by PJ Fernor
Ben looked at me.
He frowned.
He put his hand to his father’s shoulder. “You were right. You’re always right.”
“Never forget it,” Ben’s father said. “Now how about that drink?”
“It’s in your hand,” Ben said.
His father laughed and took a sip of the water. He smacked his lips together. “Oh, that’s good. Really good. Crisp. A perfect drink. Thank you.”
“Anytime,” Ben said.
He squeezed his father’s shoulder one time and then went into the kitchen.
I chased after Ben into the kitchen.
He stood at the sink.
He looked back at me. “I’m okay. It still hits hard.”
“Of course it does. It’s not supposed to get easier.”
“I know.”
I wished there was more I could do for Ben, though I knew just being present was enough.
Before I could attempt to say anything soothing to him, my phone began to ring.
It was Muldavey.
That meant the pumpkin had gone missing.
Chapter Thirty-Four
I sighed as I drove.
Part of me should have known Mrs. Mickels would be involved in this.
Muldavey called to tell me Mrs. Mickels called him to say she saw someone again. Outside her house. Near the corner of the street.
That was the last thing I needed to hear.
This should have been a simple operation.
Leave the carved pumpkin. See what was left behind.
Then move forward with the case and the investigation.
Mrs. Mickels only served to get in the way.
We arrived at the corner where the pumpkin had once been.
Muldavey stood there, Mrs. Mickels at his side. She was in a long bathrobe, hugging herself. Shivering in the cold fall evening.
I climbed out of my vehicle and pointed to Muldavey.
I motioned for him to come to me.
Then I looked at Ben.
He nodded. “I’ll take care of her.”
“She can’t be here, Ben. She’s going to mess this all up.”
“I know. I’ve got it.”
Ben approached Mrs. Mickels with a smile on his face.
I focused back on Muldavey.
“I’m sorry,” Muldavey said. “Everything happened at once.”
“Talk to me about it.”
“I stayed away like we talked about. Then she called. I assume she called the station or the mayor and it got rerouted to me. Or maybe she has my direct number by now. I’m not sure. Anyway, she called to say she saw something. She saw someone. The same as before. A figure across the street from her house. I told her to stay right there and I’d handle it. Of course, I don’t trust her for a second.”
“Right,” I said. “She’s always in the mix of this it seems.”
“I wasn’t sure how to handle it,” Muldavey said. “That’s why I called you. I got here and she started walking toward me.”
I shook my head. “No regard for what’s happening in town right now. She could have gotten herself hurt.”
“Or someone else hurt,” Muldavey said.
“Right. Okay, Ben is talking to Mrs. Mickels now. Leave her be. I see the pumpkin is gone.”
“Yeah, it’s gone. There’s another note.”
I pushed by Muldavey and ran toward the corner.
Another note?
I got to the corner and looked down to where the pumpkin had been.
The pumpkin was obviously gone.
In its place, a piece of paper with a rock holding it down.
I moved the rock with my foot and crouched down.
I carefully held the paper at its corner and looked at the text.
THANKS FOR PLAYING. WE’RE NOT DONE YET.
“Did you read this?” I asked Muldavey as I stood up.
“No. I didn’t want to touch a thing.”
I showed Muldavey the note.
Then I called for Ben.
With Ben came Mrs. Mickels.
I handed the note to Ben and cut off Mrs. Mickels.
“What are you doing here?” I asked her. “You’re in the middle of an investigation.”
“I saw someone again.”
“And yet nobody is here. You know, as I think about this, each time there’s a problem, you’re involved.”
“Are you accusing me of something?”
“You could have been hurt tonight,” I said. “Or worse. You should not be here right now.”
“I’m just trying to help,” Mrs. Mickels said.
I pointed down the street. “What about your house? Do you have anyone in your house right now? Anything we need to know about?”
Mrs. Mickels looked surprised. “What are you saying?”
“Can we talk?” Ben whispered to me.
I turned and looked up at him. “We’re going to check her house. For ghosts. And murderers.”
Before Ben could say a word, I began to walk.
I grabbed my flashlight and shined it down the street and moved it left to right.
Behind me everyone followed.
