Pumpkin Picking with Murder

by Auralee Wallace

  “I know!”

  “There wasn’t supposed to be a body!”

  “I know!”

  I think I would have fallen down if Freddie and I hadn’t been clutching each other so tightly.

  “We are bad, bad people, Freddie.”

  “I know!”

  I shook his arm. “Would you please say something other than I know!”

  “This … is now a felony.”

  “Oh my God! Not that!” I brought one hand up to my face. I was feeling hot and cold and a little buzzy all over. “I’m so sorry, Mr. Ramsbottom,” I said quietly, glancing back down to the skeleton’s face. “Wherever you are, we are so sorry.”

  “We’re going to need more lawyers,” Freddie said. “A lot more lawyers. A team of lawyers.”

  “It’s still dark,” I mumbled. “Maybe we can get it all covered back up, put the sod back in place. Maybe it will rain. Or better yet snow. I—”

  “Stop it! You’re babbling,” Freddie snapped. “You know that’s not going to happen. Would you look at this hole?”

  I shook my head. He was right. Our dig looked nothing like those dug-out graves in the movies. It was a big ugly gaping hole. “Matthew’s never going to be able to hide this from his mom. I thought you knew how to work that thing.” I flung a hand up at the backhoe.

  “And so the blaming begins,” Freddie said, nodding. “Why do I let you get me into—”

  “You can’t put this all on me, Mr. New Face of Security!”

  “Fine,” he said sharply. “But you can’t deny that whenever you come back to town, things get crazy! I get crazy!” He shook his head some more. “This isn’t me. I used to lead a quiet life, telling fortunes on the Internet.”

  “Don’t you even—” I stopped myself and took a breath. “Okay, we need to focus here. We have to at least try to make things right. But first—” My eyes traveled against my will back down to the remains of Mr. Ramsbottom.

  “Oh, don’t look at me,” Freddie said, backing himself up against the dirt wall.

  “We’ve come this far,” I said with a hard swallow. “If there’s something to save the twins in this casket, I have to find it.”

  Freddie nodded. “Although I gotta tell ya, I’m starting to think our hundred-year-old source may have some of his details wrong.”

  I leaned toward the coffin, hands reaching ever-so-slowly toward the inside when I suddenly snatched them back. “Are you going to help me?”

  “I can’t, Erica,” Freddie said, not able to meet my eyes. “Skeletons are just … too much. I can’t. What if I get, like, a piece of bone on me? I’ll start screaming again.”

  “Well, that’s just great,” I said, jumping up to grab my flashlight before passing it to him. “Hold this. Point it at the … you know what.”

  Freddie twisted his face into a pained grimace, but he did what he was told.

  “Okay, so,” I said, not ready to look down yet at Mr. Ramsbottom, “if the lawyer just tossed it into the coffin, it should be easy to find. I’ll just—” I reached down again with my hands, but I couldn’t quite turn my face to look.

  Freddie was shaking his head no. His lips curled in between his teeth.

  I felt my fingertips brush against the satin lining of the coffin.

  “Erica?” Freddie whispered.

  “What?”

  “Do you believe in ghosts?”

  “Seriously?” I shouted, cranking my head to look up at him, but all I got was the glare of the flashlight. “You’re asking me that now!”

  “It’s just I’ve had some weird experiences lately—whoa,” he said. “You look freaky. We can talk about it later.”

  I moved my hands up and down the near side of the coffin, from shoes to shoulder … staying away from the skull. Then I leaned farther across the body to search the other side. Freddie moaned in the background.

  “You know,” I said, blowing a piece of hair from my eyes that had somehow managed to escape my cap. “If we don’t end up in prison, I think we need to remember this moment. This is why we can’t work togeth—Whoa!”

  Suddenly Freddie hip-checked me to the side. “I see something.”

  I struggled to get back on my feet on the uneven ground as I watched Freddie reach into the coffin. A second later, his hand shot into the air clutching a letter.

  “I don’t believe it.” I could barely hear my words over the pounding in my chest. “Open it! Open it!”

  “Hold the flashlight,” Freddie said, tossing it to me. It hit my knuckles and tumbled to the ground.

