The Christmas Cookie Killer (28 page)

“So what you’re saying is . . . you don’t know.”

“That’s what I’m sayin’,” Sam agreed. “I just don’t know.”

“Neither do I,” Phyllis said with a sigh. “But what I do know is that I need to get started on some of the things for dinner tomorrow, so I guess we’d better get back to the house.”

“No more talk about murder?”

“That can wait,” Phyllis said. “It’s Christmas Eve.”

Chapter 20

P
hyllis stayed busy enough the rest of the afternoon that she didn’t really think about Agnes Simmons’s murder and all the questions that surrounded it.

Carolyn was in the kitchen, working on the corn bread for the wild rice and cranberry stuffing. Phyllis asked her, “Would I be in your way if I started the stuffed zucchini?”

Carolyn shook her head and waved her forward. “I’m al-

most finished here. Is there something I can do to help?” she asked as she poured the batter into two eight-inch-square pans.

“I only need one of these pans for the stuffing since it also has wild rice, but I thought we could use one this evening with dinner. The recipe I used is a sweet corn bread, which should work perfectly for the stuffing. Since it has cranberries, I thought it should be a little sweet.”

Carolyn popped the two pans into the oven and wiped her

hands on her apron. When they weren’t competing, they worked efficiently together in the kitchen. Phyllis took the zucchini and eggplant out of the refrigerator. The tomatoes and a pretty red THE CHRISTMAS COOKIE KILLER
• 227

bell pepper were sitting on the counter. She washed all of the vegetables, and Carolyn patted them dry. Phyllis trimmed the ends of the zucchini with a knife and sliced them in half lengthwise.

While Phyllis was working on the zucchini, Carolyn peeled and chopped an onion. She went ahead and chopped the whole onion, putting half into a freezer bag to be used in stews later.

She also added a small bag of chopped bell pepper to the freezer after she had measured out the half cup that Phyllis needed for the recipe.

While Carolyn was working on the filling, Phyllis scooped out the centers of the zucchinis using a long, narrow spoon. She removed the seeds and pulp, leaving plenty of the flesh to support the stuffing. Every so often, she had to pick up the knife to loosen some of the pulp so she could scoop it out.

As Phyllis was finishing with the zucchini, Carolyn banged the flat side of her knife against the garlic, which made it peel easily, then put it into a press and squeezed out the minced garlic. Phyllis turned on the burner to a medium-high heat and put a sauté pan over the flame. She added olive oil to the pan, and Carolyn put the onion, pepper, and garlic mix in and kept it stirred as Phyllis peeled and chopped the eggplant. When the onion mixture became tender, she added the chopped eggplant to the pan. Carolyn added the salt and pepper.

While Carolyn gently stirred the eggplant-and-onion mix-

ture so it would heat evenly, Phyllis chopped the tomatoes and the fresh parsley and basil. She added them to the pan, and Carolyn stirred the mixture together. It smelled heavenly.

This is where Phyllis decided to change the recipe. She

quickly grated mozzarella and Parmesan and cut some bread slices into cubes. When the tomatoes and herbs had finished cooking and Carolyn took the pan off the burner, she added in
228 •
LIVIA J. WASHBURN

the bread and cheese, and Carolyn blended it before the cheese had time to melt completely.

While the eggplant mixture cooled, they cleaned up the

kitchen.

Phyllis looked through the cabinet and found the baking pan she wanted. With two cooks, sometimes the pans moved around a bit, so they weren’t always in the first place you looked.

After the stuffing was cooled enough to handle, they each took a spoon and started filling the hollowed-out zucchini. It took only a few minutes to fill the twelve halves. As she was filling the last zucchini, Phyllis wondered how it would taste with corn bread instead of whole wheat bread. She was going to have to try that some day.

All the zucchini were filled and looked nice, so Phyllis

brushed the tops with a light coating of olive oil. She covered the pan with plastic wrap and put it in the refrigerator, ready to pop into the oven tomorrow. While she was doing that, the timer went off for Carolyn’s corn bread. She took the pans out of the oven. The corn bread in each pan was nice and golden brown.

She set them on the wire racks to cool. It was pleasant, working together quietly like this, not having to think about anything but cooking.

