Town in a Pumpkin Bash (13 page)

But something happened,
Candy thought,
something she wrote down that caused Sapphire to sneak into Pruitt Manor and steal
diary number thirty off the shelf.

“How did it happen?” Candy asked. “How did Sapphire manage to get her hands on that
journal and steal it from…?”

But she stopped in midsentence when she heard music drifting to them from somewhere
else in the house. It was a classical piano piece, and after a few moments, Candy
realized it was being played live—not a recording—with great skill, at least to her
ears. She turned to Mrs. Pruitt, a questioning look on her face.

“‘Raindrop,’ Chopin,” the elderly woman replied by way of explanation.

Candy’s brow fell and she shook her head. “I’m sorry?”

Tristan filled in the blanks. “Hobbins is in a melancholy mood.” After a moment, he
added, “Could be the weather, could be something else.”

Mrs. Pruitt cast her nephew a silencing look before turning back to Candy. “It’s Hobbins.
He’s playing Chopin’s ‘Prelude No. 15’ in D-flat major, also called ‘Raindrop.’ It’s
one of his favorites.”

“He always did have a thing for Chopin,” Tristan put in.

Candy finally grasped what they were saying. “Oh!” She turned toward the doorway and
the music coming from beyond it. The piece had turned darker, falling into lower notes
that drummed menacingly. She was entranced. “I didn’t know he could play the piano
like that.”

“There’re a lot of things you don’t know about Hobbins,” Mrs. Pruitt said cryptically.

“There’re a lot of things we don’t
want
to know about Hobbins,” Tristan added with a touch of sarcasm.

But Candy only half heard their comments, for she was captivated by the sad, haunting
melody echoing through the halls of Pruitt Manor. The notes had begun to literally
beat like musical raindrops—until, abruptly, they stopped in
midpiece, hanging in the air, leaving remnant echoes to fade through the hallways
and empty rooms.

It was Mrs. Pruitt who brought her back to the moment.

“To answer your question,” the elderly woman said into the silence as she crossed
to a chair and seated herself, “it was during one of Ms. Vine’s rare visits out here
to Pruitt Manor, a few weeks before she…well, before her death.” Mrs. Pruitt reached
for her teacup and lifted it daintily. “I didn’t even notice the diary was missing
until more than a week later, when it was brought to my attention by one of the cleaning
staff. Of course, I didn’t immediately make the connection to Ms. Vine—Sapphire, as
you call her. That only came later, after her death, and several weeks after I saw
you at her funeral. I was checking back through my appointment book one day and was
reminded of Ms. Vine’s visit by an entry that caught my eye. That’s when I began to
put the timeline together, and to suspect her of the theft.”

“What was her appointment about?” Candy asked curiously, knowing she was prying.

Mrs. Pruitt answered the question without hesitation. “She told me she was conducting
research about the Pruitt family’s history for a story she was planning to write on
Cape Willington’s founding families. She contacted me and she asked if she could interview
me for the article. I agreed, and it was scheduled in.”

“How long was she here?”

Mrs. Pruitt raised her bony shoulders in a subtle gesture. She shook her head, uncertain.
“Perhaps an hour, maybe a little longer.”

“Was she alone during that time?”

“Yes,” Mrs. Pruitt said. “I later recalled that she was. It was for only a short period
of time—a few minutes at most—when I was called away by Cook to review plans for that
evening’s dinner. We were expecting guests, you see. Only later, much later, did I
begin to realize that Sapphire had been in the house alone for that period of time,
and
could easily have sneaked into the library and stolen the diary. She had a number
of folders and documents with her in a large red purse, and could have simply slipped
the diary inside with her other papers. No one would have ever noticed. I came to
the conclusion that she was the only person who could have taken that book from the
shelf.”

“Are you sure it’s not just lost somewhere in the house,” Candy asked, “or that it
wasn’t taken by one of your family members—perhaps one of your brothers or sisters,
or a grandchild?”

