“This is all hearsay,” Latimer pointed out. “None of it would be any good in court.”
“No, but it’s a reason to question Chris Cochran and find out exactly where he was on the night of the tour, isn’t it? I know you talked to his parents, but did you talk to Chris?”
Latimer’s silence gave Phyllis the answer to that. The young man hadn’t seemed to have any connection to Georgia except through his parents, so Latimer hadn’t paid much attention to him.
“How do you know he wasn’t at his parents’ house the night of the tour?”
“Carl Winthrop told me,” Phyllis explained.
“The guy who helped set up the tour?”
“That’s right.”
“Ms. Hallerbee was attacked a short time before the tour started.
That’s
the time that needs to be accounted for, not the whole evening. The area covered by the tour isn’t so big that you couldn’t get from one end of it to the other in fifteen or twenty minutes, even with holiday traffic.”
“According to Carl, Chris was missing from his parents’ house the whole evening. They were upset about it. They wanted him to be there.”
Latimer nodded. “I’ll talk to Winthrop and the Kearns woman. And I’ll definitely talk to the Cochrans again, including the kid.”
“So you see, Detective,” Sam said, “there was nothin’ for you to be upset about. Phyllis was just helpin’ out, that’s all.”
“By questioning people with a possible connection to a homicide. That could be construed as obstruction of justice.”
“Maybe so, but considerin’ that she found out more than the official investigation did, it’d look sort of silly in the press to throw the book at her, wouldn’t it?”
Phyllis said, “That’s enough, you two,” and she couldn’t help but sound like she was talking to a couple of rowdy eighth graders pushing each other in the school hallway.
“All right, forget it,” Latimer said. “We’ll just let it go. And,” he added grudgingly, “thanks for the tip.”
Phyllis started to ask him if he would let her know what he found out when he talked to Chris Cochran and the young man’s parents, but she decided that might be pushing things a bit too far. Instead she said, “I hope this helps you clear everything up, Detective.”
Latimer grunted.
Phyllis went on, “And I’d appreciate it if you’d be as considerate as possible with Laura. She’s still very upset and embarrassed about the whole thing.”
“Why?” Latimer asked. “From the sound of it, she didn’t do anything wrong, except for not calling the cops on the kid when it happened. If she had . . .”
The detective’s voice trailed off as Phyllis nodded. “Exactly,” Phyllis said. “If Laura had reported what Chris did, or at least let Georgia report it, then Georgia might still be alive today. Laura blames herself for what happened.”
“Yeah, well, she shouldn’t. She’s not the one who got ho-theaded and broke a ceramic gingerbread man over a woman’s head.” Latimer frowned. “How did the Cochran kid know he could find her at your house?”
Phyllis shook her head. “I don’t know. But maybe he can tell you.”
“He’ll tell me,” Latimer said. “Whatever he did, he’ll tell me.” He reached for the door handle. “I hate to get back out in that cold wind.”
“I can drive you to your car,” Phyllis offered.
“Nah, it’s just right over there,” Latimer said, pointing. He gave the two of them a curt nod. “So long.”
He got out and slammed the door closed behind him. The car had warmed up nicely, but even the few seconds the door had been open had let quite a bit of chilly air into the vehicle.
Sam said, “I don’t think you’ve won the detective over yet, but at least he had enough good sense to listen to what you had to say.”
“That’s certainly better than being arrested for obstruction of justice, isn’t it?” Phyllis said with a smile.
Sam snorted. “Like that’s ever gonna happen.”
Chapter 22
P
hyllis didn’t expect to hear anything from Detective Latimer, and she didn’t the rest of that day. She probably wouldn’t know what had happened until she read in the paper or heard on the news about an arrest being made in Georgia’s murder.
She wasn’t completely convinced of Chris Cochran’s guilt, but everything certainly pointed in his direction. She wasn’t sure what he had hoped to gain by killing Georgia. Maybe his thoughts hadn’t even been that rational. When he heard that Georgia had been talking to his parents about what he did to Laura, maybe he had been so upset that he tracked her down and attacked her out of sheer rage and spite. That fit with what she knew of Chris’s personality.
The next morning, Phyllis discovered that she wasn’t the first one up, like she usually was. Carolyn had beaten her to it this morning, and as Phyllis came into the kitchen and found her friend sitting there with the newspaper spread open before her, she instantly knew why Carolyn had risen early.
