A Hopeless Discovery

by Daniel Carson

  But there was this other part of me… that kept thinking about a guy. It was the same part of me that liked solving murders. And there was only one place in town could satisfy my curiosity about both.

  Bubba’s Pumpkin Patch.

  I would just need some serious medication first.

  A few minutes later, I arrived at my dispensary of choice: A Hopeless Cup, purveyor of my favorite cup of coffee. Nick, Generation Z’s most annoying barista, was behind the counter today. He was tall, skinny, and wore jeans that would barely fit a broom handle. And yet somehow, the least manly man I knew was able to grow a thick Abraham Lincoln beard on his jaw.

  “Hello, Nick,” I said. “And if you say ‘Hello old lady,’ so help me God, I will crawl over this counter and pull out every single hair of that stupid beard. My name is Hope. You’ve served me sixty cups of coffee. My name is Hope.”

  Nick looked at Madeline, his Gen Z barista partner in crime. She rolled her eyes and pointed to a pamphlet. Nick grabbed it and handed it to me.

  In big block letters, it read: Do You Feel Triggered? Do You Need A Safe Space?

  “What the hell is this?” I asked.

  “Madeline and I thought this might help you with whatever problems you have.”

  “What problems are you talking about?”

  “Whatever problems turn you into an angry old woman every time you come in here.”

  “For the last time! I am thirty-two years old. I am not an old woman!”

  “Chill, dude! Just read the pamphlet before you come in next time. One white mocha coming up!”

  In that moment, I was thankful for two things. First, that I was too tired to jump over the counter, and second, that Nick was much better at making a cup of coffee than he was at everything else in his life combined. Three minutes later, I was sipping down dollops of sweet heavenly caffeinated goodness and walking back to my car.

  Mr. Clowder was just coming down Main Street in his truck. He pulled up alongside me and rolled down his window. “Hello there, Hope!”

  “Hi, Mr. Clowder, what are you up to?”

  “Just heading over to the hardware store for some supplies. Any chance you got any leads on Percy’s murder case?”

  “Sorry, Mr. Clowder. I haven’t had time to do much.”

  “I’ve been thinking more about that scary Ms. Jones woman who came to talk to me.”

  “More like threatened you.”

  “Exactly. You really think a woman might be mixed up in Percy’s death?”

  “I don’t think it has anything to do with being a woman or a man. Some people are just bad people. Did you get the feeling she was one of the bad people?”

  He nodded. “I guess I just never connected the dots until you brought it up. But why do you think she might have done it?”

  “Isn’t it obvious? To scare you away.”

  Mr. Clowder shook his head in disbelief. “You really think that’s it?”

  “Think about it. People are making you offers for your home. From what the mayor tells me, they’re ‘generous’ offers, and you still won’t accept. So maybe someone thinks if they can make your life miserable, you’ll just say the heck with it and take your money and run.”

  “That’s horrible,” said Mr. Clowder.

  “Like I said: good people and bad people. You sure you haven’t seen her around town at all?”

  “No. I sure wish I had a picture of her. Maybe we could show it around and somebody would recognize it. Not sure the few details I remember are going to help much. I mean, I can picture her clearly… I just don’t know how to describe her exactly.” He shook his head. “Too bad it’s not the movies where they have the police sketch artist.”

  I had an idea.

  “You said you’re heading over to Stank’s Hardware?” I asked.

  “Yep.”

  “I don’t know a sketch artist… but I do know a very good artist. Her name is April, and she works for Stank. I’m headed somewhere else, but I’ll call her right now so she knows you’re coming.”

  “You think she’ll help me?”

  I winked at Mr. Clowder. “She owes me.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  With Mr. Clowder setting off to see the closest thing Hopeless, Idaho, had to a police sketch artist, I set off in the opposite direction to find Wanda Wegman’s killer.

  The truth was, that was going to be a serious challenge. Based on Bubba’s and Mary’s statements, as well as the condition of the body, it was likely the crime had been committed three years ago. It was hard to believe there would still be any physical evidence left to be found. Witnesses, if there even were any, wouldn’t remember anything. And worst of all, alibis were probably impossible to establish.

