Cornucopia (A Chloe Boston Mystery Book 16) Read online

  Cornucopia

  by

  Melanie Jackson

  Version 1.1 – September, 2012

  Published by Brian Jackson at KDP

  Copyright © 2012 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.

  Mystery in the Footlights

  Act 1, Scene 1

  When shall we three meet again?

  In thunder, lightning, or in rain?

  The first witch bellowed her lines and the second witch intoned back:

  When the hurlyburly’s done,

  When the battle’s lost and won.

  The second witch, being played by Marissa Hart, had a softer but more sinister voice and she cast Lisa Ryan and Trudy Jones into the shade with her acting. Her rendition of the famous lines was creepy enough that I paused in my painting to listen. Mr. Wallander, the new drama coach, was allowing the scene to play out without interrupting.

  In thunder, lightning, or in rain.…

  Halloween is my favorite time of year: the pumpkins, the leaves, bonfires, ghost stories, spice cake, and apple cider. However, the last two Halloweens had been marred by certain incidences which had—however illogically—made me slightly nervous to see the thirty-first of October rolling around again.

  Jacky MacKay and I had grown our pumpkins as usual, but instead of entering them in the local contest to determine who had the largest and heaviest pumpkins in the county, I had volunteered our extras and shocks of Indian corn as decorations for the high school auditorium. The high school drama department in conjunction with the 4-H had decided to put on a Halloween play and the call had gone out to the community for volunteers to support the effort. Somehow, in addition to my pumpkins, they had gotten me to help with painting scenery. No talent was required. Someone from the art department had roughed things in and then numbered everything with a color key. It was like doing really big paint by numbers and the sets were looking great.

  The play was Macbeth.

  The Scottish play, in spite of its reputation for bringing bad luck, was a good choice for the season. It was literature and therefore uplifting, but it had witches, ghosts, and murder. I also liked that it would be the first exposure to Shakespeare for many of the kids in town. Nothing against Romeo and Juliet, but I don’t think it is the best choice for freshman boys. Blood and guts and ghosts were much more their speed.

  And there wouldn’t be a haunted house this year. Possibly not any year, since we had had a murder at the last one and parents were still nervous. That meant another fund-raiser for the 4-H and drama department had to be found. Everyone hoped it would be this play.

  The stage was a little echoey but I knew from experience that it would feel less hollow when the sets were in place and the four hundred seats were filled with warm, breathing bodies.

  Blue loves being in the old auditorium. It is a cornucopia of scents, with the rubbed velvet seats that smell of hundreds of different butts, bolted to the floor with nuts and washers that have trapped a lot of really neat odors of dropped food and dirty sneakers.

  The players, whose leads had been chosen after careful auditions, were also very willing to share pets and snacks with her between scenes. All in all, I had nothing to complain of except paint-stained clothes, and since I only used them for gardening that wasn’t really anything to beef about.

  Fair is foul, and foul is fair:

  Hover through the fog and filthy air.

  “Very good!” Mr. Wallander praised, raising his voice to be heard over the clapping. There had been some doubts expressed by the parents when he had taken over from Delbert Biggers, who had been the drama teacher since the year dot, but they doubted no longer. Original worries that he would be too avant-garde had been allayed by his choice of plays and by the enthusiasm of his students.

  “While I have my three witches here, I’d like to do a quick run through act 4, scene 1 and look at the blocking. Hecate, we won’t need you just yet.”

  Theresa Bolger leaned against the wall, which she pretty well covered, being built like a linebacker.

  The first witch took up her place by the imaginary cauldron.

  Thrice the brinded cat hath mew’d.

  Lisa did it well. And she looked the part being tall, angular, and having long black hair. Then Marissa said her line and it was obvious who the best actress was. When she spoke no one noticed she was short, a bit dumpy, and had uncontrollable red hair.

  Thrice and once the hedge-pig whined.

  Trudy, the third witch, was neither tall nor short, not thin nor plump, and was overall rather beige. Makeup would fix that though and she was beginning to be comfortable with her part. She also had a convincing cackle which was her natural laugh.

  Harpier cries “’Tis time, ’tis time.”

  It was difficult to pull myself away from the performance, but Alex would be home soon and I had promised him spaghetti and pumpkin cookies for dessert. That meant I had twenty more minutes to finish the ruined turret and fix up a portion of Birnam wood which at present looked far too friendly and safe.

  I had just squatted down with a fully loaded paint brush when a loud crash and a chorus of screams made me blot the castle with the wrong color. I jumped to my feet and hurried out onto the stage to see what had happened. A quick glance at the chaos and necks craning upward in alarm had me using bad language, but only on the inside since there were students present, and also my mother and aunt who had been fitting costumes on some the servants and soldiers in act 5. Mom and Aunt Dot were plainly shocked by the sky falling in, and if Mom hadn’t turned white it was only because she is already as pale as it is possible for a human to be.

  “Is anyone hurt?” I shouted, wishing I had Marissa’s ability to project because I was completely ignored.