But something was still lurking far in the back of Phyllis’s mind, some sense telling her that she was right to have doubts about Randall’s guilt. Somewhere, sometime during the past week, she had seen something . . . or been told something . . . or both . . . that just wasn’t right. But since she had already tried going over everything she remembered and had even discussed the case with Sam, and that hadn’t worked, it was time for another tactic—time to push all the questions aside and concentrate on something else, in hopes that the answers she sought would come to her.

THE CHRISTMAS COOKIE KILLER
• 229

It was a good idea, but it didn’t yield any dividends. By the time she was finished with her cooking for the day and supper had come and gone, she wasn’t any closer to those answers than she had been before.

After an early supper, everyone bundled up and the four of them loaded into Phyllis’s car, which was the largest and most comfortable vehicle. “Are you sure it’s not going to snow?” Phyllis asked Sam as she got behind the wheel. “I don’t like to drive on snow or ice.”

“Weatherman said there might be a few flurries later to-

night,” Sam drawled. “He wasn’t predictin’ any accumulation, though.”

“It’ll all melt when it hits the ground,” Carolyn said confidently from the backseat. “You wait and see.”

Phyllis had told Sam to sit up front and help her navigate.

Eve wasn’t happy about being stuck in the back with Carolyn, Phyllis could tell, but she didn’t put up a fuss about it. Eve would have much preferred having Sam with her in the backseat.

Phyllis knew her way around Weatherford, having lived

there practically her entire life, but the town had grown in recent years, and she didn’t see as well at night as she once had, so it was good having more than one pair of eyes watching the road. Sam was methodical in laying out a grid in his mind so they could cover all the ground they wanted to. And he knew the best neighborhoods for Christmas lights, too, since he and his wife had always come down here from Poolville to carry out their Christmas Eve tradition.

The brilliant, elaborate displays of lights and decorations made Eve forget her resentment over Sam being in the front seat of the Lincoln. Carolyn lost her usual reserve and was almost giddy with excitement. Everyone joined in the oohs and aahs as Phyllis cruised through the brightly illuminated neigh-230 • LIVIA J. WASHBURN

borhoods. As they passed one particularly impressive display, Sam chuckled and said, “I’ll bet they can see that one from space.”

Phyllis had Christmas music on the radio. As Sam had said, it wasn’t hard to find a station playing it at this time of year.

Even the ones that hadn’t gone all Christmas, all the time, weeks earlier were now in their twenty-four-hour window of nothing but Christmas music that would conclude at six o’clock on the evening of Christmas Day. It was a special time, a time when all the cares of the world seemed to recede, and people paused in their busy lives to realize what was really important to them . . . their families, their friends, their faith.

And for that hour or so as they drove around, Phyllis didn’t even think about murder.

At last it was time to head home. Everyone had seen enough lights. As Phyllis pulled onto the block where she and the others lived, she frowned as she saw a car parked at the curb in front of the house.

“That’s Mike’s car,” she said. “I hope nothing’s wrong.”

As she turned into the driveway, she saw her son getting up from the front porch swing, where he had been sitting. He was bundled in a heavy coat, and his breath fogged in front of his face as he walked over to the garage. Phyllis stopped the car and got out quickly.

“Hi, Mom,” Mike said from the open garage door.

“Mike, what’s wrong?” she asked.

“Wrong? Nothing. Not a thing, as far as I know.”

“Sarah and Bobby are all right?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, why in the world aren’t you at home with them on

Christmas Eve, then?” Phyllis demanded.

Mike grinned. “That’s where I’m headed. I had to work

THE CHRISTMAS COOKIE KILLER
• 231

today; just got off duty a little while ago. I thought I’d stop by here first and wish you and everybody else a merry Christmas.”

Phyllis relaxed. “Goodness, you scared me. I thought something had happened.”

“Nope. Just being a considerate son.”

She laughed. “Well, that’s good, I guess. merry Christmas to you, too.”

Sam, Carolyn, and Eve joined her in wishing Mike a merry

Christmas, and then Eve said, “Why don’t you come inside and have a cup of hot cocoa with us? We’re going to watch
It’s a
Wonderful Life
.”

“That sounds mighty tempting, Miz Turner, but I’ve got a

wife and boy waiting on me. . . .” Mike hesitated. “I can’t stay for the movie, but that hot cocoa sounds too good to turn down.”

“It won’t take long to get it ready,” Phyllis told him. “I’ll even fix it for you to take with you, if you want.”

