The Candy Cane Cupcake Killer Read online

Phyllis could have taken offense at that crack about not being a kindly grandmother. She was certainly a grandmother, and she hoped that she was kindly.

  But she let it pass. She had more important things on her mind right now.

  “We’re here in the Cranmoor Building in Weatherford, Texas,” Felicity went on, “where murder suspect Nathan Hollingsworth has his office. Let’s find out what Mrs. Newsom is doing here. Looking for clues, I expect.”

  She thrust the microphone at Phyllis. Felicity was clearly waiting for her to say something, so Phyllis cleared her throat and leaned closer to the microphone.

  “Um, hello.”

  Josh Green made a gesture that Phyllis interpreted as meaning she didn’t have to talk so loud.

  “You were just upstairs in Nathan Hollingsworth’s office, weren’t you?” Felicity asked.

  “That’s right.”

  “You’re aware that his bail hearing is underway at this very moment?”

  “Yes, and I’m a little surprised you’re not there, waiting to get a comment from him.”

  Felicity smiled and said, “I’d rather talk to you. You’re the one who’s known as the Elderly Angel of Death—”

  “As far as I know, you’re the only person who’s ever called me that,” Phyllis interrupted.

  “The woman who seems to have cold-blooded murder following her around,” Felicity went on, as if Phyllis hadn’t said anything.

  Phyllis lowered her voice and said, “Listen, could we talk without the camera and the microphone on?”

  “Inside Beat never goes off the record. We broadcast the truth, the real, hard-hitting facts. And the fact is, the police have arrested Nathan Hollingsworth for the murder of his own father-in-law, Barney McCrory, and, from what I hear, their case against him is airtight!”

  “I don’t think it’s as conclusive as what you’ve been led to believe,” Phyllis said. “But I’d really like to talk to you privately . . .”

  Felicity looked irritated, but she lowered the microphone and nodded to Nick. The red light on the camera went out. Phyllis kept an eye on the man to make sure he didn’t surreptitiously turn it back on.

  “What’s this all about?” Felicity snapped. “Like I told you, I don’t do things off the record—”

  “Not even to get the inside story?” Phyllis said.

  A frown creased Felicity’s forehead. She said, “What are you talking about?”

  “Nate Hollingsworth didn’t kill his father-in-law, and I’m going to prove it. How would you like to be there for every step of the investigation from this point on? I’m talking about more than just an eight-minute feature on your show. You could get a full-length documentary out of this.”

  Phyllis saw the interest spark to life in Felicity’s eyes. She tried to keep her expression and voice neutral, though, as she said, “Do you mean my crew and I could go along with you while you’re interrogating suspects?”

  “More than that. You can help in the interrogations.”

  Felicity shook her head and said, “I don’t understand. How would that work?”

  “You’ll be interviewing the suspects. Everyone likes to be on TV.” That isn’t strictly true, Phyllis thought, but most people won’t turn down the chance to be a celebrity, even a temporary one. “But I can tell you what to ask them, and I’ll be there to hear their answers.”

  Felicity’s lip curled in a sneer.

  “I have my own journalistic instincts,” she said. “I don’t need anybody to tell me what questions to ask.”

  “I’m sure that’s true, but I know the case. I’m just talking about steering you in the right direction.”

  Phyllis could tell that Felicity was considering the idea. However, the young woman didn’t want to give up any control. Phyllis would have to make Felicity believe that she was still running the show.

  Josh spoke up, saying, “Felicity, before you can agree to something like this, you’d have to check with the producers first—”

  “Shut up, Josh. I’m the biggest personality on that show.”

  “But Spencer’s still the host—”

  “Spencer’s a has-been! Everybody knows that. I’ll be in the anchor chair before another six months has gone by. Everyone says so.”

  Josh sighed and said, “Okay. It’s your decision.”

  “Damned right it is.” Felicity’s eyes narrowed in thought. “I can see it now . . . An Inside Beat Special Edition with Felicity Prosper: Murder in Texas.”

