Candy Corn Murder

by Leslie Meier

  When Lucy arrived, the band was playing, wailing guitars and thumping drums filling the air with oldies she recognized. Patrick picked up on the band’s energy, hopping and skipping along beside her, grasping her hand with sticky ice cream fingers. The announcer this time was a woman, DJ Phoebe, from a Portland radio station, and she was informing the crowd that they were in for a special treat, an exhibition by the team that currently held the Guinness World Record for distance pumpkin hurling, which would attempt to break its own record of 5,231 feet.

  “That’s almost a mile, folks,” she said as an ungainly metal contraption resembling a giant grasshopper was rolled into place. “This is the Amazing Thunderbuss, brought all the way from Erie, Pennsylvania, by Dick Turpin and his team, the Amazing Thunderbusters!”

  Lucy found Bill, who was standing with Tom and Sid, studying the machine with admiring eyes. “Look at the swing on that thing,” said Bill as the catapult’s giant arm swung back in a smooth arc and then pivoted forward, releasing its pumpkin missile.

  There was a big aah from the crowd as the pumpkin sailed off into the distance, right across Jonah’s Pond, and landed on the opposite shore.

  DJ Phoebe was checking her smartphone for the results, sent from a team of judges on the shore. “Dangerous work,” she joked, waiting for the results. “Here we go,” she said, raising her arm. “Five thousand two hundred ninety-six. Not a record.”

  After a few more tries, the Thunderbusters gave up, claiming a stiff headwind was causing resistance, and admitting defeat. Then, the exhibition completed, the accuracy competition featuring local entries began, the first of which was Bill’s catapult.

  “Any sign of Ev?” asked Lucy.

  “No,” said Bill, shaking his head. “I’m really surprised.”

  “Me, too,” agreed Lucy, remembering how excited Ev had been about the catapult’s prospects the night before. “You wouldn’t think he’d want to miss this.”

  Bill shrugged and ran forward, getting a big round of applause from the crowd. Reaching the catapult and standing beside it, he gave an exaggerated bow. Then he loaded a pumpkin onto the swing arm of the catapult. “Here we go. Stand clear,” he yelled, releasing the arm and sending the pumpkin flying directly into the Hyundai, denting the roof. Pumpkin guts oozed down over the windows and slid to the ground.

  The crowd roared with approval. This was what they’d come to see. A second pumpkin was loaded onto the catapult. This time it hit the rear window, breaking it.

  The crowd loved it. Patrick was jumping up and down with excitement, and Bill was beaming with pride.

  “Who would think a pumpkin could do so much damage to a car?” mused Lucy, talking to Sid.

  “It’s the speed,” said Sid as they watched a third pumpkin sail into the sky. “The weight and the speed combine to create a good deal of force.”

  “I guess so,” said Lucy as the pumpkin landed with a thud and the trunk popped open from the impact.

  “Wow,” crowed DJ Phoebe. “Great work from Team Stone, right here in Tinker’s Cove. Three points for accuracy. Next up, Team G from Gideon, but first, while they’re setting up, some music from the Claws!”

  “I think I’ll get a couple of photos for the paper,” said Lucy, remembering her responsibilities as a reporter and pulling her camera from her bag. “Will you keep an eye on Patrick for me?”

  “No problem,” said Sid.

  “I’ll just be a minute,” promised Lucy.

  “Okay.” Sid had opened a cooler and was pulling out a beer for himself and a soda for Patrick.

  Lucy hurried across the field to the car, thinking it was a good thing that Molly didn’t know about the ice creams and sodas Patrick was getting, and hoping she never found out, though she wasn’t sure how she was going to prevent it. Patrick was sure to tell his mother. She could just hear him saying, “But Nana let me have Coke,” the first time Molly told him he couldn’t have any. Then she’d be in for it, she thought, reaching the car and raising her camera to her eye. Peering through the viewfinder, she noticed a scrap of cloth. It was in the trunk, spattered with pumpkin gore. Lowering the camera, she stepped forward, realizing she’d seen that plaid before. It was a shirt, a shirt she’d seen every day for weeks on Evan Wickes—and he was still wearing it.

