The Great Pumpkin Caper Read online

  The Great Pumpkin Caper

  by

  Melanie Jackson

  Version 1.1 – August, 2011

  Published by Brian Jackson at PubIt

  Copyright © 2011 by Melanie Jackson

  Discover other titles by Melanie Jackson at www.melaniejackson.com

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locals or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

  Chapter 1

  His face was raptorial, especially in profile, and he smelled of sweat caused by repressed frustration that does something dire to aftershave lotion.

  “Long flight, huh?” I asked and kissed him on his cheek. I was not actually one hundred percent happy to have Alex home a day early, though he had come to offer emotional support and to help my dad and Jacky be beasts of burden on moving day. I adore my husband, but I am not an easy fit when I am in competition mode and like to be able to fret without someone urging me to calm down.

  “Want some lunch?” I was trying to sound wifely, though I was tired and wondering if I had secretly developed sleep apnea.

  “No. I’m going to have a beer and then a nap. Blue, you want to nap with me?”

  This put Blue in a quandary. She loves napping but she also likes being with me in the garden, even on a blustery day.

  “You look wired,” Alex said, finally really looking at me. I hadn’t checked a mirror lately but I was pretty sure I was rockin’ one of those Bride of Frankenstein ’dos. It happens if I take my hair out in the wind without a hat.

  “Just tired. Haven’t slept well.”

  “I’m home now,” he said, giving me a hug and making an effort to look lecherous.

  Hope Falls doesn’t have a lot of attractive men, and everyone agrees that I am lucky to have married someone handsome enough to make the married temporarily forget their moral values. I appreciate Alex’s physical charms, but more when we are both rested. I didn’t say this though. We tend to be cranky when low on sleep and I wouldn’t have wanted him to take it the wrong way.

  I wouldn’t admit it to a soul, but my lack of rest had nothing to do with Alex’s absence or medical sleep disorders. Regardless, the REM deprivation had me feeling about as smart as that stupid lizard Aphrodite caught in the garden and brought in the house every morning. It amuses her to watch it skid in circles trying to get traction on the wood floor of the foyer until I take it back outside. To compensate for my weariness and falling I.Q., I’d been ’roiding up on coffee and cookies, and tweaking what were already perfect designs. It was foolish, but who could sleep when the pumpkin competition was only a day away?

  The competition was in two parts. First, a check of size and weight of pumpkin entries. This was what had Jacky excited. He is a guy and size matters.

  The second part was carving. There wasn’t much to part one once you got your pumpkins to the fairgrounds. You measured, you weighed, and someone won an award for most bloated squash. Big deal.

  Part two was all about creative genius. That was the prize I had my eye on. It was for this that I had been carving every vegetable I could lay my hands on.

  Mr. Jackman was my main competition. Most of the other entrants, I knew from experience, were mind-bogglingly unimaginative in their designs. Competent but expected work—craftsmen but not artists. Except maybe Polly Pickup, who is clever with small veggies like radishes and carrots, and also Dr. Marley who is rumored to have done some ingenious and rude things with potatoes using his dental tools. But Mr. Jackman is much more creative, and I knew from my visit to the hardware store that he had also purchased coping saws and wood chisels. He had also bought a new drill. I didn’t know if I would need one for my design, but since we didn’t have one at home, I had decided to buy one just in case. I would give it to Alex on his birthday if I didn’t use it. He likes having man toys even if he doesn’t use them much.

  The pumpkin I had selected for carving was special. Following a suggestion from an avant-garde gardening book, I had yoked one of the horizontally growing pumpkins when it was young and it had morphed into what looked like two bisecting squashes—sort of Siamese twins. At first I had thought of doing masks of comedy and tragedy, but had since changed my mind. A week ago I had seen an old B-movie on TV. It was called The Incredible Two-Headed Transplant. That’s what I was going to do and I had been practicing carving on lesser squash.

