The Candy Cane Cupcake Killer

by Livia J. Washburn

  Sam passed around the cupcakes. This time Phyllis took one. She had started to get a little hungry. Between the sugar and the coffee, she might be awake all night, but at her age she seldom slept well anyway, so she supposed it didn’t really matter.

  For a few minutes, it felt like this was a homey, almost pleasant gathering, despite the shadow of death that hung over it. Phyllis had always believed that the term comfort food had a lot of truth to it. Being a good Baptist, she knew very well how food and mourning went hand in hand. There was never a funeral without a good meal either before or after, usually at the church’s fellowship hall, with covered dishes brought in by ladies of the congregation. It was almost like an Irish wake—without the drinking, of course.

  Tonight, Barney McCrory’s loss was still too recent and painful for the healing to begin, but the cupcakes and coffee offered a brief respite, anyway.

  But such respites couldn’t last, and after a few minutes Allyson said, “We really wanted to talk to you tonight, Mrs. Newsom. That’s why we waited at the police station.” She smiled sadly at Sam. “No offense, Coach.”

  “None taken,” he told her. “I’m sure if there’s anything Phyllis can do to help you, she’d be glad to. And so will I.”

  “What is it, Allyson?” Phyllis asked, feeling that under the circumstances she could address the young woman by her first name, even though they had never met until tonight.

  “I . . . we . . . well, Nate and I have read about the way you’ve been involved in murder cases before. We thought you might be able to help us.”

  Grimly, Nate said, “I still think you’re overreacting, Ally. There’s no point in getting ahead of ourselves—”

  “Yes, there is,” she told him. She looked at Phyllis again and said, “We need your help, Mrs. Newsom, because I’m afraid the police are going to arrest Nate for my father’s murder.”

  Chapter 6

  Allyson’s worried statement hung in the air for a moment before anyone said anything. Finally, Phyllis broke the tense silence by asking, “Why do you think that?”

  “She doesn’t,” Nate interrupted. “Not really. She’s just upset, and who can blame her?”

  With a hint of the steel that she had developed over decades of facing classrooms full of junior-high students, Phyllis said, “I believe I asked Allyson.”

  The young woman drew in a deep breath, then said, “It was the argument we had with Dad earlier today. He and Nate got really angry with each other.”

  “For God’s sake, Allyson!” Nate burst out. “Are you trying to throw me under the bus?”

  Sam said, “Take it easy, son. Nobody’s tryin’ to do anything except understand what’s goin’ on here.”

  “All right.” Nate leaned forward and clasped his hands together between his knees. “I’ll start from the beginning and tell you the whole thing.”

  “I think that would be a good idea,” Phyllis said.

  “I told you I work as Barney’s business manager. Well, a few months ago a man came to see me in my office here in town and had a proposition for me. He was a landsman. Do you know what that is?”

  “A fella who scouts up property for oil and gas leases and gets the owners to sign,” Sam replied.

  “Exactly. This man, Frank Holbrook, was interested in putting a gas lease on Barney’s ranch. He gave me all the details and some legal documents for Barney to sign. But when I took the papers out there and told Barney about the deal, he took one look at them and refused to sign.”

  “Why?” Phyllis asked. “A gas lease is a good thing, isn’t it? I know the boom in this area isn’t nearly as big as it was a few years ago, but people are still making money off their leases, aren’t they?”

  “According to Holbrook, they are,” Nate said, “and Barney’s ranch is a prime location because there hasn’t been a lot of drilling around there. The geologists who work for the company Holbrook represents say there’s still a lot of gas down there. But he still refused. He said he wasn’t going to have a bunch of gas wells ruining the land where he’d raised cattle for more than forty years.”

  Carolyn said, “I don’t blame him. All that fracking they do while they’re drilling—it causes earthquakes, you know.”

  “I’m not sure they’ve ever proven that—,” Sam began.

  “Oh, it’s just common sense! You remember what happened up in Azle a while back. A bunch of gas wells were put in, and they started having two or three earthquakes a week!”

  Phyllis remembered the stories on the news and in the paper, and knew that Carolyn was right, at least to a certain extent. There had been a number of earthquakes in a fairly short period of time in the northeastern part of the county, and the residents of the area had blamed the proliferation of gas wells.

  But whether there was any truth to that cause and effect, Phyllis didn’t know. She was no geologist or seismologist or whatever kind of – ologist it was who studied such things.

  “The thing is,” Nate went on, “it was a fair deal, and there was a good chance it would have made Barney quite a bit of money. And as his business manager, it was my duty to advise him to take it. When he refused . . . Well, maybe I got a little stubborn about it.”

  Allyson said, “And when somebody gets stubborn with my dad, he gets—got—stubborn right back.”

  “Yeah, that sounds about right,” Sam agreed. “No offense, Ally.”

  She shook her head and said, “No, you’re right, Coach. I know better than anybody else how downright muleheaded he could be!”

  Tears were shining in her eyes again. She didn’t cry, though. Instead she said, “Nate’s the same way. He and Dad went around and around about those stupid gas wells, until Dad finally said he didn’t want to hear another word about it!”