Mrs. Mickels chatting up Ben about what she saw.
Ben reassuring her that everything was okay and would be okay. That her house was safe.
I knew I was letting my emotions get the best of me at that moment.
Oh well.
At the very least, we should check Mrs. Mickels house anyway.
In case the killer had been spotted.
Maybe we were going to get lucky.
We’d find someone hiding under a bed and that would end this mess.
I climbed up Mrs. Mickels’ front porch steps and entered her house.
“Muldavey, take the first floor and back porch and yard,” I said. “Ben, you come with me upstairs.”
“I’m staying right with you,” Mrs. Mickels said. “And I can ask you to leave at any time.”
I looked at her. “Then you can have a nice evening with a murderer.”
Mrs. Mickels gasped. “You think he’s here?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
As we searched the upstairs room by room, I thought about the note.
I did not want to play into any of these games.
Which was what they were.
Nothing but games.
Testing us. Pushing at us.
Yet the threat of another murder put us all in a corner.
“All clear down here!” Muldavey yelled.
“Clear in the bathroom,” Ben said.
I stepped out of the last bedroom. “Clear. You’re safe, Mrs. Mickels.”
“I sure don’t feel it now,” she said.
“Well, you need to stay out of this.”
“So if I see someone, just let it go?” she asked.
“If you see someone, you call, but then you stay put. Walking down the street in the dark is dangerous. Very dangerous. And quite honestly, it makes you look guilty.”
Mrs. Mickels scoffed.
We went down to the living room.
We stayed as she made herself a cup of tea and sat in her favorite chair in the living room with a crossword puzzle.
I promised Mrs. Mickels I’d have someone in the area in case she needed us.
With that, we left and walked back to our vehicles.
The three of us in silence.
Each one of us carrying our own thoughts.
I looked at the ground where the pumpkin had been.
“At least nobody else was murdered,” Ben said.
I nodded.
But… how far were these ‘games’ going to go?
Chapter Thirty-Five
The case remained quiet.
Only it wasn’t quiet in my head.
I felt on edge. The constant threat of another note, or worse.
I pictured the murderer in plain clothes, walking by the station. Maybe they were walking a dog. Maybe they were jogging. Doing all they could just
to fit in.
Knowing things were tense inside the station and in my head.
It also left me wondering if the killer lived in Sandemor, or if they were just coming into the small town for the purpose of murder.
Left with more questions than answers, the only relief I had was to pursue David, Drew, and Greg again. Just to be sure of it, I asked Johnny to get an alibi from each for the night of the pumpkin situation.
He called me back in an hour with three solid alibis.
David had been with his father, going through old pictures of Claire.
Drew had been at a bar - complete with receipts and images.
Greg was at his cousin’s house, struggling with drinking and grieving.
That all but officially took those three off the list of suspects.
Which, in a strange and sad way, irked me.
It seemed like such a perfect case, if that even existed at all.
It also meant that through all those heavy emotions all of them felt - including Claire and Candice - the person who killed them was probably just some random person.
That felt even more tragic.
Claire had wanted to go for a walk to talk to her best friend. She and her husband were having issues after a long road of failed pregnancy attempts.
Candice wanted to be a good best friend to Claire. To repay her for all the times she needed Claire.
And both women sadly ended up dead.
Of all people to chase away my thoughts, Mayor Jim showed up to my office.
Snapping his fingers, pointing at me, grinning ear to ear.
“Quiet is good, right?” he asked.
“Nothing is quiet, Jim,” I said.
“I haven’t heard a thing.”
“You’re not a part of the department,” I said. “You’re the mayor.”
“And as the mayor, I owe it to you and everyone to have the biggest and best parade ever,” he said. He waved his hands in the air. “Just picture it…”
“I’m having trouble looking beyond the two murdered women,” I said.
“At the very least, you have to admit the extra police presence is helping,” he said. “I have no doubt you’re going to figure this one out, Allie. You’re too smart not to. I put my money on the husband or the ex- boyfriend.”
“They’ve been cleared,” I said.
“You sure?”
“Positive.”
“Well, have a look again,” he said. “Right?”
