Town in a Pumpkin Bash (21 page)

If so, why? And who?

Over dessert—creamy pumpkin sherbet spiced with cinnamon and accompanied by a thin
wedge of dark chocolate, along with hot tea for Candy and a bourbon on the rocks for
Tristan (he’d decided to eschew the cigar for now, despite mischievous prompting from
Candy)—they’d come up with several scenarios, none of which shined a positive light
on Pruitt Manor, or whomever had been in occupancy at the time.

It had been Tristan’s idea to search the library, and specifically the volumes of
Pruitt history, for clues. “At least we can find out who might have been living in
the house at that time, and who was on staff. Neither Aunt Helen nor Hobbins would
probably remember details from that long ago anyway, so the histories are the best
place to start.”

But then the realization had struck Candy—the missing
volume of Pruitt history that had been noted by the library, prompting the removal
of the collection and its return to Pruitt Manor.
What had the dates been?
she’d wondered. She wished she’d brought the photocopy of the index card with her.

But one way or another, she thought, she was about to get some answers.

Tristan braked to a stop, shut off the engine, and told Candy, “Wait a minute.” Then
he dashed smartly around the front of the car to open her door for her. As Candy climbed
out, she looked up. The place rose above them in the moonlit night, its angled rooftops
and elaborate nautical weather vane silhouetted against the rising moon. Several exterior
lights illuminated their way, but the large oak door sat in a shadowed recess, and
Tristan had to search for the right key. “Someone should put a light out here,” he
muttered.

Candy pointed up. “Maybe they did. Maybe it just burned out.”

He looked up, a flash of annoyance crossing his face. “I’ll have to talk to the maintenance
people about that,” he said, and finally found the right key. He inserted it in the
lock, twisted it, and swung the door open for her. “After you.”

It was like walking into a museum after hours. Low lights were lit through the foyer,
but the side rooms were dark. And the grand staircase leading to the second floor
was in shadows.

Candy instinctively inched closer to Tristan. “Are you sure we should be in here?”
she asked, barely above a whisper.

“It’s my family’s home,” he said, his casual attitude returning.

“Are you sure
I
should be here?”

He laughed gently. “You’re my guest. Come on, the library’s over here.”

Inside the dark, book-lined room, he walked to a side table and flicked on a lamp.
“I could start a fire if you’d like.”

Candy crossed her arms and rubbed her shoulders against the chill. Like most old houses
in New England, Pruitt Manor had a few drafts. “That would be lovely.”

“Would you like some tea? I can warm some up for us.”

“I don’t want to put anybody to trouble,” she said.

“Right.” Tristan held up a finger. “Tea first. Then the fire. Then the histories.
I’ll be right back.”

And off he went into the house.

Candy was all alone at Pruitt Manor.

She stood in the center of the room, her gaze rising to the shadowy ceiling, then
to the shelves of books surrounding her. Slowly she twirled, until she’d made a complete
circle, her eyes raking the volumes upon volumes of books.

Where to start?

She raised her shoulders and gave her head a shake. The best place to start was always
straight forward. So she stepped up to the wall of shelves directly in front of her.

But she paused, and as if drawn by a string, her head swiveled to the right. Over
there, in another section of the library, Abigail Pruitt’s diaries were arranged chronologically
on two shelves.

Candy had studied them the day before but had been so focused on those specific journals
that she hadn’t noticed what other books were shelved around them.

Maybe all the Pruitt materials are shelved together,
she thought.

Changing her mind, she turned and walked to the shelves along the right wall, stopped
a few feet in front of the dusty leather bindings, and began to scan the titles of
the volumes stacked around Abigail’s diaries.

It took her only a few moments to realize there was a common theme to all the books
shelved in this section of the library. She saw an extensive collection of biographies,
including multivolume sets devoted to the founding fathers, captains of industry,
political figures, and the great names of the ages.

She moved sideways a few paces. A bay or two to the right were volumes of poetry,
language, and literature, and several shelves near the corner and around to the next
wall were devoted to popular fiction.

Candy stepped back toward the center of the room and scanned it again. Like any typical
library, it was organized by subject matter, she realized. She just had to find the
section devoted to history.

She walked back toward the shelves where she’d left off and began circling the room,
pausing every few steps to identify each section.

Beyond the fiction section, toward the door through which they’d entered, were several
bays devoted to scientific volumes on botany, anatomy, astronomy, geology, and archaeology,
as well as books on engineering, math, transportation, and economics.

She pursed her lips thoughtfully and moved on, past the door. Volumes on business
and management lined the shelves here, followed by travel books, arranged by continent,
with Africa, Asia, and Australia first, then Europe and the Americas, which stretched
to the corner. She stepped around, spotting several shelves devoted to the great philosophic
works and volumes on mythology, folklore, and the world’s religions. And beyond that,
numerous works on the arts, music, photography, and architecture. They filled the
wall into the back corner. She noticed the bottom shelves were lined with oversized
books chronicling the works of the world’s grand masters.

Finally, around the corner again, was a wall filled with volumes of history. Here
she stopped and focused her gaze on the titles.

Again, she noticed a simple pattern, essentially chronological, from the Egyptian,
Greek, and Roman eras to a surprisingly large section on ancient Chinese history,
with a respectable collection on Charlemagne and the Dark Ages, as well as the medieval
centuries. Those were followed by
volumes on the Renaissance, Reformation, industrial era, and modern era, and then
localized volumes on New England and Maine history—and finally, a series of shelves
devoted to the Pruitt histories.

She stood looking at them for several moments, then dropped into a crouch. The family
histories all had similar tan-colored covers, and started about midway down the bay
of shelves. She dropped a little lower, checking to see if one of the later volumes
was missing.

