The Pumpkin Muffin Murder Read online

  “And we’re glad to have her volunteering,” Jenna said. “She’s worked with some of the resource kids on their reading and made a big difference.”

  “You taught junior high, didn’t you?” Barbara asked.

  “That’s right. Eighth grade. American history.”

  Barbara shook her head. “You couldn’t pay me enough to teach junior high. All those hormones in the air.”

  “Yeah, and the kids can be a pain, too,” Jenna said with a smile.

  Phyllis handed Dana’s keys to the secretary. “Mrs. Powell said we could leave these here and she’d pick them up later.”

  “I’ll make sure she gets them,” Katherine promised.

  “What were you doing with Dana’s keys?” Jenna asked. There wasn’t any suspicion in her voice, just curiosity.

  “Carolyn and I picked up the scarecrows,” Phyllis explained. “We’re going to take them over to the park and set them up on the hay bales.”

  “That’s going to be cute,” Barbara said. “I’m glad Dana thought of it.”

  “I didn’t know it was her idea.”

  Barbara nodded. “Oh, yes. She’s very creative.”

  “And she has her husband to help her.”

  “Logan?” Barbara asked with a puzzled frown. “I wouldn’t say he helps all that much with things like this. He’s like my husband. Too busy with his business all the time. They’re in the same line of work, you know. Real estate.”

  “I know,” Phyllis said. “I ran into him at the park yesterday morning, and as a matter of fact, he was talking to your husband on the phone.”

  “You were at the park?” Jenna asked.

  “That’s right. I took my grandson there to play. He really loves the place.”

  “It’s a nice little park,” Jenna agreed. She glanced at her watch. “Well, I’d better get busy. I still have a lot to do, and my conference period will be over before you know it. Talk to you later, Barbara. Nice seeing you again, Mrs. Newsom.”

  “You, too,” Phyllis said. She hadn’t meant to linger this long at the school. Carolyn was probably already at the park by now. But there was a bond between teachers, even between active ones and retired ones, and she always enjoyed visiting with people who knew what it was like to stand up there in front of a classroom full of students and try to plant some knowledge in their heads. It was one of the most frustrating but at the same time one of the most rewarding jobs in the world.

  By the time Phyllis reached the park, Carolyn had already unloaded three of the scarecrows from her car and propped them up on bales of hay. Thin wooden stakes went down through the gap between the shirt collar and the back of the overalls and were driven into the hay to hold the stuffed figures upright. Phyllis thought they looked very distinctive and picturesque.

  There were a lot more people here today than there had been the day before. City employees were unloading and setting up portable toilets and sawhorses for crowd control. The sound of hammering filled the air as other employees erected the booths that were being rented by local businesses to promote their goods or services. All the local civic clubs were sponsoring booths, too, that would be used for various arts and crafts displays, games and face painting for the kids, and concession stands. It was definitely a busy place.

  And Logan Powell was right in the middle of it, Phyllis saw as she carried one of the scarecrows from her car across the park. Despite the things Carolyn and the other women had said about him, Logan seemed to be heavily involved, striding around the park and issuing orders, talking on the cell phone tucked into his ear, and popping peppermints. He saw Phyllis and gave her a grin and a wave, then pointed out to one of the workmen where a sign needed to go.

  Phyllis came to a bale of hay with a stake lying on it. She set the scarecrow on the hay, positioned it, and picked up the stake.

  “Careful,” a voice said behind her. “You could kill a guy with that thing.”

  Chapter 7

  Phyllis turned her head, looked over her shoulder, and saw Logan grinning at her. She positioned the stake, worked it through a precut slit in the overalls, slid it down the scarecrow’s back, and pushed it into the hay until it was good and solid.

  “There,” she said as she straightened and stepped back. “How does that look?”

  “It looks great,” Logan said. “Very autumnal. I didn’t know you were gonna help with the decorations, Phyllis. You don’t mind if I call you Phyllis, do you?”

  “No, not at all. I guess you could say I’m a late-blooming volunteer, at least in this case.”

