Wedding Cake Killer (19 page)

Chapter 30

E
ven t
hough Phyllis had a pretty good idea, in those brief few seconds before Sullivan spoke, of what the district attorney was going to say, his words still came as a shock to her. She stood there in silence while Carolyn exclaimed, “Under arrest!” loudly enough to make everyone in the hallway stop talking and turn to look at them.

Juliette moved in front of Phyllis, shielding her from Sullivan and the deputies, and asked sharply, “What are the charges?”

“Obstruction of justice and interfering with an investigation, to start with,” Sullivan said. “More charges may be forthcoming once we’ve looked further into the matter.”

“Into what matter?”

Sullivan turned his narrow-eyed gaze on her. “Are you representing Mrs. Newsom, counselor?”

Juliette looked back at Phyllis, who gave her a curt nod. Phyllis didn’t really trust herself to speak right now, so she was very glad Juliette was here.

“I am,” Juliette told Sullivan.

“Then I suggest when you have a chance to talk to your client again, you ask her what she’s been doing to get herself arrested.” Sullivan motioned to the deputies. “Take her into custody.”

Both men looked like they would rather be anywhere else in the world right now, but they had no choice except to do as the district attorney ordered them. One of them, a beefy young man who looked vaguely familiar, said, “I’m sorry, ma’am, but you’ll have to come along with us.”

“Chuck Murphy?” Phyllis asked. The name had popped into her head.

The deputy winced. “Yes, ma’am.”

“You were in my class, what, fifteen years ago?”

“Seventeen, ma’am.”

“That’s enough,” Sullivan said. “This isn’t a junior high reunion. Arrest her.”

“We’re trying to, . . . sir,” Chuck said.

“This is crazy,” Sam said. “Phyllis hasn’t broken any laws.”

Sullivan sniffed in disdain. “That’ll be up to a judge and jury to decide.”

Eve said, “And it’ll be up to the public to decide whether you’re a decent district attorney, dear, or just a bully who likes to terrorize innocent old ladies.”

Sullivan’s face darkened. “You can’t—”

“A citizen still has a right to express an opinion,” Juliette interrupted him. She nodded toward the reporters who stood nearby, writing furiously in their notebooks. “And the public has a right to know what their elected officials are doing.”

“You must’ve wanted a spectacle, mister,” Sam said in a hard voice. “Well, you’ve got one.”

“Get her out of here,” Sullivan snapped at Chuck Murphy and the other deputy.

From somewhere, Phyllis mustered up the strength to put a smile on her face as she told the deputies, loud enough for the reporters to hear every word, “Don’t worry, gentlemen. I won’t put up a fight.”

Sam let out a bray of laughter. Most of the other people looking on in the hallway joined in. That made Sullivan flush even more. He turned on his heel and stalked away.

“Go with the deputies, Mrs. Newsom,” Juliette said. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

“Go ahead now, dear,” Eve told her. “We’re done here, aren’t we?”

Juliette nodded. “I’ll be at the jail before you are,” she promised Phyllis.

“And we’ll be right behind her,” Carolyn added. “We’ll have you bailed out in no time.”

Phyllis hoped that was the case. She had no desire to spend any more time behind bars than necessary.

Chuck gestured toward the stairs. “If you’ll come with us . . . or we can use the elevator . . .”

“The stairs are fine,” Phyllis said. “Aren’t you supposed to handcuff me?”

Chuck winced again. “I think we can dispense with that.” He looked at the other deputy. “Don’t you agree, Carl?”

Carl shrugged his acceptance of the decision.

“Are you sure?” Phyllis asked. “I wouldn’t want you to get in trouble.”

“You didn’t seem to feel that way when you were sending me to the principal’s office every other week,” Chuck said, but the grin on his face told Phyllis that he didn’t hold a grudge against her for that.

“That’s because you were only capable of behaving yourself for a week at a time,” she told him. “You were too fond of making the other students in class laugh and not interested enough in your schoolwork.”

