Wedding Cake Killer (17 page)

Chapter 26

T
he
three of them had barely finished their food when the server showed up to ask them if they wanted anything else. Phyllis and Tess shook their heads, and Sam said, “I think we’re fine.”

The young woman laid the leather folder containing their bill on the table. “I’ll be your cashier whenever you’re ready,” she said. “Let me get those empty plates out of your way.”

When the server was gone, Sam said, “She’s not gonna come right out and ask us to leave, but I think they want the table.”

“Of course they do, as busy as they are tonight,” Tess said. She started to reach for the bill. “I’ll get this—”

Sam laid his hand on top of the folder first. “Nope. I got it. When a fella has dinner with two charmin’ ladies, it’s only right that he pays.”

Tess shrugged. “I never argue when somebody wants to buy me a meal. But we’ll have to go somewhere else to talk about the case. My hotel is close by.”

Phyllis nodded and said, “That’s all right. We’ll follow you there.”

Sam put enough cash to cover the bill and a decent tip in the folder and left it on the table. He slid out of the booth and held out an arm to indicate that Phyllis and Tess should go first.

When they reached the parking lot after being in the warm, crowded restaurant, the cold air felt chillier than it really was. Tess pointed to a car and said, “That’s mine.”

“Lead the way,” Sam said. “We’ll be right behind you.”

Like the restaurant, the hotel was part of a chain and offered only suites. It was located just half a mile from the restaurant along the highway’s frontage road, so it didn’t take long to get there.

“Have a seat,” Tess said as she led them into the suite’s sitting room. “Can I get you something to drink?”

Phyllis shook her head and said, “No, I think we should get right down to work.”

“I agree.” Tess went to the desk where her laptop computer sat closed. As she opened the computer, she said, “Let me call up my files.”

Phyllis and Sam sat on the room’s love seat. It took only moments for Tess to have several windows open on the laptop’s screen.

“I can e-mail these files to you if you want,” she offered, “but for now, here’s the information you wanted. The other women I told about Roy Porter were Becky Tuttle, Samantha Hogan, and Mary McLaren.”

Phyllis took a small notebook and a pen from her purse and made a note of the names. “Those three and Ingrid Pitt, right?”

Tess nodded. “Right.”

“Any of them married?” Sam asked.

“Becky and Samantha are. Like Ingrid, they were able to get their marriages to Roy annulled on the grounds that the unions were fraudulent. Mary did, too, but she never married again.”

Phyllis said, “So that’s two more husbands who might have wanted revenge for what happened to their wives, even though they never met Roy.”

“Yes, I suppose we have to include them as potential suspects, too,” Tess agreed.

“I assume you know where they are?”

“Roy—I guess we might as well call him that—worked a lot in the South and Midwest. Mary lives in Arkansas, Becky in Iowa, and Samantha in Illinois.”

“We’ll need to check alibis for all of them, find out if they took a trip to Texas recently.”

“That may not be easy to do,” Tess said. “I can try checking with the airlines. I have some sources that might be able to get me that information. It won’t be cheap, though.”

“I’ll cover your time and expenses,” Phyllis said.

Tess smiled. “Maybe it would be better if I was working for Mrs. Porter. Do you think she’d be agreeable to that?”

“I can’t speak for Eve,” Phyllis said. “But you go ahead and do whatever you need to, and I’ll make sure you don’t lose any money on the deal.”

“I don’t really care that much,” Tess muttered. “Like I said before, I just want to get to the truth.”

“Why don’t you tell us about the scams Roy pulled on those women?”

“You can take my word for it that they were pretty bad.” Tess shrugged. “But since I’ve gone this far, it won’t hurt to give you a few of the details, I guess.”

