The Christmas Cookie Killer (18 page)

When Oscar opened the door a few moments later, he was

wearing a robe that left his sturdy calves bare. His feet were bare as well. Some gray chest hairs poked out of the opening at his throat. He was a short, broad man with a bulldoglike face and a fringe of gray hair around his ears.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Phyllis said. “I got you out of the shower, didn’t I, Oscar?” That was the most obvious explanation for his attire, although Phyllis would have sworn that she’d heard him moving around in the living room right after she rang the bell.

“No, no, not at all,” he said. “What can I do for you,

Phyllis?”

She lifted the plate in her hands. “I wanted to bring you some cookies, since we had so many left over from the get-together the other day. And I thought we might visit for a while.

Do you have any plans for Christmas Day? You could always come over and have dinner with us. We’ll have more than

enough food. We always do!”

She was talking a little fast, she knew, but she hoped that he would invite her in to chat so that she could work the conversation around to Agnes’s murder and find out if he had noticed anything unusual going on in the neighborhood recently.

However, Oscar wasn’t showing any signs of doing that. He said, “Thanks for the invitation, but I’m driving down to Brownwood on Friday to spend the weekend with my son and his family.” Oscar’s son was a professor of economics at Howard Payne University. As he reached for the plate of cookies, he added,

“These look great. I’ll take them with me down there . . . if there are any left by then!”

As she got ready to hand over the cookies, she realized that her plan wasn’t going to work. She couldn’t very well snatch the THE CHRISTMAS COOKIE KILLER
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cookies back and refuse to give them to him unless he allowed her to question him.

Then she glanced down, was surprised by what she saw, and said, “Your, uh, slip is showing, Oscar.”

His eyes widened. He said, “What?” then jerked his head

down and stared at the two or three inches of what appeared to be the lacy hem of some silk lingerie showing below the bottom of the robe. A strangled sound came from his throat.

Phyllis tried hard not to be shocked. She had to admit that for a fleeting second, seeing Oscar in a robe in the middle of the day like this, she had wondered if he had a woman in his house, even though as far as she knew, he hadn’t even dated since his wife’s death.

Evidently that wasn’t the case.

She thought for a moment that he was going to slam the

door in her face—either that or have a heart attack on the spot, if his rapidly purpling face was any indication. Then his shoulders slumped as if he were giving up. He stepped back, opened the door wider, and rumbled, “Come in for a minute. Please.”

Phyllis hesitated. She didn’t think she was in any danger from Oscar Gunderson, having known the man for twenty years, for goodness’ sake, but obviously people were capable of all sorts of surprises, even good old Oscar. Her curiosity got the better of her, though, so she stepped into the house. He closed the door behind her.

The drapes over the front window were tightly drawn, so

that no one could look in. The reason for that became under-standable when Oscar loosened the belt of the robe and opened it a little, sort of like a flasher. He wasn’t exposing himself, though, but rather the sleek, pale pink slip that he wore. It matched a pair of feathery slippers sitting on the floor where Oscar must have kicked them off before answering the door.

144 •
LIVIA J. WASHBURN

He pulled the robe closed and knotted the belt again. “You can’t tell anybody about this,” he said.

“Don’t worry,” Phyllis assured him. “It’s none of my business, Oscar. None of anybody’s business.”

“Darned right it’s not.” He scrubbed a hand over his face and then sighed. “I got to admit, though, in a way it . . . it’s nice to have somebody to talk to about it. Since Geneva’s been gone . . .”

Phyllis didn’t
want
him to talk about it with her. She was as open-minded as the next person, but there were still some things that made her uncomfortable. And at the same time, she was having to fight the impulse to giggle. She knew that would be a terrible, hurtful thing to do. . . .

But the sight of gruff, burly Oscar Gunderson standing

there in a pink slip had just been so funny.

She forced that image out of her mind. Oscar was entitled to his dignity, and she had no business judging anyone. And if she did talk to him for a few minutes, maybe he would open up to her about things other than his . . . hobby.

“Did Geneva know?” she asked, making her tone as caring

as she could.

“Oh, yeah.” He waved her into a chair. “Sit down. Just set those cookies on the coffee table.”

