The Christmas Cookie Killer (15 page)

That turned out to be the case. Lois managed to make it the dozen blocks or so without crashing into anyone, although she strayed far enough out of her lane a few times to cause other drivers to honk their horns at her. When she pulled into the giant parking lot in front of the store, she narrowly missed hitting a couple of cars, although in one case it wasn’t her fault, because the other driver was cutting across between aisles without looking, a careless habit that always irritated Phyllis. In a crowded parking lot it was hard enough keeping an eye on

everyone who was driving where they were supposed to, without having to worry about rude people taking shortcuts from one aisle to the next.

Thankfully, Lois parked rather far out, where there were

several vacant spaces in a row. At this busy time of year, that meant she was a long way from the store’s front doors. She stopped with her car crooked between the lines. The rear third of it was actually over the line, sticking into the next space. Phyllis parked a couple of places away.

“Definitely drunk,” Eve said with a disapproving sniff.

Phyllis didn’t like it, either. Like any good Baptist, she wasn’t
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a drinker and didn’t enjoy being around alcohol or people who were drinking. She wasn’t the sort to tell anybody else how to live . . . but she was disappointed in Lois, anyway. It wasn’t even noon yet, for goodness’ sake! And worst of all was the fact that Lois had chosen to get behind the wheel and drive in her im-paired condition.

Phyllis and Eve got out of the Lincoln while Lois was climb-ing from her car, a late-model Toyota. She slammed the door and stumbled a little as she started around the car. She fumbled with the remote control on her key ring and finally pressed the right button to lock the car. The horn gave a short beep as the locks engaged.

Then Lois stopped short as she saw Phyllis and Eve stand-

ing there. She was about forty, with dark hair lightly touched with gray, and wore oversized sunglasses.

“Hello, ladies,” she said. Her voice wasn’t slurred, but Phyllis thought she caught a faint whiff of alcohol on Lois’s breath.

Or maybe that was because she expected to smell liquor, she thought, after seeing the way that Lois was driving. Lois went on. “Come to finish your Christmas shopping?”

“We just need to pick up a few last-minute things,” Phyllis said.

“Me, too. Of course, it’s not actually the last minute, is it?

There are still three days. But why wait, I say.” Lois started around them, unsteady on her feet despite being able to keep her voice under control. Now that Phyllis thought about it, she realized that Lois’s words were just a little too precise, a little too carefully spoken . . . another sign of someone who’d had too much to drink.

Phyllis put out a hand, not taking hold of Lois’s arm but resting her fingers on it fairly firmly. “Lois, are you all right?”

she asked.

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“All right?” Lois smiled and laughed. “I’m fine. Why

wouldn’t I be? It’s almost Christmas. The . . . the happiest time of the year.”

Her voice had broken a little there at the end. Phyllis said,

“I can tell that something’s wrong. Why don’t you sit down in my car, and we can talk about it.”

“There’s nothing to talk about,” Lois insisted. “I told you, I’m fine. Everything’s fine.
It’s a winter wonderland!
”

Her voice rose to a near screech as she spoke, causing people who were nearby to look around and frown. She reached up to jerk the sunglasses off. Eve gasped as she saw the dark bruise around Lois’s left eye. Phyllis managed not to show any reaction, but she felt it like a spear of sickness in her stomach.

She moved forward, reaching out to put her arms around

Lois as the younger woman began to sob. The sunglasses slipped from her fingers and fell to the parking lot, luckily not shattering. Eve bent to pick them up.

Lois let Phyllis hug her for a second, then started trying to push her away. “Lemme ’lone,” she said, and the precise enun-ciation was gone. “None o’ your business. Jus’ lemme ’lone.”

“I’m not going to do that, Lois,” Phyllis said, her own voice firm. “You’re my friend, and I want to help you.”

“Nothin’ you can do.” Tears ran down Lois’s face. “Nothin’

anybody can do.”

