“That’s okay, I’ll run down and pick some up. Is there anything else you need?”
“Thank you, Mia,” she said, looking relieved. “I’m about worn out for the day. Let me take a look back there and make sure we’ve got everything else.”
I followed her back to the kitchen. The last thing I wanted to do was run to the grocery store, but she would come to work at 4:00 am to make candy and the grocery store wouldn’t open until 5:00 am. And besides that, I knew she was tired. I’d make a quick run to the store for her and get what we needed.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
When I finished the shopping for candy making supplies, I parked my car behind the candy store as close to the back door as I could get. We needed to place another order for ingredients from our regular supplier, but I doubted it would arrive before Christmas. I had nearly cleaned out the grocery store of sugar, baking chocolate, evaporated milk, and a few other items. I hated to do it, but we needed it to make the candy we sold here in the shop. The manager assured me they were getting another shipment tomorrow at around noon, so I hoped none of their customers would be disappointed if they shopped for candy making ingredients before then. The next few days would be busy for us even without the Internet orders.
I pressed the buzzer at the back door and waited for someone to open it. The things I bought would be too heavy to carry through the store and then into the kitchen.
The heavy backdoor swung open. “Hey Mia,” Christy said. “Let me help you bring that stuff in.”
I carried two ten-pound bags of sugar into the kitchen and back to the storeroom while Christy went and got the metal cart we used to move the heavier items when we got deliveries. I hefted the bags onto a shelf and my purse strap slid down my shoulder. I set it on the floor until we were done bringing in the supplies so it wouldn’t get in the way.
“It’ll just take us a few minutes to get this unloaded,” I said to Christy as we headed back to my car. We loaded up the cart with everything I had bought, and I helped Christy push it back into the storeroom.
“It’s closing time, girls,” Mom said. “I’ll just help you pack up these orders so they’re ready to go to the post office first thing in the morning.”
“Don’t worry about it, Mom,” I said. “I can handle it. It’ll only take me a few minutes, anyway. You all go on home and rest your feet.”
Mom had spent all day on her feet back here on the concrete floor and I knew she had to be worn out. It wouldn’t take long for me to pack up the candy and then I’d go home and put my feet up.
“Are you sure?” she asked tiredly. “I hate to leave you with that.”
“Absolutely,” I said. “I’ll have it all wrapped and ready to ship in no time. You go home and take it easy.”
“Okay then,” Mom said. “If you insist, I sure could use the rest.”
“I insist,” I said. “It won’t take me long.”
“I can stay and help you,” Christy offered.
“No, it’s fine,” I told her. “I can take care of it. Tomorrow will be a busy day. Go ahead and go home with Mom.”
“Okay then, I’m not going to argue with you. I’m tired too,” she said. Lisa had finished restocking the shelves out front and I let all of them out the front door. As I was getting ready to lock it, Harper showed up. “Hi Harper.”
“Hi Mia,” she said. “Am I just in time?” She slipped through the door and I locked it behind her.
I nodded, and we headed back to the kitchen. “You’re just in time. We’re just closing up. I’ve got a few orders to pack up for the mail tomorrow, and then I’ll get out of your way.”
“You’re not in the way,” she said and followed me back to the kitchen. “Let me get started on cleaning these counters and that big mixing bowl in the sink.”
“Sounds good,” I said and went to where the fudge was still on the cooling racks and began wrapping it. I was glad Harper was here to clean. After I got these orders packed and ready to be mailed, the last thing I wanted to do was clean.
“So, I guess things have been pretty busy here?” she asked as she took a sponge from the plastic tote that held cleaning supplies that she brought with her.
“It’s been crazy around here,” I said as I wrapped up the peppermint fudge. “I’ll be glad when Christmas is over so we can have a break.”
“I hear you,” she said without looking at me. “I’ve been taking on a lot of extra work these days. On top of regular bills, I’ve got Christmas too. Just like everyone else, I guess.”