The stories all had a depressingly similar ring to them: Charming, handsome man meets, romances, and marries wealthy, successful woman and manages, in one way or another, to get his hands on all of her money (or at least a significant chunk of it) before vanishing. The mechanics of the scams ranged from the simple—cleaning out joint bank accounts—to the more convoluted—setting up business deals with dummy companies that wound up funneling the loot into the con man’s pockets. Clearly, the man they had known as Roy Porter was smart, ruthless, and cruel, Phyllis thought.

When Tess was finished, Sam said, “Well, I can see why somebody would want the fella dead. And what you’ve told us is just the tip of the iceberg, right?”

Tess nodded. “Yes, there’s really no way of knowing how many times he pulled off variations of the same scheme. Like I told you, I’ve identified seventeen cases where I’m pretty sure the same man was behind them. There are bound to be more.”

“If that’s not reasonable doubt, I don’t know what is,” Phyllis said. “Unfortunately, that’s all it is. We need to be able to do more than just point fingers and say, well, this woman or her husband
could
have done it.”

“Let me work on that this weekend,” Tess suggested. “I’ll try to find out if any of those other three women have solid alibis. If they do, we can cross them off the list.” She shook her head sympathetically. “I know you wanted to spare Mrs. Porter another court appearance, but it doesn’t seem likely to me that we’ll be able to come up with anything concrete before the arraignment Monday morning.”

Phyllis sighed. “I know. Just do your best, and if there’s anything Sam and I can do to help you, let us know.”

“Actually, I’m very intrigued by what you told me about Jan and Pete Delaney,” Tess said. “I have to say, I’m not surprised that the man we’re calling Roy made advances toward Mrs. Delaney. He’s used to getting what he wants from women with impunity, you know.”

“Maybe I should go back out there and talk to Jan again,” Phyllis suggested. “And while I’m doing that, I can find out if Frank and Ingrid Pitt are still staying there, or if they’ve gone back to Dallas.”

“Good idea,” Tess agreed with a nod. “You can probably handle that better than I can, since she already knows you.”

Phyllis laughed. “I know you can handle all that computer work better than
I
can.”

“Just be careful,” Tess said. “From what I’ve read about you, you’ve been in some pretty risky situations when you started closing in on a killer.”

“It’s nothing I can’t handle,” Phyllis said.

“And I’m usually with her,” Sam added.

Of course, that was one of the things Phyllis worried about. She didn’t like the way Sam had wound up in danger on more than one occasion because of her investigations.

But as long as she knew going in that she might be dealing with a killer, she could take the proper precautions.

“We’ll stay in touch,” Tess said. “You’ve got my cell phone number. You might want to give me yours.”

Phyllis did, and Sam gave Tess his number as well. She entered them into her phone.

“Here’s to finding the truth,” she said as Phyllis and Sam were about to leave. “Whatever it may be.”

Phyllis nodded, although she knew what Tess meant. But there was no way Eve might be guilty, and Phyllis knew that, too.

“Seems like a pretty smart young woman,” Sam commented as they drove away from the hotel. They would have to loop around to get to the other side of the highway and head back to Phyllis’s house.

“She appears to know what she’s doing,” Phyllis agreed. “I don’t think I could do all those things on the computer that she does.”

“We weren’t born to it, like she was. It’s harder to learn things when you’re older. We’re set in our ways, as the sayin’ goes.” Sam chuckled as he peered through the pickup’s windshield at the cones of light ahead of the vehicle. “Although you seem to have done a good job of learnin’ how to be a detective.”

“I taught history all those years,” Phyllis said. “That’s nothing but cause and effect. Something happens and causes something else, and then you can look back on the effect and see how events reached that point.”

As she said that, a frown formed on her forehead. She had seen the effect—Roy Porter’s murder—and so far they had uncovered a number of different things that could have caused it. What was missing were the links between those causes and the end result.

And there was something else missing as well, an unanswered question that would tie everything together if she could just figure out what it was. An insistent feeling nagged at her that she already knew what the question was. She just didn’t see its importance yet, and so she couldn’t answer it.

