Death by Pumpkin Spice

by Alex Erickson

  “But some don’t?”

  Margaret shrugged. “Philip thought we were going to run off together. Now that Howard is gone, he sees no reason why I shouldn’t sell this place and find somewhere more suitable for a woman of my stature. He wants to come with me, give me the life he thinks I deserve.”

  “But you don’t want to do that?”

  “No, I suppose not.” She sighed, as if disappointed in herself. “Philip has his benefits, but isn’t my type. Not long term, anyway.”

  And he was young enough to be her grandson. I never did understand how people could look past such a large age difference. I didn’t hold it against anyone who was happy in those situations; it just wasn’t my thing.

  “What about the girls your husband, uh . . .” I couldn’t bring myself to say “slept with” or worse, “had sex with.” It felt wrong on so many levels.

  “What about them?”

  “Were any of them too attached to him?”

  Margaret looked into her wineglass and I thought I caught a glimmer of sadness in her eyes. Was it for her late husband? Was it regret surfacing now that he was gone and they both shared too much with so many other people? Or was it for herself, for her current situation? There was no way of knowing without asking, which I wasn’t about to do.

  “Some came asking for money when he passed,” she said. “One of his favorites demanded it. She came right up to my front door and declared she was owed it.”

  “Is she here tonight?” Or perhaps lying dead in a room filled with pumpkins?

  Margaret waved a hand as if shooing away a fly. “She wouldn’t come near here after I turned her away and slapped her with a restraining order. If she thinks she is owed something, she should wait until we process the will. I doubt Howard would have included her in it, but if she is, I will give her what she is due. Otherwise, I don’t care what happens to her, just as long as she stays away from me.”

  My mind was awhirl. I was trying to figure out if Jessica Fairweather’s death could have been because the Yarboroughs had slept around. If she’d been one of Howard’s girls, could she have come asking for money? Or what if her boyfriend had been with Margaret? Could that have been why she rejected him?

  Could it have led to her death?

  “Was Jessica one of the girls who came along asking for money?” I asked, almost certain she had to be.

  “I don’t know.” Margaret shrugged, disinterested. “She could have been, I suppose. If she did, she would have gone through my lawyer instead of coming to me directly.”

  “You mean Mr. Tellitocci?” I asked, remembering what someone at the party had said.

  Margaret actually looked startled. “Well, well, well. It appears someone has done her homework.”

  I gave her a knowing smile, hoping she would think that she could slip nothing by me. I didn’t know if it would help, or if she would clam up, but it made me feel good that I’d known something she didn’t expect me to.

  Maybe I’m not such a bad detective, after all.

  “Do you know if Jessica was one of your husband’s, um, girlfriends?” I asked. I couldn’t bring myself to call her his mistress in front of his widow.

  Margaret got a contemplative look on her face. “You know, I’m not sure. It’s so hard to keep track of these things.”

  That made me wonder how many people they’d each slept with, something I quickly squashed. I really didn’t want to know. Whatever the number, it was too many. I could keep track of all of the guys I’d kissed in my entire life on two hands. The way she was talking, it appeared she needed a Rolodex to keep everyone straight.

  “I really should get back to my guests,” Margaret said, draining the last of her wine. “Was there anything else you needed? I’ll help you any way I can.”

  My head was so full of what she’d told me, I completely forgot the questions I originally was going to ask her. “I think that’s it. Thanks.”

  Margaret gave me a simpering smile before striding out of the room, leaving me alone with my thoughts and the zombies. Could what she have told me have caused Jessica Fairweather’s death? What about Howard’s? A lot of people were dying around Margaret Yarborough, and I couldn’t simply write it off as a coincidence.

  I glanced down at the desiccated face of one of the zombies and decided this wasn’t the place to contemplate it. I left the zombie room and went in search of Paul to tell him what I’d learned.

