Perfectly Pumpkin Killer

by Carolyn Q. Hunter

  “I think you look great,” she admitted, finding it cute.

  “Well, anyway, let me help you with those,” he said, taking the tray of Vampire Pies off her hands. He held them close to his nose and sniffed deeply. “Oh, man, those smell good.”

  “And they’re not for you,” she scolded him, grabbing the last tray out and shutting the hatchback. “Come on, let’s go.”

  She led the way through the lit up front gates of the amusement park where a large crowd had gathered. They thankfully moved through with ease. She’d already dropped off one tray of pies at the auctioneer’s booth for later. Now she just needed to bring this batch backstage in the playhouse for the actors doing the short fifteen-minute-long play called Monster Bash. It had Dracula, Frankenstein, the Mummy, and the Wolf Man all battling it out against Van Helsing. It was a throwback to the classic movies of the Golden Age of cinema and the kids loved it. They would shout and clap their hands and laugh.

  They were running the show every half hour through the night.

  As they wove through the crowd, Bert noticed a familiar face behind one of the booths. “Malinda?” she called, walking over. Harry dutifully followed, standing behind her with the pies in tow.

  “Oh, hi, Mrs. Hannah. I should have guessed you’d be here,” the woman beamed, her eye giving off a twinkle of light. Her dark hair was cut into an attractive bob and she wore a black turtleneck. She certainly looked like a brooding writer.

  Displayed in the booth around her were dozens of copies of her new book.

  “I didn’t know you’d be running a booth.”

  “Well, with how well my new book has been doing, I decided I should give back to the community, too, ya know?”

  “So, you’re selling all of these for charity?” she gasped, taking in just how many there were.

  “Yes, ma’am. I bought them wholesale from my publisher so there was no middle cost. Just straight profit for the cause. Not to mention, it’s a perfect item to sell at a Halloween Carnival, don’t you think?”

  “Yes, that’s awesome!” Bert enthused, looking toward Harry for support.

  It took him a second to catch on. “Oh. . . Oh, yeah. It’s great. We’ve all got to do our part to give back.” Harry might have been the best homicide detective in the city, but sometimes the smaller things were harder for him to latch onto.

  It was one reason Bert had offered him unsolicited help in previous cases.

  Harry, of course, always ordered her to stay out of police work—but sometimes fate just didn’t allow for that.

  “Well, I have to track down my friend, Carla, and let her know you’re here. She missed your book signing the other night and has been dying to get you to sign her copy. She absolutely adored the story.”

  “For sure. Tell her to pop over. I just took a quick food break a few minutes ago so I should be here for the next couple of hours at least.” She motioned to the funnel cake that was dyed green for the occasion as well as the corndog and French fries dressed up to look like bloody severed fingers with ketchup sitting behind the booth. The writer cringed a little. “I know, not the healthiest choices, huh?”

  “When in Rome,” Bert laughed, indicating that they were in an amusement park after all. She noticed one of the books at in the back near the food and the cover was torn and the pages wrinkled. “What happened there?”

  “Oh, that? It fell off the stand and got trampled by a bunch of kids.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “These things happen. I would have offered to let them keep it if I thought the story was appropriate for children.” She laughed out loud.

  “Heck, that story isn’t even appropriate for me,” Bert pointed out.

  Harry grunted quietly, a cue that he was getting tired of standing there holding a tray.

  Bert took the cue. “Okay, we better get a move on before the cast of the little play starves to death.”

  “See ya,” Malinda waved.

  The couple headed back into the sea of costumed people, making their way toward the playhouse.

  Chapter Five

  Bert had already brought one tray of pies for them and knew to go in the side door that led backstage. Shuffling in, she set her tray of pies on the long fold-out table next to the stage’s pulley system for the curtains. Harry followed suit. “There we go. Now that the work is done, what do you want to do first? Ride the roller coaster? Go on the spinning teacups? Or maybe go through the haunted riverboat?” he asked eagerly, rubbing his hands together.