“It does get expensive,” I agreed. “I bet you’re in demand around here. No one wants to clean on top of all the extra activities that come with Christmas.”
“I sure am. Everyone wants their house deep cleaned before Christmas, and I can’t say as I blame them. I wish I had someone to deep clean mine.” She chuckled. “It’s a dream of mine to never have to clean my own house again.”
I laughed. “What about everyone else’s house?”
“I can handle cleaning other people’s houses easier than I can handle cleaning my own. There’s just something about cleaning up my own mess that makes me procrastinate.”
I nodded. “I agree,” I said. “We’ve made more candy this year than we have ever made in the history of the candy store at holiday time. It’s been crazy busy and I haven’t even begun cleaning my house for Christmas.”
“I bet you guys go through sugar like crazy,” she said scrubbing the dried sugar off the countertop. “What’s candy without sugar, right?”
“We go through a lot of sugar, chocolate, and all sorts of yummy ingredients. In fact, we came up short some sugar, chocolate, and canned milk today. I’m not sure what happened with it.”
I looked up, and she had turned around and was staring at me. “What do you mean?” she asked.
I shrugged. “I don’t know how it happened, but we came up short some supplies. Maybe we made more candy than we thought we had.”
She stared at me, the sponge in one hand. “Are you trying to say something, Mia?” She narrowed her eyes at me.
I shrugged. “I’m just saying that when Mom went to make some fudge this afternoon, we were missing some ingredients. I guess we probably used more than we thought we did.”
Harper’s demeanor suddenly changed. “Well Mia, maybe you should keep better track of your ingredients.”
I stared at her. She seemed defensive, her body stiffening. I wasn’t sure what had brought this change on. And then it dawned on me. She thought I was accusing her. I narrowed my eyes at her. “Yes, I suppose we should keep a closer eye on the ingredients. It’s not like anybody would take them, right?”
Her jaw tightened. “I can’t imagine who would do that. Can you? Who do you think would do that, Mia?”
Harper had gone from relaxed and friendly to guarded and aggressive surprisingly quickly. “I have no idea,” I said slowly and wondered where my cell phone was. I couldn’t remember if I had slipped it into my jeans pocket or if it was in my purse that was still in the storeroom.
She tossed the sponge on the counter wiped her hands on her jeans and walked toward me, her chin jutting out in defiance. My eyes went to a pair of scissors on the counter that I had been using to cut the wide packing tape.
“I did not take those ingredients,” she said through gritted teeth. She crossed her arms in front of her chest, daring me to say otherwise.
I shook my head. “Harper, I never thought you did. Why would I think that? Is there a reason I should think that?” I felt my cheeks go hot. I felt threatened and I should have backed away from the conversation, but I couldn’t.
She narrowed her eyes at me again. “You’ve been talking to a lot of people around town, haven’t you? You’ve always got your nose in other people’s business. In fact, you talked to Charlie O’Rourke down at the car lot. He told you I stole from there, didn’t he?”
“Harper, you told me that he accused you of stealing from the car dealership. You laughed about i
t because it was ridiculous. Remember?”
She seemed caught off guard by that. She had forgotten she had told me. She relaxed a little and nodded. “I guess so. Yeah that’s right, I did tell you that, didn’t I? But I’ll tell you, Mia, I’ve never stolen anything in my life. Never. I’m not that kind of person. People trust me because I’ve earned their trust and I wouldn’t want to destroy that by stealing from anyone.”
I nodded. I suddenly understood that she had killed Ellie and Josh. She had worked for both Ellie and Josh, and she had worked at the party house. I was sure she had a key to let herself in whenever she wanted. Mom had given her a key to the candy store. I had wanted to believe the best about Harper because I liked her, and according to the references we had checked on, she was someone that could be trusted. I now realized that wasn’t true.
“Do people frequently accuse you of stealing? Is that why you’re so defensive right now?”
