The Candy Cane Cupcake Killer

by Livia J. Washburn

  “Bi-district champs,” he said aloud as he read the inscription on the gold plate attached to the trophy’s base. The trophy itself was a representation of a basketball. “Look at that, Buck. One of our championship seasons.”

  There were framed photos on the wall above the fireplace, too, one of the boys’ team and one of the girls’ team. He had no trouble picking out Nate and Allyson in the pictures, ten years younger, and each of them grinning with the innocent exuberance of youth.

  Sam started trying to remember the names of the other players in the photos, but to his dismay there were some he couldn’t recall. Their faces were familiar, but he just couldn’t dredge the names out of his brain.

  That was sad, and worrisome in a way, too. He had seen too many people his own age and even younger fall prey to fading memories. It was almost like a plague, he thought sometimes. He dreaded winding up that way himself. That was one reason he tried to keep as mentally active as he could, reading and watching movies and using the computer and always trying to learn new things.

  And helping Phyllis solve murders, he reminded himself. Keeping up with her would give the ol’ noggin a workout, that was for dang sure.

  “All right. I think I’ve got everything,” Allyson said as she came back into the living room carrying a small overnight bag.

  “Tell me somethin’, would you?”

  “Of course, Coach. What is it?”

  Sam pointed to one of the players on the girl’s team and asked, “Who’s this?”

  Allyson laughed as she looked at the photo.

  “Why, that’s Carly Smithson. You don’t remember her?”

  “Played forward. Averaged eight boards and just under eleven points a game. Good player.” Sam felt relieved that with a little nudge, he was able to recall that much.

  “That’s right,” Allyson said. “She has four kids, and she’s working on her third marriage.”

  Sam made a clucking sound and said, “Too bad. Not about the kids, but I’m sorry to hear that her marriages didn’t work out too good.”

  “Did you remember everybody else in those team photos?”

  “No, but I reckon we might as well leave the past where it is. Dealin’ with the present and the future is enough to keep us busy right now.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  They stepped out of the house, Allyson locking the door behind them, and started along the walk that ran in front of the house over to the driveway. As they approached the pickup, Sam glanced along the road and saw two SUVs with sheriff’s-department logos on the doors and lights on the roof coming toward them. A Weatherford police car followed the sheriff’s vehicles. The sight put a frown on his face.

  “What in the world?” Allyson said. She had seen the official vehicles, too, and she sounded worried.

  “They’re probably not comin’ here—,” Sam began, then stopped short as the first of the SUVs pulled to a stop along the street in front of the house. The other two vehicles followed suit.

  Buck growled deep in his throat as he stood stiffly beside Sam.

  A woman with long dark hair got out of the police car. She wore a black leather coat that came down to her knees. As she walked along the driveway toward them, Sam recognized Detective Isabel Largo.

  “Mr. Fletcher,” she greeted him. “I didn’t expect to find you here.”

  “What do you want?” Allyson asked. Her voice was tight with fear and anger.

  “I’m here to serve another search warrant,” Detective Largo said.

  Chapter 17

  “Another search warrant?” Allyson repeated. She went on raggedly, “You’ve already searched the house. In fact, you practically tore it apart.”

  “The officers and I put everything back the way we found it,” Isabel said coolly. “But this warrant isn’t for the house.” She nodded toward the camper. “We weren’t aware that you had this vehicle when the first warrant was drawn. Now we’re going to search in there, too.” She reached up and tried the door, then said, “You’ll need to unlock it for us.”

  “And if I don’t?” Allyson asked.

  Isabel shrugged and said, “We’ll break the lock. We’re within our rights to do that, but you can check with your attorney first, if you’d like to.”

  “I’ll get the key,” Allyson said through clenched teeth. “It’s in the house.”

  “Go ahead. We’ll be here.”

  Allyson glanced at Sam and said, “I’m sorry, Coach.”

  “No need to apologize,” Sam told her. “This isn’t any of your doin’.”

