The Christmas Cookie Killer Read online

  Carolyn shook her head. “Absolutely not. You should call Mike right now, if you think there’s really somebody in there who shouldn’t be. Either him or that Detective Largo.”

  “I don’t want to be any bother—”

  “No, you’d rather barge in there and confront a killer!”

  Phyllis couldn’t bring herself to believe that a murderer could be skulking around the Simmons house . . . but she wouldn’t have believed that such a brutal murder could take place right next door to her own home, either, if she hadn’t learned that death could strike just about anywhere, from a peach orchard to an elementary school carnival.

  When Phyllis hesitated, Carolyn said, “At least go and get Sam if you’re bound and determined to go in there.”

  That comment struck Phyllis as ironic. When Sam had first moved in, back in the summer, Carolyn had been adamantly opposed to the idea of a man living in the house with the rest of them. Now she was ready to turn to him at the first sign of potential trouble.

  But to tell the truth, it sounded like a pretty good idea to her, too, Phyllis thought. She nodded and said, “All right. I think he’s still in the garage.”

  “Let’s go see.”

  They walked over to the front of the two-car garage attached to Phyllis’s house and looked through the narrow window in one of the doors. The lights were on in the garage, and Sam stood at the workbench that had once been Kenny’s with his back turned toward them. Carolyn rapped sharply on the window glass.

  Sam didn’t have any of the power tools going, and when he turned around in response to the knock, Phyllis saw why. He had a length of wood in one hand and a piece of sandpaper in the other. He’d been sanding the wood manually. Phyllis had seen enough of his work to know what a delicate touch he had with such things.

  He set the wood and sandpaper aside, then thumbed one of the buttons by the kitchen door that activated the garage door openers. The door where Phyllis and Carolyn waited rumbled upward.

  Sam walked between the cars toward them. “What’re you two ladies doin’ out in the cold?” he asked. “You didn’t lock yourselves out of the house, did you?”

  “Of course we didn’t lock ourselves out,” Carolyn said. “Phyllis decided to take some more cookies over to the Simmonses.”

  Sam nodded at the plate in Phyllis’s hands. “I can see that. Mighty nice of you.”

  “No one answered the door,” Phyllis said, “and I saw Frank and Ted and Billie and their families leave earlier.”

  “Then I reckon nobody’s home.”

  “Yes, but I saw someone at a second-floor window. I’m sure of it.”

  “She made me try the front door,” Carolyn said. “When it was locked, she wanted to go around back and try that door.”

  Sam frowned. “I’m not sure that’s such a good idea.”

  “That’s what I told her. For goodness’ sake, if there’s really somebody in there, it could be the person who murdered Agnes!”

  Sam nodded. “Yep. Could be. Or maybe it’s just one of those folks who’re visitin’, who doesn’t want to come to the door for some reason.”

  “All I want to do is set these cookies on the kitchen counter,” Phyllis said. “I’ll just step in and step right back out . . . if the door’s even unlocked. But Carolyn thought we should get you to go with us while we see.”

  Sam nodded without hesitation and reached for the plate of cookies, taking it out of Phyllis’s hands before she knew what was going on.

  “All right. But I’ll take the cookies in. Just in case.”

  “I didn’t ask you to do that—” Phyllis began.

  “I know. I’m volunteerin’.” Sam turned and walked toward the back of the Simmons house, carrying the cookies.

  Phyllis and Carolyn hurried after him. The three of them went through an opening in the hedge that led them into the backyard. There was a screened-in porch on the rear of the house. Sam went to the door and opened it. He looked over his shoulder at the women and said, “You ladies wait here. I’ll be right back.”

  Phyllis caught her upper lip between her teeth. She wanted to follow Sam right up to the back door, but she did as he requested. He held the plate of cookies in one hand and used the other to open the screen door and then try the back door knob.

  This one turned. The door swung open. Sam stepped inside.

  He hadn’t been in there more than a heartbeat when he let out a startled yell, which was followed by a crash of some sort.