  13

  Finding time to talk to Paul wasn’t as easy as I expected. I found him in his interrogation room, talking to a bored looking man in a top hat and suspenders. It didn’t look like it was going well, which was confirmed when Paul tiredly told me he would have to talk to me later. He had a list of people to talk to and needed to get through it.

  I considered telling him what I’d learned from Margaret anyway but decided it could wait. I wasn’t sure how I was going to explain things without turning an unflattering shade of crimson and stumbling all over my words. Maybe a little time to sort things out in my head would help.

  So, now free of burden—at least for a little while—I decided to go ahead and take Will up on his offer to explore the mansion. It wasn’t the total freedom I’d been hoping for, but even twenty minutes where I didn’t have to worry about killers and strange sex lives would be a blessing.

  “Are you sure this is okay?” Will asked as I led him from the ballroom by the hand. He was smiling as he said it.

  “I’m sure,” I replied. It wasn’t like everyone else wasn’t wandering around all over the place. Besides, if Paul needed to get hold of me, I had my cell phone with me. It wasn’t like I was going to drop off the map.

  “Good.” Will’s grin warmed my insides to the point I felt light-headed.

  We turned down one of the unexplored hallways. A few feet ahead, another hallway intersected the one we were in. Train tracks filled the hall, and when I peered down to the far end, two bright lights flashed on and a horn blared. I jerked back with a startled yelp, only to realize the “train” that had surprised me was really only a pair of lights and a speaker attached to the far wall.

  “This place is crazy,” I muttered, stepping over the tracks. While I knew the train wasn’t real, I peeked both ways, just in case something came hurtling down the hall at us.

  “Wait until you see some of the rooms.” Will paused and pushed open a door. Something scurried inside, and before I could see what it might be, he slammed the door closed. “You don’t want to know,” he said when he turned back to me.

  I decided to take his word for it.

  We continued on, down dark hallways, past spiders and mummies, and peered into rooms that were all variants of the same theme. There was a bathroom that looked like a mad scientist’s lab. The toilet was covered in green slime that actually looked radioactive, though it was probably colored plastic.

  “How could anyone live like this?” I asked, closing the door with a shudder. I’d much rather let my teeth float away than use a bathroom like that.

  “It does take a certain personality type to be around this every day and not go a little crazy.” Will gave a shudder of his own as he eyed one of the myriad of large spider webs throughout the house.

  “I’m worried all of this stuff has gotten to Margaret over the years. She seems a little . . . off.” I thought back to the conversation in the zombie room, though I’d told myself I wouldn’t. Would she have been so free with her information about how she spent her spare time if she hadn’t been surrounded by the walking dead? It was enough to unsettle anyone.

  “She’s not all that bad,” Will said. “Yeah, she’s a little weird, but aren’t we all in some way? She has her quirks, as do you and I.”

  “I didn’t mean to . . .” To what? Offend him? To talk down about someone he knew?

  “It’s fine,” Will assured me with a smile. “I’m not defending her or anything. I don’t know her well enough to say for sure whether or not she’s a little crazy. You’d have to ask Paig
e about that.”

  We reached the end of a hallway where a set of stairs led up into the next level. A couple was coming down. The woman looked concerned, her hand firmly planted on the man’s elbow as she helped him down. He appeared pale and shaky, as if something had scared the life right out of him. He gave me a wild-eyed look before staggering past.

  Something in me quailed at walking up those stairs at the sight of the couple. There was a murderer on the loose. As far as I knew, one of the bodies lying around the house wasn’t made of plastic or rubber. It could very well be another of Margaret’s guests, murdered by a madman who was stalking those dumb enough to wander the halls alone.

  “You okay?” Will asked. We were standing halfway up the stairs and had stopped moving some time ago. “You look a little sick.”

  “I’m fine,” I said, not quite sure that was true. “I was thinking about Jessica.”

  Will reached out and gently touched my hand. He didn’t quite take it, but his touch was enough to galvanize me. I started up the stairs, determined not to let my trepidation ruin our time together.