  “We appreciate all the help we can get.” That seemed to be a common sentiment. Logan looked around. “Hey, where’s that grandson of yours?”

  “Oh, I left him at home with . . . a friend of mine.” Phyllis wasn’t going to start referring to Sam as her boyfriend when she was talking to other people. It was one thing to come to an understanding between themselves, but quite another not to act her age in public.

  “Well, be sure to bring him to the festival tomorrow. He’ll get a big kick out of it. There’ll be a lot of good food, too. You know there’s gonna be a cooking contest.” Logan smiled again and made a production of licking his lips. “I’ve got a real sweet tooth, I’m afraid.”

  “Yes, I’ve noticed you eating those peppermints.”

  “Yeah, I guess I, ah, picked up the habit when I quit smoking.”

  “It’s a much healthier habit, I would think,” Phyllis said. “I’m entering the contest, you know.”

  Logan’s eyebrows went up. “Really?” He lowered his voice to a conspiratorial tone. “What are you making?”

  Phyllis glanced around, falling into the same conspiratorial attitude. Then she said quietly, “Pumpkin cheesecake muffins. With pecan crumble topping.”

  “Ohhhh,” Logan said. “That sounds delicious. I’ll be sure to try one.”

  “I hope you like it.”

  “Well, got to get back to work,” he said. “No rest for the wicked, as they say. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  Phyllis nodded. “Of course.”

  Logan walked across the park to talk to some of the city employees. Phyllis started back toward the parking lot to get another scarecrow out of her car.

  Carolyn fell in step beside her. “That was Logan Powell talking to you, wasn’t it?” she asked.

  “That’s right.”

  “He was flirting with you, Phyllis.”

  Phyllis stopped in her tracks and turned to look at her friend in surprise. “Flirting with me?” she repeated. “No, he wasn’t!”

  Carolyn nodded. “He most certainly was,” she insisted. “I was watching. I saw the way he smiled and laughed the whole time he was talking to you. I kept waiting for him to touch you on the arm or the shoulder, but he never did. He thought about it, though.”

  “Well, that’s just crazy,” Phyllis said with a shake of her head. “I’m at least twenty years older than he is.”

  “Some men like older women, or so I’ve been told.” Carolyn added grudgingly, “Anyway, you don’t look as old as you really are. You could pass for—I don’t know—sixty.”

  “Thanks . . . I think. But you’re wrong about Logan. He was just being friendly. He’s a salesman, Carolyn. I’ll bet he’s in the habit of talking like that to everyone he meets. It’s a lot easier to sell something to someone when you’ve established some sort of connection with them first.”

  “Maybe,” Carolyn said, but she didn’t sound convinced.

  “Anyway, there’s no reason in the world for Logan to flirt with me when he’s got a beautiful wife like Dana.”

  “Some men don’t need a reason. Like you said, it’s a habit.”

  Phyllis didn’t want to continue with this conversation. As far as she was concerned, the very idea was just silly. So she said, “We’d better get the rest of those scarecrows out.”

  “I’ve only got a couple left. When I finish with them, I’ll help you with the others.”

  It didn’t t
ake long for them to unload and position the rest of the scarecrows. When that was done, Phyllis asked, “Is there anything else I can do to help?”

  Carolyn shook her head. “That’s all I was supposed to do, and it went a lot faster than I expected it to, since you gave me a hand.”

  “I think I’ll go back to the house, then, and mix up a batch of those muffins.”

  “One more test run, is that it?”

  “I suppose you could call it that. Really, though, I’m just hungry for them.”

  “I’m looking forward to trying them,” Carolyn said. “I can’t let that influence any decision I might make as a judge in the contest, though.”

  “I wouldn’t expect it to,” Phyllis told her honestly. Carolyn was her oldest friend, but she knew that Carolyn would also be scrupulously fair when it came to judging the entries in the contest. Neither of them would have had it any other way.

