The Pumpkin Thief: A Chloe Boston Mystery (8 page)

We discussed the benefits of the bronze and black heirloom turkeys. They run about seven dollars a pound and that made me gulp when I did the math. I wanted Mr. Jackman to have fun while cooking, but I decided the less expensive standard white turkey would be fine for us and chose a hen.

Forty dollars poorer, but feeling happier about the approaching holiday, Blue and I returned to the car.

Across from the gravel lot I noticed a soggy hay maze. Though not as scary as corn mazes, and infested with fewer spiders, I nevertheless find hay mazes to be unnerving. Again, this is because of my cousin, Todd. I stared at the wall of hay, frowning. This silly fear of monsters and mazes was proving a hindrance. True, I had lately been confronted with real threats of a human variety, but I knew that I was over-reacting to the maze because of an old fear.

Deciding that now was as good a time as any to face my demons, I closed the car door and started slowly for the maze. Blue was with me— I’m not crazy— but I still felt nervous and foolish.

A good memory is invaluable in detective work, but I sometimes wish that my mind would not recall the things that it does.

The day that Todd and I set out to choose our pumpkins it rained like the dickens in the morning but settled down to a light drizzle by the time we piled into Mom’s old station wagon and pulled out of the leafy driveway.  The brakes squeaked in the old Blue Lizard, Mom’s affectionate name for the rusty pile of bolts she was forced to drive.  Mom had been on Dad’s case for several months about getting those brakes fixed, but he was pulling double shifts at work and there seemed to be no time he could fix them.  In the meantime we got plenty of angry stares from wincing drivers who were unlucky enough to be next to us when we came to a stop. Todd and I didn’t complain but we put our fingers in our ears every time we saw a light turn red.

Todd was telling me stories, this time the Legend of Sleepy Hollow. He kept it tame because Mom was listening. When we were alone, he was a lot more graphic.

I was pretty excited by the trip, not because we were going to just any pumpkin patch, but because we were going to Halloween Town. Halloween Town was the king of all pumpkin patches. It used to be located outside of the town limits so it wasn’t small like a regular town lot. To a six year old, it seemed huge.

Piling out of the back of the station wagon, Todd and I raced each other to the petting zoo. Since we lived in town we didn’t get to see farm animals very often, just the regular cats and dogs. Both Todd and I liked to feed the goats even though it can tickle and every once in a while you got butted. The chickens weren’t as fun to feed because they were kind of stupid and pecked at you, but Todd liked to chase them and tell them he was going to eat them for dinner.

One of the first goats I fed pooped while he ate from my hand. This made me laugh. I lingered longer than Todd wanted at the zoo because I didn’t want to go into the hay maze.

There were hundreds of pumpkins to choose from all lined up in neat rows and I looked at them all while delaying. There were also colorful decorations including spooky looking scarecrows that I didn’t like very much, at least not the big ones that were large enough to be real bodies. I walked around trying to see everything at once until I came upon a dark, rectangular opening set into a wall of hay. This caught my attention instantly and kept hold of it the way a spider on the ceiling does.

“Go ahead, sweetie,” my mother prodded as Todd smiled in a nasty way. “It’s a hay bale maze. Go on inside and see if you can find your way back out.”

I wanted to argue, to tell her that Todd would do something mean to me if I went inside. But I knew Mom wouldn’t believe me. She knew that I could figure out things after they happened, but she didn’t believe that sometimes I knew what people would do even before they did them.

“Come on, Chloe. Don’t be a fraidy cat.” Mom frowned at Todd’s taunt but didn’t say anything. She never seemed to know how to deal with boys and she wanted me to act ‘normal’.

I had never been in a maze, but already didn’t like the look of that thing. Todd daring me didn’t help.  I had gotten lost once in the park and didn’t enjoy it and couldn’t see why I would want to get lost on purpose. But I was determined to experience all that the pumpkin patch had to offer so that I would have a good story to tell the next time I saw Althea, my older and snottier cousin. So, I went inside even though it was dark and smelly and Todd was there and planning to scare me in some way.

