Candy Corn Murder

by Leslie Meier

  She sat quietly, listening, as they ranted about magazines and TV ads, claiming they promoted unrealistic body images, whatever that meant. She rarely ever saw a woman’s magazine, but when she did, she enjoyed the bright photos and the recipes. She liked to imagine herself in one of the sparkling kitchens with all the modern conveniences, or sitting on a sofa in one of the beautifully decorated living rooms, all so different from the old-fashioned apartment over the store, where nothing had changed in fifty years. She didn’t understand why they bought the magazines and read them if they didn’t like the contents. And as for TV, well, she didn’t have one, but she did understand that you could just turn it off if you didn’t like the shows.

  “Let’s burn our bras!” declared one woman, who was rather fat and was wearing sandals on her chubby, dirty feet.

  Much to her surprise, the other women seemed to think this was a good idea. Why did they want to destroy perfectly good clothing? What was wrong with bras? She didn’t have much in that department, but she couldn’t imagine going without a bra. Wouldn’t it be terribly uncomfortable?

  Miss Tilley, the librarian who was running the meeting, seemed to agree with her and was urging the group to “get back on track.” Apparently, she wanted them to support something called the Equal Rights Amendment, which would be added to the Constitution and would require that women be treated as equals to men. They would get the same pay for the same job, and laws that discriminated against women would be eliminated. It all sounded like a good idea, and the women at the meeting were all for it, but she didn’t see how it would help her. She’d made her bed, as her mother-in-law frequently reminded her, and now she had to lie in it. “Marry in haste, repent at leisure.” That was another favorite of Emily’s, and she had to admit Emily knew what she was talking about.

  The meeting was ending, and the women were standing up and chatting with one another, embracing each other and saying their good-byes. She slipped around the group, heading for the door, but Miss Tilley left the group and caught up with her.

  “I’m so glad you came to the meeting,” she said. “Did you like it?”

  “It was very interesting,” she said, checking her watch.

  “I suppose you need to get back home.”

  It was later than she thought, and she knew he’d be upset with her. “I’m late,” she said.

  “I understand,” said Miss Tilley, walking through the children’s section with her. “I really do. I grew up in a very restrictive home environment.”

  She was amazed. How did she know? She looked at this tiny woman, with her piercing blue eyes and aureole of curly gray hair, and was both intrigued and a little bit afraid. “I really have to go.”

  “Of course,” said Miss Tilley. “But I hope you’ll come back, because I may be able to help you.”

  She knew she’d stayed out too long, and she hurried down the street, walking as fast as she could without attracting notice, but somehow feeling almost lighthearted. It was probably nothing—she didn’t see how a lady librarian could really help her—but it was the first hopeful thing that had happened to her in a very long time.

  Chapter Nine

  Tinker’s Cove Chamber of Commerce

  Press Release

  For Immediate Release

  Calling All Ghosts and Goblins, Fairies and Witches! All Children Twelve and Under Are Invited to the Annual Halloween Party Sponsored by the Hat and Mitten Fund, 7:00 p.m., Friday, at the Community Church Fellowship Hall. Fun and Games! Music By DJ Jayzon! Refreshments and Prizes! Come as Your Favorite Character.

  This couldn’t be right, thought Lucy. The ATM had refused to allow her to withdraw fifty dollars from her account because there was an insufficient balance, which was really weird because she had deposited her monthly paycheck just a few days ago. Where did the money go? All the way home, as she drove the familiar route from Little Prodigies, she went over the past few days, trying to remember if she’d used her debit card for groceries or gas and forgotten it. But even if she had, she realized, she couldn’t have gone through more than a thousand dollars in just a few days. Maybe she was a victim of identity theft, she thought, feeling a bit sick. Or maybe, which was far more likely, Bill had spent the money.

  She pulled into the driveway, braked and turned off the engine, then helped Patrick out of the booster seat. He immediately spotted his grandfather and Ev working in the backyard, out by the catapult, and ran to join them just as the machine’s arm swung back and released a pumpkin into the air. The pumpkin sailed through the sky in a graceful arc, finally descending to earth in the woods behind their yard.

