The Gingerbread Bump-Off (21 page)

And sometimes children took advantage of that.

Laura’s story tied in with some of the things Phyllis already knew. Carl Winthrop had said that something was bothering Georgia on the day of the tour. She had refused to give him the details, and that made sense because Georgia wouldn’t have wanted to embarrass Laura unnecessarily by telling Carl the whole story. She had mentioned that she wanted to talk to Phyllis before the tour started because Phyllis had solved those murders in the past.

That didn’t follow, though, because there was no murder here. But maybe . . . maybe Winthrop had misinterpreted what Georgia had said. Maybe Georgia wanted to talk to Phyllis because of Phyllis’s connection with law enforcement—namely, her son, Mike, who worked for the sheriff’s department. The Cochran ranch was outside of Weatherford’s city limits, so any crime that happened there would fall under the jurisdiction of the Parker County sheriff, Mike’s boss.

It was possible, Phyllis told herself. She needed to talk to Carl Winthrop again if she wanted to be sure, though.

“Mrs. Newsom?” Laura said. “Are you all right? You . . . you look like you’re a million miles away.”

Phyllis summoned up a smile. “I was just thinking about what you said. When we talked before, you told me that Georgia wasn’t upset about anything and there hadn’t been any disputes with her clients.” She tried not to make her tone sound accusatory, but Laura flushed anyway, as if she were feeling guilty again.

“The business with Mr. Trafford was months ago, and like I said, he seemed to have gotten over it. That didn’t even occur to me when you were here before. And as for the business with Chris, well, I didn’t want to talk about that.”

“Did you tell Detective Latimer about it?”

“I didn’t want it spread all over the newspaper,” Laura said miserably. “I didn’t want people in town gossiping about me and looking at me.”

“So you didn’t tell him?”

Laura shook her head, looked down at the desk, and said in a voice just louder than a whisper, “No.” With a visible effort, she raised her head and looked at Phyllis again. “Am I going to get in trouble for that?”

“I don’t know. Maybe it won’t have to come out.”

“You don’t really think what Chris did could have anything to do with what happened to Georgia, do you?”

Laura wanted desperately to be absolved from blame, Phyllis thought. But she couldn’t do that. She just shook her head and said again, “I don’t know.”

From what Sam had told her about the violence that seemed to be lurking just under Chris Cochran’s surface, she couldn’t rule it out. Charles Cochran could have said something to his son about Georgia’s phone call to him, and Chris could have gone out looking for her. Phyllis didn’t have an answer for how Chris could have known to find Georgia at her house, but the fact that some questions still remained didn’t mean the theory was wrong.

“You were with the tour that night,” she went on. “Was Chris at his parents’ house when you got there?”

“I couldn’t tell you,” Laura said. “I was with the tour earlier in the evening, but I . . . I didn’t go out to the Cochran place. After what happened there a couple of days earlier, I couldn’t bring myself to go back out there and maybe see . . . him . . . again.”

Phyllis nodded as she thought about that. Even if Chris had been at the Cochran ranch when the tour got there, that didn’t mean he was innocent. Georgia had been attacked
before
the tour started, and the Cochran house was the last stop on the evening’s agenda. Chris would have had plenty of time to break that ceramic gingerbread man over Georgia’s head and still get back to his parents’ house well before the tour arrived there.

The next step in finding out whether that happened was talking to Carl Winthrop again and trying to pin down exactly what Georgia had said to him on the afternoon of the tour.

She could do that in just a few hours, she thought, because in all likelihood Winthrop would be at Georgia’s funeral this afternoon, and so would she. Some people might think that a funeral wasn’t a proper place to be investigating a murder, but it seemed appropriate to Phyllis.

What better way to mourn Georgia’s passing than trying to find the brutal killer responsible for her death?

Chapter 20

T
he weather in recent weeks had been mostly sunny and warm, not really that common for December but certainly not unheard of in this part of Texas, either.