Phyllis was glad that Carolyn wasn’t here. If she had been, she would have wanted to go and find Blake Horton and read him the riot act, possibly dispensing a few well-placed wallops to go along with it. As it was, Phyllis was able to say, “Calm down, Lois. We’ll call the police—”

Lois began shaking her head emphatically. “No. You can’t!”

“Then, there’s bound to be some sort of shelter where you can go—”

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LIVIA J. WASHBURN

Again Lois interrupted her. “Forget it, Phyllis. I’m not goin’

anywhere . . . ’cept into Wal-Mart to buy what I need for . . . for Christmas.”

“You can’t go in there like that, dear,” Eve said.

Lois glared at her. “What? You mean drunk off my ass?”

“I mean your face is all red from crying. Even in Wal-Mart, a lady should always look her best, don’t you think? And you’re always so dignified. You don’t want people to see you while you’re upset.”

Lois frowned. “You . . . you think I’m dignified?”

“Of course.”

“Then, you don’t know me very well, Eve. You don’t know

me at all.”

“I think I do.” Eve’s voice was sharper now, taking on

some of the same timbre it had possessed whenever one of

her students challenged her authority in class. “I know you well enough to be absolutely certain that this isn’t like you.

Here.” She opened her purse and took out a handkerchief,

which she pressed into Lois’s hand. “Dry those tears, and then we’ll get in your car and do a little touch-up job on your makeup, and then we’ll march right in there and do our shopping. We’ll look so good, we’ll give the old geezer at the door a heart attack, too.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t want to do that,” Lois said as she wiped the moisture from her cheeks.

“Well, maybe we won’t give him a heart attack. Just

palpitations.”

Lois laughed. Since Eve seemed to have things under con-

trol, or at least getting there, Phyllis stepped back. She let Eve steer Lois back into the Toyota, where she sat beside her in the front seat and talked to her as Lois calmed down. When they emerged from the vehicle ten minutes later, Lois had the sun-THE CHRISTMAS COOKIE KILLER
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glasses on again and seemed much steadier as she started toward the store with Eve. Phyllis wished they could have straightened up Lois’s car so that it wasn’t parked crooked, taking up two spaces, but she supposed that she had better leave well enough alone.

Phyllis followed them into the store. The area at the en-

trance where the carts were kept was almost empty, which was a good indication of how busy the place was. Christmas music came from the public address system, although Phyllis supposed that it had to be referred to as holiday music now, since even here in Weatherford political correctness had dictated that Christmas couldn’t actually be called by its real name.

She pushed that thought out of her mind. She couldn’t solve the problems of the world. She had to be content with doing the best she could for her family and friends. Today, though, it was Eve who had salvaged a bad situation, stepping in to somehow get poor Lois Horton halfway straightened up. Phyllis still thought it would be a good idea to call the law and report what Blake had done, but that decision should be Lois’s.

Eve and Lois were actually laughing together as they

shopped. From time to time Lois was still a little unsteady on her feet, but Eve was right there to help her as they made their way through the crowded aisles. Satisfied that she was no longer needed, Phyllis told them that she would be in the grocery section and pushed her cart in that direction. She was looking for a good ham, and Carolyn had given her a list of a few things she still needed for the wild rice and cranberry stuffing.

There were a lot of children in the store, most of them wide-eyed with happiness because Christmas was almost here. Some things never changed, Phyllis thought . . . and even if they did, they didn’t go away entirely. She remembered how the kids in her classes, even though they were eighth graders and tried
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hard to be oh so mature and sophisticated, started looking forward to Christmas as soon as Thanksgiving was over.

Phyllis started at the back of the grocery section and worked her way toward the front of the store, not really hurrying because she didn’t know how long Eve and Lois were going to be.

The more time Lois spent in here before getting behind the wheel again, the better. Phyllis wondered if the woman would consider just being a passenger and letting Eve drive her car back home. That might be the safest way to proceed.

Phyllis was almost finished when Eve and Lois appeared.

Lois was pushing a basket, and that helped to steady her. It was full of clothes and gadgets and electronics, and Phyllis didn’t know who was buying what. All three women went to get in line at the busy checkouts.