  “Wow!” yelled Ev, prancing about like Rumpelstiltskin. “Did you see that? That baby must’ve gone some four hundred feet—maybe more!”

  “I saw,” said Lucy, joining them.

  “This baby is going to totally kill that Hyundai! We’re gonna win for sure! I think this demands a celebration,” said Ev, pulling a can of beer out of the cooler, which he always seemed to keep nearby. “Want one, Bill?”

  Lucy gave her husband a warning look. “No, I’ll pass,” he said.

  “I get it,” said Ev, snapping the pull tab with a practiced movement, “Little wifey here doesn’t want you to drink, right?”

  Bill’s face darkened. “Not at all,” he said. “I just don’t want any right now.”

  “Let’s look for the pumpkin,” urged Patrick, tugging on Bill’s arm. “I bet it’s all smashed.”

  “Good idea,” said Bill. He turned to Ev and Lucy. “Want to come?”

  “Sure,” said Ev, before taking a long swallow of beer.

  “I’ll pass,” said Lucy, who had really had enough of Ev. Thank goodness the catapult was finally finished, and there were only a few more days until the pumpkin hurl at the Giant Pumpkin Fest. Then, she hoped, it would all be nothing more than a bad memory.

  She wandered through the garden, gathering a few late salad greens, and then headed for the house, planning to start supper. They had to eat a bit early this Friday night because of the Hat and Mitten Fund Halloween Party, which was scheduled to start at seven. She was washing the lettuce when Bill and Patrick came in; Patrick couldn’t wait to tell her that the pumpkin had been thoroughly smashed, with its innards scattered over a large area and even hanging from low branches.

  “Fabulous,” said Lucy, thinking this whole thing was utterly ridiculous. Imagine two grown men working for weeks to build a huge and cumbersome machine, the only purpose of which was to smash pumpkins. “By the way, Bill, have you cashed any checks lately? I tried to get fifty bucks from the ATM, but it said our account had insufficient funds.”

  “Oh, yeah,” he said, filling glasses of water for himself and Patrick. “I had the bill at the lumberyard, and I paid Ev.”

  “You what?” demanded Lucy, whirling around to face him. “You paid Ev? Why?”

  “’Cause he was working for me.”

  “On a remodeling project?”

  “No. On the catapult.”

  Lucy put the knife down very carefully on the cutting board. “You paid him to help build the catapult?”

  Bill had drained his glass of water and was refilling it from the tap. “That hike in the woods was thirsty work, hey, Patrick?”

  Patrick held out his glass for a refill. “Yup.”

  Lucy wasn’t about to let her husband change the subject. “I thought Ev was volunteering to build the catapult. I didn’t think you were paying him.”

  “Well, I was. Be realistic, Lucy. It was a lot of work, and I couldn’t expect him to do it for nothing.”

  “He wasn’t working for nothing. He got gallons of beer, not to mention the sandwiches and pizzas and I don’t know what all.”

  “It was the least I could do, Lucy. I was paying him only fifteen dollars an hour, way less than he usually gets. He was doing me a big favor.”

  “Taking you for a ride is more like it,” muttered Lucy, picking up the knife and dicing the cucumber into very small pieces.<
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  She had tucked the salad in the fridge and was scrubbing potatoes when she heard the crunch of gravel in the driveway that meant the girls were home. A few minutes later they came into the kitchen, chatting excitedly about the Take Back the Night March.

  “Do you know women make only seventy-seven cents for every dollar a man makes?” asked Zoe, opening the refrigerator and taking out a bag of mini carrots.

  She plumped herself down at the kitchen table and began chomping away, working her way through the bag.

  “You’ll spoil your dinner,” said Lucy, who knew only too well that her earnings had never matched her husband’s, not even in the early days of her marriage, before kids, when they lived in New York City and both worked on Wall Street.

  “And now there are all these restrictive laws limiting women’s health-care choices,” added Sara, unscrewing the cap on a bottle of water.