  “It was his decision to make,” Nate said. “I tried to respect that—I really did. I didn’t say anything about it for a while. Then Holbrook dropped by the office today to see if I’d made any progress with Barney, so I thought I’d give it one more try.”

  “And he blew up in your face about it, didn’t he?” Sam said.

  Nate sighed and nodded.

  “Yeah. What made it worse, though, was that Ally was there this time.”

  “I’ve tried to stay out of it,” Allyson said. “But after some of the things Dad said to Nate, I just couldn’t. I—I told him he was just being a stubborn old fool who didn’t realize when somebody was trying to help him, and—and . . .”

  This time she couldn’t hold back the tears. She buried her face in her hands and sobbed as Nate put his arm around her and drew her close to him on the sofa. He said, “Shhh,” and stroked her hair and tried to comfort and calm her. It didn’t seem to be doing much good.

  They all sat there in silence for a while, but eventually, as Allyson’s sobs quieted, Phyllis asked, “Did you tell all of this to Chief Whitmire when he questioned you?”

  “We had to,” Nate said. “He heard what Allyson said on Main Street—about the fight with Barney, I mean—and he asked us about it. I wasn’t going to lie to the cops. That would just make things worse.”

  Carolyn looked like she was going to say something disparaging about the police, but Phyllis caught her eye and with a tiny shake of the head warned her to hold her tongue. At this point, comments like that weren’t going to help anything.

  “It—it’s all my fault,” Allyson hiccupped. “If I hadn’t said anything . . .”

  “It’s not your fault,” Nate insisted. “I’m not mad at you. You were just upset and scared, and anyway, I don’t have anything to hide.”

  Phyllis asked, “Did Chief Whitmire say that he suspected you of your father-in-law’s murder, Nate?”

  “Well, no. But he’d keep that pretty close to the vest if he didn’t have any real evidence, wouldn’t he?”

  Phyllis nodded and said, “More than likely. He’s s
mart enough to know that motive alone isn’t enough to make a case on.”

  “Yeah, but he’s got motive on me, that’s for sure,” Nate said with a glum look on his face. “With Barney gone, Ally owns the ranch now. She can sign that gas lease and collect all that royalty money.”

  Sam said, “Then it seems to me like she’s the one who’s got the motive.” Quickly, he added, “I’m sorry, Ally. I’d never believe for a second you’d ever do such a thing. I’m just talkin’ about what the chief might think.”

  “My guess is that Allyson has an alibi,” Phyllis said. “Don’t you, dear?”

  “Ally was with several friends of ours until after the parade had started,” Nate said when Allyson didn’t speak up. “They can vouch for her whereabouts the whole time.”

  “But you weren’t there, were you?”

  Nate sighed and said, “I went up to my office for a few minutes. It’s on the second floor of one of the buildings right there in the square. I still had all those documents Holbrook gave me from the trip out to the ranch earlier in the day. I wanted to drop them off. By the time I got back to where Ally and our friends were on the courthouse lawn, all the commotion had broken out. We could tell something was wrong with her dad’s carriage, so we got down there as fast as we could, and then we found out . . .”

  He couldn’t go on, but there was no need to. They all knew what he and Allyson had found: Barney McCrory had been murdered.

  “You explained all this to the chief, too?” Phyllis asked.

  “Yeah. Like I said, we figured it was best just to tell the truth. But then we got to thinking about how it might look.”

  They were the ones who’d needed Jimmy D’Angelo there to represent them, Phyllis thought. She asked, “Did Chief Whitmire advise you of your rights before he questioned you?”

  “I . . . I think so,” Nate said. “I’m pretty sure he did. I didn’t think anything about it at the time. We were still so upset about Barney.”

  Phyllis was confident that Whitmire had followed proper procedure, and he would have the two of them waiving counsel on tape, too.

  Sam was frowning in thought. He asked, “You said your office is on the square, Nate?”

  “Yeah. On the second floor of the Cranmoor Building.”

  “That’s on the northeast side of the square, isn’t it?”

  “That’s right.”

  Phyllis said, “You’re thinking about that flash you saw, aren’t you, Sam?”

  “Yeah,” he admitted. He sounded like he didn’t want to take the next step in what he was thinking.

  It was unavoidable, though. Phyllis asked, “It came from that part of the square, didn’t it?”

  For several seconds, Sam didn’t answer. Then he said, “Yeah, it did. And it was up high enough that it could have come from a second-floor window, too. That’s why I thought it was one of the lights strung up on a building.”

  Allyson let out a new wail of dismay.

  Nate’s face was set in grim lines as he tried to comfort her. He said, “After Chief Whitmire let us leave, we sat in the car and talked about it, and that’s when Allyson started worrying. We knew you and Mrs. Newsom were there, Coach, and Ally said the two of you solved crimes or something like that. I remembered reading about that, too. She said maybe you could help us.”

  “By findin’ out who really killed Barney, you mean.”

  “Isn’t that the best way to clear my name?”

  “It is,” Phyllis said, “and it’s the only way to make sure a cloud of suspicion doesn’t hang over you from now on, even if the police can’t make a case against you.”

  “Could we, like . . . hire you?”

