Halloween Hayride Murder

by Linnea West

  "Clark, do you have your phone on you?" I asked. My flip phone had a camera, but the pictures it took were pretty poor quality. I needed good photos if I was going to prove my point to the police.

  Clark pulled out his phone and swiped to bring the camera up on the screen. He lifted it up and I could hear him hitting the shutter button.

  "I need you to take a bunch of pictures of me on this tractor," I said. "Take pictures of me on the seat and some close ups of my legs and my feet on the pedals. I want you to take all angles."

  Clark dutifully did as I asked. He walked slowly around the tractor as I heard his camera click away. I stayed still as I tried to figure out exactly what this meant. It wasn't like Ralph could have comfortably drove the tractor over Earl and then stopped to adjust the seat to throw everyone off the mark.

  "Okay, what do you want me to do with them?" Clark asked after taking pictures from every feasible angle.

  "Send them all to my email," I said. "And I hope you don't mind if I skip out on the tractor driving class. I need to show Max these pictures."

  "But what do they mean?" Clark asked. I don't think he is really that thick, I think he just hadn't put much thought into the murder. I suppose that besides myself and the police, the only other person who had put much thought into the murder was the murderer.

  "It means that they are holding an innocent man for a murder he didn't commit," I said. "And I finally have some proof I can share."

  Chapter 21

  I walked triumphantly into the sheriff's office in the Shady Lake courthouse. Max was standing beside a table that had a coffee pot on it which smelled like it was never actually turned off, simply refilled to make another pot. As he turned to see me, he smiled.

  "Well, well, well," he said. "What do we have here? You seem to be cutting the tractor driving class, hmm?"

  I smiled back at him. I had only skipped a few classes in high school, but Max had only ever skipped on Senior Skip Day so compared to him, I had been a juvenile delinquent. I used to tease him and call him a goody-goody while he would jokingly call me a rebel.

  "I actually have something of great interest," I said. "Do you have a computer I can use?"

  Max nodded and led me to his desk. If I had taken the time to glance around the room, I could have picked it out immediately as it was the only desk that was tidy in the whole place. Most desks had some framed pictures or knick-knacks on them. Max's only had a computer, a cup of pens, a phone, a tray for papers, and a nameplate on it. There wasn't even a speck of dust on anything and I got a sudden vision of Max dusting everyday. It would have been funny if I had been certain that it wasn't true.

  After pushing the mouse around to wake the computer up, Max pointed to his chair to tell me to sit down. I immediately plopped down and pulled up my email. The top two new emails were from Clark, both with ten attachments each.

  "Are you ready for this?" I asked Max. "I am about to blow your mind. I have evidence that Ralph is not the murderer."

  "What?" Max said. He actually leaned back from me as he knit his eyebrows together in concern. He looked like he was afraid of catching some sort of disease from me. "Don't joke around. You were the one that found the boot print in the first place. He definitely is the one who did it. He won't actually tell us much of anything. Just give up, the guy is guilty."

  I shook my head. There was no way I was going to give up on this. If Ralph was innocent, I wanted to spring him from jail so he could be able to help raise his baby, even though I couldn't really tell Max that.

  "First, I have to ask, did anyone sit on or move the seat of the tractor?" I asked. Max just stared at me for a moment. The confusion was obvious on his face.

  "No, why would we?" Max finally said. "That wasn't the part of the tractor that ran over Earl. We glanced it over and didn't find any evidence there besides those denim threads."

  I clicked on one of the attachments and opened up a photo of me sitting on the tractor. Max raised his eyebrows at me, obviously wondering what this was all about. I could tell he couldn't see what was now so obvious to me.

  "How tall would you say Ralph is?" I asked.

  "Well over six feet," Max said. There was an undercurrent of annoyance in his voice. Max was used to putting up with my shenanigans, but he didn't have to be happy about it.

  "So stick with me, but you would agree that he is around a foot or so taller than me?" I asked. Max nodded his agreement. He still wasn't understanding my point. I would have to spell it out for him.

  "Then how come the tractor seat is set for someone who is my height to drive the tractor?" I asked as I started to slowly click through all of the pictures.

  Max sat and stared at me for a beat before he jumped out of his seat and grabbed the mouse out of my hand and started to click through on his own. I scooted the chair back on the wheels and waited. Max started to click even more frantically. He forwarded the emails to himself and then started to save all of the pictures.

  "Son of a gun," he whispered to himself as he looked through them for a fourth time. When he got back to the first picture again, he looked at me in admiration. "You're right. How did we miss this?"

  I shrugged and stood up out of his chair. He backed up to sit down in it, never taking his eyes off of the screen. It was as if he was afraid the pictures would disappear if he looked away for a moment.

  "You missed it because you weren't looking for it," I said.

  Max nodded as he picked up his phone and punched in a few numbers. He almost looked like he wanted to pinch himself to make sure he wasn't dreaming.

  "Chief, you're gonna want to see this," he said. "Come on out here."

  Over the next hour, I explained and re-explained the tractor seat theory to multiple different officers. Each one was more incredulous than the last until they saw the pictures. Once they saw what I meant, each and every one of them looked like they wanted to kick themselves. I couldn't help it if they didn't do a thorough job.