  Before I had done more than push my way to the edge of the stage, I had the impression of a shadow moving overhead and looked up in apprehension. I couldn’t see anything except gently swaying stage sets, but decided I had better make sure that nothing else was about to come down on us.

  There was an old iron ladder just offstage to the right, which went up into the rafters where the lights were strung off an old catwalk and where they had hoisted the giant canvases up out of sight. I had a quick look around but the other set paintings seemed secure. I found the vacant spot where the fallen flat had been and had a look at the moorings. The rope that had held the fallen canvas had simply come undone, perhaps not having been tied with the correct knot. This was annoying because I had given the safety lecture myself.

  Forgetting that I wasn’t particularly good with heights, I leaned over the railing and looked down at the stage. At first I didn’t understand what I was seeing, but after a moment of adjustment and the students shifting things around, I discovered that the piece of fallen scenery was a flat of Dunsinane Castle (interior). From my view I could see that the actors had been in no danger when it had come crashing down, but it had barely missed Mr. Wallander, hitting the table he was using as a desk. The dropped flat had a giant multidirectional tear in one corner that the director’s chair had poked through and it didn’t look repairable. The canvas would have to be replaced and repainted.

  I was craven enough to be glad that it wasn’t one of my assigned sets, though I knew that didn’t mean that I wouldn
’t get press-ganged into doing a new one. I couldn’t plead being too busy at work because the Chief had given me all the release time I needed to help with the play. And I had taken it, since it was help with the play or get dragged into doing Officer Bill at the parade of jack-o’-lanterns in Courthouse Park.

  “Is anyone hurt?” I asked again when I was back on terra firma and things had quieted. I was feeling slightly dizzy from my trip into the rafters.

  There were a great many murmurs of no and I don’t think so for which I said a prayer of thanks. We did not need another Halloween disaster.

  To help themselves recover from the shock, and because they were endlessly ravenous teenagers, everyone including Blue headed for the snack table that the 4-H parents had equipped with various carbonated refreshments and cookies.

  Mom was sucking on her finger and scowling.

  “You okay, Mom?” I asked her.

  “Yes, dear. I just stabbed myself with a pin. Your poor Aunt Dot poured tea all over herself too.”

  “Was it hot?” I asked with concern.

  “No, stone cold but it had milk and three sugars. She’ll have to send her sweater to be cleaned.”

  A damaged sweater I could live with.

  I watched the kids in their feeding frenzy, wondering if I should try to discover who had been responsible for improperly securing the canvas.

  Patrick Amberly, who usually dressed with the kind of sloth that drove parents nuts, was looking rather regal as the doomed Banquo. He had two versions of his costume. One clean and one bloody. He was presently ungory.

  Beside him was Richie Maxx who was playing Macbeth. He wasn’t in costume, but I had seen it earlier and it was rather gorgeous as long as you didn’t get too close and notice that the rich velvets were really cheap velour, on sale last month for $3.95 a yard. Richie had long hair which usually looked out of place among his fashionably cropped and shorn classmates but it suited the role perfectly.

  Richie’s girlfriend, Alison Brenner, was playing Lady Macbeth. She had at first seemed an odd choice to me because I always pictured Lady Macbeth as a dark-haired, dark-hearted monster. But Alison played her with a sort of sweet insanity that was very effective and not at all expected, at least by me.

  A few cookies and energy drinks later and the cast was ready to return to brewing hell-broth.

  “Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, creeps in this petty pace from day to day to the last syllable of.…” Macbeth muttered softly, checking his script between taking bites of a chocolate chip cookie. “I’ll never remember all this.”

  Blue shoved her head under my hand, letting me know that she was ready to go. I was too. Birnam wood could wait for tomorrow.

  “Come on, Blue. Let’s go get some dinner.”

  Act 1, Scene 2

  Alex was distracted by his current project—some bank manager had fled to Switzerland taking several pension funds with him—but he resurfaced long enough to enjoy dinner and to listen to my story about the falling scenery. He had taken an interest in the play when asked by the drama coach to design a webpage for the project. Usually Alex does just-the-facts kind of web design for business friends, but on this occasion he had gone all out with the spooky effects, like lightning and blood seeping out of the stones of the castle, and the page had reached cult status with the kids in town.

  “But no one was hurt?”

  “No. It was a near thing though. I don’t think it could have killed anyone, but it could have led to concussions or even some broken bones. The canvas isn’t heavy but the frame is.”

  “You’re sure the rope just came untied?”

  “Well, it wasn’t cut, and the cleat thing hadn’t torn loose or anything.”

  “Hmm,” he said, and I could see I was losing him to the pension funds. “Good spaghetti. Did you add something new?”

  “Scale of dragon and tooth of wolf,” I said, checking my theory.

  “Well, it was great. I better get back to work. It’s almost morning in Europe.”

  “Okay. Love you.” I would get his attention with cookies later.

  “Love you too,” he said, giving me a quick kiss and heading for his office.

