The Pumpkin Thief: A Chloe Boston Mystery (2 page)

“Yep. I was worried coming down the hill, but I guess it’s too smug and fat to think about moving.”

“It has reason to be smug. That is one fine pumpkin,” Dad said enthusiastically. “Let’s get it out.”

It took a bit of maneuvering around the stage, but we got the pumpkin down to the lawn without mishap. I selected a spot at the base of an old elm tree that was fairly flat. Dad and I were both sweating, but lots of people were stopping by to admire my pumpkin, so it was worth it. There would be some stiff competition since there were probably already a hundred or so pumpkins lining the walkways that criss-crossed the park. I spotted my chief rival right away. Mr. Jackman had made a pumpkin snowman, stacking three graduated sized white pumpkins one on top of the other. My one pumpkin was larger. But his display was taller.

Seven o’clock came, costume awards were handed out and we were told to light our pumpkins. Dad had a lighter and had squatted down beside me to do the honors when I felt a presence looming. I’m not psychic, but I knew who it was even before he spoke.

“Hello, Chloe. Hello, Blue,” the chief said.  He had honored the occasion by wearing a spider tie tack and I gave him credit for acknowledging my dog. Blue had been a source of contention early in our relationship. “That is one fine pumpkin,” he said, unknowingly echoing my dad.

“Thanks.” I took a deep breath and introduced my dad to Chief Wallace. The moment could have been awkward, but Dad carries no grudges about what happened. After a few seconds, those who were close enough to overhear the peaceful exchange went on about their business, maybe relieved, maybe disappointed. Randy Wallace is the new chief, but the town folk mostly reserve the title for my dad who was their choice for three elections. He was terrible at paperwork and hates computers, so probably it is best that he’s moved on to other things, but he had been a good neighbor and loyal friend, and older people tended to value that more than efficiency.

The chief murmured a few more civilities and then moved on.

There was one blot on the festivities. My cousin, Althea Lewis, had written a Halloween poem and bribed someone into letting her read it. Althea’s poems are ghastly and I thought the event planners should be arrested for aid and abetment of a public nuisance, but I include it here for the sake of thoroughness and so that others may bear witness to what I have had to endure.

It’s autumn in HF again

As it is in NY, SF, LA and ZB

But there’s nothing like

Fall in our own hometown

For Fall’s the time

That makes hometowns our own

As I bumble through my hood

Watching for Goblins and gum

I see that the summer heat no longer shimmers off

The cracked and canted slabs of sidewalk over which I stumble

And therefore remove my sunglasses to don

A standard woolen cap

There is a crispness to the sound

Of the tires that I dodge

Speeding across the tarmac at my feet

And the thundering roar of bass and horn blast

That pours from cars stuck in gridlock

In front of the high school and the Dairy Queen

The smog is fresh and heady

As if newly disgorged

From a power plant or V8

All trace of stale smog blown out to sea

Replaced by desert sand, air you can chew,

Riding the mighty Cascades and over our chimneys

The sound of gun shots

Carries for miles

In all directions

Dead deer fall

What little wildlife

That can ever be seen in the streets

Seems to rot a little slower by the side of the road

The riots at Starbucks are calmer

And even the drive by eggings

Are played out with a modicum of decorum

I thank God for another springtime in HF

And humbly pray that I see another winter as well

She finished and everyone clapped because it was over. Actually, I thought that this was one of her better poems.

Chief Wallace, the mayor (Andrew Coty), and the head of the chamber of commerce (Lucy Watts) were the three judges for this year’s pumpkin carving contest and were wandering around with their clipboards making notes. I was biting my nails, wondering if the new chief would feel obliged to vote for someone not in his employ. The judges had conferred for what seemed like hours and were just mounting the steps on the bandstand to make their choice known when there came a series of screams from the haunted house.

Of course, there should be screams from a haunted house, but not that many and not so genuinely filled with terror.

Chapter 2

The chief was on higher ground and able to see more than I was, so he got the first look of the crowd stampeding down the hill. There was a lot of babbling around me, but I saw the chief’s mouth say a very bad word. He looked at once toward my pumpkin— it was a bit of a landmark in the dark— and then at me.

“Boston!” he shouted. “Come with me! Everyone else, stay calm!” And then he started up the hill.

A blizzard would be envious of how cold the chief can sound when he’s upset. It was obvious that something was very wrong and my first thought was that maybe there was a fire. Dad might have thought that too because he was right beside me. Dad is a member of the auxiliary firefighters and has EMT training.  Dad, Blue and I raced after the chief, pushing our way through the crowd. Dad was saying soothing things to everyone we passed, telling people not to panic and they calmed right down though they kept talking excitedly.

Mr. Jackman joined us about half way up the hill. He is also a volunteer fireman as well as a Lit Wit. That night he was dressed as a clown.

“God’s nightgown,” I breathed as we finally made it to the haunted house.

Dad said something worse and I didn’t blame him.

Officer Bill’s
papiermache
head was no longer on the body hanging from the tree, and I understood why the scarecrow had looked so very authentic when I passed it that afternoon. It wasn’t stuffed with straw; it held a real man. A real dead man.

The chief was on his cell demanding that every officer be called in and for Bryce to get the crime kit and get out to the Burn’s house immediately.

“He didn’t die from strangulation,” my dad said calmly, looking at the pale face. I think he was almost relieved to find a body and not a fire.

“No distortion in the features,” Mr. Jackman agreed. He and Dad looked pretty silly standing there in their costumes staring at a corpse, but then I guess we all did. Except the chief.

“Blue, guard the gate,” I said, signaling her to sit by the ticket-takers abandoned table. No one needed to guard the gate, but it gave her a plausible reason for being there.

