The Christmas Cookie Killer Read online

  Phyllis had to agree. Even though she was shaken by the violent behavior she had just witnessed from Randall, she had seen the fear in his eyes. Terror was more like it, she thought. That was what had motivated him to try to get away from Sam in the first place and what had caused him to strike his father. Randall was just plain scared out of his wits, and Phyllis had no idea why.

  It was none of her business—unless Randall was the one who had choked the life out of Agnes and then hit Phyllis on the back of the head. She glanced down at his feet, remembering that shoe she had caught a glimpse of. Randall wasn’t wearing dress shoes with black heels at the moment. He had on a worn pair of running shoes. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t have been wearing different shoes the day before, at the time of the murder.

  The second cop stood up, then reached down and grasped Randall’s arms to pull him to his feet. That looked to Phyllis like it must have hurt, but Randall didn’t cry out or say anything.

  “What happened? Did he just start causing trouble suddenly?” the first cop asked Frank. “Is he not supposed to be here? Did he break in?”

  Before Frank could answer, the second cop said, “Wait a minute. Is this the house where that old woman was killed yesterday? It is, isn’t it?”

  “That old woman was my mother,” Frank said stiffly. “And yes, this is where she was killed.”

  Phyllis’s attention went back to Frank. She glanced down at his shoes. They were black shoes, but they were worn and scuffed. Quickly she did a survey of the other feet in the room. None of them wore the heel she was looking for.

  “Does this business with your son have anything to do with the murder?” the second cop asked.

  “No!” Claire cried. “That’s insane. Randall loved his grandmother. He never would have hurt her.”

  The officers looked at each other and seemed to come to the same conclusion at the same time. “We better call this in,” one of them said.

  “Yeah,” the other agreed. He reached for the radio clipped to his belt.

  Before he could use it, an attractive Hispanic woman in a long black coat strode into the living room. A badge was attached to the belt around her waist. The two uniformed officers looked at her, and one of them said, “We were about to call you, Detective.”

  Phyllis figured the newcomer was the detective Mike and Sarah had mentioned. Isabel Largo—that was her name, Phyllis recalled. She was a rather severe-looking woman, but she had an undeniable air of competence about her.

  “I heard the call and recognized the address, so I came right over. What’s this about?” she asked the officers.

  “We got a call that there was a possible burglary in progress at this residence,” one of the cops answered. “But when we got here it shaped up to be a domestic disturbance instead.” He pointed to Ted Simmons, who looked uneasy. “This guy said his nephew was going crazy. We came into the dining room and saw the suspect here jumping around like he was trying to get away. We had to subdue him in order to place him in custody.”

  “Did you see him actually do anything other than try to flee?”

  The cops glanced at each other and then shook their heads. “Not after we got here.”

  Phyllis looked at Frank Simmons. Randall had punched him, and she imagined that Frank could swear out an assault complaint and make it stick. But if nobody said anything about the punch, the police might not have enough to hold Randall, unless they tried to make a case for resisting an officer.

  Claire glared at her husband, and Phyllis would have been willing to bet that Frank wasn’t going to say anything about Randall hitting him. In fact, Frank said to Isabel Largo, “Detective, this is all just a big misunderstanding. This is my son Randall. He has just as much right to be here as any of the rest of us. It’s just that we hadn’t seen him for a while and we didn’t know he was coming, so we were surprised when we walked in and found him here.” Frank swallowed. “We, uh, haven’t always gotten along that well, so there may have been a little yelling going on, but it didn’t mean anything.”

  Detective Largo nodded slowly as she considered Frank’s statement. Then she looked at Phyllis, Sam, and Carolyn and asked, “What about you folks? Are you members of the Simmons family, too?”

  “No, ma’am,” Sam said. “We live next door. I’m Sam Fletcher, and this is Mrs. Phyllis Newsom and Mrs. Carolyn Wilbarger.”

  Recognition showed in Detective Largo’s dark eyes. “Ah. You’re Deputy Newsom’s mother,” she said to Phyllis. “The one who was attacked by Mrs. Simmons’s murderer.”