“Yeah, that’s the truth. I’ve, uh, gotten to be less of a troublemaker since then.”

“I should hope so.”

“And your son, Mike, is a buddy of mine, so I wish they’d given this job to somebody else!”

“I don’t,” Phyllis said. “I’m glad that if someone had to arrest me, it was you, Deputy Murphy.”

They had reached the bottom of the stairs. The reporters were following them. District Attorney Sullivan had disappeared somewhere, probably to his office, until the hullabaloo of Phyllis’s arrest died down. She wasn’t sure how he had expected everything to play out, but obviously it hadn’t gone exactly the way he’d intended.

Now that she’d had a chance to calm down and think it over, Phyllis had a pretty good idea why Sullivan had had her arrested. Pete Delaney must have contacted the district attorney and told him that she and Sam had been out at the bed-and-breakfast asking questions about Roy’s murder. Sullivan had passed the word through Sheriff Haney and Mike that he wasn’t going to stand for any more amateur investigations.

Phyllis doubted that he could make the charges against her stick. He might even drop them before things went any further. He’d just wanted this arrest to send a message to her.

Well, she had gotten that message loud and clear, she thought as the two deputies took her outside, put her in the backseat of a sheriff’s department car, and started toward the jail with Carl behind the wheel and Chuck in the passenger seat. But she wasn’t scared anymore, as she instinctively had been at first, and she wasn’t intimidated, either.

Instead she was angry for the most part, and a little relieved that Sullivan hadn’t had Sam arrested, too. After all, he had been with her at the bed-and-breakfast, and Sullivan could have brought the same charges against him.

But she was the one the district attorney wanted to teach a lesson to. Sam didn’t really mean anything to him.

As she was being booked, fingerprinted, and photographed, Chuck said, “You’re sure taking this well, Mrs. Newsom.”

“It’s nothing to worry about,” she assured him. “I’m going to be fine. This is all a misunderstanding, and I’m sure my lawyer will straighten it all out very quickly.”

“I hope so. Because you know, Mrs. N., being locked up in jail . . . it’s not quite the same as being in detention, you know.”

“It’s all right,” Phyllis told him.

She clung to that belief . . . until the door of her cell clanged shut and the electronic lock slammed into place with a loud
thunk!
Her heart started to pound again, and the anxious feeling inside her grew stronger, and as the long minutes passed, the crazy thought came to her that she ought to be singing that song convicts always sang in the movies . . .

Nobody knows . . . the trouble I’ve seen . . .

* * *

“Mom?” Mike said.

Phyllis gave a little shake of her head. “What?”

“You looked like you drifted off there for a second. You were saying that you couldn’t let Eve go to prison for a murder she didn’t commit, and then you seemed like you were somewhere else a million miles away.”

“I was just thinking about everything that’s happened,” she said. “You know there’s no real reason for me to be here, don’t you? Other than the fact that I annoyed the district attorney, that is.”

“You did exactly what we all told you not to. You got in the middle of an official investigation—”

“No, I didn’t,” Phyllis broke in. “How could I? The investigation was over. Eve had already been charged with murder. No one was even asking questions anymore except me, so how could I have interfered with anyone?”

Mike scrubbed a hand wearily over his face and sighed before he admitted, “You’ve got a point there. I’m not sure the district attorney intends to go forward with those charges—”

“He’d be foolish if he did. He can’t make them stick,” Phyllis said, giving voice to the thought she’d had earlier. “He just wanted to scare me off. To teach me a lesson.”

The scathing contempt that came into Phyllis’s voice made Mike grin. “Yeah, that was kind of a dumb move on his part, wasn’t it?” he said. “Anyway, Sam, Carolyn, Eve, and Juliette Yorke are all out there looking like they’re ready to storm the Bastille—”

“You remembered what we studied about the French Revolution,” Phyllis said, unexpectedly pleased by that.

