The Christmas Cookie Killer (6 page)

shared playdates with him. Mike wasn’t surprised that Sarah was still a little cool toward him when she came into his mother’s room. She visited with Phyllis for a while, asked if there was anything she could do to help, and promised to come back early the next morning so that she could help when Phyllis was released and ready to go home.

“You two go on now. I’ll be fine,” Phyllis told them. “Goodness, it must be past suppertime already. You need to go eat.”

“What about you?” Mike asked.

“I’m sure they’ll bring me something.”

He made a face. “Hospital food.”

“Oh, it’s not that bad. Of course, it’s not like my own

cooking. . . .”

Mike was reluctant to leave, but when she threatened to get up from the bed and shoo him out, he finally agreed to go. As they left the room and started down the hall, he took Sarah’s hand.

“I’m still a little put out with you,” she said. “I can’t believe you didn’t think to call me sooner.” Her voice softened as she went on, “But you must’ve been really scared, huh?”

“Yeah,” he said. “I didn’t know what was going on at first, only that my mom had been hurt somehow. And then after I got to the house, everything was kind of hectic. It was the same way here, what with all the tests they were doing. . . . Anyway, I’m sorry.”

“Apology accepted.” As they reached the parking lot, Sarah went on, “Bobby’s all right where he is for a while. You want to stop and get something to eat, like your mom said?”

“Sure. But I want to make a stop somewhere else first.”

Sarah looked over at him. “And where would that be?”

“The police station. I want to see if Chief Whitmire’s found out anything yet about the killer.”

40 •
LIVIA J. WASHBURN

Sarah hesitated for a second and then nodded, as if she

knew it wasn’t going to do any good to argue with Mike right now.

The headquarters of the Weatherford Police Department

was on the opposite side of the street that ran by the hospital, just a few blocks away. It took Mike and Sarah only a couple of minutes to get there. When they went inside and he asked at the main desk for Chief Whitmire, the officer on duty said, “The chief ’s gone home. What did you want to see him about,

Deputy?”

Mike was still wearing his uniform, of course. Sarah was in jeans and a denim jacket, with her blond hair pulled back in a ponytail, looking more like a teenager than a mom in her middle twenties.

Mike explained about his connection with the Simmons

case, and said, “I was just hoping that the chief could tell me if the investigation has turned up anything yet.”

“Detective Largo is in charge of that case. She’s here.” The officer picked up a phone, talked on it for a moment, then said to Mike, “She’ll be right out.”

Mike nodded his thanks, then walked over to some chairs

with Sarah. They didn’t sit down, just stood there waiting. Sarah asked, “Do you know this Detective Largo?”

Mike shook his head. “Nope. But the PD’s grown so much,

I don’t know all the officers anymore. Shoot, I don’t hardly know all the deputies these days.”

“The curse of progress.”

“Tell me about it.”

A Hispanic woman with short dark hair came through a

door into the lobby of the police department. She looked at Mike and asked, “Deputy Newsom? I’m Isabel Largo.”

Mike shook hands with her and introduced Sarah. Mike

THE CHRISTMAS COOKIE KILLER
• 41

said, “I was hoping you could tell me something about the investigation into the murder of Agnes Simmons and the attack on my mother.”

Largo frowned. “I’m fairly new to the department, Deputy, so I’m not sure about the protocol here. I know that Chief Whitmire and Sheriff Haney like to cooperate, but you have no official standing in this case. You’re just a relative of one of the victims, as far as the police department is concerned.”

Mike kept a tight rein on his temper. “I appreciate that, Detective, but I’m not trying to poach your case for the sheriff’s department.”

After a moment of considering the matter, Largo nodded.

“Come on back. Both of you,” she added with a smile for

Sarah.

She took them down a hallway and into a cramped office

with a single window that looked out on the brush-choked creek running behind the police department building. Not much was visible, though, since a thick December dusk had settled over Weatherford.

Largo nodded Mike and Sarah into straight-backed metal

chairs in front of the paper-cluttered desk. The only personal touch in the office was a small photo cube on top of a filing cabinet. It was turned so that the only picture Mike could see was of a grinning, round-cheeked baby.