  Since my hair was a disaster anyway, I decided to brave the wind one more time and take another look at my pumpkin, a last careful calculation of where to place the faces of my two hideous heads.

  “Hey, Chloe,” said a voice that I have never been fond of. “You pay more attention to those vegetables than I do to my kid.”

  “And more shame to you for it,” I muttered, turning to face Althea’s husband.

  Why had I never noticed before that Dale Gordon has almost no forehead? Had it collapsed on the hollow cavity that was his brainpan? Yes, I have always called him Lardhead, but that is a psychological rather than physiological designation.

  “What?” Gordon asked. “Do I have mustard on my forehead?”

  Mustard on his forehead? At ten in the morning? God help his newborn son.

  “Isn’t there some crop circle you need to be investigating?” I asked.

  “Huh? A crop circle?” Gordon carries his own kind of armor and it repelled my insults as glass did water.

  I sighed, but softly. There is no point in being mad at stupid people because they are stupid.

  “What do you want?” I asked plainly. Then, with a reluctance that was only barely overcome by my mother’s training, I added, “Would you like a cup of coffee?”

  “Oh, no thanks. Althea said you had a pumpkin for the baby?”

  “Yes. I have a special pumpkin for Reggie.” They had named their child Reginald.

  Reginald. My mind quickly unpacked a dozen repressed school scenarios for my baby cousin, but I stuffed them back in their closet and slammed the door. There was no point in borrowing trouble, and speculation was not intuition. And even if it was intuition, there was nothing I could do about this problem. Yet.

  I went to the porch where I had put the baby’s pumpkin aside. I had grown a couple Lumina pumpkins just for variety and to experiment with another technique in my gardening book. The first pumpkin I had scored with an X-Acto knife had rotted before the incision scabbed over, but one of the white pumpkins had a perfect heart on one side. The outline was gapped every sixteenth of an inch and looked like embroidery.

  “That’s kind of cute,” Dale admitted when I handed him the pumpkin. “Did it just grow like that?”

  “I helped it along,” I said, not wanting to lie but not wanting to explain either. A lot of people think my pumpkin experiments are weird. It’s okay to grow pumpkins for jack-o’-lanterns for kids or pies at Thanksgiving, but not for art.

  “Chloe, lemme ask you, how did you know Reggie would need a pumpkin for Halloween when he wasn’t even supposed to be born yet? This isn’t some other baby’s pumpkin, is it?” He glared suspiciously, as though I had tried to palm him off with lesser goods.

  “I made the design after he was born.” Actually, I hadn’t. Somehow I had known that I would need a baby-themed pumpkin this year and had gone cute instead of scary with the carvings. But I didn’t explain this to Dale. He is likewise impervious to any form of logic or reason, yet also not possessing any form of intuition whatsoever. You’ve heard about those highly developed cop instincts? Gordon doesn’t have them, and doesn’t believe a
nyone else does either. He vacillates between thinking I’m just very lucky at solving crime, or maybe a witch like my grandmother was supposed to be. And it would be like him to reject the pumpkin as inferior or tainted if he thought I had carved it for someone else, or had magically anticipated a need for it. Hell, he might even think that I had caused Althea’s early labor.

  I saw Dale to the gate and waved him off. Down the street Norma and Neal Webb, Shirley Winkler, and Dr. Mills were gathered around the mailbox. They waved since it was too far to shout and I waved back. Their heads were mostly covered with scarves and caps, obscuring everything but their smiles, which looked oddly identical. They were all patients of Doc Marley, who was a nice enough man, I guess, but who seemed to take a one-size-fits-all approach to dentures that Althea said was beginning to annoy some of his patients. I wondered if this was because he lacked imagination or if he had gotten some deal on closeout stock of premade dentures and was foisting them off on patients. Whatever the case, the similar smiles seemed genuine, so I assumed that no one in the government was messing with the social security cost-of-living adjustments or leaving obscene graffiti in the park, the two things known to give my neighbors conniptions.