  “Erica! Learn how to catch!”

  “I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” I said, scooping it up.

  I heard the sound of the envelope opening.

  “I got it,” Freddie said, unfolding the letter. “Hold the light.”

  I directed the beam toward his hands. Freddie grabbed my wrist, adjusting the angle. He then ran his finger in a line across the paper. I could hear him reading under his breath.

  “What does it say? What does it say?”

  “Give me a second,” Freddie hissed. “I’m still reading. Oh my…”

  “What! What?”

  Suddenly his finger stopped and he gasped.

  “So help me—”

  “No,” he whispered.

  “Freddie!”

  He slowly looked up to meet my eyes. “Well, this just might change everything.”

  Chapter Forty

  I snatched the letter from his hands. “Would you stop saying that.”

  “Careful,” Freddie shouted. “You’re going to tear it. I’ll tell you. He wasn’t planning on leaving the estate to Kit Kat.”

  My stomach sank. “No, that means Mrs. Masterson didn’t have a motive to kill her father … or Mr. Clarke.”

  “He wasn’t going leave the estate to Kit Kat,” Freddie repeated, a smile spreading across his face, “but he wasn’t going to leave it to his daughter either.”

  “What?” My eyes dropped back down to the letter, but I couldn’t read the words and hold the flashlight. “Then who?”

  “The town,” Freddie said. “He was thinking of leaving everything to Otter Lake.”

  “What? Why would he—” I began. “You know what? It doesn’t matter. This could be enough. We need to go to Grady.”

  “And tell him what? We accidentally dug up a grave with a backhoe and discovered Mrs. Masterson’s father’s will … along with, guess what? His body! I’m not going down for that. Not yet. We need to follow this lead.”

  I reached up to grab the grass at the lip of the hole, digging my foot into the dirt of the wall. “This is too important. We’ll have to face the consequences … with your team of lawyers.”

  “You know I don’t actually have a team of lawyers, right?” Freddie asked. “I mean, I could probably get one. I don’t think my grandmother would let me go to jail. You, maybe.”

  I scrambled against the wall trying to find leverage, but the dirt kept tumbling away. I growled. Maybe this whole what comes next discussion was moot because Freddie and I were never getting out of this grave. “Would you give me a hand here?”

  Freddie laced his fingers together to give me a boost. I reached up again and—

  —a hand clamped around my wrist.

  Freddie screamed …

  … but I didn’t.

  Somewhere deep down I knew who it was. I just knew.

  “Erica.”

  I cast one last look back at Mr. Ramsbottom. Hanging out with him was looking better all the time.

  I sighed before finally looking up.

  “Hi, Grady.”

  Chapter Forty-one

  “Rhonda, would you take Freddie inside?” Grady asked in an empty-sounding voice. “I’d like a minute alone with Erica.”

  Grady had given Freddie and me a lift back to the sheriff’s station. At least I liked to think of it as a lift … but I couldn’t help but notice we sat in the back, while Grady sat all by his lonesome up front. Not a one of us s
aid a word on the drive back into town although Freddie kept elbowing me in the ribs while darting his eyes over to Grady. I got that he wanted me to say something to make the situation better, but I couldn’t think of the words that would manage that feat.

  “Sure, but—” Rhonda stopped and leaned in closer to the window. “You, uh, know what you’re doing here, boss?”

  Grady shot her a look. “I’m pretty sure I do.”

  “I just mean,” she added, tilting her head from side to side, “it’s been a crazy night. Tempers are high. I wouldn’t want you saying anything to Erica—I mean, the suspect—here that you’ll later regret.”

  “It’s fine.”

  “But given the amount of time you’ve spent using the office computer to search for date ideas, I just thought—”

  “Rhonda!”

  “Right, sorry,” she said with a tight nod. “There’s just one more—”

  Grady silenced her with a pretty ominous glare.

  “No, it’s not that. Where do you want me to put Freddie?” she asked quickly. “We’re kind of out of holding cells.”

  Grady flexed his jaw. “Put him in that one in the basement.”

  “The basement!” Freddie yelled. “After what we were just doing?”