  Finally, after I told the same details over and over again, the officers were satisfied that I wasn't a total nutjob and told me I could leave. Max took me by the elbow to guide me out. I think a small part of him was proud of me, even if he would never actually say that to me.

  "Well, I'll be a little busy now, thanks to you," he said with a smile. "But I will text you later, okay Sweet Thing?"

  I melted a little bit as I smiled and nodded back to him. He winked at me while he gave my arm a little squeeze and walked back into the sheriff's office. I turned the corner to walk back towards where I had parked my car and ran smack into Chelsea, who dropped the stack of papers she had been carrying as she tried to round the same corner.

  "Geez Tessa, can't you watch where you are going?"

  Chelsea's mouth was twisted into a caricature of a scowl that I'm sure was reserved solely for me.

  "Sorry Chelsea," I said as I bent down to help her pick the papers back up. "But I had no idea you were going to walk around that blind corner at the exact same time that I did."

  The giant mess of red hair quivered as Chelsea violently shook her head. It made it look like her rage at me was shooting out of the top of her head.

  "What are you doing here anyways?" she asked. She made it seem like the courthouse was a private place and it was a total mystery that I could be there. I pondered whether I should remind her that it was a public building. But I came up with a better idea.

  "I actually just delivered a tip to the sheriff's office about Earl's murder," I said. I couldn't help but gloat a little bit since Chelsea herself wasn't above a little bragging.

  Her face went white as a sheet and her eyes went big. She started to fumble around with her ever present messenger's bag. I'm sure she was looking for some paper and a pen, but one glance in her bag told me she wasn't going to find anything in there very easily. It was stuffed to the gills with crumpled paper and what looked like bits of garbage.

  "Will you give me some information?" Chelsea asked as she tried
to dig out a pen that was stuck on something I couldn't see in the bag. Her tone had changed rage to desperation. "I can keep it anonymous, if you'd like. Maybe we could go out for coffee and you could tell me everything you know."

  As she dug around, the papers she had so carefully gathered were fluttering once again to the ground. I took the stack that I had gathered and put them down on a wooden bench next to where we were standing.

  "I'm sorry," I said with a little wave. "But you'll have to get your information from the sheriff's office just like everyone else."

  I walked away as I heard Chelsea let out a quiet growl. As I pushed the door open to walk out to the parking lot, I looked back to see Chelsea once again collecting her papers, but this time instead of carefully stacking them in a pile, she was messily crumpling them into a big, untidy stack. Now I understood how her bag ended up in the state it was in.

  I couldn't help but smile to myself. If she wanted to rub her relationship with Clark in my face, I found a little bit of pleasure in withholding information from her.

  Chapter 22

  As soon as I got back to the B&B, I felt like my head was spinning. I walked into the library to lay down on the sofa, but when I got there it was already occupied. Susy was sitting on one end of the couch, wrapped in a blanket and reading a book. She looked up and greeted me warmly as I came in.

  For a split second, I wondered if I should withhold the news about the tractor from her. After all, she was still on my suspect list. But I knew I had to tell her, if only to set the poor woman's mind at ease.

  "I have some good news," I said. Susy scooted her legs and blanket over and I sat down at the opposite end of the couch. For just a moment, I felt almost like we were friends instead of whatever it was we were. "When I went out to the field today to help teach a tractor driving class, I found some key evidence."

  Susy's eyes got wide and she quickly sucked in her breath. I realized that she had no idea what the evidence could be and I found it curious that her first instinct was to worry. I wasn't sure if I should take that as a sign that she was guilty or just afraid for Ralph.

  "The tractor's seat had not been touched since the murder, but when I climbed up to sit in it, the seat was already set for someone my height. There is no way Ralph could have sat in it to drive the tractor."

  A smile slowly crept across Susy's face as she took in the good news. She slammed her book shut and ripped off her blanket, throwing it over the back of the couch. She leaned forward and gave me a quick hug around my shoulders.

  "Oh I just knew something would turn up," she said, clapping her hands together. "I was getting so worried that I would have to reveal what I knew to the police. Ralph would have been so mad if I had revealed his secret and obviously I didn't want to tell them that I had seen him drive away from the field while Earl was still out there pacing. I'm so glad you figured this out."

  "Wait a minute, what did you just say?" I asked. I had to have heard her wrong. "Did you say you were out there at the field that night?"

  "Well, yeah," Susy said. "Ralph had mentioned to me that Earl was planning to go out there that night, so I followed them. Except by the time I got there, I saw Ralph driving away. I tried to follow him, but my darn morning sickness showed up and I had to pull over to barf again."

  "And you say that when you left, Earl was still there?" I asked.

  Susy apparently had no idea that she was possibly implicating herself in this murder. She had just admitted to me that she was the last person to see Earl alive.

  "When I left, he was down there throwing a fit," Susy said. "He was pacing back and forth, kicking rocks and yelling like crazy. He didn't see me, so I just drove on past."

  "Did you see anyone else with Earl?"

  "No, like I said, Earl was just down there throwing his little temper tantrum. He was kicking rocks and waving his arms the air and just screaming his little heart out."

