by Kate Bell
Chapter Fifteen
Jane went on about the shortcomings of her ex-husband for another fifteen minutes before stumbling off. Ethan and I followed her at a distance until she met up with her friend to make sure that she didn’t get into a car and drive away. When we saw that she took the arm of her friend, leaning on her for support, and they headed for the goat-tying arena, Ethan and I made our way toward the carnival.
“I think I see some plush black cats over there at the ring toss booth,” I said pointing toward the midway where the game booths were.
“Well, we’ll have to stop by there before we leave. I’m sure Boo would appreciate a brother,” he said.
“I think he would. And a stuffed animal is low maintenance.”
“How does a ride on the ferris wheel first sound?” Ethan asked me.
I looked up at the top of that ferris wheel. I’ve never been a fan of heights and had only ridden a ferris wheel once in my life. I could do without the rocking of the car as it went around and my stomach really wasn’t in it, but I would have Ethan by my side and I could hold on to him for security.
“I guess we can give it a try,” I said cautiously.
He grinned at me. “You don’t sound terribly confident about that. You know they’re all safety tested don’t you?”
I nodded. “Being safety tested doesn’t mean something might not happen. I’m not crazy about heights, but let’s give it a go if you want.”
We headed over to the ticket booth and Ethan bought a strip of tickets for us. As we turned from the ticket booth we came face-to-face with Devon Graves. He smiled happily when he saw us.
“Well Mia, fancy meeting you here. And Ethan, nice to see you.” Devon wore a white polo shirt with thin blue stripes across it, khaki pants, and brown leather deck shoes. He was the embodiment of a dentist on his day off.
“Well, hello Dr. Graves,” Ethan said and put his hand out to shake.
Dr. Graves shook his hand energetically. “It’s a beautiful day isn’t it?” He glanced up at the sky and then back. “The temperatures have warmed up just a bit, and the breeze isn’t too bad.”
Ethan nodded. “It sure is. I think those clouds up above are going to just stay nice and white and fluffy today. No rain.”
I wondered if Jane was going to stay put at the goat-tying event and I glanced quickly over my shoulder, but couldn’t find her.
“Are you here by yourself Dr. Graves?” I asked him.
“The kids are wandering around here someplace,” he laughed. “They’re teenagers now, and you know how they are. They don’t want to be seen with dear old dad unless, of course, they need a couple dollars for a corn dog.”
“Once you get into your teens, you tend to not want to be seen out in public with your parents,” Ethan agreed.
We stepped out of the way of the ticket booth when a young couple stepped up to buy tickets.
“So Ethan, how’s the detective work on Pumpkin Hollow’s latest murder coming along?” he asked, squinting in the sunlight.
“Oh, you know how it goes. These things take time.” Ethan folded over the strip of tickets in his hand, not looking at Dr. Graves.
He nodded and glanced at me, then looked back at Ethan. “I hate to hear about the things going on around here lately. Do you have any suspects in mind?”
Ethan looked up at him. “We’ve got a few that we’re looking at. We’ve questioned people, but it’s early in the investigation yet. We’ll talk to more people.”
He nodded, his mouth forming a straight line. “Just between the three of us, I think you really should talk to my ex-wife about the murder.”
“Should I?” Ethan asked, studying him.
I wondered what Ethan was thinking. Jane Graves was hanging around and had had far too much to drink. I hoped she and her ex-husband didn’t run into each other. But both of them were pointing an accusing finger at one another and I couldn’t tell if they were just bitter about their divorce or if there was something more to it.
Dr. Gray stuck his hands in his front pockets. “That woman will stop at nothing to get what she wants. Do you want to know how I know? I lived with her for a couple of decades. But I really saw her true character when we went through the divorce. You don’t know a person until you go through something like that. It brings out the worst in people.”
“I can see where that might happen,” Ethan said noncommittally.
