The Pumpkin Muffin Murder (28 page)

“If she doesn’t come down in a little while, I think I’ll go up and check on her,” she said.

“You’re worried about her mental state, too?” Carolyn asked.

“That’s right.”

“Let me do it. I don’t mind disturbing her to make sure she’s all right.”

“Let’s give it a little while longer,” Phyllis suggested. “I don’t want Dana to think that we don’t trust her.”

“Well . . . all right. But I’m going to worry about her.”

“So am I,” Phyllis said.

As it turned out, though, they didn’t have to worry for very long, because Dana came downstairs about twenty minutes later, barefoot but wrapped up in the thick robe Phyllis had loaned her. Her hair was a little tousled from being damp when she lay down for her nap, but her color was better and she looked more rested. Phyllis was glad to see that.

“The shower helped, didn’t it?” she asked.

“Yes, it did,” Dana said. She ran her hand over the fleece robe. “So did this. It’s so warm and comfortable, I couldn’t help but go to sleep. Thank you, Phyllis.”

“We’re just trying to help.” Phyllis paused. “Unfortunately, that means I need to ask you some more questions.”

Dana’s smile slipped a little. “Of course. Just give me those suitcases. I’ll go upstairs and get dressed and be back down in a few minutes.”

Sam had come out of the kitchen, trailed by Bobby. He reached for the suitcases and said, “Let me get those for you. Men are beasts of burden by nature, I reckon.”

He carried the suitcases upstairs with Dana following him. Phyllis turned to Bobby and asked, “Are you and Sam still working on the bookshelves?”

“Yeah. He says we’ll have ’em ready in a few more days.”

“I’m sure you will.”

“Can I stay here when Mama and Daddy come back from Cal’fornia?”

The question took Phyllis by surprise. “Don’t you want to go home and sleep in your own bed and be with your parents again?”

“No, I like it better here.”

Eve laughed. “You’re doing your job, Phyllis. You’ve thoroughly spoiled him.”

Phyllis didn’t think she had been
that
lax with Bobby. But maybe she had. She said to him, “You know you don’t really want to stay here. You’d miss your parents too much. And you’ll enjoy being back in your own room and having all your own things around you again.”

Bobby thought it over and then shrugged. “Yeah, I guess so. But it sure has been fun stayin’ here.”

Phyllis smiled at him. “It’s been fun having you here, too.”

“Can I have a snack?”

“Maybe a little one.”

Bobby hustled off to the kitchen. Phyllis would have followed him, but Sam came back down the stairs just then.

“Miz Powell was glad to have some of her stuff back,” he reported. “She said to thank the two of you again.”

“She may not be so grateful when she hears what we found going on at her house,” Carolyn said.

Sam frowned, but Carolyn didn’t offer any explanations and neither did Phyllis. They would go over the whole thing when Dana came back downstairs.

She did so about ten minutes later, dressed in a pair of brown slacks and a cream-colored blouse. Her hair was brushed and she had put on a little makeup. She looked better than Phyllis had seen her since before all this began.

Dana went into the living room with Phyllis and Carolyn, and as they all sat down, she said, “All right. Ask me anything you want to. I’ll tell you the truth, Phyllis. Clearing my name is the only way to put all this behind me.”

Phyllis began, “Well, before I ask you anything, I should tell you that someone was at your house when Carolyn and I got there. Detective Largo and some other officers were carrying out another search.”

“What?” Dana’s eyes widened and then began to blaze with anger. “She had no right to do that!”

“She said she had a search warrant. I’m sure Ms. Yorke could get a copy of it if you’d like.”

“What were they after?”

“Well, I don’t know, specifically, but I have a feeling they took some of the candy from the bowls scattered around the house.”

“Because they think that’s how I killed Logan,” Dana said. “By switching his regular peppermints for sugar-free ones. It’s crazy! Who would even think about murdering a person like that?”

“Someone did,” Phyllis pointed out. “The medical examiner was certain that Logan’s low blood sugar brought on his heart attack. Did you know about all his medical problems, Dana?”

“Of course I did,” she replied with a shrug. “I’m his wife.” She drew in a deep breath. “I
was
his wife.”

“Did anyone else know? Every time I saw Logan, he looked and acted like he was as healthy as a horse.”

“That’s what he wanted everyone to think. It was all part of his image. You couldn’t really call it macho. But he liked for people to think he was a hard-driving businessman. He said that gave clients more confidence in him. And he tried to live the life, too, working long hours, skipping meals. . . . That was why he had to have the peppermints to keep him going.”

“So if you knew all that, you would have known that switching them out for sugar-free ones might hurt his health,” Phyllis pointed out.

“I suppose so. I never really thought about it, though, because I didn’t want to hurt him.” Dana swallowed hard. “Even when I began to suspect he was cheating on me, I didn’t want to hurt him. I just wanted him to stop. I . . . I would have forgiven him. I would have gone on.”

Phyllis didn’t doubt that. In nearly every relationship, there were moments when a person had to just forgive something and go on, in order to save what they had.

Seeing the shine of tears in Dana’s eyes, Phyllis waited a moment for her to compose herself. Then she said gently, “So you’re sure no one else knew about Logan’s medical condition?”

“You mean other than his doctor, and a few people who work in the doctor’s office?” Dana shook her head. “I wouldn’t think so. Logan wouldn’t have told anyone. I’m certain of that.”

“He must have,” Carolyn blurted out. “Otherwise how did the real killer know what to do?”

Phyllis had already thought of the same thing. Dana’s answers were just pointing even more suspicion right at her.

“I don’t know what to tell you,” Dana said miserably. “It’s the truth.”

There was another answer somewhere, Phyllis thought, another way of looking at things so that they made sense. It was just that she couldn’t see it yet.