Mrs. Pruitt pointed out the door toward the hallway and the rooms beyond. “I had Hobbins
question everyone who had been in and out of the house during a fairly long period
of time surrounding the disappearance of the diary. He personally conducted a thorough
search of the house with the rest of the staff. If it was hidden somewhere here at
Pruitt Manor, he would have found it. And no family member has it.”

“So there’s only one real suspect,” Candy concluded.

“That’s correct.” Mrs. Pruitt nodded her head firmly.

“But”—Candy crinkled her brow again—“I’m not quite sure how I can help. I mean, you’re
asking me—at least I think you are—to help solve a mystery that’s more than two years
old. It’s a cold case with little or no evidence. Why me? And why now?”

Mrs. Pruitt gave her a look that told her she’d anticipated these questions. “To answer
your second question first, we received a…communiqué recently.”

“About the diaries?”

“About the entire collection,” Tristan said, twirling his finger around the room.

“Does that happen often?”

“It never happens,” Mrs. Pruitt said emphatically, “which is why it made us immediately
suspicious. I’ve asked Tristan to help me get to the bottom of this issue with the
missing diary once and for all.”

“So that’s why you came out to see me at the pumpkin
patch this morning,” Candy finished, “and it’s why you asked about Sapphire’s house?”

“Yes, that’s why I came out to see you, and because of the sensitive subject matter,
why I thought it best to travel incognito,” Tristan confirmed with a slight grin.
“I even drove Cook’s car, since I didn’t want to take my own. And it turned out to
be a rather interesting morning.”

Candy had to agree with that. “But again,” she asked, “why me?”

“Because,” Tristan replied patiently, “if Sapphire Vine
did
steal Abigail’s diary, as Aunt Helen believes—as both of us believe—then we suspect
she might have hidden it somewhere inside her house.”

Candy’s head went up in a nod of realization. “Ahh, I see. You want me to search that
old haunted house of hers and see if I can find this missing diary.”

Tristan cast a glance at his aunt. “See, I told you she was quick.”

The elderly woman simply shook her head at her nephew’s flippant comment and sipped
at her tea, which had started to grow cold. She made a face and set the cup back down
on the saucer. “Of course,” she said, “we’d be willing to pay you for your detective
services—perhaps a per diem, depending on how long your investigation takes, plus
a reward for the safe return of the diary. If that sounds acceptable?”

Candy didn’t have to think long about it. “Of course,” she said. In truth, it sounded
like a fairly easy assignment.

“There is one other thing,” Mrs. Pruitt said, her face tightening as if she’d just
sucked on a lemon.

“And what’s that?” Candy asked.

Mrs. Pruitt cleared her throat. “This is a private affair, of course, so we would
require your complete discretion.”

Candy smiled. “I can be discreet.”

The matriarch of the Pruitt clan settled back into her chair, a satisfied expression
on her thin face. “Good. Then it seems we have an arrangement.”

Tristan walked with her back out to the Jeep, hands thrust deep in his pockets, huddled
against the raw afternoon.

“I do apologize again for all the secrecy this morning,” he told her sincerely, squinting
as a gust of wind whipped past them. “As Aunt Helen indicated, we’re not really sure
what’s in that diary of Abigail’s, or why Sapphire Vine would have had any interest
in it, or why some lawyer representing an anonymous buyer would suddenly contact us
with an offer to buy our entire collection—and offering a lot of money for it, I might
add. So until we know what’s going on, and who’s behind it, we’d like to keep a very
low profile on this.”

“I understand.” Candy held a finger up to her lips, her eyes twinkling just a bit
at all the furtiveness. “I promise I won’t tell a soul.”

Tristan was looking up at the weather, but now angled his gaze toward her, a corner
of his mouth pulling up in a lopsided grin. “I knew we could count on you.”

A few minutes later, back out on the Coastal Loop, Candy called Maggie. “Wait until
you hear what I have to tell you!”

