Trick or Deadly Treat (6 page)

Then the uniformed driver got out of the second car and a man in a brown suit emerged from the passenger side. His stocky figure and graying red hair were familiar to Phyllis, and after a moment she remembered who he was.

His name was Warren Latimer, and he had been the detective in charge of a murder case in which the victim had been found lying right on Phyllis's front porch. The whole group, with Latimer in the lead, started toward the table.

The detective looked at Phyllis and gave a little start of surprise, so obviously he recognized her, too. He didn't break stride, though.

Phyllis caught Mike's eye. His face was grim now and he shook his head slightly. Phyllis wasn't sure what that meant, but it couldn't be anything good.

Most of the people at the party had noticed the police by now, and they started drifting toward the table to find out what was going on. As the crowd gathered, Latimer and the other officers came up to the group under the canopy.

“Dr. Henry Baxter?” Latimer said.

“That's right,” Baxter replied. “What can I do for you?”

“Dr. Baxter, my name is Latimer. I'm a detective with the Weatherford Police Department. I have a warrant for your arrest.”

Baxter's eyes widened. He said, “For having a Halloween party without a permit?”

“No, sir,” Latimer said. “For the murder of Dr. Susan Baxter.”

F
or a couple of heartbeats that seemed longer, Baxter just stared at Latimer. Then he took a sudden step back as if somebody had punched him in the chest.

The three uniformed officers had spread out, Phyllis noticed now, as if positioning themselves to stop Baxter if he tried to make a run for it.

After that one step, though, Baxter didn't move. He continued to stare at the police detective in apparent disbelief as he said, “That's insane. Susan's not . . . She can't be . . .”

“You'll have to come with us, Doctor,” Latimer said. “You have the right to remain silent.” He went through the rest of the standard Miranda warning and concluded by asking, “Do you understand these rights as they've been explained to you, Doctor?”

“I . . . What? Do I . . . ?” Baxter's face was so haggard he seemed to have aged ten years just in the past few minutes. His head jerked in an obviously forced nod, and he said, “Yes. I . . . I understand. I just don't believe this is happening.”

“It's happening, all right. Please put your hands behind your back.”

Still looking stunned, Baxter complied with the order. One of the uniformed officers moved behind him and fastened his wrists together with a plastic restraint. Then he took hold of Baxter's upper arm and firmly but not roughly led him toward the first police car.

Holly spoke up and said to Latimer, “You're making a terrible mistake. Dr. Baxter wouldn't hurt anybody, not even his wife.”

“Not even his wife, eh?” Latimer repeated. “Who are you, miss?”

She swallowed and said, “I'm Holly Cunningham. I work here at the vet clinic.”

“What did you mean by that comment?”

“I . . . I don't know what you mean,” Holly replied as she shook her head.

“You said Baxter wouldn't hurt anybody, not even his wife. That makes it sound like maybe you could understand if he wanted to hurt her.”

“No! Of course not. That's not what I meant at all.”

Latimer grunted. Phyllis could tell that he wasn't convinced by Holly's answer.

He turned to her and asked, “What are you doing here, Mrs. Newsom?”

Phyllis couldn't keep a slightly acerbic tone out of her voice as she answered, “In case you haven't noticed, Detective, there's a Halloween party going on here. At least there was, until you arrived.”

Latimer looked around. His mouth twisted wryly as he said, “Dogs and cats in Halloween costumes.” It was obvious
he disapproved of the practice. He went on. “I guess you can go on with the party if you want to, but everybody has to stay out of the clinic building. I've got a search warrant for it and any other buildings on the property.”

“But we have patients in there,” Holly protested. “We have to get in there to take care of them. Tommy's in there right now.”

“Who's Tommy?”

“Tommy Sanders. He works for Dr. Baxter, too.”

By now the officer who had taken Baxter away had put him in the backseat of the police car and closed the door. He leaned against the front fender and crossed his arms over his chest.