She switched tacks by saying, “What about Logan’s business? Did he confide in you about it?”

“Oh, to a certain extent. I didn’t know all the details about every deal he was working on, of course. I mean, I have my own job, and that takes up a lot of time.” Dana wiped at a tear that had trickled out of her right eye. “I hope I can get back to my class soon. I . . . I miss the kids. I want to know how they’re doing. We have benchmark tests coming up, and I need to be there to help them.”

Phyllis and Carolyn both nodded in understanding. As stressful as the job of teaching could be, as maddening as the students sometimes were, the good teachers always felt a bond with them. If not, what was the point of getting into that line of work to start with?

“Maybe you will be,” Phyllis said. “Maybe some new information will come to light.”

Dana shook her head. “I don’t know what it would be.”

“What about something connected with that new mall on the west side of town?”

“You know about that?”

“Why wouldn’t we?” Phyllis countered.

“Well, Logan was trying to keep it as quiet as he could until everything was set. He swore me to secrecy every time he mentioned it. He was afraid that someone would—I don’t know—horn in on it.”

Like Ben Loomis
, Phyllis thought.

“And he was afraid it would all fall through because of the zoning problem,” Dana continued.

“What zoning problem?”

“The property isn’t zoned for a mall. The zoning will have to be changed, and not all the members of the Planning and Zoning Commission are in favor of it.” Dana gave a hollow laugh. “Logan said it was going to be an expensive proposition to change their minds, but that it would be worth it in the long run.”

Phyllis leaned back in the chair where she was sitting. “You mean that he hinted he was going to
bribe
them?”

“I shouldn’t have said that,” Dana replied quickly. “I don’t know that’s what he meant. But I’d heard him say things before . . . about other projects . . . about greasing the wheels of the process, and I just assumed that was what he meant.”

Phyllis thought that was very likely, and if it was true, then it opened up the proverbial new can of worms. If Logan had been involved in crooked land deals in the past, and was mixed up in a gigantic one now, then surely a motive for murder could be buried in that morass of corruption.

“You have to tell Juliette Yorke all about this,” Phyllis said. “This could establish reasonable doubt by itself.”

“And ruin Logan’s reputation as an honest businessman,” Dana said. She shook her head. “No. I shouldn’t have even said anything to you. It’s bad enough that he’s dead, and, yes, I was angry with him before he died, but I love him, and I won’t see his name dragged through the mud.”

Carolyn said, “It’s too late for that, Dana. It’s your life at stake, and that’s worth more than Logan’s reputation.”

“That’s my choice to make; no one else’s.” Phyllis heard the rock-hard stubbornness in Dana’s voice.

“There’s no point in arguing about this now,” she said. “Anyway, it’s just a starting point. We still don’t know how anyone involved in the mall deal could have known about Logan’s illness, if he was as secretive about it as you say.”

“He was,” Dana insisted.

“We’ll mull it all over until after Thanksgiving. Then we’ll sit down with Juliette and have a long talk about strategy.”

“You mean I will,” Dana said. “I don’t want to seem ungrateful after everything you and Carolyn have done for me, Phyllis, but these are my decisions to make, not yours.”

Phyllis opened her mouth to argue, then realized that Dana was right. Helping out was one thing; meddling was something else entirely.

“All right,” she said. “To change the subject, do you have any special traditional dishes you like to make for Thanksgiving? We’d be perfectly happy to let you have some time in the kitchen as we’re getting ready for Thursday, wouldn’t we, Carolyn?”

“Of course,” Carolyn said.

Dana smiled and shook her head. “I’m afraid that I’m not much of a cook. Most years when Logan and I weren’t going out of town to relatives for the holiday, I’d buy one of those prepared Thanksgiving dinners from one of the grocery stores and pick it up the day before. That was better than what either of us could make.”

Phyllis thought that was a shame, but she reminded herself that not everyone enjoyed cooking as much as she did. She said, “That’s fine. We’ll be fixing plenty of food, and Dolly and the guests who come with her will be bringing covered dishes, too. One thing I can promise you: No one around here will go hungry on Thanksgiving!”

N
othing else was said about Logan’s death or the case against Dana that day. In the evening, Phyllis and Carolyn drove out to the elementary school, where the meeting was being held to discuss the delivery of the canned goods and Thanksgiving dinners on Thursday morning.

Jenna Grantham walked up to them right after they came into the school cafeteria and greeted them with a smile. “Thanks so much for inviting me to spend Thanksgiving at your house, Mrs. Newsom,” she said. “It’ll be almost like going home for the holiday.”

This was the first that Phyllis had heard of her coming for Thanksgiving, but she quickly made the assumption that Jenna was one of the guests Dolly Williamson had rounded up. She smiled and said, “I take it Dolly talked to you?”

“That’s right. It’s really a generous gesture on your part to have us over for dinner.”

Taryn Marshall and Kendra Neville saw them talking and came over as well, and Phyllis wasn’t surprised when both of them expressed their gratitude as well.

“We would have been alone on Thanksgiving if not for you,” Taryn said.

“And that would have been really depressing,” Kendra added.

“We’ll be glad to have you,” Phyllis assured them. “Do you know who else is coming besides Dolly?”

“No, but there she is,” Jenna replied, nodding across the room. “You can ask her.”

Phyllis nodded and started to turn away, but Kendra stopped her by asking, “Is it true that Dana is staying with you? We heard some talk about that after school today.”

“Yes, it’s true,” Phyllis confirmed.

“How’s she doing?” Jenna wanted to know. “I’m really looking forward to seeing her again on Thursday.”

“So am I,” Taryn said.

Phyllis said, “She’s doing as well as can be expected, I suppose.” She didn’t want to go into detail about the discussions she’d had with Dana. “I’m sure she’ll be glad to see the three of you, too.”