Candy Corn Murder

by Leslie Meier

  Books by Leslie Meier

  MISTLETOE MURDER

  TIPPY TOE MURDER

  TRICK OR TREAT MURDER

  BACK TO SCHOOL MURDER

  VALENTINE MURDER

  CHRISTMAS COOKIE MURDER

  TURKEY DAY MURDER

  WEDDING DAY MURDER

  BIRTHDAY PARTY MURDER

  FATHER’S DAY MURDER

  STAR SPANGLED MURDER

  NEW YEAR’S EVE MURDER

  BAKE SALE MURDER

  CANDY CANE MURDER

  ST. PATRICK’S DAY MURDER

  MOTHER’S DAY MURDER

  WICKED WITCH MURDER

  GINGERBREAD COOKIE MURDER

  ENGLISH TEA MURDER

  CHOCOLATE COVERED MURDER

  EASTER BUNNY MURDER

  CHRISTMAS CAROL MURDER

  FRENCH PASTRY MURDER

  CANDY CORN MURDER

  Published by Kensington Publishing Corporation

  A Lucy Stone Mystery

  CANDY CORN MURDER

  LESLIE MEIER

  KENSINGTON BOOKS

  www.kensingtonbooks.com

  All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

  Table of Contents

  Also by

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Copyright Page

  In fond remembrance of Helen Bang,

  And for Mary Levitt and Stephen Bang.

  Halloween, 1979

  “Where do you think you’re going?”

  She froze. She’d almost made it. She’d been watching and waiting for months, and it had finally happened: he’d heard the jangly bell that announced a customer, and in his hurry he’d forgotten to lock the door that connected the family’s living quarters to the old country store. The old witch was out, too, getting a tooth filled and no doubt skipping the Novocain, insisting that using any sort of painkiller revealed a lack of moral fortitude. “You’ve made your bed, and you must lie in it.” That was the horrid old woman’s motto.

  She knew she might never have this opportunity again, so she hurried, creeping up the stairs, quiet as a mouse, and grabbing the bag she had hidden under the bed. Holding it tight against her chest, she tiptoed down the crooked, cramped back staircase. Taking a deep breath, she reached for the thick connecting door and pulled; she could hardly believe it when it swung open.

  Still on tiptoes, careful to duck behind racks of merchandise, she made her way through the cluttered store. She could hear him talking to the customer; with any luck she’d be able to dash past while he was occupied with writing up a sale. She made it past the Woolrich pants and the Hanes socks, she crept through the narrow aisle between the shelves of canned vegetables and the bread rack, and then she could see the front door, with its narrow panes of glass and green roller shades.

  She took a deep breath and dashed for it just as the customer, a rather large older woman with frizzy, obviously dyed red hair, turned to leave and blocked her path. Momentum carried her forward, and she stumbled into the woman.

  “My goodness,” the woman chided in a schoolmarmish voice. “You’re certainly in a hurry.”

  “No, she’s not,” he said in that flat voice of his. “She wants to apologize. I hope you’re not hurt, Mrs. Clapp.”

  “No, I’m not hurt,” said Mrs. Clapp. “Just a bit shaken.”

  “That’s fortunate,” he said, “but at the very least you’re due an apology.”

  She bowed her head. “I’m sorry.”

  Mrs. Clapp glanced at him, then at her, sensing something wasn’t quite right. “No harm done,” she said quickly. She was a kind woman and feared she was making more of the incident than was necessary. Suddenly, quite irrationally, she felt she had to get out of that cluttered store and into the fresh air. “Good day,” she said, yanking the door open and stepping through.

  The door swung closed behind Mrs. Clapp, the pull on the shade arced and fell against the glass with a tap, and the latch clicked. She stared at the scuffed wood floor, unwilling to look at him.

  “Just where do you think you’re going?” he asked, repeating the question. She could handle this, she told herself. The trick was to soothe him, calm him, and tamp down the seething anger, which frequently flared into violence.

  “Just out to get some air,” she whispered.

  “With a duffel bag!” It wasn’t a question; it was an accusation.

