by Leslie Meier
I marched inside and called Danny, who swore he was still in Iowa and had not snuck back to town to engage in his typical Halloween revelry.
So who was behind this unexpected reign of terror?
That’s when I opened the kitchen cabinet for a box of pasta to make for dinner and was met with a giant ghoul face bobbing up and down and laughing maniacally. More screaming. More running around. Both hands in the air. Not my most calm and composed moment.
That was the last straw. After taking a few deep breaths, I dragged the kids out to the car and drove straight over to my brother Randy’s house, hoping to coerce an invitation to stay for dinner because I was not about to spend another moment in my own home, dreading what might happen next.
Randy and his husband, Sergio, were more than happy to host us, and we all gorged on one of Randy’s specialty dishes, Chicken Cordon Bleu—or Boo, as he liked to call it around Halloween—a name I adopted for my own Chicken Cordon Boo Bites appetizer, but more on that later. I spent most of the meal breathlessly recounting the day’s heart-stopping pranks, and how I was clueless as to who could be behind them! Sergio promised to have a squad car patrol the neighborhood to be on the lookout for anything out of the ordinary. I thanked him profusely. I was determined to get to the bottom of this.
The next day was Halloween. I made plans with Mona, who offered to pick up my kids and her own brood and take them back to her house for a quick dinner before we would all meet up to go trick-or-treating. After a long day at work, including a mid-morning break to step outside on the sidewalk of the Island Times office to watch the parade pass by and wave at all the children in their costumes, I rushed home to feed Leroy and grab a quick bite to eat before Mona arrived with the car full of kids, ready to load up on trick-or-treat sweets.
I tossed my purse on the kitchen table and glanced around for Leroy, who, oddly, was nowhere to be seen. I started to get an eerie feeling. The house was so quiet, almost too quiet, as I stood in the middle of the kitchen, just listening for a moment.
I slowly walked out of the kitchen toward the living room when I thought I heard soft music playing. I strained to hear what it was as I silently crept down the hallway. As it seemed to slowly grow in volume, I recognized the tune. It was the theme from that creepy 1960s supernatural soap Dark Shadows! My stomach was in knots as I rounded the corner and suddenly saw a man sitting in a chair facing away from me. I covered my mouth to muffle my gasp. I quietly backed away, keeping my eye on the man in the chair, and then spun around to make a run for it. That’s when I found myself face-to-face with a lumbering, black-eyed, decaying zombie with pieces of skin hanging off his face. I screamed and turned to see the man in the chair stand up and turn around. It was another zombie! Perhaps I had woken the dead with all my screaming outside at my mailbox the day before!
I was just about to faint dead away when the zombies began chuckling and snorting, softly at first, then building to all-out guffawing. That was the moment I knew I had been had. The zombie masks came off. It was Randy and Sergio!
Suddenly, the basement door flew open and Dustin and Gemma, who apparently had not gone to Mona’s, came running out, with Leroy yipping at their heels, laughing and yelling, “We got you! We got you!”
When Randy and Sergio finally managed to stop howling, they explained that the kids were very sad about their dad not being here to play a Halloween trick on Mom like they did every year. Danny had decided that if he couldn’t be there to supervise the prank personally, he would enlist a little help from their two uncles, who were more than happy to lend a helping hand to scare the living daylights out of their poor mother. Why I am always the target, I will never know. But I have to admit, they got me good!
Later that night, after trick-or-treating, Gemma and Dustin called their dad to fill him in on how well the plan had worked and how terrified I was, and then they handed me the phone. Danny rather sheepishly asked me if I was mad, but I told him no. I couldn’t be upset when I saw how excited the kids were to be doing something with their dad, even if he was 1,500 miles away. But as I hung up the phone, I thought to myself, You better watch out next year, Danny Powell. What goes around comes around.
Then I went to make myself a Hot White Russian, hoping that might do the trick in getting my heart rate to come down.
Hot White Russian
Ingredients
4 ounces hot coffee
2 ounces Kahlua
2 ounces milk
1 ounce vodka
Whipped cream (optional)
Pour all the ingredients into a coffee mug and stir, topping with whipped cream, if you like. Sit back and enjoy!
