The Candy Cane Cupcake Killer Page 3

  Whitmire nodded and said, “You two will have to come down to the station and give statements. Too many witnesses have wandered off already. I’m not letting the two of you get away.”

  Carolyn was standing close enough to hear the chief’s words. She said, “That sounds rather ominous. Should Phyllis and Sam bring a lawyer with them?”

  Wearily, Whitmire shook his head and waved off the question.

  “No, no, they’re not being charged with anything—”

  “You’re not supposed to even question them without letting them know their rights,” Carolyn went on. Both she and Phyllis had fallen under suspicion of murder in the past, and that had caused Carolyn to look at the local law enforcement in an adversarial light most of the time.

  Chief Whitmire was starting to look annoyed, and Phyllis didn’t want Carolyn to get arrested for interfering with an officer or obstructing justice. She turned to her friend and said, “It’s all right, Carolyn. I’m not worried about it. I waive the right to counsel.”

  “So do I,” Sam said. “I don’t have anything to hide.”

  Carolyn said, “Hmph. We’ve seen before that innocence doesn’t always mean much in this town.”

  Whitmire looked like he was about to say something angry, but before he could, McCrory’s daughter, Allyson, stepped up to him and asked, “Where are they taking my father, Chief?”

  Calvin and Ted had loaded McCrory’s body onto a gurney and were wheeling it toward the waiting ambulance. Whitmire said, “They’ll take him to the funeral home. My office will keep you informed about the situation, ma’am.”

  “The situation,” Allyson repeated. “What does that mean?”

  “There’ll have to be an autopsy. You’re the deceased’s daughter?”

  “That’s right. I’m Allyson Hollingsworth.” Her face was red and puffy from crying, and tear streaks on her cheeks reflected the myriad lights all around. But she was more composed now than she had been a few minutes earlier. She nodded toward the fair-haired man beside her and added, “This is my husband, Nate.”

  “I’m sorry for your loss. I’ll need to talk more to both of you, so why don’t I have one of my men take you down to the police station, and I’ll meet you there shortly?”

  Allyson stared at him in disbelief.

  “You’re arresting us?” she demanded.

  “No, not at all,” Whitmire said. “I just need to get statements from both of you. I realize this is a terrible time to be bothering you—”

  “Yes, it is,” Nate Hollingsworth said coldly.

  “But we’re just following procedure,” Whitmire forged ahead. He signaled to one of his men. “This officer will take you to the station.”

  “We can’t go in our own car?”

  “It’ll be simpler this way. He can show you exactly where to go. And then he’ll bring you back to your car when we’re done. I hope it won’t take very long.”

  Nate looked like he wanted to argue, but Allyson said, “All right, if we’ve got to, let’s get it over with. But I’ll have to get to the funeral home and talk to them about the . . . the arrangements . . .”

  Her face started to crumple into sobs again. Nate put his arms around her shoulders and drew her against him.

  “You can talk to the funeral-home people in the morning,” Whitmire told them. “There’ll be plenty of time.”

  He is right about that, Phyllis thought. It would probably be at least several days before McCrory’s body was released, since it would take that long for the autopsy and the other parts of the forensics investigation to be carried out.

  The police officer ushered them away from the carriage. Whitmire turned back to the vehicle and said to its visibly shaken passenger, “I’ll need to get a statement from you, too, Mr. Loomis.”

  Even under these circumstances, the politician’s natural arrogance asserted itself. Loomis said, “You know who I am, don’t you, Chief?”

  “Yes, sir, I do. I still need a statement from you.”

  “This has been very upsetting—”

  “We won’t keep you any longer than we have to.” Whitmire motioned another officer over to them and spoke briefly to him, telling him to escort Loomis to the station.

  “But . . . but I’m dressed like Santa Claus!” Loomis objected. “This is humiliating.”

  That protest didn’t do any good. He went off with the second officer.