Latimer said to the other two officers, “One of you get Sanders and bring him out here. The other can secure the scene until we carry out our search.” He turned back to Holly. “This isn't a crime scene, as far as I know now. You probably won't have to stay out for all that long, just until we've finished going through the place. If it looks like we'll have to seal it off for a while, we'll make arrangements to have the animals in there transferred to another vet clinic. Nobody's going to hurt them.”

“This is still just wrong,” Holly insisted. “Hank didn't do anything.”

Phyllis saw the little spark of interest in Latimer's eyes when Holly referred to Baxter by his first name. She knew what the detective had to be thinking. With a history of trouble in Baxter's marriage, the possibility of an affair with his pretty young assistant would give him even more of a motive for murdering his wife.

“We'll sort it all out,” Latimer said. “In the meantime, why don't you stay right here, Ms. Cunningham? I'll be wanting to talk to you again later.”

“Am I under arrest, too?”

“Of course not. But I can hold you as a material witness if I need to.”

Holly shook her head and said, “I'm not going anywhere. I have to make sure our patients are taken care of.”

“That's fine.”

Latimer followed the two officers into the clinic.

Carolyn moved over beside Phyllis and said, “I don't believe it. I just don't believe it. It's a Halloween party with pets, for goodness' sake. And the police show up and arrest someone for murder.” She gave Phyllis a meaningful look and added, “But I suppose it was inevitable.”

“I had nothing to do with this,” Phyllis said. “I just happened to be here. In fact, it was as much your idea as it was mine.”

“That doesn't really change anything.”

Phyllis didn't waste time arguing with her friend. Instead she turned to Mike and asked, “When you went over there to talk to those officers, did they tell you anything?”

“Just that they were here to serve an arrest warrant,” Mike said. “They wouldn't even tell me who they were after. I told them I'd back 'em up if they needed any help. I'm glad the doctor had sense enough not to resist.”

“Of course he didn't resist,” Holly said. “He's not violent. He's one of the kindest, gentlest men you'll ever meet. If you'd ever seen him work with animals, you'd know that.”

Phyllis liked Baxter, too. Even though she hadn't been
around him nearly as much as Holly had, she'd been able to tell from the way he was with Buck that he genuinely liked his patients and wanted the best for them.

But that didn't mean he was incapable of murder. She had seen for herself how good people were sometimes capable of doing things that seemed almost inconceivable.

The crowd buzzed with conversation. Some of them began to drift toward their vehicles, taking their costumed kids and pets with them. After seeing Baxter arrested and put in the back of the police car, it was obvious that the party wasn't going to continue. Curiosity held some of the people there, though. It wasn't even morbid, thought Phyllis. It was just human nature.

Tommy Sanders came out of the clinic building, escorted by one of the officers. He looked stunned and confused. When Holly saw him, she hurried over to him and put her arms around him, reminding Phyllis of how, the day before, Holly had mentioned that she and Tommy were dating. Evidently, that was true, but it didn't rule out the possibility of an affair between Holly and Baxter.

“Holly, those cops said I had to get out,” Tommy told the redhead as he returned her embrace. “They said . . . It's crazy. I can't believe it. They said Dr. Baxter killed his wife. Where is he?”

She nodded toward the police cars parked on the grass next to the driveway.

“He's over there in one of those cars. They put some sort of handcuffs on him and put him in there.” She looked up into the face of the tall, lanky Tommy. “Are all the animals all right?”

“Yeah, for right now. Are they gonna let us back in there?”

“They said they would. And if they change their minds, they said they'd see to it that the animals were all moved to another vet's.”

“This is crazy,” Tommy said again. “What happened to Mrs. Baxter?”

“I have no idea.”

“Well . . . what are we going to do? Should we stay here?”

“That detective said for us to. I think he . . . he wants to question us.”

“About Dr. Baxter?” Tommy shook his head. “I'm not gonna do anything to help them. I don't know what happened, but they've got the wrong guy.”

“Whatever they ask, we have to tell them the truth,” Holly said. “Otherwise we could get in trouble, too.”

“Maybe so, but I don't like this. I don't like it at all.”

Sam said, “The same goes for me, son. After the way Doc Baxter helped Buck, I don't think he'd do anything wrong.” He looked over at Phyllis. “Don't you feel the same way?”

