The Christmas Cookie Killer Page 14

  “Did Geneva know?” she asked, making her tone as caring as she could.

  “Oh, yeah.” He waved her into a chair. “Sit down. Just set those cookies on the coffee table.”

  Phyllis sat down, and Oscar lowered himself onto the sofa opposite her, being careful to keep the robe closed—for which she was thankful.

  “Geneva always knew, right from the start,” he went on. “I wouldn’t keep something that important from her. She helped me, in fact. It was sort of like a hobby we shared, like bird-watching or stamp collecting.”

  “All right,” Phyllis said.

  “Just don’t get the idea I’m some sort o’ pansy.” Oscar poked a stubby finger in the air for emphasis. “I’m a hundred percent male. I just . . . I just like the feel of it. The silk’s so smooth against the skin. You must know that.”

  Phyllis managed to nod.

  “Thank God for the Internet,” Oscar continued, warming to his subject now. “You can get all kinds of things in all different sizes. I tell you, back in the old days, it wasn’t easy finding stuff to fit a guy like me, especially panties and girdles—”

  “Oscar,” Phyllis said in a weak voice.

  He looked surprised, as if he hadn’t realized how enthusiastically he was going on. “Ah, hell,” he said. “Now I’m making your skin crawl, I’ll bet. I’m sorry, Phyllis. I didn’t mean for you to find out. It’s just that . . . when I dress up, it’s kinda like when Geneva was still here. It makes me feel, I dunno, closer to her somehow.”

  Phyllis swallowed. She’d had to fight off laughter a few moments earlier, but now she felt more like crying. Instead she leaned forward and said, “Oscar, I think that’s exactly the way Geneva would want you to feel. You do whatever you need to do. Not that you need my permission, or anybody else’s, of course.”

  “Thanks,” he said with a nod. “I appreciate that, I really do. And I appreciate the cookies. I’ll take ’em down to Brownwood and share them with my boy and his family, like I said.”

  Phyllis knew he expected her to get up and leave now, and goodness knows there was a part of her that wanted to, but she’d had a reason for coming over here, and she hadn’t accomplished it yet. She wanted to keep him talking for a little longer.

  “Does anyone else in the neighborhood know?”

  “About this?” Oscar waved a hand in front of himself to indicate what he was wearing. “Lord, I hope not. Geneva and I always kept it behind closed doors, you know.”

  “I suppose there are a lot of secrets, even in a nice neighborhood like this,” Phyllis said, thinking about Lois Horton’s drinking and the black eye she had been sporting the day before.

  Oscar grunted. “Darned right there are. If there’s one thing I learned working in personnel all those years, it’s that people are strange. Downright weird sometimes.” He chuckled. “I’m a fine one to talk, aren’t I? But you must’ve run into that when you were teaching. There are all kinds of people in the world, and most of ’em will surprise you sooner or later.”

  Phyllis smiled. “Yes, I’d say that’s true.” Oscar seemed more relaxed now, so she went on, “In fact, I was wondering if you’d seen anything surprising around the neighborhood lately.”

  “You mean other than myself in the mirror?” He laughed out loud this time, then shook his head. “No, not really. I don’t know anybody else’s deep, dark secrets, if that’s what you’re getting at.”

  “Actually, I was thinking about Agnes’s murder.”

  “Oh.” He sobered. “Yeah. Terrible thing, just terrible. I’m not gonna say she was your stereotypical sweet little old lady, but she was okay. I’m glad they caught the guy who did it. Hard to believe it was her own grandson.” He looked like he remembered something. “Say, you got clobbered that same day. How—”

  “I’m doing just fine,” Phyllis said before he could ask the question.

  “Well, that’s good. Anyway, I can’t imagine a kid killing his own grandmother like that. I hear he was some kind o’ druggie.” Oscar shook his head. “People’ll do just about anything for that damned junk, if you’ll pardon my French.”

  “Yes, that’s true. I got to worrying a little, though. . . . What if Randall Simmons isn’t the one who killed Agnes?”

  Oscar frowned. “Who else could it’ve been? He was staying right there in the house, right?”

