Caramel Killer: A Pumpkin Hollow Mystery, book 12

by Kathleen Suzette

  I smiled. “That’s really nice to hear. I’m glad you enjoyed it. My mother puts a lot of effort into perfecting her recipes.”

  “Well you can certainly tell it,” she said. “Goodness, I get so many fingerprints on my windows and doors. Sometimes I wonder if people sprout extra hands just so they can leave prints.”

  I chuckled. “I know how you feel. It seems like we’re always cleaning the candy store door, too.”

  “Oh, I didn’t think about that,” she said and chuckled. “I bet people have sticky fingers from the candy and wipe them all over the glass.”

  “It’s been known to happen,” I said with a grin. “Well Sonia, I guess I’m going to get going now since the costume shop is closed. It’s my day off and I’ve been running errands today.”

  “Okay Mia, it’s good seeing you. Stop in when you have time and we’ll have a little visit, and maybe you’ll find a new book.”

  “I sure will,” I said and headed back to my car. I got inside and sat behind the wheel for a few minutes, looking at the costume shop. Why hadn’t Fagan come home after work last night? Somebody or something had stopped him.

  I started my car and drove over to the candy store. Even though it was my day off, I was restless, and I didn’t want to go home just yet.

  “Hey Christy,” I said when I walked through the door. My sister was standing at the front counter, looking over the display case. She looked up at me and smiled.

  “Hey Mia,” she said. “What are you doing here today? You didn’t want to help out today, did you?”

  I shook my head. “No, not really. I was just running around and thought I’d stop in.”

  She nodded and looked at the display case again. “I’m trying to figure out what else we need to add to the display case.”

  “Hello, Mia,” Linda Reid said. She held a tray of peanut butter fudge and was heading to the display case.

  “Hi Linda,” I said. “That peanut butter fudge looks good.”

  “It is good. I tasted a sample of it. It’s excellent.” She slipped the tray into the display case and headed back to the kitchen.

  With the Halloween season over, and the Christmas season not officially begun yet, we would have a couple of weeks of slower sales days. It was nice to have a little break. Christmas would be here before we knew it and we’d be back working our fingers to the bones.

  I stepped up to the counter. “Have you seen Fagan recently?” I whispered. I knew Mom and Linda were in the kitchen making candy and I didn’t want them to hear what I was asking.

  She looked at me, her brow furrowed. “No, I don’t think I’ve seen Fagan for a couple of weeks. Why?”

  I shrugged and looked away. “No reason.”

  “You can’t fool me, Mia Jordan,” she said. “Why are you asking about him?”

  I turned back to her. “Ethan and I found him shot to death out in the woods.”

  She gasped, and I put a finger to my lips to hush her.

  “Are you serious?”

  I nodded. “No one knows about it yet. Not even his wife. I just wondered if you had run into him recently. I was hoping maybe he said something that seemed off.”

  She stared at me wide-eyed. “That’s terrible. I wonder what happened to him?”

  I shrugged. “He was out in the woods. It could have been a hunting accident.” I debated on whether I would tell her that his wife had reported him missing yesterday.

  She nodded slowly. “I guess that could have been it. Is that what Ethan thinks happened?”

  “He isn’t sure,” I said, glancing around the empty store. “His wife reported him missing today.”

  Her mouth dropped open. “Oh, no. Poor thing. And she doesn’t know yet?”

  “No, we just found his body less than an hour ago. Don’t tell anyone, we don’t want it getting around until his wife knows.”

  She nodded slowly. “I won’t say a word to anyone. I guess this means we’re on a new investigation.” She smiled at me.

  I smiled back. “Ethan will have a fit. We have to be careful, but I want to know what happened to him. He was a friend after all, and a fellow merchant here in town.”

  “For sure,” she said nodding. “We’ll figure this thing out.”

  I sighed. “Well, it doesn’t look like there’s much going on around here. I guess I should head back home.”

