The Pumpkin Muffin Murder Page 3

  “Where’s that?” Phyllis asked, wanting to be polite.

  “Chicago. Haven’t been back there in a long time, though. I’m a Texan now.” The man looked curiously at her. “Say, we’ve met, haven’t we?”

  Phyllis had already recognized him. He was a wiry man of medium height with dark hair. He wore jeans and a gray shirt with the sleeves rolled up a couple of turns.

  “You’re Logan Powell, aren’t you?” Phyllis asked.

  “That’s right.”

  “I know your wife. I used to be a teacher, too. I’m Phyllis Newsom.”

  “Oh, sure,” Logan Powell said as a grin spread across his face. “We’ve run into each other at school board meetings, football games, things like that.”

  Phyllis nodded. She felt relieved and a little bit silly for being worried now. Still, you could never tell for sure what might happen, and it was better to be careful.

  Powell went on, “You probably thought I was a crazy man, telling somebody I was going to kill him.”

  “Well . . . I did wonder what was going on,” Phyllis admitted.

  “That was my buddy Ben Loomis I was talking to. He’s another real estate guy. He’s been making noises about trying to cut himself in on a deal I’ve been working on, and I was just lettin’ him know what he can expect if he does.” Powell laughed again as he fished a red-and-white-striped peppermint candy out of his pocket and unwrapped it. “But we’re old friends. He knows I didn’t mean it. I’m still not gonna let him get his grubby paws on my deal, though.”

  “But you wouldn’t resort to murder.”

  “Of course not.” Powell popped the peppermint into his mouth, then made a gun out of the thumb and index finger of his right hand and let the hammer drop. “Doesn’t hurt to let a guy worry a little, though.” He nodded toward the swing set. “That your little guy?”

  “My grandson,” Phyllis said. She knew good and well that Powell hadn’t mistaken Bobby for her son. She looked all right for her age, and there wasn’t too much gray in her brown hair, but no way did she look as if she could have a four-year-old.

  “Cute kid. Are you bringing him to the festival?”

  “I plan to if he feels up to it. He’s been battling an ear infection.”

  “Sorry to hear that. I hope both of you can make it. It’s gonna be quite an event. I’m on the chamber of commerce planning committee, and we’ve been working really hard to make sure it’s something the town can be proud of.”

  That wasn’t exactly the way Phyllis had heard it the night before, when Carolyn arrived home in the wee hours of the morning after helping Powell’s wife, Dana, with preparations for the festival because Powell himself was missing in action. She didn’t bring that up, though.

  “And of course it’s all for a good cause,” Powell went on.

  “Feeding the homeless and disadvantaged, right?”

  “Yep. That’s why the only admission we’re charging each family is a bag of canned goods or other nonperishable food.”

  The way he said that made Phyllis think that it was a statement he’d uttered a lot.

  “Of course, if anybody wants to donate more than one bag, we’ll be happy to take it,” he continued. “We’ll be delivering all that food on Thanksgiving morning, along with free turkey dinners for some of the families. We’re in need of volunteers to help with those deliveries, if you’re interested.”

  “Well, I don’t know. I’m taking care of my grandson while my son and his wife are out of town. . . .”

  “Sure, I understand. But if it works out where you can lend a hand, we’d be happy for the help.”

  “I’ll keep it in mind,” Phyllis promised. She wondered whether Carolyn planned to help distribute the food collected at the festival. That seemed like something she would do. Carolyn could be as tough as nails when she wanted to, but she had a kind heart.

  “Well, I guess I’d better be going,” Powell said. “I just swung by here to have a look around and figure out where some of the decorations are gonna go. We’ll be working all day tomorrow to get everything ready, and probably half the night. I hope this good weather holds.”

  “It’s supposed to, although we may get a cool front during the day Saturday. At least that’s what I’ve heard.”

  “It’ll be all right with me if we do. Some nice crisp autumn air will make it seem more like Thanksgiving, you know?”

  Phyllis nodded. “You’re right.”

