The Gingerbread Bump-Off (26 page)

“I don’t know. Sophia said it was a business meeting, though.”

“Then Joe’s liable to be part of it.”

Phyllis nodded. “Yes. I thought about that. I was hoping we could talk to Margaret without him being around.”

“Yeah, it’s gonna be hard to ask her if he might be a murderer with him standin’ right there.”

Phyllis lifted a finger to her lips to shush him. She heard footsteps approaching the other side of the folding doors across the hallway.

Those doors opened up, and the bulky figure of Joe Henning appeared. He stopped where he was as he looked across the hall into the living room and saw Phyllis and Sam sitting there. His hesitation was only momentary, though, before he smiled at them and nodded a greeting. Then he stepped aside and held out a hand to usher the other visitor to the front door.

Laura Kearns looked just as surprised as Henning when she stepped into the hall and saw Phyllis and Sam.

She smiled, too, though, and said, “Why, hello, Mrs. Newsom. I didn’t expect to run into you here.”

“I didn’t expect to see you, either, Laura.” Phyllis understood now why the car outside in the driveway had looked familiar to her. She had seen it a couple of times in the parking lot of the shopping center when she visited Georgia’s office. Obviously it was Laura’s car.

Phyllis stood up and went on, “I guess you must be delivering some of the paperwork you and Georgia took care of for Mrs. Henning.”

“It’s better than that,” Laura said. “It’s just . . . it’s the most wonderful thing in the world.”

From inside the parlor, Margaret Henning called, “Phyllis, is that you? Come in, dear, come in.”

Laura started to duck toward the front door. “I really have to be going—”

“Wait, Laura,” Margaret said. “Why don’t you come back in? I’m sure Phyllis will be interested in hearing the good news, since she and Georgia were friends. She’ll be glad to know that Georgia’s business is going to be in such good hands.”

“Well . . . all right,” Laura said, although she looked like she would have just as soon been somewhere else.

The four of them went into the parlor, where Margaret Henning sat on the sofa with a different Christmas quilt spread over her legs this time. Margaret smiled up at Sam and said, “Hello, Mr. Fletcher. It’s good to see you again, too.”

“Likewise, ma’am,” Sam said as he took the hand she held up to him and squeezed it gently in both of his.

“What’s this about Georgia’s business?” Phyllis asked.

“Laura’s going to be taking it over,” Margaret said. “She’s the absolute best choice, don’t you think? She worked with Georgia for several years, she knows all the clients, and she can keep things going almost the same as they were before.” The old woman sighed. “Although no one can really replace Georgia, of course.”

“I’d never try to,” Laura said. “I just want to do my best to continue all the good work she did.”

Anger threatened to boil up inside Phyllis. She was convinced that this young woman had played a large part in Georgia’s death, and now it looked like she was going to profit from it even more than Phyllis had thought.

“I thought you told me you couldn’t afford to buy the business,” Phyllis said to Laura.

“I couldn’t . . . until Mrs. Henning made the wonderfully generous offer to loan me the money.”

“It’s a business decision, dear,” Margaret said. “Purely a business decision.”

Laura smiled down at her. “You can say that all you want, but I still think it’s incredibly kind of you.” She looked at Joe. “And kind of you, too, Mr. Henning.”

As if explaining to Phyllis and Sam, Joe said, “Aunt Margaret was upset that she was going to have to find somebody else to take care of her bookkeeping and taxes. She said she didn’t like starting over on anything at her age. So all I did was say that maybe we could figure out away for Mrs. Kearns here to keep handling things.”

“And that made perfect sense to me,” Margaret said. “So now it’s all arranged. Georgia’s sister has agreed to sell the business to Laura, and I’ll handle the financing. Or rather, Joe will. He’s so good at such things.”

“I just try to help out where I can, Aunt Margaret.”

Phyllis glanced at Sam. She could tell by the grim set of his mouth that he wasn’t happy about this development, either. Phyllis had to take a deep breath to force down the outrage she felt and keep a smile on her face. The whole thing fit together perfectly. Laura was getting the business after all, as payment for the help she and her husband had given Joe Henning in getting rid of Georgia before she could tell anyone what he’d been doing.