  Then the wind gusted, one of those breaths of cold air that warn that winter is coming. My neighbors scattered as it chased after them with gold leaves, seeking shelter in their houses and cars and, in one case, chasing after a stray hat that was headed for Market Street.

  There was movement at the corner of my eye and I turned to watch a murder of crows walking single file up the sidewalk. They were not bothered by the wind but continued purposefully on their way. They had been coming through the neighborhood at the same time each morning for about a week. They always walked rather than flew, and I wondered if it was because one of them was hurt, or if they were hunting food on the way to wherever they were going. I know many people consider crows to be an ill omen since they are carrion eaters, but I have always admired their glossy feathers and deep voices, so I nodded politely as they passed my gate.

  What day was it? Wednesday, I thought, and then I wondered if I should look at a newspaper and see if there was a reason for the sudden itch at the back of my brain, a trauma to the national psyche that I hadn’t heard about. I had rather been avoiding the wider world lately. Last month had had some shocks in it and I was still easing back into my routine.

  Scariest of last month’s events had been the premature arrival of Althea and Gordon’s child. Althea and the baby had pulled through her early labor, though there had been some worrisome fetal distress that made them take the baby by C-section. There was no sign of any trouble with Reggie yet, but the doctor had warned there could be neurological problems later.

  I had gone back to work early—as a meter maid, but with two days a week off and extra time free for the competition. And I carried Mace, a compromise on the handgun thing. Unofficially I was still working cases when the Chief needed help. Randy hasn’t said anything specific, but I think he was relieved by a return to the status quo. It was half a loaf for him, but that was better than nothing. I just hoped that it was enough for me.

  As a kid I had always wanted to be Kent McCord on Adam-12. At least until I had seen a rerun of Charlie’s Angels. Actually, Miss Marple had probably been my real role model in those early years, but I couldn’t imagine ever being that old, and besides, she never even flirted with a man. I was just girl enough to think that perhaps someday, after I was a world-famous detective, I would like to get married. But now, I was questioning the whole Kent McCord thing. I even wondered about Charlie’s Angels.

  I decided to hedge my bets. In addition to my regular job, I am taking some online classes with an eye to getting my private detective’s license. I’m not sure that I actually want to work with Alex again, but the classes are interesting and it never hurts to be prepared.

  Two things from the previous month had not resolved themselves. The first was the quarrel between Mrs. Graves and Mr. Jackman. I don’t think that Mr. Jackman actually cares that much about the male erotica writer Mary Beth Whitman—now a former Lit Wit—but he resents Mrs. Graves telling him that he is too old for her. I’ve been staying out of it and hoping that being two mature adults they will work things through.

  The other piece of unfinished business—though everyone else felt it was finished—was my inheritance from Catherine Cartwright. The necklace, which had disappeared with the would-be ghost on the night of the séance, had been found on Katherine’s bedside table the morning that she died. It wasn’t a copy either; the original that Alex and I had discovered out by the old well where Thomas Cartwright had died had had distinctive nicks and scratches. This one had them too.

  The necklace was real—a jeweler had certified it—and worth a lot of money. Like about forty thousand dollars. But I couldn’t sell it. I couldn’t even give it to a charity, which was where the rest of the estate had gone since there were no heirs. Not when it was left to me as a memento.

  And I couldn’t wear it. The very thought of putting it on made me break out in goose bumps, even assuming that I developed a taste for ornate jewelry.

  Frankly, I couldn’t stand to think about it much either. After all, how had it returned to the house? The man impersonating a ghost had had an attack of remorse and brought the heirloom back to a dying woman? That wasn’t likely, not after the effort he had put into finding it. Or, Catherine had hidden it from me at the séance to make me think that Thomas really was a ghost? But why? A prank? If so, it was an expensive one.