But sooner or later she would, and then the picture would be complete, revealing Roy’s killer. Phyllis had to believe that, or else the weight of this case might be too much for her to go forward.

“You goin’ back out to the bed-and-breakfast tomorrow?” Sam asked, breaking into her thoughts.

“Yes, I think I will. Are you coming along?”

“You bet. I don’t have anywhere else I need to be, or anywhere else I’d rather be, for that matter.”

Phyllis leaned her head against his shoulder as he drove. “Thank you for dinner,” she said.

“It was my pleasure. The company was good.”

“You know, I couldn’t stand Tess when we first met her. But I’m starting to like her. I think that she really does hope Eve turns out to be innocent.”

“Yeah, I got the feelin’ you two are gonna make a good team.” Sam laughed again. “Somewhere out there in the night there’s a murderer who thinks that he or she got away with it. But they don’t know who they’ve got on their trail, and sooner or later they’re gonna have a big surprise waitin’ for ’em.”

C
hapter 27

A
fter more than a week of cloudy weather, the overcast finally broke during the night, and Saturday morning dawned cold and clear. Phyllis was glad to see the sun again. She hoped it boded well for the visit she and Sam were going to pay to the Delaneys.

First, though, because the sunshine had put her in better spirits, she fixed a big breakfast. The delicious aromas of coffee, bacon, and crumbled-pecan-topped banana muffins soon filled the house and inevitably drew the other inhabitants down from upstairs, including Eve.

“Somethin’ smells mighty good,” Sam said as he was the first into the kitchen in his pajamas and robe.

“Well, you’re certainly full of enthusiasm this morning, Phyllis,” Carolyn added as she followed Sam into the room.

Eve was right behind her, saying, “My, I haven’t been this hungry in days.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” Phyllis told her, “because I feel like cooking this morning. The coffee’s ready. Everyone help yourself. I think I’m going to scramble some eggs to go with this bacon.”

Soon all four of them were sitting at the kitchen table, eating and talking . . . and not about murder, either. For those few minutes, it was as if nothing had changed, and it felt wonderful to Phyllis.

But everything
had
changed, or at least it would if Eve was convicted of killing Roy. If that happened, there would never be any more moments like this one.

Phyllis had to prevent that. At almost any cost, she had to stop it.

They lingered over coffee, and when they were done, Eve said, “I feel so good this morning, I might go out and do a little shopping.”

“I’ll come with you,” Carolyn volunteered immediately. “We’ve been cooped up in this house for too long.” She glanced at Phyllis and Sam and added, “Some of us didn’t go out on the town last night.”

Phyllis wouldn’t have called trying to solve Roy’s murder going out on the town, but let Carolyn believe whatever she wanted to, she thought. Right now that was easier than trying to explain the theories they had come up with by talking to Tess Coburn.

“Sam and I have some errands to do, too,” she said. “So it looks like we’ll all be busy today.”

“Busy is good,” Sam said.

Before she got dressed, Phyllis looked out the front window at the thermometer on the porch. Twenty-two degrees, she thought with a little shiver. But the wind wasn’t blowing very hard, and in the sun it would feel warmer, whether it really was or not. Her thick jacket and blue jeans would feel good anyway.

Sam offered to drive, and Phyllis agreed. The pickup’s heater quickly warmed its cab as Sam piloted the vehicle west out of town on the interstate, then cut to the southwest on a smaller road that led through the rolling hills. It didn’t take long to reach the drive of the Delaneys’ bed-and-breakfast.

The gravel parking area was full, so Sam steered the pickup onto a grassy area next to it. Marks in the grass made it obvious that cars had been parked there in the past.

“Looks like they’ve got a full house,” Sam commented. “Folks either don’t know or don’t care what happened here. They want their time off.”

“I don’t blame them,” Phyllis said. “Back when we were working, I enjoyed every bit of vacation I could get.”

Sam grinned. “Now we got vacation full-time, don’t we?”