Maybe, she thought, after the library returned the collection to Pruitt Manor, the
missing volume—number twenty-three, if she remembered correctly—had been found. If
so, that at least would clear up one mystery. But she noticed right away that one
of the volumes was unaccounted for, as an index card had been inserted between two
volumes on the lowest shelf. She moved in for a closer look.

“What on earth are you doing down there?” a voice croaked somewhere behind her.

Surprised, Candy jumped to her feet and spun around, her heart thumping in her chest.

And spotted a shadowy specter in a floor-length black cape, lurking in a seam of darkness
just beyond the open door.

Caught off guard, Candy didn’t know what to say. She tried to speak, but her tongue
seemed stuck to the roof of her mouth with fright. She backed up a step and finally
managed to stammer, “What? I’m sorry….I…I…” She stopped, searching her brain for more
words, but none came out.

Tristan walked in at that moment, rescuing her. He carried a silver tray with a pot
of steeping tea and several porcelain cups. “Ah, Aunt Helen, there you are,” he said
casually to the specter confronting Candy. “What are you doing lurking by the door
like that? You’re scaring poor Candy. She probably thinks you’re some cadaver risen
from the dead. Come over here and have a seat, and I’ll pour you a cup of tea. Candy
has some questions for us.”

The specter moved forward, through the door into better light, and Candy saw now that
it was indeed Mrs. Pruitt. She wore a floor-length dark purple robe, and her hair
was wrapped in a green and gold scarf. “I thought I heard voices,” she said, her voice
low and coarse, as if she’d just
been awakened from sleep. “What are you two doing in here, causing a disturbance at
this hour of the night?”

Ignoring the sharpness in his aunt’s tone, Tristan set the tea service on a small
mahogany side table, lifted the pot, and expertly poured three cups. “Candy’s turned
up some interesting information,” he said in response. “We came back to the house
to research the histories.”

“The histories?” Mrs. Pruitt stopped halfway across the room and turned her sharp
gaze on Candy. “Why would you have any interest in those dusty old books?”

Tristan flopped down into a wingback chair, his long legs sprawled out in front of
him. “It seems we have not one but two missing volumes. And Candy thinks she’s made
a connection to at least one of them.”

Mrs. Pruitt’s mouth tightened, and her gaze narrowed on Candy. “Explain.”

“Well,” Candy said, thinking quickly and feeling the pressure, “I’m still putting
the pieces together, but it all seems to lead back to the body of an unidentified
female, who was found in the pumpkin patch twenty years ago. She allegedly died of
exposure, and after the investigation into her death, her body seems to have mysteriously
disappeared. But I think she might be the same woman as this person named Emma, who
has some connection to Sebastian J. Quinn” She explained about the folder she’d spotted
on the front seat of Sebastian’s car, all the while gauging Mrs. Pruitt’s reaction
to this news. She knew she was fishing, but she also suspected there was some link
between the Bentley and the dead woman’s body. “Does that name ring a bell? Someone
named Emma?”

The matriarch had listened attentively, and now shook her head almost imperceptibly
as she crossed the rest of the way to a chair near Tristan. “No.”

Candy continued, undeterred. “It’s a little confusing, I know. Like I said, I’m still
trying to fit it all together. But Sapphire Vine was looking for her tombstone—for
Emma’s
tombstone,” she clarified. “It all seems just a little too coincidental, doesn’t it?”

Mrs. Pruitt frowned and she leaned forward, plucking a cup of tea from the silver
tray with bony fingers. “Sapphire Vine was involved in this?” She sounded dismayed,
but there was an undertone of interest in her words.

Candy nodded. “I found a black-and-white photo of Emma’s tombstone in a folder Sapphire
left behind. She must have been searching for it for some reason, but I don’t know
why, and I don’t know if she ever found it. And she was also interested in the missing
volume of Pruitt history, which struck me as odd.”

Mrs. Pruitt shook her head. “That nasty woman was involved in all sorts of wicked
schemes. Who knows what she was after.” Her scrutinizing gaze turned to Candy again.
“You say she was looking for a missing volume?”

Nodding, Candy turned back to the section of the shelves that held the histories and
dropped to one knee. “She was looking for this right here.” She pointed to the index
card, which she delicately pulled out from between the books. There was a brief note
written on it, which she read at a glance, and then held up for Mrs. Pruitt to see.
“Volume twenty-three of the Pruitt family history. It’s still missing, according to
this card.” She pointed to the old books lined up on the shelf. “I just checked myself.
It still hasn’t been returned.”

“I’d forgotten about that,” Mrs. Pruitt admitted. “But now that you mention it, I
seem to recall that that book has been missing for decades. We thought it was lost
forever. Sapphire Vine took that as well?”

Candy shook her head. “This volume went missing from the Pruitt Public Library sometime
before August 1972, according to a notation made by a librarian at the time. That
was more than twenty-five years before Sapphire showed up in town. So she couldn’t
have taken it, since she wasn’t in the area back then. But for
some
reason she was interested in it, and she must have been looking for it.”

“But why?” Mrs. Pruitt asked. “What interest could she have had in an old history
book?”

“That’s exactly what I said,” Tristan pointed out.

“And it’s what we’re trying to figure out,” Candy added. “It’s why we came back here
tonight.”

She paused. There was more she wanted to say but she wasn’t quite sure how to broach
the subject. So Tristan did it for her.

“There’s something else, Aunt Helen. Candy’s heard through a source that a Bentley
was seen driving near the pumpkin patch twenty years ago, right around the time the
body of that unidentified woman was found.”