Pumpkins And Trickery

by D. S. Mowbray

  I get to the other part of the shop where I store all my precious baking, but I’m afraid a little to be honest to leave this two behind, since Heather would jump at the opportunity, the first chance she gets, and make him revel in her awesomeness. Really, it’s not hard to like Heather.

  Once again, why am I so afraid they would hit it off? It’s not like I grasp some kind of interest towards him, now do I?

  I chose the raspberry and walnuts cupcake, and I get back at him with a paper box.

  “I think you’re going to like this more,” I point out and hand the box to him. He gets his money out of his pocket and is ready to pay me, and though I insist it’s on the house, he wouldn’t accept this time, telling me that my business is going to go on the ropes if I refuse to allow him to pay off. Which, I recon, means that he’d be around the shop a lot in the days to come. Which makes me particularly excited.

  “I can see what you’ve been keeping yourself preoccupied with lately. But who could blame you? He’s so time-worthy and attention-worthy, augh, I’m so jealous.” She points out with a groan, as soon as Gideon has left the shop, putting a smile on my face.

  Chapter Fifteen

  It’s evening and I’m finding myself yet again in front of the pumpkin shop. I thought that I wouldn’t be anywhere near this part of town at least until the end of the year, but here I am. I just couldn’t help myself. What Heather told me, really made me suspicious.

  Alyvia is a really nice person and you wouldn’t be expecting her to hurt anybody, so I’m just left here thinking that whatever it is, Mrs. Mahoney’s started it. After all, she didn’t strike me as the friendliest person.

  I don’t want to go inside the shop, but I think that waiting for her outside is probably going to be a bad idea, since I’m not cognizant of her itinerary and I don’t know when she leaves her shift. So with that in mind, I head inside, but I stop for a moment, when I hear a voice that sounds like Detective Cassidy.

  “I’m going to need your booking records in the months leading up to Mr. Mahoney’s murder.” Detective is talking to the shop owner, Mr. Grantham.

  “You’re coming on such short notice, and I’m afraid I can’t help you with that right now. I’m going to have my assistant dispose of it, and I’ll get back at you as soon as I can. How about that?” Mr. Grantham responds, and I don’t spot any kind of loftiness in his voice now. Just so different from his attitude when I tried to talk to him after I found the body.

  “You’re going to have to be fast. This is important.” Detective tells him and he heads out.

  The velocity of the conversation didn’t give me much room to think of my actions, so I find myself fumbling when the detective turns around to find me snooping on his conversation with the shop owner.

  “Ms. Holden, you just can’t stay out of trouble’s way, huh?” he says in his harsh voice, and all I can give in response, is an enforced smile.

  “Ainsley,” I hear Mr. Grantham’s voice from around the shop, approaching. “I thought that you got all the pumpkins that you needed, twice already.”

  The detective raises an eyebrow at me, expectantly, but I don’t like to tell him the real reasons behind my being here, because I know he won’t be so keen on it anyway.

  “Um, I’m here to…um, shop for a friend?”

  “A friend?” Detective Cassidy raises an eyebrow and I find myself in the middle of the most stringent situation possible.

  Detective knows that Heather is no lover of arts and craft, and ornaments, so I’ll have to come up with something real fast.

  “Yeah, it’s…hmm, my neighbor,” my voice becomes particular pitchy as if I’ve just found the answer to my own retort. “He just moved into town, and is not so accustomed to the vicinity.”

  “Hmm? A friend?” he mutters to himself, suspiciously. Buy lucky for me, he leaves it at that, at least for now.

  I look strangely around the shop, while Mr. Grantham is minding his own business now that he’s made up his mind that he won’t be able to put me in a tight position anymore. I guess he enjoyed that very much.

  I glance around the shop, looking for Alyvia to find her polishing a bunch of pumpkins and I run to her. When she senses my presence around, she turns her head up and meets my eye.

