The Pumpkin Muffin Murder (13 page)

“Detectives never run out of questions until they have the answers they’re lookin’ for,” Sam said. “I know that from bein’ around you.”

“Well, I won’t be investigating this case,” she said. “We don’t even know that there’s a case to be investigated. Logan may have died of natural causes. Just because he was found in odd circumstances doesn’t mean he was murdered.”

A grim chuckle came from Sam. “Maybe so . . . but I wouldn’t count on it.”

Neither would she, Phyllis thought.

Neither would she.

A
few minutes later, there was a flurry of activity inside the dogtrot. Phyllis thought she knew what would happen next, and she was right. The ambulance crew loaded Logan Powell’s body, now zipped up in a black body bag, onto the gurney and wheeled it out through a passage that the police opened up in the crowd. They took it out of the park and put it into the back of the ambulance.

Dana had shot to her feet at the first sight of the body bag. Phyllis and Sam both went to her, standing on either side of her as she watched Logan being taken away. The look on her face was so grief stricken that Phyllis’s heart broke for her.

No woman who looked like that could have had anything to do with her husband’s death, Phyllis thought. She just didn’t believe it was possible.

“I . . . I suppose I should go,” Dana said in a halting voice. “I have to . . . make arrangements.”

Phyllis put a hand on her arm. “I think you should sit down and stay here right now,” she said. “Everything else can wait.”

She didn’t want to put into words the fact that the police wouldn’t
let
Dana leave the park at this point. Not until they had questioned her, and obviously Detective Largo intended to get all the background in place first, before she talked to Dana.

In any death without an obvious explanation, the deceased’s spouse was always going to be the first person the police looked at as having some possible involvement. There was a
lot
about Logan Powell’s death that didn’t have an obvious explanation. Dana wasn’t thinking straight right now, or she would realize that. She would be doing good if the police were through with her before the day was over, Phyllis knew . . . unless, of course, she called a lawyer and forced them to either arrest her or let her go.

And that was a tactic that wouldn’t look good at all.

Dana clearly didn’t understand that, however, because she pulled away from Phyllis and said, “No, I have to
go
. I have to take care of things. Logan will be depending on me.”

There was a shaky edge in her voice that told Phyllis she was bordering on hysteria. “Wait right here,” Phyllis told her. “I’ll go talk to Chief Whitmire and see if it’s all right for you to leave.”

“It has to be,” Dana said. “I have things to
do
.”

Phyllis knew what was going on. Dana wanted to deal with the mundane aspects of Logan’s death because that gave her something to hang on to, tasks to distract her from the terrible loss she had suffered. It was a way of fooling her brain into not thinking about what had actually happened. Unfortunately, Phyllis had a hunch that the police weren’t going to cooperate in that emotional defense mechanism Dana was trying to set up.

Chief Whitmire stood talking to several officers from his forensics team. He saw Phyllis coming toward him and turned to face her as the other officers went on about their business of gathering and evaluating evidence.

“What can I do for you, Mrs. Newsom?” Whitmire asked. “If Detective Largo has already talked to you, I suppose you’re free to go.”

“It’s not me I’m worried about, Chief,” Phyllis said. “Mrs. Powell wants to leave so she can make arrangements for her husband’s funeral.”

Whitmire’s forehead creased in a frown. He shook his head. “She can’t do that. We haven’t questioned her yet. Anyway, right now there’s no way of knowing when Powell’s body will be released. The ME hasn’t even looked at it yet.”

Phyllis nodded. “I understand. There’ll have to be an autopsy. I believe Mrs. Powell just wants to stay busy so she won’t have to think too much about what happened here.”

Whitmire grunted and said, “Maybe that’s what she wants you to believe. Maybe that’s what she wants all of us to believe.”

“Chief, you can’t seriously think that that poor woman had anything to do with what happened to her husband. She’s devastated! Anyway, you don’t even know yet how Logan died.”

“And until we do, everything else can wait,” Whitmire said. “Sorry, but that’s the way it’s gotta be.”

Phyllis could tell that he wasn’t going to budge. That came as no surprise. She had known she was probably wasting her time before she ever came over here to talk to the chief. She nodded and said, “All right. But this is one time you’re wrong to be suspicious of the spouse.”

Detective Isabel Largo asked from behind Phyllis, “Is that so, Mrs. Newsom?”

Phyllis tried not to jump a little. She hadn’t heard the detective come up behind her. As she turned to face her, Detective Largo went on, “Is that why you didn’t tell me about the argument between Mr. Powell and his wife last night, or her belief that he was cheating on her? Because you believe she didn’t have anything to do with his death?”

There was a sharp undertone of accusation in the younger woman’s voice. Phyllis kept a tight grip on her temper and said, “You didn’t ask me about any of that, Detective. If you had, I would have told you what I know, which is all hearsay, anyway.”

“That’s all right,” Detective Largo said. “Mrs. Wilbarger told me all about it.”

Phyllis glanced toward the old well and saw Carolyn standing there with Sam and Dana. She and Detective Largo must have returned from the parking lot while Phyllis was talking to Chief Whitmire.

The chief said, “So the two of them argued last night, did they, Detective?”

“That’s right. Mrs. Wilbarger witnessed it, and Mrs. Powell told her about believing that Mr. Powell was cheating.”

Whitmire looked at Phyllis. “You should have mentioned that when you were talking to Detective Largo, Mrs. Newsom.”