“I don’t mean to sound bitter, and I’m not. Really, I’m not. But when you live with someone for years and they’ve always been sweet and kind, it can be quite a shock when their personality completely changes. If you want to know the truth, Jane had taken up drinking. She met a couple of new girlfriends, and they would run around to the bars together. You’d think at her age that she was too old to be influenced by her peers, but I guess some people just never grow out of the teenager stage.” He laughed, but it came out sounding hollow and bitter.
Ethan looked at him. “I guess some people do have trouble growing out of some things. But other than the two of you having an unpleasant divorce, what makes you think that she may have killed Eldon Howell?”
Dr. Graves considered the jab Ethan had just taken at his expense. “Her nasty temper. Oh I had seen hints of it earlier in our marriage, but once she started drinking it was like she became another person. And I happen to know that she wanted money from Eldon and he was unwilling to give it. You hear things even though you’re no longer married to a person, if you know what I mean.”
“Yes, but I can’t go on rumors alone. I need something more solid than that.” Ethan tilted his head slightly as he looked at him.
He shrugged. “Well someone that commits murder isn’t going to just leave evidence lying around. I mean, that doesn’t make any sense. And Jane is a smart woman. That’s one of the things that attracted me when I first met her. She was class valedictorian in high school. There’s no way she would leave evidence lying around.”
I wondered if this was why Ethan had found so little evidence in the alley. I thought the killer would have left something more incriminating behind. Had Eldon owned one of those expensive watches? The watch may have been his and maybe the killer grabbed it when they struggled. The other explanation was that the killer had really thought this thing through. They would have had to know where Eldon was going to be Halloween night. Maybe Eldon had been a creature of habit and maybe his girlfriend knew this. But if that was the case, why had he been in the alley at all?
“No, I’m sure no murderer intends to leave any evidence behind,” Ethan said mildly. “But you really haven’t convinced me that Jane had a reason to murder Eldon.”
I glanced at Ethan. His tone of voice sounded a little defensive, and I wondered if he thought Dr. Graves was talking down to him.
Dr. Graves smiled at him. “I’m sorry Ethan, I didn’t mean for that to sound condescending. You just don’t know Jane like I do. She’s greedy and vindictive. Trust me on that vindictive part. She loves money. The only reason she went out with Eldon was because he was a lawyer and he had plenty of money.”
Ethan relaxed and nodded. “I suppose divorce drives a person to do things they don’t normally do. Maybe she felt she had to get what she could from the divorce settlement. She hadn’t really worked any full-time jobs, had she?”
“No, she only worked an occasional part-time job. She worked for about a year at Mia’s mother’s candy shop years ago, and then there was the coffee shop, and the florist shop. But none of those lasted more than a year and she really had no drive or ambition to have her own career. So I guess I can see where she felt a little insecure financially, but it’s not like I was going to leave her high and dry. I take care of my own. She would have been well looked after.”
“I can appreciate that,” Ethan said looking up at the sky for a moment. “Well Dr. Graves, I’d like to talk to you a little more about this. Why don’t you stop in at the station tomorrow morning? I appreciate the information, but I promised Mia a
day at the carnival.”
This seemed to make Dr. Graves happy, and he gave Ethan a genuine smile now. “That sounds good. I’ll stop in when I can get a moment between patients. If I remember right, there was a cancellation of my 10:15 appointment.”
“10:15 sounds good. Let me know if you can’t make it. And now if you’ll excuse us, we have a ferris wheel to ride. And then, I think Mia had her eye on one of those stuffed cats on the midway.”
“You bet,” he said. “I think I’m going to buy a few tickets for myself and the kids. I’ll talk to you later. Have a good day, Mia.” He stepped back in line at the ticket booth and I glanced at Ethan.
Ethan took my hand, and we headed over to the ferris wheel. “What do you think?” I whispered.
“We’ll have to see,” is all he would say.
I glanced over my shoulder at Dr. Graves buying his tickets. I had always liked him, and it bothered me that he seemed so bitter over the divorce. But, I had never been in a position to get a divorce so I was sure there were things that I simply didn’t understand about it. I looked up at the ferris wheel and took a deep breath as my stomach flip-flopped. I told myself everything would be all right.