Paying for what they were buying took almost as long as

picking it out, as was usual at this time of year. The cashier wished them a corporate-mandated “Happy Holidays,” and

feeling momentarily contrary, Phyllis told her, “And Merry Christmas to you!” in a loud voice.

By the time they were headed for the cars, Phyllis was glad the ordeal was over. There might be another ordeal facing them, though. Since there was no point in postponing it, when they got to the cars she suggested, “Lois, why don’t you let Eve drive you home?”

Lois shook her head. “That’s not really necessary,” she said.

“Look, I know I was upset before . . .”

She’d been more than upset, Phyllis thought. She’d been

drunk.

“But I’m perfectly capable of driving home,” Lois went on.

“I’m feeling much better now.”

It was true that they had been inside the store for a pretty good while. But had it been long enough for Lois to completely THE CHRISTMAS COOKIE KILLER
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sober up? Phyllis doubted that . . . even though they
had
been in Wal-Mart three days before Christmas, which was a pretty sobering experience in itself.

Eve caught Phyllis’s eye and shook her head without Lois

noticing. Phyllis took that to mean that her friend was telling her not to press the issue. Eve had spent a lot more time in the store with Lois than Phyllis had, so maybe she was a better judge of what sort of shape the younger woman was in. Phyllis decided to go along with her suggestion. She nodded and said, “All right.

I’m glad to hear it. But anytime you need help, Lois . . . any sort of help . . . just remember that we’re right across the street.”

Lois smiled and nodded. “Thank you. That means a lot to

me, Phyllis.”

She loaded her purchases in the trunk of the Toyota, then closed the lid and looked at the car for a second before shaking her head and giving a rueful laugh.

“Boy, I really did a lousy job of parking, didn’t I?”

Still shaking her head, she unlocked the car and climbed

in.

Phyllis and Eve got the things they had bought into the Lincoln’s trunk, not wasting any time about it. Phyllis wanted to follow Lois home and make sure she got there all right. Lois couldn’t take offense at that; Phyllis would be going the same way regardless, since she lived across the street.

“What a horrible situation,” Phyllis said as she started the car and pulled out behind Lois. “Did she tell you anything about it?”

“Not really,” Eve said. “I could tell she didn’t want to talk about it, so I kept the conversation on other things instead.”

To Phyllis’s relief, she saw that Lois seemed to be driving fairly well and not moving around too much in her lane. And she didn’t stray out of it at all.

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“I had no idea that she drank so much . . . or that Blake hit her. They seem like such a nice, normal couple.”

“Oh, there’s no such thing, dear,” Eve said.

Phyllis frowned over at her. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that you never know, just by looking at how people behave outwardly, how they really live their lives. Every couple does things they wouldn’t want the world to know about. It might be something serious like drinking or abuse, or it might just be something a little embarrassing, like what they do in the bedroom. But just think about the tales that children bring to school. You and I didn’t encounter it so much because our students were older, but we’ve both heard Carolyn relate some hair-raising stories about things her second graders used to tell her about their home lives.”

That was true, Phyllis thought. Children were so innocent, especially the little ones. They didn’t really know they were doing anything wrong when they came to school and told their friends and their teachers about what went on at their homes.

The stories ranged from the horrible and the heart wrenching all the way to the utterly bizarre and—might as well admit it, Phyllis told herself—amusing. One thing was certain, though: If you had something in your life you wanted to keep secret, it was probably wise not to let a seven- or eight-year-old know about it.

Of course, there were children that grew old fast . . . too fast. She remembered Carolyn telling her about a little girl who stopped another girl from talking about something bad her father had done. She solemnly told her that she shouldn’t talk about those things, that she should keep them to herself—like she did. Carolyn had made sure the school counselor knew

about both girls.

Lois made it home safely, much to Phyllis’s relief. She waved THE CHRISTMAS COOKIE KILLER
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across the street to Phyllis and Eve as she unloaded her purchases and carried them inside. The dark glasses hid Lois’s eyes, but they couldn’t hide the memory of what Phyllis had seen.