  They drove back to the house, Phyllis arriving ahead of Carolyn because of the traffic. When she pulled into the garage, she saw Sam and Bobby standing by the workbench. Bobby was wearing a pair of safety goggles that were much too big for him, but at least his eyes were completely covered and protected, Phyllis thought. The elastic strap attached to the goggles had been tied in a knot behind Bobby’s head so it would hold them on.

  “Look at me, Gran’mama,” he called to her as she got out of the car.

  “I see you,” Phyllis told him. “With those big eyes, you look like a Martian.”

  “A what?”

  “A Martian. A man from Mars.”

  “But there aren’t any men on Mars,” Bobby said, obviously puzzled. “My dad read to me about it in a book.”

  Sam said, “We didn’t always know that, Bobby. Used to be, some folks thought there were people on Mars and Venus and most of the other planets.”

  “In other dimensions or alt’nate universes, maybe.”

  Phyllis and Sam exchanged a glance, and she could tell that he was thinking the same thing she was, about how much smarter in some ways children were these days. Four-year-olds knew about alternate universes, took iPhones for granted, and could even set the clock on a VCR . . . although VCRs had already long gone the way of the buggy whip, Phyllis reminded herself. It was all DVRs and TiVos and Hulu now.

  “Has Sam been teaching you all about these tools?”

  Bobby nodded. “Yeah, but he won’t let me use any of them yet. He says I have to be older first.”

  “That’s right,” Phyllis said. “I’ll have to talk to your mother and father, and they’ll decide when they think you’re old enough to do things like that.”

  “Okay. The saws are really cool, though. And Sam really knows how to use ’em.”

  “I expect your grandpa Kenny was even better at it,” Sam said. “These were his tools, you know—most of them, anyway. They wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for him.” Sam paused and chuckled. “Neither would you.”

  Bobby looked up and frowned. “How come?”

  Phyllis put a hand on his shoulder and steered him toward the kitchen door. “You come along with me now, Bobby. I’ve got something you can help me with. I’m going to make a batch of muffins.”

  He switched his gaze to her. “What kind?”

  “Pumpkin.”

  “Do I like punkin muffins?”

  “You’ll like these,” she assured him. She pulled the goggles off his head and tossed them to Sam, who caught them deftly. She mouthed, Thank you to him. He just grinned and nodded.

  Carolyn drove in as Phyllis ushered Bobby on into the house. She had him wash up while she did the same and then got the mixing bowls out in the kitchen. Carolyn didn’t come in the house right away, which was a little unusual, but Phyllis didn’t really think anything of it. A few minutes later, when Carolyn walked through the kitchen, she didn’t say anything.

  Bobby stood on a chair to help him reach the counter as he and Phyllis worked together mixing up all the ingredients for the muffins. The bowl of cream cheese filling went into the freezer while they worked on the other two bowls. Phyllis poured the pumpkin batter into the baking cups Bobby had put in the muffin tins. She took the cream cheese mixture out of the freezer, where it had firmed. Carefully not touching the edges, she placed a spoonful in the middle of each muffin. She then handed the bowl of crumble to Bobby so he could add it on top. She had the oven preheating, and when the muffins were ready to go in, she said, “All right, we’ll check them in twenty minutes.”

  “Then can we eat ’em?” he said eagerly.

  “They might need to cook a little longer, and then they’ll need to cool. Well, now that I think about it, that might be too close to suppertime. It might spoil your appetite.”

  Bobby’s face fell. “Oh.”

  Phyllis couldn’t help but feel sorry for him, and anyway, he had helped her get the muffins ready to bake. “Tell you what,” she said. “Maybe we can split one of them, just you and me. I won’t tell anyone if you won’t.”

  That brought the grin back to his face. “Deal!”

  “You can go watch TV or play a game now.”

  “Okay.” He hurried off toward the living room.

  Sam came in from the garage a few minutes later while Phyllis was cleaning up the dishes she and Bobby had gotten dirty in preparing the muffins. He took a deep breath and said, “That smells mighty good. Nothin’ smells much better than baked goods.”