  The play had taken so much time that I hadn’t given any thought to what jack-o’-lantern designs I wanted to try. Usually I like faces, but I had seen a pumpkin in a magazine carved in an elaborate rope pattern and decided that I would attempt something runic. I fetched one of my art books and grabbed one of the Full Moon pumpkins I had kept back and started penning in a design.

  Long ago I had learned that coping saw blades work better than kitchen knives when it comes to making subtle curves in the harder-fleshed squashes. I break the blade into about thirds and then duct-tape one end to make a kind of handle.

  After setting aside some of the seed, which I had washed and left to dry in a natural-color coffee filter (the white filters have been bleached with a chemical that can harm seeds), I reached into the small opening in the bottom of the pumpkin and began scraping with the sharp edge of a measuring cup. This is where many people go wrong. They don’t spend the time making sure to remove all the strings and slimy goop that will catch fire and rot. Scorched pumpkin smells great but it doesn’t look especially good.

  Jacky and I had a bumper crop of pumpkins this year. Of course, we always do. My grandmother had often said that gardens need love as much as fertilizer and our pumpkin patch got plenty of both. Jacky also helped with keeping the peace along the border. We had to fight off bindweed incursions from the neighbor’s yard. Those ropey jackals of the plant kingdom travel in packs, attacking anything that is slower growing and even strangling the fruit right off the vine if they are allowed to catch hold when the blossoms are young.

  The cats were curious about my activity, though they have seen me carving pumpkins plenty of times before. They watched intently from the back of the sofa as I scraped and sawed, but refused to play with the seed I tossed on the floor.

  Around seven there was a scratch at the door and Blue ambled over, where she stood with tail wagging.

  The Jeffersons were fairly new neighbors from two doors down and they had a two-year-old child, and a half-witted retriever named Harlow whom they took for a walk every night after dinner. Harlow was fond of Blue and liked to stop in for a quick sniff and a cookie snack while either Ted or Janie Jefferson waited politely on the sidewalk. I am not quite sure how this nightly visitation got started, but Janie had told me that Harlow has sat on the porch and howled until forcibly dragged away on nights when we weren’t home, so in the interest of neighborly goodwill and the cats’ peace of mind, I make sure to leave out a cookie even when we are away.

  Blue likes Harlow and loves cookies so she is all for this evening ritual. The cats are less enthused with the canine company. In fact, it would be safe to say that Aphrodite is categorically unenthused about Harlow’s visits and Apollo always does his best to follow her lead since he knows quite well who is the brains in their partnership. If she hisses, he hisses, though with much less sincerity.

  Alex, hearing the nightly feline heckles of protest from the non-dog children, came out of his office and also began looking for cookies and pets. I live in a house filled with creatures of habit.

  The night was clear and cold, the stars brilliant enough to show up the moon, and there was just enough wind to rustle the leaves along the street in a furtive manner. The half-moon was bright enough to make the fence throw out a sharp shadow.

  I waved to Ted and gave Harlow a pat with my forearm since my hands were sticky with pumpkin, which did not in any way detract from the deliciousness of her duck and sweet potato cookie. By the time I had shut the door on our nightly visitor I was ready for a fire, Alex, and a cup of tea.

  “Great jack-o’-lantern,” Alex said through a mouthful of pumpkin cookie.

  “Those cookies will be even better with some ginger-peach tea.”

  Act 1, Scene 3

  Delbert Biggers had not taken his ouster as
drama coach with grace and dignity. In fact, one could get burned by the sparks flying off the ax he was grinding and people had taken to avoiding him. Unfortunately he was in line ahead of me at Daddy’s Donuts so there was nothing to do but wait for his tirade to end or abandon all hope of an apple fritter and decent coffee.

  I had never understood why he was so popular with the parents. He was supercilious, a wizened gnome colored an unhealthy shade of old walnuts with a fringe of white hair that began behind his earlobes and straggled down his neck. He had a lovely voice, but tended to quote Restoration-era poets and sneered at his students whenever they questioned any decision or direction he gave them. The kids called him a jerk—usually with some grammatically questionable adjectives and adverbs tacked on.

  Daddy finally had to be directly rude to the drama coach and once reminded of the long line behind him, Biggers grudgingly stepped aside. I was careful not to meet his eye as I placed my order though I could feel his hard stare and smell the stale pipe smoke that clung to his jacket while I waited.

  It was also odd to see him wearing loafers. Usually he favored cowboy boots.

  Armed with sugar, fat, and caffeine, Blue and I were at last ready to start the day. We wasted no time lingering in the vicinity of the aggrieved coach.

  Since the sun was out I had taken my bike with the sidecar to work. The nice days were on the wane and soon the weather would be bad enough that I would have to leave Blue at home with Alex. She loves going with me, but the cold bothers her joints and there is little shelter in my official vehicle which is really just an electric golf cart.

  I gave out few tickets that day. It was a Wednesday so we had few visitors. There would be more on Friday when the Halloween festivities were being held, but since we like tourists, only the most blatant of offenders would be written up for parking violations.