Candy Corn Murder

by Leslie Meier

  It was one thing, she thought, to have a giant pumpkin–growing contest, but quite another to encourage people to transform their giant pumpkins into extremely unstable watercraft for a foolish and dangerous race across the cove. And worst of all, she thought, turning into her driveway and spying the enormous wooden structure that was taking shape in her backyard, was the pumpkin hurl, featuring homemade catapults.

  She really couldn’t understand why her husband thought he had to compete in this ridiculous contest to see whose machine could toss a pumpkin the farthest. To her mind, it was a senseless waste of time, energy, and money, since lumber certainly didn’t come cheap these days.

  He never would have gotten involved, she thought, if he hadn’t fallen under the influence of Evan Wickes. Ev was a great guy. Everybody said so. He was ready for any challenge. Any challenge except taking a shower, thought Lucy. It was Ev who had convinced Bill to build the catapult and enter the contest, and it was Ev who was always around the house, making frequent trips to the beer fridge. “Can’t run on empty,” he’d say, tracking mud and dried leaves and bits of grass through the kitchen. “Man or machine, you gotta have gas if you wanna keep on keeping on.”

  Privately, Lucy wished Ev would keep on going, taking his smelly self out of the house and out of their lives. But Bill was having a great time building the catapult and was convinced he and Ev would win the pumpkin-hurling contest. “Of course, it’s not really just about winning,” he had told her as he unloaded yet another expensive wood beam from his pickup truck. “It’s about the process, taking on the challenge and working to build something. . . .” Here he had paused, looking for just the right word, and had grinned broadly when he found it. “Something absolutely freaking fantastic!”

  Chapter Two

  Tinker’s Cove Chamber of Commerce

  Press Release

  For Immediate Release

  Free Pumpkin Seedling Giveaway!

  Now That the Growing Season Is upon Us, the Chamber Is Giving Away Over One Thousand Giant Pumpkin Seedlings in Preparation for the Upcoming Giant Pumpkin Fest in October. These Seedlings Are Certified Healthy and Guaranteed to Grow. Don’t Miss Out on the Fun. Grow Some Giant Pumpkins for the Fest. Limit Five Seedlings per Family.

  Next morning, the scent of Bill’s breakfast bacon was still lingering in the kitchen when Lucy went looking for her husband. A glance out the window revealed that his truck was still in the drive, so he hadn’t left yet, but he certainly wasn’t in the house. His egg-smeared plate and the pan he’d cooked it in were on the kitchen counter, so she slipped them in the dishwasher before stepping outside and onto the porch.

  It was funny how people thought September was the beginning of fall, she thought, when it was really the tail end of summer. She always felt badly for the kids whose moms sent them off dressed in back-to-school sweaters and jeans on the first day of school; she knew from experience as a parent volunteer that the classrooms that faced south in Tinker’s Cove Elementary School became solar ovens in June and September due to their large windows. Today was no exception. The sun was bright, even though it was lower in the sky, and it looked to be a scorcher. The only hint that summer had truly ended was the lengthening shadows cast by the trees.

  And there was Bill, as she’d suspected, out in the garden, checking on his giant pumpkin, Priscilla. He was on his knees, measuring her girth with a carpenter’s tape, rather like an anxious midwife checking a pregnant woman’s progress.

  “How’s she doing?” she asked, crossing the patch of grass they called the lawn, now scorched and brown.

  “She’s grown four more inches,” he said with a grin, letting the flexible steel tape reroll with a snap. He stood up, and even after twenty-plus years of marriage, Lucy’s heart skipped a beat. He was still the handsome guy she fell in love with in college, tall and lean, but now his beard was touched with gray.

  “That’s good, right?” asked Lucy. “How much do you think she weighs?”

  “A lot,” said Bill. “But it’s hard to tell. Hundreds of pounds, anyway.”

  “What’s the record?”

  “I think the biggest so far was well over two thousand pounds.” He cast a critical eye on Priscilla. “I don’t think our girl’s in that category, but I’m only guessing. We’ve got over four more weeks before the weigh in.”