  “That’s right,” Phyllis said with a nod.

  “How are you feeling? No aftereffects from the assault?”

  “No, I’m fine,” Phyllis told the detective. “We were bringing some cookies over for the family, and we sort of . . . walked into things.”

  She was aware that Claire Simmons was watching her nervously. Claire and Frank hadn’t said anything about that punch Randall had thrown—but Phyllis, Sam, or Carolyn still could.

  “I’d planned to come by and ask you a few questions about the attack on you, Mrs. Newsom,” Detective Largo said. “I’d do that now, but I’m afraid it’s going to have to wait.” She turned to the officers and told them, “Take him out and put him in your car. Be sure and read him his rights. I’ll meet you at the station.”

  “What . . . what are you doing?” Claire gasped.

  “I’m placing your son under arrest, ma’am.”

  “But why?” Frank demanded. “I told you; this was all just a misunderstanding. A family argument. We don’t want to press any charges against Randall, for God’s sake!”

  Detective Largo shook her head. “This isn’t about that, sir. Your son already has outstanding warrants against him for failure to appear and possession with intent.”

  “Wha . . . what?”

  “He skipped out on his bail and didn’t show up in court to be tried on charges of dealing drugs,” Largo said. She motioned with her head to the officers. “Take him.”

  The cops flanked Randall, each of them gripping an arm, and marched him out of the house, past the dumbfounded members of his family. Claire began to weep. Frank looked almost too shocked to comprehend what the detective had just told him, but after a moment he awkwardly put an arm around his wife’s shoulders and tried to comfort her.

  Randall hadn’t said a word in response to Detective Largo’s accusation. He hadn’t claimed it was all a mistake or cried out that he was innocent. Instead his head had hung forward and his gaze had been directed at the floor like that of a defeated, guilty man, Phyllis thought. She understood now why he had tried so desperately to get away.

  It appeared that Randall Simmons had a lot to run from.

  Chapter 8

  Before leaving to head for the police station, Detective Largo turned to Frank, Claire, and the other members of the Simmons family and said, “It’s your claim that you didn’t know Randall was going to be here?”

  “It’s not our claim,” Frank said. “It’s true. We had no idea.”

  The detective nodded. “I suppose there’s no need to bring up charges of aiding and abetting a fugitive, then. But if I find out differently . . .”

  “There’s no need to take that tone, Detective. We’ve told you the truth. And I don’t believe for a minute that my son is . . . is a drug dealer. I’m going to get him a lawyer—”

  “You do that, Mr. Simmons. He’s going to need one.”

  With that, Detective Largo turned toward the door. She paused and added over her shoulder, “We’re going to need to get fingerprints from all of you.” She glanced at Phyllis. “That goes for you, too, Mrs. Newsom. We lifted quite a few prints from the house, and we need to match up as many of them as we can.”

  “We’ll ask the lawyer about that,” Frank snapped.

  “I’ll be in touch.” The detective left the house.

  Claire turned, buried her face against her husband’s chest, and wailed. Frank told her, “At least we know where
he is now,” but that didn’t seem to help much.

  Phyllis approached them and said, “Frank, I’m sorry about all this. If we hadn’t come over here, the police might not have found Randall.”

  Frank shook his head. “No need to apologize, Mrs. Newsom. The cops would have caught up to him sooner or later. You saw how he was. He was like a wild animal. He would have fought back when they tried to arrest him and might’ve gotten hurt really bad. As bad as it is, this is better.”

  “He . . . he’s innocent,” Claire got out between sobs. “I know he is.”

  Phyllis wasn’t surprised that she felt that way; she was Randall’s mother, after all. But Phyllis couldn’t help but think again about how Randall hadn’t denied the charges.

  And she couldn’t help but remember how Agnes’s face had looked with that belt knotted around her neck, choking out her life. If Randall was responsible for that, then he deserved whatever happened to him. Phyllis didn’t care as much about the attack on her. The effects of that weren’t going to last very long. But Agnes was always going to be dead.