  “That’s kind of a generic title—”

  “How do you think you get big ratings? You have to give people something they can grasp easily! What’s easier than murder and Texas?”

  “That’s true,” Josh admitted.

  Felicity swung back toward Phyllis and said, “You have to give me your word you won’t hold out on me. I want the whole story, and I want it exclusively.”

  “That’s what I had in mind,” Phyllis said, nodding.

  “How close are you to nabbing the killer?”

  “Not that close, I’m afraid.”

  “Good! We don’t want the viewer to feel cheated. You’re sure Hollingsworth is innocent?”

  “I’m positive of it,” Phyllis declared.

  “All right. How do we prove it?”

  • • •

  Felicity, Josh, and Nick had a computer in their van, and Felicity was willing to let Phyllis use it in return for an explanation of what she was looking for.

  “Each of the county commissioners has a particular precinct within the county where he’s responsible for the upkeep of the roads. That’s why you sometimes hear them called road commissioners, even though they handle other county-related business as well.”

  “So?” Felicity asked impatiently. “What does that have to do with murder?”

  “There’s what they call a precinct barn in each precinct, even though it’s not actually a barn. It’s the headquarters for that particular commissioner. There’s an office, and some metal buildings and sheds where all the road equipment is kept and serviced. There are usually piles of sand and gravel there as well, to be used as needed. People can bring certain items there to be recycled, too.” Phyllis saw the frown on Felicity’s face deepening, so she pointed to the computer screen and went on. “This is the location of Clay Loomis’s precinct barn.”

  “Loomis,” Felicity repeated as her expression cleared a little. “He’s the guy who was in Santa’s sleigh with McCrory.”

  “That’s right. And nobody loves a TV camera more than a politician.”

  That brought an actual smile to Felicity’s face.

  “You want to question Loomis.”

  “Well, I don’t know if he’ll be at the barn or not, but at least we can talk to some of the people who work for him.”

  “Wait a minute,” Felicity said as her frown came back. “Loomis couldn’t have shot McCrory. I think somebody would have noticed if Santa Claus had a rifle. Anyway, he was behind McCrory.”

  “Exactly. But what if Loomis was the target instead of Mr. McCrory?”

  The theory appeared to burst on Felicity like a bomb. Her eyes grew wide, and her jaw sagged for a second before she snapped her mouth shut. She peered intently at Phyllis for a heartbeat longer, then said, “That opens up a whole new area of the case.”

  “Yes, it does. An area that the police aren’t even investigating because they’re convinced they already have the killer.”

  “Yeah, they wouldn’t go out of their way to look for anything that would shoot holes in that theory,” Felicity muttered.

  Josh spoke up, asking, “Why would anybody want to shoot Loomis?”

  Phyllis took a deep breath. Sharing the theory she and Sam had come up with was one thing. Giving all the information they had uncovered to Felicity on a silver platter was something else. She had no way
of knowing for sure that the reporter would keep everything to herself for the time being. Felicity might go on the air with all their speculation and ruin everything. If they were right, such a revelation would spook the killer and prompt him or her to hide the tracks so well, the truth might never be found.

  But at the same time, Phyllis needed these TV people to open doors for her. Felicity and Josh were watching her with avid interest. Nick didn’t really seem to care about much of anything other than pointing his camera where Felicity wanted it pointed.

  “You have to give me your word you won’t broadcast this until I say it’s all right.”

  Felicity scowled and said, “I don’t like making promises like that. I won’t compromise my journalistic integrity.”

  As far as Phyllis could see, she had already done that by going to work for a program like Inside Beat, but sharing that opinion wouldn’t accomplish anything.

  “Maybe it’ll be all right,” Josh said. “I mean, we don’t even have a story without Mrs. Newsom’s cooperation.”

  Felicity turned her scowl toward him and said, “Didn’t they teach you in journalism school about the adversarial relationship between reporters and the people we cover?”

  “Well, yeah, but a little quid pro quo doesn’t hurt anything, either.”