She had a pretty good idea, as well, what Carolyn had found in the paper. “Congratulations,” Carolyn said, and although there was a slight grudging sound to her voice, Phyllis could tell that her friend was being sincere, too. Carolyn was genuinely happy with what she’d read . . . although a slightly different outcome probably would have made her even happier.
“Really?” Phyllis asked. With everything that had been going on, she had forgotten all about the newspaper’s Christmas cookie contest. She and Carolyn had delivered their recipes and sample cookies to the newspaper office more than a week earlier, and Phyllis hadn’t really thought about them since then.
Carolyn turned the paper around so that Phyllis could see her photo and a photo of the plate of cookies she submitted. She saw her name printed there along with the winning recipe.
“Oh, my,” she said. A warm feeling went through her as she thought about how people would be trying the recipe and baking their own cookies. She hoped most of them enjoyed those cookies. Of course, some wouldn’t, no matter how good the recipe was. You couldn’t please everybody.
“It’s a well-deserved win,” Carolyn said.
“What about your gingerbread-boy cookies?”
Carolyn shrugged. “Not even an honorable mention.”
“Oh. I’m sorry. I thought they were really good.”
“They probably weren’t sweet enough,” Carolyn said. “You know people and their sweet tooths. Teeth. Whatever.”
“Well, I liked them.”
“Liked what?” Sam asked as he strolled into the kitchen, still in pajamas and bathrobe like the two women.
“Carolyn’s gingerbread-boy cookies,” Phyllis said.
“Yeah, they were mighty good,” Sam agreed. He noticed the newspaper on the table. “Dang, is it time for the contest results already?”
“It’s almost Christmas,” Carolyn said. “If they had waited much longer to publish the list of winners, it would have been too late.”
Sam reached for the paper. “Lemme see . . . Well, what do you know!” He put his arm around Phyllis’s shoulders and squeezed. “Congratulations!”
Phyllis started to shake her head and say that she didn’t deserve it, but she stopped herself. She had never been one for false modesty. So she smiled instead and said, “Thank you.”
“What about those gingerbread-boy cookies, though? Where’d they come in?” Sam started to frown as he scanned the list of runners-up and honorable mentions.
Carolyn said, “I’m afraid my recipe didn’t make the cut this year.”
“Well, that’s just not right,” Sam insisted. “Those cookies were mighty good.”
“You don’t have to say that, Sam.”
“I’m not just sayin’ it. I wouldn’t do that. They
were
good. I probably ate a dozen of ’em, if you remember right.”
Carolyn shrugged. “You
did
seem to like them.”
“Darn right I did. There’s a reason why there’s an old sayin’ about how there’s no accountin’ for taste. Some people just don’t know what’s good.”
Carolyn pointed at the picture of Phyllis’s German chocolate cookies. “They knew Phyllis’s cookies were good.”
“Well, I . . . uh . . .”
Phyllis smiled and patted him on the back. “Don’t worry, Sam. I know what you meant.”
“So I can stop tryin’ to dig myself outta that hole I’m in?”
“You’re not in a hole. You’re just fine.”
“I’m glad to hear it.” Sam looked around. “Coffee brewin’ yet?”
“I’ll get it started,” Phyllis said.
“Let me,” he offered. “You sit down and look at the paper.”
Phyllis took him up on that offer. She sat down at the table to read what the local food editor had written about the winning cookies. The praise was a little extravagant, she thought, but she was honest enough to admit that she liked seeing all those kind words about her work.
Eve came into the kitchen, yawning, and said, “Why are we all gathered around the paper this morning?”
“Phyllis’s cookies won the contest,” Carolyn explained.
“Oh, congratulations, my dear! You’ll have to bake some of them for the shower.”
Phyllis nodded and said, “I was just thinking the same thing.” Christmas Eve and Eve’s bridal shower were only a couple of days away now.
“I think I’ll try a variation on those gingerbread-boy cookies,” Carolyn mused. “Maybe I’ll cut them in hearts and use a cream cheese icing on them.” She paused. “You know, Eve, some people might say that it’s unseemly to be having a bridal shower at your age.”
