The Candy Cane Cupcake Killer Read Online Free

voice behind her boomed out, “Good Lord, Phyllis.What happened? Eve and I saw you driving like a bat out of— Well, you know where bats fly out of.”
    Phyllis turned to see her friends and housemates, Carolyn Wilbarger and Eve Turner. Carolyn was her oldest friend and also her longtime rival in baking contests. She went on. “You and Sam looked like you were in one of those stupid action movies he likes so much.”
    â€œI felt like it, too,” Phyllis admitted. “I’d just as soon never do that again.”
    Eve, who was shorter than the other three members of their little circle of friends, rose on her tiptoes and craned her neck as she peered through the crowd of police, paramedics, and bystanders at the carriage.
    â€œIs that poor man dead?” she asked.
    â€œI’m afraid so,” Sam said. “He’d just started drivin’ the carriage in the parade when something happened to him.”
    Carolyn looked at Phyllis and asked with a frown, “Where are those cupcakes you made? That man didn’t eat one of them, did he?”
    Phyllis had a hollow feeling in the pit of her stomach as she said, “Well, as a matter of fact . . .”
    â€œI knew it,” Carolyn said. “He ate one of your cupcakes, and then he died.”
    â€œOh, don’t make it sound like that,” Eve scolded. “I’m sure the two things don’t have anything to do with each other.”
    Sam snorted and said, “Of course they don’t. Shoot, we all had cupcakes from the same batch, didn’t we?”
    Chief Whitmire turned his head to look at them, as if he had just become aware of the conversation, and asked, “What’s this about cupcakes?”
    Phyllis gestured vaguely toward the pickup and said, “I brought some candy cane cupcakes with me for after the Christmas-tree lighting. Mr. McCrory talked me into giving him one.”
    Calvin leaned over from the driver’s seat, where he had been examining McCrory, and said, “That explains what’s stuck in his mustache, then. I couldn’t figure it out. It’s frosting, isn’t it?”
    â€œI’m afraid so,” said Phyllis.
    â€œThe ME will do a tox screen,” Whitmire said. “But surely your baking didn’t have anything to do with what happened this time, Mrs. Newsom.”
    Phyllis didn’t care for the way the chief said
this time
, but there was nothing she could do about that. Her reputation was what it was.
    She was distracted from those gloomy thoughts by the arrival of a number of people who had rushed up to the carriage. Some of them were uniformed members of the high school marching band, while others were adults. All of them were intent on the same thing, though: getting to the cheerleaders in elf costumes, who were still on the carriage.
    The newcomers were boyfriends and parents of the girls, Phyllis decided, as a lot of hugging and crying and asking “Are you all right?” went on. Chief Whitmire looked annoyed, which made Phyllis think that he wished he could keep the girls away from everybody until he’d had a chance to question them. In this crowd, though, that was going to be impossible.
    Another couple arrived on the scene, looking upset, but they appeared to be too young to have a daughter in highschool. The woman, who had auburn hair and was quite pretty, was trying to push through the crowd to reach the carriage as she cried, “Dad! Daddy!”
    The fair-haired young man with her took hold of her shoulders and said, “You need to stay back, Allyson. You don’t want to get in the way of the paramedics. Let them do their work.”
    Sobbing, she tried to pull away from him, “That’s my father up there!”
    â€œI know, but there’s nothing we can do to help him. That’s somebody else’s job.”
    Phyllis could tell that the young man was trying to keep his voice calm and steady,