  For such a gruff older man, he sure acted like a kid sometimes. Bert felt like she was the only person who ever got to see this side of him.

  She squinted. “Don’t you think we’re both a bit old for that sort of thing?” she noted, still feeling the pain in her face from the day before. She’d taken some medicine and had a coffee before heading out to the Halloween Carnival, but the dull throb was still there.

  “You think we’re too old?” he asked in wonderment. “Bertha Hannah thinks we're too old to have fun? I don’t believe it.”

  “No, it’s not that. It’s just the idea of getting jolted around on a roller coaster isn’t exactly my idea of fun. I already have sore muscles,” she noted, rubbing her jaw and neck.

  “Well, how about the haunted riverboat?”

  “Honestly? I don’t find the idea of being trapped in a small dark space where people are going to jump out a say boo appealing.”

  “Boo!” a shout came from behind them.

  Bert shouted, turning to find herself facing a werewolf with an extra hairy face. Somehow, the face underneath looked familiar. “Pastor Chimney?” she questioned.

  “You caught me.”

  “You’re playing the wolfman in the play?”

  “You bet I am,” he announced proudly. He was all dressed up and looked rather convincing in the getup.

  “You never mentioned this at church.”

  “Nope, I wanted everyone to be surprised,” he announced proudly.

  “Well, you definitely surprised me,” she admitted.

  “And it’s good to see you again, Detective,” he said, holding out a hand.

  Harry accepted the handshake.

  “When are we going to see you accompanying this fine woman to church?” he asked, being a little too forward.

  Bert managed to cough into her hand, cutting off that question once and for all. “Is there something you needed help with?” she asked, diverting away from the awkward topic.

  “As a matter-of-fact, yes. There is a young woman who I’m not sure belongs back here, but she is pacing, and I can’t get her to answer me. I thought you, having the great people skills you do, might be able to talk to her. After all, backstage is for cast and crew only.”

  “And caterers,” Harry added.

  “I’ll have a talk with her,” Bert said. “Go ahead and wait for me outside, Harry.” Her boyfriend didn’t hesitate to leave, not wanting more uncomfortable questions.

  Walking behind the curtain to the opposite side of the stage, she found a woman standing against a brick wall near the dressing room door—a woman she recognized. “Wyn? From the dentist’s office?”

  The dark-haired woman looked up in shock, her eyes wide and bright in the dim area. “Who’s that?”

  “It’s Bertha Hannah. You saw me at the office yesterday?”

  “O-Oh, yes.”

  “Are you back here to say hello to Doctor Penrue?”

  “Sort of,” she admitted. She looked incredibly white. So white, in fact, that at first Bert thought the woman was in costume. Now, she could tell, she wasn’t. Additionally, her eyes were puffy as if she’d been crying.

  “Is something wrong, dear?”

  The woman swallowed hard.

  “What is it?” Bert pressed.

  “Craig . . . I mean Doctor Penrue . . . fired me yesterday.”

  “Fired you? What in heaven’s name for?” Bert wondered.

  “I messed up. I made a really
big mistake,” she admitted, nearly ready to burst into tears.

  “And you came back to ask him to reconsider?”

  She nodded.

  Bert sighed, understanding the situation. No wonder she was so distraught. If she truly did have feelings for the doctor, romantic feelings, getting fired would be an even bigger blow. “Maybe I can help.”

  “I don’t see how,” she sniffled.

  “I’ll go in and chat with him, maybe get him ready to see you?”

  “Oh, no, no, no. Don’t do that,” she muttered, practically falling over her own words. “He’d be so . . . mad.”

  “It’s no trouble at all. Sometimes, it just takes a third party to cool the air. Even if he doesn’t give you your job back, maybe he can at least forgive you for whatever you’ve done.”

  “I . . . I don’t think that’s possible,” she whispered as quietly as a mouse.

