Halloween Hayride Murder

by Linnea West

  The morning managed to pass quickly. I helped serve breakfast to the guests and then I cleaned it up. I assigned a few of the things on the Hayride to-do list to some of the other members of the committee. I drank four cups of coffee, which was probably too many in too short of a time, but I blamed that on Candy and my early wakeup call.

  Late morning, I hit a lull in my work where I realized I should probably see what Candy wanted me to help her with. I sent her a quick message. I worded it to make sure she understood that I was very busy and would be doing her a huge favor by agreeing to help her today.

  Hey, I'm done with my work for now. I am really busy today, but I have a little bit of time depending on what you need. How can I help?

  Candy must have been practically sitting on top of her phone because I immediately got a message back.

  I really need to go out to the field. I need to see where Earl died and I need to see it before the Hayride gets all set up. Do you think you could give me a ride out there? My car is still out of commission.

  I had been prepared to gently turn her request down because I was just so busy. But I did need to go out to the field. I could go drop off my load of pumpkins and have an empty car ready to transport more stuff this afternoon when we were all going to meet up. I hemmed and hawed back and forth before I sent a message back.

  Okay. I have some things to bring out there anyways. Where can I pick you up?

  I picked up my keys and wristlet wallet. I rarely bother with a purse unless I'm dressed up for a date or it's late at night and I need my flashlight along. I walked through the B&B to see if there was anyone around, but apparently everyone was out because the B&B was empty. I had already told my parents my plan for the day and they knew I was absolutely not available for anything today because of my long to-do list. I figured someone must be around to watch the desk and decided not to worry too much about it.

  I'm at my house. Come whenever you can.

  Once I slipped behind the wheel of my car, I happened to spot my father in an upstairs window. I gave him a wave. I could see him laugh a little as he waved back at me and I looked around to realize just how ridiculous I looked.

  My station wagon was absolutely stuffed with pumpkins. I had very specifically told my brothers to not put any in the front seat because if it had been up to them, I would have been driving with a pumpkin on my lap and pumpkins as my co-pilot. Thank goodness they had listened to me, since Candy needed somewhere to sit.

  I shrugged back at my father and turned on the car. I sat for a moment as my stuffed to the gills car threw me back in time to one of my favorite memories of Peter.

  We only lived in two different apartments in the city because it was such a pain in the backside to move apartments. When we moved, we had actually borrowed the station wagon from my parents and stuffed it to the gills with out belongings. We didn't have much furniture, so that wasn't a problem. Our biggest problem was our giant, statement picture.

  As a young, married couple, we had thought it was a great idea to buy a large, framed picture online. And when I say large, I mean it was as tall as me and just as wide. When it was delivered, we hung it as a statement piece above our couch and it looked amazing. Except then we had to move it. And unlike most things, you can't fold it or take it apart.

  When we brought it out to the station wagon, we realized that it wasn't going to fit unless we really rigged it the right way. I was shorter, so we moved the bench seat as far forward as possible, rolled down the backseat windows so that the corners could stick out, and took the headrest off of the passenger seat. But I couldn't just carry it by myself once I got there, so Peter had laid down underneath the picture in the backseat and we had laughed all the way to the new apartment.

  My beautiful, funny, loving Peter.

  A tear rolled down my cheek and instead of just brushing it away as I wanted to, I acknowledged it and allowed myself to be sad, as my therapist had told me to do. I missed Peter every single day but over a year after his death, it doesn't hit me so hard every time. This wave of emotion had been a while coming, I think, pushed down by the emotions behind investigating a murder and organizing the Halloween Hayride.

  I took a few deep breaths and just thought about Peter until the emotions passed. In an odd way, I realized that Candy and I actually had some things in common. Maybe I'd have to offer her some emotional help by way of a supportive shoulder and listening ear today.

  But speaking of Candy, I needed to go pick her up and take her to the site of her boyfriend's murder.

  Chapter 31

  When I pulled up to the curb outside of Candy's small house, I sent a quick message to her to let her know I was outside. As I waited, I noticed there was a car in her driveway, tucked almost behind the house. It was a small, white car. The way it was parked in the driveway was awkward, almost as if she was trying to hide it in the backyard, but couldn't actually fit it behind the house.

  I was pretty sure that Candy had previously said her car was in the shop. I had figured she was calling me because she didn't have a way to get out to the field. Maybe she just needed the emotional support and she knew I had been open to that recently. But why would she lie to me about her car?

  The front door opened and Candy stepped outside, carrying a large purse. She waved with her keys in her hand and then turned to shut the door. As I watched the back of her as she locked the door, my mind flashed to what Ralph had said about the car he saw in the rearview mirror. It had been a light colored car and Candy drove a white car. I couldn't see the passenger door from here, so I didn't know if it was at all damaged. I didn't think it meant anything, but I took my phone out and sent a message to Mandy telling her what I was up to.

  "Thank you so much for driving me," Candy said as she opened the door and slid inside. She gently set her purse down by her feet and buckled her seatbelt. "I just didn't want to go alone and I figured with the Halloween Hayride starting tomorrow, that you would need to go out there anyways. Judging from your car, you certainly do need to take a trip out there."