  Allyson unlocked the front door again and went inside. Detective Largo stood with her hands in the pockets of her coat and asked, “What are you doing here, Mr. Fletcher?”

  “Is that an official question?”

  Isabel smiled faintly and shook her head.

  “Just a curious one,” she said. “Actually, I shouldn’t be surprised to find you here. I know you and Mrs. Newsom have an indirect connection to this case.”

  “I wouldn’t call it indirect. Phyllis and I were only a few yards away when Barney McCrory was killed.”

  “Yes, that’s true.”

  “And I’ve known these kids for a long time, too.”

  “You mean Nate and Allyson Hollingsworth?”

  “That’s right.”

  “They’re hardly kids,” the detective said. “They’re my age.”

  Sam managed not to point out that to him, she seemed like a kid, too. Practically everyone under the age of forty did. Sometimes fifty.

  “They’re responsible for their own actions,” Isabel went on.

  “Nobody said they weren’t,” Sam drawled.

  Isabel looked down at the dog and said, “This must be Buck.”

  “Yeah. How’d you know his name?”

  “Mike mentioned it. And Buck was mixed up in a murder case not that long ago, too, wasn’t he?”

  “Sort of,” Sam admitted. “But that really was an indirect connection.”

  Isabel started to reach out toward the Dalmatian, but Buck growled again.

  “He’s not a dangerous dog, is he? He’s not going to interfere with our search?”

  “I’ll put him in the pickup,” Sam suggested. He didn’t want any of the cops to get worried about Buck and decide to shoot him.

  “Good idea,” Isabel said.

  Sam felt better once Buck was in the pickup, with the doors and windows closed. On a chilly day like this, with the sky overcast, there was no chance it would get too hot for him to stay in there for a while.

  Isabel was starting to look and sound impatient as she said, “Mrs. Hollingsworth has been inside for a while.”

  “She hasn’t tried to run away,” Sam said. “You would’ve seen her if she did. Anyway, she wouldn’t do that.”

  “She’s not the same person who played ball for you ten years ago, Mr. Fletcher,” Isabel said, revealing that she had done her homework about Allyson. “You don’t know what she would or wouldn’t do.”

  “I reckon I can make a pretty good guess,” Sam said.

  At that moment, Allyson emerged from the house again, carrying a small ring of keys.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I had a little trouble finding the key. We haven’t used the camper in a while.”

  She fitted one of the keys into the door and unlocked it. As Allyson swung open the door, Isabel said, “You and Mr. Fletcher step back now, please.”

  She climbed up into the camper. A couple of the uniformed officers followed her. One of them carried a computer tablet, which he held up in front of him, evidently to record the search.

  Sam and Allyson moved off to the side and stood there waiting. Allyson shifted her feet awkwardly, as if she didn’t know what to do with them.

  “Why are they doing this?” she said quietly to Sam.
“What are they looking for?”

  “You know what they’re lookin’ for. That rifle.”

  “They won’t find it. I don’t think Nate’s ever had the rifle in the camper.”

  “They’re just doin’ everything they can think of,” Sam said. “Coverin’ all the bases.”

  “It still feels like . . . like we’re being persecuted.”

  Sam looked over at the pickup, where Buck was watching them through the side window. The Dalmatian looked like he wanted to bite somebody.

  Sam knew the feeling.

  Several minutes stretched by. They seemed to Sam like they were longer than they really were. And poor Allyson is even antsier than I am, he thought. When he glanced over at her, she had her lower lip caught between her teeth and was chewing at it.

  “Try to relax,” he told her. “It’ll be—”

  He saw her eyes go wide with horror. Her body stiffened as if an electric shock had just passed through it. Sam turned toward the camper, afraid of what he was going to see.

  Detective Largo was coming down the steps, holding a rifle in one of her blue-gloved hands. The other cops followed her, the one with the tablet still recording.

  “No!” Allyson screamed. She started to lunge toward Isabel, but Sam moved fast and clamped his hands on her shoulders to hold her. “No! That’s not Nate’s! You planted it!”