Chicken Cordon Boo Bites
Ingredients
2 boneless chicken breasts
⅓ to ¾ cup vegetable oil
1 cup flour
2 tablespoons Cajun seasoning
1 teaspoon granulated garlic
1 cup milk
1½ cup seasoned Panko bread crumbs
4 slices of ham cut into 1-inch squares
4 slices of Swiss cheese cut into 1-inch squares
Dipping sauce
⅔ cup mayonnaise
1 tablespoon mustard
Instructions
Mix the two ingredients for the dipping sauce in a small bowl, and set aside.
Pound the chicken breasts with a kitchen mallet to equal thickness.
Heat the oil to medium heat.
Add the flour, Cajun seasoning, and garlic to a 1-quart ziplock bag.
Cut the chicken into bite-size pieces. One by one, dip the chicken bites into the milk, then into the flour mixture. Shake off excess flour and dip back into the milk, then roll the bite around in the panko bread crumbs, making sure it is fully coated. Add the coated chicken to the heated oil, and cook until golden brown and cooked through (7–10 minutes), turning as needed. Remove from oil and place on a cooling rack placed on a baking pan.
To each bite, add a piece of cheese, a piece of ham, and another piece of cheese, and secure with a toothpick. When ready to serve, you can warm for a bit in the oven or even for a few seconds in the microwave, just long enough to melt the cheese. Put out the bowl with the dipping sauce, and you are in business!
Chapter Six
“This is preposterous! The girl is obviously making up stories to get attention!” Dr. Reddy cried.
“Please, let the girl speak,” Sergio demanded, before swiveling back around and kneeling down so he was eye-to-eye with Jodie. “Now, Jodie, are you saying you hit Mr. Candy in the back of the head with something?”
Jodie shook her head, blinking back tears.
Sergio nodded. “Okay, then why do you think you killed him?”
Jodie turned to glance at Pia, who was sucking her thumb nervously, eyes wide with fright. Jodie then returned her gaze to Sergio and whispered, barely loud enough for the others to hear, “We cast an evil spell on him.”
“I have heard enough!” Dr. Reddy sighed, marching forward and grabbing her daughter by the hand, dragging her toward the door. “Come on, Pia, we’re leaving.”
Sergio sprang back to his feet, chasing after her until he managed to insert himself in front of her and her daughter and block their exit. “I’m sorry, Dr. Reddy, but I cannot allow you to leave until we figure all this out.”
“You can’t force me to stay! I will not be held prisoner!”
“Then I will consider your refusal to cooperate as an obstruction of justice, and I will call Judge Crowley to issue an arrest warrant.”
Dr. Reddy gasped. “You wouldn’t dare!”
“Try me,” Sergio threatened.
Hayley suspected Sergio was bluffing, but Dr. Reddy appeared convinced enough that he would make good on his threat that she plopped down at a table near the door, still squeezing Pia’s hand, keeping her firmly by her side. She sat there pouting, refusing to make eye contact with anyone.
Sergio walked back and knelt down next to Jodie again. “Okay, dear, I want you to tel
l me exactly what happened. Start from the beginning.”
Jodie looked toward her mother, not sure what to do.
“Go on, tell him, Jodie. Sergio wants to help you,” Mona said as gently as the irascible Mona was capable of.
“Mr. Candy came to the storeroom, where we were playing with the spell book, and he accidentally stepped on one of our candles, and his costume nearly caught on fire before he stamped it out. He got really mad at us and called us ‘silly, stupid little girls,’ and then he grabbed a bottle of wine and stormed out. He was so mean, and he made us so mad . . . that’s when we . . .”
“Cast your spell?” Sergio asked.
Jodie nodded.
Sergio put a comforting hand on Jodie’s shoulder. “What kind of spell did you cast?”
Jodie stared at the floor, ashamed. “A death spell . . . We didn’t think it would actually work, we were just playing around . . . But then . . . then he died.”
Tears streamed down Jodie’s face.