  “And to think, last May she was just a little sprout.” Lucy remembered the day the pumpkin seedlings were distributed at the local nursery. Back then each tiny peat pot contained little more than a swollen seed with a few roots and a couple of baby leaves on an arched stem.

  “It’s the horse manure,” said Bill. “Every time I topdress her, she goes on a growth spurt.”

  “Is it time for more?” asked Lucy.

  Bill shook his head. “I can’t get any. I’ve been calling all over, and nobody’s got any.”

  “It’s in high demand,” said Lucy. “Everyone who’s growing a giant pumpkin wants the stuff.”

  “That’s just about everybody in town,” said Bill.

  Lucy knew that was true. The entire population of Tinker’s Cove had turned out for the seedling giveaway, and almost everyone was planning to enter at least one of the Giant Pumpkin Fest events. It seemed there was no end to the uses for giant pumpkins. There was the pumpkin weigh in for the biggest pumpkins, and the pumpkin boat regatta, and the pumpkin-decorating contest. Smaller pumpkins could be included in the display of pumpkin people on the town green, and the weirdly misshapen and stunted ones would be smashed to bits in the catapult hurl.

  “Nana!” Lucy looked up and saw Patrick, still in his Power Rangers pajamas, standing on the porch. “I want breakfast!”

  “I’m coming,” she said, heading back to the house.

  When she got to the kitchen, she found her youngest daughter, Zoe, sitting at the round golden oak table with Patrick. Zoe, now in high school, was working on a container of yogurt and had given Patrick a bowl of Cheerios.

  “Do you want a banana with your cereal?” Lucy asked, but Patrick shook his head no.

  “I’ll take one, if you’re giving them out,” said Sara, who was coming down the back stairway. “I’ve got to eat on the run.” Sara was a sophomore at nearby Winchester College and was suffering this semester with an eight o’clock class, which was required for her major. Today she was rather dressed up and was wearing a skirt instead of her usual yoga pants, and she had blow-dried and styled her blond hair, rather than tying it back in a ponytail.

  Lucy was sympathetic and busied herself filling a commuter cup with coffee for her daughter. “You look very nice this morning,” she said, handing it over. She was thinking that when Sara pulled herself together, she looked a lot like her chic older sister, Elizabeth, who lived in Paris, where she worked for the posh Cavendish Hotel chain.

  “Thanks, Mom,” said Sara, taking a long drink and heading for the door, then pausing in the middle of the kitchen. “I’ve got to go to town hall today, and I want to make a good impression.”

  Lucy was puzzled. “What business do you have at the town hall?”

  “It’s for the scuba club. We need to get on the agenda for the next meeting of the Conservation Commission.” She paused. “What are the commissioners like, anyway? Are they sticklers for the rules?”

  Lucy often covered the commission’s meetings for the Pennysaver and knew all the members. “They can be tough,” she said with a shrug, recalling some rather contentious meetings. “Why does the club need to go to the meeting?”

  “The scuba club wants to hold an underwater pumpkin-carving contest at Jonah’s Pond, and we have to get permission from the commission. It’s part of the town’s conservation land.”

  “They’re pretty conservative,” said Lucy. “Pun intended.”

  Zoe and even Patrick joined Sara in a groan.

  “Make sure you’re well prepared. They’ll have lots of questions, for sure, and they don’t like anything that hasn’t been done before.” Lucy snapped a b
anana off the bunch and gave it to Sara. “But the whole town seems to be caught up in this pumpkin craziness, and a contest like this will draw attention to the pond and the conservation area. It’s really beautiful, and it’s not used very much. I don’t think most people know that it’s really public land, since it’s so close to the Country Cousins headquarters.”

  “Good point, Mom. Thanks,” said Sara, hoisting her book bag on her shoulder and giving Patrick a quick peck on the cheek as she left.

  “Eeuw,” groaned Patrick, rubbing at the offended spot.