  “Yes, but I’m not sure he had any real motive.”

  “Motive.” Oscar snorted. “He wanted money, and she wouldn’t give it to him. Or she threatened to turn him in to the cops. That’s all the motive a punk like that needs.”

  Unfortunately, Oscar was right. Because no one knew exactly what had gone on between Randall and Agnes, both of those scenarios were plausible—more than plausible.

  “My first thought was that it must have been a burglar, or somebody like that,” Phyllis said.

  Oscar’s brawny shoulders rose and fell. “Could’ve been, I suppose. I would have thought the same thing if the kid hadn’t been there.”

  “You didn’t notice any strangers in the neighborhood in the past week or two?”

  “Casing the houses so they could come back later and break in, you mean?” Oscar shook his head. “Some guys from the city were working out there at the water main about a week and a half ago. I think I saw a florist’s truck deliver some flowers at the Horton house. A couple of times, in fact.” He smiled. “Ol’ Blake must’ve got the wife mad at him for something.”

  Yes, like punching her in the eye. Phyllis doubted if having flowers delivered was going to make up for something like that. Though, as Oscar had proven today, you never really knew about people.

  “The preacher stopped by the other day, and I see the Meals on Wheels guy go by, and FedEx and UPS drop off packages now and then. . . . That’s about it. You know as well as I do, this is a quiet neighborhood.”

  Phyllis nodded. “Yes, it is.” She hid her disappointment, but she had to admit to herself that Oscar hadn’t been a bit of help. She would just have to try the cookie ploy with some of the other neighbors who hadn’t been at the exchange and hope that they had noticed something more important. At least she was fairly certain that she wouldn’t run into anything quite as surprising as the sight of Oscar Gunderson in a lacy pink slip.

  Then she realized that she shouldn’t have even let herself think such a thing. That was just asking for trouble.

  She stood up and said, “Well, enjoy the cookies, Oscar. It was good visiting with you.”

  He spread his hands. “Even with what you found out?”

  “I try not to pass judgment on anyone,” she told him. “And don’t worry; I won’t mention this to anyone, either.”

  “I’d appreciate that.” His voice hardened. “At my age, I sure as heck don’t want to wind up the laughingstock of the neighborhood.”

  “Of course not.” Phyllis went to the door. “I hope you enjoy your trip to Brownwood.”

  “Thanks. And thanks again for the cookies.” He slid his feet into the feathery slippers. “If you wouldn’t mind letting yourself out . . .”

  “Of course.”

  When the door was shut behind her, Phyllis blew her breath out in a long sigh. That visit with Oscar had been edifying, but certainly not in the way she had hoped.

  Unless . . .

  He had sounded almost angry when he said that he didn’t want to be the laughingstock of the neighborhood. And he had warned her, as soon as she found out what he was doing, not to tell anyone.

  Phyllis suddenly found herself wondering if she was indeed the first one, other than Oscar’s late wife, Geneva, to discover his secret. All along she had thought that Agnes Simmons might have found out about something that proved to be dangerous for her.

  Just how far would Oscar Gunderson have gone to keep anyone else from finding out?

  “No,” Phyllis whispered to herself. “That’s crazy, just crazy. He wouldn’t . . .”

  But she never would have dreamed that he would dress up in women�
��s lingerie, either. As Oscar himself had said, people were downright weird sometimes. Weird didn’t have to mean dangerous. . . .

  But as Phyllis walked toward her house and went past the front window of the Gunderson house, with its tightly drawn curtains, a little shiver of uncertainty ran through her as she thought about what was going on behind them.

  Chapter 14

  Phyllis wanted to recover for a while from the somewhat disconcerting conversation with Oscar before she talked to any of the other neighbors. Anyway, if she was going to use the cookie ploy again to get in the door of wherever she went next, she had to have another plate of cookies.

  That was why she walked straight from Oscar’s front door to hers, and when she got there, she saw Frank Simmons standing there on the porch with his hand raised and his finger poised to press the doorbell button.

  “Oh, hi, Mrs. Newsom,” Frank said as Phyllis came up the steps. “I was just looking for you.”