  She felt as if she were drowning, her mind were slowing, and she reached desperately for something, for any plausible reason. “Just taking some old clothes to the thrift shop.”

  “Liar!” he bellowed, grabbing the first thing that came to hand, a glass canister filled with penny candy. He threw it at her, and the last thing she saw before the impact that felled her was a golden shower of yellow candy corn.

  Chapter One

  Tinker’s Cove Chamber of Commerce

  Press Release

  For Immediate Release

  Announcing the First Annual Giant Pumpkin Fest, a Fun-Filled Fall Event That Will Extend the Post–Labor Day Shoulder Season and Will Attract Thousands of Visitors to Our Beautiful Seaside Town!

  Halloween already? It seemed to Lucy Stone that summer was hardly over. Even the trees had only just begun to turn in these last sultry days of September. Well, she admitted to herself, a few maples had blazed into bright displays of yellow, but the hills around Tinker’s Cove, Maine, were still mostly green. Nevertheless, the cut-glass canister full of candy corn that had appeared in Country Cousins, the coastal town’s general store, was a sure predictor of the coming holiday. The canister appeared every year, and shoppers were invited to guess how many pieces of candy corn it contained. The winner got a $250.00 gift certificate.

  “Can I have some candy, Nana?” Lucy smiled down at her grandson, who was standing in front of the penny candy display, gazing longingly at the jars full of colorful treats. Patrick was four years old, and Lucy was taking care of him while his parents were overseas, in Haiti. Lucy’s son, Toby, who was pursuing a business degree, had received a fellowship to study fish farming there.

  “But Haiti?” she’d asked when he announced the project. “Isn’t that awfully dangerous?”

  “It’s a terrific opportunity,” Toby had replied.

  Lucy had turned to Molly, her daughter-in-law. “Are you in favor of this?” she asked.

  “Toby’s right. It would be a shame to pass it up.”

  Lucy thought of the photos she’d seen of the slums in Haiti, the ramshackle structures that served as homes, and the faces of sick and hungry children, often with flies crawling on their skin. “But what about Patrick? You’re certainly not planning to take him to Haiti, are you?”

  “That’s where you come in,” said Toby. “We’re hoping Patrick can stay with you and Dad while we’re gone.”

  Lucy didn’t hesitate, not for one fleeting nanosecond. “Of course! I’d be delighted!” She adored Patrick, her only grandchild, and treasured every moment spent with him.

  “We’ll be gone for about four months,” said Molly.

  “Not a problem,” said Lucy, unable to restrain herself from smiling. Four months of b
liss baking chocolate chip cookies together, popping corn and watching animated DVDs, and reading favorite children’s books, like Make Way for Ducklings and Blueberries for Sal.

  Molly and Toby shared a glance. “We know how much you love Patrick . . . ,” began Toby.

  “But you do tend to spoil him,” said Molly.

  “Which is understandable, and fine, if it’s only for a few hours,” said Toby.

  “But he can’t have unlimited sweets and TV and McDonald’s for four months,” warned Molly.

  “I wouldn’t dream of . . . ,” began Lucy, sputtering. “I raised Toby, you know, and I think he would agree that Bill and I were rather strict parents.”

  “That’s true,” agreed Toby as a smile crept across his face. “You were strict parents, but you two are not strict grandparents.”

  “He can’t have sweets—absolutely no candy, no sugary drinks, and no ice cream,” began Molly.

  Lucy wanted to protest that a wee bit of sugar and carbonation never hurt anyone and that ice cream was made from calcium-rich milk, but bit her tongue.

  “No TV except for an hour or two on the weekend,” continued Molly. “And no fast food, ever.”

  “Lots of fruits and vegetables . . . ,” said Toby.

  “But no fruit juice—it’s full of sugar!” cautioned Molly. “And only fat-free milk.”

  “And he needs plenty of exercise,” advised Toby.

  “That will be Bill’s department,” said Lucy. “He’ll love tossing a football with Patrick.”

  Molly’s eyebrows shot up. “No TV sports. I don’t want him sitting on a couch for hours, watching grown men in helmets brutally attacking each other.”

