by Kate Bell
He chuckled. “Mia, I think that’s the best idea I’ve heard in a long time.”
We said our goodbyes, and I took my appointment card and headed back out onto the sidewalk. I had always liked Dr. Graves. He had been an upstanding member of our town for many years. During the summer he offered free dental checkups to underprivileged kids before the school year began. It was something that always made me proud. We had a doctor and another dentist that also assisted with checkups.
I had to wonder about what he had said about Jane Graves though. Had she been able to hide a nasty temper while she worked with my mother? She’d only worked at the candy store part-time, so I supposed it was possible. It was something I’d mention to Ethan.
Chapter Thirteen
“What we need to do this weekend is make a visit to the carnival before it closes Sunday evening.” Ethan was leaning on the front counter at the candy store. Mom had given him a sample of the peppermint bark recipe she was working on and he was enjoying himself before getting back to work.
I nodded. “That sounds like fun. As much work as this Halloween season has been, I’m kind of glad it’s coming to an end. But I know as soon as it’s over I’ll wish it hadn’t ended, so we better take advantage of some of the activities while we still can.”
“It’s a date then,” he said and winked at me.
We both turned to look when the front door opened. Linda Reid walked through it. When she spied us, she smiled big and headed over to us. “Well, Mia, Ethan, how are you two this evening? I heard the two of you were dating, is it true?”
Ethan glanced at me and I turned to Linda. “It is true. Good news travels fast in this town.”
She nearly squealed. “I’m so glad to hear it! The two of you make the cutest couple! And yes, good news does travel fast around here. One of the benefits of living in a small town. Now tell me, how serious is it? Will we be hearing wedding bells soon?”
I stared wide-eyed at her and then I looked at Ethan. He tried to suppress a smile and looked away.
“Oh no, we aren’t rushing anything. We’ve only been going out for a couple of months now and we’re just enjoying being together.” I could hardly believe that she had said something like that in front of Ethan, but I was glad to see he wasn’t taking it seriously.
She reached out and put her hand over mine. “Well don’t you worry, I know the two of you are fated to be together. It’s just one of those things that I feel in my bones.” Linda was a friend of my mother’s. She was sweet as could be, but this conversation was making me a little uncomfortable.
Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Ethan’s shoulders shaking. He turned back to me with a big smile on his face. I’d have rolled my eyes at him if Linda hadn’t been standing right there.
“Well,” I said, “we’re just enjoying being with one another for now.” If I kept saying it, maybe she’d believe me.
She patted my hand before removing hers. “Trust me. I have a feeling about these kinds of things. My mother said that I had a touch of the intuition. More so than most folks. She knew about things like that.”
I shook my head slowly. I hoped we weren’t going to hear more about a curse, but I had to ask. “The intuition?”
“It’s sort of something like being clairvoyant, except not really. It’s just something that I can feel down in my bones occasionally. And I feel it right now. The two of you are going to be together for a very long time.” She patted my hand again and chuckled.
Ethan grinned at me. “In that case, I’m going to take her out to dinner tonight and then to the carnival this weekend. If we’re destined to be together, we may as well make the most of it.”
Linda tipped her head back and laughed. “Now you’re making fun of me Ethan, but that’s okay, I don’t mind. But if I were a betting woman, I’d make you a bet on you two getting married some day, and I’d make me a whole bunch of money.”
Ethan chuckled. “You might at that,” he said and shot me a look.
My eyes went wide. “Linda, is there something I can help you with? Some fudge, maybe?” When all else fails, change the subject.
“As a matter of fact, I was hoping your mother had some of that pumpkin spice fudge left over.” She looked into the display case and grinned. “And it looks like I was right. This is the best fudge in the world and I sure will be sorry when it’s gone.”
“How much would you like?” I asked her and opened the back of the display case.
“You better make it a pound. I shouldn’t indulge like that, but it’ll probably be next Halloween before I get any more of it.”
“A pound of pumpkin spice fudge coming right up,” I said and pulled the tray out from the display case.
“Say, did you all hear about what happened to Eldon Howell on Halloween night? I know you did, Ethan, being a police officer and all, but it was a terrible tragedy wasn’t it?”
“It’s a tragedy when anyone is murdered,” Ethan agreed. “We seem to have had our share of tragedies lately.”
She made a clucking noise and nodded. “We sure have. But don’t you worry about a thing. I have a feeling when this Halloween season is over, Pumpkin Hollow will be back to normal again. It’s the curse, you know.”
“Now Linda,” I said as I weighed out her fudge. “We don’t believe in any curse.”
She made a clucking sound again. “That’s because neither of you has the intuition like I do. Like I said before, this thing is about to end.”
“I’m certainly glad to hear that,” I said and gave Ethan the eye.
“Does that intuition tell you anything about who might have done it?” Ethan asked her.
“Well the intuition hasn’t told me a thing, but I’ll tell you something,” she said and looked over her shoulder. The candy shop was empty except for the three of us and she turned back. “I heard old Eldon Howell and Jane Graves shouting at one another not two weeks ago.”
This made me stop. Maybe what Dr. Graves and Mrs. Howell had said was right. Did Jane have an issue with her temper?
