The Pumpkin Problem

by Beth Byers

  My eyes inexplicably burned as I admitted, “I love it. Is that what you want to hear?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “But I’d prefer the murder stay to the pages of a book or something. Not like this. Not finding a body in the alley. Covered in my pumpkin. I don’t think I’ll ever carve another one without wondering what other ways my poor jack o’ lantern could be used.”

  “Then download the complete Agatha Christie library with your buckets of money and…”

  I frowned and said, “Shut up. This murder is in my lap, isn’t it? I can just think about it, can’t I? Think and not interfere is all I’m doing.”

  “You could…” Zee rose and delivered orders, keeping the diner running while I ate and stared at my list. The brother, the sister, the mother, the partner. Who was with Jerry Voe when he died? What kind of person had Jerry been? Was he some good, down-to-earth, business owning salt of the earth type? Or was he a jerk? Did people love or hate him? Was he simple or complicated? Perhaps everyone loved him and today was a day of deep agony for too many people?

  Az delivered my breakfast with a couple of pieces of celery and a side of peanut butter. I debated for a moment and then spread the waffle with too much butter, peanut butter, and then drowned it in syrup. I crumped a couple of pieces of bacon over the top and took a curious bite. This might end up being the most amazing thing ever. Zee gagged as she walked by, watching me eat my creation.

  “Oh. My. Goodness,” I told Az through the window the kitchen. “It’s amazing. Come try!”

  He shook his head. I waved him my way until he reluctantly stared down at the mess I’d made of her perfectly plated waffle.

  “Try it,” I said.

  He was hesitant.

  “Really,” I insisted.

  “Rosie luv, your taste buds are off. You know that, right?”

  I frowned at him, tapping my plate, until he took a bite. He chewed slowly, his head cocked as he paid attention to his mouth. Finally he admitted, “That’s legitimately good. Weird. But good.”

  “I know!” I raised my hands over my head and waved them in triumph, vindicated.

  Az glanced down at my notebook and then he said, “That’s a good question. Was Jerry alone? Usually, Jerry and Henry deliver the produce together. They’re partners, right? So if Henry Denson wasn’t around yesterday morning, who would know that? Did Jerry try to find help for when Henry was going to be gone? Was this a crime of opportunity? Finally Jerry was alone so the killer struck?”

  “Did you and Mattie talk about the murder last night as you fell asleep?”

  Az shrugged. Mattie had moved in with him over the summer. Az had bought a piece of property and built his own house with the help of friends to keep the cost low. We’d spent many a weekend up at his property with our friends and the house was truly lovely, full of the details you’d add when you were doing it yourself. Things like backsplash with fun designs in it. A cement patio with a mosaic. Copper bathtubs long enough for the massive Az to lay full out.

  Speaking of, “I think Simon and I are going to redo our bathroom to get one of those big tubs. I want one like yours. All stand alone and stupid big. I can’t take baths since I’ll cook the baby or something right now, so we’re going to do it after he or she comes.”

  Az grinned and said, “I’d be happy to help put it in.”

  I shrugged. I didn’t care if Simon decided to do it alone or if he decided to hire someone. I was dumping it fully in his lap and spending my time buying the tray for mimosa, a candelabra for ambience, and bath salts and bombs and all the rest for the sheer fun of it.

  “Do you know Henry?” Az asked me.

  I shook my head. I hadn’t met either of them. A fact I was grateful for since I had seen Jerry Voe’s body. Since I hadn’t seen his face and didn’t have a face to imagine behind that jack o’lantern. Zee had switched to DeVoe Produce when one of them came by and offered to deliver before we opened and to ensure we’d always get the best of the produce. Picked over as if we were picking it over ourselves. I was sure that she’d threatened whoever had come in when they’d made the deal.

  She also hadn’t complained, so they must have been doing a good enough job to keep her happy. Would everyone else say the same? I wondered if the coffeeshop across the way got their order? If they hadn’t…maybe they’d called? Maybe they knew who was with Jerry the morning he died? They opened earlier than we did, were they there when he came by?