  Chapter 7

  Phyllis hesitated, but only for a second. Then she ignored the fear that shot through her and plunged toward the porch door of the Simmons house. Behind her, Carolyn called, “Phyllis! Phyllis, wait!”

  Phyllis didn’t slow down. Sam was in there, possibly in danger. She wasn’t going to wait.

  The back door was still partially open, although the screen had closed behind Sam. Phyllis yanked it toward her and shoved the wooden door so hard that it flew back and crashed against the wall inside the kitchen. She stumbled a little on the threshold as she entered the room. Catching herself, she looked with wide eyes at Sam and the young man who stood tensely on the other side of the kitchen.

  The young man was a little wide-eyed himself. In fact, he looked like a trapped animal, his gaze darting back and forth frantically. Sam lifted a hand, held it out to him, and said in a calm voice, “Take it easy, son. Nobody’s gonna hurt you.”

  “Who . . . who are you?” the young man asked. His voice cracked a little with strain. “What are you doing here?”

  “Just bringin’ over a plate of cookies for the folks who’re stayin’ here,” Sam explained. “I live next door.” He glanced over his shoulder and added, “Phyllis, go on back outside. Everything’s fine.”

  Phyllis wasn’t so sure of that. She knew that Sam wanted her to leave because he was worried about her safety. But she was worried about him, too.

  The intruder, if that’s what he was, looked just about as scared as Sam and Phyllis were, if not more so. He could still be dangerous, though. A broken glass lay in pieces at his feet. Phyllis thought he must have come into the kitchen just as Sam was stepping in through the back door, and he’d dropped the glass he was carrying, causing it to shatter on the floor. Phyllis didn’t see any puddles of liquid, so the glass must have been empty.

  Something about the young man was familiar. He was slender, stood a little below medium height, and had close-cropped dark hair. His face was a little gaunt, as if he hadn’t been eating well. He wore a maroon Texas A&M sweatshirt and blue jeans.

  Suddenly Phyllis knew why he seemed familiar. He bore a resemblance not only to Frank Simmons, but to Agnes as well. Remembering what Frank had said earlier, Phyllis took a guess. “Randall? Is that you?”

  His eyes widened even more, though that hardly seemed possible. “How do you know who I am?”

  “I remember you visiting your grandmother when you were little. And your father mentioned you earlier today. I guess he found you after all.”

  Randall Simmons shook his head and started to back away.

  “Sorry I startled you, son,” Sam said. “We didn’t know anybody was here. I was just gonna put these cookies down and then leave—”

  “You didn’t see me,” Randall interrupted. “Please. You can’t tell anybody I’m here.”

  Phyllis and Sam both frowned. “But surely your family already knows—” Phyllis began.

  “No. They don’t.” Randall suddenly turned around and took a step toward the door that led into the rest of the house, as if he were about to run away. But then he stopped short, hung his head low, and said in a half moan, “What’s the use?”

  He sounded so despairing that Phyllis couldn’t help but move forward a step and ask, “Randall, what’s wrong? Don’t your parents know you’re here?”

  Without looking around, he shook his head. “No. My grandma’s been letting me stay up in the attic. I don’t come out except when nobody’s here, and I don’t move around and make
any noise.”

  “You’re hidin’ out?” Sam asked.

  “I have to,” Randall replied in a tortured voice. “If they find me, they’ll kill me.”

  The words were like a physical shock to Phyllis. She couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to kill Randall Simmons.

  But the fear that he felt at such a possibility was obviously why he had been hiding out in the attic of his grandmother’s house.

  Sam was still holding the plate of cookies in the plastic bag. He finally set them on the counter and then said to Randall, “Who’ll kill you?”

  The young man just shook his head mutely. He looked like he was afraid that he had already said too much.

  “Phyllis!” Carolyn called from outside, causing Randall to jump in fear again. “Phyllis, are you all right? Sam, are you in there?”

  “Who . . . who . . . ,” Randall choked out.

  “Don’t worry. It’s just a friend of ours,” Phyllis said.

