Town in a Pumpkin Bash (8 page)

Just to make sure she hadn’t missed anything, she walked back around the car again,
but nothing jumped out at her, and she knew there wasn’t much else she could do at
the moment, other than alert the police to the car’s location.

She heard the sound of a distant siren then, signaling that the ambulance and police
were on their way. Unfortunately, they’d arrive far too late to save Sebastian’s life.

Before she walked away from the car, she took a final look inside. There was nothing
in the backseat except a folded jacket, an umbrella, and a few old magazines. And
nothing in the driver’s seat.

But in the passenger’s seat she spotted what looked like a manila folder. She edged
in closer to the window for a better look.

The folder appeared to have a few documents inside, though she couldn’t tell what
they were, since she could see only their edges poking out of the folder. However,
she could just make out a single word someone had written on the folder’s tab with
a heavy black marker.

It read, in all capital letters,
EMMA
.

“Well, Ms. Holliday, here we are again,” said Daryl Durr, Cape Willington’s chief
of police, in a particularly calm, controlled, almost disinterested manner that told
Candy he was anything but.

She nodded, arms folded across her chest. She didn’t quite trust herself to talk just
yet. She’d noticed on the walk back across the field that her hands were shaking,
which was why she now stood with her arms crossed, her hands tucked away at her sides.
The full force of what had happened—that there had been another murder in Cape Willington—had
shaken her. Once again, the victim had been someone she had known. And once again,
she somehow found herself smack dab in the middle of a murder mystery.

She stood perhaps a dozen paces from where Sebastian J. Quinn’s body still lay in
the pumpkin patch. A couple of police officers were cordoning off the area around
the crime scene with stakes they’d found and yellow police tape, while
another stood nearby in a conversation with two EMTs. And a dark-haired female officer
was talking to T.J. and the man in the bee costume. Off to the right, the flaring
lights of three patrol cars and an ambulance, parked along the same dirt farm road
the tractor and hay wagon had followed into High Field, cut across the darkening day.

The whole scene had taken on a surreal aspect, causing Candy’s thoughts to scatter,
despite her efforts to focus them.

Chief Durr must have recognized her discomfort, for his expression softened just a
bit. “I know this is difficult for you, Ms. Holliday,” he told her, his eyes allowing
a trace of sympathy, “but you and I have been through this drill before, haven’t we?”
His forced smile looked almost genuine.

Candy returned it as best she could. “Yes, Chief, we have.”

The chief had arrived at the pumpkin patch ten minutes earlier, wearing aviator sunglasses
and a chocolate brown bomber jacket over his standard police-issue uniform. He’d first
walked around the crime scene, studying it from all angles with a practiced eye and
talking briefly with a deputy, several of the officers, and a few hayride passengers
before spotting Candy and heading over to her. He’d greeted her with a tip of the
hat, his expression grim.

“So, you want to tell me what happened?”

She nodded, took a deep breath as she collected her thoughts, and then told the whole
story, from the beginning, as carefully and factually as possible. Her voice was hesitant
and strained at first but grew steadier and more assured as she talked. She told him
that Sebastian had contacted Maggie a few weeks earlier about renting Sapphire Vine’s
old place, and how he’d failed to show for a scheduled meeting that morning, and how
they’d loaded up the hay wagon, making their regular rounds of the two fields, and
found and uncovered the body. She mentioned the flashlight she’d spotted in Sebastian’s
grip, and her guess about the time of his death the night before, and the car she’d
found parked along a dirt road beyond the edge of High Field.

She left out the part about the folder labeled
Emma
. She was sure he’d find that himself when he searched the car. Whether or not it
had anything to do with Sebastian’s death, she couldn’t say—though deep down she felt
it could be important.

The chief listened to her carefully before grunting and turning back toward the activity
surrounding the body, his eyes peering out from beneath his hat’s bill. “And do you
think it’s a coincidence,” he said after a few moments, “that the body was discovered
here, in a field you happened to be working in?”

Candy let out a long breath at the question and shook her head. “To be honest, Chief,
I just don’t know. I agree it looks suspicious….”

“It looks a lot more than suspicious, Ms. Holliday.” His tone wasn’t accusatory, just
matter-of-fact.

She felt a chill. “You think there’s a reason he was murdered here…and that it has
something to do with
me?
”

The chief shrugged as he looked back toward her, his gaze sharpening. “We already
know there was a connection between the deceased and Ms. Tremont, and between him
and you as well. You’d met the deceased before, right? You had a relationship with
him?”

Candy couldn’t help grousing at that. “I wouldn’t call it a relationship.”

“But you knew each other?”

“Yes, we knew each other. But I haven’t seen him in over two years.”

“And you knew he was coming here this morning?”

“To meet with Maggie, yes, to get the keys to Sapphire’s house.” She involuntarily
tightened her arms across her chest, a protective gesture.

“Did he tell you or Ms. Tremont why he was interested in renting the place?”

Candy shook her head. “He was…well, kind of secretive about the whole thing. But he
might have mentioned
something about it to Maggie. Maybe you should talk to her.”

“I intend to do just that,” the chief said as he rubbed his chin, pondering what she’d
told him. “But we have to assume it’s more than coincidental that the deceased was
murdered here in your field, don’t we? There’s a definite connection between you,
Ms. Tremont, and Mr. Quinn. How exactly that connection resulted in Quinn’s death
remains to be seen. So here’s what I need you to do, Ms. Holliday…Candy.”

He pointed toward the dark-haired female officer who was just finishing up her conversation
with T.J. and the man in the bee costume. The woman was short and curvy yet solid,
with big shoulders and a round face. “Have you met Officer Prospect?” the chief asked.