I walked slowly through the darkness of the maze.  The labyrinth was a series of tunnels created by stacking hay bales at various angles and then topping the whole thing off with a canvas tarp. Naturally, it smelled heavily of hay which made me sneeze. I like hay, but it also smelled like the dry dirt being kicked up off the floor and the oily tarp that covered the maze, neither very pleasant. But worst of all was the smell of rot where the wet hay was going bad.

Every once in a while a bigger kid would come shooting around a corner screaming as they ran past me and came close to knocking me over. Todd should have been holding my hand but he had disappeared. The worst were the kids who were wearing scary masks. Let me tell you, I was plenty scared the whole time, but I kept on moving forward. No way was anyone ever going to call me a fraidy cat.

Whoever had constructed the maze had poked holes between the bales of hay so that some light would be let in, but it was still darker than I would have liked. As I walked past each of these holes, I was careful to make sure that no one— like Todd
—
was there on the outside to try and grab me as I shuffled by.

Eventually I made it to the center of the maze. I could tell that I had made it to the halfway point because I entered a large rectangular room that had another of those big scarecrows. Walking toward the middle of the room I tried to get my bearings and locate the way out. That’s when it struck.

Apparently the trap was rigged ahead of time and left there so that parents on the outside could get in on the fun of terrifying the kids inside. The trap was simple, a huge rubber spider on a string leading into the room through a hole in the ceiling. All that was required to operate it was to pull the string, watch through a hole in the side of the room for some pour shmuck to stand under the spider, and then to let the string go. This time I got to be the poor shmuck.

As soon as the rubbery legs of the spider touched my neck I let out a scream. I think the scream had been in there all along waiting for an excuse to come out. It was loud, but not as loud as Todd laughing. The next thing I did was bolt out the passage I had used to enter the maze.  I ran fast and I didn’t stop until I was brought up short by the next terror the maze had to offer.

Not watching where I was going as I ran, I naturally missed the hand that was reaching blindly through one of the holes in the wall waiting for an innocent victim to come within its grasp. Lucky me, I got to be that innocent victim. The moment that arm grabbed me I nearly fainted.  But I didn’t faint. Instead, I latched onto the arm with my teeth and bit down as hard as I could. The hand released me immediately at the same time that I heard Todd howl in pain outside the maze. I knew it was Todd and that I should let go, but he no longer seemed like my bratty cousin I was supposed to be nice to. He had turned into a devil and I bit longer and harder than I should have.

On the run again, this time I didn’t stop until I was outside and in my mother’s arms.

“Sweetie, what happened to you?” my mother asked using her overly-concerned voice that meant she was as frightened as I was. Dabbing at my mouth she wiped away several spots of blood. Horrified, she asked: “Did something hit you while you were in there?”

I was too scared to answer. Instead, I buried my face back in my mother’s arms. After some time I allowed her to examine me further. That’s when we discovered that in my shear terror I had peed my pants. Fortunately, I was still too scared to be embarrassed or ashamed. The embarrassment and shame came later.

I noticed that Todd didn’t take his coat off even in the car. He didn’t want my mom to see his arm. After all, it hadn’t been my blood that Mom wiped off my face.

I stopped just outside the entrance to the maze. It smelled the same. It looked almost the same though I was a little taller now. It seemed unfair that I was still short enough to enter without stooping.

My breath was audible and leaving puffs of white in the air. Blue whined, asking why I would go in that place when I didn’t like it. That was a good question. I had to be brave in the line of duty— and I had been the night we found Hector Sayer’s body. But there was no reason to go into a dripping hay maze at a turkey farm when I was all alone.

“Come on, Blue,” I said, turning away. “It’s time for something hot to drink.”

Chapter 9

I was a little heavy eyed when I arrived at the station the next morning and I wasn’t looking forward to lunch with Mom. I’m on the sunny side of thirty but Mom is beginning to worry about me reaching some unstated sell-by date and failing to give her grandchildren. Which, to be honest, I am not sure that I want anyway. Mom does not understand this. Heredity plays games sometimes and I am nothing like my parents who are pretty normal, I think. Instead I’m a short bit of doggerel wedged between lengthy sonnets. Or maybe I mean proverbs. Anyhow, the other difference between us is my uncertainty about how good a parent I would be.

