The Christmas Cookie Killer (3 page)

But maybe Agnes wasn’t dead, Phyllis thought as she fought down the panic that tried to well up inside her. She didn’t know how long it had been since the attack had taken place. Maybe Agnes could still be revived. Phyllis had been trained in CPR.

14 •
LIVIA J. WASHBURN

She couldn’t let her own fear make her abandon Agnes if there was even the slightest chance the woman was still alive.

Phyllis hurried forward, dropped to a knee at Agnes’s side, and struggled to loosen the belt around her neck. She was barely able to get her fingers under it, and even then she couldn’t budge the knot. She tugged at it for a moment, then realized she needed to get something to cut it.

Her gaze darted around the room, searching for a sewing

basket or something else that might have some scissors in it. But there was nothing. Agnes wasn’t much for sewing or knitting or anything like that. Mainly, Phyllis knew, she liked to sit by the picture window and watch everything that was going on in the neighborhood.

There might be some scissors in the kitchen, Phyllis realized.

Nearly every kitchen had a “junk” drawer, and among assorted screwdrivers, keys, loose change, little jars of screws and nuts and bolts, and all the other assorted clutter of everyday life, there was usually a pair of scissors. If not, there would be a knife.

The thought took only a second to flash through her brain, and then she was up and hurrying into the short hallway that led from the living room to the kitchen. Phyllis walked quickly along it and turned to her left, stepping through an open door into Agnes’s simply furnished kitchen. She saw cabinets on both sides of her and had no idea which one contained Agnes’s junk drawer. She was about to start opening them at random when she heard a slight noise behind her.

Then something struck her on the back of the head, hard

enough to send her stumbling forward. She took a couple of steps and fell to her knees. Pain shot up her thighs, rivaling the pain in her head, as her knees cracked against the linoleum floor. She sobbed and clutched at the kitchen counter, trying to keep from collapsing.

THE CHRISTMAS COOKIE KILLER
• 15

But her fingers slipped, and she stretched out full-length on the floor. Her head twisted to the side as her cheek pressed against the cool linoleum. Blackness closed in around her.

Later, Phyllis knew she had passed out for only a few mo-

ments, but at the time she had no idea how long the spell lasted.

It could have been mere minutes, or an hour, for all she knew.

All she could really be certain of, all she could think about at first, was that her head and her knees hurt like the dickens.

Then she remembered Agnes Simmons, and the belt knot-

ted so tightly around the old woman’s neck.

With a groan, Phyllis pushed herself to her hands and knees.

She wondered how she had managed to hit her head so hard, and what she had hit it on. She remembered how Kenny had

run into an open door one time, hitting his head on the edge of it with such force that it opened up a gash through one of his eyebrows and gave him a concussion. People always joked about running into a door, but he’d actually done it. Phyllis wondered if she had hit her head on a cabinet door—

Then the memory of the sound she’d heard came back to

her, and she gasped as she realized that it hadn’t been an accident. Someone had come up behind her and hit her. They had followed her into the kitchen. . . .

Or they’d been hiding behind that open door.

She jerked around, eyes wide as she looked for her attacker.

The kitchen was empty, though, except for her. The house was quiet—so quiet, Phyllis heard the ticking of the grandfather clock in the hallway and the pounding of her own pulse inside her head.

Whoever had struck her had fled, she told herself. And

Agnes was still lying out there in the living room with that robe belt around her throat. With one hand on the counter to steady herself, and wincing from the pain in her head and knees, Phyl-16 • LIVIA J. WASHBURN

lis started jerking open drawers as she searched for a pair of scissors.

She found one in the third drawer she opened and turned

to start back to the living room. As she did, the floor seemed to tilt and the world spun crazily around her, as if it had started revolving the wrong way on its axis. She slapped her free hand on the counter to catch herself. She didn’t want to fall again, especially while holding scissors.