It was still sunny that afternoon, but a cold front had blown through at midday, after Phyllis’s visit to Georgia’s office, bringing with it an icy wind that whipped around the tombstones and monuments in the cemetery, rattled the bare branches of the trees, plucked at the flowers that were stacked up around the coffin as it reposed on the apparatus that would lower it into the grave, and caused the canvas cover over the gathered mourners to flutter and pop.

The church had been packed for the actual funeral. Georgia had been well known and well liked in Weatherford, both for her business and for her involvement in civic affairs. All the people whose homes had been part of the Jingle Bell Tour were there. Phyllis recognized the ones she had met, and Sam discreetly pointed out the Traffords and the Cochrans. He hadn’t actually met Brenda Trafford or Charles and Helen Cochran, but he identified them on the basis of their being in attendance with Alan Trafford and Chris Cochran, respectively. Brenda was an attractive blonde, the Cochrans both middle-aged and solemn looking, as befitted their positions as doctors.

Alan Trafford appeared to be genuinely mournful over Georgia’s death. Chris Cochran just looked resentful at being forced to be there and having to wear a suit. Phyllis disliked him on sight. But of course, that didn’t necessarily make him a murderer.

After the funeral, not everyone who was there had come out here to the cemetery for the graveside service. In fact, less than a fourth of the mourners had made the trip, Phyllis estimated. The turnout probably would have been higher if that cold front hadn’t arrived when it did. With the wind chill dropping through the thirties toward the twenties, people didn’t want to stand or sit around outside in such frigid conditions.

Also, it was only a few days now until Christmas. Most people still had things to do, preparations to make. There was something particularly tragic and poignant about a funeral and burial at this time of year, but the holidays didn’t stop for death.

Phyllis pressed her gloved hands together between her knees. She was sitting on one of the folding metal chairs in the last row of mourners, with Sam on her right in the row’s end seat and Carolyn on her left. Eve was on the other side of Carolyn, then Roy, who was there because of Eve, not having known Georgia himself.

Laura Kearns was sitting in the front row, next to a woman who Phyllis assumed was Georgia’s sister from Waco. Phyllis could see a certain family resemblance, although the woman’s hair was gray and she looked several years older than Georgia. The woman’s husband and a grown daughter were sitting with her, as well. A stocky man in his twenties, with short, rust-colored hair and a matching close-cropped beard, was on Laura’s other side. Phyllis knew that had to be the husband Laura had mentioned. The man worked as a mechanic, she recalled.

Carl Winthrop and a thin-faced brunette who was probably his wife were in the second row. Claudia Fisk was in the same row with a skinny, bald man, most likely her husband. A few seats down from them, Holly Bachmann sat with a bespectacled man who had to be her husband, Dan. He was pale and pudgy, certainly not the workout devotee that his wife was. Margaret Henning was in that same row, accompanied by her grandnephew Joe, who looked almost as unhappy about being here as Chris Cochran had back at the church. The Cochrans hadn’t come to the cemetery, and neither had the Traffords. The same was true of most of the other families whose homes had been part of the tour. Phyllis couldn’t blame them for not wanting to go out in this cold.

The minister’s comments were brief, probably even more so than they would have been if the weather had been nicer. After his closing prayer, the pallbearers, including Carl Winthrop, stood up and filed by the coffin to add the boutonnieres they had worn to the pile of flowers, which included the lavish arrangements paid for by the money Phyllis had collected. Then they shook hands with Georgia’s sister, who remained seated with her husband and daughter.

The other mourners paid their respects as well, then began to disperse. Carolyn and Eve had come with Roy in his SUV, so the three of them were going to head back to the house. Phyllis set her sights on Carl Winthrop, and with Sam beside her lightly holding her elbow to steady her as they walked past the graves, she started toward him.

Winthrop saw her coming and leaned over to say something to his wife. She nodded and walked toward the line of cars parked along the narrow asphalt lane that ran through the cemetery. He had probably told her to go ahead and get out of the wind, Phyllis thought.

“Mrs. Newsom,” he greeted her with a solemn smile. “I wish I could say it’s good to see you again, but under the circumstances .  . .”

Phyllis nodded. “I know what you mean.” She rested a hand on Sam’s arm. “This is my friend Sam Fletcher.”