  “But Bill loves the Patriots,” said Lucy, wishing she could suck the words right back into her mouth.

  “Dad could watch at a friend’s house, right?” suggested Toby.

  “Sure,” said Lucy, knowing full well that was not going to happen. On Sunday afternoons Bill liked to be close to his own TV and beer fridge. “So when do we start?” she asked.

  Now, almost three weeks had passed since Patrick made the move from nearby Prudence Path to Bill and Lucy’s old farmhouse on Red Top Road, bringing a big suitcase of small size-four clothes and his favorite stuffed toy, Jack the Jaguar. She and Bill had made a real effort to stick to the routines that Toby and Molly had established, and Patrick had slipped easily into the household, pleased to be sleeping in his father’s old room, with its antique spool bed and faded Star Wars posters.

  “Nana?” Patrick tugged at her arm. “Can I please have some candy?”

  Lucy looked at the tempting display of treats, penny candy in name only. Nowadays each sugary piece, even a tiny little Tootsie Roll, cost at least twenty cents, sometimes more. Her glance traveled toward the counter, landing on a jar of pretzel rods, also twenty cents apiece. Surely Molly couldn’t object to a pretzel or two?

  “Let’s get a pretzel,” she suggested, leading Patrick away from the candy and handing him one of the salty sticks. “And while we’re here, let’s enter the contest. How many pieces of candy corn do you think are in the jar?”

  “A million,” said Patrick, biting the pretzel.

  “Okay, I think that’s a bit high, but we’ll go for it. Can you write a one and six zeros?”

  Lucy helped Patrick fill out the entry form, enjoying the quaint atmosphere of the country store while he laboriously drew all six zeros with a stubby pencil clasped in his plump little fingers. Country Cousins had managed to maintain the appearance of an old-fashioned general store that stocked everything anybody could possibly need, if anybody happened to be living in 1900. It was masterfully done, thought Lucy, and if you were a tourist buying a half pound of cheddar, which had to be cut with a wire from a giant wheel of cheese, you’d never guess that the true heart of Country Cousins was a massive complex of steel buildings on a back road behind Jonah’s Pond. Despite its size, Country Cousins was still a family business owned by the Millers, who had craftily taken advantage of the Internet boom to transform a regional catalog retailer into an international merchandising giant.

  Patrick put down his pencil and picked up the remains of his pretzel.

  “Good job,” said Lucy, folding the entry and giving it to him to stuff into the box. “This means Halloween is coming,” she said, taking Patrick’s hand. “Do you know what you want to be?”

  Patrick certainly did. “A ninja,” he said.

  “A ninja. Good idea,” said Lucy, noticing the rack of costumes in the corner, which featured plenty of ninjas, as well as princesses, mermaids, and superheroes. Whatever happened to pirates and gypsies? she wondered as she reached for the brass doorknob, with its elaborate design almost worn away by generations of customers’ hands.

  Stepping outside, Lucy noticed a woman walking past with shocking orange hair that blazed in the sunshine. This was not a salon dye job, unless it had gone horribly wrong. It was one of those garish colors you sometimes saw on teens. But this woman wasn’t a teenager, not unless teens had suddenly decided to adopt tailored beige business clothes.

  “Look at that lady!” exclaimed Patrick in his piercing childish voice, and Lucy quickly changed the subject.

  “Why do you want to be a ninja?” she asked, leading him to the car, which was parked just a short distance down the street.

  Hearing Lucy’s voice, the woman suddenly turned, doing an about-face, and walked directly toward them. Lucy was quite surprised to recognize her friend Corney Clark and wondered why she’d exchanged her expensive blond highlights for this bright orange.

  “Hi, Lucy!” exclaimed Corney. “Fine day, isn’t it?”

  “It sure is,” said Lucy, unable to pull her eyes away from Corney’s hairdo, and desperately hoping Patrick wouldn’t say anything about it.

  But Patrick piped right up. “Why is your hair orange?” he asked.

  “Patrick! Apologize right this minute. It’s not polite to comment on a person’s appearance.”