  I rose and told Zee, “I’m just gonna pop on over to Bella Coffee.”

  She smirked as she asked, “Investigating?”

  “I’m hardly at risk talking to Cole. I promised Simon I wouldn’t put myself in danger. Cole is a friend of Simon’s and mine. All I wonder is if he got his order.”

  And maybe a followup question or two. Nothing dangerous. A simple brain exercise. That’s all.

  Zee snorted and then grinned and left her orders with Carmen and Roxy to come with me. Silver Falls was pretty quiet. It was mid-week and the off-season, so we didn’t have many tourists. The occasional retired couple for the most part. Much of the town wasn’t around as we crossed the street.

  “We need to be back by 1:00 pm,” Zee said.

  I rolled my eyes. As if she really cared if we would be back or not. But, it was barely noon. Of course we’d be back by then.

  CHAPTER 6

  “Heya, Cole,” I said as I came into his coffee shop. He had a few people lingering over coffee, but he was slow.

  “Heya Rose,” he said. “I suppose you’re here about Jerry?”

  “You know her so well,” Zee said. “Interfering busy body who doesn’t let her husband do his job.”

  I gasped and spun on Zee, stumbling back against the display case because I was a behemoth with no center of balance.

  Cole laughed until I stumbled and then I heard his curse while Zee grabbed my arm and steadied me.

  “You’re evil,” I told her.

  “You knew that,” she shot back. “Did you get your produce yesterday?”

  Cole nodded and then said, “They usually hit me first because our order is smaller. Something about how they put them in the truck.”

  “Did you see them?”

  Cole nodded again and said, “Well…I talked to Jerry. I usually only see one. Do the police think Henry did it?”

  I shook my head and then said, “He was out of town. We aren’t sure who, if anyone, was with Jerry.”

  “Well…” Cole winced a little as he finished his thought, “Someone was.”

  “Yeah,” Zee said, but we all winced a little bit at just what that person had done.

  “How long have we been using the DeVoe Produce?”

  Zee considered and then said, “About eight months? Since they started up. The delivery service before that was pretty crappy. It was an easy switch. They’ve been pretty good. Don’t you think?”

  We both turned to Cole who shook his head. “Actually…no. Our order has been messed up a lot. Our billing too. I’ve called them time and again. I was about to end it this last month, but the other delivery service couldn’t add us in right away.”

  I blinked and glanced at Zee. She shook her head. We hadn’t been having the same problems.

  “Are you sure?”

  Zee nodded. “I double check the order and invoice every time. There was a problem like six months ago, but I called once and chewed them out. That was it.”

  “You’re scarier than I am,” Cole said. He wasn’t even joking. He handed over two hot drinks. I winced and pointed to the belly and he said, “It’s an earl grey latte. I think you should be ok.”

  Well that sounded delightful. Zee asked if he’d heard if anyone else was having a hard time and Cole said, “Look I went to school with Jerry. It’s why I signed up with him. He was a flake then, and he’s a flake now. He’s always been…iffy.”

  “Iffy?” I asked.

  “Iffy,” Cole repeated. “Look, I…well, I wouldn’t say I loved the gu
y, but we had enough history to give him a chance. I was better friends with his sister, and I still am. Janice is a good lady. Good friends with my wife. I hear about Jerry and his garbage through my wife. How much of is exaggerated? I don’t know. I wouldn’t place bets on it, because I’ve heard rumors coming the other way from Janice’s spouse and they’re always…more dramatic in the retelling.

  “Dramatic like what?”

  Cole sighed and then started an order for a guy who’d just come through the door. “Hey George. Same old?”

  The man nodded, grabbed a paper and sat down after leaving a few bucks on the counter. It must have been something he did so often that Cole didn’t seem surprised. Just threw the change into the tip jar and went back to making the coffee. Cole delivered it and joined us back at the counter.

  “So the gossip? It’s entirely unreliable, you understand?”

