Murder by the Slice (2 page)

The fall bake sale was the first major fund-raiser each year. Dolly had persuaded Carolyn to help with it, and from there it was inevitable that Phyllis, Eve, and Sam would be drawn in, as well. The four of them shared the big house that Phyllis had lived in for years with her late husband, Kenny, and they were good friends.

One thing you could say about Wal-Mart: The place didn’t lack for customers, especially on a sunny Saturday afternoon. A steady stream of people had gone in and out of the store since Phyllis and the others had set up their table and chairs and hung the signs Phyllis had printed on the computer announcing what the bake sale was for. A few of them stopped and bought cookies on their way back to their cars. Phyllis didn’t think they had sold a single cake.

In a way, she could understand why. It cost so much to live these days that most folks really had to watch what they spent. But it was for a good cause, and the prices weren’t really that bad.

A pickup drove by with country music blasting through its open windows. It was followed a few minutes later by another pickup with loud rap music coming from it. Phyllis was always a little amused by the sight of young white men in snap-button shirts and cowboy hats listening to rap, but it was becoming more common.

She saw an attractive woman in her thirties emerge from the store and start toward the bake sale table with a couple of elementary-aged children in tow, a boy and a girl. The woman had shoulder-length light brown hair and wore blue jeans and a T-shirt with LOVING ELEMENTARY printed on it. Phyllis knew that wasn’t a declaration of affection but rather a reference to Oliver Loving Elementary School, one of several elementary schools in the Weatherford School District. It was named for the famous rancher and cattleman who had been the inspiration for one of the characters in
Lonesome
Dove,
either Gus or Call; Phyllis never could remember which. Loving was buried here in Weatherford.

The woman had a somewhat harried look about her— shopping at Wal-Mart with a couple of kids would do that— but she smiled pleasantly as she came up to the table and said, “Hello, Carolyn.”

“Marie, it’s good to see you,” Carolyn said. “How’s Russ?”

“Oh, all right, I guess.”

Carolyn turned to Phyllis and asked, “Do you know Marie Tyler?”

“I don’t believe so,” Phyllis said.

Carolyn performed the introductions, adding, “And that’s Amber and Aaron. Marie and her husband, Russ, go to the same church I do.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Marie,” Phyllis said.

“You, too.” Marie turned back to Carolyn and went on, “You know I’m on the PTO board at the school.”

“No, I didn’t know that, but I’m not surprised.”

“Yeah, I’m the fund-raising chairperson. You know what that means at this time of year.”

“The carnival,” Phyllis and Carolyn and Eve all said at the same time.

Marie nodded. “That’s right.”

Sam leaned back in his chair, propped a foot on the other leg’s somewhat knobby knee, and said with a smile, “Coachin’ at the high school, I never had much to do with the elementary carnivals, except one year when they decided to put on a donkey basketball game in conjunction with it.” He shook his head. “Before that was over, I sure wished I’d never agreed to let those donkeys in my gym.”

“Well, we’re not going to have any donkey basketball games,” Marie said, “although we may have a pony ride. But it’ll be outside on the playground.”

Phyllis had taught junior high history, but she had been involved in several elementary school carnivals when her son, Mike, was that age. She had been a member of what was then called the PTA—the Parent-Teacher Association— at the school he’d attended. These days it was called the Parent-Teacher Organization, but pretty much only the name had changed. The group was still composed mostly of parents and run by a board of half a dozen or so volunteers, almost always women. It was very rare to find a man willing to be on a PTO board. Finding enough volunteer moms to take care of everything was a big enough chore.

The PTO spent most of the year raising funds. The money was spent on things the school needed that weren’t included in the budget, such as copy machines, extra books for the library, and playground equipment. One of the major fund-raisers was the school carnival, usually held sometime during October. In the old days, they had often been tied in with Halloween, but of course such things were forbidden now. They had to be called fall carnivals or harvest festivals or something noncontroversial like that.

