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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.
    “There’s really no need to go into all of this,” Phyllis said. “Mr. McKenna wasn’t murdered. I’m sure the medical examiner will confirm that he died of natural causes. It’s an unfortunate situation—”
    “Especially for Mr. McKenna,” the reporter put in.
    “But it’s nothing like those other times,” Phyllis went on determinedly. “Now, if you have all you need . . .”
    The woman shrugged. “For now.” She didn’t protest as Phyllis led her to the front door and closed it behind her . . . maybe, just maybe, a little harder than was absolutely necessary.
    When she came back to the parlor, Sam was shaking his head. “I reckon we shouldn’t get too upset with the lady,” he said. “I don’t imagine it’s every day that a fella drops dead on a fishin’ pier around here.”
    “I suppose not.” Phyllis paused. “Thank you for defending me.”
    “Hey, you were stickin’ up for me, too.” He grinned. “We make a pretty good team.”
    “I think so,” Phyllis agreed. She sighed. “I have to get back to thinking about my entry for the contest. It’s only a few days away, you know.”
    “I know. I’m not likely to forget a dessert contest. Accordin’ to the paper, they’re having a gumbo cook-off, too. And funnel cakes.” He licked his lips in anticipation and looked so gleeful that Phyllis had to laugh.
    “I know, you’re going to spend all weekend gorging yourself.”
    “Maybe not the whole weekend . . .”
     
    When Consuela had finished cleaning up after lunch, Phyllis found herself in the kitchen pondering her choices for the competition. Cookies, cakes, or pies? Or something a little more unusual? As far as she could see, there wasn’t any way to make her entry relate to the coast. A pie was a pie was a pie, no matter where it was baked. And while, say, peaches adapted well to baked goods, nothing about the sea did. You couldn’t make crab cookies!
    And a crab cake wasn’t the sort of cake you entered in a dessert competition, either, she told herself, although she loved a good crab cake. Consuela had made some for supper the night before, in fact, that had been delicious. Maybe, Phyllis mused, she could make a different sort of crab cake: a cake decorated with crabs made out of frosting . . .
    The sound of the doorbell drove those thoughts out of her head. Consuela and her daughters had gone home for the afternoon. Consuela would return to prepare supper, but the younger women were finished with their cleaning for the day. The Forrests and the Blaines were out somewhere; Nick and Kate were upstairs “napping”—and maybe they really were, Phyllis told herself; and Eve and Carolyn had gone to check out some of the art galleries, dragging Sam along with them.
    At one time, given the romantic interest that Eve had shown in Sam for months after he moved into the house in Weatherford, Phyllis might not have been too comfortable about letting them wander around art galleries together. But since the past Christmas, when she and Sam had finally admitted the attraction they felt toward each other, Eve had backed off and started treating him as a friend, rather than a potential husband number four . . .