I want to state for the record, that I was not happy about there being a dead body at the haunted house. But I couldn’t help but be pleased that the chief had wanted me to come along to help. Most of the other police officers have no use for me and sneer at my wish to become a detective. One with a title. I already am a sleuth, but it would be nice to be official. I quest after the position like Cousin Althea quests after engagement rings and with as little success.

“Boston, do you recognize this man?” the chief asked. I answered though it occurred to me he might be talking to my dad.

“No. Maybe he came for the festival.” I looked at his manicured hands showing under the straw stuffed in his sleeves. There was a bit of blood on the left one. “He has money— not motor court material. Want me to call the Morningside Inn?”

The chief blinked.

“First go see if anyone is in the house. I don’t want anyone else blundering into the crime scene and for sure we don’t need any children seeing this. If you find them, guide them out the back, okay?”

I nodded reluctantly. I didn’t really want to go into the house. It has always scared me. I got away from it as a kid and I have long suspected it wanted a grudge match.

The chief turned to my father and Mr. Jackman. I heard him ask my father to go back down the hill and see if anyone knew who the dead man was and to also collect names of anyone who had been at the haunted house when the body was discovered. Mr. Jackson was sent to the corn maze to make sure it was empty.

Something about the ground under the body made me stop and look around. I swear I wasn’t just eavesdropping.

“Chief,” I said. “Look at Officer Bill.” I meant the head. The shadows were long and the lighting deliberately ghastly, but clearly there was a caramel apple stuck to Bill’s forehead. The apple had a large rotten spot.

“Was it the apple that knocked the head down?” Dad asked. I knew he was talking to me.

“Yes. It was probably a teenager— a boy— who threw the apple. It wouldn’t take much to knock it down. The head never did stay on the way it should. I think we weren’t supposed to find the body for a while.” The chief was giving me more odd looks, but Dad and Mr. Jackman just waited while I thought. “Talk to Randy Meyers.”

“He’s the pitcher for The Prospectors varsity team, right?” Dad asked. “The boy has an arm on him.”

“And he’s disrespectful enough to throw the apple,” Mr. Jackman added. “And pushy enough to be first in line for the haunted house.”

“It probably doesn’t matter,” I said. “But just in case. And the dead guy is left handed.”

I started again for the house but Dad stopped me once more.

“Chloe, there’s no visible head trauma.” Dad asked, “Was it a gunshot?”

“No, stab wound. Probably to the heart. And it didn’t happen right here. There would be at least a little blood. Real blood,” I added, looking at the various gory monsters posed around the hay bales. “Bill was on those bales over there earlier today. We should start looking there.”

Dad said nothing else and neither did the chief, so I continued toward the house, not thrilled about going inside the haunted mansion alone, but grateful I hadn’t been sent into the corn maze. It wouldn’t do for the chief to find out just how big a chicken I really am.

We have a few Federal-style McMansions and one or two questionable Greek Revival abodes in the new section of town. Downtown, everything is period Victorian or else bungalow. That makes the Burns’ mansion unique. Even before the high school drama department had run amok with black and red paint. I thought it looked horrible, but the city had claim to it because of the last owners dying with taxes due and they could do whatever they wanted with it, even make it a bigger eyesore than usual.

Thick ivy covered the west wall. It smelled fusty and I was sure there were spiders in it. The leaves also made an unpleasant whispery noise as the wind tossed through them. The art department couldn’t improve on that so they had left it alone.

I didn’t touch the gargoyle knocker since it was painted foam and just for show. The door was open anyway. I did pause just inside the threshold, both to listen for voices but also to take in the sights. It was not the way I remembered it. I told myself I was being sensibly cautious because there was a murderer on the loose, but I was pretty certain that our man was long gone. Even if he had lingered on site until the house opened, escaping with the panicked and costumed crowd made wonderful sense. But I was also remembering a morbid poem that my nasty Cousin Todd had read to me as a child:
Open lock to the Dead Man's knock! Fly bolt, and bar, and band!—

The lighting was suitably dim but adequate. The exterior was gothic revival but the interior was not. I wondered where they had stored the furniture. The house was full of antiques, though not true gothic furniture— probably too uncomfortable for day to day living. Perhaps everything was upstairs where it was safely away from the students’ red paint and the tourists’ sticky fingers.

The house was suitably ghastly. The foyer’s red-flocked wall paper hung in shreds, obviously clawed off the walls by some giant beast and not drooping due to mundane water damage. Cobwebs dripped off of everything they could possibly hang from except the cracked mirror in the antique frame which I suspected had been made of distorted glass because one of my eyes was bugged out big and one was very small. ‘Blood’ dripped from the chandelier and pooled on the rug in an easily avoided puddle. It was gory, but illogical. How would blood get there? It wasn’t like you could have butchered anything hanging from the chandelier. It was too delicate.

Still, though I knew it was paint and quite dry, I stepped around it. Nor did I touch anything with my hands. It seemed to me that a haunted house would be a fine place to murder someone. There would be zillions of finger prints and who would detect the extra blood? And you could even store the body unnoticed for hours, if you wanted. Just throw a sheet or mask over it and it became another anonymous corpse. Hang it in a tree and no one would get a good look at it. Maybe not for days since the weather was cold.

“Hello,” I called. I kept my voice soft so it would be reassuring to any lost children. And so the monster lurking in the closet wouldn’t hear me. The house was too quiet. There would normally have been costumed drama students around playing monsters, guides and storytellers. There should have been kids gasping and shrieking.

I noticed that the mansion’s gory decorations had been limited to what could be mended with a coat of paint or some new wallpaper. Claw marks would have been great around the door frame, but they had stopped with the wallpaper. Nor did they get paint on the marble floors. Instead there were non-period rugs everywhere. Some were even bathmats.