Phyllis sat down, and Oscar lowered himself onto the sofa opposite her, being careful to keep the robe closed—for which she was thankful.

“Geneva always knew, right from the start,” he went on. “I wouldn’t keep something that important from her. She helped me, in fact. It was sort of like a hobby we shared, like bird-watching or stamp collecting.”

“All right,” Phyllis said.

“Just don’t get the idea I’m some sort o’ pansy.” Oscar poked THE CHRISTMAS COOKIE KILLER
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a stubby finger in the air for emphasis. “I’m a hundred percent male. I just . . . I just like the feel of it. The silk’s so smooth against the skin. You must know that.”

Phyllis managed to nod.

“Thank God for the Internet,” Oscar continued, warming to his subject now. “You can get all kinds of things in all different sizes. I tell you, back in the old days, it wasn’t easy finding stuff to fit a guy like me, especially panties and girdles—”

“Oscar,” Phyllis said in a weak voice.

He looked surprised, as if he hadn’t realized how enthusias-tically he was going on. “Ah, hell,” he said. “Now I’m making your skin crawl, I’ll bet. I’m sorry, Phyllis. I didn’t mean for you to find out. It’s just that . . . when I dress up, it’s kinda like when Geneva was still here. It makes me feel, I dunno, closer to her somehow.”

Phyllis swallowed. She’d had to fight off laughter a few moments earlier, but now she felt more like crying. Instead she leaned forward and said, “Oscar, I think that’s exactly the way Geneva would want you to feel. You do whatever you need to do. Not that you need my permission, or anybody else’s, of course.”

“Thanks,” he said with a nod. “I appreciate that, I really do.

And I appreciate the cookies. I’ll take ’em down to Brownwood and share them with my boy and his family, like I said.”

Phyllis knew he expected her to get up and leave now, and goodness knows there was a part of her that wanted to, but she’d had a reason for coming over here, and she hadn’t accomplished it yet. She wanted to keep him talking for a little longer.

“Does anyone else in the neighborhood know?”

“About this?” Oscar waved a hand in front of himself to indicate what he was wearing. “Lord, I hope not. Geneva and I always kept it behind closed doors, you know.”

146 •
LIVIA J. WASHBURN

“I suppose there are a lot of secrets, even in a nice neighborhood like this,” Phyllis said, thinking about Lois Horton’s drinking and the black eye she had been sporting the day

before.

Oscar grunted. “Darned right there are. If there’s one thing I learned working in personnel all those years, it’s that people are strange. Downright weird sometimes.” He chuckled. “I’m a fine one to talk, aren’t I? But you must’ve run into that when you were teaching. There are all kinds of people in the world, and most of ’em will surprise you sooner or later.”

Phyllis smiled. “Yes, I’d say that’s true.” Oscar seemed more relaxed now, so she went on, “In fact, I was wondering if you’d seen anything surprising around the neighborhood lately.”

“You mean other than myself in the mirror?” He laughed

out loud this time, then shook his head. “No, not really. I don’t know anybody else’s deep, dark secrets, if that’s what you’re getting at.”

“Actually, I was thinking about Agnes’s murder.”

“Oh.” He sobered. “Yeah. Terrible thing, just terrible. I’m not gonna say she was your stereotypical sweet little old lady, but she was okay. I’m glad they caught the guy who did it. Hard to believe it was her own grandson.” He looked like he remembered something. “Say, you got clobbered that same day.

How—”

“I’m doing just fine,” Phyllis said before he could ask the question.

“Well, that’s good. Anyway, I can’t imagine a kid killing his own grandmother like that. I hear he was some kind o’ druggie.”

Oscar shook his head. “People’ll do just about anything for that damned junk, if you’ll pardon my French.”

“Yes, that’s true. I got to worrying a little, though. . . . What if Randall Simmons
isn’t
the one who killed Agnes?”

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Oscar frowned. “Who else could it’ve been? He was staying right there in the house, right?”

“Yes, but I’m not sure he had any real motive.”

“Motive.” Oscar snorted. “He wanted money, and she

wouldn’t give it to him. Or she threatened to turn him in to the cops. That’s all the motive a punk like that needs.”