“No, I don’t think so.”

The chief waved the officer over, introducing her while she was still several steps
away. “This is Officer Molly Prospect. Molly, this is Candy Holliday. I’d like you
to take her statement.”

Officer Prospect gave her a professional yet friendly nod. She seemed like the type
of person who had a hard time keeping a smile off her face, and there was a twinkle
in her dark eyes that told everyone she met that she loved her job. “Hello, Ms. Holliday,”
she said pleasantly.

“Hello,” Candy said softly, with a nod.

“I want you to tell Officer Prospect everything you just told me,” the chief instructed,
looking Candy carefully in the eyes. “She’ll take notes and create an initial report.
I’d like you to come down to the station Monday morning to review it and make sure
everything’s accurate, and we’ll get your signature on it. Can you do that?”

“Of course.”

The chief patted her on the shoulder. “That’s the spirit. Now if you think of anything
else we should know about, I want you to immediately call Officer Prospect here. She’ll
give you her business card so you can get in touch with her.
And if you can’t reach her, I want you to call the station and ask for me personally.”
He forced a grim smile. “And try not to worry too much, Ms. Holliday,” he told her.
“We’ll figure out what’s going on around here.”

With that, he turned and made his way back toward the crime scene, while Officer Prospect
began asking Candy a series of directed questions, making careful notes of the answers.
Her manner was efficient and professional as she guided Candy through the series of
events that had occurred that morning. Candy noticed that her black hair, which she’d
tucked up under her hat, was straight and shiny, and Candy imagined that when she
let it out, it must fall to her shoulders, and perhaps even farther. If Candy were
to venture a guess, it would be that Office Prospect had Native American blood in
her—possibly from the local Penobscot tribe.

They were going back through the sequence of events a second time when T.J. approached
them. “How are you doing?” he asked Candy during a break in the questioning.

She gave him a halfhearted shrug. “I’m hanging in there.”

“Well, listen, I’m headed back to the parking lot, but if you’d like, we can walk
together. I think the police have the situation pretty much under control here. In
fact, I think they’d prefer that we get out of their hair.”

He looked over at Officer Prospect. “You have everything you need from her at the
moment, right?”

The dark-haired officer jotted down a few more quick notes before she folded shut
her notepad and reached into a shirt pocket for a business card, which she handed
to Candy. She gave T.J. an agreeable nod. “I think so, Mr. Pruitt. We’re all done.”

Candy took the card, glanced at it, and slid it into her back pocket. It took her
a few moments to register what she’d just heard. Her eyes widened. “Wait a minute.
Did you just call him
Pruitt
?”

Her gaze shot to T.J., the surprise evident in her expression. “You’re a Pruitt?”

She noticed it then—the eyes, the nose, the shape of his face. It struck her like
a cold shower, sending brisk pinpricks of recognition through her as she realized
who he really was. “You’re Tristan Pruitt, aren’t you? You’re one of Helen’s sons?”

Helen Ross Pruitt was the richest woman in town, from one of the richest families
in New England. She regularly summered at Pruitt Manor, on the rocky point out by
Kimball Light, an old lighthouse that dated back to the early years of the previous
century. Candy had met Mrs. Pruitt—as the family matriarch was known around town—several
times, though she’d never met any of Helen’s siblings or children. But she’d seen
a few photos of them, and now noticed the family resemblance.

In response, T.J. held out his hand. “Actually, I’m her nephew,” he said smoothly,
“and the full name is Tristan James Hawthorne Pruitt. It’s a pleasure to finally—and
formally—meet you, Candy Holliday.”

“So you’re Helen’s nephew?”

Tristan Pruitt nodded as the wind caught his fair hair, flicking a few strands across
his forehead. “The family history’s a little muddled, but, yes, I’m the son of her
younger brother, Judson. He’s the middle child. Aunt Helen has four siblings in all.
She’s the oldest, and she has two sisters and two brothers, including my father.”

“And you decided to keep that fairly significant piece of information to yourself?
Why the secretive use of initials?”

The two of them were walking along the dirt road that led back to Low Field and the
parking lot. They’d left behind the hushed, solemn atmosphere that centered on Sebastian
J. Quinn’s body. The corpse had been covered with a sheet, and several of the officers
were fanning out across the field, searching for evidence while they awaited the arrival
of the crime scene van from Augusta.

Candy had to admit she was glad that T.J.—or, rather, the man now known to her as
Tristan Pruitt—had pulled h
er out of there. The suddenness of all that had happened in the past hour had left
her feeling emotionally on edge. But now that they were headed away from the scene
of the crime, she found herself breathing a little easier, and the tightness in her
chest and tingling in her arms and fingers were beginning to abate.

As they walked, she found herself stealing glances at Tristan Pruitt. Despite the
subterfuge of disguising his name, she found herself intrigued by him. She decided
she liked the way he held himself, the square of his shoulders and the leanness of
his body. Her eyes were drawn to the line of his jaw and the shape of his hands. She
liked the way he’d reacted when they’d first spotted Sebastian’s leg protruding from
beneath the pile of pumpkins. While she’d stood there frozen in indecision and dread,
he’d leapt out of the wagon with urgency and decisiveness. He’d worked harder than
anyone to remove the pumpkins that covered the body, and his hands and clothes now
displayed the results of his efforts, spotted with dirt and grime, though he barely
seemed to notice—or care. She imagined he wasn’t the type of person who pursued fashions
or fads or the latest hot spots, and probably would be equally comfortable throwing
back a couple of beers with the local lobstermen or climbing out of a limo in a tux
for a night at the opera. There was an earthiness and yet an elegance about him, an
unmistakable confidence that appealed to something deep inside her.