  Phyllis asked Whitmire, “Are you going to put us in the back of a patrol car, too, Chief?”

  “No, I don’t think that’s necessary.” He pointed with his thumb at Sam’s pickup. “This is your vehicle, Mr. Fletcher?”

  “Yep.”

  “You can take it down to the station as soon as my officers get the street cleared enough to turn it around. Just let whoever’s working the reception counter know when you get there, and they’ll pass the word to me.”

  Carolyn said, “It sounds to me like a gathering of the suspects.”

  “Hardly,” Whitmire said. “Oh, and one more thing.”

  “And now he sounds like Columbo,” Carolyn muttered.

  Whitmire pretended not to hear her. He said, “Where are those cupcakes you were talking about?”

  “They’re in the pickup,” Phyllis said. “I suppose you want me to bring them in so they can be analyzed.”

  “No, actually. I was thinking that maybe you might not mind if we ate some of them,” Whitmire said. “I don’t think I’ve heard of candy cane cupcakes before, but they sound really good.”

  • • •

  The police department was on Santa Fe Drive, which ran parallel to and several blocks east of South Main Street, where the Christmas parade had been scheduled to take place. Once Sam was able to move his pickup, it wouldn’t take long for him and Phyllis to get there.

  As Sam drove, Phyllis said, “I’m sorry about your friend. Mr. McCrory seemed like a nice man.”

  “He was. Barney McCrory was a real charmer . . . when he wanted to be.”

  That comment made Phyllis cock an eyebrow. She said, “I take that to mean there were times when he wasn’t that way.”

  “You should’ve heard some of the cussin’-outs I got when Barney didn’t agree with the way I was playin’ his little girl on the basketball team. After some games, it felt like he spent an hour in my face, tellin’ me what a lousy coach I was.” Sam shrugged. “Maybe he was right.”

  “I highly doubt that,” Phyllis said.

  “I never really held it against him, though,” Sam went on. “Shoot, if you’re a good parent, you can’t help but get involved with your kid’s life at school, whether it’s academics or athletics.”

  “Yes, but some of them get a little too involved,” Phyllis pointed out.

  “Yeah, no doubt about that. Barney never crossed the line about Allyson and the team, though. Not too much, anyway. And that was just his way. He was like that about plenty of other things. Hard chargin’ all the time, straight ahead. He held himself to a high standard, and he felt like everybody else ought to be the same way.” Sam shook his head. “It’s hard to talk about him in the past tense. Somebody as vital and bigger than life as Barney was, it seems like he’ll be around forever.”

  “And yet that can change in an instant,” Phyllis said. “To be honest, I’ve come to feel that way about you, Sam. Like you’ll always be around.” Her voice caught a little as she went on. “And then I see you doing something like leaning over so far that you’re practically falling out of the pickup while you tried to stop those horses . . .”

  She couldn’t talk anymore. At the time, she had been too caught up in what she was doing to think too much about how dangerous Sam’s heroic actions were, but now, when she realized just how easy it would have been at that moment for her to lose him, it was like a cold hand clutching at her heart.

  Her left h
and rested on the seat beside her. Sam reached over with his right and laid it on top of hers. She turned her hand and laced her fingers together with his.

  “I’m not goin’ anywhere,” he said quietly. “I plan to be around for a good while yet.”

  “I hope so.” She tried to lighten the mood a little by saying, “What in the world did you mean when you said . . . Oh, I don’t even remember what it was now. It didn’t really sound like English, though.”

  “When are you talkin’ about?” he asked.

  “When I said something about John Wayne and Stagecoach.”

  “Oh.” Sam laughed. “You mean Yakima Canutt.”

  “I know I’ve heard you talk about that before, but I can’t recall what it is.”

  “He,” Sam said. “That’s the name of a famous Hollywood stuntman. He’s the one who jumped on the stagecoach team in the movie, not John Wayne. In fact, he did it twice: once when he was doublin’ one of the Apaches, and once when he was doublin’ the Duke. Remember the fella who falls under the stagecoach and the wheels go on either side of him?”