Phyllis’s balance began to come back to her as she forced herself to draw in several deep breaths. When she thought she could move without getting too dizzy, she tried again to reach the living room. She was successful this time, making it all the way to Agnes’s side. Using the sofa to brace herself, Phyllis knelt and started trying to work one side of the scissors under the belt around the older woman’s throat.

Phyllis couldn’t have said how she knew, but she felt that the person responsible for this—undoubtedly the same person who had hit her—was gone. The house just had an empty feel to it. Phyllis was scared, but not for herself. Time was running out for Agnes.

If only that belt hadn’t been so blasted
tight
!

Tears began to roll down Phyllis’s cheeks as she realized that her efforts were being wasted. She stopped trying to cut the belt and laid a hand against Agnes’s cheek instead. It was cool.

The warmth of life was gone. Phyllis had known, deep down, that Agnes was dead, as soon as she saw those horribly staring eyes. She just hadn’t wanted to admit it, even to herself. That was the reason for her stubborn determination to do something for Agnes—even though there was really nothing she could do.

She dropped the scissors on the floor next to Agnes and covered her face with both hands for a moment. A shudder ran through her. This was not the first time death, even violent THE CHRISTMAS COOKIE KILLER
• 17

death, had struck someone close to her. But that was something no one ever got used to, either. At least, Phyllis hoped she would never grow accustomed to it.

When her emotions were a little more under control, she

got to her feet. She was still shaky, and she discovered that if she tried to move too fast, she got dizzy again. So she moved slowly and deliberately across the living room, touching a piece of furniture now and then to steady herself. She wanted to get home.

She wanted to be back in her own house, where she would be warm and safe.

She left through the front door, thinking as she did so that she was forgetting something. The porch steps were difficult.

Every time she brought her foot down, a fresh surge of pain went through her head. Turning to her left, she went toward her house.

But she didn’t go to the front door. She couldn’t go in the front door like this, with her face red from crying and her clothes rumpled from lying on the floor of Agnes’s kitchen. She had a house full of guests, after all. It wouldn’t do for them to see her in this condition. She had to straighten herself up.

A small part of her brain told her that she shouldn’t be worried about such things. It was much more important that Agnes was dead and that someone had killed her—murdered her.

Phyllis realized she needed to call the police. She would do that, she vowed, once she was back in her own kitchen.

Sam was standing beside the punch bowl, using the dipper

to fill a cup with the bright red liquid, when Phyllis opened the back door and came in. He turned his head to look at her as she weaved first one way and then the other. The dipper splashed into the punch as he dropped it and said, “What the hell!”

Then, in the blink of an eye, he was beside her, and one

hand gripped her arm while his arm went around her waist and
18 •
LIVIA J. WASHBURN

steered her toward one of the chairs by the kitchen table. He was very strong, Phyllis thought. Instead of sitting down, she wished she could lean against him and rest her head against his chest. Maybe then it wouldn’t hurt so bad.

“Carolyn!” Sam shouted. “Eve! I need some help out here!”

Phyllis gazed up at him as he lowered her onto the chair.

The memory of how Agnes had looked crowded back into her

mind, and she said, “Oh, Sam. She’s dead. She’s dead, and somebody killed her. . . .” He touched the back of her head, carefully.

It hurt anyway, and she said, “Ouch!” When he took his hand away, she saw something red smeared on his fingertips. “Is that . . . blood? My blood?”

Then she moaned and slumped over onto the table, and

that was all she knew for a while.

Mike Newsom took the corner too fast, the wheels of the cruiser sliding a little. He warned himself to slow down. As a deputy in the Parker County Sheriff’s Department, he didn’t really have any jurisdiction here in the city limits of Weatherford, didn’t have any reason to be rolling on this call—other than the fact that his mother had been hurt . . . attacked . . . right there next door to her own home, the house where Mike had grown up.

He’d been out on the interstate, south of town, working

radar, when he’d heard the ambulance call on the scanner and recognized the address immediately. That was enough right there to start him racing toward his mother’s house.

But then the first call had been followed by several more, including a summons for the chief of police, detectives, and the crime scene team. Then Mike had known that something was

really
wrong, and he could only pray that his mother was all right.