  “Kim isn’t too thrilled about all of this,” Will said as we reached the top of the stairs. “She’s near ready to drag Darrin out into the mud, just so she doesn’t have to deal with any of this any longer.”

  “Kim his wife?” I guessed.

  I was rewarded with a nod. “I forgot you haven’t met her yet.” He sounded as if it was his fault, rather than mine for not being around when I should have. “You really do need to meet Kim and Diana. They’re . . . special.”

  I laughed. “I’m sure they are.”

  “They’re not fans of dressing up for Halloween.” He touched his white mask as if reminding himself it was there. “They only came because it was the ‘in’ thing to do.”

  “Darrin and Carl don’t seem that bad.”

  “They aren’t. But when it comes to their taste in women, they have a lot to learn. Looks aren’t the only thing that matters.” He glanced at me out of the corner of his eye before quickly looking away.

  We peeked into a roomful of porcelain dolls, some hanging by their necks from the ceiling. I turned away quickly, before one of them blinked and sent me screaming out a window.

  “Your friend seems nice,” Will said as we walked away.

  “Who? Vicki?” He nodded. “She’s great. All the guys drool all over her. Always have. And she really doesn’t seem to notice, which is what I love about her. She’s the prettiest girl in the room almost all of the time, and while she doesn’t hide it, she doesn’t flaunt it on purpose, either. It all comes so naturally to her. I’m just lucky whenever anyone notices me when I’m around her.” It came out sounding more pathetic than I wanted.

  “Why’s that?” Will asked, sounding genuinely perplexed.

  I stopped in front of a life-sized poster of Boris Karloff as Frankenstein and gestured between it and myself as if saying, “See! Twins!”

  Will sighed and put a hand on my shoulder. He looked me dead in the eye, and for a moment, I was completely lost in their chocolate depth. No man should have eyes like that. A girl could get sucked in and never find her way out again.

  “You are fine the way you are,” he said, voice serious, no hint of sarcasm in his tone at all. “You shouldn’t put yourself down so much.”

  “Yeah, but . . .”

  “No,” he said firmly. “Vicki is pretty; I’ll give her that. But so are you.”

  I warmed from my feet to my head. “You’re just being nice.” I suddenly felt as if I were fourteen again, talking to a boy who didn’t immediately scream “Cooties!” the moment he saw me coming.

  “No, I’m not.” Will looked around, but we were alone. When he turned back to me, I could see his intent in his eyes.

  My entire body went from hot to cold and back again. Every muscle tensed so that I felt as rigid as a plank. Will’s hand was still on my shoulder, so I was sure he felt it. My mouth, which was usually running nonstop, went completely dry, as did the words that usually fell from my lips in an endless, idiotic stream. I could feel my eyes widen as he leaned forward.

  Let me tell you, I could have lived in that moment forever. He didn’t have to kiss me, or even touch me, and I would have been content. His words were enough. When his lips actually did press against mine, it was like fireworks going off in my brain. Everything shortcircuited. Angels didn’t quite sing, but it was a near thing.

  The kiss was all too brief, just enough to whet my appetite for more. His lips, soft and dark, had my heart hammering hard enough, I thought I might choke on it. A sound like the squeak of a mouse escaped my lips, bringing a smile to his own.

  “I’ll take that as a compliment,” he said with a laugh.

  My mind went blank and I flushed again. God, I was a mess, and I saw no way out of the situation. I needed to say something.

  Nothing came to mind right away, so I did the dumb thing and let my mouth work without thinking about what I was about to say.

  “Did you know Jessica Fairweather well?”

  Both Will and I winced at near the exact same moment. He clearly hadn’t been expecting me to say that, and I sure as heck didn’t anticipate asking such a moronic question after what we’d just done. If I could rewind time and do it all over again, I would have.

  “Pretend I didn’t just ask that,” I said, turning away. “In fact, let me go find that room with all the chains and axes hanging from the ceiling so I can go hang myself now.” I started back the way we’d come, feeling as stupid as I’d ever felt in my life.