  “I suppose. Yes, I think so.”

  “That’s Yak, too. Best stuntman there ever was.”

  “How do you remember all these things?” Phyllis asked.

  “Trick brain,” Sam replied with a grin. “Just don’t ask me what I had for lunch yesterday, because odds are I can’t tell you.” He turned off the street into the parking lot of a sprawling redbrick building. “Anyway, we’re here.”

  He was right. They had arrived at the police department. Sam parked, and they went inside, shivering a little because the chilly December wind had gotten stronger during the evening. A cold front had blown through, and according to the forecast, the temperature was supposed to drop close to freezing by the next morning.

  It was warm inside the police department lobby, though. As she and Sam approached the counter, Phyllis wondered if Allyson and Nate Hollingsworth and Clay Loomis were already here. They probably were, and there was a good chance Chief Whitmire was already questioning one of them.

  She wondered also if the chief would handle the investigation into Barney McCrory’s murder himself, since he’d been the first officer on the scene, or if he would turn the case over to one of his detectives. She knew several of those detectives from previous cases.

  Sam told the officer at the counter who they were, and that Chief Whitmire had asked them to come in and give statements. She thanked them and told them to have seats in the waiting area, adding, “The chief will be with you shortly.”

  Phyllis supposed that answered her question about who would be heading up the investigation, at least for the time being.

  They waited for about thirty minutes before a door opened and Whitmire came out. He looked even more tired and harassed than he had at the murder scene. He said, “I’m sorry to have kept you folks waiting. Mrs. Newsom, we’ll start with you.”

  “You don’t want to talk to the two of us together?” Sam asked.

  “No, it’s standard procedure to interview witnesses separately.”

  Phyllis knew that and wasn’t surprised. She stood up, gave Sam a smile, and followed the chief along a corridor to an open door. They went into an interrogation room, which looked like the ones on TV and in the movies, Phyllis thought, only a little nicer. The walls were painted a neutral cream color rather than the common institutional green. The table in the center of the room wasn’t scarred, and showed signs of having been polished at some point. The two straight-backed chairs weren’t exactly comfortable, but the one Phyllis sat in didn’t make her squirm in discomfort, either.

  Whitmire sat down on the other side of the table, placed a small digital recorder between them, and began, “Interview with Mrs. Phyllis Newsom—”

  He didn’t get any further than that before the door burst open. A chunky, dark-haired man carrying a briefcase hurried into the room and exclaimed, “Don’t say another word, Phyllis!”

  Chapter 4

  “D’Angelo!” Chief Whitmire said as he stood up. “What the devil are you doing here?”

  “Saving my client from illegally incriminating herself,” the newcomer replied.

  “Mrs. Newsom waived the right to counsel.”

  D’Angelo looked at Phyllis as if he were badly disappointed in her. He said, “You did? Never waive any of your rights. Never. They’re what this country was built on.”

  “She’s not being accused of anything,” Whitmire said, visibly holding in the irritation he felt. “I’m just taking a witness statement from her.”

  D’Angelo waved that off and said, “Doesn’t matter. She still needs legal representation.”

  “No, I don’t, Mr. D’Angelo,” Phyllis said. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “Everyone who deals with the police should have an attorney with them, looking out for their interests.”

  A realization came to Phyllis. She said, “Carolyn called you, didn’t she?”

  D’Angelo hesitated, cocking his squarish head to the side, before replying, “I’m not at liberty to say.”

  Phyllis sighed and shook her head. D’Angelo didn’t have to admit it. It was just like Carolyn to let her distrust of the authorities get the better of her common sense.