Her cheeks went red. “Sometimes—I mean, no. No one accuses me of stealing. Or at least, no one accuses me of stealing and lives to tell the tale. Charlie O’Rourke is just lucky he’s still around to talk about it. Because if I had my way, he wouldn’t be.”
I grabbed the scissors from the counter and held them in front of myself. “You need to leave, Harper.”
Her eyes went to the scissors in my hand and then she laughed. “Why Mia, do you think I’d hurt you? Is that what you think?”
Harper was five or six inches taller than I was and probably outweighed me by sixty pounds. It wouldn’t take much for her to hurt me. “I don’t know, Harper, would you?” I gauged whether I could make it to the back door and to my car. But then I realize it wouldn’t do any good because I didn’t have my keys. They were in my purse in the storeroom.
She strode the short distance between us, and I held up the scissors defensively. She looked at them and stopped. “Mia, I’m not going to hurt you.” She said it as if she were talking to a small child, but I wasn’t fooled. She had killed twice, and I wasn’t going to be her third victim.
“No, I don’t believe that,” I said and sidestepped toward the back door. “You better keep your distance, or I’ll use the scissors.”
She laughed. “Mia, you do have a wild imagination,” she said. She looked at me for a few moments and then lunged at me. I screamed and dodged her, moving left, then turned and ran instead of making good on my threat to use the scissors. I made it out the back door and ran shrieking through the alley.
“You’ll pay for this!” she screamed. I heard her footsteps as they crunched on the snow behind me. She was coming after me.
At the end of the block was the costume store and Fagan Branigan was taking trash out to the dumpster when he heard me scream and turned to look.
“She killed Ellie and Josh Tate,” I screamed at him. His eyes went wide and when I got to him, I ran into his open back door.
He turned around and ran behind me, slamming the back door and locking it. “Are you serious?” he asked me, wide-eyed.
I nodded and felt my jeans pocket. Thankfully my cell phone was there. I was breathing hard as I called Ethan.
Chapter Thirty
I began gathering snow to make the snowcat. I considered trying to find something to turn the snow black, to match Boo’s coat, but decided against it. It was a snowcat, after all.
“Stinks to spend Christmas in jail,” I said. I was going to use bristles from my corn bristle broom for the whiskers.
“Stinks to spend the rest of your life in jail,” Ethan said.
“What did she tell you?”
“Ellie accused Harper of stealing a watch from her when she cleaned her house. Laura said Ellie had also noticed a few other things missing, but thought she or Laura had misplaced them. But when the watch went missing, she asked Harper about it.”
I felt bad about that. I had dismissed Laura when she said a watch went missing and Ellie thought Harper had taken it. “And Josh?” I asked as I tried to shape the snow into something that resembled Boo.
“She had a thing for him, and when he hired her to clean up his construction jobs, she thought that meant he really liked her.”
“Even though he had a wife and a baby on the way?” I asked.
“It didn’t matter to her. In the beginning, she thought she and Josh had a good thing going,” he said as he dug around the snow for a small black rock to make the nose of the snowcat. “Then equipment and materials disappeared, and he accused her of stealing it.”
“Ah,” I said. “And no one accuses Harper of stealing and lives to tell the tale. Ask me how I know.”
He chuckled. “Sounds like you’ve heard that before.”
“What about when the storage site Josh and Chris had was robbed? Was that Harper, too?”
He shrugged. “We’ve never caught whoever did it. I pulled up the police report on that, and there weren’t any security cameras. The locks were broken and everything of value was stolen. If we can get her to confess, we’ll add that to the charges.”
“I’d bet she did it. How did she kill them?”
“She happened to be at the ballroom cleaning when Ellie showed up to decorate. She claims Ellie climbed the stairs on her own and got dizzy and fell. We’re not buying it. Harper is in too deep. She’s been swearing up a blue streak over Ellie accusing her of stealing that watch. The funny thing is, the watch was in Harper’s purse when she was arrested.”