  I tried to recall if she had been holding anything in her hands when the nurse wheeled her away, but to the best of my memory, both the withered limbs had been clasping the arms of her wheelchair and she’d had no pockets in her gown or robe.

  So what was left? Was Thomas a real ghost? After all, it wasn’t like a spirit could take a necklace to the hereafter and Catherine was his last living—well, then living—descendent.

  But that was crazy thinking. There were no ghosts. I had had to swallow this fact of the returning necklace, but I would digest it later, when something came up and I had to deal with it.

  So I just shoved all these unreasonable thoughts away and got on with the important stuff. Like winning the pumpkin carving competition.

  Blue woofed at me, getting my attention. I found that a great deal of time had elapsed and I was chilled through. A few leaves had even gathered at my feet as I ruminated.

  I turned. Alex was standing in the doorway, smiling sweetly and no longer looking like a bird of prey. I smiled back and went inside to make some lunch.

  Suddenly I realized that I needed food. Real food. I couldn’t recall the last time that protein had crossed my lips. That and a lack of sleep was probably why I was feeling discombobulated. And the coming storm. I could tell by my sinuses it would be a big one. But that was all it was. There was no lurking evil.

  Intuition must be cultivated, but kept pruned back so it doesn’t overgrow daily life. Accidents, coincidence, really do happen. You can’t go looking for patterns everywhere and feeling alarm all the time. It isn’t good for your health.

  Chapter 2

  Moving day. That’s what it felt like. Though I had never worried as much about my dressers and end tables as I did those giant squash. We had rented a small truck that had a lift and it took all of us to move the three pumpkins onto the van and then to the fairgrounds. Dad, Jacky, and I rode in the truck on the slippery bench seat. Blue and Alex followed in the car.

  My eyes felt too small for their sockets and it seemed like the lids were lined with lint from the dryer. Cold air was leaking in around them and freezing my brain. I suggested to Dad that we go through the drive-through and get ourselves some café mochas and a hot chocolate for Jacky, who isn’t wild about coffee.

  The fairgrounds is a place I like, in spite of recent unhappy events. I guess because they retain their original identity. They haven’t been remodeled or updated or made more sleek and glamorous. Th
e world likes to change, even in Hope Falls, but not at the fairgrounds. There, my childhood memories are safe.

  The double doors of the Pacific building open onto the creek side of the fairgrounds and Mr. Iverson was waiting with the keys. The barn-style doors are old and grudging and groaned pathetically as they were forced apart. This entrance is rarely used, but the pumpkins were too large to fit through the regular doors that faced the green.

  This was the same room where I had judged a pastry competition last summer, but it was transformed into a harvest home. The garden club had been hard at work. There were straw bales for people to sit on, and a platform at the end of the room farthest from the kitchen where the winning pumpkins would be displayed. It was guarded by happy scarecrows holding dried sunflowers and wreathed with fall leaves.

  Along the west wall were sturdy tables. They were empty now except for my two-headed pumpkin, but would be pulled out into the room when the carving competition began. There was a scale in the middle of the floor, the kind used for weighing livestock. It had a sling and hoist. This was where the giant pumpkins would be weighed and a winner crowned.

  The offerings began to arrive. I watched anxiously as competitors unloaded their pumpkins one by one. I was pretty sure that Jacky and I were okay. Greater size does not always indicate greater weight, but there is some correlation and we were looking good. Admittedly, our pumpkins looked a bit like they had melted and puddled on the bottom, but it is almost impossible to grow a big pumpkin and have it retain its round shape.

  Unless it was grown in a sling? I started thinking about this. Dad has a winch thing for pulling out car engines….

  “I guess you are good at growing pumpkins,” Althea said with so much surprise that it was insulting. “I thought the only thing you were good at was snooping.”

  That definitely was an insult.

  My being her birthing partner hadn’t made us any closer. Sometimes I wonder who is to be more pitied, my cousin for having married the lardhead, or Dale Gordon for being stuck with Althea all the rest of his life.