’t show up at the church to make those canned-goods deliveries.”

  Jenna’s eyes widened. “Dolly didn’t get my message?”

  “I guess not. She seemed surprised that you didn’t come by.”

  “Oh, no,” Jenna said. She shook her head. “I left a message on her phone telling her I couldn’t make it after all. Or at least I thought I did.”

  “No trouble, I hope?”

  “No, no. I just got an e-mail from my mother saying that she wanted to call me and talk to me this morning. My great-grandmother is at my mom’s house today, and she wanted to visit with me on the phone. I felt bad about letting Dolly down, but my great-grandmother’s getting really old, you know, and I haven’t talked to her in a while. I felt like I couldn’t say no, so I had to stay home and take the call.”

  Phyllis didn’t see any reason why Jenna’s mother couldn’t have called after Jenna was back from making her deliveries, but she supposed Jenna might not have thought of that.

  “Let me take those muffins out to the kitchen,” she said.

  “I can go over to the church right now—,” Jenna began as she handed Phyllis the container.