by Leslie Meier
“Duck,” Randy corrected him. “Odd duck.”
“Fine. Whatever,” Sergio snorted. “We are on an island off the coast of Maine. I do not understand why the saying just cannot be a seagull!”
Liddy chuckled. “You know, Sergio does make sense in his own strange way.”
Randy crossed to Sergio and gently patted his back. “I’m sorry for laughing at you earlier. I’m sure it wasn’t easy to talk about your fear of clowns. Forgive me?”
Sergio glanced at Randy, appearing to soften, but then spit out an emphatic, “No!”
Hayley wasn’t too worried. Her brother and his husband rarely stayed mad at each other for too long. Sergio would probably forget why he was even upset by morning. Still, she was confused by Boris Candy’s bizarre behavior. She was about to follow him out the back to see if she might find out what, if anything, was wrong with him when suddenly the front door burst open and Cruella de Vil blew in, looking wild-eyed and discombobulated. She wore an oversized fake fur coat, a black dress, long, red gloves that stretched out to her elbows, and a half-black, half-white wig. Her face was caked with white makeup, and her lips were painted a ruby red. The costume was spot-on.
“I can’t find Pia!” Cruella roared.
“Is Pia one of your dalmatian puppies?” Randy cracked.
“No! My daughter!”
Cruella was actually Dr. Mira Reddy, a physician at the Jackson Lab, a biomedical research facility founded in Bar Harbor, Maine, way back in 1929. Although she was smart as a whip and at the forefront of her field—mammalian genetics and human genomics research—the common opinion around town was that Dr. Reddy’s personality was no match for her brains. Many in town found her snobbish and dismissive. In fact, Hayley would never have even thought about inviting the doctor to her Halloween party, especially since she had culled the guest list to only include a small number of close family and friends, but Mona had begged Hayley to include her, just like she had with Boris Candy.
Dr. Reddy’s daughter, Pia, was Mona’s youngest child Jodie’s best friend, and Jodie was desperate to have her BFF at the party so she had someone to play with. Unfortunately, Pia had told Jodie that her mother refused to allow her to come on her own, that she would have to accompany her as a chaperone, so Hayley was left with no choice but to include Dr. Reddy on the final guest list. The irony of her showing up dressed as Cruella de Vil was not lost on anybody.
“Well, has anyone seen her?” Cruella huffed. “It’s late, and it’s a school night! I want to go home!”
Everyone exchanged blank looks.
Except for Chet, who stopped picking up paper plates off the table and asked quietly, “Was Pia dressed as a witch?”
“Yes,” Dr. Reddy said. “She and Jodie came as characters from that old movie Hocus Pocus, which they saw recently. Did you see them? Where are they?”
“In the back, near the storeroom,” Chet said. “But that was a while ago.”
Everyone fanned out to find the girls, no one having a clue what was about to turn up.
Chapter Four
After bumping into tables and knocking over a few chairs, Mona mercifully shed her bulky foam shark costume to lead the search for her daughter, Jodie, and her friend, Pia. Sergio slipped out of his Mummy getup as well, and Liddy continued with the cleanup. But the rest of the remaining group were already spread out in the restaurant, checking everywhere for the missing girls.
Not two minutes passed before they heard Randy call out, “Found them!”
They all raced in the direction of Randy’s voice, which, as Chet had already told them, was coming from the storeroom in the back. Hayley, with Dr. Reddy breathing heavily down her neck, was the first to enter after Randy. The two girls sat in the middle of the floor, opposite each other, in their Hocus Pocus costumes. Jodie had a red wig on and was wearing a green dress, like the Bette Midler character Winifred in the movie, and Pia, who was smaller, wore a blond wig and pink dress, presumably the Sarah Jessica Parker character, aptly named Sarah. Between them was a large hardcover tome embossed with the title Witchcraft: A Book of Spells, along with lit candles and various potion bottles.
“Girls, what are you doing in here?” Hayley asked.
They stared up nervously at her.
Finally, Jodie squeaked out, “Nothing.”
Dr. Reddy pushed her way past Hayley and gasped. She reached down, picked up the book, and began thumbing through it. “What exactly is going on here? Where did you get this book?”