“With all due respect, Chief, it’s not my responsibility to volunteer information,” Phyllis said. “It’s your detective’s job to ask the right questions.”

She saw the way Detective Largo’s jaw tightened and anger glittered in her dark eyes, and she knew she had just made an enemy by pointing out that Largo had dropped the ball. At the moment, she didn’t really care. She was a lot more worried about how the suspicions surrounding Dana were growing stronger.

“You have a duty as a citizen to cooperate with the police,” Whitmire began, but then he shook his head and gave a dismissive wave of his hand. “But we’ll let that go. I’ll ask you straight out: What do you know about the Powells’ marital troubles?”

“I was there when Dana said she thought Logan had been cheating on her,” Phyllis admitted. “And Carolyn told me that she saw them arguing last night, over there on the bridge over the drainage ditch.”

She pointed at the wooden bridge, which was visible through the trees.

“You don’t know anything else about Powell’s affair?”

“I don’t know that he was having one. Like I told you, Chief, all I know about this subject is hearsay.”

“Well, we’ll see what the lady herself has to say about it,” Whitmire said heavily. He looked at Detective Largo. “I think you should take Mrs. Powell back to the office to question her, Detective.”

Largo nodded. “Of course, Chief.”

Phyllis wanted to try to talk them out of it, but she knew it wouldn’t do any good. She watched helplessly as Detective Largo turned and strode over to where Dana, Sam, and Carolyn were standing. In a loud, clear voice, the detective said, “Mrs. Powell, I’d like for you to come with me.”

Dana looked confused. “What? Come with you? Where? I can’t go. I . . . I have to make arrangements. . . .”

“There’ll be plenty of time for that later,” Detective Largo said. She put a hand on Dana’s arm. “Come with me, please.”

Dana pulled away. “No!”

“You ought to leave her alone,” Carolyn said. “She’s suffered a terrible shock.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Largo said, “but we still have to question her.”

“Question me?” Dana repeated. “Why do you need to question me?” Her voice rose, became more shrill. “You need to be trying to find out what happened to Logan!”

“That’s what we’re doing, ma’am.” Detective Largo gestured to a couple of uniformed officers who stood nearby. “That’s why you need to come with me, so I can talk to you about it.”

Dana shook her head. “But I don’t know anything. He . . . he never came home last night. I was so worried. I was afraid something had happened to him, and . . . and it has.” Her hands came up and covered her face. “He’s dead!”

The words came out of her in a wail. She shook from the depth of the terrible emotions coursing through her. Detective Largo jerked her hand at the cops, and they hurried forward and reached for Dana. Before they could take hold of her, though, she crumpled. She hit the ground hard and sprawled there, senseless.

“Oh, dear Lord!” Carolyn said. She started to kneel next to Dana, but Detective Largo got in her way.

“Everyone stay back!” the detective snapped.

“But she fainted! She may be hurt.”

Largo ignored Carolyn’s protests. She called, “Chief, we need another ambulance.” Whitmire started talking emphatically into his radio.

Phyllis, Carolyn, and Sam couldn’t do anything but stand there, shocked at this sudden turn of events. Phyllis wasn’t too shocked, though, because she had been able to see that Dana was on the verge of collapse ever since the discovery of Logan’s body. At some level, Dana must have realized that the police considered her a suspect in his death, if it turned out that he had died from foul play. The burden of that knowledge, along with everything else, had been too much for her to bear any longer.

“I hope you’re satisfied with yourself,” Carolyn said in scathing tones to Detective Largo.

“I’ll be satisfied when I know for sure what happened here, Mrs. Wilbarger,” the detective replied. “But not until then.”

Dana’s collapse and the arrival a few minutes later of another ambulance with screaming siren got the attention of everyone in the park again. Phyllis wasn’t sure the Harvest Festival could continue after this second disruption. She hoped it would, though, because despite everything else, it was still important to collect as much food as possible for the people who needed it. Hard though it was to believe after everything that had happened, it wasn’t quite noon yet. The festival still had a lot of hours to run, and a lot more food could be collected in that time. Things would settle down once the police were through here, she told herself.

The EMTs with this ambulance were able to revive Dana after checking her out and making sure her vital signs were stable. “Take her to the hospital,” Chief Whitmire ordered. He added to Detective Largo, “You go with them, and don’t let her out of your sight. As soon as a doctor gives the okay, go ahead and question her.”

“Right, Chief.”

From the stony look on the detective’s face, Phyllis knew that Largo was determined to make up for any perceived shortcomings in her earlier questioning. Dana was going to be in for a rough time of it. She couldn’t expect much sympathy from Isabel Largo.

All of which was ridiculous, Phyllis thought, because they didn’t even know for sure that Logan Powell had been murdered. The cause of death was still up in the air. But just in case it turned out that someone had deliberately caused it, the police didn’t want to let that slip past them. The problem for Phyllis was that she didn’t believe Dana could have done anything to harm her husband, or anyone else, for that matter.

She hadn’t believed that about some other murderers she had encountered, she reminded herself. But logic was one thing, and belief something else entirely.

The ambulance crew insisted on putting Dana on a gurney and wheeling her out of the park. She didn’t protest. She wore a stunned, almost uncomprehending look now, as if she could no longer quite grasp what was happening to her. Phyllis’s heart went out to her, and as the siren receded in the distance as it headed toward the hospital, she couldn’t help but think how much it sounded like the wail of a dispossessed soul.