  That couldn't be right. There had to be someone else down there. We knew that Earl didn't run himself over. So who could it have been? Was Susy implicating herself?

  "Thank you so much for doing this, Tessa," Susy was saying. "I'm so grateful that you have helped clear Ralph's name."

  I smiled at Susy and got up from the couch. I started to walk out of the living room, but I figured I would warn Susy. I felt a lot closer to her now and I didn't want her to accidentally point the blame towards herself.

  "One more thing," I said, turning back to face Susy. "I wouldn't tell anyone what you told me. If you were the last person to see Earl alive, you are going to become the number one suspect."

  The color drained from Susy's face as she suddenly realized what she had said and what that could possibly mean. She stood up from the couch and immediately doubled over, grasping the arm of the couch for support. This time she didn't look like she was going to vomit. Instead, Susy looked like she was about to faint.

  "I think I need to go lie down," she said quietly.

  I put her arm around my shoulders and helped her up the stairs to her room. I tucked her into her bed and put a fresh glass of water next to her.

  "Thank you Tessa," she said weakly.

  I walked down the stairs, realizing that my mother had asked me to be on desk duty this afternoon. I sat down at the desk and tried to understand the new leads in the case. Ralph couldn't have driven the tractor with the seat where it was. Susy definitely could have, but swears it wasn't her. But she also let slip that she was out there that night. Both Ronald and Candy were about my height, so either of them could still also be the suspect.

  This case was as clear as mud. Every time I thought I was clearing things up and getting to the end, I ended up with more questions than answers. Maybe I should be glad I didn't go into police work as a career.

  As usual for a mid-afternoon, mid-week shift, desk duty was utterly boring. I played some card games on the computer and answered one phone call. Usually, I would listen to a true crime podcast or something, but I just couldn't right now. I had my own true crime thing going on here. But I tried not to think too much about the investigation because my brain needed a rest. Maybe I was too intertwined in this case, but I couldn't just quit now.

  My phone vibrated, cutting through the boredom and silence of the afternoon. I figured it was either Clark asking about the police investigation or Max with an idea for our Halloween costumes, which we still hadn't settled on. Instead, I was surprised to see a message from Candy.

  Hey Tessie, I hope I'm not being a bother, but could I bother you for a ride? My car is in the shop and I need to get from the courthouse to my house. I'm just having a hard time today and I need to get home. You're one of the few people I know who is relatively not busy in the middle of the day. Do you think you could help me out?

  I was a little weirded out. Did she really not have anyone else to help her? What happened to all of those people at the Loony Bin? But how could I say no to someone who just lost her boyfriend in a still unsolved murder? I decided I would just have to suck up my discomfort and do it.

  Okay, I can come drive you. I'll be right there.

  I went to find my mother, who was puttering around the B&B tidying up. If there was one thing my mom could usually be found doing, that one thing would be puttering around. If she wasn't actually cooking or cleaning, she was folding laundry, dusting, or even repainting a wall. Puttering was something I hope I would just start doing as I got older. When I found her scrubbing a bathroom faucet with an old toothbrush, I let her know the situation and she assured me that she would watch the desk.

  I walked into the town's offices and Candy was sitting at her desk looking pale and sad. She was just staring at her desktop, seeming to look right through the papers sitting on her desk. She really did look like she needed to go home.

  I walked up and gently put my hand on her shoulder. She jumped and looked up at me in surprise before relaxing.

  "Oh, hello Tessie," she said. I always hated being called Tessie, but Candy had always
referred to me by that nickname. I'm not sure why, but it was somewhat endearing coming from her. It was probably because she didn't use it to annoy me on purpose like my siblings did.

  "Let's go Candy," I said softly. I helped her up out of her chair and threw her jacket around her shoulders. She managed to pick up her purse and I led her out of the office. I still wasn't sure why she called me, but I was determined to be the friend she needed right now.

  Chapter 23

  Candy was quiet as I helped her get into the passenger seat of my station wagon. I did it as quickly as I could because it was misting out, a cold autumn mist. It was almost, but not quite cold enough to snow so the rain almost felt like little ice pellets. I ran around the front and got in the driver's seat. I started up the car and turned the heater on a little bit higher. The closer it got to Halloween, the colder it got in Minnesota. I usually tried not to turn the heater up too high as the station wagon was pretty old and the heater didn't work well. But I kind of had to when I had other people riding in my car with me.

  I pulled out of my parking stall and headed towards the road. I realized suddenly that I didn't actually know where Candy lived. I assumed she didn't still live at her parent's house, but how could I ask her without seeming too awkward. I paused for a while, trying to figure out how to ask her.

  "Oh, you probably don't even know where my house is," she said suddenly. I must have paused too long before driving. "I bought a little yellow house over on Robin Lane. You know where that is, right?"

  I nodded. It was sort of by my parent's house, so I just headed in that direction.

  "Thank you for coming to rescue me," Candy said. She seemed to have pepped up a bit since leaving the office. "I just got to thinking about Earl and kind of fell into a pit of despair. I heard that they were letting that awful Ralph go! How could they let the murderer go? I just absolutely fell to pieces when I heard that."