  “What can I do for you, Frank? And by the way, I think you can call me Phyllis. You’re a grown man, not the little boy who lives next door anymore.”

  He smiled. “Yeah, but you know that inside of every grown man, there’s still a little boy.”

  “Oh, I never doubted that for a second. Come on in the house.”

  Frank gestured toward the metal swing hanging from chains attached to the porch roof. “It’s pretty warm for December. What say we sit outside and talk for a few minutes?”

  Phyllis considered the suggestion and then nodded. “All right.” They moved over to the swing, which was big enough for three people to sit side by side, and as they settled down on it at opposite ends, she went on, “I’m glad to see that you look like you feel a little better now than you did the last time I saw you.”

  “Oh, that’s just an act,” Frank replied with a shake of his head. “There’s only so much weeping and wailing a person can do. I ran out of mine. Claire hasn’t yet, though.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that. If there’s anything I can do to help . . .”

  “That’s why I’m here.” Frank took a deep breath. “Mrs. Newsom . . . Phyllis . . . I want to ask you to tell the police that you’ve thought it over, and you’ve decided that Randall wasn’t the person who hit you in my mother’s kitchen.”

  Phyllis frowned at him. “But that would be a lie,” she said. “I don’t know who hit me. I never saw him. And I never identified Randall as my attacker, either, for that very reason. I just don’t know.”

  “But if you told the police that you do know, and it wasn’t Randall—”

  Phyllis shook her head. “I just can’t do that. I’m sorry.”

  Frank sighed and passed a hand over his face. “I didn’t really think you would,” he said. “That’s why I’m going to have to do something I didn’t want to do.”

  Phyllis felt a shiver of fear at his words. What did he mean by that vaguely threatening statement? She wondered where Sam was, and if he would hear her if she called for help.

  “I’m going to have to tell you the truth,” Frank said. “All of it.”

  Oh. Well, that wasn’t quite as threatening, although it was still confusing. The best way to clear up that confusion, Phyllis thought, was to listen to what Frank had to say.

  “Go ahead,” she told him. “I’m always glad to hear the truth.”

  Was he going to confess that he had killed his mother over that loan she’d refused him for his business? With Agnes dead, Frank might inherit enough money to save his store.

  “You know Randall was charged with selling drugs over in Dallas?”

  “Yes,” Phyllis said. So this was going to be about Randall, and not a confession by Frank.

  “Well, actually, it was possession with intent to sell, not actually dealing the stuff. And he had it, no doubt about that. The cops caught him red-handed. He was going to sell it, too. He was arrested before he had the chance.”

  “Frank, I don’t see why you’re telling me this.”

  “What you don’t know is why he got mixed up in that mess,” Frank said. “He was forced into it.”

  “By whom? Society?”

  Frank waved a hand. “No, I never believed in all that crap. A guy named Jimmy Crowe forced him to do it.”

  “Did this man Crowe put a gun to Randall’s head?” Phyllis couldn’t contain her skepticism.

  “No. Crowe put a gun to my head.”

  Phyllis stared at the man beside her on the swing.

  “Not literally,” Frank went on. “Just figuratively. But that was bad enough. He told Randall that he’d kill me if Randall didn’t work for him. Crowe’s a bad dude. He’s into all kinds of shady deals over in Dallas, mostly drug related. But he’s a loan shark, too, and that’s how Randall got on his bad side. He borrowed money from him and then couldn’t pay it back, so he was gonna have to work off the debt in Crowe’s main line of business.”

  “How do you know all of this?”

  “Randall told me. Not back when it was all going on, but just this week. He broke down while I was visiting him in jail and explained the whole thing to me.” Frank shook his head. “Jail’s been rough on him. Since he already jumped bail once, the judge set his bond for the murder charge at a million bucks. I don’t have that, and I can’t even get a bail bondsman to get him out. I don’t have enough assets to make it worth the risk, just a store that’s gonna go out of business soon, anyway, in a building I don’t own.”