  “So long,” Powell said. He started walking toward the parking lot. He hadn’t gotten out of earshot when his phone must have vibrated, because he lifted a hand to his ear to touch a button or something and said, “Logan Powell . . . Hey, babe, how you doin’?”

  Phyllis headed toward the swings. She had already inadvertently listened in on Powell’s side of a business conversation this morning. She didn’t need to eavesdrop while he talked to his wife.

  Bobby dragged his feet in the sand to stop the swing as Phyllis came up. “I wanna do somethin’ else, Gran’mama,” he said.

  “Well, go ahead,” she told him, waving a hand to take in all the park around them. “First, though, are you feeling all right?”

  “Yeah, just a little tired. But I wanna play some more, anyway.”

  He ran over to an old covered wagon, of which nothing was left except the wheels, the iron framework, and some thick sideboards. Children climbed on it as they would on monkey bars. Bobby swarmed up one of the wheels and began walking along the top of the sideboard, holding on to the curved frame over the top that had once been covered with canvas. Phyllis stood close to him, ready to catch him if he started to fall, but he made his way nimbly all around the wagon.

  From there Bobby went to the play horses, each with its thick spring base that bounced back and forth, and the teeter-totter, where he sat on one end while Phyllis pushed the other end up and down. She was getting tired, and he seemed to be, too. Besides, it was almost lunchtime.

  “Why don’t we walk around the lake once and then go back home?” she suggested.

  “Okay. Can we get Happy Meals?”

  “No, I’ll fix you something for lunch when we get back.”

  “Okay.” He trotted ahead of her until he reached the wooden bridge spanning the deep drainage ditch that fed into the lake. Then he stopped and waited, and Phyllis knew he didn’t want to walk over the bridge until she caught up with him to hold his hand.

  How many times had she walked over this same bridge holding Mike’s hand, twenty years earlier? Phyllis had no idea, but she knew that each and every one of them had been a special moment. She hoped that Mike remembered them with as much fondness as she did, and that someday Bobby would have good memories, too, of the days when his grandmother had brought him to this park.

  She swallowed hard as she walked along the far bank of the lake with him. She wasn’t going to be a foolish old woman and cry over some memories, she told herself. She wasn’t.

  Well . . . maybe a little. She brushed away a tear without Bobby noticing.

  Sam was back, staining boards at the workbench in the garage when they got home a little later. Carolyn’s car was gone, though, Phyllis noted.

  “Do you know where Carolyn went?” she asked Sam as she and Bobby got out of the car.

  “Yeah, she was just leavin’ when I came back in,” he replied. “Said to tell you she was goin’ to see Dana Powell and would probably eat lunch with her at school, so you shouldn’t worry about her.”

  “More planning for the festival?”

  “I suppose so,” Sam said with a shrug as he worked some of the stain into a board with a cloth. “She didn’t really say.”

  “Bobby and I ran into Dana’s husband at the park this morning. He was checking things out and seeing where decorations need to go.”

  “Do I know him?”

  “You’ve met him.”

  “I’ll take your word for it. My memory for names isn’t what it used to be.” He smiled. “But then, what is, when you get to be our a
ge?”

  “Speak for yourself. After following a four-year-old around a park all morning, I feel positively young.”

  Sam frowned at her. “Really?”

  “Lord, no. I’m worn out,” Phyllis admitted. She watched Bobby as he opened the kitchen door and went into the house. “But I feel young inside.”

  “Only place it really counts,” Sam said.

  Chapter 4

  Bobby went to sleep on the sofa while he was watching TV after a lunch of grilled cheese sandwiches with apple slices in them, one of his favorites. He didn’t take regular naps anymore—he was a big boy now, as he liked to point out—but sometimes all the playing caught up with him and caused him to doze off, Phyllis had discovered.

  When she came out of the kitchen after cleaning up the lunch dishes, she found Eve Turner sitting in the living room watching Bobby sleep. The much-married and as-often-divorced Eve had an affectionate smile on her face. She got up from the armchair where she was sitting and motioned for Phyllis to follow her back into the kitchen.