Another long pause.
This time Pia spoke. “Amazon.”
By now, Mona and Sergio had joined Hayley, Dr. Reddy, and Randy in the storeroom with the girls.
Dr. Reddy slammed the book shut, her mouth open in shock. When she finally managed to collect herself, she kneeled down, took her daughter by the arm, and said firmly, “Were you two practicing witchcraft?”
The girls glanced at each other, not wanting to get themselves into any trouble, but after some tortured hesitation, Pia ultimately nodded slightly and broke down, her eyes pooling with tears. “Yes. I’m sorry, Mommy.”
Dr. Reddy released her grip on her daughter and shot back up to her feet. “This is outrageous! What kind of party is this, allowing little girls to engage in this kind of behavior?”
“Oh, come on, they’re just having a little harmless fun,” Mona snapped, rolling her eyes.
This did nothing to tamp down the mounting tension.
Dr. Reddy whipped around to Mona and marched up to her until their noses were almost touching. “I can’t say I’m surprised to hear you say that, Mona Barnes. You’ve unleashed an army of misbehaved troublemakers onto the streets of this town over the years, so why should I expect some decent parenting with the last runt in the litter?”
Absolute silence.
Except perhaps the sound of Mona’s blood boiling.
Mona rolled up the sleeves of her sweatshirt in a threatening manner and took a step toward Dr. Reddy. “I think I have put up with enough of you, you sanctimonious, snobby—”
“Let’s just all calm down,” Hayley pleaded.
Sergio instinctively reached out and grabbed Mona, pulling her back by his side, gripping her tightly by the arm and preventing a potential all-out brawl.
Mona struggled a bit to free herself from his iron grip, but thankfully she slowly cooled down and stopped fighting him.
Still, Sergio wasn’t taking any chances. He casually threw an arm around Mona’s shoulders, so he was in a good position to take her down in case she unexpectedly tried to lunge at Dr. Reddy and attack her, which, given Mona’s legendary quick temper, was not a difficult scenario to imagine.
“I find it reprehensible that anyone would think something like this is acceptable behavior. Come on, Pia, we’re going home right now,” Dr. Reddy spit out.
Pia grabbed the book and scrambled to her feet.
“No, you give that back to Jodie. I will not have my daughter reading that blasphemous filth!”
“B-but . . .” Pia sputtered.
“But what?” Dr. Reddy snapped.
“It’s my book,” Pia muttered, eyes downcast.
Mona snorted through her nose, trying to suppress a laugh.
Dr. Reddy’s nostrils flared. She snatched the book out of her daughter’s hand and tossed it in a nearby garbage bin. “We’ll talk about you ordering items off the internet without my permission when we get home. Now come on, Pia!”
Liddy suddenly popped her head in the storeroom, carrying a casserole dish wrapped in tinfoil. “Hayley, there was half a Chicken Cordon Boo casserole left over. No sense letting it go to waste. Should I put in the fridge for later?”
“No, take it to the freezer; thanks, Liddy,” Hayley said, returning her attention to a rattled Dr. Reddy and a remorseful, teary-eyed Pia.
“Where’s your coat?” Dr. Reddy asked her daughter.
Pia shrugged. “I don’t know.”
Dr. Reddy sighed. “Well, go find it, so we can
get out of here.”
Pia dashed off.
Hayley knelt down to Mona’s daughter, Jodie, who had remained tight-lipped since they had first been caught. “Jodie, do the candles and bottles belong to you?”
Jodie shook her head, eyes glued to the floor, and said quietly, “No, Pia brought them, too. It was her idea to be real witches and cast spells.”
Mona relished this moment by throwing a self-satisfied smile in Dr. Reddy’s direction, which the doctor willfully ignored.
Randy surreptitiously leaned in and whispered in Hayley’s ear, “I only see one real witch here,” as he nodded toward Dr. Reddy, stifling a chuckle.
Hayley was about to ask Dr. Reddy if she would like them to put the candles and bottles in a paper bag so she could take them home with her, too, when suddenly they heard another woman’s high-pitched, bloodcurdling scream.
All eyes turned to Sergio.
“It was not me!” Sergio protested.