“How did you happen to hear them shouting?” Ethan asked her with interest.
“Well, Jane Graves lives next door to me. She leaves her windows open when the weather is nice and that afternoon the temperatures had warmed up just a bit. She and Eldon were arguing over money.” She nodded her head and looked from Ethan to me.
“Were you able to hear anything specific?” Ethan asked her.
She looked over her shoulder again at the still empty store. “I heard her tell him that he needed to give her some more money. Apparently, she made out like a bandit when she divorced Dr. Graves and I couldn’t help but notice she bought a brand-new car, and the UPS truck is always stopping out front of her house with boxes. I think she has a terrible shopping habit. Anyway, apparently all the money she got from her divorce settlement is gone.”
“Did she sound threatening?” Ethan asked her.
She nodded and her eyes got big. “When he said he had no way of getting her any more money, she threatened him. She told him she would make him sorry.”
“And what did he say?” Ethan asked.
“He tried to calm her down. He told her that she was getting upset over nothing and that things would work out. I don’t know what kind of things he was talking about, but whatever it was, she was mad as a wet hen.”
I saw Ethan’s jaw tighten as he thought this over. “Was there anything else?”
“Not a whole lot. They argued for a few minutes and then their voices were muffled. I think they must have gone into another room. But that Jane Graves, she’s something else. She seems just as nice as can be to your face, but then I hear her hollering and yelling sometimes on the telephone late at night. I don’t know if she was talking to Eldon or somebody else, but she was so angry. She used language my mother would roll over in her grave if she heard.”
Ethan nodded. “That’s good to know. Do you know if Jane was home on Halloween evening? Did you see her car in the
driveway?”
She shook her head. “No sir, I saw her drive away from her house around 6 o’clock in the evening and she didn’t make it home until after ten. Not that I’m spying on the neighbors mind you, but I did hear her car door slam when she got home.”
I finished weighing out the fudge for Linda and wrapped it up for her.
“Mia, you need to tell your mother how much I appreciate her fudge. I seem to keep missing her when I come in lately. Is she doing okay?”
“She’s doing just fine,” I said as I rang her up. “I think she’s a little relieved that the Halloween season is just about done.”
She chuckled as I handed her a cute Halloween print paper bag with the fudge in it. “I’m sure she’s been working herself ragged making all the wonderful candy she has here in the store. But you tell her I said hello and I’ll stop back in in a few days.”
We watched as Linda left and then turned to look at each other. “What do you think of that?” I asked.
“I think I need to have another talk with Jane Graves,” Ethan said.
I had already told Ethan what Dr. Graves told me about Jane’s temper. I really had to wonder if it was true and if she wasn’t as broke up over Eldon’s death as she said she was.
Chapter Fourteen
The weekend before Halloween and the weekend after were carnival weekends. There was a Ferris wheel, a carousel, crack the whip, bumper cars, and a small dragon ride that was similar to a rollercoaster, only it was for preschoolers so it didn’t go very fast. The goat-tying event was in full swing as was the straw maze, the hayrides, and a few people wandered through the pumpkin patch looking over what was left from Halloween. Thanksgiving would be here before we knew it and the remaining pumpkins would most likely find a home with the last of the tourists.
Ethan held my hand as we strolled the haunted farmhouse grounds, taking in the last full weekend of the Halloween season.
“So should I ask where you are in the investigation?” I asked Ethan as we headed toward the barn.
“I spoke with Fagan Branigan again and he still can’t remember anyone local who bought a werewolf costume before Halloween. The synthetic fur found in Eldon’s hand leads us nowhere. Of course, we’re sure it came from the werewolf costume, but it doesn’t give us any new information. And then there’s the watch. I told you there were only partial fingerprints on it and I’m disappointed in that. I had thought we might pick up a good one from the front or the back of it.”
Ethan sounded frustrated, and I didn’t blame him. “And what about the change that was found on the ground in the alley?”
He shrugged. “Somebody lost their pocket change. Maybe it came out of Eldon’s pocket when he struggled with the killer, or it was the killer’s. In any case, it hasn’t yielded anything useful.”
I thought this over. I’d repeatedly gone over in my mind what I had seen that night and I couldn’t come up with anything new. Jane Graves would be just about the perfect size to match the werewolf’s size and with what Linda had told us the previous day, I was now highly suspicious of her.
“I’m sure there will be a break in the case soon. I’m thinking positively here. What do you think about Jane Graves?”
“She just might be on my list of suspects,” he said with a grin. “But to be honest, the field is wide open at this point.”
That didn’t surprise me at all with how little evidence had been left behind at the murder scene. I was still occasionally kicking myself for not having done more even though I knew there wasn’t much I could have done.
We stopped at the booth that sold coffee, hot chocolate, and hot apple cider. Ethan bought two cups of cocoa for us and then we headed toward the barn. Some of the horses that drew the hay wagons were in their stalls taking a break and I wanted to say hello to them.
“I really need a horse of my own,” I said as I reached out and scratched the forehead of a large black horse.
“Maybe one day,” he said and put his hand on the horse’s nose. “But I still think horses are probably a lot of work.”