  “Trust me,” Bert told her, squeezing her shoulder.

  Turning toward the dressing room door, she knocked. “Doctor Penrue? It’s Bert from Pies and Pages. May I come in for a moment?”

  There was no answer.

  “Doctor?” she called again, this time placing her hand on the doorknob. Pushing her way inside, she was not prepared for the sight she beheld before her.

  Slumped over one of the makeup counters against the mirror was Doctor Penrue. He was dressed to the hilt as Dracula. However, this time there was real blood involved. His neck had a fat two-pronged hair fork sticking out of it.

  He was dead.

  Chapter Six

  It was in times such a these that Bert was ultimately grateful she had agreed to date Detective Harry Mannor. He was often a gruff and hard-headed man, bristled from years of dealing with real live murder cases. He hardly seemed like good boyfriend material, but underneath the harsh exterior was the soft emotions of a man who had spent much of his life alone except for his work.

  Now, as another body had turned up—the body of a kind man whom Bert had recently become acquainted with—she was even more grateful to have Harry around. The fact that he was just outside waiting for her was a blessing, to say the least.

  With the skill only a law enforcement officer of many years could have, he came in, checked to make sure the man was truly dead and got to work securing the entire building for a proper investigation. The cast and crew members were cleared out and the kids and parents waiting in line outside to get into the next showing were kindly asked to leave and enjoy the rest of the carnival. It only took about five minutes before the place was swarming with cops.

  Bert was grateful to Harry for not shutting down the entire event and instead just cutting off the playhouse and a small surrounding area.

  In previous cases, Harry wouldn’t have hesitated to shut the whole operation down in favor of the homicide investigation. He’s changed a bit since they’d begun dating and Bert had to wonder if she had helped to soften him up a bit in this regard.

  After all, this whole charitable event was the hard work of a multitude of citizens and city workers alike, not to mention it was all for a good cause.

  The only real trouble was the thought that a murderer was running around the amusement park.

  Attempting to push the horrific thought from her mind, Bert took it upon herself to walk with Wyn down to the dock on the waterfront. If nothing else, it was to get her away from the harrowing situation they’d witnessed at the playhouse.

  She knew Harry would be wanting to talk to them both, but he trusted his girlfriend to make sure Wyn didn’t go running off while he worked on the preliminary steps of the investigation. He’d explained to Bert in previous months the importance of finding clues at a crime scene while they were fresh. Fingerprints could get smudged or degrade, DNA could accidentally get wiped away, fresh signs of death would be less visible on the body.

  So, it fell on Bert to see to it that not only was Wyn going to be okay emotionally but that she also stuck around for questioning.

  “Here we are,” Bert noted, stepping out onto the wooden walkway that bordered the river. It was a boardwalk that ran the length of the park. In the distance, Bert could see the line for the haunted riverboat. A lot of people seemed to be enjoying that part of the carnival, and now with the playhouse closed, the line would likely be longer.

  Bert slipped off her tennis shoes (which she wrapped in tin foil to make them look space-agey) and set them down, sitting on the edge of the boardwalk and letting her feet dangle above the water. The chilly autumn air prickled along her bare feet. “Come on and sit down for a while. Take it easy.”

  “How can I?” Wyn moaned, wrapping her arms more tightly around herself. “Craig is dead.”

  Bert patted the boardwalk next to her. “Sit down and tell me about it.”

  Wyn hesitated, but gave in, taking a seat without removing her shoes. She didn’t talk right away, and Bert knew she’d have to push a little to get any sort of answers out of the girl.

  “Were you close with the doctor?” she inquired, trying to sound as nonchalant as possible.

  Wyn swallowed, throat pulsing with anxiety. “He was my boss,” she whispered.

  “But?” Bert asked expectantly.

  “N-Nothing,” the younger woman lied.

  Bert raised a knowing eyebrow but wasn’t going to push too hard if Wyn wasn’t willing to give up the truth. Thankfully, she didn’t have to continue to push. The emotion of the situation got to the former dental assistant and she caved in.