  “You love it. You know you do,” teased Zoe, tickling his ribs. Zoe was no longer the skinny kid she’d been only a few months before. Now she was filling out her Forever 21 shirt quite nicely. She had also refused to go to the budget hair salon, insisting on a trip to an expensive place in Gilead, which she’d paid for herself out of the earnings from her summer job at Fern’s Famous Fudge Shoppe.

  Patrick scrunched his little body up on the chair, enjoying a good tickle before jumping down and running off into the family room.

  “Are you done?” asked Lucy, noticing that he’d eaten only half of his cereal.

  “All done!” he yelled back.

  She heard the TV come on and speculated that little boys were born with a natural ability to use the remote control. That must be it, because she certainly hadn’t taught him, and she knew that his parents didn’t allow him to watch TV at all, which reminded her that she’d promised to adhere to their policies on child care, which included a strict ban on weekday TV. “I really shouldn’t let him watch TV in the morning,” she said.

  Zoe was gathering up her school texts and notebooks, stuffing them into her Country Cousins backpack, to the accompaniment of a steady stream of pows, whams, and bangs. “You’ll need your superpowers to get him away from the TV, Mom,” she said before leaving the house.

  Lucy knew it was true. Once Patrick got started watching cartoons, it was almost impossible to get him to stop. She checked the clock, calculating that the show would end in twenty minutes. That was time she could use to tidy up the house and start the Crock-Pot before she had to leave the house for her job and Patrick’s day care. “Twenty minutes, Patrick,” she yelled, pulling some carrots out of the fridge. “Twenty minutes!”

  Lucy was already guiltily aware that she was not the ideal caregiver for Patrick, at least not by his parents’ rather rigid standards, when she pulled up outside Little Prodigies in her SUV and was met by his teacher, Heidi Bloom.

  “A word, Mrs. Stone,” called Heidi, holding a finger in the air as she hurried down the sidewalk. Lucy’s friend Sue Finch, who was a part owner of Little Prodigies, as well as its director, was terribly impressed by Heidi’s credentials, which included a master’s degree in early childhood education, and had recently named her head teacher.

  Lucy had climbed out of the car and was unlatching Patrick’s seat belt, preparing to help him out of his booster seat. “No problem,” she said, setting Patrick down and giving him a kiss and a shove in the direction of the preschool’s door, just a short distance from the car.

  “Well, actually, there is a problem,” said Heidi, adopting a serious expression. Unlike the other teachers, who were breezily casual, Heidi had a buttoned-up quality, reinforced by the long-sleeved and high-collared shirts she wore over baggy-bottomed slacks. Her blond hair was pulled back tightly into a perfect French twist.

  Lucy braced herself. She knew Patrick’s behavior wasn’t always ideal, but she chalked it up to his parents’ absence. “I know Patrick can be difficult,” she began.

  “Oh, no. It’s not Patrick,” said Heidi. “I’m sorry to say it’s you, Mrs. Stone.”

  “Me?” Lucy was sure there was some mistake. “I paid the bill. I’m quite sure I did.” In fact, Lucy had been shocked by the high cost of day care, which Toby had fretted about, confessing that his graduate stipend wouldn’t begin to cover it while he and Molly were away. She and Bill, eager to help the young family, had quickly offered to assume the expense, but she was now regretting that promise, as it was taking a big chunk out of their monthly budget.

  “It’s not that,” said Heidi. “It’s our drop-off policy. You need to walk Patrick into the school. You can’t just let him out of the car. He must be escorted by the hand, and you need to sign him in on the sign-in sheet.”

  Lucy gauged the distance from the curb to the door with the Little Prodigies sign and decided it was probably less than twenty feet. “Are you kidding me? Patrick is perfectly capable of walking twenty feet, and I always watch to make sure he goes inside.”

  “That sort of irresponsibility is simply unacceptable,” said Heidi. “You may not realize this, but the sign-in sheet is one of the tools we use to ensure the safety of our precious little ones here at Little Prodigies.”

  Lucy didn’t appreciate being scolded, especially since she was the one paying the exorbitant bill, but she figured there was no way she was going to win an argument with Heidi. “Point taken. In future I will make sure to sign him in,” she promised, checking her watch. “Can you do it for me today, though? I’m running late.”