  I giggled once again at the ridiculous thought of me rolling around town in my own, metal pumpkin patch. Door to door pumpkin selling might be an easy way to make money.

  "Yeah, sorry about all the pumpkins," I said. "Just be glad you have somewhere to sit. If it were up to my brothers, you would have had to ride on the roof."

  I laughed again and Candy laughed a polite sort of laugh, but when I looked at her, the happiness didn't reach her eyes. She was having to force a laugh. I understood. Sometimes when you are grieving, it is hard to realize that the rest of the world is still turning, moving on while you are stuck grasping on to your loved one through memories.

  I reached over and grabbed Candy's hand. She was shaking a little bit, but she let me give her hand a squeeze. I figured this might be a good time to try and connect emotionally with her.

  "Candy, I know what you are feeling right now," I said. "I've been there. I still think about Peter everyday. But let me just tell you that you will feel better. Every day will get a little easier than the one before and one day you will remember how to breath."

  Candy shut her eyes and took a deep breath in. She kept grasping my hand and taking shaky breaths in and out. She kept squeezing her eyelids shut tight to push back tears that were forming. After a few moments, she looked up at me. She had an odd expression on her face that I couldn't quite read.

  "Thank you Tessie," she said. "I just really needed to see where Earl spent his last moments and I thought you'd be the perfect person to go with me."

  "Of course Candy, I'm here to help. I do have one question though. I thought you said you were getting your car fixed. Isn't that your car right there in your driveway?"

  Candy furrowed her eyebrows together for a moment before exaggeratedly nodding her head a few times.

  "Oh, the car, yeah," she said with a nervous laugh. "I did get it back. I suppose I could have driven myself, but I just really needed someone to come w
ith me."

  I could somewhat understand that. But I was pretty uneasy with how Candy was acting. She didn't seem distant so much as she felt like she was hiding something. I got the idea that she and Earl weren't quite as happy together as she may have tried to make them seem. After all, they did have the argument on the morning of his murder.

  "Well, shouldn't we get going?" Candy said with a laugh. Her eyes darted back and forth. "I know you are really busy today. Let's go deliver these pumpkins."

  Candy gave a nervous laugh that was a bit disarming to hear. I put the car in drive and started to slowly pull back into the street. I rolled slowly past Candy's house and tried to sneakily look at Candy's car as we went by. I was wondering if she was trying to hide something about her car. It looked like she had backed it into her driveway and then backed as far behind her house as she possibly could. I just needed to see the passenger side of it and compare to the car Ralph had seen at the field.

  I couldn't quite see the side of her car so I decided to pull into Candy's driveway and pretend I wanted to turn around and go the other way. I felt kind of dumb going to such lengths to just look at the side of someone's car, but I knew if I didn't, I wouldn't be able to think of anything else all day. It would bother me all day that I hadn't seen the side of her car.

  The car pulled forward up the driveway and I let it pull forward much further than I normally would so that the front of my car was almost hitting the front of Candy's car. I leaned forward a little bit and tried to look like I was stretching a little bit.

  "Oh hold on," I muttered. I put the car in park and turned to Candy. "I need to check my headlights real quick. I thought I saw one of them go out on the way over here."

  It was just barely cloudy enough to maybe need headlights, but it was the best thing I could come up with on the fly. I surreptitiously switched my headlights on before hopping out of the car. I leaned back down before I closed the door.

  "It'll just take me a second," I said. "I'm going to be doing a lot of nighttime driving out in the country during the Halloween Hayride, so if I have a headlight out, I want to change it as soon as possible."

  Candy scowled at me from the passenger seat, but nodded at me. I think she knew I was lying, but she didn't know how to call me on it. I guess it was similar to me not knowing how to call her out for lying about her car. We were kind of in a stalemate.

  I walked to the front of my car and glanced at both headlights. I held up a finger to indicate "just a minute" to Candy in the car and I squatted down like I was inspecting something closely. I hoped Candy didn't really understand cars otherwise she would wonder what in the world I was doing.

  Finally I had a clear shot to look at the passenger side of her car. One glance at the side of the car and I could see a giant dent caving in the entire side of the passenger door. This was the car Ralph had seen turning into the field after he left Earl just before he was murdered. Candy had been out at the field at the time that Earl was murdered.

  Chapter 32

  I got back into the car and I must have paused a beat too long before I shifted the car into reverse because Candy turned and looked at me. Her eyes were wide and her expression was blank. She smiled a large, disarming smile, but there was a coldness behind it that made mt consider whether I wanted to actually drive her out into the middle of nowhere.

  I tried to always listen to my gut feeling, but right now my gut feeling was a bit conflicted. Candy was definitely acting strange, but she could just be figuring out her own emotions while still very fresh in the grieving process. Maybe she was out at the field for a totally innocent reason and she left before Earl was murdered. I would have to ask her.

  For now, I decided I should drive her to the field. She was grieving and needed some help. I had to be at the field anyway to drop off these stupid pumpkins.