Phyllis supposed that, technically, he was right. They had no jobs, no real responsibilities other than those of day-to-day life. At times like this, though, she sure didn’t feel like she was on vacation.

Quietly, she said, “If Pete is here, do you think you could distract him so that I can talk to Jan alone?”

“I can sure give it a try,” Sam said with a nod.

They went onto the porch, and Phyllis knocked on the door. When it opened a moment later, Jan Delaney greeted them with a smile.

“Well, hey there,” she said. “I didn’t expect to see you two again. Certainly not this soon anyway.” Her smile disappeared and she looked concerned instead. “Has something else happened with Eve?”

Phyllis shook her head and said, “No, other than the fact that her arraignment is scheduled for Monday morning.”

Pete appeared behind Jan in time to hear what Phyllis said. He looked at her and Sam over Jan’s shoulder and asked, “Then what brings you back out here?” He added, “Jan told me you already came to get those things we boxed up.”

“Eve asked us to come.” Phyllis didn’t think they would bother to check up on that and find out she was lying. “She wanted to make sure there was no outstanding balance on her bill.”

“Oh, goodness gracious,” Jan said. “She could have just called about that if she was worried about it. But there was no reason to even be concerned. Roy paid for everything in advance. In fact, we probably ought to refund her some of what he paid, since they didn’t stay here the whole time they had booked.”

“I don’t think that’s necessary,” Phyllis said. She was beginning to worry that the Delaneys were going to keep them standing on the porch for so long that they wouldn’t have any excuse to stay.

Jan settled that, however, by saying, “You came all the way out here on a cold morning, so you at least ought to get a cup of coffee out of it. There’s still some in the pot from breakfast. I have some apple fritters, too. Come on inside and warm up.”

Pete didn’t look particularly happy about that, but he wasn’t going to uninvite them. He grunted and moved back as Jan held the door open for Phyllis and Sam to come in.

“Thank you,” Phyllis said as they stepped into the warmth of the bed-and-breakfast.

“Come on out to the kitchen,” Jan said. “We don’t stand on ceremony here.”

If she was a killer, she was one of the friendliest, sweetest murderers Phyllis had ever encountered. And of course, that was entirely possible, Phyllis reminded herself.

No one was in the parlor. As they went into the big kitchen, Phyllis said, “It looks like you have quite a few guests again.”

“Yes, everyone’s had breakfast and gone back upstairs, except for one couple. They’re young and on their honeymoon, so they’ll probably drag down later for coffee.” Jan laughed. “They have to keep their strength up, you know.”

“Are the Pitts and the Mitchums still here?”

Jan shook her head as she got cups and saucers from a cabinet. “No, they left yesterday. So did Alice Jessup. Everyone who’s here came in yesterday evening. I guess that means everyone who was here when . . . when . . .”

“When Roy Porter was killed,” Pete finished for her. “They’re all gone now.”

“Except for Pete and me, of course,” Jan added.

“Yeah, but we don’t count.”

Phyllis wasn’t completely convinced of that. Pete didn’t seem nearly as friendly this morning. Was that because he was afraid that Phyllis was investigating Roy’s murder? Did he have something to hide?

Jan poured the coffee for Phyllis and Sam and moved a plate of fritters from the counter to the table. “Sit down,” she said. “Tell me how Eve’s doing today.”

“She’s starting to get her appetite back and seem more like herself,” Phyllis said. There was a glass container on the table with packets of sugar and artificial sweetener in it, along with a bowl full of individual creamers. She started fixing her coffee the way she liked it as she went on, “It’s just a matter of time.”

“Of course,” Jan said with a nod from the chair where she’d sat down on the other side of the table. “She’s had a lot of shocks. I just hope she doesn’t have too many more.”

“So do I,” Phyllis said.

Sam took a sip of his coffee and picked up one of the fritters to take a bite. When he had swallowed, he said to Pete, “Your wife mentioned the other day that you’d been havin’ some trouble with your water well.”