Largo sat down and opened a file folder that was already on the desk. “We’re still waiting on the report from Crime Scene,”

she said, “so all we’ve got so far are the interviews from the can-vass. We talked to everyone who was at your mother’s house for that Christmas party—”

“It was a cookie exchange,” Mike said. “Not really a party.”

“People milling around, talking, eating cookies, and drinking punch . . . sounds like a party to me,” Largo said. “Not a very
42 •
LIVIA J. WASHBURN

exciting one, mind you, but still . . . Anyway, we interviewed them and everyone else we could find at home for a couple of blocks either way. Some of them didn’t even know Mrs. Simmons. The ones who did told us that she was just a harmless old lady and couldn’t imagine why anybody would want to hurt

her.”

“Did anybody who wasn’t at my mother’s house see anything suspicious going on in the neighborhood? Anybody sneaking around the Simmons house or something like that?”

Largo shook her head. “Not that they’d admit to, anyway. I checked the records to see if there have been any burglaries or anything else like that in the neighborhood recently, but I came up empty.” She smiled. “Weatherford seems to be a nice peaceful town most of the time . . . not like where I come from.”

“Where’s that?”

“Corpus Christi.”

Mike nodded. The city down on the Gulf Coast was beauti-

ful, but it also had a reputation among law enforcement agencies as a violent, dangerous place.

“You were thinking that if there was a pattern of break-ins in the area, then this was likely just another burglary gone bad?”

he asked.

“That’s right,” Largo said. “As for the victim’s family . . .”

That was going to be Mike’s next question, so he was glad Largo had brought it up.

“We weren’t able to contact them until they returned to

Mrs. Simmons’s house,” the detective went on. “They’d gone to Fort Worth to shop and had no idea something had happened to Mrs. Simmons.” She checked the file in front of her. “Two sons, Frank and Ted Simmons, and one daughter, Billie Hargrove, plus their spouses and assorted children. Naturally, they were all quite upset.”

THE CHRISTMAS COOKIE KILLER
• 43

“You believe them?” Mike asked.

Beside him, Sarah said, “What do you mean by that? Of

course they were upset!”

“In any murder, you always look at the family first,” Mike said with a shrug. “A spouse if there is one, children if there’s not. Sta-tistics will bear out that they’re the most likely suspects.”

Sarah shook her head, as if she didn’t like to see her husband being so cynical.

“We’re looking into the family,” Largo said. “In fact, I’m going back over there this evening to do more extensive interviews with all of them. Under the circumstances, I figure they’ll all alibi one another . . . but you never know.” She picked up a pen and toyed with it. “I’d invite you to come along with me, Deputy, but I’m afraid that
would
be pushing the bounds of protocol.”

“That’s all right. Like I said, I don’t want to horn in on your investigation.” Mike got to his feet. “Thanks for talking to us—”

“One thing,” Largo cut in as she got to her feet, too. “Can
you
tell me of anyone who might want to harm Mrs. Simmons?”

“Me?” Mike frowned. “I never even knew her that well. She was just the old lady next door when I was growing up, that’s all.”

“What about her children? Did you know them?”

“Yeah, some, but not well. They’re all older than I am. The boys got married and moved out a long time ago, and Billie’s been gone for quite a while, too.”

“What about your mother?”

Mike’s frown deepened. “What about her?”

“Is it possible the attack on her wasn’t connected to Mrs.

Simmons’s murder?”

44 •
LIVIA J. WASHBURN

“I don’t see how. Nobody would want to hurt my mother.

Everybody loves her.”

“Everybody has enemies,” Largo pointed out quietly.

Mike shook his head. “You’re on the wrong track there, Detective. My mom got hit on the head because she walked in on the killer. That’s the only thing that makes any sense.”

“I think you’re probably right,” Largo said with a shrug. “I’m just covering the bases, that’s all.”

“Yeah, of course. I understand.” They all shook hands again, and Mike added, “I’ll be in touch.”

As they left the building, Sarah said, “Well, I believe that you never met Detective Largo before.”

“Why’s that?” Mike asked.

“As attractive as she is, I’m sure that if you’d met her, you would have remembered her.”

“Is she that attractive? I didn’t really notice.”