  “You’ve got the makings of a producer, all right,” Felicity said. “You’re a weasel.” She sighed. “But you may have a point.” She turned to Phyllis. “All right, you’ve got my word. But if my gut tells me you’re lying to me or trying to trick me somehow, the deal’s off.”

  “I’m going to be honest with you. That’s the only way this will work.”

  For the next few minutes, Phyllis laid out what she and Sam had discovered about Gene Coyle; Loomis’s business partners, J. D. Ridgely and Phil Hedgepeth; his estranged wife, Serita; and his former mistress, Jaycee Fallon. When she was finished, Felicity looked impressed.

  “You came up with all that in just a day or two? A couple of old geezers like you?”

  “Felicity . . .” Josh said.

  “Ah, she doesn’t care,” Felicity said with a dismissive wave of her hand.

  “There are worse things to be called,” Phyllis said, thinking of Elderly Angel of Death.

  “So, your idea is that one of these people took a shot at Loomis and hit McCrory by accident,” Felicity went on. “That sounds reasonable enough. But if it’s true, how did they get their hands on Nate Hollingsworth’s rifle?”

  The blunt question made Phyllis’s heart sink. Mostly because she didn’t have an answer for it.

  “I don’t know,” she said honestly. “That’s why we have to dig deeper into all of them.”

  She needed to sit down with Nate and Allyson as soon as she could, too, and go over the theory with them. Maybe they could furnish some connection she was unaware of so far.

  “All right, let’s start with Loomis,” Felicity said. “You’re right about politicians and cameras. Can you tell Nick how to find this—what did you call it?—precinct barn?”

  Nick grunted and said, “I got a GPS.”

  “That’s all right,” Phyllis said. “I can give you directions.”

  Nick shrugged and settled behind the wheel of the van. Felicity took shotgun, and Phyllis and Josh sat in the back. A few minutes later, they were on their way out of Weatherford.

  • • •

  They followed a farm-to-market road for about ten miles, then turned right onto a smaller county road that wound among farms, ranches, and the occasional small housing development for people who preferred country living. Phyllis could understand the appeal of that, although she had lived in town for so long, she didn’t think she could ever be comfortable anywhere else.

  Clay Loomis was supposed to be back in his office at Cross Timbers Transport today, Phyllis recalled, but she didn’t want to go there. The woman who had replaced Jaycee Fallon as office manager might remember her from her visit with Sam, when they had pretended to be soliciting donations for the Lions Club. If Loomis heard about that, he might be suspicious of her showing up with a TV crew.

  “The place we’re going is up ahead on the right,” she leaned forward and told Nick. “I’ve been out here before for county cleanup days.”

  “What’s that?” Felicity asked.

  “It’s when you can bring almost anything you don’t want anymore and get rid of it,” Phyllis explained. “Old furniture, lumber, appliances that don’t work . . . By the time it’s over, there are mountains of trash out here.”

  “What in the world do they do with it?”

  “I think they load it in Dumpsters and haul it off to use for landfill.”

  Felicity shook her head and said, “There’s just no end to the crazy things you rednecks do, is there?”

  Phyllis didn’t respond to that. She knew there was no point.

  The road veered to the right, where another county road dead-ended into the one they were on. The gate in the high chain-link fence around the commissioner’s headquarters was actually on this smaller road. It was open, so Nick turned in and drove across a large, gravel-covered open area toward the metal building where the office was located.

  The sheds and storage buildings were to the right and behind the office. The big piles of sand and gravel Phyllis had mentioned were to the left, scattered across the big lot. At one of them, a tractor with a front-end loader attached to it was scooping up gravel and depositing it in the back end of a dump truck.

  A couple of pickups with county seals on the doors were parked in front of the office, along with a dark SUV with the letters AAA painted on its door, plus some other writing she couldn’t make out. Phyllis wasn’t sure what AAA was doing here, but someone could’ve been having vehicle trouble. A man came out of the office, got into the SUV, and drove off while Nick was parking the TV crew’s van.