  Chapter Eleven

  Tinker’s Cove Chamber of Commerce

  Press Release

  For Immediate Release

  Don’t Miss Any of the Fun! The Giant Pumpkin Fest Continues with the First Annual Giant Pumpkin Fest Noise Parade. Bring a Noisemaker and Scare the Ghosts and Goblins Away as We March Down Main Street to the Town Green, Where the Kiwanis Club Will Build a Giant Bonfire! The Parade Steps Off from the Post Office at 5:00 p.m.

  It was all a blur after that. First, Bill ran to see what Lucy was upset about, and then Tinker’s Cove police officer Todd Kirwan, who was assigned to patrol the pumpkin hurl, joined them. He called in the discovery, and the rescue squad arrived, but it was clearly too late to do anything for Ev, whose body could not be removed from the trunk, because it had stiffened due to rigor mortis. Then the state police arrived and declared the Hyundai a crime scene. Todd got busy setting up yellow tape around the car, which was left in place for the medical examiner and crime-scene specialists.

  Bill took the loss of his friend very hard. “I can’t believe we were lobbing pumpkins at him,” he said, shaking his head and blinking furiously as his eyes welled with tears he refused to shed.

  “You couldn’t have known,” said Lucy, who was a bit shocked at his reaction. Blinded by her own dislike for the man, she hadn’t realized how close Bill had grown to him.

  “I was just mad at him this morning, when he didn’t show,” said Bill, his voice thick.

  “That’s natural,” said Todd. “He was a grown man, able to take care of himself. It wasn’t like he was a child who’d gone missing.”

  Hearing this, Lucy scanned the crowd for Patrick, and found him with Sid among the crowd of gawkers on the other side of the yellow tape. “Can we go?” she asked Todd. “I’m here with my grandson. He’s only four.”

  The officer nodded his head. “We know who you are and where you live, Lucy.” He turned to Bill. “Don’t leave town. We’ll need a statement from you.”

  “Fine,” said Bill. He grabbed Lucy’s hand, and they crossed the stubbly field together and joined Sid and Patrick.

  “What happened?” asked Patrick, who was wide eyed with excitement and sugar.

  “Mr. Wickes had an accident,” said Lucy. “He was in the car.”

  “The car Grandpa hit with pumpkins?” he asked.

  “I’m afraid so,” said Lucy, with a glance at Bill. She was afraid that the boy’s questions would upset him.

  “Was he hurt?” persisted Patrick.

  “We don’t know what happened or why,” she said, attempting to end the discussion.

  “Will Mr. Wickes be okay?” asked Patrick, whose little face expressed worry for his friend. “I really like him.”

  “No,” replied Bill, choking up. “He’s gone.”

  “Gone where?” demanded Patrick.

  “He’s dead, sweetheart,” said Lucy, falling to her knees and giving her grandson a hug. “We don’t know how it happened or why he was in the car.”

  “I can’t believe it,” moaned Bill. “If I only had known he was in there . . .”

  Sid clapped an arm around his friend. “Whatever happened to Ev, it wasn’t your fault. No way.”

  “My goldfish died,” said Patrick, who was struggling to understand. “It got all stiff and icky, and we buried it in the backyard.”

  “We’ll take good care of Mr. Wickes’s body,” promised Lucy. “There’ll be a funeral, and he’ll be buried properly.”

  “Will he go to heaven?” asked Patrick. “Mommy said my goldfish would go to heaven.”

  “I’m sure he will,” said Lucy, who had her doubts. She knew it was wrong to think ill of the dead, and was struggling with
her conscience.

  “A heaven where they make catapults and all sorts of cool stuff,” said Sid.

  “He was a mechanical genius. He truly was,” said Bill.

  “A real engineer,” added Sid.

  “Old school,” said Bill, coming to a decision. “You go ahead, Lucy. I’m gonna stay until they move his body.” He sighed. “I feel like I owe him at least that much.”

  “Yeah, man,” agreed Sid. “We can’t leave him, not like this.”

  Lucy wanted to say what she really thought: that Ev was a drunk and a ne’er-do-well and nobody would really miss him, except his drinking buddies, but instead she took Patrick by the hand. “I’ll take Patrick home,” she said, getting a nod from Bill. A knot of men was gathering around him, mostly guys who gathered at the roadhouse outside town, stopping for a brewski or three before heading home after work.