  Actually, though, she wasn’t upset to see Jimmy D’Angelo. She and Sam had known the bombastic defense attorney for a while, ever since he had represented the primary suspect in another case they had been mixed up in. In fact, D’Angelo had hired them to act as investigators in that case, giving them some legal standing for a change, and had said that he might call on their services again.

  According to Sam, that made them private eyes. Phyllis didn’t think it was quite that simple, but she didn’t see any point in arguing the matter.

  D’Angelo set his briefcase on the table and went on. “I was told there was some question about a suspicious death and some cupcakes you baked.”

  “The cupcakes had nothing to do with it,” Phyllis said. “Poor Mr. McCrory was shot, not poisoned.”

  Whitmire leaned forward and said, “Speaking of those cupcakes, where are they, Mrs. Newsom?”

  D’Angelo pounced on that.

  “If you don’t suspect Mrs. Newsom, why do you want her to turn over the cupcakes as evidence?”

  “I don’t! I want to eat one of them, blast it! I haven’t had any supper.”

  Clearly, that wasn’t the answer D’Angelo had been expecting. He blinked, frowned, and said, “Oh.” Then, more businesslike, he asked Phyllis, “Did you agree to this?”

  “I did,” she told him. “Somebody should get to enjoy them.”

  “What kind are they?”

  “Candy cane cupcakes,” Phyllis said.

  D’Angelo licked his lips and nodded.

  “That does sound good,” he admitted. “Where are they?”

  “I forgot and left them in Sam’s pickup. It’s parked right outside, though. You could go back out to the lobby and tell him to get them.”

  D’Angelo looked at Whitmire and said, “Chief?”

  Whitmire waved a hand.

  “Go. And when you come back, bring Mr. Fletcher with you. To heck with procedure.”

  That was something Phyllis had never expected to hear Ralph Whitmire say. But, obviously, this had been an unusual evening all the way around.

  D’Angelo left his briefcase on the table. He told Phyllis, “Don’t answer any questions while I’m gone,” and hurried out of the interrogation room.

  Once D’Angelo was gone, Phyllis said to Whitmire, “I’m sorry about that, Chief. I don’t know what Carolyn was thinking.”

  Whitmire grunted and said, “I do. She was thinking you can’t trust the cops. A lot of people feel like that these days. A few of them—very few—have some justification for that. But that’s not the case here. You’re not in any troub
le.” He paused. “Although from what I saw, that was some pretty reckless driving you were doing. Not that you had a choice about it. Somebody else would’ve gotten hurt for sure if you and Sam hadn’t stopped that carriage.”

  “I thought Sam had lost his mind, but he knew what he was doing.”

  “Good thing, too,” Whitmire said. He leaned back in his chair and frowned. “You know, it occurs to me, we’ve been assuming that just because McCrory was shot, there can’t be anything wrong with those cupcakes.”

  “There can’t be,” Phyllis said. “I baked them this afternoon. I made three dozen of them. The batter and the frosting were the same for all of them. Each of us ate one of them when they were done. Sam ate two, as a matter of fact. None of us have shown any ill effects from them.”

  “They were never where anybody else could have gotten at them?” Whitmire held up a hand before she could say anything. “Wait a minute, you don’t have to answer that. I don’t want D’Angelo thinking that I’m trying to trick you or anything like that.”

  “Of course not. And I don’t mind telling you, the cupcakes I took to the parade tonight never left my kitchen until I put them in that container. No one else was around and had access to them, just the four of us. And none of us had any reason to want to hurt Mr. McCrory. None of us even knew who he was except—”

  Phyllis stopped short. Sam knew Barney McCrory. But from what Phyllis had seen, she knew he considered the old rancher a friend. And anyway, Sam would never hurt anyone, of course.

  She knew how a detective might think, though. Sam knew McCrory, so it wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility that Sam could have known that McCrory would be driving Santa Claus’s sleigh in the parade, too. And Sam could have guessed, based on his familiarity with McCrory’s personality, that the man would beg one of the cupcakes from Phyllis . . .