  “He’s just adorable,” Eve said when they were in the other room and their voices wouldn’t disturb Bobby. “I’m not surprised that he’s so cute, though. Mike’s a very handsome young man, and Sarah is lovely, of course.”

  “All sleeping little boys are cute,” Phyllis pointed out.

  “Like puppies.”

  “Well . . . yes, I suppose.”

  Phyllis knew that Eve, despite all her marriages, had never had any children of her own. She hadn’t inquired as to why that was. Some people probably thought she was just a nosy old busybody, but she truly didn’t like to pry into her friends’ personal lives . . . although sometimes circumstances had thrust the necessity to do just that onto her.

  “This is the longest I’ve kept him since he was born,” she said. “It’s been wonderful.”

  “There’s some good to be found in almost everything, I suppose. Even something as sad as Sarah’s father being sick.”

  “I suppose,” Phyllis agreed.

  Before she could say anything else, the back door opened and Carolyn came in. She seemed rather distracted, but she nodded pleasantly enough to Phyllis and Eve and said, “Ladies.”

  “How did your meeting with Dana Powell go?” Phyllis asked.

  “All right. It wasn’t just Dana, though. There were several other teachers there . . . Jenna Grantham, Barbara Loomis, Kendra Neville, and Taryn Marshall. They’ve all been working on decorations for the festival, and Taryn had her art classes make posters advertising it. I have a lot of them in my car right now. I thought I’d take them around town and put them up this afternoon.”

  “It’s a little late for something like that, isn’t it?” Eve asked. “It seems to me like posters should have gone up at least a week ago.”

  Carolyn inclined her head in agreement, then said, “That’s the way I would have done it, but I think Taryn just didn’t get around to it until now. These young teachers are always so busy these days.”

  Phyllis knew that was true. The state demanded so much more paperwork now than it had when she was teaching, and there were more extracurricular activities that had to have coaches and sponsors, too. And she knew the teachers Carolyn was talking about had to be young, with names like Taryn, Kendra, and Jenna. Barbara Loomis was the only one Carolyn had mentioned who had what Phyllis considered a more common name, and she suddenly thought about the conversation she’d had that morning with Logan Powell.

  “Is Barbara Loomis married to a real estate man?” she asked. She had probably met all the teachers Carolyn had mentioned but didn’t really remember any of them.

  “That’s right,” Carolyn said. “Why do you ask?”

  “Oh, I took Bobby to the park this morning, and while I was there I ran into Logan Powell. He was talking on the phone to some other real estate agent named Ben Loomis.”

  Carolyn nodded. “That’s Barbara’s husband, all right. What in the world was Logan Powell doing at the park?”

  “He said he was getting ready for the festival and seeing where the decorations needed to be placed,” Phyllis explained.

  Carolyn made a scoffing sound. “Of course he was,” she said. “I’m sure he’ll be there tomorrow and Saturday, too, taking credit for everything when it was his wife and the other ladies who did most of the real work. Logan’s just interested in putting on a show and having everyone tell him how wonderful he is.”

  Carolyn didn’t believe in pulling her punches when it came to her opinions of people, so her comments didn’t really surprise Phyllis.

  She went on. “I suppose it’s worth putting up with grandstanders like him, though, if it helps put food in the bellies of people who really need it. There’s not much in the world that’s worse than being hungry, let me tell you.”

  Phyllis noticed that her friend’s voice held an unusual vehemence, and so did Eve, who said, “Goodness, dear, you sound like you’re speaking from experience.”

  “I am,” Carolyn said. “My family was poor when I was a child. I mean, really poor.” She gave a curt shake of her head. “But you don’t want to hear about that.”

  “Actually, I would like to hear about it,” Phyllis said. “You’ve never talked much about your childhood, Carolyn. Why, I probably know more about what Sam’s life was like when he was growing up than I do about yours, and I’ve known you a lot longer than him!”