  “Those bottles are for lunches and the car,” grumbled Lucy, who was cutting up the potatoes. “Fill a glass from the tap, please.”

  “This tastes better,” said Sara before draining half of the bottle.

  “They cost a lot more than water from the tap,” said Lucy. “So when you finish it, just refill it from the sink, please.”

  The girls exchanged a look.

  “Your friend Miss Tilley was at the meeting,” said Zoe.

  “And that witchy lady, Rebecca Wardwell,” added Sara.

  “She’s not a witch,” said Lucy, putting the cut-up potatoes in a pot and covering them with water. “I’m surprised at you, using an antifeminist term like that.”

  “The goal is to get past these linguistic taboos,” said Sara, “to get to the point where women are accepted for themselves, for their unique qualities as individuals, and not regarded as inferiors because of their sex.”

  Lucy set the pot on the stove. “But we’ve made a lot of strides working together, sisterhood and all that.”

  “Mom,” said Sara in a schoolmarmish tone, “I don’t think you realize what’s actually going on. In some states it’s practically impossible for a woman to get an abortion, even though it’s a right protected by the Constitution.”

  Lucy had started to say she knew about that when Sara continued, “And there was that case in Texas where they kept alive a pregnant woman who was actually brain dead, hooked up to wires and machines, like some sort of human incubator.”

  “And some states require women who want abortions to submit to vaginal probes,” said Zoe, shuddering.

  “And violence against women is still a big problem, and women don’t get support from the courts . . . ,” said Sara.

  “Take Mary Winslow,” said Zoe. “She begged a judge to refuse bail for her boyfriend after he beat her up, and even after he almost choked her to death, the judge gave her only a restraining order, which the guy promptly violated, and she nearly died as a result. Now her legs are paralyzed, and she’s stuck in a wheelchair.”

  “But,” added Sara, a note of excitement in her voice, “Seth knows somebody who knows Mary Winslow, and he thinks she might actually be able to take part in the march. Wouldn’t that be great?”

  “When is it?” asked Lucy, glancing at the calendar and thinking it was awfully full, with something scribbled in every box. “During the Pumpkin Fest?”

  “It’s always the first Sunday after daylight savings ends, which this year is November sixth,” said Sara. “When it’s dark at four in the afternoon, you know? It gets dark early, but we’re taking back the night. Get it?”

  “Yup,” said Lucy, realizing the potatoes were boiling over and using a dish towel to protect her hands as she snatched the pot off the burner. “I got it,” she said, reducing the heat and replacing the pot.

  Even though daylight savings was still in effect, the days had become noticeably shorter and the sun was setting earlier every day. It was already dark when supper was over and Lucy brought the ninja costume to Patrick, who was playing with Legos in the family room.

  “It’s time to get ready for the party,” she told him.

  “I don’t want to go,” said Patrick, snapping a couple of plastic blocks together.

  “Sure you do,” coaxed Lucy. “It will be fun.”

  “It’s not a good costume,” said Patrick, keeping his head bowed over the pile of Legos.

  Lucy bit her tongue. “Why not try it on? You might be surprised.”

  “I don’t want to.” Patrick snapped the last piece on to the spacecraft he was making and waved it in the air, making zooming sounds.

  “I put a lot of effort into this costume,” said Lucy, growing rather irritated. “And I have to go to the party to help out, and I think you should come, because people have gone to a lot of trouble to give you kids a good time.”

  “Go on, Patrick,” said Zoe, who had come into the family room, toting her book bag, intending to do her homework. “It’ll be fun.”

  “Okay,” he said with a huge sigh. “But I don’t want to wear the costume.”

  “Yes, you do,” said Lucy in her most authoritative mother voice. “Everyone will be wearing costumes.”

  “Yeah,” said Zoe, holding up the ninja hood. “And this is so cool.”

  By the time he was dressed in the costume, even Patrick had to admit it was “pretty okay,” especially since Lucy had added a store-bought belt and some plastic ninja weapons, which looked like gardening tools to her but which were guaranteed to impress a small boy. He climbed quite happily into the car for the short drive to the community center, where the party was to take place.

