Town in a Pumpkin Bash
Page 1
Praise for
Town in a Wild Moose Chase
“[A] terrific tale…With a great stunning final twist to complete a strong regional whodunit, fans will enjoy Town in a Wild Moose Chase.”
—The Mystery Gazette
“The third book in a well-written series, the appearance of a white moose and the big hints about a conspiracy will keep the reader enthralled. While Town in a Wild Moose Chase was complete, the ending leaves the reader waiting for the next in the series.”
—Fresh Fiction
“Candy is a sensible, interesting young woman who takes her time and thinks things through before she jumps in feetfirst.”
—The Mystery Reader
Town in a Lobster Stew
“[A] fun and likeable amateur sleuth…With a little bit of romance thrown in, this one has a recipe for success.”
—The Romance Readers Connection
“A fun, atmospheric mystery, perfect for lounging bayside waiting for the boats to bring in their latest catch.”
—The Mystery Reader
“This is a charming cozy…With seafood and recipes adding to the flavor of a Town in a Lobster Stew, subgenre fans will enjoy spending early summer in Maine.”
—The Mystery Gazette
“A savory read, which brings the people of coastal Maine to life. It leaves Candy Holliday fans with a taste for more of her misadventures.”
—Bangor (ME) Daily News
Town in a Blueberry Jam
“In this debut mystery, Haywood has picked a winning combination of good food and endearing characters.”
—Sheila Connolly, national bestselling author of Sour Apples
“This is a charming and amusing Pine Tree State cozy in which Cape Willington is vividly described so that the reader feels they are attending the Blueberry Festival. The cast is solid as the residents bring out the ambience of the seaside village…A fresh spin to B. B. Haywood’s first Candy Holliday whodunit.”
—The Best Reviews
“A delicious mix of yummy food and a good, small-town mystery.”
—The Romance Readers Connection
“A winning combination of great characters, warm setting, and mischievous locals will appeal to cozy lovers everywhere.”
—RT Book Reviews
“An interesting cast of characters in a quaint Maine town. It’s not Cabot Cove, and thank God for that. Candy Holliday is an intriguing new sleuth in the lighthearted mystery genre.”
—Bangor (ME) Daily News
Berkley Prime Crime titles by B. B. Haywood
TOWN IN A BLUEBERRY JAM
TOWN IN A LOBSTER STEW
TOWN IN A WILD MOOSE CHASE
TOWN IN A PUMPKIN BASH
TOWN IN A
Pumpkin Bash
B. B. Haywood
BERKLEY PRIME CRIME, NEW YORK
THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA
Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada
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Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s
imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business
establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over
and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
PUBLISHER’S NOTE: The recipes contained in this book are to be followed exactly as written.
The publisher is not responsible for your specific health or allergy needs that may require
medical supervision. The publisher is not responsible for any adverse
reactions to the recipes contained in this book.
TOWN IN A PUMPKIN BASH
A Berkley Prime Crime Book / published by arrangement with the author
PUBLISHING HISTORY
Berkley Prime Crime mass-market edition / February 2013
Copyright © 2013 by Robert R. Feeman and Beth Ann Feeman.
Cover illustration by Teresa Fasolino.
Cover design by Diana Kolsky.
Interior text design by Kristin del Rosario.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or
electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of
copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group,
a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.
ISBN: 978-1-101-62366-4
BERKLEY® PRIME CRIME
Berkley Prime Crime Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,
a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.
BERKLEY® PRIME CRIME and the PRIME CRIME logo are trademarks of
Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
ALWAYS LEARNING PEARSON
For Sarah James and Drift,
and for Matthew
Table of Contents
Prologue
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-One
Twenty-Two
Twenty-Three
Twenty-Four
Twenty-Five
Twenty-Six
Twenty-Seven
Twenty-Eight
Twenty-Nine
Thirty
Thirty-One
Thirty-Two
Thirty-Three
Thirty-Four
Thirty-Five
Thirty-Six
Thirty-Seven
Thirty-Eight
Thirty-Nine
Forty
Forty-One
Forty-Two
Forty-Three
Forty-Four
Forty-Five
Forty-Six
Forty-Seven
Forty-Eight
Forty-Nine
Fifty
Fifty-One
Fifty-Two
Fifty-Three
Fifty-Four
Epilogue
Author’s
Note
Recipes
PROLOGUE
At first he thought he had wandered into a graveyard.