Dr. Reddy piped up. “Well, I certainly hope you are proud, Mona Barnes! You’ve managed to spawn your very own bad seed!”
“I swear, if she doesn’t button it, I am going to knock her head to kingdom come!” Mona seethed under her breath.
“Violence is never the answer,” Liddy warned.
“Since when?” Mona groused.
Pia tugged on her mother’s Cruella de Vil fake fur coat. She also had tears pooling in her eyes. “It was me, Mama . . .”
“What do you mean?” Dr. Reddy snapped.
“I was the one who went to the chapter on black magic in the book and found the death spell. Jodie just went along with it.”
“Why on earth would you ever do something like that, Pia?” Dr. Reddy cried.
“Because Mr. Candy called us names and hurt our feelings, and we just wanted to get back at him. But it was just a game! We didn’t really want him to die!” Pia wailed.
Dr. Reddy hugged her daughter, trying to comfort her as the girl sobbed uncontrollably, while still glaring at Mona, refusing to believe her poor daughter was at fault in the slightest despite the girl’s full confession. In the doctor’s mind, no matter what Pia was willing to admit, she had to be under the bad influence of the juvenile delinquent Barnes girl.
Hayley walked over to Jodie and gingerly put a hand underneath her chin, raising it up so she could offer the distraught child a reassuring smile. “It was wrong to cast a nasty spell on anyone, even someone who mistreated you, but, Jodie, believe me when I tell you, your spell did not kill Mr. Candy—”
“That’s right! He died from a blow to the back of the head!” Dr. Reddy yelled. “Obviously, neither girl is big enough, or tall enough, or strong enough to do that kind of damage, so that puts Pia in the clear. Are we free to go now?” Dr. Reddy said as she stood back up.
“Sit!” Sergio barked, pointing a finger at her as if she was a misbehaving Great Dane.
Dr. Reddy dropped back down in her chair again, still gripping Pia tightly by the hand.
“It was just a coincidence,” Hayley promised Jodie, who used the back of her hand to wipe away the tears streaking her apple cheeks.
“But the spell could have made him trip and fall and crack his head open!” Jodie sniffed.
Sergio pulled Hayley aside and said in a low tone, “That’s not possible. The wound is not consistent with him tripping and falling. This is definitely a homicide. Someone whacked him pretty hard in the back of the head.”
“I know,” Hayley whispered back to Sergio. “I just don’t want to scare the girls. They’re upset enough as it is without having to worry about an actual murderer being among us.”
“So what do we do now, call the police?” Liddy asked.
“I am the police, Liddy, in case that little fact slipped your mind,” Sergio sighed. “All of my officers have their hands full with the break-in at Clara Beaumont’s house at the moment, so I want you all to just sit tight until I have had a chance to question everyone.”
“Uh oh . . .” a man squeaked.
All eyes turned to Randy, still in his Annie Wilkes overall denim dress and flat, brown stringy-haired wig.
“What is it?” Sergio asked.
“Has anyone seen my sledgehammer?”
They all looked around the dining room, but there was no sign of it.
“I remember putting it down in the kitchen earlier because it got too cumbersome to lug around, but then I lost track of it, and now I can’t find it,” Randy said quietly.
“What were you doing carrying around a sledgehammer?” Dr. Reddy howled.
“It was part of my costume! Annie Wilkes from the Stephen King novel Misery! Didn’t you read the book or see the movie?”
Dr. Reddy shook her head. “No, I am not a fan of Stephen King. Too much unbelievable supernatural nonsense. I’d rather live in the real world.”
“What about Hayley’s awesome costume? You didn’t know she was prom-night Carrie in a blood-soaked dress from King’s very first novel?” Randy gasped.
Dr. Reddy shrugged and snorted, “I just thought she had a lousy dry cleaner.”
Sergio was losing patience. “Okay, let’s table the Halloween costume contest for later. We need to locate that sledgehammer. Hayley, why don’t you and Liddy fan out and see if you can find it. The rest of us will stay here and try to remember if one of us saw anything unusual during the time leading up to Candy’s mur—”—he stopped himself, eyeing the two visibly distraught moppets—“Candy’s death.”