  I nodded and Zee snorted meanly. Cole didn’t blink at Zee’s reactions and simply said, “Crazy stuff. Sucking his mom dry. Stealing from his siblings. Using drugs. Lovers on the side. Not paying child support. His sister despises him, and she gets all her anger out with my wife. The two of them walk together after the kids go to school.”

  “That all sounds like extreme generalizations.”

  “They are. I never cared, and I only half-listen when my wife re-tells it all. This is a small town. We know each other too well. I’d rather a few more of us had our secrets. You know? If you listened to every passing piece of gossip, you’d be swimming in the details of each other’s lives. It’s better to just not hear.”

  Zee and I drew what gossip we could from Cole, but it all sounded a bit far-fetched. Drug using and fights in the street? Stealing from his own mom? Young women? I felt like Cole was repeating the plot of a soap opera, and you could see from the way he was saying it that he felt the same.

  * * * * *

  We went back to the diner and I was working with Az in the kitchen on a pumpkin flavored waffle with chocolate shavings and whipped cream. We were also going to make liege, to-go waffles, that were pumpkin flavored and dipped in chocolate shell. The halloween menu had been finalized with our pumpkin chocolate waffle, our scary waffle (my jalapeño creation) but we’d added , a butternut squash biscuit breakfast sandwich, green eggs and brains, and a candy corn layer cake.

  “This should be a good time, Rosie luv,” Az said. “You’re going to dress up?”

  I nodded. I was going to be a “mommy” mummy and Simon would be Frankenstein. We were all going classic monster movies for the diner. On Halloween, Carmen was going to be a werewolf and Lyle a vampire. Roxy was going to be a witch, and Zee said she’d bloodied up one of her old uniform dresses and was going to be a zombie.

  We were pretty excited about the whole evening. We closed at 2:00pm, and were going to turn the diner into a mini-haunted room to scare the kids and lead them through the diner from the main entrance to the emergency exit with lots of candy on the way.

  “Rose,” Zee called as I took another bite of the latest version of our waffle. I might have added way, way too much chocolate the first time around, but Az hauled me back.

  “You know, Rosie luv, we could make a black waffle. A haunted one?”

  I nodded and turned to Zee.

  “Your 1:30 pm is here.”

  I frowned. Az snorted one of Zee’s things—they were contagious. Az grinned at me. We both turned to the front door as a woman came through the door. She was large with a pixie cut that accented her high cheekbones and bright eyes. She wasn’t that much older than me, but Az choked.

  “Who is she?” I hissed.

  “Janice Voe-Jones,” Az said. “It’s Jerry’s sister.”

  I felt a flash of fury, but it was followed by curiosity. I wasn’t going to go with Zee to investigate, but I wouldn’t be in danger in the diner. I knew, however, that Simon would be upset. I paused and then sent him a quick message about what was happening. I followed it up with a promise to not leave the diner with anyone.

  I asked Az to make up something to offer Janice and then came out to struggle into a booth across from Janice.

  “Hi,” I said awkwardly. I wasn’t sure how I’d gotten through interviews before. Tell me, a stranger with no authority, all of your family dirt. “I’m so sorry about your brother.”

  Janice cleared her throat and then said, “Yeah. Well.”

  It wasn’t so much that she didn’t seem upset but that she seem conflicted. I wanted to take her hand and wrap her up in a hug, but I knew that was my hormones and would be about as welcome as a punch in the nose.

  I pressed my lips together and glanced helplessly at Zee who had just walked up to join us.

  “Your brother sounded like a real jerk,” Zee told Janice.

  I choked on my own spit. My eyes were watering as I tried to recover and Zee slammed me on the back while she said, “Don’t worry about preggers here. Her body is rebelling on her. She’s like a delicate flower who should have looked into a surrogate.”

  I elbowed Zee and said, “Excuse me. I was shocked my friend would say something so horrible about your recently deceased brother. I’m just so sorry.”

  Janice nodded once and said, “It’s…difficult. He’s…well…he’s my brother. Was. But he was also difficult. In a way…in a very, very terrible way it’s a relief.”