  “We can get something to eat for dinner tonight if you want to,” she said. “I need to get looking for a place of my own. I think it’s time.”

  “That sounds like a plan,” I said. “Ethan’s going to be tied up for a while, so if you want to come over for dinner after you get off work, just stop by.”

  “Sounds good,” she said. “I’ll see you then.”

  I headed back out to my car feeling dejected about not being able to find out anything about Fagan yet. But I couldn’t be open about asking questions with anyone other than Christy just yet. His wife needed to know he wasn’t coming home, and she didn’t need to hear it from someone asking questions about her husband’s death.

  Chapter Five

  It was two days later, when Christy and I decided to stop by Fagan’s house to see how his wife was doing. Christy drove, while I held the pumpkin spice cake I had baked for her in my lap. The cake was in a plastic cake carrier so that if I didn’t get it back, it wouldn’t be a big deal.

  Christy pulled up to Janna Branigan’s house and parked. The Branigans lived in an older house that had white clapboard siding with a wraparound porch. It was decorated with four wooden scarecrows in the yard and there was a small pumpkin on each of the porch steps. A large wreath made of burlap and small pumpkins adorned the front door, making it looked like a comfortable and inviting house.

  We got out of the car and headed up to the porch. There were clear lights wrapped around the stair and porch railings. In one corner the porch was a bale of straw with a larger scarecrow sitting on it with two large pumpkins on either side of it. It gave me flashbacks to an earlier murder, but I shook it off. It was a cute display, and I was impressed with how warm and cozy the house looked from the outside.

  Christy knocked on the door while I held the cake. When Janna came to the door, she looked surprised to see us. “Oh, hello, Mia, Christy.”

  “Hi Janna,” I said. “We heard about Fagan, and we wanted to stop by and tell you how sorry we were. I made you a pumpkin spice cake.”

  “That’s sweet of you,” she said, opening the screen door for us. “Would you like to come in?”

  We followed her into the living room, and I was as impressed with the inside as I was the outside. She had done the house in a farmhouse style and it immediately made me want to curl up with a book on the sofa. The red brick fireplace in the living room promised lots of cozy winter evenings.

  She offered us a seat, and we sat on the sofa while she took the cake to the kitchen.

  “Thank you so much for the cake,” she said when she returned. “That was very sweet of you to think of me. I can smell the spices through the carrier.”

  “You’re welcome,” I said. “I hope you enjoy it.”

  “I was so sorry to hear about Fagan,” Christy said. “He’ll be missed by the community.”

  “That’s kind of you say,” she said sadly. She sat down on the loveseat and crossed her legs. “I just can’t get over it. I was expecting him to come home after work Wednesday evening, but he never showed up.” Her eyes teared up as she spoke.

  “Do you have any idea where he might have been?” I asked. It seemed odd that he simply didn’t come home from work. Sonia Perrins had said she saw him around two o’clock that afternoon, but had she noticed when he left? I couldn’t ask that question without arousing her suspicion the other day, but now that it had gotten around town, I was going to go back and ask her.

  She clasped her hands together in her lap and looked a bit sheepish. “Honestly, I thought he had gone someplace with his friend, Jeff Lukens. Sometimes after work they stop at that sports b
ar over in Truckee.” She looked away, and I had the distinct impression that she wasn’t telling me all there was to know about that.

  “Did you call Jeff when Fagan didn’t show up?” I asked her.

  “Yes, I called him, but he didn’t answer his phone. Neither did Fagan, of course. I tried Fagan’s phone first. I didn’t know what had become of him.” She looked bewildered now. “I kept thinking he would come home when he was done with whatever it was he was doing, but he never showed up.”

  “You must have been so worried,” Christy said. “Was it like him to not come home without calling you to tell you where he was?”

  She shook her head. “Oh no. That wasn’t like Fagan at all. I was going to call the police about midnight that night when he didn’t show up, but I knew they wouldn’t do anything unless he had been missing for twenty-four hours. In fact, when I went down to the police station on Thursday just past noon, they told me I couldn’t file a missing person’s report until five o’clock that evening. But that afternoon Ethan stopped by and told me what happened. I’m still in shock about it. Who would want to kill Fagan? He was a good guy. Everyone liked him and he never got into any kind of trouble.”