“Okay. Sounds good, Mom; thanks.”

They all went inside through the kitchen. Sam said, “I’ll hang your coats up, ladies, so you can get started on that cocoa.”

He and Mike went on into the living room, Sam with three

coats draped over his arm, while Phyllis and Carolyn got out a pan, measuring utensils, milk, sugar, vanilla, and cocoa. Eve went into the living room, saying, “I’ll warm up the television.”

“Yes, she likes to warm things up, all right,” Carolyn commented when Eve was gone. “She would have warmed up the

backseat if Sam had been back there, I’ll bet.”

Phyllis didn’t admit that she’d had the same thought.

She busied herself with preparing the cocoa. She measured the water into the pan and put it on the burner, setting the flame to medium. As the water started to heat, she added the
232 •
LIVIA J. WASHBURN

sugar and cocoa. A moment later Carolyn said, “I’ll be right back,” and headed upstairs. Phyllis figured she was going to the bathroom.

Sam wandered into the kitchen and looked surprised when

he saw Phyllis by herself at the stove, stirring the chocolate mixture. “Left it to you, did they?” he asked as he leaned a hip against the counter.

“Carolyn will be back in a minute, and, well, you know Eve.

She’s not much of one for working in the kitchen. Anyway, it’s not like it’s that difficult to make hot chocolate. Where’s Mike?”

“Callin’ Sarah to let her know that he’ll be there in a little while. We were talkin’ and I told him about us drivin’ around to look at Christmas lights, and I think he’s gonna suggest that they do that when he gets home. It’s still early enough.”

“Bobby will go to sleep in the car if they do,” Phyllis said with a smile. “But that’s not a bad way to spend Christmas Eve.

I read somewhere that nothing makes a child feel more secure than sleeping in the backseat of a car when his parents are going somewhere at night.”

Sam chuckled. “I think that was in
Peanuts
. Seems like Linus said it, but it might’ve been Charlie Brown. Whichever one it was, there’s a lot o’ wisdom there.”

A moment of companionable silence passed. Phyllis added

the milk to the pan, stirred the mixture, then said, “It was awfully nice, driving around like that and seeing all those lights.”

“My wife and I always enjoyed it. Last time we went was

year before last. She’d already been diagnosed and had some radiation and chemo, so she didn’t feel just top-notch. But she wanted to go anyway, wouldn’t hear of stayin’ at home. She wrapped a scarf around her head so it wouldn’t get cold—her hair was pretty much gone by then, you know—and off we

went.” Sam smiled. “She was like a little kid, laughin’ and point-THE CHRISTMAS COOKIE KILLER
• 233

in’ out all the decorations, just carryin’ on and havin’ a fine old time, like always. Got so’s I had a hard time drivin’ because just watchin’ her and listenin’ to her made me so misty-eyed. You wouldn’t think it, what with her bein’ sick and all, and already gettin’ worn out from fightin’ that stuff, but that was one of our best Christmases. One of the best times we ever had together, in fact.” Sam shook his head. “By the next Christmas, she was gone.” He looked around. “Your, uh, hot chocolate’s fixin’ to boil over, looks like.”

Phyllis said, “Oh!” and looked down at the stove. She took the pan off the burner and turned off the flame. She had to blink rapidly to see as she added the vanilla, because her eyes were full of tears. She wanted to say something to Sam, but she had no idea what. This was the most he had ever opened up to her about his late wife and her struggle with cancer, and while she hurt for his loss, she was also glad that he felt close enough to her to talk to her about it.

Before she could say anything, though, Eve called from the living room, “Phyllis, I can’t find
It’s a Wonderful Life
.”

Phyllis took a deep breath to calm her emotions and called back, “It’s on the shelves with the other tapes.”

“Well, I don’t see it.”

“Oh, all right, hang on.” She quickly poured the hot chocolate into five cups, then looked at Sam. “I’d better go find that tape for her. The cocoa probably ought to cool a little anyway. It, uh, got a little too hot.”

“I’ll go help you look,” Sam offered. “Sometimes two sets of eyes are better’n one.”

They went out to the living room, where they found Eve

standing in front of a large set of built-in bookshelves, a couple of which now held DVDs and videotapes instead of books. Most of the movies they watched these days were on DVD, but they
234 •
LIVIA J. WASHBURN