  Alibi was usually a fairly efficient way of narrowing down your suspect pool. But we didn’t even know for sure when Wanda died—other than “about three years ago”—and even if we did, I doubted it would help. People can remember what they were doing a week ago; nobody remembers what they were doing on a random Thursday night three years ago.

  Which meant this case was going to be all about motive. Namely, who had one. And then we were going to need to get a little lucky. The brain trust at Buck’s Diner had at least helped me limit the suspects to a more manageable number. We’d decided to focus on the people who knew Wanda best: the full-time employees at Bubba’s Pumpkin Patch.

  It wasn’t much to go on. It was nothing, really, but a guess. But as an investigative reporter, I couldn’t resist. Wanda Wegman, creator of the pumpkin-chomping dragon, was found dead at her own pumpkin patch? If I couldn’t find the truth, I could at least find the bones of one heck of a story.

  I was trying to explain my mission to the miserable old woman selling admission tickets at Bubba’s Pumpkin Patch, but she wouldn’t hear it. “No ifs, ands, or buts, the cost of admission is fourteen dollars per adult.”

  I had already paid fourteen dollars to go to this exact same pumpkin patch yesterday. I didn’t like paying it then either, but at least it was Katie’s money. There was no way on earth I was going to fork over that much money to go to a pumpkin patch on business. Earl Denton had gotten better at reimbursing me for my expenses, but I had a feeling he would draw the line at pumpkin patch admission.

  “What’s going on, Matilda?”

  The sweet voice came from my left. It was Mary Riley. She looked at me curiously.

  “You’re the woman who was here yesterday,” she said.

  I shook her hand. “Hope Walker. I’m here today with the Hopeless News investigating the murder. Which is what I told Matilda here.”

  “Oh, yes. Sheriff Kramer said you might be stopping by.”

  “He did, did he?”

  She glanced at Matilda. “And I already told my employees to fully cooperate with you.”

  Matilda frowned. “But like you’re always telling us, Mrs. Riley, nobody gets in free and nobody gets a discount. No ifs, ands, or buts.” Clearly the old shrew was fond of that phrase. Probably had it crocheted on a pillow back home.

  “I know what I usually say, Matilda, but for goodness’ sake, there’s been a murder. This is a little different.”

  Matilda sat there skeptically, her arms folded in defiance.

  “Let the woman in, Matilda!” Mary shrieked, her sweet voice suddenly replaced by that of a stressed-out woman nearing the back end of middle age.

  Matilda, the most charming woman in America, scowled mightily, hacked something into the back of her throat, stamped my hand, and let me go to the turnstile.

  Mary met me on the other side. “I’m sorry about that. Nobody’s really themselves since we got the news.”

  “So Matilda’s normally sweet and reasonable?”

  Mary laughed. “It’s hard to find enough temporary employees for the season. We do the best we can.”

  I walked with Mary through the main entrance to the park, a tunnel made of stacks of hay bales and filled with pumpkins. At the end of the tunnel was a gigantic wood
en sign with the words Welcome to Bubba’s Pumpkin Patch. A Family Tradition Since 1990.

  Mary saw me looking at the sign. She shook her head wistfully. “Hard to believe it’s really been that long.”

  “I used to come here when I was little.”

  “You belong to Granny, don’t you?”

  “And I’ve been in Portland for a long time. Yesterday was my first time back to Bubba’s in I don’t know how long.”

  Mary held her heart. “And what a way to come back. I’m so sorry you had to be part of that. And your poor children!”

  “Oh, they aren’t mine. I was babysitting. And to be honest, I think it’s the most excitement they’ve had in a long time.”

  Mary shrugged. “Well… children are resilient. So… this is a bit unusual, isn’t it? A sheriff trusting a newspaper reporter so much?”

  That sounded almost like a challenge. “I’ve got a pretty good track record. And I’ve got a few questions for you, if I may?”

  “Of course.”

