The Pumpkin Muffin Murder (29 page)

Phyllis started across the room toward Dolly Williamson, but before she could reach the former school superintendent, Barbara Loomis intercepted her. A stocky, red-haired man with a broad, friendly face was with her.

“Mrs. Newsom, it’s good to see you again,” Barbara said. “This is my husband, Ben.”

Phyllis shook hands with Ben Loomis, who grinned and said, “Yeah, sure, I remember you. We talked on the phone the other day. Nice to meet you, Mrs. Newsom. Still thinking about investing in some real estate?”

Barbara slapped him lightly on the shoulder. “This is a volunteer meeting, Ben!” she scolded him with a smile. “No talking business.”

“Okay, okay,” he said as he held up his hands in surrender. “But you gimme a call if you’re interested, Mrs. Newsom, okay?”

“Of course,” Phyllis said, then added, “I’m pretty cautious by nature, though. I might want to wait until all the zoning problems have been ironed out.”

She caught the glint of surprise in Ben Loomis’s eyes. He had to be wondering where she had heard about those potential problems. But he controlled the reaction almost instantly and said, “Oh, that’s nothing to worry about. It’ll all get straightened out.”

So he knew about the problems, too. Had he known that Logan planned to make them go away with bribes? Had he maybe even been involved in the whole situation, which was rife with the potential for double-crosses, blackmail, and all sorts of other graft and corruption? It was a web of chicanery built for murder, as far as Phyllis was concerned.

She didn’t get to talk to Dolly before the meeting was called to order. Dolly, in fact, was chairing it, which came as no surprise to Phyllis. With the efficiency and take-charge attitude she had learned over decades of running a school district, Dolly had the volunteers assigned to their respective tasks and clear on what they were supposed to do in less than an hour. The canned goods collected at the festival were being stored in the fellowship hall of one of the local churches. Everyone would show up there bright and early on Thanksgiving Day, pick up the boxes they were supposed to deliver, and set out with the list of addresses they were given at the meeting tonight.

Afterward, Phyllis finally managed to talk to Dolly, who, with her tightly curled iron gray hair and weathered face, looked her age but didn’t act it.

“I have eight people lined up for Thursday, Phyllis,” Dolly said, “not counting myself. Everyone else I talked to already had plans.”

“That’s fine,” Phyllis assured her. “With everyone bringing something, we should have plenty of food.”

“Well, a couple of the ones I invited are men, so I’m sure they’ll have to
buy
something to bring,” Dolly said with a note of scorn in her voice. She came from a generation where men did little if any of the cooking, so she didn’t have a very high opinion of their culinary skills, even the younger ones.

“That’s fine,” Phyllis said.

Dolly lowered her voice from its usual booming tone. “How’s poor Dana doing?”

“As well as can be expected, I suppose. She wants to help out on Thursday, but she didn’t think it would be a good idea to come to this meeting tonight. Not so soon after . . . well, she was just released from custody this morning, after all.”

Dolly nodded. “She can help you and Carolyn, if she’d like.”

Something else occurred to Phyllis. “Dolly, I know this hadn’t even come up when we started making plans for Thanksgiving, but do the people who are coming know that Dana will be there?”

“Why should that matter?” Dolly asked with a frown.

“Well, she
has
been accused of murder. I don’t want anyone to be uncomfortable. I’m not worried about Jenna and Kendra and Taryn—they’re all Dana’s friends and think she’s innocent—but I don’t know about some of the others.”

“I’ll speak to them,” Dolly said, and her tone made it clear that anyone who didn’t want to come to Phyllis’s house simply because Dana was going to be there would face her wrath.

“I don’t want to cause a problem for anyone. . . .”

Dolly patted her on the arm. “You let me worry about that. Solving problems is my business.”

Phyllis didn’t doubt for a second that Dolly would take care of it.

With the meeting over, the gathering had begun to break up. Some people had left already, and others were walking past the office and out the front door of the school. Carolyn was still talking to several of her old friends, though, so Phyllis stepped around a corner and down a hall to the faculty restrooms.

As she approached them, she saw Ben Loomis standing in the hall, probably waiting for Barbara. He hadn’t noticed her yet, and Phyllis was struck by how angry he looked. But then he saw her coming and that ready grin reappeared on his face.

“I meant what I said about giving me a call,” he said as she went past him.

“I’ll do that,” Phyllis said, even though she knew she probably never would. She wondered what Loomis was upset about. He hadn’t gotten that grin in place in time to keep her from seeing how furious he was.

When she stepped into the restroom, she found Barbara standing in front of the sinks, dabbing at her eyes with a tissue. Barbara said, “Oh,” and stuffed the tissue back in her purse. She summoned up a smile.

“I saw Ben waiting for you outside,” Phyllis said.

“Did he . . . say anything?”

“Not really.”

Relief appeared in Barbara’s eyes. She forced a laugh. “I thought he might have told you that we were fighting and that I’d run off in here to cry.”

“He didn’t say a word about it,” Phyllis assured her, “and it’s none of my business.”

“But there’s no use denying it. I mean, you came in and found me crying, right?”

“All married couples argue. Kenny and I had some doozies.” That was true. It didn’t mean they loved each other any less, but they had still disagreed passionately on some subjects.

“I suppose.”

“Would you like to talk about it?”

“No, but thank you. I need to get going.” Barbara paused as she started to leave the restroom, though. “Is Dana eating well? It’s very important that she take care of her health, you know.”

“She ate a good lunch and supper both,” Phyllis said. “In fact, she surprised me a little with her appetite.”

“Well, she knows what she has to do. But I’m glad she’s not alone. Someone in her condition doesn’t need to be alone.”