Chapter Sixteen
We were sitting on a bale of straw and leaning back against another enjoying the weather, the smells of the carnival food that hung in the air, and the people.
I had survived the ferris wheel as well as the scrambler and the bumper cars. We had also visited the midway, and I was now the proud owner of a twenty-inch tall plush stuffed black cat that had cost Ethan far more money than he would ever have thought possible. I was thanking my lucky stars for all of this, but mostly for the man that sat beside me. I had never been this comfortable or this happy with anyone before.
Ethan looked at me sideways when I squinted my eyes against the bright sun. “It’s been quite a Halloween season hasn’t it?”
I turned to him and nodded. “More than I had bargained for. When I made the decision to move home, I had expected the nice quiet little town I had grown up in. But other than the murders, I’m really glad I moved home.”
“Me too,” he said, giving me a smile.
“I’m starving. We should either grab some of this tasty carnival food before it’s gone or go someplace else to get something to eat.”
“I think that’s a great idea. There’s a barbecue booth near the midway with beef and pork sandwiches. It smelled awfully good when we passed by earlier.”
“I love barbecue, that sounds like a great idea,” I said sitting up.
Before we could get to our feet, we saw Fagan Branigan approaching us. He was wearing a skeleton costume and his face had been painted white and black to look like a skull.
“Hi Mia, Ethan,” he said grinning. “Fancy meeting you two here.”
“We wouldn’t miss the last day of the carnival for anything,” Ethan said sitting up.
“I was actually hoping I’d run into you today, Ethan,” he said and glanced behind him. He turned back to Ethan. “I kept trying to remember who bought one of those werewolf costumes, and I realized that Matthew Barnes was in two weeks before Halloween and bought one. I’m sure other people in town bought some as well, but I remember him because he told me he’d been a werewolf every year when he was a teenager. He said he used to howl at trick-or-treaters when he wore a werewolf costume Halloween night. We laughed about it.”
My stomach did a flip-flop. Nina from the jewelry store said Matthew had bought a watch like the one Ethan had found in the alley where Eldon was murdered.
“Was it a brown one?” Ethan asked him.
Fagan thought for a moment. “Well, that is a good question. I’m going to say yes. I’m almost sure it was a brown one.”
Ethan nodded, thinking this over. “There’s no way you could be getting him mixed up with another customer?”
Fagan looked over his shoulder again and then back at Ethan. “No, I know it was him. We stood and talked for a while. He told me how he used to be obsessed with werewolves and would read any novels he could get his hands on as a teenager that had werewolves in them. I’m sure it was him.”
I glanced past Fagan to make sure no one was close enough to hear what he was saying, but there wasn’t anyone nearby.
“Well, I suppose I’m going to have to have another talk with him,” Ethan said thoughtfully.
“Judging by Matthew’s size, I think he could wear a large. I think it would be plenty big on him.”
“You don’t remember anyone else who bought a werewolf costume? From Pumpkin Hollow, I mean?” I asked him.
He shook his head. “He’s the only one that comes to mind. Although, I’m not going to tell you that no one else that lives here locally bought one. I can’t remember every costume I sold. I just suddenly remembered us talking about the werewolf books he liked to read as a kid.”
“Thanks for letting me know, Fagan,” Ethan said. “I appreciate the information and if you can come up with anything else, it would be greatly appreciated.”
“Sure, no problem. Anything I can do to help out. I hate to see that someone else was murdered, and if I hear anything, I’ll let you know.”
Ethan nodded. “Thanks a lot, Fagan.”
We watched as Fagan moved away, heading toward the carnival.
“Matthew had to have done it,” I said in a low tone.
“He does look suspicious. I need to speak with him again. He’s been busy pointing fingers at other people, but I’ll see if I can sit him down tomorrow and see if he can keep his story straight.”