  “Why don’t you just come with me and I’ll show you the sign-in sheet procedure?” said Heidi.

  Lucy knew when she was beaten. Sign-in sheet procedure? Wouldn’t a scribble do? Apparently not, she thought, inwardly seething as she followed Heidi up the walk—the very short walk, which she covered in five paces. She knew because she counted.

  “You’re late,” said Phyllis when Lucy arrived at the Pennysaver office on Main Street. The office was a relic from the days when the local weekly was printed in the back room, and still smelled faintly of the hot lead of the Linotype machine the typesetter used back then. Now, of course, the entire paper was formatted on computer and sent electronically to a printer in the nearby town of Gilead. But the antique regulator clock still hung on the wall, the plate-glass windows were covered with ancient venetian blinds that rattled, and a little bell on the door jangled whenever anybody came or went.

  “I had to learn the proper sign-in procedure at Little Prodigies,” said Lucy. “Where’s Ted?” she asked, naming her boss, Ted Stillings. Ted was the publisher, editor in chief, and star reporter for the weekly, the former Courier and Advertiser, which he’d inherited from his grandfather, a famous New England journalist.

  Phyllis patted her strawberry blond hair with a hand sporting glittery nail polish and peered at Lucy over her harlequin reading glasses. She was wearing a shirt decorated with a scattering of embroidered autumn leaves and had a string of orange beads around her neck. Phyllis’s closet was stocked with clothing appropriate to every season, and she was working her way through her autumn collection. “Covering a murder,” she said, answering Lucy’s question.

  “A murder?” Lucy couldn’t believe it. Tinker’s Cove was a small town where people routinely left their doors unlocked and even left their car keys in the ignition when they ran into the Quik-Stop for a gallon of milk or a lottery ticket. “Who was killed?”

  “Buzz Bresnahan’s pumpkin,” said Phyllis, with a nod that set her double chin quivering.

  “Oh, dear,” said Lucy, somewhat doubtfully. “Are they sure it’s murder? Maybe it’s vine borers or mildew?”

  “Nope. Buzz is a master gardener. He’d know how to deal with bugs and diseases, believe me, and his pumpkin was a favorite to win the weigh in. If you ask me, somebody’s eliminating the competition.”

  “With an ax,” said Ted as the bell on the door jangled, announcing his entry. “That pumpkin was smashed to bits.” He paused. “Buzz took it pretty hard. It’s like losing a member of the family, really, when you consider how he raised the little sprout and watered it and fertilized it. That pumpkin had real potential.”

  “An ax!” exclaimed Lucy as the horror of the situation dawned on her. What if a pumpkin killer was on the loose, putting everyone’s giant pumpkins at risk, including Priscilla? What would happen to the festival then? Even worse, how wou
ld Bill cope with the loss of his beautiful golden gourd?

  “I better let Wilf know,” said Phyllis, reaching for the phone. Her husband also had a promising pumpkin growing in their garden. “He was talking about setting up a motion detector and some lights. I thought it was crazy, but now maybe it’s a good idea.”

  “He should add a siren,” advised Ted. “That oughta scare off any pumpkin killer. And if he adds one of those closed-circuit TV cameras, he could get a photo of this psychopath.”

  “Good idea,” said Phyllis.

  “I think you’ve gone a little mad,” said Lucy. “It’s just a pumpkin, after all.”

  Ted and Phyllis looked at her as if she were the one who’d gone completely off her rocker.

  “Wilf loves his pumpkin,” said Phyllis. “He’d be devastated if anything happened to her.”

  “Look at this,” said Ted, handing over his digital camera, which was displaying a photo of the mauled pumpkin. The giant gourd had been hacked open, and its fleshy interior, loaded with seeds, was spilling out.

  Lucy found herself wincing at the gruesome sight, and hoping that Priscilla would never be subjected to such a fate. “Terrible, just terrible,” she said.

  “I’m going to put this on the front page so everyone can see what this maniac did,” promised Ted.

  “Are you sure? Publicity like that might encourage the culprit,” said Lucy.