Phyllis wondered what Barbara meant by that, and she would have asked if Ben hadn’t chosen that moment to call from outside, “Barbara? You all right in there?”

“Oh, good grief,” Barbara muttered. She raised her voice. “I’m fine. Hang on.” Then she said to Phyllis, “I’ve got to go,” and hurried out before Phyllis could ask her anything else.

“Well,” Phyllis said into the silence that filled the restroom, “that was odd.”

When she came out into the hall a few minutes later, Barbara and Ben Loomis were gone. Carolyn was there, though. “I thought you might have stepped into the restroom,” she said. “Are you ready to go?”

“Yes, I suppose.” As they left the building and started through the parking lot, Phyllis went on, “How well do you know the Loomises?”

“Barbara and Ben? I know her fairly well. She started teaching here two or three years before I retired. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen Ben except on social occasions with Barbara. Why do you ask?”

“I was just wondering if there was any trouble between them.” Quickly, Phyllis told her friend about what she had seen outside and inside the restroom, and what Barbara had said.

For a moment, Carolyn didn’t say anything, but when they were both in the car, she said, “This is veering dangously close to gossip—and you know how I feel about gossip.”

Phyllis nodded.

“But there was a rumor that Barbara wasn’t necessarily a hundred percent faithful to Ben,” Carolyn went on. “I don’t know the truth of it myself, and I hate to repeat such things, but that’s what I heard.”

“I wonder . . . ,” Phyllis said.

“Wonder what?” Carolyn asked. Then she suddenly looked shocked. “Barbara and Logan? No! Not possible. Barbara and Dana are friends.”

“People have had affairs with the spouses of their friends before now,” Phyllis pointed out.

“Yes, I suppose so, but I just . . . Well, that would be a terrible thing to do!”

“You’ll get no argument from me about that,” Phyllis said, “but think about it. Since they both taught at the same school, Barbara would know Dana’s schedule. She would know when Dana was going to be busy, so that she and Logan could grab a few minutes together.”

“That’s true,” Carolyn admitted grudgingly. “But an affair with Logan is an awful lot to infer from the fact that Ben looked angry and Barbara was crying.”

“You’re right,” Phyllis said. “Whatever was going on between them tonight, it probably has nothing to do with what happened to Logan.”

“I should hope not. If you’re going to suspect Barbara of cheating with Logan because she knew Dana’s schedule, you might as well suspect every teacher in the school!”

“That’s right,” Phyllis said. “I might as well.”

“And remember, he was in bad health. Good grief, just how much stamina do you think he had?”

“Not enough, obviously.” Carolyn’s comment about Logan’s bad health had dashed the thoughts that were starting to play around in Phyllis’s mind. Dana had insisted that Logan kept his medical condition a secret, and it didn’t make sense that he would have told a mistress about it. That would have ruined his image as a dashing, rakish businessman, something that clearly he had carefully cultivated. As far as Phyllis could see, Dana was still the only suspect who had the right combination of motive, opportunity, and the knowledge required to make this particular murder method work.

But that didn’t mean she was going to give up trying to get to the bottom of this mystery. In fact, she already had an idea about where to start the next morning.

A
fter cleaning up the breakfast dishes, Phyllis fetched the little notebook from her purse and opened it to the page where she had written down the phone number from the sign on the property where the new mall was to be located. It rang a couple of times; then a woman’s voice answered and said, “Planning and Zoning Commission.”

“Yes, I have some questions about a proposed zoning change on some property.”

“What parcel and lot numbers?”

Phyllis consulted the notes she had made the day before and read off what she hoped were the right numbers. She heard the faint sound of computer keys clicking, followed by a moment of silence. Then the woman who’d answered the phone said, “The vote on that change is scheduled for next week.”

“What else can you tell me about it?” Phyllis asked.

“Nothing, really. It’s a fairly standard request for a zoning change upgrading the property from standard commercial to a higher level.”

“Who filed the request?”

“That would be—let me see—NorCenTex Development.”

Phyllis was about to ask something else when a man’s voice suddenly said, “Who is this? Can I help you?” Obviously he had taken the phone away from the woman Phyllis had been talking to, and she didn’t think it was coincidental that it had happened right after the woman mentioned NorCenTex Development.

“I was just asking about a proposed zoning change.”

“Those are matters of public record.”

“Yes, I know. That’s why I was asking.”

“We can’t really help you unless you file an open-records request with the state.”

“Why would I want to do that?” Phyllis asked.

“You’re not a journalist?”

“No, I’m just a concerned citizen.”

“You’ll still have to file an open-records request. Sorry.”

The man didn’t sound sorry at all, though. And the sharp click the phone made in Phyllis’s ear as he hung up didn’t sound too apologetic, either. She frowned at the phone in consternation and said, “Well.”

It certainly seemed that something shady might be going on with that zoning change. Why else would the man have been so defensive?

Juliette Yorke was certainly going to have some ammunition to work with once she started putting together Dana’s defense after the holiday, Phyllis thought as she replaced the phone on its base.

With that call out of the way, Phyllis turned her attention to the preparations for Thanksgiving Day. She and Carolyn had most of the ingredients on hand for the dishes they were going to prepare, but Phyllis still needed to pick up a few things, and there was one major item still missing: a second turkey. With this being Tuesday, the pickings at the store might already be getting slim, she thought. She couldn’t afford to wait any longer. It was already too late to defrost one, so she would have to get a turkey that was just refrigerated, not frozen.

As usual, Sam was happy to watch Bobby, and Bobby was happy to hang around with his new best friend, Sam. Eve had gone somewhere—lately Eve had been gone more than usual, Phyllis thought—but Carolyn was willing to venture out to Wal-Mart with Phyllis.