  “Oh, Ainsley, I didn’t see you there,” she smiles amicably. How could such a lovely person be involved in any way in a devious agenda? I refuse to believe anything indecent about her.

  “I was just wondering whether I could catch up with you about something. I know you’re on your work time right now, and I don’t want to cause you any troubles, but it’s desperate times and all.” I look at her, waiting for a reaction.

  “Is something wrong?” she asks, concerned, the smile on her face starts to vanish a little but not quite.

  “I mean, I was hoping for you to tell me that.”

  “Ainsley, what is going on?” she gets up from her sitting position and we maintain looks. She doesn’t even blink once, waiting for my retort.

  “Look, my friend saw you in a passionate discussion with Mrs. Mahoney this day. I just wanted to know what is going on. Alyvia, is she causing you any troubles?” my voice grows warmer.

  “Um,” her expression changes entirely and she looks less amicable now. More like, concentered this time. “About that. Look, it is personal. And I’d like to keep it that way.”

  “I understand. And I don’t want to interfere, but like I said, it’s desperate times. She might be dangerous. There’s a murderer on the loose. We have to be careful.”

  “Since when did you take it upon yourself to become the town’s next detective?” oh, God. I feel like she’s mocking me a little. Which I don’t appreciate.

  “Hey, I’m not trying to replace anybody right now. All I want is for the townspeople to be safe.”

  “I think the townspeople can take good care of themselves,” she responds shortly. “Now if you don’t mind, I’ve got work to do. And don’t ask me about anything else that isn’t work-related. I’d prefer to keep my relations with prospect customers smooth. Please, don’t make it any different.”

  Oh, my. I feel a little threatened somehow. Looking at her moving away, with her duster, I gawk around me, perplexed. What just happened? What did I get myself into?

  Coming here, I was so sure Alyvia was so innocent and if there was a fuss going on here between her and Mrs. Mahoney, she was the victim. But, now, I don’t know about that. She acted really weird, as if she didn’t appreciate my chiming in to the mystery.

  I head out of the pumpkin store, but as I’m propelling my legs to move, I hear an amicable voice from behind.

  “Change your mind about those pumpkins, after all?” it’s Jayvion with his cozy smile. At least, I get to receive a snuggly vibe out of all the strangeness that was surrounding me a moment prior.

  “Jayvion,” that’s all I can say, muttering.

  “I’m sorry,” he explains. “I think I overheard your conversation with the detective earlier.”

  “Oh, yeah, about that.” I totally forgot about my little lie regarding my little visit to the shop. “I think my friend is going to have to do without the pumpkins this year.”

  “How are you, anyway?” he shrugs off the little, instant frowning, and keeps up his constant smile on the face.

  “Oh, I’m hanging in there.” I respond, and like that, I leave the shop for good.

  Hopping in the car, I try to arrange my thoughts and realize where I’m headed to next. I know that I won’t leave it at that. I have to find out what really is going on. Especially now that everything looks so suspicious.

  I just set up the next event on my agenda, and I’m driving all the way down to the house of Mrs. Mahoney. I know that this is probably not a well-thought idea, since I already did that once and it didn’t turn out good. But I have to try again. I have to get some answers and if Alyvia won’t collaborate, then someone has to.

  The town is quiet and cozy, and I can already see across the g
uards of the townspeople inundated with tangerine autumn pumpkins and it all looks so magical and frightening. Sometime you wish that life was a perpetual autumn feeling that embraced you and made everything look so snuggly.

  The yard of her house is untouched. There’s not a single pumpkin or any kind of ornaments embellishing the front of the house. I reckon she’s not in the mood to deal with adornments after the loss of her husband. Who could blame her? I guess it must be really hard for Mrs. Mahoney. And I have to understand that she’s coming for a place of despair and confusion. So I have to be patient right now.

  I climb the few stairs until I make it to the front door and look around the area. Everything seems quiet and peaceful. I can hear the laughter of the children coming from the house next door, while they’re playing with their Halloween decorations. It’s a little early for it, but you don’t have to miss on the fun and enjoyment the season brings you, I guess. It warms up my heart, and with a smile I look at the door in front of me and clench my fist, ready to knock.