“Yeah, well, it’s not like you took it easy on me when it came to grading. Anyway, there’s about to be a bail hearing, and I asked if I could come get you for it. It’s pretty irregular, but the sheriff agreed.” Mike paused. “I’m not sure he thought Eve should have been charged, at least at this point, but he’s not going to come right out and say that.”

“I don’t imagine deputies’ mothers get arrested and have to be bailed out very often.”

“It’s not real common,” Mike said. “Let’s go.”

As they stepped out into the corridor, he added, “Have they treated you all right?”

“Oh, yes, everyone’s been very nice. Chuck Murphy was one of the deputies who brought me in. Do you remember him? He’s a few years older than you, but I think you dated his little sister a few times in high school.”

“Yeah, I know Chuck,” Mike said.

“That’s right, he mentioned that you were friends,” Phyllis said. “I have to say, he turned out better than I expected. He was always the class clown, you know.”

“Yeah, Chuck’s a good guy.” Mike’s voice was starting to sound a little strained again, so Phyllis decided this probably wasn’t a good time for reminiscing.

There were a couple of courtrooms in the jail building that could be used for bail hearings and other proceedings, and that was where he took her. As Mike had said, Sam and the others were all waiting there for her.

Sam started to reach out and put a hand on Phyllis’s arm, but Mike gave him a little shake of the head, indicating that he shouldn’t do that.

“No touchin’ the prisoner, eh?” Sam said. “Are you all right, Phyllis?”

“I’m fine,” she assured him. “I’m ready to get out of here, though.”

“Can’t blame you for that.”

Juliette said, “This shouldn’t take long. The bail should be very manageable.” She looked at Mike. “Can I take custody of my client now?”

“Of course, Counselor,” he told her. Juliette took Phyllis’s arm and led her to the defense table, which was smaller than the one in the courtroom where Eve’s arraignment had been held. There was barely enough room for both of them to sit there.

A few minutes later, a man came into the courtroom and went to the prosecution’s side. Phyllis looked over and recognized him as one of Sullivan’s assistant district attorneys. She wondered if the presence of the ADA, instead of Sullivan himself, meant anything.

There was only one row of seats for spectators. Sam, Carolyn, and Eve sat there, while Mike stood to one side. After a few more minutes, the clerk, bailiff, and judge came in, one right after the other. The judge didn’t have a bench like in the other courtroom, just a table of his own. He wore a suit instead of a robe.

As soon as the judge, a tall, horse-faced man in his forties, had called the court to order, the ADA got to his feet and said, “If I may, Your Honor?”

“Go ahead, Mr. Fisher,” the judge said.

“The State waives reading and moves to dismiss the charges against Mrs. Newsom.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes, Your Honor.”

“Motion granted,” the judge said. He banged his gavel and added, “You’re free to go, Mrs. Newsom.”

Juliette stood up and said, “Thank you, Your Honor.”

Phyllis noticed that she didn’t thank the ADA, Fisher.

Since there were no other bails to set, the judge adjourned the court and left the room, taking the clerk and bailiff with him. Mike came over to the defense table, where Sam, Carolyn, and Eve were already gathering around Phyllis.

Juliette smiled and said, “When I told you it wouldn’t take long, I didn’t know it would go quite that fast. That was the best scenario we could hope for.”

“That varmint, Sullivan, didn’t have the nerve to show his face after what happened at the courthouse,” Sam said. “That’s why he sent that other fella to take care of it.”

“Having Phyllis arrested backfired on him; that’s for sure,” Carolyn said. “It just made him look foolish.”

“Yes, and it’s liable to make him madder than ever,” Mike warned. “Mom, I think it would be a good idea for you to be very careful until all this is over.”

Phyllis said, “By all this, you mean Eve’s murder trial?”

“Well . . .”

“I’m not going to stand by—”

Eve interrupted her. “What you’re not going to do is get yourself in trouble again because of me. You were lucky this time, Phyllis. Juliette’s taking care of everything, and I have confidence in her.”