  “Every second of the search is documented digitally,” Isabel said, “and the recording will stand up to any technical tests to prove it wasn’t doctored. Mrs. Hollingsworth, is this your husband’s rifle?”

  Allyson strained against Sam’s grip. She said, “No, I told you. That’s not Nate’s.”

  “You’re not under oath,” Isabel said. “You can’t be prosecuted for lying to me. But if you are, it won’t help your husband. This rifle has serial numbers on it that can be checked against his gun registration. We’ll know who it belongs to. So I’ll ask you again—”

  “It . . . it looks like Nate’s rifle,” Allyson broke in. “But it can’t be! It just can’t.”

  Sam asked, “Where did you find it, Detective?”

  Isabel just smiled and shook her head. It was clear that she was asking the questions, not answering them.

  One of the sheriff’s deputies came over, also wearing blue gloves. Sam knew the sheriff’s department handled forensics and ballistics for the Weatherford police. The deputy took the rifle from Isabel, who turned back to Sam and Allyson and started pulling the gloves from her hands.

  “Thank you for your cooperation, Mrs. Hollingsworth,” she said.

  “Nate didn’t do it,” Allyson said, her voice low and menacing. “I don’t care what you found or what you think. He didn’t do it.”

  “That’s not up to me to determine. I just gather the evidence and build the case. That camper’s going to be sealed now, until a forensics team can go through it. There’ll be an officer here to see that you don’t disturb anything about it.”

  “She’s not gonna disturb anything,” Sam said. “She’s comin’ back to Phyllis’s with me.”

  “Good.” The detective permitted herself another thin smile as she said to Allyson, “I’ll know where to find you.”

  Sam might have been mistaken, but he thought that sounded like a threat.

  • • •

  Phyllis and Carolyn almost had supper ready by the time Sam and Allyson got back. Phyllis was putting the finishing touches to the potato soup, and Carolyn was taking the ham-and-cheese sliders out of the oven. It was getting dark outside. The shortest day of the year, the official first day of winter, even though the weather was already chilly, would soon be here.

  Phyllis heard the garage door go up. Sam often came in that way, even though he parked his pickup outside. A moment later the door rumbled back down, and the door between the kitchen and the garage opened.

  She knew as soon as she saw Allyson’s face that something was wrong. The young woman’s eyes were red. She had been crying again. Sam’s craggy features had a grim cast to them as well.

  “What’s wrong?” Phyllis asked as Sam closed the door behind them.

  “Let me take Ally in the livin’ room so she can sit down,” Sam said. He had a hand on her arm as if to steady her. He carried a small overnight bag in his other hand. They went through the kitchen and up the hall toward the living room, as Phyllis and Carolyn exchanged worried looks.

  Sam was back a moment later, still carrying the bag. He sighed and said, “Detective Largo and some other cops showed up just as we were fixin’ to leave Ally’s house. They had a warrant to search the travel trailer that was parked there. Ally said her and Nate sometimes take it on vacation.”

  “And they found the rifle hidden inside there,” Phyllis guessed. It didn’t take much of a leap.

  “Yep. Ally swore it wasn’t Nate’s rifle and said he’d never had it in the trailer, but I reckon the cops will be able to determine pretty quick whether or not it is.”

  Phyllis nodded. Unless the serial numbers had been filed off the rifle, the police would be able to check it against the registration. They could also fire a test bullet from it and compare that to the bullet that killed Barney McCrory, as well as check the gun for fingerprints and any other forensic evidence.

  The problem there was that Nate had never denied owning a rifle. If the weapon found in the travel trailer was his, of course his fingerprints would be on it.

  And though that won’t prove anything, it won’t look good to a jury, either, Phyllis thought. If she could sense the metaphorical noose tightening inexorably around Nate’s neck, then Allyson surely could, too.