  I hear footsteps approaching from behind on my second knock, and I draw my hand back, waiting quietly.

  “Oh, it’s you again.” Mrs. Mahoney frowns as soon as she sees me. That’s how I know my visit is unwished-for. Well, to be honest, I knew that right off the bat when I decided to come here, but that didn’t seem to stop me.

  “I know. It must be unsettling and bizarre, but I think that we have a conversation to share together. I think we’ve both been waiting for this moment for a while now.”

  “What do you mean?” she frowns, not catching up with my abstract talking.

  “Mrs. Mahoney. Do you want to find out who killed your husband? If that’s so, then I think that you need me. I know most of the people in the town and together we can find the connections that would lead us to the murderer of your husband.”

  She seems to be pondering my offer, holding the edge of her doorframe with her hands, and after a few seconds, soundlessly she moves aside and I understand that even though she doesn’t want to admit it, she’s making room for me to go inside. I do so, and the door closes behind me with a bang.

  “Would you like something to drink?”

  “Yeah, some tea would be nice, please.” I respond with a smile and wait quietly for her to come back with two cups of tea above a tray.

  “What do you think you’ve found out?” she jumps straight to the point, and somehow, I understand her impatience. She just needs to find out that gruesome person who’d have done something like this.

  “Why don’t we make this conversation more fungible? How about we start with your conversation with one of Mr. Grantham’s crew, Alyvia?”

  “What about her?”

  “I heard you two got into a fight together. What was the purpose of the fight?”

  “Look, a couple of months ago, my husband was in negotiation with Mr. Grantham, trying to get the best deal out of him. Since Mr. Grantham was tired of the life in the town, he wanted to move away, and also sell the pumpkin store. It’s not as if Colten wanted to manage another business. He was doing it for me. To make me happy,” she titles her head downwards and I feel like she’s starting to whine. “He was buying the pumpkin shop as a gift for me, knowing how much I adored pumpkins and also that my mundane life was starting to seem a little boring for me. He’d do anything to cheer me up. Even take up the ordeal of negotiating to buy the rights for an entire store. Before he was murdered, Colten made a payment into Mr. Grantham’s account, while he had the paperwork delivered to us, and they were all waiting for my husband’s sign. Soon, the pumpkin store would be mine.”

  “What does any of this have anything to do with Alyvia? How does it impact her in any way?”

  “Well, Alyvia is Mr. Grantham’s favorite crew member. But when it came to Colten, they didn’t get along very well. And it all comes back to me. I had a little fight with her one year when I was shopping for my autumn pumpkins. An entire compilation smashed down while I was browsing, and a myriad bucks worth of pumpkins crashed to bits. Now Alyvia wanted to put the blame on me since I was the only person nearby the compilation when the incident happened. But I insisted that it was her fault since she hadn’t arranged the pumpkins properly. If she did, then that wouldn’t have happened. Now of course, Colten took my side, and he talked to Mr. Grantham about having Alyvia fired. And since Mr. Grantham has a soft spot when it comes to her, he didn’t take him up on that offer. And it all went down to us hating each other.”

  “Oh,” now that’s what I call an intricate story. I don’t know how to feel about this. And besides, this is only Mrs. Mahoney’s side of the story. I still haven’t heard Alyvia’s. But even now I can tell that Mrs. Mahoney’s behavior had been a little far-fetched.

  “I came upon her this morning, when I was browsing for my pumpkins.”

  And here I thought her pumpkin’s addiction was weird since I didn’t spot there any pumpkins in her yard.

  “And I came upon her at the store.” She proceeds. “Now sure the store is not yet officially mine, since my husband got murdered before he got the chance to sign the paperwork, though my lawyers are working up on that, and I’d soon have what is mine. And despites Mr. Grantham’s insistence, Alyvia is not going to be part of my crew anymore.