He’d been looking down, careful of his footing in the darkness, and only when he glanced up and around, spooked by a sound in the woods nearby, had he noticed the tall, arched headstones on either side of him. Sprouting from a flat, open space, they stood like black sentinels against the shadowy landscape, lit only by the angled beam of his flashlight and the muted glow of a half-hidden gibbous moon, a few days from full, its face smeared by a swath of thin, strung-out cloud.
Instinctively he took several steps back, horrified that he might just have walked over someone’s dead body.
On somewhat safer ground, he stilled himself and listened. There had been a sound, a whistle or low whisper from a stand of trees in front of him and to his left. He was sure of it. He lifted the flashlight and shined it in the general direction of the trees, flicking it around. “Hello?” he called into the darkness. “Is that you?”
He shifted the light from tree to tree, searching the shadows, but saw and heard no one.
Not for the first time, he wondered if this was a good idea. The message had been vague at best. Meet here, in this isolated pumpkin patch in Down East Maine, an hour before midnight. It was an urgent matter, the message had said, though no more details were provided. But the implications were too worrisome for him to ignore.
Had something changed? Had something gone wrong?
Did he need to alter his plan—again? He had hoped the end of his financial troubles was within reach. Now he had his doubts.
To find the key, search that which binds.
The key…
That’s what he needed. But had it already been discovered?
That thought alone had drawn him out from his room at a hotel up on Route 1, where he’d been encamped for the night, longing for a nightcap and an early bedtime, since he had an appointment in the morning, in this very field.
He’d wondered about that. Why this field? This place? It could be coincidental—but, no, he’d decided after he thought it through. There had to be a reason he’d been asked to come here.
And why the late hour for the meeting? Why not meet at some cozy pub with a warm fireplace, instead of this cold patch of land?
He had a nagging feeling that he’d missed something, been lax in his research, but he pushed it down. He’d come too far to back out now.
He’d left the university earlier that day, letting a grad student take his late class so he could make the seven-hour trip from western Massachusetts, first heading east toward Boston, then northward along the coast, past Portsmouth and Portland, Freeport and Waterville, and eastward again to Bangor. He’d stopped only a few times to gas up and grab something to eat at a fast-food joint. But he was quickly back on the road.
Once east of Bangor, he’d checked into the hotel and watched the clock until the appointed hour, then let the GPS guide him as close as possible to his destination, though no address had been provided. Just a road marker and a cross street. He’d never been on this backcountry lane, and it had taken him a while to find the dirt track he sought, but finally he’d spotted the small vertical white sign, and the turnoff just beyond. After that he’d crept along at five or ten miles an hour, thinking all the time he was probably on private land, or had gotten himself turned around somewhere, or worse, had fallen victim to some sort of cruel prank. But his desperate need to know egged him on.
He eventually parked where he’d been instructed—or as close as he could determine—locked the car, dropped the keys into his pocket, and traveled the rest of the way on foot, over a low ridge and through a stand of trees and dense shrubbery, approaching the pumpkin patch from the rear.
That’s when he’d stumbled into the graveyard.
He turned the flashlight back toward the tall, thin headstones, playing the beam of light across their shadowed surfaces. What’s a graveyard doing out here in the middle of nowhere? he wondered, confused. The message he’d received hadn’t mentioned anything about it. He knew there was a cemetery just out of town along the main road, Route 192, known to the locals as the Coastal Loop. What was that place called? Something with rock or stone in the name? Stone Hill Cemetery? Yes, that sounded about right.
That’s where they’d buried Sapphire Vine.
Just the thought of her made him queasy. He hadn’t attended her funeral. Instead, he’d smartly skipped out of town a few days before, which had seemed like the best decision at the time, given all that had happened back then. It must be…what? A little more than two years ago now? He took a moment to dig into his memories to confirm the time frame and decided that, yes, she had died two summers past. It seemed like forever—and just yesterday.