  “We’d better be gettin’ back,” Sam said. “We’ve intruded on you folks for long enough.” He hesitated, then added, “The, uh, cookies are on the counter in the kitchen, for whatever that’s worth.”

  Frank nodded. The bleak look on his face made it clear that nobody was all that interested in cookies at the moment. The rest of the family looked just as stunned by everything that had happened.

  Phyllis, Sam, and Carolyn left by the front door. The police cars that had been parked in front of the house had drawn plenty of attention. People were standing out in their yards all along the street, looking toward the house where, for the second day in a row, emergency vehicles had arrived with lights flashing and sirens wailing. Across the street, Monte and Vickie Kimbrough stood on their walk. Vickie turned and said something to her husband, then hurried across the street to intercept Phyllis.

  Vickie Kimbrough was around thirty years old, a very pretty woman with medium-length blond hair. She wore jeans and a baggy, fuzzy pink sweater. She kept her hands in her pockets because the air was still chilly. “Hi, Phyllis,” she said. “I hope you don’t think I’m a terrible gossip, but what happened there today?”

  The Kimbroughs had lived across the street for about four years, which meant that they weren’t old-timers in the neighborhood. But they had been there long enough to be friendly with most of the people who lived along the street. Vickie was, anyway; Monte, a tall, dark man, always seemed a little stiff and standoffish to Phyllis. They attended the same church as Phyllis, so she thought she knew them about as well as anybody did. She didn’t mind telling Vickie, “The police arrested Agnes’s grandson Randall.”

  “Do they think he’s the one who killed her?” Vickie sounded both surprised and horrified.

  “I don’t know. They didn’t really say anything about that. Evidently he’s been in trouble with the law before and jumped bail on some drug-dealing charges.”

  “Good Lord. To think that such a thing would happen here.”

  “It’s a rough world,” Sam said.

  “Yes, I know, but . . . this street especially seems like it could still be back in a . . . a better time, when there weren’t any murders or drugs or . . . or anything like that.”

  “I know what you mean,” Phyllis agreed, “but I don’t think things were ever really like that. The bad things used to just be better hidden than they are now.”

  Vickie nodded. “I suppose you’re right. I ought to know that, given the line of work I’m in.” She worked for a lawyer, Phyllis recalled, and probably saw all sorts of unpleasant things in her daily life. Vickie thrust her hands deeper in the pockets of the fuzzy sweater and went on. “I don’t hardly know what to hope for. I hate to think that Agnes’s own grandson could murder her, but I don’t like the idea that the killer could still be on the loose, either. He could come back here to the neighborhood.”

  “Maybe he’s someone who lives in the neighborhood,” Carolyn suggested.

  Vickie shook her head. “Now, that I refuse to believe. And I’m not even going to think about it.” She glanced across the street and saw that her husband had gone into the house. “I’d better get back. Monte’s probably wondering what’s keeping me. He doesn’t like it all that much when I stand around gabbing with people.”

  She took a hand out of a sweater pocket and lifted it in farewell, then turned and went back across the street.

  Carolyn snorted and said quietly, “I wouldn’t stay married to a man who didn’t let me talk to people.”

  “Monte didn’t try to stop Vickie from talking to us,” Phyllis pointed out. “He just went in the house.”

  “Yes, but she looked a little worried, like he might be angry with her. That’s the sort of man who’s usually abusive.”

  Phyllis didn’t really believe that Monte Kimbrough abused his wife. He just didn’t seem like the type to her, despite what Carolyn had said. But it was almost impossible to know what really went on in people’s private lives, she reminded herself.

  She had seen more evidence of that than she liked to think about.

  Eve had to hear about everything that had happened next door and was disappointed that she had missed out on all the excitement.

  “Not that I don’t feel sorry for the family,” she said. “It’s terrible losing Agnes that way, and then having to deal with the possibility that her own grandson killed her.”

  “What do you think, Phyllis?” Sam asked as the four of them sat in the living room. “Do you reckon he could’ve done it?”