The classic school carnival was set up on the playground, with open booths around the edges, which were formed by bales of hay or sketchy wooden frameworks. Each homeroom in the school was responsible for one of the booths, where games designed to appeal to young children were played, such as ring toss, throwing a baseball at stacks of milk bottles, and “fishing” in wading pools filled with sand and little prizes. Other games that required more room were conducted out in the middle of the playground. There were also face-painting and temporary tattoo booths and sometimes dunking booths, pony rides, miniature trains, “bounce houses,” and anything else the PTO board could scrounge up to make a little money. There was no charge to attend the carnival, but to take part in any of the games required a fiftycent ticket at each booth. Kids raced from booth to booth, clutching strings of tickets and the prizes they had already won. Inside the school, in the gymnasium and the cafeteria, other activities would take place, such as entertainment by local musicians and dancers, and there was a snack bar selling cold drinks, hot dogs, nachos, and candy.

And there was usually a bake sale, too, Phyllis suddenly remembered, which was why it came as no surprise to her when Marie Tyler said, “I could really use some help, Carolyn, and from the looks of this, you and your friends have a lot of experience with bake sales.”

“Oh, I don’t know … ,” Carolyn said, as Phyllis was silently pleading,
Don’t get us involved in this. Please,
Carolyn.

Marie leaned closer to the table and lowered her voice to a conspiratorial volume. “It would mean a lot to me if I could find somebody willing to take over the bake sale. There’s just so much involved in putting on one of these carnivals, and to tell you the truth, Shannon’s really been on my ass lately about getting it all done.”

Phyllis tried not to let her lips tighten in disapproval at Marie’s crude language. She didn’t like to be judgmental, and she knew perfectly well that this was a different day and age from the one in which she had grown up. But it still bothered her to hear a lady talk like that, especially in front of little ones.

Carolyn looked over at her and asked, “What do you think, Phyllis?”

I think you’re trying to pass the buck to me and make me
be the bad guy,
Phyllis thought. But she said, “We pretty much have our plates full with the Retired Teachers Association—”

Before she could actually say no, another woman walked up to the table. She was older and heavyset, and the brightly colored dress she wore made her look even bigger. Her hair was dyed a startling shade of black. She said in a booming voice, “Hello, ladies. And you, too, of course, Sam.”

“Howdy, Dolly,” he said with a nod. “Good to see you again.”

“Marie, how are you?” Dolly Williamson said as she put her arms around Marie and gave her a hug. Phyllis wasn’t surprised that Dolly knew who Marie was. The former superintendent was still so plugged in to the school district that she probably knew all the PTO board members from every campus.

“I’m fine, Mrs. Williamson,” Marie said. “I was just trying to recruit Carolyn and her friends to run the bake sale for the carnival at Loving.”

“Why, I think that’s a wonderful idea!” Dolly beamed at the four people behind the table. “I know you’ll all do a fine job.”

“Wait a minute,” Phyllis began, but she had a sinking feeling that it was already too late. Once Dolly got an idea in her head, she was the original unstoppable force.

“After all,” Dolly went on as if she hadn’t heard Phyllis, “you’re doing so well here.”

“Haven’t sold much,” Sam said.

“You will, you will. Everything looks so good.” Dolly

turned back to Marie. “This was lucky for you, my dear. Now you can concentrate on the rest of your job.”

“I know,” Marie said. She gave Phyllis and the others a smile and added, “Thank you guys so much.”

Phyllis felt like pointing out that she wasn’t a “guy,” and neither were Carolyn and Eve. But there was no point in worrying about such things now, she told herself. What mattered was that she had been roped into helping with the carnival bake sale, along with her friends. They might have been able to withstand the pressure from Marie, but once Dolly had walked up and found out what was going on, they were lost.

Dolly gave Marie another hug and waved a pudgy hand at the others, then went into the store. Marie said, “I’ll give you a call, Carolyn, and let you know all the details you’ll need to know. Thanks again.”

Carolyn nodded and smiled weakly. “You’re welcome.”

“This’ll help keep Shannon from giving me so much shi—I mean, trouble.” Marie waved and added, “Bye, guys,” as she led her kids into the parking lot and headed for the family SUV.

Carolyn turned to the others and said, “I’m sorry. I don’t know what happened.”

“Dolly happened,” Sam said. He chuckled. “Sort of like a force of nature, isn’t she? Doesn’t have to stay around very long, but when she rolls through, she brings changes.”