On the way across town, he’d listened to all the follow-up THE CHRISTMAS COOKIE KILLER
• 19

chatter on the radio and breathed a little easier when he heard that the suspected homicide victim was next door, a woman in her eighties. That would be Agnes Simmons, Mike knew, and although he felt a pang of sympathy at her passing, he couldn’t help but be relieved that his mother hadn’t been killed.

Then he’d heard the report about the attack on the woman

who had discovered the body, and he knew from the age given that it was Phyllis. Carolyn Wilbarger was two years older than her, Eve Turner a year younger. Mike’s foot had gotten even heavier on the gas after that.

But he eased off the accelerator as he turned the last corner onto the street where he had grown up. He saw the flashing lights of the emergency vehicles parked in front of the houses a couple of blocks away. He brought his cruiser to a halt behind one from the Weatherford PD. Not taking the time to grab his Stetson from the seat beside him, he threw the door open and ran across the yards toward his mother’s house.

A lot of people were crowded into the front yard, with police officers standing around as if to keep them there. Some of them were shivering in the chilly air and didn’t look happy about being detained. As they parted to let Mike through, he vaguely recognized a few of them as Phyllis’s neighbors.

He touched only one of the steps as he bounded up onto

the porch.

An officer Mike didn’t know stood at the front door. “We got this, Deputy,” he began, jealously guarding the crime scene from any unwanted incursion by the sheriff’s department.

Mike forced down an angry response, telling himself that

the officer was just doing his job. But if the guy didn’t get the hell out of the way—!

“I’m Mike Newsom. It was my mother who was attacked.”

His voice sounded a lot calmer than he felt.

20 •
LIVIA J. WASHBURN

Understanding dawned on the officer’s face. He stepped

aside and said, “Oh. Sorry, Deputy. I didn’t know. Chief Whitmire’s already inside.”

Mike’s instincts as a lawman came to the fore for a second.

“What about the crime scene?”

The officer nodded toward Agnes Simmons’s house and

said, “Over there. Don’t worry; you won’t mess up anything by going in here.”

That was good, because Mike was going in, one way or an-

other. Nothing was going to keep him from getting to his

mom.

Mike opened the door and went inside. Chief Ralph Whit-

mire, a stocky veteran cop, stood in the living room talking to Sam Fletcher. Mike couldn’t stop himself from interrupting.

“Sam! Is my mom okay?”

Sam and Whitmire turned to face Mike. It was the police

chief who answered the anxious son’s question. “I think she’ll be fine, Mike,” he said.

Sam’s craggy features bore a worried look, though. “She got hit on the head pretty hard,” he said. “I reckon she’ll probably need to go to the hospital.”

Mike’s eyes widened. “The hospital!”

“Just as a precaution,” Whitmire said. “There’s always the danger of concussion with a head injury.”

“Or worse,” Mike said.

“Better not go borrowin’ trouble,” Sam advised. “Gettin’

walloped like that is nothin’ to take chances with, but your ma-ma’s a strong lady.” He managed a faint smile, even though he was obviously concerned. “Some might even say hardheaded, which comes in handy at a time like this.”

Mike felt a flash of irritation that Sam could be making jokes like that, but he eased off the angry response he almost made THE CHRISTMAS COOKIE KILLER
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when he realized that Sam was just trying to get him to settle down a little.

“Where is she?”

“In the kitchen,” Whitmire said. “The EMTs are still examining her. When they’re done, I hope I can ask her a few questions before they take her to the hospital.”

That reminded Mike of the other bulletins he’d heard on

the radio while he was driving over here. “Is it true?” he asked.

“Somebody killed Agnes Simmons?”

Whitmire nodded. “It’s true. Someone choked her to death

with the belt from her housecoat. At least, that’s what it looks like. The medical examiner will have to confirm that.”

“Phyllis found her,” Sam said. “It was right after that, somebody hit her on the back of the head.”

“The killer.” A shudder went through Mike at the thought.

“She was right there in the house with the killer.”