Killer Crab Cakes (5 page)

Right now, though, Phyllis had thought about death enough for one morning. She had a pressing problem of her own. The soaked shoes and socks she had been wearing for the past hour had made her feet cold, clammy, and uncomfortable.

“Well, I’m not going anywhere,” she said, “except upstairs to soak my feet in a pan of hot water.”

 

Phyllis didn’t come back down for an hour. When she did, she felt better, although she was still somewhat shaken by the morning’s experience. She found Carolyn in the kitchen, looking through the cabinets. The way Carolyn quickly closed the cabinet door she was holding open told Phyllis that her friend had been checking to see what ingredients Consuela had on hand. Just as Phyllis had suspected, Carolyn was thinking about the Just Desserts contest.

Phyllis didn’t let on that she had figured that out. Instead she said, “Where’s Consuela?”

“Gone to the store, I believe she said.”

There was a giant Wal-Mart about a mile away on the main highway through Rockport. Phyllis had gone in it once and realized that it was laid out almost exactly like the one where she shopped in Weatherford. If they ever opened Wal-Marts in Moscow or Peking—and for all she knew there was already one in both of those places—they would look just like the ones in Texas.

“I should probably do some shopping myself,” she said. That ought to get Carolyn thinking. She hoped her friend would assume that she already knew exactly what she was doing for the competition. Their rivalry was a friendly one, but neither of them was above a little psychological warfare, even though Phyllis knew that was a ridiculous term to use in conjunction with a cooking contest where nothing was at stake other than a ribbon or a cheap trophy or some bragging rights.

She went on. “Where’s everyone else?”

“Sam went out on the pier to fish. He said he’d left all his gear out there, so he might as well use it.”

Phyllis nodded. If it had been her, she probably would have lost all desire to fish after what had happened, but Sam was made of stronger stuff . . . or at least he was more pragmatic. The fact that Ed McKenna had died on that pier wouldn’t keep Sam from fishing.

“Eve said she was going to walk down to that shop across from the boat basin,” Carolyn went on. “She asked me to come with her, but I was too busy.”

“Doing what?”

“Oh, this and that.” Carolyn evaded the question, convincing Phyllis more than ever that her friend had been working on her recipe for the contest. Carolyn hurried on. “And don’t ask me about that young couple, because they went back upstairs. I imagine they’re doing what
they
do all the time.”

Phyllis couldn’t help but smile. “They’ve been married less than a year, they said. Technically, they’re still newlyweds.”

“Maybe so, but they could show a little restraint. There are other things in life, you know.”

“Of course there are.”

Before that discussion could go any further, the doorbell rang. Phyllis turned and went toward the foyer. She heard footsteps on the stairs and glanced up to see Theresa Anselmo starting down.

“If you’re coming to answer the door,” Phyllis said, “I’ll get it.”

“All right, Mrs. Newsom.” Theresa went back upstairs.

Phyllis opened the front door and found a heavyset, middle-aged woman with short, curly brown hair waiting on the porch. The woman smiled and said, “Hi. I’m Darcy Maxwell, from next door.”

Phyllis recognized her. They had nodded to each other several times without speaking in the past few days since Phyllis and her friends had gotten here.

“Of course,” Phyllis said. “Won’t you come in?” She stepped back and held the door.

Darcy Maxwell stepped into the house. She wore a short-sleeved blouse and capri pants, which was still suitable attire for the weather in this area during October, at least most of the time.

“I’m Phyllis Newsom,” Phyllis introduced herself. “Dorothy’s cousin.”

Darcy nodded. “I know. Before she left Dorothy told me you were coming down to keep an eye on things while she was gone.”

“I’m not sure that was even necessary,” Phyllis said as she ushered the visitor into the parlor. “Consuela is so efficient, I’m sure she could have kept everything running just fine without any help.”

Darcy laughed. “You don’t have to tell me! I would have hired Consuela away from Dorothy years ago if she’d any interest in changing jobs. She’s too loyal to do that, though.”

Phyllis motioned for Darcy to have a seat on the sofa and offered a cup of coffee or something else to drink, which the woman refused politely. Then Phyllis asked, “Is your house a bed-and-breakfast, too?”

“Oh, no. It’s just a private residence. But it’s a big place, too big for me to keep up with on my own. It was a different when my kids were at home, but since they’ve moved out . . .” Darcy shrugged.

It was a feeling Phyllis knew all too well. During that interval after Kenny had died, before she opened the big old house in Weatherford to other retired teachers, she had thought she might go mad knocking around by herself in the empty home.

“Anyway,” Darcy went on, “the reason I came over, other than to be neighborly and introduce myself—”

“Was to find out what happened this morning,” Phyllis finished for her. She saw the slightly startled look on Darcy’s face and hurried on. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have interrupted you that way. It was rude of me. And after all those years I got on to my students for interrupting one another.”

“You’re a teacher?”

“I was. Eighth-grade history. But I’m retired now.”

Darcy seemed to accept Phyllis’s apology. “I admit, I’m curious about what happened. I know the ambulance came and took someone away, and I heard that a man who was staying here had died.”

Phyllis nodded. “Mr. McKenna. He had a heart attack while he was out on the pier fishing.” She didn’t go into detail about how Ed McKenna had fallen into the water and Sam had hauled him out.

“How terrible!” Darcy said. “That poor man.”

“Yes, it’s a tragedy,” Phyllis agreed.

“Did he have family here with him?”

Phyllis shook her head. “No, he was alone.”

But he had to have family somewhere, she thought, and that reminded her of the fact that they would need to be notified of his death. Surely the police would handle that, though. That wasn’t something she should have to deal with . . . she hoped.

“Is there anything I can do to help?”