  “No, it’s fine,” Will said, catching up to me. “You caught me off guard, is all. I wasn’t expecting the question.”

  “That makes two of us,” I muttered. At least I’d stuck to my usual foot-in-mouth way of doing things. There had to be someone out there who would find it endearing.

  “Jessica and I . . .” Will trailed off with a contemplative frown. I paid him a sideways glance but didn’t slow my pace. A part of me thought that if we moved far enough from where I’d asked the question, maybe we’d escape it. “We knew each other,” he finished.

  I stopped and turned to face him. “I’m so sorry,” I said, feeling like a fool. Well, a bigger fool than I already had. “I didn’t know you were friends. You should have said something.”

  Of course, if I’d been paying closer attention, I might have realized sooner that he had. I remembered how his eyes had turned sad when he’d found out about Jessica’s death, how he’d acted afterward. The signs were all there, I just hadn’t seen them. I was far too wrapped up in my own business to notice.

  It wasn’t exactly my best moment.

  “It’s okay,” he said for what felt like the thousandth time. “We weren’t really friends anymore. We hadn’t talked for a few years now.” Something in his voice added, “And now we never will.”

  “I should have been there for you,” I said. It might have been cheesy, but there was nothing wrong with that. Friends were supposed to be there for each other, and I’d been off running after a killer while Will was hurting. What kind of person did that make me?

  Will looked down at his hands. “We dated.” He said it almost shyly, as if afraid to admit it. “Very briefly. I’m not even sure the word date really applies. We went out a few times and then drifted apart.” He shrugged.

  My mind immediately went back to everything I’d learned about Jessica from Quentin, and what Margaret had just told me. If she was sleeping around, moving from man to man, had Will been sucked in? I’d like to think that their two dates had been nothing more than dinner and a movie, but I wasn’t going to count on it.

  “Did you, uh . . .” I cleared my throat. “Did you tell Paul about your relationship?”

  Will looked relieved that I hadn’t asked him something else, something more personal. “No,” he said. “Should I?”

  I didn’t want him to, didn’t even want to think about it myself. It shouldn’t matter that he’d been with Jessica before
me. Almost all guys my age would have had previous girlfriends, possibly even serious ones, but it didn’t make it any easier. The poor girl was dead. Somehow, that made it worse.

  “I’m not sure,” I admitted, doing my best to sound as if none of it bothered me. I was afraid Paul would begin to suspect Will of killing her. Ex-boyfriends were always questioned and looked at with suspicion. I knew deep down he was safe—he had been with me when Jessica was killed—but I didn’t want him to have to go through the questions, the uncertain, doubting looks. I knew from personal experience how miserable it was.

  Something akin to panic rose in his eyes then. “You don’t think he could suspect me of killing her because I knew her, do you?” It was as if he’d read my thoughts.

  “You’re safe,” I assured him. “You were with me the entire time. Paul will remember that. He was right there.”

  Will visibly relaxed, though there was still tension running through his shoulders and worry in his eyes.

  “But it might be an important enough piece of information that Paul should know,” I added, not quite sure how it would matter. “The more he can learn about Jessica, who she was, the more likely he’ll be able to figure out who killed her. If he suspects you are keeping secrets, he might think you have something more to hide.”

  Will’s face fell, but he nodded. “I suppose you’re right.”

  I hated being right. I didn’t think Paul would consider Will a suspect for a second, but it was better to be safe now than sorry later, especially if Buchannan showed up. If someone were to come forward and tell one of them that Will and Jessica had been together once, it would be far too easy to jump to conclusions.

  But it did make me wonder how many people here had been with the victim, whether it was just on a few dates or something more. How many had been with Mr. Yarborough before his death, and could it be somehow connected?

  It was starting to look like it could very well be a real possibility. And the more dirty laundry that got aired, the worse I felt about it.