  Another man followed the first one out of the building and started toward one of the pickups. Phyllis recognized him immediately as Clay Loomis.

  “That’s him,” she said quickly. They had caught a break, finding Loomis here, and now they needed to take advantage of it.

  “Stay out of the way,” Felicity snapped as she opened her door. Sure-footed in her high heels, even on the gravel parking lot, she approached Loomis, with Nick hurrying to catch up with her.

  Loomis paused with his hand on the handle of the driver’s door and smiled as Felicity came toward him. Most men would smile if they saw a young woman who looked like Felicity, especially one obviously bent on talking to them, Phyllis thought. She and Josh got out of the van and followed.

  Phyllis carried a clipboard she had found in the van and kept her head down. Loomis might have seen her and Sam talking to McCrory on the night of the parade, so it was possible he could recognize her. She didn’t think that was very likely, but she wanted to blend into the background as best as she could for now, and minimize the chances of that happening.

  “Mr. Loomis,” Felicity said. “Felicity Prosper from Inside Beat. I’m sure you’ve seen our program.”

  “As a matter of fact, I have,” Loomis replied. He wore jeans, a sheepskin jacket, and expensive snakeskin boots. “What can I do for you, Ms. Prosper?”

  “I’d like to ask you some questions,” Felicity said, “about the night Barney McCrory was murdered right in front of your eyes.”

  Chapter 20

  Loomis’s smile disappeared and was replaced by a solemn expression.

  “A terrible, terrible tragedy,” he said. “I can’t tell you how upset I still am about the whole incident.”

  “You were playing the part of Santa Claus in the annual Christmas parade on the evening of the murder, is that correct?”

  “Yes, I was giving the, ah, real Saint Nick a hand that night,” Loomis replied with a half chortle, and shifted emotional gears again without missing a beat. “Filling
in for him, you might say, since the old fellow can’t be everywhere at once. Now can he, kiddies?”

  Loomis smiled into the camera as he said that. Felicity said, “We don’t have a lot of children who believe in Santa among our viewers, Mr. Loomis. We specialize in the truth.”

  Phyllis saw Josh wince at that. She understood the feeling. What was the point in alienating viewers who might have small children in the room? Josh was thinking like a producer, going after the biggest audience possible, Phyllis realized. It could be he was smarter than she had given him credit for at first, when he was toppling off a bicycle in the middle of the street.

  “Maybe you can fix it in editing,” Phyllis whispered to him. He rolled his eyes and nodded, safely behind Felicity, where she couldn’t see him.

  Felicity was still talking to Loomis, saying, “Tell me what it felt like when you realized that a man had been violently killed just a few feet away from you.”

  Loomis still didn’t show the least bit of hesitation about answering Felicity’s questions—a combination of his politician’s thirst for publicity and the natural male urge to keep a pretty girl happy, Phyllis thought. The commissioner spread his hands and said, “Well, at first I didn’t even know what was happening, of course. I wasn’t aware that my good friend Barney had been shot.”

  Phyllis made a mental note to ask Allyson and Nate if McCrory and Loomis really had been friends. She hadn’t gotten any sense of that so far in the investigation.

  “All I knew,” Loomis went on, “was that the horses pulling the carriage had stampeded, and we were careening along the street much faster than was safe. I kept shouting for people to get out of our way, and then I tried to see if I could climb up to the driver’s seat to get the team under control. I knew I had to keep a cool head in order to prevent a greater disaster.”

  That was certainly an interesting version of what had happened. Phyllis didn’t recall the incident quite that way. To the best of her memory, Loomis had been screaming his head off and clutching those teenage elves as if to shield himself with their bodies.

  “Luckily, someone else stopped the horses,” Loomis said. Phyllis shifted slightly, keeping Nick’s burly shape between her and the politician. She didn’t want Loomis’s memory jogged enough that he would recognize her. “That was when I had the chance to check on my old friend and saw that he’d been injured.”