I shook my head. “How awful. Killing someone over a watch.”
He nodded. “You can say that again. On the day Josh died, she claims she was at the ballroom cleaning and Josh stopped by to do some work. She said they argued because he asked her to go out with him and she refused. He got angry, and they just happened to be at the top of the stairs, and he tripped and fell. But she can’t explain why he had a head injury indicating blunt force trauma and tried to claim it was from falling down the stairs. The medical examiner says otherwise, of course. And we’re fairly certain the argument was about missing equipment and not a date.”
“If she’s trying to say both deaths were accidents, why didn’t she call an ambulance for them?” I asked. I was pretty sure I knew the answer to that.
“She claims she got scared. She cried and said she was sorry for not calling someone. And since they were accidents, can we just forget all of this and let her go?”
I snorted. “What a coincidence. She just happened to be there both times someone accidentally fell down the stairs, and she didn’t call an ambulance for either of them.”
“Right? We’ve got more than enough to put her away for a long while.”
I sighed. “What a shame. Poor Emily lost her husband and her baby lost his father. Laura is all alone now. All in the name of greed.”
He nodded. “It really is a shame, isn’t it?”
I stopped forming the cat’s head and looked at him. “I’m sorry all of this happened. I wish people could keep their hands off other people’s things and quit killing them.”
He chuckled. “That sure would make life easier, wouldn’t it?”
We finished making the snowcat, and I stopped and put my hands on my hips, taking it in. “Now that’s how you build a snow kitty,” I said. I turned back and looked at Boo, who was sitting on the doormat, observing. “What do you think, Boo?”
Boo stared at it without much interest. “I take it that means he approves,” Ethan said.
“That or he’s completely confused by what we’ve done here,” I said. “Want some hot cocoa?”
He nodded. “Hot cocoa sounds great. I need to defrost,” he said and followed me into the house.
“Come on, Boo,” I said as he followed us into the house. “I’ll get you some milk.”
Ethan went to the cupboard and pulled out two mugs while I went to the refrigerator and got the milk out. I got a saucepan from the cupboard and poured the milk into it and then got out the cocoa powder.
“Oh,” Ethan said looking at what I was doing. “I see you’re going ol
d-school with the cocoa.”
“I sure am. It’s the only way to make authentic hot cocoa,” I said and measured out some cocoa powder and sugar into the milk. “It’s the only way my mom ever made it.”
“I am intrigued,” he said. “My cocoa comes in those packets and a box that you buy at the grocery store.”
“Mine does too when I want it made quickly,” I said and whisked the ingredients together in the saucepan. I put the saucepan on the stove burner and turned the heat on.
“Harper will be in prison for a long time,” he said. “No cocoa for her.”
I grinned. “She needs to be there for a long time. Forever.”
When the cocoa was done, we sat on the loveseat together and turned the television on. I laid my head on Ethan’s shoulder. I was glad the killer was caught but sad that she had devastated so many people with what she had done.
“So, I hate to ask, but did you get all your Christmas shopping done?” he asked with a chuckle.
“As a matter fact, I did. But I’m still not telling you what I got you,” I said. “You’ll just have to wait a few more days.”
I had gotten Ethan a nice snowboard for Christmas. He had mentioned he wanted to go, but with Christmas preparations and the murders, it hadn’t happened. It had been a hectic Christmas season, but I was encouraged by the extra business we had picked up through Internet sales. If it weren’t for the two murders, it would have been a perfect season.
I looked over at Ethan. In some ways, it had been.
Author’s Note
I’ve really enjoyed writing a Pumpkin Hollow book combining Christmas with Halloween. It’s a little like visiting the haunted house at Disneyland during the Christmas season, or watching Nightmare before Christmas. There’s just something about putting a jack-o’-lantern and Santa Claus together that I like. I hope you enjoyed this episode of Pumpkin Hollow!
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