  “He was instrumental in helping us keep the Halloween season last year. I so appreciated his help with that,” I said. “Is there any chance that it could have been a hunting accident?”

  She looked at me and blinked. “Hunting accident? No, he’s never gone hunting before. I suppose there might have been a hunter in the area who accidentally shot him and then took off when they realized what they had done.” She looked down at her hands for a moment and then looked up at me again. “But that would be an awful thing to do. Shoot somebody and then just leave them to die? It doesn’t make sense to me.”

  “Maybe the hunter didn’t realize he had shot someone,” Christy suggested. “Maybe it was somebody that was inexperienced and didn’t have enough sense not to shoot a gun so close to town, and they accidentally hit him. But then, that would raise the question of what Fagan was doing in the woods. Is there a reason he might have been there?”

  She shook her head and her eyes teared up again. “Fagan really wasn’t an outdoors person. He always said that his kind of sport was sitting on the couch with a bowl of chips and salsa and watching a football game.” She chuckled. “He loved his football.”

  I smiled. “I remember him mentioning his favorite football team, I believe it was the Patriots?”

  She nodded. “Yes, they were his favorite. He never missed a game. He was so excited a few years ago when he got to see them in the Super Bowl. It was quite an experience for him.”

  “I’m not much of a football fan myself,” I said. “But I know football fans are very enthusiastic about their team and the game.”

  She nodded. “That was Fagan during the fall. He lived, breathed, and ate football.” She chuckled again. “He was something else. I always knew where he was going to be on the weekends during the fall. Planted right there on that couch.” She looked at the couch where we were sitting, and her lip quivered for just a second.

  “I’m so sorry,” I said. “Do you have any thoughts on what might have happened to him?”

  Her eyes met mine. “I don’t know. Honestly, the way Ethan talked, it sounded as if he thought Fagan was murdered. But it seems like such a foreign thought that I'm having trouble processing it. It’s so hard for me to understand how somebody could do that to him.” She shook her head. “But if I was going to point my finger at someone, I might point my finger at his friend, Jeff Lukens.”

  “Why do you say that?” I asked her.

  She was quiet a moment, considering her words. “I never liked Jeff. He was trouble from the beginning. When I first married Fagan, he hung around the house all the time. There’s just something about him that made me uncomfortable. Later I found out he had done time in prison for selling drugs. When I heard about that, I forbade Fagan to allow him to come around the house. But he would slip away, and they would go places together.” She nodded and sighed.

  “Did you confront Fagan about that?” I asked.

  “At first, I didn’t realize that’s what was going on. But as time went on and I knew what he was up to, I told him that I didn’t want Jeff around my house, and he promised he wouldn’t bring him here. I couldn't forbid him to hang out with him. I’m not his mother. But if Jeff was selling drugs, then why did Fagan want to hang around him? He assured me that Jeff had become a new person once he’d gotten out of prison. I honestly can’t say that I’ve seen otherwise, but I was never comfortable with him around.”

  She still hadn’t told me why she thought he might have killed her husband. Just because he had a criminal past, and she didn’t like him, didn’t mean he was capable of murder. “And why do you think he might have killed him?”

  She clenched her jaw for a moment. “I have reason to believe that he may be involved in some illegal activities.”

  “What sort of illegal activities?” I asked.

  She glanced away. “Okay, maybe I’m being paranoid. Maybe I don’t really know he’s done anything illegal, but it’s something I suspect. He borrowed money from Fagan and Fagan didn’t tell me about it. I found out because I saw the withdrawal on our bank statement. I asked him what it was for and he told me Jeff needed the money. I asked him what he needed it for, and he said he needed some repairs done to his car. I could tell Fagan was lying. He was never a good liar, but I couldn’t get him to tell me the truth about it.” She looked at me and her eyes were shiny again. “I just know he was doing something illegal. I just don’t know what it was.”