He could still remember the last time he’d seen her, though he quickly shook away the unpleasant memory. Sapphire’s death had caused a massive disruption in his life, both good and bad. She’d been blackmailing him, so her murder had eliminated that financial burden for him, as well as the humiliation of her never-ending demands. But his career also had taken a hit. Though he’d managed to keep most of the details of the events of those days from his employer and coworkers, the rumors had been damaging enough. Since then, he’d worked hard to rededicate himself to his craft, reestablish his reputation, and put some major distance between then and now. But admittedly it had been a struggle, and over the past year, he had experienced a number of setbacks. Someone had started spreading rumors about him again, though he couldn’t determine who or why. But word had gotten around. His career had stalled. His creativity had faltered. His books weren’t selling. His classes were poorly attended. His future looked bleak.
He knew he needed to find a way to break through the barriers that were holding him back.
So here he was, just outside Cape Willington, Maine, standing in a dark pumpkin patch a few minutes before eleven o’clock on a Friday night, exhausted after the long drive from western Massachusetts and the tense wait in his hotel room, feeling wired and on edge, and wishing he were anywhere else but here.
And now he had just trespassed on someone’s private burial plot, a particularly distasteful development.
The tall stones were abnormally thin, which caused him to suspect their true nature. On an impulse, he took a few tentative steps forward, shining his light across their granite gray surfaces. But he knew almost at once they were not made of any sort of rock or stone. Instead, the surfaces looked as if they’d been painted on, and they had writing on them. Not engravings, but bold lettering applied in an almost comical hand. He focused in on the epitaphs:
HERE LIES OLD MAN WINTER, THE COOLEST CAT EVER, one headstone read.
MARY, MARY, QUITE CONTRARY, ARGUED IN THE CEMETERY, said another.
And on a third: RIP, REGINALD I. PERIWINKLE, A MAN OF INITIAL WORTH.
And another: C. A. GHOST, A SPIRITED FELLOW.
His brow furrowed. They were complete nonsense. Joke lines, he thought.
He reached out and pushed at one of the headstones. It teetered back loosely.
They weren’t real.
It must be some sort of Halloween gag, he realized. Decorations of some sort.
He heard the sound again, more distinct this time—a low whistle from the trees off to his left.
Nervously he shifted the beam of the flashlight around, surveying the landscape. “Who’s there?” he called into the darkness. “Is that you? I’m here, just like you asked.”
Again, no response. He swallowed hard. Was this some sort of game?
“I’m coming over there,” he called out, as if in warning, and started off toward the trees. “Give me a signal or something so I know where you are.”
He moved at a cautious pace, stepping carefully over the uneven landscape, keeping a watchful eye for any sort of movement or signal. When none came, he veered toward a particularly large oak, which stood out among all the other gray trunks.
He had just stepped into a low area
when the heel of his boot struck hard earth. He shined the light down toward his feet and saw that he stood on some sort of dirt road, which ran along the edge of the trees. He shined the light along the road to his left. It curved around the tree line a little farther on, where he saw a pile of pumpkins and more evidence of Halloween decorations—probably for some sort of activity, he thought, like a hayride.
Something moved in the shadows to his left.
He swung around, crouching warily as he turned, the light moving with him.
A figure had emerged from among the trees.
It was luminescent in the moonlight, a thin, gangly thing of awkwardly moving appendages, coming toward him at a steady pace. As it got closer, he could see the thin ribs and even the finger bones of one hand, curled around an old pitchfork. The face was especially troubling—a skull with a wide grin and black eyes.
It was a skeleton.
Or, rather, someone wearing a skeleton costume.
It’s some sort of a prank, he realized as his hopes crashed and his stomach heaved in on itself in despair. I’ve been lured out here for nothing. I’ll probably get robbed—or worse.
He heard several things at once—a shift of fabric, the deep echo of a heavy truck passing along a distant road, the faint sound of a dog barking somewhere, the closer rustle as a breath of wind kicked up a few fallen leaves that rattled past his feet.
A click, as if someone had flicked off the safety on a pistol.
There was a spark of light, a crack of sound, a slap at his chest as if a big bug had flown into him. He shuddered, his fingers tingled, his neck bulged strangely. Everything in his brain turned hot and red as he felt his knees buckle and his body collapse.
And then the ground came rushing up to meet him at a speed he’d never thought possible.
From The Cape Crier
Cape Willington, Maine
October 26th Edition
BLUEBERRY BITS
by Candy Holliday
Community Correspondent
THE PUMPKINS ARE COMING!
Don’t get out your shovels yet! (Well, yes, get them out, but hope we won’t have to use them before Halloween this year.) There’s plenty to do in Cape Willington this October before the cold weather sets in and the snow flies.