“Well, maybe it’ll be fun,” Carolyn said. “It might be, you never know. And we
do
have experience at putting on bake sales.”

Eve said, “Perhaps you do, dear. I was never really the domestic type.” She smiled over at Sam, with whom she had been flirting ever since he had rented a room from Phyllis and moved into the big old house on the tree-shaded street a few blocks from the courthouse square. “Which isn’t to say that I couldn’t still learn if I needed to. If the right man came along and asked the right question …”

Sam called to a family going into the store, “You folks want to buy some cookies?”

Phyllis leaned over to Carolyn and asked, “Who’s this Shannon that Marie was talking about?”

“Shannon Dunston,” Carolyn replied. “She’s the president of the PTO board at Loving. And from what I hear, she runs things with an iron fist, as the old saying goes.”

“That’s odd. Usually you try to get people to do things by being nice to them, especially when you’re relying on volunteers.”

“That’s not the way Shannon looks at it. Although I shouldn’t say that, since I don’t really know her. I’m just going by what I’ve heard.”

“Well, maybe with our help, she’ll get off Marie’s, uh, posterior.” Phyllis looked at the other three. “Right … guys?”

Chapter 2

“I have an idea,” Carolyn said as she came into the kitchen.

From under the sink, where she was struggling to fit a pipe wrench around a balky pipe, Phyllis said, “That’s nice.”

She could have hired a plumber to fix the leaking pipe. She could have even asked Sam to have a go at it. He had all sorts of tools and spent a lot of time building and repairing furniture on Kenny’s workbench in the big garage, and more than once he had told Phyllis he would be glad to help out with any handyman work that needed to be done around the house.

But she was stubborn enough to feel that
she
ought to at least try to do it. This was her house, after all, and when Kenny was alive he had taken care of it. She owed it to his memory to continue the tradition.

On the other hand, even when she got the wrench on the pipe, she couldn’t budge it. Years of teaching in the public schools had taught her to choose her battles wisely and be selective about which brick walls she picked to bang her head against.

Dressed in jeans and a comfortable shirt, she scooted out from under the sink and placed the big wrench on the floor.

“What on earth are you doing?” Carolyn asked.

“Leaky pipe.” Phyllis pushed back several strands of graying brown hair that had fallen over her eyes, then reached up to grab hold of the kitchen counter and steady herself as she climbed to her feet.

“You should let Sam do that.”

Phyllis didn’t let on that she had come to the same conclusion. Instead she said, “You were saying something about having an idea.”

“Oh, yes. About the bake sale at the carnival.”

Several days had passed since their encounter with Marie Tyler at Wal-Mart. During that time Carolyn had called some of their friends in the Retired Teachers Association, trying to line up people who could be counted on to supply goods for the bake sale. Of course, parents of the students at Loving Elementary would be asked to donate cakes and pies, too, but young people were so busy these days you couldn’t rely on them to provide enough help. Another lesson teachers quickly learned was that if something absolutely had to be done, you’d better be prepared to do it yourself.

“Everyone does a regular bake sale,” Carolyn went on. “The RTA just did the one at Wal-Mart.”

Phyllis didn’t need to be reminded. It had been a long afternoon without many results. They had raised less than a hundred dollars.

“People are tired of them. I think we need to do something different.”

“All right,” Phyllis said. “What can you do different with a bake sale, though? The whole thing’s pretty cut-anddried.”

Carolyn held up both index fingers. “We keep the auction where we get people to donate the fanciest, most elaborately decorated, most unusual cakes they can come up with and then auction them off to the people who attend the carnival.”

An idea occurred to Phyllis. “You know, I saw something in a magazine—”

Her mouth clamped shut. She had almost made a mistake.

She had almost spilled a possible plan to an archrival.

Phyllis and Carolyn were friends, of course. They had known each other for many years and shared this house for several. But that didn’t mean they didn’t also have a healthy sense of competition with each other. Both women had entered numerous baking and cooking contests, including the one at the Peach Festival held in Weatherford every summer, and at times the competition between them had become rather intense. Carolyn had emerged triumphant more often than not, and Phyllis tried to tell herself not to let that bother her, but it was difficult not to, sometimes.