Unfortunately, Oscar was right. Because no one knew ex-

actly what had gone on between Randall and Agnes, both of those scenarios were plausible—more than plausible.

“My first thought was that it must have been a burglar, or somebody like that,” Phyllis said.

Oscar’s brawny shoulders rose and fell. “Could’ve been, I suppose. I would have thought the same thing if the kid hadn’t been there.”

“You didn’t notice any strangers in the neighborhood in the past week or two?”

“Casing the houses so they could come back later and break in, you mean?” Oscar shook his head. “Some guys from the city were working out there at the water main about a week and a half ago. I think I saw a florist’s truck deliver some flowers at the Horton house. A couple of times, in fact.” He smiled. “Ol’ Blake must’ve got the wife mad at him for something.”

Yes, like punching her in the eye.
Phyllis doubted if having flowers delivered was going to make up for something like that.

Though, as Oscar had proven today, you never really knew about people.

“The preacher stopped by the other day, and I see the Meals on Wheels guy go by, and FedEx and UPS drop off packages

now and then. . . . That’s about it. You know as well as I do, this is a quiet neighborhood.”

Phyllis nodded. “Yes, it is.” She hid her disappointment, but she had to admit to herself that Oscar hadn’t been a bit of help.

148 •
LIVIA J. WASHBURN

She would just have to try the cookie ploy with some of the other neighbors who hadn’t been at the exchange and hope that they had noticed something more important. At least she was fairly certain that she wouldn’t run into anything quite as surprising as the sight of Oscar Gunderson in a lacy pink slip.

Then she realized that she shouldn’t have even let herself think such a thing. That was just asking for trouble.

She stood up and said, “Well, enjoy the cookies, Oscar. It was good visiting with you.”

He spread his hands. “Even with what you found out?”

“I try not to pass judgment on anyone,” she told him. “And don’t worry; I won’t mention this to anyone, either.”

“I’d appreciate that.” His voice hardened. “At my age, I

sure as heck don’t want to wind up the laughingstock of the neighborhood.”

“Of course not.” Phyllis went to the door. “I hope you enjoy your trip to Brownwood.”

“Thanks. And thanks again for the cookies.” He slid his feet into the feathery slippers. “If you wouldn’t mind letting yourself out . . .”

“Of course.”

When the door was shut behind her, Phyllis blew her breath out in a long sigh. That visit with Oscar had been edifying, but certainly not in the way she had hoped.

Unless . . .

He had sounded almost angry when he said that he didn’t

want to be the laughingstock of the neighborhood. And he had warned her, as soon as she found out what he was doing, not to tell anyone.

Phyllis suddenly found herself wondering if she was indeed the first one, other than Oscar’s late wife, Geneva, to discover his secret. All along she had thought that Agnes Simmons might THE CHRISTMAS COOKIE KILLER
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have found out about something that proved to be dangerous for her.

Just how far would Oscar Gunderson have gone to keep

anyone else from finding out?

“No,” Phyllis whispered to herself. “That’s crazy, just crazy.

He wouldn’t . . .”

But she never would have dreamed that he would dress up

in women’s lingerie, either. As Oscar himself had said, people were downright weird sometimes. Weird didn’t have to mean dangerous. . . .

But as Phyllis walked toward her house and went past the

front window of the Gunderson house, with its tightly drawn curtains, a little shiver of uncertainty ran through her as she thought about what was going on behind them.

Chapter 14

P
hyllis wanted to recover for a while from the somewhat dis-concerting conversation with Oscar before she talked to any of the other neighbors. Anyway, if she was going to use the cookie ploy again to get in the door of wherever she went next, she had to have another plate of cookies.

That was why she walked straight from Oscar’s front door to hers, and when she got there, she saw Frank Simmons standing there on the porch with his hand raised and his finger poised to press the doorbell button.

“Oh, hi, Mrs. Newsom,” Frank said as Phyllis came up the

steps. “I was just looking for you.”

“What can I do for you, Frank? And by the way, I think you can call me Phyllis. You’re a grown man, not the little boy who lives next door anymore.”

He smiled. “Yeah, but you know that inside of every grown man, there’s still a little boy.”

“Oh, I never doubted that for a second. Come on in the