  “I don’t know Randall well enough to say either way. I really don’t know him at all. But Agnes must have known he was hiding from the law when she agreed to let him stay in her attic. Maybe she got worried and tried to convince him to turn himself in. If he refused, she could have threatened to let the police know he was there, anyway. Or he might have believed that she would, whether that was true or not.”

  Carolyn said, “That’s just pure speculation.”

  “That’s about all we’ve got to go on,” Sam said. “I’m glad it’s not up to us to find out what really happened.”

  Phyllis wondered for a second if that comment was directed at her. She supposed it probably was. And considering the events of the fairly recent past, it was probably well deserved, too.

  Through the front window, she saw a sheriff’s department cruiser pull up at the curb in front of the house. A smile appeared on her face. Mike often stopped by on his way home after his shift was over. She saw him get out of the car, wearing his cream-colored Stetson and brown leather uniform jacket, looking like a cross between a modern policeman and an old-fashioned Western lawman. That was typical of Texas: the Old West was long since gone, the memories of it fading with each passing day of cable TV, broadband Internet access, and text messaging—all the technology that was doing its best to make every place like every other place—but a few vestiges of the past remained. Phyllis hoped they always would, at least as long as she was alive.

  Mike came up the walk. She met him at the door and let him in. He had a worried look on his youthful face as he said, “I heard there was more trouble at the Simmons house. Were you mixed up in it, Mom?”

  “Sam and Carolyn and I were all over there when it happened,” Phyllis said.

  “The cops have a suspect in custody in Mrs. Simmons’s murder?”

  “I don’t know about that. They arrested Randall Simmons for jumping bail on drug-dealing charges. Sit down and we’ll tell you about it.”

  Mike took a seat in one of the armchairs, and for the next few minutes, Phyllis and Sam filled him in on what had happened, with Carolyn adding the occasional semicaustic comment. When they were finished, Mike asked, “You don’t know how long Randall had been hiding up there in the attic?”

  “I have no idea,” Phyllis said with a shake of her head. “And with Agnes dead, unless Randall provides an answer, I don’t see how they’ll ever
know. I suppose he could have been up there for weeks. I don’t think so, though, because I was over at Agnes’s house quite a bit after she came home from the rehab hospital, and I never saw any signs of anyone else being there.”

  “Couldn’t have been too comfortable, stayin’ in an attic,” Sam commented.

  “Part of it was finished out as a little bedroom,” Phyllis explained. “Agnes’s husband did that years ago. I know because Kenny helped him a little with some of it. The quarters are a little cramped, but not too bad.”

  “Better than jail,” Mike said. “That’s where he’ll be spending his time now. Since he already failed to appear on those other charges, I’m sure his bail was revoked, and if there are any new charges, he’ll be considered a flight risk, and bail will probably be denied for those.”

  “It’s such a shame,” Eve said. “I hate to see anyone locked up.”

  “That’s where some people belong, Mrs. Turner,” Mike said. “I can promise you that.” He reached for his hat, which he had placed on a little table beside his chair. “Maybe I’ll stop by the police department and see if I can find out any more from that Detective Largo.”

  “She’s sort of a hard-boiled character,” Sam commented. “Likes to act like one, anyway.”

  “Yeah, but she seems to be good at her job.” Mike stood up and put his hat on, then stepped over to the sofa and bent to give Phyllis a kiss. “See you later, Mom.” He waved at the others on his way out. “So long, folks.”

  Phyllis was glad that Mike was going to try to find out the status of the case against Randall Simmons. She was curious, and there was no point in denying that.

  But she recalled the way Sarah had reacted at the mention of Detective Largo’s name, and she hoped that she hadn’t detected too pronounced a note of eagerness in her son’s voice when he mentioned stopping to talk to the woman again.

  The door of Isabel Largo’s office was open when Mike got there, but he paused in the hall and knocked on it anyway, out of courtesy. The cop on duty at the front desk today had known him and sent him on back without announcing him.