“People can say whatever they want,” Eve replied. “I make no secret of how old I am or that I’ve been married before. But if Roy and I are going to set up housekeeping together, there are a lot of things we need. I haven’t had a house of my own for quite awhile, you know.” She sighed. “And I still don’t. It looks like we’re going to have to take you up on that offer to live here after we get back from our honeymoon, Phyllis.”
“You’ll both be very welcome, and you know that,” Phyllis told her.
“No luck on findin’ a house, eh?” Sam asked as he switched on the coffeemaker, which he had finished preparing to brew.
“No, and at this late date, I don’t think we will have time to find one until after the wedding,” Eve told him. “There are other things to take care of right now that are more important, like the dresses and the flowers and the cake.”
“Which I assume you want Phyllis and me to bake?” Carolyn said.
Eve nodded. “That’s right. I hate to ask it of you; you’re both doing so much already—”
“It’s all right,” Phyllis said. “We’ll put our heads together and think about it, and after Christmas we can have a tasting to see what you like best.”
“That sounds like a wonderful idea,” Eve agreed. “Thank you, Phyllis, and you, too, Carolyn. I don’t know what in the world I’d do without you.”
“Hey, don’t forget me,” Sam put in with a grin. “I’m the best man.”
Eve patted his arm. “Of course you are, dear, and you have the most important job of all.”
“What’s that?”
“Keeping Roy from getting cold feet and leaving me at the altar!”
“Not much chance of
that
happenin’,” Sam said.
Phyllis thought it might be a good idea to distract Carolyn from the outcome of the Christmas cookie contest, so later that morning they sat down together to talk about the cake for Eve’s wedding.
“I don’t know why she didn’t just get one done professionally,” Carolyn said.
“Maybe she thought that wouldn’t be personal enough.”
Carolyn lowered her voice. “Or she thought it would be too expensive. No matter what she says, Eve would still like for everybody to believe that she’s thirty-nine!”
Phyllis smiled as she caught the reference to Jack Benny, famous for his terrible violin playing, his refusal to admit his own age, and his thriftiness. Actually, downright cheapness was the personality he had adopted for radio, movies, and TV.
“Eve’s nothing like Jack Benny,” Phyllis said.
“Maybe not, but she doesn’t believe in being extravagant. She didn’t offer to
pay
you for the cake, did she?”
“Well . . . no.”
Carolyn nodded. “I rest my case.”
“Regardless of why she asked us, we agreed to handle this for her, and we want to do a good job.”
“Absolutely,” Carolyn agreed without hesitation. “We want everybody who comes to this wedding to be talking about the cake for a long time.”
“Wouldn’t it be better if they were talking about how radiant Eve was and what a lovely couple she and Roy made?”
“No,” Carolyn said. “They need to talk about the cake.”
Phyllis had to laugh. “We’d better come up with a good one, then.”
“Cake is cake. It’s all in the decorations. Have you ever decorated a wedding cake?”
“A few,” Phyllis said.
“So have I. Here’s what we should do . . .”
The idea was to keep the cake as simple as possible so few things could go wrong. After considering different cake fillings and decorations, they decided the best was a layered white cake with smooth white icing. The layers would be wrapped with snowflake silver see-through ribbon with a smaller blue satin ribbon behind it to show through. A bow would go on, too, with the cake topper, and plastic snowflakes would be placed on the top and second layer, leaving the bottom layer plain, but sitting artfully on some tulle. They could put more snowflakes on the table around the cake.
After they had talked about it, Phyllis didn’t think it would hurt to get a head start on the process, and Carolyn needed some ingredients for the icing for the new version of the gingerbread-heart cookies she was going to bake for the shower, so they agreed to go to the store that afternoon. The idea of venturing out into the crowds of shoppers three days before Christmas was rather daunting, but it would only be worse the next two days. They would go to one of the smaller grocery stores, Phyllis decided, instead of Walmart.
The roads were full of cars, and even at the smaller store the check-out lines were long anyway, so Phyllis was a little tired and stressed that afternoon as she and Carolyn left the grocery store. Phyllis was pushing the cart full of plastic bags that held their purchases. The cold wind of the day before had died down, thankfully, so while the air was still chilly and their breath fogged a little in front of their faces, the weather wasn’t too uncomfortable.