  “Great, I’ll get right to it. I’m sure the sheriff has already told you that we ID’d the body and it was Wanda—and that further, she was apparently stabbed.”

  “Yes, he told me. It’s shocking.”

  “Do you have any idea who could have done this?”

  “It’s all I’ve been thinking about. Racking my brain, trying to find an answer. And I’ll be honest. I can’t think of anyone.”

  I shrugged. “That’s fine—it was worth asking. But tell me about Wanda herself. All I remember of her is she was the woman who operated the mechanical pumpkin-chomping dragon at Wanda’s World. She’s been with you and Bubba from the beginning, is that right?”

  “Almost. We operated the pumpkin patch for a season before hiring Wanda. Actually, we owned the farm since the mid-eighties—bought it when we were young and dumb and in love. But farming in the eighties was brutal, so we looked for other ways to make money off the land. We tried a little bit of everything until Bubba finally thought about trying a pumpkin patch. And that first year, that’s all it was. A pumpkin patch with one truck giving hayrack rides. We passed out free hot chocolate and ate s’mores around a fire. It’s incredible to think that all of this started off so small. But it did.”

  “So what happened to make it into… this?” I gestured to the theme park that now surrounded us.

  “I guess you could say Wanda happened. Business was good enough that first year that Bubba was thinking of doubling the size of the pumpkin patch. But he got to talking to this woman, Wanda Wegman, and she said that was the wrong plan. She said he should start building special exhibits. Bubba had no idea what she meant, but he had a good feeling about her. So he hired her on, and she got to work.

  “And of course, the first thing she did was build that crazy, amazing, pumpkin-chomping dragon. It was incredible. She said she’d grown up fixing her dad’s tractors on the farm, but in addition to that she was clearly some kind of mechanical genius. Understood hydraulics and other things I don’t understand. And that dragon was a huge hit with the kids. That year people who didn’t even want a pumpkin came by just to see the dragon.”

  “That was the main attraction for me when I was a kid.”

  “I’m sure it was. It’s a bit overshadowed now, but it’s still a draw.”

  “And that’s how Bubba’s Pumpkin Patch became a big business?”

  “Well, sort of. We were young and stupid and totally unprepared. For a good many years we charged too little and made next to nothing. But Bubba had seen the future… and he got pumpkin patch fever. What you see today is his vision. He started dreaming up all these crazy exhibits, and he let Wanda build up Wanda’s World, and the rest, as they say, is history. A difficult history—but history nonetheless.”

  “How difficult?”

  Mary’s face grew weary. “Honestly? Very difficult. Heck, if Bubba had his way, he’d still charge people a dollar to get in. He’s a dreamer… and I could never do what he does. But he’s not a businessperson. His dreams were usually bigger than our business could financially sustain. And even though we were growing in size, the money part of it was touch and go for… well, for a very long time.”

  “What changed?”

  She shrugged. “They say most new businesses fold within the first few years. It takes a while to figure everything out. But we survived, somehow, and eventually, around five years ago… everything kind of came together. It was kind of a miracle.”

  “So if Bubba’s not a businessman, I take it you must be?”

  “I didn’t have a choice. Business is hard—especially something as odd as all this. But I learned.”

  “And Wanda stuck around the whole time? Up until…”

  “Oh yes. Stayed here, worked here, lived here. We set her up in a one-bedroom cottage behind Wanda’s World.”

  “Anyone live in her cottage now?”

  Mary shook her head. “Bubba and I thought she might come back someday… so we just left it.”

  “You think I could see it?”

  Mary smiled. “I’ll take you there now.”

  The cottage was a dull gray with black shutters and a single window box with nothing but soil and a crooked brown plant. An odd smell hit my nose as we stepped inside. Not the smell of things that were dead or rotting, but the stagnant smell of things that are neither sullied nor clean. A not-lived-in smell.

  A small kitchen was connected in an open concept to a living room with a single green recliner sitting five feet from a medium-sized tv. A bookcase sat against one wall, with an old set of encyclopedias filling the bottom shelf. Above that were a world atlas, a dictionary, and several books on engineering.