“I’m putting my money on him right now,” I said. “He’s still resentful of what Eldon did when they worked together.”
Ethan got to his feet and brushed the straw off the back of his shirt and pants and then held his hand out to me, helping me to my feet. I brushed the straw off my jeans.
“I think he’s probably at the top of my list right now,” he agreed. “I also have a couple of other people that I need to interview as well.”
“The unfortunate thing is,” I said as Ethan took my hand and we started back for the barbecue booth. “There seem to be an awful lot of people in this town that may have had reason to kill Eldon.”
Ethan shot me a sideways look. “Didn’t he though? That’s a shame.” He thought about it for a moment. “I could make a lawyer joke right about now, but that would be unkind.”
I chuckled. “Lawyer jokes. I guess if the shoe fits...”
I was going to miss the Halloween season even though it had been a hectic one. It would be nice to get a chance to rest and I looked forward to the rest of the holidays. Thanksgiving through Christmas was my second favorite time of year.
I still couldn’t say that I believed in a curse, but I hoped with the changing of the seasons and Halloween behind us, that somehow we could leave this mess behind.
Chapter Seventeen
I decided I would attend Eldon Howell’s funeral. I really hadn’t known him well, but I wondered if his killer might show up. I heard the funeral had been delayed a few extra days because of relatives being unable to get an immediate flight out to California.
I sat in the back of the chapel at the funeral home and watched as people filed in. They stopped and chatted with one another, sometimes laughing and clapping each other on the back. At this point, everyone was a suspect and I size everyone up as they walked in. George Wallace was eliminated because he had to be at least 6’5” tall. And then there was Donna Marshall who probably had to stretch to hit 5 feet tall. They were easy eliminations but as I looked over the crowd I realized an awful lot of people could fit into either a size medium or large werewolf costume. I again found myself wishing I had taken more notice of that wolf.
The casket was open, and it filled me with dread. From where I sat I could barely see the tip of Eldon’s nose above the side of the casket. I decided I would slip out the back when people went forward to pay their last respects. It was nothing personal against Eldon, but I was
certain that looking into his face would bring back memories of that night and that was the last thing I wanted to do.
There was a woman that I didn’t recognize helping Eldon’s mother down the aisle and I wondered if she was his first wife, Peggy. When a younger man and woman entered through the door and walked up behind the two of them, I was sure that the first woman was his ex-wife and those were his children. I wondered how Jane would feel with her sitting in the front pew with his family. I watched as she helped Mrs. Howell to the center of that pew and sit down beside her. The young man and woman who I thought were his children sat on the other side of her.
I kept my eye on the back door and Jane Graves walked through it. I watched the expression on her face when she saw who was sitting in the front pew. Her mouth made a hard line and her body stiffened. She would either have to sit next to Eldon’s daughter or his ex-wife. She walked slowly down the aisle, her eyes glued to Peggy, looking indecisive.
When she got to the front pew she hesitated, and at the last moment, she sat in the pew behind them. She sat rigidly staring straight ahead, and I wondered why she didn’t go to the casket and look in at Eldon, paying her respects, but she may have gone to the viewing the previous night.
After a moment, Eldon’s mother glanced behind her, and when she saw Jane, she gave her a sad smile and reached a hand back to her, giving Jane’s hand a squeeze. I thought that was kind since she had already expressed the fact that she didn’t really care for Jane at all. Jane ducked her head for a moment and when Mrs. Howell turned back around, she looked up at the casket. Neither Eldon’s kids nor his ex-wife turned around to acknowledge her and it made me feel sorry for her.
“Hey Mia, how are you,” I heard someone whisper.
I turned and saw my friend Amanda Krigbaum. She sat down next to me and I gave her a smile. “I’m fine. Did you know Eldon?” I whispered.
She nodded. “He’s my mother’s cousin. I don’t know him well, but I told my mom I would go to the funeral in her stead. She’s still down in Arizona visiting some of my dad’s relatives. She hated to miss the funeral, but she couldn’t get back in time.”