  Carolyn reached out to take the overnight bag from Sam. She said, “I’ll take this up to the spare bedroom. I suppose we should just leave her be for a while and let her sort things out for herself.”

  Phyllis nodded and said, “That’s probably a good idea. Supper will be ready soon, Sam. Do you think she’ll feel like eating?”

  “I don’t know,” Sam said with a shake of his head. “I reckon we’ll just have to wait and see.”

  “She should go ahead and eat,” Carolyn said. “No problem is so bad that a good meal won’t help it a little.”

  Phyllis felt the same way, although she wasn’t sure that was always true. Some things probably were so bad that even good comfort food wouldn’t make them better.

  “We’ll eat here in the kitchen,” she decided. “That’s more homey, and it’s what we’d usually do if we didn’t have a guest. I want Allyson to feel like she’s welcome here and can stay as long as she likes.”

  “If Jimmy D’Angelo gets Nate out on bail in the mornin’, Nate and Ally will want to go home, I’m sure,” Sam said.

  “Well, whatever they want, however we can help, that’s fine.”

  Once they had supper on the table, Phyllis sent Sam to the living room to fetch Allyson. Of all of them, he was the closest to the young woman, so Phyllis thought he might have the best chance of convincing her to eat.

  Meanwhile, Carolyn brought in an extra chair from the dining room. The kitchen table was big enough for more than four chairs, but normally that was all they had arranged around it.

  Sam came back from the living room with Allyson. She was dry-eyed now, and the redness had faded a little. Her face still revealed the strain she was under, though.

  “I’m afraid I don’t have much of an appetite,” she said. “I don’t know how much I can eat.”

  “Well, whatever you can manage is fine,” Phyllis assured her. “Just eat however much you’d like.”

  They all sat down, Phyllis and Sam on the side with two chairs, Allyson across from them, and Carolyn and Eve at the ends. Allyson summoned a weak smile and said, “Everything looks really good.”

  “Well, dig in,” Sam told her. “It never hurts to keep your strength up.”

  There were
bowls of the hot, creamy potato soup at each setting, with a small ham slider on the side of the plate beside the bowl.

  Once Allyson started eating, her appetite seemed to improve. Phyllis had seen that happen before. No matter what sort of turmoil was going on in a person’s brain, the body craved sustenance. And most of the time it was a good idea to listen to what your body was trying to tell you.

  After a while, Allyson smiled again, and the expression seemed more genuine this time.

  “I like this,” she said as she looked around the table. “It almost feels like I’m visiting my grandparents’ house.”

  Phyllis let the comment pass, even though she thought that she and her friends weren’t quite old enough to have a granddaughter Allyson’s age. Or maybe we are, she told herself. It had gotten to the point where it was difficult to keep up with such things. Anyway, she was just glad that Allyson was feeling more comfortable now.

  “What does everyone have planned for the evening?” Carolyn asked.

  “White Christmas is on TV,” Eve said. “It’s been several years since I’ve seen it, so I wouldn’t mind watching it again.”

  “Is that a movie?” Allyson asked.

  Sam gazed across the table at her in disbelief and said, “You’ve never seen White Christmas?”

  “I don’t think so, no.”

  “Well, we’ll have to do somethin’ about that gap in your cultural education. I’m not the biggest fan of musicals in the world, mind you, but I like this one. Anyway, it’s almost a war movie for a few minutes at the beginnin’.”

  Phyllis said, “Dessert first.” She got the plastic container with the last of the candy cane cupcakes in it, opened it, and set it on the table so everyone could help themselves.

  Carolyn looked like she was about to say something, and Phyllis was worried that it might be about how one of the cupcakes was the last thing Barney McCrory had eaten, or how she and Nate had eaten them the last time they were there before he was arrested. Phyllis caught Carolyn’s eye and gave her a warning frown. Allyson didn’t need to be reminded of that. Phyllis hadn’t thought about it until she’d put the cupcakes on the table, and then it was too late to do anything about it without calling attention to that uncomfortable fact.