“Liddy . . .” Hayley said under her breath as she shoved her way out of the storeroom and ran toward the walk-in freezer located in the opposite far corner of the kitchen.
The large, stainless-steel freezer door was open when Hayley arrived on the scene, with Sergio, Randy, Mona, and Dr. Reddy bringing up the rear.
Hayley suddenly came to an abrupt stop.
The casserole dish had slipped out of Liddy’s hands, shattering the glass and sending Hayley’s Chicken Cordon Boo Halloween recipe flying everywhere. Just past Liddy, on the floor in the freezer, was a man’s body, sprawled out on his back, limbs akimbo.
Hayley’s eyes zeroed in on the man’s pale ghostly face, his glassy, lifeless eyes staring up at her, his crooked mouth wrenched open as if frozen in a silent scream.
“Oh, no . . .” she moaned.
There was no mistaking who it was.
The dead man was Boris Candy.
Chapter Five
Liddy couldn’t stop screaming. The shock of stumbling over a corpse had been too much for her.
Hayley whipped around and grabbed her by the arms. “Liddy, please, get a hold of yourself!”
Liddy managed to catch her breath, heaving gulps of air and fanning herself in an attempt to calm down, but then her eyes would drop back down to Boris Candy’s corpse, and she would start screaming all over again.
Hayley shook her by the arms. “Liddy, I don’t want to slap you!”
That seemed to do the trick.
Liddy finally managed to get herself under control, grabbed Hayley’s hand, poised to strike, and growled, “Don’t you dare . . .”
Sergio was already circling the body, inspecting the scene. He knelt down to examine the back of Candy’s head.
Hayley pushed Liddy toward the door. “Go and make sure Jodie and Pia stay far away from here. I don’t want them to see anything!”
But it was too late.
Hearing Liddy’s terrified scream, Jodie had already rushed to the freezer and pushed her way through the group to see what was causing such a commotion. The little girl’s eyes popped open wide, and she emitted a frightened gasp.
Mona instantly covered her daughter’s eyes with her hands and hustled her out. “Come on, Jodie, there is nothing to see here!”
“I’m going to go check on Pia,” Dr. Reddy said, mostly to herself, before taking one last glance at the dead body and shaking her head in distress before rushing out.
Sergio sprang back up when he was done investigating. “There is a bloody wound on the back of Candy’s head.”
Hayley gasped, even louder than Jodie. “What?”
“It appears as if someone bludgeoned him to death with some kind of blunt object. Near as I can tell, Mr. Candy must have decided to change out of his clown costume back here before going home, and while he was distracted, someone came up behind him, whacked him good in the back of the head, then dragged the body into the freezer, hoping to hide it long enough for him . . . or her . . . to escape out the back door.”
Randy bolted from the freezer, only to return a few moments later. “There is one problem with your theory, Sergio. The back door is locked from the inside. The killer could not have gone out the back, unless someone locked it after he left.”
“No,” Liddy whispered. “It was already locked when I came back here to clean up after the party. I know because I checked. Boris Candy was still in the main dining room.”
“Then the killer had to have left out the front door, but most of the party guests had already left by the time we all last saw Mr. Candy alive,” Hayley noted. “Which means . . .”
Sergio nodded, a solemn look on his face. “It would have to be one of us still at the party . . . me, you, Randy, Mona, Liddy, Dr. Reddy, Mona’s boy, Chet . . .”
“No, that’s preposterous!” Hayley protested. “Why would any one of us want to harm poor Mr. Candy?”
Sergio shrugged. “I don’t know. But it’s all we’ve got at this point.”
Mona appeared at the freezer door, her face ashen and her whole body trembling. “You all better come out to the dining room, right now!”
“Why? What’s happened now?” Hayley groaned, almost dreading to find out.
Mona didn’t answer her. She just whipped around and led them all out of the freezer, leaving behind the body and taking them back out front to the dining room.
There they saw Dr. Reddy pacing back and forth in full Cruella de Vil mode, sucking on a cigarette and rubbing her tired eyes with her black-gloved fingertips. Chet sat in a corner, legs stretched out, arms folded, obviously wishing he was anywhere else. Jodie and Pia were sitting cross-legged on the floor, close together, shoulders touching, sticking together, both with long, solemn faces.