She knew she’d promised to be discreet, but there was no help for it, she’d decided.
After all, Maggie had the key to Sapphire Vine’s old house. Candy had to get inside
to search it, and Maggie was the only way in, so she had to know at least part of
the story—didn’t she?

They coordinated their efforts, and met at Sapphire’s house just after two thirty
P.M
., as a light rain began to grow heavier, and a stiffening breeze blew up the carpet
of fallen leaves, which rattled noisily across the streets, sidewalks, and driveways.

“Good thing we abandoned the pumpkin patch when we did,” Maggie said as she dashed
from her old Subaru, which she’d parked in front of Sapphire Vine’s house, to the
front porch, where Candy waited for her, just as the rain came on. “Whew! Made it
just in time.”

She raised a hand to brush back a few strands of her curly brown hair, which had been
blown over her eyes, and bent to unlock the front door.

Candy noticed that her fingertips were black. “What’s up with that?” she asked, pointing.

“What?” Maggie pushed open the door and twisted around to look behind her.

“That,” Candy said, still pointing. “Your fingers. Trying out a new shade of nail
polish?”

Maggie looked at her fingers as if she’d never seen then before, then held up all
ten digits, splayed out, palms toward Candy. She’d been inked.

“They fingerprinted me,” she said.

“Who?”

“The police.”

“When?”

“Just a little while ago, when I dropped off those e-mails at the police station.”
Maggie lowered her hands and rubbed at her fingertips. “I tried soap and water, but
it doesn’t come
off. I might have to resort to something more powerful, like industrial bleach.” She
leaned in closer to Candy and whispered loudly, “You don’t think they suspect
I
killed Sebastian, do you? Are they going to arrest me?”

Candy shook her head as she entered the house behind Maggie. “It probably just has
something to do with the crime scene. Our fingerprints are all over those pumpkins—though
I don’t know if they can lift prints from a fruit. I’ll have to check that. But my
guess is that they can get fingerprints from just about anything these days. They’ll
probably fingerprint all of us—all who were out there this morning helping to uncover
Sebastian’s body—so they’ll know which prints are ours and which are someone else’s.”

Maggie gulped. “Like the killer’s?” she asked, casting a wary glance back over her
shoulder as Candy shut the door behind them and locked it.

“Like the killer’s,” Candy confirmed. Together they started along the dark central
hallway toward the kitchen at the rear of the house. “They’ll probably also ask us
about our shoes.”

“Our shoes?”

“Lots of footprints around that body,” Candy explained. “They’ll probably try to sort
out whose prints belong to who.”

“They can do that sort of thing?”

“They can do just about anything these days, with all that forensic investigative
stuff they have going on. Don’t you watch TV?”

They’d reached the kitchen, where they dropped some of their things on the table.
“Only the cooking and travel channels,” Maggie admitted.

“So, did you hear anything interesting about the murder case while you were at the
station?”

Maggie shook her head and clicked her tongue. “Not a thing—and I really made an effort,
because I knew you’d ask. I tried grilling Carol, the receptionist, and even turned
on the charm with the nice young police officer who fingerprinted me—but they’re not
saying a thing. They’re all buttoned up tighter than a lobster claw.”

“I bet they are,” Candy said. “Another murder in town. It’s becoming an epidemic.
They have to be going crazy over there.”

Just then her cell phone buzzed. She scooped it out of her back pocket and checked
the readout. It was Wanda Boyle again—the fourth time she’d called, Candy noticed
from the display. And four voice mail messages were waiting for her as well.

Candy slid the phone back into her pocket. She had no intention of talking to Wanda
right now—not ever, if she could help it. Instead, she looked up and around her, and
rubbed her hands together. “Okay, you ready?”

“Sure.”

“So where do you think we should start?”

“Ummm…” Maggie dragged out the word, looking back and forth around the kitchen, a
serious expression on her face, as if she was in deep thought. “What are we looking
for again?”