  “Oh, so that’s it?” I ask, a little confused. I didn’t know what I was expecting to hear when I came here, but sure this story got me so fuzzy.

  “That’s all. Now tell me, who do you think killed my husband?”

  “To be honest, I’ve got a long list of names, and it often gets intermingled.”

  “I wasn’t exactly expecting to hear something like this when I offered you to come inside.”

  “Well, don’t you think, it’s a little fast to point fingers at people, while we’re not really sure?” I learned that the hard way.

  “I don’t think it’s fast. I don’t think you understand how I feel at all.”

  “I may be not, but I sure try to empathize. And I feel like we could use each other’s help to find whoever did this.”

  “What do you get out of it?”

  “Oh,” I shrug, looking away around the house. “The serenity and protection of my town.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  “But what if Alyvia killed him to save herself from going unemployed?” Now that’s a new scenario that I thought about just five seconds ago.

  “You think that’d be so great a motive so as to kill somebody?” Heather raises an eyebrow, letting her empty mug above the counter and scrambling on her bag for her tablet. Getting it out, she starts typing, and I just realized that the only thing I’m getting out of sharing this story with her is fueling at her investigating article obsession.

  “Don’t think for a second that you can use this story for your article.” I threaten in the friendliest way possible. “We don’t know what kind of people they are, and from the looks of it, they’re influential and rich. You cannot mess with those kind of people.”

  “It’s exactly this kind of people that the contingent adores.”

  Oh, God. I think she’s not taking it very seriously, like everything else in her life. I don’t know whether I did good sharing this information with her. Meanwhile I get a call from one of the interior designers that is going to help me with my shop remodeling. I spent my entire evening last night browsing on the net, looking for the best interior finishing that’d suit my shop the best. And I thought a professional opinion would help me better with my choice.

  “I’m going to have to attend to a meeting in a while,” I tell Heather. It’s really early and I don’t open my shop for another hour, even though it’s only me and Heather inside. We’re enjoying an early morning coffee (well, tea for me) before I open up the cupcake shop and Heather heads down to her workplace.

  “That’s fine by me. I’m going to have more scrutinizing to do.”

  “Don’t tell me you’re going after the people involved to the mystery?”

  “Well, I’m not telling
you, if you don’t want me to.” She places her palm in the air as in upon an imaginary wall, and I look at her unbelievably.

  “Heather!” I demand, voice crawling and a little pitchy. “You know that this is not your job. And besides, you’re not even an investigating journalist.”

  “It’s not your job either, but that didn’t seem to stop you. And besides, murder-mystery stories sell out galore. It’s a nice strategy if I’m going to upheave my career.”

  Even though I want to object to that, I don’t really have time, since we’ve booked up this meeting at a coffee shop down the street, which was the place closet to the designer’s office.

  Heather and I get out of the cupcake shop, and I close the front door, putting the keys in my bag, and hopping in the car. But before doing so, I look at Heather once more, maintaining looks soundlessly for a moment, and say. “Be careful, okay?”

  “You, too,” she smiles and gets in her own car.

  Like that, I start driving towards the coffeehouse that we’re arranged this meeting with the interior designer.

  The town is so silent at this hour. It isn’t going to be until the next few minutes that everything is going to change. The streets would get crowded by all sorts of people heading out to work, and school, and basically attending their own itineraries.

  Pulling over, I get out of the car, peering at the building in front of me.

  Braelyn, the designer, is a really nice person and we’re getting along really fine, once we make ourselves comfortable on out seats, waiting for our coffees. I ordered a PPL for a change. It’s only a couple of weeks until October hit the bricks, and come November, I don’t want to look down at the pumpkins month and regret not having enjoying enough pumpkin’s snacks and beverages.

  Braelyn asks me about my own concepts and wishes. I guess she just needs to have my insight in order to come up with the best suggestions. “How do you wish your remolding to look like? I mean, at the end of this, what are you expecting your cupcake shop to feel like?”