  Carolyn’s next words provoked an even more violent reaction from Randall. “I’ve already called the police!” she shouted.

  Randall gave an inarticulate cry and turned to plunge out of the kitchen. He had barely gotten the swinging door open when Sam tackled him from behind.

  They didn’t fall, but the impact of their collision made both men stagger on through the doorway out of sight. Phyllis cried, “Sam!” as she hurried after them.

  Agnes Simmons’s house had a formal dining room, and that was where Sam and Randall wound up struggling. Randall tried to twist away, but Sam had his long arms wrapped around the young man and hung on. Phyllis moved skittishly around them as they swayed back and forth, wondering whether there was anything she could do to help Sam. She was afraid that if she picked anything up, like the empty crystal punch bowl that was sitting on a sideboard, and tried to hit Randall over the head with it, she would accidentally strike Sam instead. Anyway, she didn’t want to hurt Randall. She just wanted him to stop trying to get away.

  That was when the front door opened, people started to troop in, and Frank Simmons’s startled voice yelled, “Randall! What the hell are you doing here?”

  Randall groaned and stopped struggling as his father and several other members of the family crowded into the doorway between the living room and the dining room. Sam let go of him, and the young man simply sank to the floor and put his head in his hands as if he were overwhelmed, as if everything in the world was just too much for him.

  “Phyllis!” Carolyn called as she stepped through the back door into the kitchen. “Phyllis, what’s going on here?”

  Phyllis had no real idea, but as she looked at the clearly devastated Randall Simmons and then heard the wail of a siren in the distance, she thought it was likely that things were about to get even worse.

  A fortyish woman with dyed blond hair pushed past Frank and knelt beside Randall to throw her arms around him. “Randy!” she said. “What are you doing here? I hoped you’d come, but it’s been so long since we’ve heard from you. . . .”

  “Mom,” Randall managed to say. “Mom, you don’t understand—”

  “What none of us understand is how you could just disappear like that and worry the hell out of us,” Frank said in a loud, angry voice. He stepped forward and reached down to take hold of the blond woman’s arm. “Come on, Claire. Leave him alone. He doesn’t deserve you fawning over him like that.”

  The woman had to be Frank’s wife and Randall’s mother, Phyllis thought. She remembered seeing her a few times in the past, but she didn’t think they’d ever met.

  And she was struck by the hundred-and-eighty-degree turn in Frank’s attitude. Earlier in the afternoon, when he was over at her house and had asked about Randall, she had seen and heard the anguish he was feeling over not knowing where his son was. Now he was just angry. Phyllis wondered if something had happened to change the way Frank felt, or if such bluster just came naturally to him when he was confronted by an emotional situation.

  Frank pulled his wife away from Randall, who remained slumped on the floor with his back against one of the legs of the dining table. Frank seemed to notice then that Phyllis, Sam, and Carolyn were inside his mother’s house. “What are you folks doing here?” he asked, his tone a blend of curiosity and anger at the intrusion by relative strangers.

  “We brought some cookies over,” Phyllis explained as she stepped forward. “I knew Agnes usually left the back door unlocked, so I thought we’d just set them in on the kitchen counter. I’m sorry, Frank; I know we had no right to just let ourselves in like that—”

  “And Randall was here?” Frank still sounded baffled by that.

  “I’m sure he’d just gotten here, too,” Claire said.

  Phyllis and Sam glanced at each other. They knew that wasn’t the case. From what Randall had said, he’d been here for a while, hiding in the attic. But had he arrived today, or—

  Phyllis suddenly wondered whether he had been here when Agnes was murdered. In fact, was it possible that he’d had something to do with his grandmother’s death? Phyllis didn’t want to think that could be true . . . but what was it Mike always said?

  In nearly every murder, family members are the most likely suspects. . . .

  “Well?” Frank demanded. “Was the boy here when you came in?”

  Randall had to be in his midtwenties and probably didn’t care much for being called the boy. Young men could be foolishly prideful about such things.