Mona marched over to the two little girls, bent down, and said gently, “Okay, Jodie, repeat to Sergio exactly what you just told me.”
Sergio eagerly stepped forward. “Did you girls see something? Do you know who killed Mr. Candy?”
Jodie and Pia exchanged petrified looks.
Then Jodie turned back to the Chief and nodded slightly.
Sergio rested a hand on Mona’s shoulder, signaling for her to get up. Mona rose and took a step back, allowing Sergio to kneel down and take her place. He smiled at the girls and said in a warm, reassuring voice, “It’s okay, girls. You’re not in any trouble. Everything is going to be okay. Just tell me who it was. Who killed Mr. Candy?”
Another nervous glance between the girls.
Pia was now on the verge of tears. “Tell him, Jodie!”
Finally, Jodie, after a lot of wriggling and hemming and hawing, stared down at the floor and whispered under her breath, “We did. We killed Mr. Candy.”
Island Food & Cocktails by Hayley Powell
It’s never been a secret that Halloween has always been my kids’ favorite holiday, probably because every year their father made such a big deal out of it when they were growing up. Every October, my husband, Danny, would try to top himself by going bigger with his scary costumes and elaborate pranks. The kids loved it. I just found myself exhausted. Mostly because, nine times out of ten, I was the target of his pranks. One year involved dressing up in a giant raccoon costume and hiding in the laundry room, so when I came to get the towels out of the dryer, he could jump out at me. The kids, of course, were in on it and fell to the floor holding their sides and laughing hysterically as I came screaming out of the laundry room, frantically waving my hands in the air. But I never complained too much because I had long accepted the fact that it had become a family tradition.
That is, until the year Danny and I separated and he moved out of state a couple of months before Halloween. The kids were heartbroken, and as Halloween drew closer, I could tell they just didn’t have the same spirit without their dad around to get them excited. I didn’t want them sulking at home, so I convinced the kids to dress up in their favorite costumes and march in the middle-school Halloween parade. I also rallied them to go trick-or-treating with me, Mona, and her kids in the early eveni
ng. I was certainly no substitute for their father, but I did my best to whip up a little enthusiasm.
It seemed to work. Dustin dusted off his go-to Batman costume, and Gemma transformed herself into Hermione Granger from the Harry Potter books for the next day’s parade. The kids had set off for school, and that’s when things took a decidedly dark turn.
As I was leaving for work, I noticed that the pumpkins I had placed on the railing of the deck were gone. I cursed to myself, assuming some kids must have smashed them on the road. So I went down the street to investigate, but I didn’t see any pumpkin guts anywhere. When I returned, both pumpkins had mysteriously returned. They were sitting on the front steps unscathed, except they were now each wearing a clown’s hat, which I found somewhat disconcerting.
Later, when I arrived home for lunch to let my dog, Leroy, outside to take care of his midday business, I opened the refrigerator to get some turkey and cheese for a sandwich, and screeched at the sight of a sandwich already made, sitting on a plate, with a knife plunged into the middle of it, sticking straight up. It had to be the kids. Who else could have done it? They had learned from the best, and as the saying goes, the apples don’t fall far from the tree, and let’s face it, my ex, Danny, was that mighty big tree!
Then, after work, when I went to grab the mail out of the box in front of the house, waving to my neighbor Jim across the street, who was already raking the fall leaves in his yard, I reached inside the box and felt something thick and fuzzy brush across my hand. I instantly yanked my hand out, peeked inside, and let out a shriek loud enough to wake the dead! Poor Jim dropped his rake and came running across the street to help me. A few curious neighbors peered out their windows. My kids raced out the front door as I stood there blubbering about a giant spider in the mail box. Jim peeked inside, then reached in and pulled out a big, black, fake fuzzy spider with a note attached that said, “Boo!”
Jim couldn’t stop himself from busting up laughing; Dustin thought the spider looked cool and wanted to keep it; Gemma just rolled her eyes and moaned that I was embarrassing her in front of the neighbors. I knew right then by their reactions that the kids had had nothing to do with this bizarre series of pranks.