  “Nana, what does ‘old school’ mean?” asked Patrick as they stopped by the car and Lucy fumbled in her purse for the keys.

  “It’s just an expression. It means he had old-fashioned values, like being a good friend.”

  “He was my friend,” said Patrick in his sweet, innocent little boy voice.

  “In you go,” said Lucy, unlocking the door for him. Suddenly, she found tears welling in her eyes and blinked them away. Once she was sure Patrick was safely buckled in and she had started the car, she let out a big sigh. Okay, she admitted to herself, while she really had had no use for Ev, he was, well, not exactly her friend, but he was definitely part of her world. She started to think she would miss him but changed her mind, realizing that whether she liked it or not, Ev was going to be part of her world for a long time. She knew there was certainly going to be an investigation to figure out how and why he died, and it was most likely going to be lengthy. She hoped desperately that he died from natural causes, but knew it was unlikely, considering he’d been stuffed into the trunk of a car. Maybe, she thought, clutching at straws, he’d been drunk and climbed in the car to sleep it off. It could have happened that way, she thought, trying to convince herself.

  When Lucy got home, she found Sara’s little Civic parked in the driveway, as well as Hank DeVries’s pickup truck with the scuba sticker.

  “What’s up?” she asked, finding them in the kitchen, sitting at the golden oak table and drinking herb tea.

  “The underwater pumpkin-carving contest was canceled,” said Sara. “After all that work we did to get DEP approval and all, the cops came and shut us down.”

  “Yeah,” confirmed Hank. “We had everything set up and were ready to go when they started putting up yellow tape and told us to move along.”

  “They wouldn’t tell us why,” said Sara.

  “It’s because of Ev,” said Lucy. “He was found dead at the pumpkin hurl.”

  “What?” demanded Sara.

  Lucy glanced down at Patrick, who was standing by her side. “You know what, Patrick? How about I make you some lunch and you can eat and watch a movie, too?”

  Patrick sensed he was in an advantageous bargaining position. “Despicable Me and peanut butter with potato chips.” He paused, considering further options. “And chocolate milk.”

  “You got it,” said Lucy, hustling him into the family room and inserting the DVD into the player. Back in the kitchen, she recounted the morning’s events while assembling his lunch. “It was horrible,” she began, spreading peanut butter on a piece of whole wheat bread.

  “No whole wheat!” called Patrick, pressing his advantage.

  “It’s all I’ve got,” she called back, getting a mumbled “Okay” in reply.

  “It was horrible . . . ,” repeated Sara.

  “Right. It was at the pumpkin hurl. The catapult worked great, and your dad was hurling pumpkins at this old Hyundai. The trunk popped open, and Ev was inside, dead.”

  Lucy was shaking some potato chips out of the bag, arranging them alongside Patrick’s sandwich.

  “How’d they know he was dead?” asked Hank.

  “Well, they couldn’t get him out, because of rigor mortis,” said Lucy, squeezing chocolate syrup into a glass of milk and stirring it with a spoon.

  “That is horrible,” said Sara, “but I don’t understand why they shut down our contest at the conservation area.”

  “They must have their reasons,” said Lucy, setting the food on a tray and carrying it into the family room. When she returned, she picked up the conversation. “They must think it’s part of the crime scene.”

  “They don’t even know it’s a crime. They don’t actually know how Ev died, do they?” demanded Sara, still in an argumentative mood.

  “I don’t think he crawled into the trunk of a car all by himself,” said Hank.

  “It might’ve been a joke, a prank gone wrong,” insisted Lucy, seizing on the notion. “He might’ve thought he’d surprise your father at the hurl.”

  “Some surprise,” said Hank, shaking his head.

  “Poor Dad,” said Sara, staring into her mug of tea. “He must be so upset.”

  “He is,” said Lucy. “He really is, although he doesn’t want to show it, especially not in front of his friends.”

  Lucy sat with Sara and Hank while they drank their tea. Then they left for the college, where they planned to get together with other scuba club members to figure out their next move. She made herself a sandwich, and one for Bill, too, expecting him to arrive any moment, but he didn’t come, and she finally covered it with plastic wrap. Patrick’s movie had ended, and Lucy was considering taking him for a walk along the old logging trails that meandered through the woods behind their house when Bill finally came home.