  Grady didn’t answer. Instead he scratched his hairline under the brow of his sheriff’s hat, before just whipping it off and tossing it on the seat beside him. “But keep an eye on him, okay? And don’t give him anything through the bars, and if he suddenly plays sick, don’t open the gate.”

  “Dammit, Grady,” Freddie said. “Get out of my head.”

  “Right.” Rhonda opened Freddie’s door. “Come with me, Ng. And you heard the man. No funny stuff.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it,” Freddie said, heaving himself out. “But do you have a nail file I could borrow, I have this terrible rough edge that—”

  “Freddie,” Grady warned in a voice that somehow managed to suck all the air out the car.

  “I’m playing,” Freddie chuckled, right before shooting me some uh-oh eyes. He then leaned in and whispered, “I don’t think this is going to be a fun conversation. Good luck. I’ll be in the basement.”

  I nodded.

  Freddie shut the door, and the silence he left behind was … unpleasant. I studied the back of Grady’s head. He was staring out the window again. More than anything, I wanted to touch the back of his neck, maybe massage some of the tension out of his shoulders, but as always, there was something keeping us apart. In this case it was the cage separating the back of the cruiser.

  “So,” Grady said, taking a breath. “Grave robbing.”

  I shifted over to where Freddie had been sitting to try to get a look at his face. “We had it on good authority that there was no body.”

  Grady nodded.

  “Mr. Carver swore—”

  He waved a hand in the air. “It doesn’t matter. I don’t want to hear it. Rhonda will be questioning—” He cut himself off. “Wait, Mr. Carver? Hundred-and-two-year-old Mr. Carver?”

  “That guy knows a lot about this town. And he wasn’t wrong about everything. He—”

  “No. Wait. Stop.” He halfheartedly waved his hand in the air again before moving it back to his forehead. “I mean it. Save it for Rhonda.”

  “Grady,” I said quietly. It was getting hard to talk over the lump in my throat. “I really am sorry.”

  “Not sorry enough to stop, though.”

  “It’s the twins.” Great, now my eyes were getting all watery. “They need me.”

  I watched him pull his bottom lip through his teeth. “And that right there is the problem, isn’t it? Everybody needs Erica to save the day. Except nobody really thinks that except you and Freddie. The Dynamic Duo. Saving Otter Lake from—I don’t even know what you guys tell yourselves you’re doing.”

  “Okay, just hold on.” I clenched my teeth, trying to consider my words instead of just snapping back. “Have you looked at what we found in Mr. Ramsbottom’s grave?”

  “What?” Grady asked with false lightness. “You mean this?” He held the letter up pinched between two fingers.

  “Of course I mean that.” Again, I wished I could touch him, grab his hand. “It changes everything, Grady.”

  “Really,” he said, again with that slow nod. “Everything. Wow.”

  My cheeks flushed. “It’s evidence of a motive for Mrs. Masterson killing her father.” I got that Grady was beyond upset with me, but Tweety being falsely accused of murder—confessing to a crime she didn’t commit for God knows what reason—still trumped everything else. You’d think he could see that.

  “Oh, I see,” he continued. “Evidence.” He turned in his seat to meet my eye. For a second he dropped the cool demeanor. “But evidence for a … what again? A fifty-, sixty-year-old murder that we don’t even know happened?” He nodded, then shook his head side-to-side, turning back to the windshield. “I’m not exactly sure how that helps us here.”

  “Grady, come on,” I said, trying to keep control of my voice. “You know as well as I do, if Mrs. Masterson could kill her father, she could kill her husband. Maybe Mr. Masterson knew what that letter said—and Mr. Clarke! What about Mr. Clarke?”

  “Oh, now I get it,” Grady said, still nodding. It made me sad to see him this way—mad, sarcastic, almost bitter. It wasn’t like him … and I had made him this way. “Okay, well, let’s do a little role-playing here—”

  “I’m guessing it’s not the fun kind,” I muttered.

  “No, it’s not,” he replied. “But don’t worry. You don’t have to do anything. You just sit back and relax. I’ll play both parts.”

  I slumped back in the seat, folding my arms across my chest.