“I don’t know what it would be,” Phyllis said. “Once I’ve found out about Mr. McKenna’s next of kin, I suppose I’ll have to gather his belongings and send them. But other than that, I don’t think there’s anything else I’ll need to do.”

Before she could say anything else, she heard the back door open and close, and then Consuela’s voice sounded in the kitchen, talking to Carolyn.

Darcy got to her feet quickly and said, “I’d better be going. It was nice to meet you, Mrs. Newsom.”

“Please, call me Phyllis.”

“And I’m sorry about what happened. It must have been terrible for you.”

Much worse for Ed McKenna, Phyllis thought, but she kept that to herself. She had already been rude to Darcy once—although that hadn’t been her intention—and she didn’t want to do it again.

She showed Darcy out, lifting a hand in farewell as the woman walked down the steps. Then she turned and went back along the hall to the kitchen.

Consuela was putting away the groceries she had brought back from Wal-Mart. Carolyn wasn’t in the kitchen now, and Phyllis supposed she must have gone up the rear stairs just off the pantry.

“Mrs. Wilbarger said somebody was here,” Consuela said.

“Yes, Darcy Maxwell from next door.”

Consuela made a face. “Her.”

“You don’t like her?” Phyllis asked with a frown. “She seemed nice enough, and she spoke very highly of you.”

Consuela shrugged and said, “She’s all right, I guess. She’s just the biggest gossip between here and Corpus Christi. She offered me a job once, and when I turned her down she spread some nasty stories about my girls.” Consuela’s expression hardened. “You could say I don’t like her, all right. I’m glad she’s not gonna be next door much longer.”

“Why not?”

“Oh, she and her husband sold their house. That’s what I heard, anyway. They said it was too big for them with their kids gone. I don’t know when they’re supposed to move out, but it probably won’t be much longer . . . I hope.”

“Well, maybe whoever bought the place will be better neighbors.”

“Yeah, maybe.”

The conversation had roused Phyllis’s curiosity. She asked, “What about the house on the other side? I don’t recall seeing anybody over there since we’ve been here.”

“That’s because it’s vacant. The couple who owned it died in a car wreck about six months ago.”

“How awful.”

“Yeah, and they were pretty good friends with Dorothy and Ben, too. A real shame.”

“You don’t think about bad things happening in a place as pretty as this,” Phyllis mused. “But I’m sure they do, just like they happen everywhere else.”

“Yeah, you can’t get away from trouble. It follows people wherever they go.” Consuela’s mouth twisted in a little quirk as she spoke, and the words had a slightly bitter tone to them. She sounded like
she
had been followed by trouble of her own, Phyllis thought, and plenty of it. She didn’t recall Dorothy ever saying anything about that, though, and she certainly wasn’t going to pry. Whatever went on in Consuela’s personal life was private and none of Phyllis’s business.

“Well, there ought to be places that are immune to trouble and pain,” she said.

“There’s one,” Consuela said. She made the sign of the cross. “And poor Mr. McKenna’s gone there now.”

N
ot surprisingly, a reporter from the local newspaper showed up before noon. Chief Clifton hadn’t said anything about not talking to the press, so Phyllis ushered the woman into the parlor intending to answer all her questions. Sam had just gotten back from fishing, so he spoke to the reporter, too, telling her with a rather sheepish look on his face about slapping Ed McKenna on the shoulder just before the man fell forward into the water.

“Do you feel like you had anything to do with Mr. McKenna’s death because of that?” the woman asked.

Phyllis responded before Sam could say anything. “He most certainly did not! Sam was just being friendly. He didn’t push Mr. McKenna or anything like that. Anyway, I’m convinced that Mr. McKenna was already dead when Sam and I walked out on the pier.”

“Isn’t that up to the medical examiner to determine?”

“Sure it is,” Sam said quickly, and Phyllis wondered if he had noticed that she was about to lose her patience with the reporter. It would be just like Sam to try to smooth things over, even if the woman
was
asking ridiculous questions. “We’ll just wait and let the proper authorities do their jobs.”

“Have you retained a lawyer?”

“Don’t need one,” Sam replied as he shot a glance in Phyllis’s direction. “I haven’t done anything wrong.”

“He certainly hasn’t,” Phyllis said.

“Just a couple more questions . . .”

Phyllis felt like telling the reporter what she could do with her questions, but she reminded herself that Dorothy and Ben still had to live here and run a business here. She didn’t want to do anything that would create enemies for them.

So somehow she managed to put a smile on her face and said, “Of course.”

“This isn’t the first suspicious death you’ve been involved with, is it, Mrs. Newsom?”

The question took Phyllis by surprise, and now it was Sam’s turn to begin getting annoyed by the reporter.

“How’d you know about that?” he asked.

“They have this thing called the Internet.” The woman gave him an insufferably smug smile, then turned to Phyllis again. “I Googled you, Mrs. Newsom.”

Phyllis never had gotten used to the sound of that expression.

“I found out that you’ve stumbled over dead bodies on several occasions besides this one. You’ve even been given credit by the authorities for solving some murders.”

There was no point in denying anything, Phyllis told herself, especially in this day and age when practically everything about a person’s life was out there on the Internet for anyone to see. She said, “I’m sure you’ve read the stories from the Weatherford and Fort Worth newspapers. You know what happened at the Peach Festival.”

“And the school carnival and the Christmas party. It’s almost like you’re some sort of jinx, Mrs. Newsom.”

Sam said, “That’s just crazy. I was at those places, too, and so were a bunch of other people. Phyllis didn’t have anything to do with those folks gettin’ killed, and if it hadn’t been for her, the cops might not’ve ever figured out who
did
kill them!”

She wished he hadn’t said that. She had never tried to imply that she had solved those murders when the police couldn’t. She couldn’t blame him for being upset with the pushy reporter, though. She wasn’t too happy with the woman herself.