  “It’s official,” he said. “Ev was murdered.”

  “How awful,” she said, letting the news sink in. Then, deciding she needed to keep Patrick busy, she put some chocolate chip cookies on a plate and took them in to her grandson, who was playing with some Legos in the family room. Returning to the kitchen, she questioned Bill.

  “Are they sure?”

  “Yeah, the medical examiner took one look and said he was killed by a blow to the head.” He paused. “It was obvious, if you looked past the pumpkin gore.”

  “Who would do that?” she asked, thinking aloud. “He was . . . Well, maybe not everybody loved him, exactly, but he was a local character. A town fixture, somebody everybody knew.”

  “Well,” said Bill, popping open a can of beer he’d taken from the fridge, “they seem to think I had something to do with it.”

  “You?” Lucy couldn’t believe it.

  “Yeah, it seems I was the last person to see him alive.”

  It was then they heard the gravel in the driveway crunch, indicating the arrival of an unmarked police car. As they watched, two detectives in plain clothes got out of the car and walked up to the porch.

  Bill opened the door for them. “Come on in,” he said.

  The two showed their badges.

  “For the record,” said the first, a tall, thin guy in his forties with a brush cut. “I’m Detective Lieutenant George Ferrick, and this is my partner, Detective Sergeant Paul DeGraw.” DeGraw was also tall, but heavier, and he had a dark five o’clock shadow. “Mr. Stone, we have a few questions we’d like to ask you.”

  “Would you like some tea or coffee?” asked Lucy, indicating the table. She didn’t like this at all. She had cultivated a long and cordial professional relationship with another state cop, Detective Lieutenant Horowitz, but she didn’t know these officers at all.

  “No, thanks, ma’am,” said Ferrick.

  “Is it all right if I stay?” she asked as they seated themselves.

  “Fine,” said Ferrick, who apparently spoke for his partner, too.

  “Are you fellows new?” asked Lucy. “Doesn’t Detective Lieutenant Horowitz cover this area?”

  “Horowitz is on vacation,” said Ferrick

  Not a good sign, thought Lucy, watching as he pulled out a chair, scraping it noisily on the floor. He sat down heavily,
set a leather-covered notebook on the table, and flipped it open.

  “Okay,” he began. “I believe you told us you saw the decedent, Mr. Evan Wickes, last night, at approximately seven o’clock.”

  “That’s right,” said Bill, with a nod of his head. “He was here. We went over the catapult, oiled a few springs, and had a drink for luck.”

  “How did he seem?” asked DeGraw. “Anxious, angry? Did you have words?”

  “No.” Bill shook his head. “He was in a good mood, looking forward to the contest today. ‘We’re gonna show ’em, Billy boy.’ That’s what he said.” Bill’s voice thickened. “That was the last thing he said to me.”

  “So I guess you spent a lot of time together, building this catapult,” suggested Ferrick. He had a sharp nose, thought Lucy, and sniffed a lot. Maybe it was allergies, but it made him seem a bit like a mouse. Or a rat, she thought uncharitably.

  “Yeah. We started a couple of months ago,” said Bill. “End of August, I guess.”

  “Whose idea was it?” asked DeGraw in a challenging tone. “Yours?”

  “No,” answered Bill. “It was Ev’s. I ran into him at the lumberyard, and we started talking, the way you do, you know, and he said it might be fun to enter the pumpkin hurl. Oddly enough, I’ve always been interested in the Middle Ages, knights and armor and stuff, ever since I was a kid, and I even had a toy catapult. I thought it would be neat to build a big one.” He grinned ruefully. “Kinda stupid, I guess. It cost a lot of money and took a lot of time, but it was something I always wanted to do. We wanted to do.” He paused, catching Lucy’s eye. “And we weren’t alone. There were quite a few others who entered the contest.”

  She put her hand on his and gave it a squeeze.

  “And he left here in the Hyundai?” asked Ferrick.

  “No. He had a pickup. That’s what he drove. I never saw the Hyundai before the contest.”