  I held back my gasp.

  “You have to understand. Jerry was…well…he was always troubled. He was abusive towards me when we were younger. He supposedly cleaned up when he set up that produce business, but in doing that—he took all the savings my mom had. And he hasn’t been paying her back like he promised. Yet, he just bought a new car. I just paid for my mom’s meds while he stole her money.”

  Was Janice aware she was sharing a big fat motive for killing her brother? I wanted to know if they could expect someone like Janice to be capable of physically stabbing her brother in the back. I had no idea if she was the right height. What if he’d been tripped? Did she need to have a certain physical strength? I was well aware that just become someone was large didn’t mean that they were weak. She could be very strong with just a layer of chub over her muscles.

  “Did you kill your brother?” I asked her.

  She blinked at me as if I were some sort of alien and then said, “Why I…how could you…oh my goodness, what in the…”

  “Do you realize that you just provided a huge motive ? If your mother is already suffering, how long until he talks her out of her retirement or social security?”

  Janice paled a little, but she admitted, “It’s not like I haven’t thought about that. I have kids. In the morning, I get up, get them ready, make lunches, make breakfast, gather backpacks, and then as soon as I drop them, I meet my best friend at the beach for a long walk. I might have had a motive, but I didn’t have time.”

  I seriously doubted that she was making lunches at 4:30 or 5:30 am, but it was a good story, and I was sure that she probably felt like it was an alibi. No doubt her husband was in the bed next to her.

  “Are you married?”

  She nodded.

  “Was your husband home?”

  She nodded.

  That still didn’t tell me much. I knew all to well how easy it would be to get out of bed and leave Simon. If he wasn’t expecting it, I could probably get away with it.

  “Who else would have a reason to kill your brother? Your other brother?”

  “Dave?” Janice shrugged and said, “If you want to know whether we were both appalled by what was happening with the way Jerry was stealing from my mom, the answer is yeah. We were. We do what we can for her, and Jerry does—did—what he could to counteract our efforts.”

  “What about his business partner? His ex-wife? Some person he might have infuriated?”

  Janice accepted a cup of coffee from Carmen and glanced down at the platter of sandwiches that Az had made up. I was stuffed from my breakfast and the taste testing I’d done in the kitchen, but Janice took a sandwich and pl
aced it on the empty plate in front of her. She didn’t eat though, but used it as a prop to play with while she considered the question.

  “Honestly, Jerry was a real jack…mmm…piece of work.” Janice took a sip of the water. “Did his ex-wife hate him? Yes. Do his children hate him? Yes. Does his business partner probably hate him? I would guess after day in and day out with my brother that yeah, Henry does. You could throw all of our names in a hat and pull one out and we’d have a reason to kill Jerry. I’m not saying that any of us did. Just that my brother was a jerk.”

  I had to admit to be utterly surprised by what she said. Why was she here? Why was she sharing her personal garbage and the details of her brother’s life. “Why are you here?”

  Janice seemed taken aback.

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  Zee elbowed me, but I ignored her and Janice said, “Everyone knows that the murders that have happened in Silver Falls lately have been solved by you.”

  I did not know that. I didn’t like that people thought that. I didn’t want the credit for them.

  “I need this to be ended. I need to bury my jerk of a brother, miss the few good things about him, and help my mom get on with her life. My mom is devastated. This is her kid. Her baby.”

  I teared up, trying to bite the inside of my mouth to stop the tears.

  “My mom deserves it to be over quickly.”

  I nodded. “I believe that.” I sniffed and Zee moaned under her breath as I said, “I’m not going to go out and investigate.”

  Janice frowned at me and I said, “I’m six months pregnant and I have been attacked doing this before.”

  Her face cleared up a bit and she said, “I’ll bring my family to you.”

  I leaned back, utterly shocked.

  “My mother needs this over.”

  “Just message me, and I’ll make sure Rose is here,” Zee said. “She’s got pregnant woman brain, utterly focused on naps and food, but I’ll see she’s here.”

  CHAPTER 7