At least the rain had stopped and we were having one of the crisp days when the sky is so bright that it hurts to look at it and the comforting smell of wood fires floats on the air.

Jeffrey was waiting for me with a cup of coffee and questions about the investigation and I told him about my trip to Roosevelt. I considered going by the chief’s office to tell him about my adventures too, but I was pretty sure he wouldn’t be happy about my unauthorized trip up the hill. He knew that David was trying to find the Burns heir and he had a name— and presumably some records if the kid was in trouble with the law as often as the locals claimed. I decided that keeping a low profile would be best.

But just as I was leaving the building I heard the chief calling for me. For one moment I thought about pretending to be deaf, but then decided that this was probably one case where retreat would not be the better part of valor.

“Come in for a second,” the chief said. “Close the door.”

Lardhead Gordon and Bryce were both staring at me, one with jealousy and one with speculation.

“What’s up, Chief?” I remained standing but Blue sat. She recalled that the chief had shouted that particular instruction last time we were in his office. He had been yelling at me, but Blue had a good memory and was taking no chances.

“Boston,” the chief said casually. “Do you know who’s going to win the game on Sunday?”

“The game?” My mind was momentarily blank. “You mean the football game?”

“Yes.” His eyes were bright.

I exhaled slowly.

“Chief, I’m not really psychic. I deduce things based on evidence and statistics, and I can’t see the future.” My voice was even.

“Yes, of course. But will Seattle win?”

Was this a test of some kind? If it was, I didn’t appreciate it.

“Who are they playing?” I finally asked.

“The Rams.”

“Where?”

“Seattle.”

I gave it a slow five count so he would get the impression that I was actually thinking.

“Seattle will win.” What the hell. If they won he would be impressed. If they lost then he would get over this stupid psychic kick and leave me alone.  I decided to leave before he asked me about the point spread. “Is that all, Chief?”

“Sure. Thanks, Boston.”

Blue and I left the office.

The Halloween tourists were gone, but we would start getting the Thanksgiving crowd soon. The Morningside Inn offered some very attractive holiday packages and we have some fun musical reviews at the Opera Hall (a grandiose name for what used to be a dancehall where ladies of ill-repute showed off their charms to drunken miners). We had an interfaith gospel night— I had sung in that last year with my friends Marcie and Andrew— a classic folk music night, an evening of light symphony where the school bands played with the informal adult orchestra, and this year the grammar school was doing a play, written and directed by a high school senior, about the first Thanksgiving in Hope Falls. I was pretty sure that it would be ghastly and had already marked my calendar so I would know what night to make excuses for.

Thanks to the murder, there were still a couple news vans about, but there wasn’t much to see and there wouldn’t be any new developments (that the chief would share) until after the coroner released his report. I figured they would be gone by the end of the day and decided that in the interest of good will I would not give the one van a ticket, though his bumper was overhanging the crosswalk by a couple of inches.

I have to change my chalk rather often when the weather is wet and this entails stopping and digging out replacement chalk from the too narrow console and then to fit the clip on my stick. I didn’t mind though because I was feeling sleepy and this gave me a chance to stretch.

Blue and I were both yawning and considering a nap under the horse chestnuts on Bryant when I heard a gate creek. Looking down the street, I saw a figure in a dark cape coming out of Mrs. Adam’s yard. Now, I don’t know where absolutely everyone lives, but Mrs. Adams was my former fifth grade teacher and very hard of hearing, so I kind of watch out for her when I’m out that way. That’s why I knew that the cloaked person didn’t belong in her yard. Mrs. Adams eats lunch at the senior center on Monday and goes early for the bingo. No one was home.

I saw a flash of bright orange in the figure’s right fist and dropped my marking stick. I started the cart and began following the person in the shiny black cape. My electric vehicle is nearly silent, but the street was full of crunchy leaves that gave us away. The figure looked back. At first I was startled by the blank face and then realized that he was wearing a tan ski-mask.