  “How long ago did he borrow the money?” Christy asked her.

  “Two months ago. He never paid it back, either.”

  “Have you asked Jeff why he borrowed the money?”

  She shook her head. “No, I don’t want anything to do with him. Fagan handled anything that concerned him.” She sighed. “I suppose I need to tell that to Ethan. I was so shocked when he came to tell me Fagan was dead that it didn’t even occur to me.”

  “Yes, you should tell Ethan anything that comes to mind. Even if it seems inconsequential, Ethan may determine it isn’t,” I said.

  She nodded. “You’re right. I need to do that.”

  We stayed for a few minutes longer chatting about Fagan before we left. I knew Jeff Lukens, although not well. I had never thought that he was involved in illegal activities. But sometimes you don’t know all there is to know about a person.

  Chapter Six

  “Look what I did,” Mom said.

  I had just walked into the kitchen and she held up a tray of milk chocolate turkeys. “Oh, those are cute!” I said and went to take a closer look. “Are they hollow?”

  She nodded. “They were, but I filled them with caramel. I’m going to make some out of white and dark chocolate, too.”

  She had drawn on feathers, eyes, and a beak in royal icing, and they were darling. “I really like those. Are you going to put them in plastic bags or foil wrap them?” I asked her.

  “Bags. I’ve got some orange and yellow satin ribbon to tie the bags closed with. I’m also thinking about adding a few candy corns to put in there so the turkeys have something to snack on before they get snacked on.” She laughed.

  I chuckled. “That sounds adorable. Speaking of turkeys, we need to figure out what we’re going to make for Thanksgiving dinner.” I picked up an apron and tied it around my waist. I had the late shift at the candy store, and I had slept in. The past few days it felt as if I was trying to make up for all the sleep I had lost during the Halloween season when we had put in a lot of extra hours. Christy and I were on the four a.m. shift, and since I’m not a morning person, I had struggled with it.

  “Well, I’m in charge of the turkey and dressing. What would you like to bring?”

  “I made a really good cranberry pear tart the other day and Ethan really liked it. I might make that along with the pumpkin pies, and some kind of side di
sh.”

  “That sounds good,” she said, placing the tray of turkeys down on the drying rack. “We’ll see what Christy wants to make and I’ll make up the difference on whatever is left that you two aren’t bringing. Is Ethan coming for Thanksgiving dinner?”

  “Yes, I told him you would be highly insulted if he didn’t show up. He had no choice but to say yes.” I shrugged.

  “Oh, you,” she said, putting a hand on my arm. “He may want to have dinner with his family. You might need to go with him to their house. When your father and I were first married, we ate two meals each holiday. One with each side of the family.”

  “No, his parents are going skiing in Colorado.”

  She looked at me. “They’re going skiing? On Thanksgiving?”

  I nodded. “That’s what I said. But you know how his family is. They’re just not very sentimental about things, especially holidays. It’s kind of weird since Ethan is really into the holidays. He watches all the Peanuts holiday specials with me.”

  “That’s how you know you have a keeper.” She laughed and went back to the stove. “Now let’s see, what should I make next?”

  “How about haystacks? Those are very Thanksgiving-y,” I said. “You can put them in the bags with the turkeys and we can call them ‘turkey in the straw’. Oh, wait a minute,” I said turning to her. “If you put one of those in the bags with the turkeys, it would be absolutely perfect. We won’t tell anyone what they’re called, and whoever can figure out what it means gets a ten percent discount.”

  Mom turned and looked at me. “Why Mia, that is absolutely brilliant. I’m going to make some up right now.”

  I chuckled and pulled an order off the printer. I was feeling pretty proud of myself for that idea when Christy appeared in the kitchen doorway. “I am ready for Christmas candy. Can we skip right over Thanksgiving?” She put her hands on her hips and looked at us.