But it would be only partial payment, Phyllis thought. Chances were, Laura would continue blackmailing Henning as long as she could get away with it.

“Now, Phyllis, what was it that you and Mr. Fletcher wanted?” Margaret asked, breaking into Phyllis’s angry musings.

“Oh, we were just out running some errands, and I suggested that we stop to wish you a Merry Christmas,” Phyllis said. With Laura and Joe here, she couldn’t very well ask some of the questions she’d intended to ask.

Anyway, she had learned enough now that surely Detective Latimer would see that her new theory was much stronger as far as motive went than the one involving Chris Cochran, and it didn’t have nearly as many holes in it, either. Joe Henning and Laura and Rusty Kearns wouldn’t get away with what they had done, Phyllis vowed to herself. She would keep pushing and prodding until the truth came out.

But at this point, that was probably going to have to wait until after Eve’s shower and Christmas.

Laura wasn’t going anywhere, though. She owned a business now. And Joe Henning couldn’t afford to leave town. He had to stay here so he could continue siphoning money away from his great-aunt’s wealth.

“Why, thank you,” Margaret said. “Merry Christmas to you, too, dear, and you, Mr. Fletcher.”

“Thanks, ma’am,” Sam said. “I hope Santa’s good to you this year.”

Margaret laughed almost like a little girl. “Oh, I’m sure he will be. I’ve been good all year.”

Phyllis could think of three people who hadn’t been, she told herself as somehow she managed to keep smiling at everyone in the room. All Joe, Laura, and Rusty had coming in their stockings were lumps of coal.

And maybe three sets of handcuffs, Phyllis added grimly.

Chapter 25

“ W
ell, that was awkward,” Sam said as he drove away from the Henning house a few minutes later. “I never have been real good at makin’ small talk with killers.”

“Neither have I,” Phyllis said. “I’m worried about Margaret, Sam. What if Joe decides that it would be a lot quicker and easier just to get rid of her and inherit all her money.”

“Well, for one thing, we don’t know that he’d inherit everything,” Sam pointed out. “We haven’t seen the old lady’s will. For all we know, she could leave everything she owns to some foundation for homeless cats or some such.”

Phyllis nodded. “That’s true. And even if Joe
does
inherit everything under the terms of the will, he’s smart enough to know that if anything happened to Margaret, he would be the primary suspect.”

“Unless he made it look like an accident or natural causes.”

That was the problem, Phyllis thought. There was no way of knowing what Joe Henning was capable of. Was he smart enough, cunning enough, to come up with a way of killing his great-aunt without making it look like murder?

“Let’s go to the police station, Sam,” she said. “I want to talk to Detective Latimer now.”

“I don’t blame you,” he said as he sent the pickup down a residential street, cutting through to South Main without having to deal with the traffic around Weatherford’s courthouse square.

Another side street took them to Santa Fe Drive, where the police station was located. Phyllis had been here more times in the past couple of years than she had ever thought she would be. Sam found a parking place, and they went inside to the reception area.

“I need to speak to Detective Latimer if he’s here,” Phyllis told the uniformed officer behind the counter. She had never seen him before.

“What’s your name, ma’am?”

“Phyllis Newsom.”

Something in the way the young officer’s eyes lit up told her that he had heard of her, even though she didn’t know him. “Just a minute,” he told her as he picked up a phone and pushed one of the buttons on its base. “I’ll see if he’s available. Why don’t you and the gentleman have a seat?”

Phyllis nodded and went with Sam over to one of the chrome-and-plastic chairs along the wall, which were only borderline comfortable. She heard the officer talking in low tones into the phone but couldn’t make out the words. When he hung up, he looked over at Phyllis and Sam and said, “Detective Latimer will be out in a few minutes.”

“Thank you,” Phyllis said.

The officer turned back to the computer on the counter and hit a few keys on the keyboard, but his eyes kept straying over to Phyllis and Sam. He smiled, clearly a little embarrassed that she had caught him looking at her. A few more moments went by; then the young man gave in to his obvious curiosity and said, “Excuse me, ma’am, but . . . uh . . . you
are
the lady who . . . well, who solved those other murders, aren’t you?”