  Sam started to speak up, but Phyllis said, “No.” She looked at him and added, “We’re not private detectives, Sam.” She turned back to Nate and Allyson. “But you can hire a lawyer we know named Jimmy D’Angelo. If the police do try to charge you with anything, he can help you. And we can help Mr. D’Angelo.”

  “Well, it’s kind of the same thing, seems like, but if that’s the way you want to do it . . .”

  “For right now it’s the best way to proceed.”

  “All right. Thank you.”

  Allyson wiped away tears with the back of her hand and added, “Yes, thank you. I’m just so scared they’re going to try to take Nate away from me, too, when I’ve already lost my dad.”

  “You’ve still got friends,” Sam said gruffly. “Don’t ever forget that.”

  She managed to smile a little as she told him, “Thanks, Coach.”

  Phyllis had one of D’Angelo’s cards on the desk. She got it and handed it to Nate.

  “Call him first thing in the morning, and tell him that Sam and I suggested it,” she said. “I’m sure he’ll want to talk to you right away.”

  Nick looked at the card and nodded.

  “His office is close to mine,” he said. “That’ll make it easier. Despite everything that’s happened, I still have to keep the ranch running as smoothly as possible. That’s my responsibility now, for Allyson—and for Barney.”

  They left a few minutes later, after thanking Phyllis not only for promising to help them but also for the cupcakes and coffee. Sam started gathering up the empty cups to take them back to the kitchen.

  Carolyn asked, “What do you think of their story, Phyllis? Do you believe they’re telling the truth?”

  Instead of answering, Phyllis turned to Sam and said, “What do you think?”

  He straightened with the tray in his hands and gave her a solemn look.

  “I believe every word they told us,” he said. “I coached both of ’em for four years. I don’t think they ever lied to me that whole time. Not about anything important, anyway.” He smiled. “Maybe about makin’ out under the bleachers in the gym.”

  “That was a long time ago,” Phyllis pointed out. “Ten years. People can change in that amount of time.”

  “I know it. But I don’t think those two have. I think they’re still the same good kids they always were. They’ve just gotten a raw deal all the way around in this mess, especially Ally. It’s hard enough on her, losin’ her dad like that, without havin’ her husband locked up to boot.”

  “Maybe that won’t happen.”

  Carolyn said, “Do you really believe that? Goodness knows I like to stick up for the underdog, but it sounds like the police might actually have a case against that boy.”

  “If they do,” Phyllis said, “Mr. D’Angelo will sort it all out. And we’ll help as much as we can, won’t we, Sam?”

  “Darn straight we will.”

  Carolyn looked at Phyllis and frowned.

  “What’s gotten into you?” she asked. “Usually you have to be dragged kicking and screaming into these cases. You always insist that you’re just a retired schoolteacher, not a detective.”

  “Why fight it?” Phyllis said with a sigh. “The world seems determined to prove otherwise. Besides, I like those two. I want to help them if I can.”

  Her eyes narrowed slightly as she thought about Barney McCrory’s murder and how close Sam had come to dying, and how other innocent people might have been hurt or even killed. She thought about all the families who had turned out on a crisp winter evening to enjoy a parade and a Christmas-tree lighting to launch a wonderful holiday season, only to have it turn into screaming chaos.

  Then she said, “And I don’t want whoever did this to get away with it.”

  Chapter 7

  When Phyllis woke up the next morning, the world was new again, as it usually was, and for a moment there was no room in her head for thoughts of murder.

  That didn’t last long, though, as memories of what had happened the night before came flooding into her brain.

  Sometimes that first rush of thought brought with it possibilities that she hadn’t considered before. That
wasn’t the case this time. She was just as baffled by Barney McCrory’s murder as she had been when starting out. Mentally, she examined everything she had seen and heard, and didn’t spot anything that would prove Nate Hollingsworth was innocent.

  Conversely, though, there was nothing else to point to him as the killer, other than what he and Allyson had talked about downstairs in the living room as they ate cupcakes and drank coffee.

  It was early—Phyllis never slept in anymore; that ability seemed to have deserted her—but Eve was already in the kitchen when Phyllis came in. Eve seldom attempted to cook anything, but she had the coffee on already. She sat down at the table with the cup she had just poured and said, “Carolyn tells me you’re going to investigate that murder at the parade last night.”

  “It’s possible,” Phyllis admitted as she got her cup from the drainer by the sink.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t join you when there was company here. I was all wrapped up in something and didn’t even know about it until I ran into Carolyn in the hall later.”

  Phyllis filled her cup and said, “That’s all right. Were you working on something?”

  “Oh, just a little hobby I’ve taken up. Nothing important.”

  Phyllis hadn’t heard anything about a hobby and was curious about what Eve was up to, but her friend didn’t seem to want to talk about it, and Phyllis wasn’t going to press her. It wasn’t like she was nosy or anything.

  That thought brought a smile to her face. Nosy was probably one of the milder words some people might use to describe her. She didn’t see it that way, but she could understand why others would.

  She preferred to think of her activities as digging for the truth. Like an archaeologist.

  Eve said, “I’m sure Sam is worried about that situation. It was an old friend of his who was killed, after all.”