“Yeah, the pressure switch has been acting up,” Pete said. He seemed relieved to be talking about something other than Roy Porter’s murder. “I’ve had to go out there and reset it several times lately. I just hope the pump’s not fixing to go out.”

“You know, I had a well where I used to live in Poolville, and I had to work on it quite a bit over the years.” Sam chuckled. “Once, I was convinced that the pump needed to be replaced, so I set up an old metal swing set over the wellhead, put a block and tackle on it, and pulled the whole hundred and fifty feet of pipe out of the ground.”

“By yourself?” Pete asked.

Sam shook his head. “No, I had a friend help me. Took most of a day to get that pump up, and when we did, it turned out there was nothin’ wrong with it. Problem was actually in the wirin’ in the well house. Fire ants had got into it. For some reason, those little varmints really like electricity.”

“You know, I haven’t checked the wiring,” Pete said with a frown. “I was going to call the well-repair people the next time it gave trouble.”

“No need to do that,” Sam said as he waved a hand. “Let’s go out there and take a look at it. They say you learn by foulin’ things up, so I’d be glad to give you the benefit of my vast experience.”

“Are you sure you don’t mind? It’s pretty cold out. Although I’ve got a heat bulb burning in the well house to keep it warm enough the pipes won’t freeze on these nights the temperature gets so low.”

“It’ll be fine,” Sam said. “Especially if I can take this coffee and fritter with me.”

“Sure, come on,” Pete said as he got to his feet. He led Sam out the back door.

When they were gone, Jan said, “Men are all alike, aren’t they? They just love to piddle with things.”

“Sam’s pretty good with his hands,” Phyllis said.

“That, too,” Jan said.

Phyllis felt her face warming and tried to ignore it. Jan had given her an opportunity, though, so she took it.

With what she hoped was a serious, solemn expression on her face, she said, “I’m really sorry about what you had to go through with Roy. It must have really taken you by surprise and upset you when he . . . when he . . .”

“Put his hand on my butt and asked me to go upstairs with him when Eve wasn’t here?” Jan nodded. “Oh, yeah. Not taken by surprise that much, really, because like I told you, I’ve had guests make passes at me before. But it did bother me, because I like Eve and I didn’t want to think that she’d gone and married an old lech.” She shrugged. “But hey, it wasn’t really any of my business. I just moved his hand and told him as politely as I could that I didn’t think it would be a good idea.”

“How did he take that?”

“He kept flirting at first, saying that nobody would know and that I’d be surprised how much I would enjoy myself. I told him I had other things to do. He got the idea, and he didn’t keep pushing, I’ll give him a little bit of credit for that. He laughed it off and said I didn’t know what I was missing.”

“So he gave up?”

“For the time being,” Jan said. “I remember thinking, though, that I wouldn’t be surprised if he tried again.” She shook her head. “But of course he never got the chance.”

“Did you tell Pete what he’d done?”

“Why would I do that?” Jan asked with what appeared to be genuine puzzlement. “Nothing happened. Not really. Roy got a quick feel; that’s all. Nothing to cause a big ruckus about.”

Phyllis wondered if that meant Pete would have caused a big ruckus if he had known what Roy had done. And was it possible that Pete knew, even though Jan wasn’t aware that he did? Phyllis decided that she couldn’t rule that out.

“Well, you’re more tolerant than I would be,” she said.

“One thing you learn pretty quickly in this business,” Jan said, “is that everybody has their own little eccentricities when it comes to romance. You learn not to pay attention to some of the things you hear . . . and some of the things that happen.” The back door opened as she added, “So I didn’t worry about Roy making a pass at me—”

Pete stepped inside in time to hear that, and when he did, his face instantly darkened with anger.

“Blast it, Jan!” he burst out. “She’s interrogating you again! Didn’t I warn you about this?”