“I helped the police figure out a few things,” Phyllis acknowledged. She didn’t believe in false modesty, but she didn’t think it would be a good idea for her to start bragging about the murders she had solved, especially when she was sitting in the police station at the moment.

The young officer grinned. “That’s not the way I heard it. I heard you’ve caught more than one killer.”

“I just try to get to the truth,” Phyllis said.

“Yeah, well, I wouldn’t want to have you after me if I’d committed a crime, especially if I’d killed somebody.”

“I’m sure a nice young man like you would never do anything like that,” Phyllis told him. At the same time, Warren Latimer pushed through a swinging door and stepped into the lobby.

“Do anything like what?” he asked. “Garvey?”

“Uh . . . murder somebody, Detective.”

“I should hope not,” Latimer said. He walked over to Phyllis and Sam, both of whom stood up. “What can I do for you, Mrs. Newsom?”

“I was hoping I could talk to you about the Georgia Hallerbee case,” Phyllis said.

Latimer’s face hardened. “That’s what I was afraid you’d say. That’s an active, ongoing investigation, Mrs. Newsom. I’m afraid I can’t discuss it with you.”

“I wouldn’t be here bothering you if I didn’t think I’d found out something important, Detective. You wanted me to cooperate and turn over any information I had to you, didn’t you?”

“That’s what I said,” Latimer replied with a curt nod.

“Well, then, I think this is important.” Phyllis took a deep breath. “I believe I was wrong about what we discussed after Georgia’s funeral.”

Latimer was already frowning. The creases in his forehead deepened as his bushy brows drew down even more. He didn’t say anything for a moment as he considered what Phyllis had just told him.

Then he nodded and said, “Come on back to my office, both of you.”

He led them down a hallway to a large office with several desks in it. Phyllis saw Isabel Largo working at one of them. The woman looked up and gave her a nod and a faint smile. Phyllis wondered if Detective Largo was glad that she wasn’t handling the Hallerbee case.

Latimer motioned Phyllis and Sam into chairs in front of his desk. “All right, what’s all this about?” he asked.

Phyllis didn’t answer. Instead she asked a question of her own. “Have you questioned Chris Cochran?”

Latimer frowned. “I can’t tell you that.”

“But you haven’t arrested him and charged him with murder. You would have announced that if you had.”

“Mrs. Newsom, I don’t want to be rude,” Latimer said with a sigh. “But it’s two days until Christmas. I have a family, and things I’d like to do. Please, if you have any new information, just tell me.”

Phyllis reined in her temper. She could tell that Sam was angry at Latimer because of the detective’s tone, as well.

“I think that Joe Henning killed Georgia,” she said.

“That’s not information. That’s an opinion. And an opinion without any basis in fact, because Henning wasn’t even in Weatherford when Ms. Hallerbee was attacked.”

“Based on the fact that he called AAA about a flat tire?”

Latimer spread his hands. “Well, yeah.”

“You can call AAA from anywhere and say that you’re somewhere you’re really not.”

“I talked to the dispatcher who handled the call and the driver who went out to help Henning.”

“I never said he didn’t make the call,” Phyllis pointed out, “and what if the driver lied?”

“Why would he do that?”

“Because he and his wife were blackmailing Joe Henning and had to help him kill Georgia in order to protect him, so he could keep stealing money and profit for all of them.”

Latimer leaned forward, interest finally sparking in his eyes. “What? This is the first I’ve heard about any blackmail.”

Phyllis took a deep breath. “You understand, this is a theory. I don’t have any way of proving any of it. But I’m sure you can find the proof, Detective, if you know where to look.”

“Why don’t you tell me?” Latimer suggested.

Phyllis did, launching into the idea she had worked out. Latimer clasped his hands together on the desk and listened intently. Phyllis detailed everything, right up to and including the visit she and Sam had paid to the Henning house that morning, where they had seen the fruits of the plot hatched by Joe Henning and the Kearnses.

“I’m sure Joe put the idea of loaning Laura the money to buy the business into his great-aunt’s head,” she concluded. “Maybe he came up with it himself, but I have a feeling Laura probably demanded that he do it. The loan is just one more part of Joe’s payoff to his blackmailers.”