  “You can have one of them at supper.” She kept her word and didn’t mention that she and Bobby intended to get a head start on the others.

  Sam leaned a hip against the counter. He didn’t sound quite as casual as he looked when he said, “Carolyn tells me that fella Logan Powell was flirtin’ with you at the park.”

  Phyllis turned to face him, not quite sure whether to be angry or amused. “She said what?” Without giving Sam a chance to answer, she went on, “That’s crazy. No such thing happened.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t be surprised if it did. You’re a mighty fine-lookin’ woman.”

  “Oh, sure. Men who are young enough to be my son hit on me all the time.”

  “I’m not afraid of a little competition, mind you.”

  “Sam . . .” She put a hand on his arm. “Logan Powell is no competition for you.”

  “That’s good to hear. I don’t reckon he’s tasted those muffins yet, though. That might get him even more interested.”

  “He’s not interested. He has a lovely wife. But he will get a chance to try those muffins tomorrow. I suppose we’ll see what happens then.”

  Chapter 8

  Phyllis had made the pumpkin muffins a couple of times before. This batch turned out to be just as good as the others, maybe even better. Eve and Sam raved about them when they tried them after supper. Carolyn just said, “I can’t comment. It wouldn’t be proper, me being a judge in the contest tomorrow and all.”

  Phyllis noticed that she ate two of the muffins, though.

  Sam had noticed that there was an empty place in the muffin tin. “Looks like a little thief snuck in and helped himself before supper,” he said with a grin as he looked at the little boy.

  “It was Gran’mama’s idea, I swear!” Bobby said. “And she ate half of it!”

  Phyllis laughed. “I might not have given in if I’d known you were going to throw me under the bus that way. Sam didn’t even have to tickle you first to get the truth out of you.”

  “I could tickle him now,” Sam offered.

  Bobby bolted out of his chair and ran laughing into the living room.

  Carolyn stood up and said, “You’ve done all the cooking today, Phyllis, so Eve and I will clean up.”

  “We will?” Eve said.

  Carolyn began gathering up the plates. “Yes, we will. Come on.”

  Phyllis didn’t argue. What with looking after Bobby for the past few days and now helping with the preparations for the festival, she was a little weary tonight and didn’t mind admitting it.

  Sam lingered at the table wi
th her. “Bobby got a real kick out of workin’ with me this afternoon,” he said. “And he didn’t even cut any fingers off.”

  “How could he? You didn’t let him use the tools, remember?”

  “Yeah, that’s right. When the time comes, though, I reckon he’ll be good at it.”

  “I appreciate you mentioning Kenny the way you did. Even though Bobby never met him, I want to make sure he knows about his grandfather. I think it’s important for people to have a sense of—I don’t know—continuity with the generations that came before them.”

  Sam nodded. “I couldn’t agree more. Got to know where you came from to really know where you’re goin’.”

  Before either of them could say anything else, the doorbell rang. Since Carolyn and Eve were in the kitchen, Phyllis called out, “I’ll get it,” as she stood up from the dining room table. She hoped Bobby wouldn’t open the door before she could get there. Surely Mike and Sarah had taught him not to do such a thing.

  She didn’t have to worry about that, she saw. He came running back down the hall from the living room, and when he saw her, he said, “Somebody’s here, Gran’mama!”

  “Yes, I know,” Phyllis said with a nod. “We’ll see who it is.”

  Sam trailed behind her as she went to the front door, and she was glad he was there. She wasn’t really nervous about answering the door like this after dark—this was a nice, safe neighborhood, after all—but she couldn’t help but remember how she had been assaulted and a murder had taken place right next door a couple of years earlier.

  When Phyllis reached the front door, she parted the curtain over the narrow window next to it. The porch light was equipped with a motion detector, so it was already turned on. Phyllis frowned in surprise as she saw Dana Powell standing on the porch with an upset, impatient look on her face. She appeared to be alone.

  Phyllis opened the wooden door, then the screen. “Hello, Dana,” she said. “I didn’t expect to see you again so soon.”