“I don't know enough to come to any sort of conclusion,” she said. “But I'm sure the police will find out the truth.”

“That's a sensible attitude,” Mike said.

Phyllis felt a little flash of annoyance at that comment. Mike knew as well as anyone how good her instincts were when it came to situations like this. She hadn't been proven wrong yet.

But it was foolish to speculate when she didn't even know any details of the case. At this point, she had no reason to think that she would, either.

Carolyn sighed and put the lid back on the container of cookies as more and more people got in their cars and left.

“It was a nice party while it lasted,” she said. She picked up a bag of dog treats in each hand and weighed them by feel. “I think your treats were more popular than mine, Phyllis. More of them seem to be gone, anyway.”

“That doesn't matter,” Phyllis said.

“No, of course not,” Carolyn agreed.

That hadn't stopped her from trying to determine who had emerged as the victor in their informal competition, though.

“I guess Buck's the lucky one,” Sam said. “He gets the leftovers. There's enough there to last him for a good long time.”

“We might as well all go back to my house,” Phyllis said. She smiled at Bobby in his Sherlock Holmes costume and added to Mike and Sarah, “Bring the great detective with you.”

*   *   *

When they got to Phyllis's house, Sam expected her to have Mike call some of his contacts on the police force and try to find out the details of the case against Hank Baxter. The cops had to be pretty sure he had killed his wife, or else they wouldn't have arrested him to start with.

But the police were human and could make mistakes like anybody else, as Sam had seen with his own eyes. Carolyn and Eve had both been accused of murder in the past, and it was plain to see that neither of them was a killer. In those cases, and others, it was Phyllis's instincts, determination, and intelligence that had uncovered the real murderers.

She could do it again now and clear Hank Baxter's name.

The thing of it was, she didn't seem inclined to do so. She didn't ask Mike to check on anything for her. She just told Eve what had happened at the vet clinic and then started getting
ready for the trick-or-treaters who would be coming to the door later that evening.

After putting Buck in the backyard for a while, Sam caught a moment alone in the kitchen with her and said, “Phyllis, we both know good and well that Doc Baxter didn't kill that wife of his, or anybody else.”

“No, I don't think he did, either,” Phyllis agreed. “He just doesn't seem like the sort of man to do that. But we don't really know him that well, Sam. We've only talked to him a few times, and then not for very long.”

Sam scratched his jaw and said, “Yeah, I know, but you can tell a lot about a fella by the way he treats animals. Baxter's a healer, not a killer.”

“The police will figure that out, I'm sure.”

“The way they figured out all those other cases you got mixed up in? They didn't get it right in a single one of 'em.”

She took a deep breath and said, “I know, but, Sam, I can't just keep on . . .”

“Catchin' killers?” he asked when her voice trailed off.

“Carolyn already makes fun of me for being a jinx. She said once that people were going to stop associating with me because murder always seems to show up wherever I am.”

Sam checked the hall to make sure no one was going to overhear; then he said, “That's just Carolyn bein' tactless. You know good and well that's not the way it is. You've gone to the store and church and other places hundreds of times without anybody gettin' killed.”

“Of course I have. But you can't deny there's something odd about the way things have happened over the past few years.”

“I won't deny it,” Sam said. “But this murder's already taken place. Stayin' out of it doesn't have anything to do with keepin' more of them from happenin'.”

“I suppose not,” she admitted. “But I saw the way Mike looked at me out there at the clinic. He was hoping I wouldn't wind up getting involved in this investigation. He worries about me, bless his heart.”

“Of course he does.” Sam sighed. “I guess you're right, Phyllis. You shouldn't wade into this one. Who knows? Maybe the cops will decide they made a mistake and let the doc go.”

“I hope so,” Phyllis said, “because I really do think he's innocent.”

So did Sam. He was completely convinced of it. But if Phyllis didn't want to get mixed up in the case, he was willing to accept that and respect her decision.

Thing was, there was nothing stopping him from trying to catch the killer just because she didn't set out to do it.