Winthrop put out a hand and said, “Carl Winthrop. Pleased to meet you, Sam.”

“Likewise,” Sam said as the two men shook hands.

“I was wondering if I could talk to you for a minute,” Phyllis said. “It’s about Georgia and what happened to her.”

Winthrop frowned. “The police haven’t found out anything new, have they? I thought they might tell you because of your previous connection to them, before they released the information to the public.”

Phyllis shook her head and said, “No, I’m afraid they’re keeping me out of the loop on this case. I don’t know anything new.”

Nothing the police had told her, anyway, she amended to herself.

“I wanted to ask you a question about that day,” she went on. “If you don’t mind.”

“Of course not.” Winthrop looked around. “Let’s go over there beside that mausoleum. It’ll block the wind.”

The three of them walked over to the low, squarish granite building, and Winthrop’s prediction proved correct. The mausoleum blocked the wind, and in the sunshine it was still cold but not nearly as bone-chilling.

“Now,” Winthrop said, “what is it you want to know, Mrs. Newsom?”

“On that day . . . the day Georgia was attacked . . . you said she was coming to my house before the tour started because she wanted to talk to me about something.”

Winthrop nodded. “That’s right. But she didn’t say what it was. Just that it was something bothering her, and she thought you might be able to help her with it because you had solved those murders in the past.”

“You’re sure that’s what it was? It couldn’t have had something to do with some other sort of crime?”

Winthrop frowned. “You mean, do I remember her exact words? Well . . . let me think. I know she said something about you being a detective . . . and having something to do with investigating crimes . . . Maybe she didn’t mention murder; I’m not sure. I guess I could have come up with that on my own, since I’d read about you in the paper when those other cases happened.”

“She couldn’t have been talking about the fact that my son is a deputy sheriff, could she?”

Winthrop rubbed his jaw. “I’m almost certain she didn’t say anything about your son. But she could have said something about you having connections with law enforcement . . .”

Phyllis waited for him to go on, but after a moment he just shrugged and shook his head.

“Sorry, that’s all I can remember. I didn’t have any idea at the time that it would turn out to be important. I was a little worried about Georgia, sure, because she was upset, but I didn’t think it really amounted to anything.”

“Of course not,” Phyllis agreed.

Winthrop regarded her intently. “What’s this about?” he asked. “Have you turned up something that could have a bearing on the case, Mrs. Newsom?”

“I don’t know yet. I was told something by someone . . .” Phyllis stopped and shook her head. “I can’t really go into it without any proof.”

“Well, if there’s anything I can do to help you get that proof, you can count on me.”

“Thank you.” Phyllis started to turn away, then paused. “You must know the Cochrans, since their home was part of the tour.”

“Doc and Doc Cochran?” Winthrop asked with a grin on his face. “Sure, I know them, and not just from the tour. They have some money with me that I manage for them.”

“What about their son?”

Winthrop’s grin went away and was replaced by a sour look. “I know him, too.”

“He doesn’t have any investments with you, does he?”

Winthrop gave a disgusted snort and said, “That would require him to actually, you know, work and make some money. He’s already gotten kicked out of a couple of colleges, and as far as I know he doesn’t do anything except make his folks worry. He’s a professional at that.” Winthrop shrugged. “He’ll probably come into a pretty nice inheritance one of these days. If he hasn’t changed by then, though, I’d just as soon he took his business elsewhere.”

“Then it’s safe to say you don’t like him?”

“Yeah, it’s definitely safe to say—” Winthrop stopped short and stared at Phyllis, his eyes widening. “You think that kid had something to do with what happened to Georgia?”

“I’ve said too much—,” Phyllis began.

“No, you haven’t,” Winthrop cut in. “Son of a gun! I can see him doing that. He’s big enough and mean enough to pick up that gingerbread man and—” He paused and drew in a deep breath. “Oh, Lord, I don’t even want to think about it.”

“I don’t blame you. I had to see the result, and I don’t think I’ll ever forget it. But Chris Cochran may have an alibi.”

“You couldn’t prove it by me if he does,” Winthrop said. “He wasn’t at his parents’ place the night of the tour.”