  “He was here,” Sam said. “Don’t know who was more spooked when we ran into each other in the kitchen, him or me. But he dropped the glass he was carryin’ and it busted all to pieces, so you’d better be careful if y’all go in there. Somebody’ll need to clean up that broken glass.”

  “I’ll do it,” Billie Hargrove said as she circled around Frank, Claire, and Randall. Frank and Ted’s younger sister gave Phyllis a nod as she passed by. Phyllis hadn’t seen Billie, or any of the Simmons children, for quite a while until this weekend, and hadn’t spoken to her for years.

  The living room was crowded with people. Ted Simmons stood there swallowing nervously, his prominent Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. Next to him stood his wife, a tall woman with short dark hair and glasses. Billie’s husband, a heavyset man with a toupee, looked like he wanted a drink. He licked his lips every few seconds. There were six or eight children in there, too; Phyllis couldn’t see well enough to get an accurate count of them, but their ages ranged from about ten to sixteen or seventeen. The house felt crowded.

  “All right, Randall,” Frank said. “Where have you been? It’s been months since you called.”

  Randall shook his head without looking up. “I don’t have to answer your questions.”

  Frank reached down to grab his arm and haul him to his feet. “Blast it, boy, you can’t talk to me like that!”

  The sound of an approaching siren had been getting progressively louder. Now it was right outside, and it came to an abrupt stop. Randall was trying to pull away from his father’s grip when a sharp knocking came from the front door. “Police!” a man’s voice called. “Open up!”

  “Now you’ve done it,” Frank snapped at his son. “Now we have to deal with the cops.”

  Phyllis saw that wild fear flare in Randall’s eyes again. She had an idea of what was about to happen, but before she could call out a warning to Frank, Randall hauled off and hit him. The blow was an awkward one and not particularly powerful, but Frank appeared to be so stunned that his own son had punched him that he let go of Randall’s arm and took a step backward.

  Randall turned and tried to run toward the kitchen, but Sam was blocking his way. At the same time, Ted Simmons jerked the front door open and said to the two police officers there, “Help! My nephew’s gone crazy!”

  The cops rushed in as various members of the Simmons family hurriedly got out of their way. Both officers were young but probably experienced enough to know how dangerous domestic disturbance calls could be, and this incident gave the app
earance of falling into that category. They were wary as they closed in on Randall.

  “Get down on the floor!” one of them shouted at him. “Down on the floor now!”

  Randall darted back and forth, obviously still looking for a way out. One of the cops suddenly leaped at him, clamped a choke hold on him, and rode him to the floor. Claire Simmons screamed, “Oh, my God! Don’t hurt him! Randall, don’t fight them!”

  But it was too late for that. Randall was thrashing around in the grip of the officer. The second cop joined in the struggle. He managed to get a knee in the small of Randall’s back and pin him to the floor long enough for the other officer to grab one of Randall’s wrists, slip a plastic restraint around it, and then jerk Randall’s other arm behind his back as well. A second later both wrists were caught in the restraints. Randall groaned and stopped struggling.

  One of the cops climbed to his feet while the other knelt on top of Randall and started patting him down. “Listen to me, pardner,” he said. “You got anything in your pockets I need to know about? Any weapons or needles? I’m not gonna be happy if I stick myself on something.”

  Randall started to sob. “N-no. Nothing.”

  “You better be tellin’ me the truth,” the officer warned as he continued the search.

  The other cop turned to the rest of the people in the crowded dining room and said, “All right; somebody tell me what’s going on here.” He pointed to Frank. “You.”

  Frank ran a hand over his pale, suddenly haggard face and said, “That’s my son, Officer.”

  “Is he drunk? Or on drugs?”

  Frank shook his head. “I have no idea. I didn’t smell any alcohol on him. I . . . I just don’t know about the drugs. Today is the first time I’ve seen him in seven or eight months.”

  “How old is he?”

  “Twenty-four.”

  “Too old to be considered a runaway, then. He got a history of erratic behavior? Mental disorders or anything like that?”

  Claire said, “He’s not crazy, and he’s not drunk or on drugs! He’s just scared; can’t you see that?”