  One corner of the living room appeared to be dedicated to holding a variety of junk. Pieces of scrap metal and wood of every shape and size. A welding mask and torch. Two huge toolboxes. Several buckets of screws and bolts and assorted things.

  I looked through the scrap, trying to make sense of it. I couldn’t.

  “Wanda had a way of making something out of nothing,” Mary said.

  I went into the kitchen and checked the fridge. It was empty—and surprisingly clean.

  “It started to smell after a while so we gave it a good cleaning,” Mary explained.

  “Did you clean the oven and the microwave, too?”

  “I don’t think we did,” Mary said. “Wanda didn’t use them much.”

  “She had to eat, didn’t she?”

  “She liked to eat out. Sometimes we had lunch together, and she almost always took leftovers home.”

  Next we checked the bedroom. The only pieces of furniture were a queen-sized bed, a nightstand, and a desk. The nightstand held an alarm clock and an old black-and-white picture of a woman with a small child.

  “Wanda’s mother,” Mary said, when I looked at the photo. “And Wanda, of course, when she was a child.”

  I checked the desk’s only drawer. It held the usual collection of miscellaneous junk: a few old pens and pencils, a pack of Post-It notes, some pennies. On top of the desk was a computer. I pointed to it. “Wanda use this much?”

  Mary shook her head. “I doubt it. Wanda hated computers. Or at least, she didn’t much care for Johnny’s computers.”

  I quickly checked the bathroom—nothing of interest there either—and we returned to the living room. This had proven to be a dead end.

  “I don’t see anything that looks like a clue.” I sighed and turned to Mary. “Which means… I don’t know where to begin this investigation. If there’s anything more… anything at all… you could share about Wanda, or about her interactions with others, it would be really helpful.”

  “Like what, exactly?”

  “Well… I know it’s uncomfortable to think about who might have had a reason to kill somebody. So think about it differently. Was there anyone who didn’t get along with her?”

  Mary ran her hands through her hair. She was clearly uncomfortable with the question.

  “Okay, Mar
y. Yesterday when we found the body and you and Bubba were first talking, the two of you mentioned that Wanda had run off before.”

  “Yeah, a few times.”

  “Bubba said something about Wanda getting mad. About what?”

  Mary started to answer, then stopped herself. “Oh, oh you think… no… I’m not doing this.”

  “Mary, we’ve got nothing to go on here.”

  “And I’m not going to give you any ammunition to go after my husband.”

  “So the arguments were between Wanda and Bubba?”

  Mary chewed her lip. “It’s not what you think.”

  I reached out and gently grabbed her wrist. “Mary, I honestly am not thinking anything. You know how often my granny and I argue? If we couldn’t argue, then we couldn’t communicate at all. Arguing does not mean murder. But what I’ve found is sometimes you just need to start somewhere. If I can understand the type of person Wanda was, then maybe I’ll understand why someone might have meant her harm.”

  Mary nodded, then sat down on a chair. “Bubba and Wanda were the passion behind this place. Both visionaries—and that meant they often sparred. Didn’t see eye to eye. And when a tough call had to be made, it was Bubba who made it—because ultimately he’s the owner and she’s not.”

  “And that would upset her.”

  “Yes. Wanda was a genius, I’ll freely admit that, and she was a proud woman. I didn’t always agree with her, and I don’t always agree with my husband, either. But I understood why both of them were so passionate.”

  “Okay, the arguments your husband and Wanda got into, from your perspective, were ordinary… let’s say, artistic disagreements. Did Wanda ever get into bad arguments with anyone else around here?”

  Mary nodded. “Two people come to mind. Kip Granger and Johnny Driscoll. But I don’t think either of them did this.”

  “Care to elaborate?”

  Mary stood. “Not really. But feel free to ask them yourself.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  My feet left Wanda’s cottage with every intention of going down to the pumpkin patch so the rest of me could visit with Kip Granger. But my nose was not cooperating. And the moment my nose got a smell of Lucinda’s Famous Apple Donuts, it commanded my feet down Apple Donut Lane to find my little fried apple-flavored friends.