  “Okay, he was just my boss, got it?”

  “I understand,” Bert agreed, knowing there was more to that statement.

  “B-but, I’d be lying if I didn’t admit I wanted something . . . a little more than that.”

  Bert hummed quietly, looking down at the orange colors rippling in reflection along the moving water. “I see.”

  “Was it that obvious?” Wyn practically choked.

  Bert gave a sympathetic smile with half her mouth, shrugging. “Only to an older woman who knows a star-struck girl when she sees one.”

  “You noticed that much just at your appointment yesterday morning?”

  The reminder of the procedure she’d had done almost made it seem as if the pain was coming back into her face, but Bert knew it was simply that she’d been made aware of it again.

  “I had a hunch, yes. You and the dentist talked like you were old friends, but it was the way you looked at him with your eyes that gave me a clue.”

  Wyn sighed, her shoulders slumping low and her head bobbing forward in shame. “Gross. I can’t believe I got caught making googly eyes at my own boss—during an appointment, no less. How unprofessional.”

  “I’m sure most other people wouldn’t have noticed,” she pointed out.

  “I’m sure they did,” Wyn bemoaned her behavior. “The majority of our patients are women who are in their fifties or sixties like yourself.”

  Bert leaned back on her hands, tilting her head back to look at the dark evening sky. “I’m not surprised. Doctor Penrue, from the little bit of time I interacted with him, seemed to have an excellent bedside manner. He could charm his patients and put them at ease. I’m guessing that many of those patients came in with a fear of dental procedures.”

  “It’s true. Most people mark off the box that says they have dental anxiety when they fill out their new patient paperwork.” Wyn hunched down into herself, folding her arms tightly across her chest. “I probably look like a foolish high school girl gushing over a teacher.”

  “Oh, I doubt that. You two couldn’t have been so far apart in age,” she pointed out.

  “Well, I’m thirty-one and he was forty.” At the mention of his age, and obviously remembering he was dead, she choked on the words.

  “It’s okay to be upset,” Bert soothed her.

  “Why? It wasn’t like we had a relationship or anything.”

  “He was still your boss. That is a relationship of some kind, my dear,” she annunciated. “It is normal to feel ups
et when someone you work with every single day dies.”

  “I still can’t believe he is gone. Murdered.”

  “It does seem a bit odd,” Bert agreed, focusing in on the scene she’d witnessed in the dressing room. There’d been so much blood, and it seemed fresh. Whoever killed him had clearly done so only minutes before she stumbled upon him. It had to have been after the previous performance.

  Who could have done it? One of the other cast members?

  Surely not Pastor Chimney. He’d have no reason for hurting someone. Not to mention, he was such a kind soul who mostly concerned himself with giving to the community as much as possible.

  Who were the other actors? Frankenstein, the Mummy, and Van Helsing.

  She knew Harry would question every one of them, but she couldn’t help being curious.

  Then, another thought popped into her mind. “Wyn, you mentioned that you came here this evening to try and get your job back?”

  She chewed her lower lip. “That’s right. I couldn’t stand the thought of not seeing him every day. I know how ridiculous that sounds.”

  “Not at all. That job was a big part of your life and so was your boss.”

  “But that’s all over and done with now,” she whimpered.

  Bert hesitated on her next question, wondering if it was appropriate to ask. “If you don’t mind saying, why was it that he fired you?”

  The tears welled up in her eyes, threatening to flood the dam of her mascara and go running down her cheeks.

  “You don’t have to tell me if you’re not comfortable.”

  “N-No. It’s okay. I made a huge mistake. I deserved to be fired.”

  “A huge mistake? Like what?”

  She looked at Bert just as the tears broke through. “There was a patient who came in complaining of tooth troubles. We’d done a filling on him before, you see, and his gums were receding.”

  Bert realized she must have been giving a confused stare because Wyn went on to explain.