  In past years Lucy had enjoyed the low-key gathering, which gave the town’s children a chance to show off their costumes, play a few games, and enjoy some light refreshments. Everyone got a prize for their costume, and they all went home with a small bag of treats.

  But this time, when she parked the car, it wasn’t “Monster Mash” that was issuing from the church hall, but loud techno music, with a thumping beat played by DJ Jayzon. When she went inside, she winced at the noise, wishing she’d thought to wear earplugs.

  Heidi Bloom was at the doorway, apparently fully recovered from her bout of flu and enthusiastically greeting all comers, and apparently in her element, wearing a police officer costume complete with cap and false badge, brass buttons, and a tightly knotted necktie.

  “Fantastic, isn’t it?” she asked. At least that was what Lucy thought she had said, since the deafeningly loud music made lipreading and signing the only possible means of communication.

  “Can’t he turn it down?” asked Lucy, who was holding her hands over her ears.

  “Fab DJ!” enthused Heidi. “The kids love it.”

  The kids were definitely excited, running around the large room in packs, shrieking and screaming. Lucy recognized a few of the kids from Patrick’s day-care class and spotted little Pear and Apple, neighbors who lived on Prudence Path. They were dressed as princesses, their tiaras askew and dripping glitter, their faces flushed from running away from the pint-size superheroes that were pursuing them. There were also plenty of ninjas, all with hoods over their faces, and Lucy soon lost track of Patrick.

  “This is madness,” said Sue, who had just arrived, carrying a tray of popcorn balls.

  Arriving together, on Sue’s heels, were Miss Tilley and Rebecca Wardwell. They were both dressed as witches, with tall, pointy hats and flowing black clothes. Miss Tilley had added red-striped stockings to her outfit, and Rebecca had her little pet owl perched on her shoulder.

  “Oh, my,” said Rebecca, stepping backward as the music suddenly increased in pitch. “Owls have very sensitive ears.”

  “As do I,” said Miss Tilley.

  With that, the two turned on their heels and left the hall, leaving Lucy momentarily speechless.

  “That puts us down two helpers,” said Sue, doing a quick count of the adults in the room.

  “More parents have stayed, though,” said Lucy, taking in the little groups of grown-ups clustered in the corners.
/>   “They’re probably afraid to leave their kids alone in this madness,” said Sue.

  “Tell me about it,” said Lucy, who thought she’d spotted Patrick chasing a little fairy dressed in blue with sparkles. She marched across the room, grabbed him, and told him to calm down, only realizing when he pulled off his mask that he wasn’t Patrick at all. “Sorry,” she said, growing increasingly concerned. Which ninja was Patrick? Why hadn’t she made him a pirate costume? And would this horrible music never end? She was getting a headache and could hardly think for the noise.

  She was pacing the room, looking for a familiar little ninja figure, and finding none that resembled Patrick. What shoes was he wearing? The work boots? The blue sneakers? She didn’t see any footwear that looked like Patrick’s, and was growing quite panicked when a tall man appeared in the doorway, holding two ninjas by the hand. One of the ninjas pointed at her, and the man approached, towing his little captives. Just then, praises be, the music ceased.

  “I think this ninja may belong to you,” he said. He was a nice-looking man, with tousled hair and a friendly grin.

  “Patrick?” she asked, lifting his mask and recognizing her grandson. “Thanks,” she said, overcome with gratitude. “I’ve been looking all over. Where did you find him?”

  “He was outside, playing with my son.”

  “Outside!” Lucy was horrified. Anything could have happened outside. He could have fallen and gotten hurt. He could have been kidnapped. He could have wandered too far and become lost. And there were bears and coyotes in the woods....

  “We’re ninjas,” said the other little boy.

  “Ninjas hide in the dark,” said Patrick.

  The music was starting again, and Lucy made an executive decision. “How about some ninja ice cream?” she asked, grabbing Patrick by the hand and leading him to the door.

  “But what about the party?” he protested. “I want to stay.”

  Sue was standing in the doorway. “You’re not leaving, are you?” she asked, with panic in her eyes.