  As I drove, I tried to keep my nervousness down by fiddling with the radio knobs, the heat vents, anything while I tried to figure out what I should do. I turned up the country and western that was on and tried to sing along even though part of the way through I realized it wasn't even a song I really knew. I had turned the heat way up and then had to turn it down when I started sweating. But Candy must have noticed.

  "What's wrong Tessie," Candy said. "I thought you were really busy. We really need to be going."

  My heart leapt into my throat, but I managed to swallow it down while I rolled down her driveway and down the street.

  "I'm alright," I said. "I was just thinking of a question I had for you and I was wondering if it was appropriate to ask it."

  Candy tilted her head and gave me an odd look. She looked befuddled, but I still got a sense that she was hiding something from me.

  "You can ask me anything Tessie," she said. "I feel like we are fabulous friends."

  I swallowed down the lump in my throat and decided to just get right to it without beating around the bush.

  "I was just wondering if you were out at the field at all the night that Earl was murdered?"

  My question was met with total silence that was really telling. I had hoped she would just think I was silly asking her that question and would play it off, but instead she wasn't saying anything. I sneaked a glance at Candy, who had a large smile frozen on her face. She was staring through me, but her right hand kept moving jerkily back and forth to touch and stroke her purse at her feet.

  "You're the first person I have told, but yes I was," she said.

  I pulled into the field and parked the car in front of the main shed that housed the tractor. I shut the car off and turned to look at Candy. She was still staring at me, but her eyes had changed. Her eyes were hard now, boring into me. I was thoroughly worried now.

  "When were you here?" I asked, even though I already thought I knew the answer.

  "That's not important," Candy said. "What is important is that we are here now and you can show me where you found Earl's body. I want to see it."

  Candy opened her door and stepped out, throwing her purse strap over her head. As she marched around the car to my side, I quickly grabbed my phone and punched a few buttons. Candy threw my car door open and grabbed my sleeve. I was surprised at how strong her grip was.

  "Get out of the car," she said with a snarl.

  I stepped my foot out onto the gravel drive and tried to hide my phone in my hand as I stood up, but Candy spotted it. She grabbed it out of my hand. For a moment, she looked almost confused by the fact that I had a flip phone.

  "You won't be needing this," she said as she turned it over and over in her hand. "We're all friends here."

  Her eyes were wide and wild, looking every which way. I took a closer look at Candy and realized that she was looking a bit rougher than normal. Her normally perfectly styled, platinum hair was frizzier than normal and sticking up all over. While her style was normally a bit out of place, she was usually somewhat put together. Today her shirt had sweat stains under her arms and it was a bit stretched out in the neckline. Her jeans had tears in them and not fashionable tears, but the kind that come from doing manual labor.

  I stood up as she slipped my phone into her pocket. I didn't ever think I would be scared of Candy. But this was not the Candy that I had known.

  "Let's go," Candy said.

  She grabbed my arm and started marching towards the shed that had the tractor in it, dragging me behind her. She was clutching her purse in her other hand. Her hair was sticking up in all directions and every time she looked at me, her eyes were darting all over the place.

  "Candy, are you okay?" I asked. " Listen, I know what it is like to lose your partner. I know that you said you were planning on marrying Earl. I lost my husband Peter. I can help you. I know what you are feeling right now."

  Candy stopped in her tracks so abruptly that I ran into the back of her. She turned slowly and looked at me.

  "You don't know what I'm feeling," she said. "No one really knows what I'm feeling."

  She started walking again and stopped
in front of the shed.

  "Open up the shed and let's get on the tractor," she said.

  I got out the keys and opened the lock before throwing the doors open. The orange tractor was sitting exactly where it should be. I walked in and climbed up onto the tractor. Candy climbed up behind me and stood on a little platform behind the driver's seat. She gripped my shoulders with her unnaturally strong grip. There was on way I was going to get off of this tractor until Candy let me get off of it.

  "Let's go," she said. "Drive me out to where Earl died."

  "Don't you know how to drive the tractor?" I asked.

  "Don't you think I would already be driving this thing if I did?" she sneered.

  I wasn't in a position to argue, so I started the tractor up and put it into drive. It rolled out of the shed and I drove it as close as I could remember to where it had been the night we found Earl.

  "This is it," she said. "This is where he died, right?"

  I looked around, but without the tractor already sitting there or the police tape still up for reference, I had no idea where Earl's body had been that dark night. I sort of shrugged my shoulders and hoped my answer didn't disappoint Candy.

  "This is the spot," Candy said quietly when I didn't answer. Her face was blank. The mania had slipped off of her face without leaving another expression behind.

  "This is where he died," she said in a whisper. She let go of my shoulders and stared at the ground.

  I started to try and climb off of the tractor to put some distance between us, but Candy abruptly grabbed my shoulders and sat me back down.

  "Stop right there," she said. "I wouldn't move anywhere if you know what's good for you."

  "I was just going to go unload some of the pumpkins and give you some privacy," I said. For once, my quick mouth came up with something good instead of just getting me into trouble.