  She realized that maybe she was being insensitive. Perhaps Carolyn’s childhood had been so bad that she just wanted to put it behind her and never even think about it again.

  But there was a candor that came with age, and Phyllis wanted to believe that there was nothing old friends couldn’t say to each other.

  After a moment, Carolyn sighed. “If you really want to hear about it, I need some tea.”

  “I just happen to have some brewing in the pot,” Phyllis replied with a smile.

  A couple of minutes later, the three women were sitting around the kitchen table, each with a cup of orange spice herbal tea in front of her. Phyllis quickly checked in on Bobby and saw that he was still sound asleep on the sofa in the living room, so she wasn’t worried about him waking up anytime soon.

  “Go ahead,” Eve said to Carolyn.

  “But you don’t have to tell us anything you don’t want to,” Phyllis added.

  Carolyn sipped her tea. “I’m just worried that you’re going to be terribly bored.” She took a deep breath. “I come from a little farming town down close to Waco.”

  Phyllis nodded. “You’ve mentioned that before.”

  “I never told you, though, that we never really had a home of our own. My father was a mechanic, and when things were going well, my parents were able to rent a house in town, but when they weren’t, he had to take jobs on the big farms around there, and we’d wind up living in one of the little houses that the owners provided for workers. There were seven children, plus my grandfather, my mother’s father, lived with us, so there would be ten people crowded into a house that wasn’t much more than a two-room shack.”

  “That’s terrible,” Eve said. “It sounds like . . . like slave quarters.”

  Phyllis, who had taught eighth-grade American history for many years, said, “I’m sure it was hardly that bad, but it must have been terrible anyway.”

  “Yes, it could have been worse,” Carolyn agreed. “That’s what my mother and father told me all the time, and my grandfather, too. They had all lived through the Great Depression, after all. They knew what real hardship was like.”

  Like Carolyn, Phyllis had been born a little too late to have been through the Depression. She’d been alive when Pearl Harbor was attacked but had no memory of it. She could vaguely recall, though, the celebrations sparked off by the surrender of Japan at the end of the war.

  “It’s a funny thing,” Carolyn mused as she stared at her cup and saucer on the table in front of her, “but when your belly is empty it hurts just as bad whether it’s 1932 or 1948. And the shame a little
girl feels when she has to go to school in a flour-sack dress that’s more patches than dress because three older sisters have already worn it doesn’t really change, either.”

  “You poor dear,” Eve murmured.

  “Don’t feel sorry for me,” Carolyn said firmly. “Growing up like that taught me a great deal. I learned the value of hard work, for one thing, and I learned that if you want to get out of a bad situation, you have to actually do something about it. Sitting around and complaining won’t accomplish a thing.”

  “That’s the truth,” Phyllis said.

  “Even with its drawbacks, I liked school better than anything else. That’s why I decided I wanted to be a teacher. I started saving my money for college when I was a sophomore in high school. I got a job at a department store in Waco and hitchhiked into town every day after school to work, then hitchhiked home at night.”

  “Dear Lord!” Eve said. “You’re lucky you weren’t killed . . . or worse!”

  “I was willing to take that chance,” Carolyn said. “Anyway, the world was a different place then, at least for the most part. It wasn’t as mean.”

  Phyllis wasn’t sure about that. Judging by what she knew about some of the things that had gone on in the past, there had always been a lot of meanness in the world. People just hadn’t been as aware of it back then as they were now.

  “I was able to save enough money to pay for my first semester at Mary Hardin-Baylor College, as well as a little room in a boardinghouse,” Carolyn went on. “I kept working all through college and was able to get my degree and my teaching certificate. My older brothers and sisters helped a little, too, when they could, just like I helped the younger ones after I graduated and got a teaching position. I tried not to look back . . . but I never really forgot what it was like to be hungry on Thanksgiving. I don’t want any other child to have to experience that, if there’s anything I can do to help it.” She smiled. “There you are. The sad story of Carolyn Mahoney Wilbarger.”

  “It is a sad story,” Eve insisted. “I’m sorry you had to go through that.”