  “Never mind, Lucy,” said Corney, smiling at Patrick. “I want people to notice my hair. That’s why I dyed it.”

  “It’s that spray stuff you can wash out, isn’t it?” asked Lucy, noticing that Corney’s carefully applied lipstick exactly matched her hair color.

  “I sure hope so,” said Corney, who was an attractive woman well into her forties and was always perfectly coiffed and conservatively dressed. “I don’t want to be stuck like this. It’s a publicity stunt for the Giant Pumpkin Fest. I’m in charge, and I want to get folks excited about the big weekend. Halloween is big business, you know, second only to Christmas, and Tinker’s Cove has been missing out because we haven’t had any sort of fall festival to attract shoulder-season tourists to our town.”

  “I think everybody’s excited,” said Lucy. “I see the banners up everywhere.”

  It was true. All the stores on Main Street were flying colorful banners picturing plump pumpkins and announcing the festival.

  “Sticking up a flag is one thing,” grumbled Corney, “but actually committing to taking on any responsibility is something else.”

  “Isn’t the business community cooperating?” asked Lucy, resisting Patrick’s tug on her hand. She was a reporter for the local newspaper, the Pennysaver, and sensed a possible story.

  “Not as much as I’d like,” said Corney, with a sigh. “Of course they’re all busy with their own problems. It’s not easy being in business these days.” She paused. “The truth is, I may have underestimated how much time the festival would take and overextended myself just a bit.”

  “Take a deep breath . . . ,” advised Lucy as Patrick gave her arm another yank. It was time she got a move on. Patrick was surely bored by this grown-up conversation and most certainly hungry, as it was almost time for lunch.

  “No time for deep breathing,” laughed Corney. “Actually, you could help.”

  “Oh, no. I’m sorry, but I’ve got plenty on my hands these days, what with Mr. Impatient here.”

/>   “Let’s see how many times you can hop on one foot, Patrick,” suggested Corney.

  Patrick thought that was a great idea, and began hopping, still hanging on to Lucy’s arm, of course.

  “What I have in mind,” began Corney, “is a story for the newspaper about the new leadership at Country Cousins. That’s my other job, you know. Buck Miller . . . Well, you knew him as little Sam Miller, but now he’s come back. He’s all grown up now, with a new name and a brand-new degree from the London School of Economics, and he’s the VP in charge of marketing. He’s got big plans for the company, and I think it would make a great story for the Pennysaver. Kind of a modern prodigal son, something like that.”

  “He wasn’t much older than Patrick when he left Tinker’s Cove, was he?” asked Lucy, noticing that Patrick had got to nine hops.

  “That’s right. He left with his mother after all that. . . .”

  “Not really a G-rated topic,” warned Lucy, indicating Patrick. He was now up to twelve hops, and her arm was beginning to ache.

  “Oh, right,” said Corney. “Well, you were around then. You know what happened. It’s not surprising that his mother didn’t want to stick around. She made a new life in Europe. She even started calling little Sam by his middle name, Buckingham. I don’t think she wanted to be reminded of her husband every time she called her little boy by name.”

  “Marcia did what she thought best,” said Lucy. “But all that was a long time ago.”

  “And now Buck is back, and the family is grooming him to take over. He’s a great guy. He’ll make a great story.” She smiled. “And he’s very photogenic.”

  Lucy chuckled, knowing that Corney had a keen appreciation for handsome young men, and ruffled Patrick’s hair. He had finally stopped hopping and was leaning against her. “I’ll run it by Ted,” she said, naming her boss at the Pennysaver, Ted Stillings. “But now we have to get home for some mac and cheese.”

  Patrick was a big fan of mac and cheese, so he clambered eagerly into the car and climbed into his booster seat, barely squirming while Lucy strapped him in. Raffi was singing about a baby beluga and Lucy’s mind was wandering as she drove the familiar route to Red Top Road and home. She appreciated the logic behind the Giant Pumpkin Fest. She really did. It was a smart plan to lure tourists to town, where they would presumably spend money, boosting the town’s economy. That was all well and good, but she really didn’t approve of some of the planned activities, which seemed silly in the extreme.