“I don’t doubt that at all,” I said. “Think about how much fun it would be to be able to go out into your backyard, saddle up, and go for a ride though. Especially in the fall when the weather is so beautiful. I think it would make being outdoors a lot more fun.”
“You may have a point there.”
We turned to look when we heard shuffling feet coming through the barn door. Jane Graves looked up at us, surprised.
“Hi Mia, Ethan. I didn’t expect anyone to be in here right now. I thought everyone was outside having fun.”
“Hi Jane,” I said. “We thought we’d stop in and say hello to the horses.”
She nodded and walked over to the stall next to the one with the black horse in it. There was a tall bay colored horse with white stockings in that one.
“That’s exactly what I had in mind. When I was a girl we lived on a farm and we had three horses and one pony that was mine. Her name was Tinkerbelle.” She looked at me and chuckled. “I’m still not sure where she got that name.”
“It sounds like a little girl who loved her pony probably named her.” I looked at Jane’s feet. She was wearing black suede boots that were dusty and dirty. It surprised me. She was always dressed nicely, and this seemed out of character for her.
She chuckled. “You might be on to something there. I’ve always regretted not having a house with enough land to keep a horse. But, my ex-husband couldn’t stand the thought of having a horse around. He said they smelled bad.” She snorted and shook her head. “That man didn’t know what he was missing.”
I glanced at Ethan and he looked at me with raised eyebrows.
“I’ve never had a horse, but I sure would like to someday. I was just telling Ethan how much fun it would be to go riding during the fall. The weather here is beautiful and I think it would be awesome.”
“You don’t know what you’re missing without a horse. I’ve been thinking lately that I’m going to buy one and keep it down at the Rosemont stables. It’s kind of expensive there, but I miss having one.”
I wondered about this. Linda said Jane had argued with Eldon about money just a few weeks earlier and now she was saying she wanted to buy a horse and keep it at an expensive stable? Just buying the horse alone would be pricey.
“I think that would be such fun,” I said. “What kind of horse would you get?”
She looked at me. “An Arabian. They’re beautiful animals. I kept telling Devon how beautiful Arabians are, but he just complained and whined about the smell. I suggested keeping it at the stables, and then he complained about the cost. There was no pleasing that man.”
“Some people just aren’t horse people,” I added.
Her face clouded over and she turned toward us. “Can I tell you something?”
We both nodded. “Go ahead,” Ethan said.
“I know who killed Eldon. It was my ex-husband. Do you know what he’s been doing?”
I glanced at Ethan.
“No, what has he been doing?” Ethan asked, leaning on the stall door.
“He’s been going around town telling people that I killed Eldon. Can you believe that? Me? He’s got a lot of nerve!” Her face turned red, and she took two stumbling steps toward us. I wondered if she had been drinking.
“Why would he say something like that?” Ethan asked, studying her.
“I’ll tell you why. Because he wants to shift the attention from himself. When we got our divorce, Eldon represented Devon. When my lawyer was able to get the settlement that I asked for, Devon turned on Eldon claiming he had lost the case on purpose.”
“So Devon and Eldon had problems?” Ethan asked, acting like he didn’t already know about this.
“Oh, they had problems all right. They couldn’t stand each other. Devon thought Eldon and I were having an affair during the divorce.” She snorted and shook her head. “That’s a lie. Eldon and I didn’t get together until long after the divorce
was over. Devon just couldn’t let it go that I was given what I asked for in the divorce.”
“What makes you think that Devon killed Eldon?” I asked her.
She took two more unsteady steps toward us. “Just for that reason. He swore he would get back at Eldon and he did.” She looked at us and I could see tears forming in her eyes. “Can you believe that? He killed Eldon over money.”
It was hard for me to think that Dr. Graves had done such a thing. He was a quiet, kind man.
“What else has Devon been saying about you?” Ethan asked.
“He’s telling people that I killed Eldon because of money. He’s telling people I’m greedy, and that I wanted money from Eldon. It’s just unbelievable. I’ll tell you what, when I run into that man, he’s gonna be sorry.” She was starting to slur her words, and she swayed just a bit as she stood there.
“What do you mean he’s going to be sorry?” Ethan asked coolly.
She looked at Ethan and then tipped her head back and laughed. “Oh dear, I suppose I shouldn’t say something like that to a police officer, should I? I don’t mean he’ll be sorry like he made Eldon sorry. I mean I’m going to give him a piece of my mind. Out there running around lying about me. The nerve! I think you need to talk to him and investigate him.”
“I’ve been questioning a lot of people,” Ethan said. “And I’ll certainly talk to Devon. But I would suggest that you keep your distance from him and not cause any trouble.”
Jane narrowed her eyes at him and swayed again, then she gave him a salute. “Aye aye captain,” she said then started giggling.
“Jane, you aren’t driving are you?” Ethan asked her.
She shook her head. “No, you don’t have to worry about me. I came with a girlfriend. She’s doing all the driving.”
“I’m glad to hear that,” Ethan said.
Jane Graves had already been at the top of my list of suspects, and the way she was behaving now gave her a permanent position there. She had to have killed Eldon.