Randy suddenly gasped. “We don’t have to try to remember. I have it all right here.” He held up his phone. “I was recording a video of the party for most of the night.”
Sergio charged across the room to his husband and snatched the phone out of his grasp. They both began to intently watch the playback of the evening.
As Hayley and Liddy headed toward the back of the restaurant again, in search of the sledgehammer, Dr. Reddy and Mona remained behind, glaring at each other.
Dr. Reddy opened her mouth to say something, but Mona quickly cut her off with a stark warning. “If you say one more disparaging word about my daughter, it will be the end for you.”
“I wasn’t going to say anything,” Dr. Reddy sniffed, pausing, waiting; then, unable to resist, she added, “Except that I’m surprised you know such a big word as disparaging.”
Hayley winced, glancing back, half-expecting to see Mona flying across the room at Dr. Reddy, but Mona surprisingly didn’t go on the attack. She held back, hugging her shaken daughter, whispering some soothing, comforting words in her ear.
Hayley and Liddy decided to split up in the back of the restaurant, in their frantic hunt to track down the possible murder weapon. But after a thorough search, the sledgehammer failed to turn up.
It was as if it had just vanished into thin air.
Or someone had taken great pains to hide it.
But where?
Chapter Seven
Sergio sat at a table in the dining room with Jodie and Pia, going over their story one more time as Dr. Reddy and Mona hovered nearby and Randy watched the video he had recorded on his phone for any obvious clues.
“After you cast this spell on Mr. Candy, did you see anyone else wandering around near the storeroom?”
“No,” Jodie said quietly.
“Were you in the storeroom the whole time until we came to find you?” Sergio asked gently.
“Yes,” Jodie said, nodding.
Pia tugged on the sleeve of Jodie’s witch costume. “No, Jodie, remember, after Mr. Candy yelled at us, we went to get some cookies because we were hungry.”
Jodie nodded, then turned back to Sergio. “Oh, yeah. That’s right. We went back out front to the party for a little while.”
“So you never saw Mr. Candy come back, and you never saw him talking to anyone else?”
Both girls shook their heads.
“They didn’t see anything!” Dr. Reddy sighed. “Stop badgering them!”
&nb
sp; “Please, Dr. Reddy, I am just trying to do my job, which would be a whole lot easier if you would stop interrupting me!” Sergio snapped.
Dr. Reddy threw her hands up in the air in surrender.
Liddy had now joined Randy, whose eyes were focused on his phone, and started watching the video of the party over his left shoulder.
Hayley decided to do one more sweep of the whole restaurant just in case she and Liddy had failed to spot the missing sledgehammer, which must be hidden somewhere, during their initial search. She looked in all of the cupboards, under the sink, in every corner—still with no luck.
That’s when she realized there was one place where she had not looked.
The walk-in freezer.
Where Boris Candy’s body was still lying on the floor.
Hayley took a deep breath, steeled herself, and pulled the freezer door all the way open. Fortunately, Mr. Candy’s body was exactly where they had left it. Nothing supernatural had spirited it away. Hayley took a tentative step inside, shivering from the cold, and scanned every nook and cranny.
There was no sign of the sledgehammer.
Just poor Mr. Candy, who would probably die of frostbite if he had not already been dead.
That’s when it dawned on her.
Where was his Pennywise costume?
The current theory was that he had changed out of his costume right before he was attacked. If so, then what had happened to the costume? Hayley poked around, but she could not locate it.
Maybe he had already stored the costume in his car but, for some reason, had come back inside before driving home, perhaps having forgotten something.
Hayley then unlocked the back door and walked outside, circling around the building to the parking lot, where only a few cars remained. She knew Mr. Candy drove a red Prius and spotted it instantly, parked next to Liddy’s black Mercedes.
Hayley turned on the flashlight on her phone as she approached Mr. Candy’s car. She first tried the door handle. It was unlocked. She opened it and scanned the seats and floor with the light. No sign of the costume. Then she popped open the trunk and searched there. Still no costume. What had he done with it?