  “So, Sheriff Forrester, can you tell me how it is that you came across this letter, Exhibit A?” Grady asked the question in a really smarmy voice that didn’t take a genius to realize was that of a lawyer.

  He then turned his head to answer the question he had posed to himself. “It was found in the grave of Mr. Abraham Ramsbottom, the defendant’s father.”

  He turned his head back the other way. “Found? Really? That sounds like an interesting story. Can you explain?”

  “Erica Bloom and Freddie Ng dug up the grave and found the letter.”

  I rubbed the spot between my eyebrows. Nope. This definitely wasn’t going to be the fun kind of role-play.

  “My, that’s quite serious. Grave digging is a felony in New Hampshire.”

  I threw my hands halfheartedly into the air. Guess that settled it.

  Grady turned to look at me to make sure I was paying attention. “Oh yes, a felony.”

  I leaned back again against the seat.

  “Sheriff Forrester,” said the lawyer—the lawyer whom I was beginning to really dislike—“is it true that you were dating said Erica Bloom at the time she dug up the grave?”

  My eyes flashed to Grady’s, but he was facing front again. I couldn’t help but notice the use of past tense in that question.

  Grady shook his head. “I wouldn’t say we were dating. Dating implies a certain amount of trust and respect and—”

  “Hmm, but isn’t it true that just days before Ms. Bloom was involved in the grave-digging incident that you had her over to your house for dinner?”

  “That’s true.”

  “Marinated salmon, was it?”

  “It was.”

  “How long did you marinate that salmon for, Sheriff Forrester?”

  “All right. All right,” I said interrupting. “I get it, but I don’t think the lawyer would really be interested in—”

  “Overruled,” Grady snapped, looking back at me before resuming his questioning of himself.

  I blew some air out my lips.

  “Eight hours.”

  “Wow. Eight hours. That certainly shows a certain amount of, what?” Lawyer Grady tapped his chin. “Care? Wouldn’t you say, Sheriff Forrester?”

  “Yes, I would. You see, I had been w
aiting for this opportunity with Erica for a long time. Since we were kids, one might say—”

  “Grady, I—”

  “But the timing was never right, and Erica had an unconventional upbringing that left her with some trust issues, and, well, I was always a dumb kid. I thought maybe Erica had finally reached a place in her life where she was ready for a relationship. I really felt I was.”

  My eyes filled up again. This trip had all gone so epically wrong. I couldn’t help but wonder where we would be, what we would be doing right now, if Mr. Masterson were still alive.

  “So, just so we’re clear, Sheriff Forrester, you are asking this court to accept into evidence a letter dug up illegally from a grave—an act that has caused great emotional distress to my client—by someone you are romantically involved with.”

  “I wouldn’t say we’re romantically involved. Erica won’t let that—”

  “But you do have feelings for this person. Remember, Sheriff, you are under oath.”

  “Yes.”

  “Your Honor, I would like this letter to be withdrawn and stricken from the record as evidence.”

  “Granted, Mr. Lawyer sir,” Grady said, suddenly switching to a female voice. “I’m with you one hundred percent. What kind of rinky-dink operation do they have going on over there at Otter Lake?”

  “I doubt she’d say rinky-dink,” I replied sullenly.

  Grady turned again to face me. “That’s all you have to say?”

  There was so much I wanted to say … but it wouldn’t be enough.

  I rubbed my face. What the hell was the matter with me? What was I doing? I could lose my job over this. I could go to jail. And then there was Grady. When I looked at him, I saw everything I ever wanted …

  But then there was Tweety and Kit Kat.

  “Grady, when I got into town a few days ago—” I took a moment to get ahold of my voice. It was cracking on me. “I didn’t mean for this to happen. It wasn’t at all how I wanted things to go down.”

  Grady closed his eyes and shook his head. “I know that. But what do you want me to do, Erica? Pretend that I don’t know what you and Freddie are up to? Pretend that I don’t know there’s a good chance you’re breaking the law?”

  Suddenly something occurred to me. “How did you know we were there tonight? Were you following us?” I couldn’t imagine we had gotten to a place where Grady would watch me and Freddie commit a felony, knowing he was going to arrest us when we were through, but—