  “I’m sorry, Frank,” Phyllis said. “But I still don’t understand why Crowe would threaten you—”

  “To make Randall go along with what he wanted. You see, Randall gave the money that he borrowed to me, to help with the business. I didn’t want to take it, but Randall insisted. Lord, if I’d known where it came from . . .” Frank put his hands over his face and sat there for a moment before he could go on. When he was able to continue, he said, “He told me that he was working as an engineer for a computer company in north Dallas and that he’d gotten an advance on money they owed him. We hadn’t talked much in recent years, and I knew he’d always been good with computers, so I believed him. Maybe I was just desperate enough to believe him. But then it didn’t work out, and that money was gone, too, and I needed to pay Randall back. So I asked my mother for help.” He shook his head. “But she turned me down.”

  Phyllis had heard that part of the story. She hadn’t known it was just the tip of a particularly sordid iceberg.

  “I told Randall I couldn’t get the money to pay him back. I didn’t have any idea it was really Crowe I’d be paying back. That was when Randall dropped out of sight for good. He tried to hide out, not from his family, but from Crowe. But the guy found him, of course, and told him that he’d have me killed unless Randall did some errands for him—like delivering a bunch of drugs that Crowe was selling to some other lowlife. Crowe said that was only fitting, since I was the one who’d wound up with the money and now couldn’t pay it back.” Frank shrugged. “So Randall did what he was told to do . . . and got caught at it. Then he dug himself an even deeper hole by skipping out on his bail and going into hiding. I don’t know what made him think of coming over here to my mother’s place. Maybe he knew she’d hide him. She was always more fond of her grandkids than she was of her own kids. I’ll bet you never knew what a tyrant she was when we were little. Poor Billie cried herself to sleep nearly every night because of things that Mom said to her. Told her she was ugly and stupid and would never amount to anything. . . . Of course, she said the same things to me and Ted, but not as often as she picked on Billie. I guess she knew we were tougher and could take it better. But she sensed a weakness in Billie. . . .”

  Frank’s voice trailed off, and he stared straight ahead, a vacant expression on his face as if his body was here but his mind wasn’t. Phyllis didn’t know what to say, so she sat there silently as the man beside her struggled to escape from the trap of his memories.

  Finally a little shudder went through Frank’s bulky frame, and he turned his he
ad to look at her. “You didn’t know about any of that going on, did you?” he asked with a faint, sad smile.

  “No,” Phyllis admitted. “I’m sorry, but I didn’t.”

  “Yeah, Mom was good at the sweet little old lady bit. And you know what? . . . After the three of us grew up and moved out and got married, she really was sweet most of the time, especially after we all had kids. She doted on those grandchildren. She was always after us to bring them to see her. We couldn’t hardly stand to be around her, though, so we didn’t visit very often. But when we did, she was like a different person. It was like none of the bad times ever happened.” Frank spread his hands. “I guess some people just aren’t cut out to be parents, but they can handle being grandparents okay.”

  Phyllis nodded, still unsure what to say. She hadn’t been prepared for the sort of searing revelations she had heard from Frank Simmons, and the fact that she was hearing them while sitting in a front porch swing on a mild December day at Christmastime just made the whole experience more bizarre.

  “So I’m not really surprised that she tried to help Randall,” Frank continued after a moment. “Just like I wasn’t surprised when she reverted back to type when I asked to borrow that money. I could see it in her eyes. . . . It was a touch of glee, just a little touch, that I really was the failure she’d always predicted I’d turn out to be.”

  “I’ve seen you for the past few days, Frank,” Phyllis said. “At the funeral, and next door. You were truly grieving for her. I could tell.”

  “Well, of course I was. She was my mother. I loved her.” A bleak chuckle came from him. “That’s the problem. Some people, even when they treat you like crap, you just can’t stop loving them. Even if you want to.”

  But there was that old saying about there being a thin line between love and hate, Phyllis thought, and those words contained a lot of truth. She had heard hatred in Frank’s voice when he spoke about the way his mother had turned him down when he asked her for money. She could only imagine how he must have felt, a proud man who had accepted help from his son, only to be unable to repay that debt; forced to turn to his own mother, only to be rebuffed . . . caught between two generations, with failure on one side and rejection on the other. . . .