And why was it, Mike wondered, that guys always lied about things like that? Of course he had noticed that Isabel Largo was attractive. He knew it, Sarah knew it, and he knew she knew it.

And yet he played dumb despite that.

He took his wife’s arm and said, “Come on; let’s go get something to eat. What are you in the mood for, anyway?”

Chapter 5

S
am, Carolyn, and Eve came back to the hospital that evening for a visit, but the nurses didn’t let them stay long. Carolyn brought Phyllis a change of clothes in case she was released the next day as planned. Dr. Lee dropped by again and told her that the neurologist believed she didn’t have a concussion, so it was all right for her to get some rest.

Phyllis was glad to hear that, since she had been fighting off drowsiness all evening.

But despite her being so tired, her sleep was troubled and not particularly restful. She kept seeing Agnes Simmons’s face and the way that tightly drawn belt had buried itself in the stringy flesh of her neck. . . .

As usual, it seemed to take forever for the orders to be written and the paperwork to be drawn up for Phyllis to be dis-charged from the hospital on Sunday morning. Sarah showed up to help in any way she could, and so did Carolyn. Mike had to work, since he had taken off the previous afternoon during his shift. The sheriff was fairly lenient about personal emergen-46 • LIVIA J. WASHBURN

cies, but Mike hadn’t wanted to push Royce Haney’s generous nature, Sarah explained.

“Sam said to tell you that he’d see you at home,” Carolyn told Phyllis. “I don’t think he likes hospitals very much.”

“I don’t blame him. Neither do I.” Phyllis frowned as a

thought occurred to her. “That means he’s there alone with Eve.”

Carolyn smiled. “Why, Phyllis, you actually sound a little jealous.”

“Not at all,” Phyllis answered instantly. “Sam’s a grown man.

He can take care of himself. I just don’t think it’s a good idea to throw too much temptation in Eve’s path.”

“You’re just afraid that
she’ll
throw something in Sam’s path.”

“I just hope she’s not like one of those spiders that devours the male afterward.”

Both of them laughed.

Sarah looked back and forth between the two older women

and frowned a little. “No offense, ladies,” she said, “but I thought you two used to teach school. I didn’t realize you were still in junior high.”

“When you get older, you’ll find out for yourself that a part of you will always be in junior high,” Phyllis said.

“Anyway,” Carolyn said, “don’t tell me you wouldn’t be jealous if some good-looking woman was flitting around Mike like a butterfly.”

Sarah’s mouth tightened, and Phyllis thought that Carolyn’s comment might have unwittingly hit a target. She wondered about that, but she didn’t want to press Sarah on the matter right now.

A nurse finally arrived with a wheelchair. She didn’t have a chance to help Phyllis get dressed, since she had dressed herself at six o’clock that morning, right after the last time someone had THE CHRISTMAS COOKIE KILLER
• 47

woken her up to check her vital signs. The nurse did insist that she ride out in the chair—hospital regulations, she explained.

Phyllis knew that already, so she didn’t put up a fuss. She just sat in the chair and allowed the nurse to wheel her out through the main entrance to the driveway, where Sarah had pulled up her car after hurrying out ahead of them.

“Now, don’t forget that Dr. Lee wants you to come in to his office in a couple of days for a follow-up appointment,” the nurse said as Phyllis got into Sarah’s car.

“I won’t,” Phyllis assured the woman. “I’ll call his office tomorrow.”

The ache in her knees wouldn’t let her forget. The wound

on her scalp was still tender to the touch, but the actual headache had gone away, proving what she’d been saying all along about having a hard head, she thought.

When Sarah pulled into the street where Phyllis lived, with Carolyn following in her own car, Phyllis saw that a couple of strange cars were parked in Agnes Simmons’s driveway, and another vehicle was parked at the curb in front of the house. “I guess it wasn’t just wishful thinking,” she murmured.

“What?” Sarah asked.

“Those cars at Agnes’s house. Her family really did come to visit her.”

That visit had turned tragic, though. A stray piece of yellow crime scene tape that hadn’t been removed from the porch was a mute reminder of that.

“I’ll need to go over and see them,” Phyllis went on. “Let them know that if there’s anything I can do . . .”

“I think you should be more worried about taking care of