“Jim…”
“Listen,” he said. He leaned against my desk, smiling ear to ear still. “I lost my keys the other day. Couldn’t find them anywhere. I searched my house top to bottom. I looked everywhere, Allie.”
“What’s your point?”
“My point is that I walked through the kitchen and I saw them. My keys. Under the lip of my island counter. They blended into the color of the granite. So when I looked the first time, I didn’t see the keys. The second time, I did. That’s my advice to you. Look at it again. You never know.”
“Jim…”
Was I really in the mood for an argument?
I didn’t answer that thought because my phone rang.
It was a number I didn’t know.
When I answered it, it was Ben’s neighbor calling.
To tell me Ben’s father was outside in the front yard.
Digging up all the bushes and flowers.
“I’ll be right there,” I said. I hung up the call. “Jim, I have to go.”
“Got a lead?” Mayor Jim asked.
“Something like that,” I said.
“Don’t let me get in the way then,” he said.
I ran out of the station and sent Ben a text.
We had given the neighbors our phone numbers a while ago, just in case anything happened with Ben’s father.
On the ride to Ben’s house, he texted me.
He had been talking with Muldavey and missed the call from the neighbor.
That explained why I got the call.
I was the first to get home.
And there was Ben’s father, standing in the yard with a shovel.
A pile of mums next to him.
“Hey!” I called to him.
He turned and waved. “Hey. What’s the problem with the vehicle today? Is it still making that squeaking sound when you turn?”
I sighed. “Yeah, it is. What are you doing here? Yard work?”
“Cleaning up the weeds,” Ben Sr. said. “It’s a mess over here.”
“Let me take that shovel,” I said.
“No. You need to pull into the garage. Go into the…”
Ben’s father looked around.
Ah, shoot.
He was getting even more confused now.
“Where’s the garage at?” he asked.
“You’re home now,” I said.
He looked around. “Oh. Right. I picked up these mums today. I was going to plant them.”
The front door opened and out came the nurse who was supposed to be watching Ben’s father.
She gasped. “Ben! What are you doing?”
“What are you doing?” I yelled to the nurse.
Behind the nurse came Lo.
She suddenly looked guilty.
Ben pulled into the driveway and jumped out of his car. “Dad!”
“I got some mums for the yard,” Ben Sr. said.
I walked up the steps toward Lo.
“This is my fault,” she said. “I asked Marie for help with my chemistry. I shouldn’t have bothered her.”
I sighed and put my arm around Lo and walked her into the house.
I hated to leave Ben out in the yard with his father and the nurse who should have been paying attention.
The truth was Ben’s father never left the house.
This was a new first for all of us.
He always kept to the living room and his chair.
Worst case, he’d wander into the kitchen.
Which was where Lo and Marie had been sitting, working through some chemistry material.
“Is she going to get fired?” Lo asked. “This is my fault. She can’t get fired. You know Ben Sr., right? He never leaves the house.”
“Lo,” I said. “It’s okay. Just go study in your room.”
Once I had Lo settled, I helped Ben get his father back into the house and settled.
Marie began her apology tour, which Ben and I both agreed that everyone needed a little time apart.
Marie left with tears in her eyes.
Ben’s father sat in his chair with dirty hands.
The front yard looked a mess.
In the kitchen, I caught Ben and got him to stop.
I touched his face.
“Allie Down…”
“I know,” I whispered. “One thing at a time though, okay? And at the very least, we get to replant some mums later.”
Ben smiled. “How romantic.”
He hugged me.
Sometimes life really was just that crazy.
Chapter Thirty-Six
BEN
It was nice to see Allie fall asleep a little bit early and quickly.
I snuck out of the bed and watched her for a few seconds.
She was an amazing person.
So good at her job, no matter what was thrown at her. And of all the people I knew, she was the only one who could handle it. That didn’t mean she was immune to a bad day or bad moments.
All I could hope for then was she’d get a good night of sleep and we could tackle the case again in the morning.
My mind was the restless one tonight.
I left the bedroom and went to check on my father.
He slept peacefully.
Looking like the man I always knew as my hero.
Even aged he still had that chiseled look to his jaw.
The greatest memories of my life were spent in his auto garage.
When I was younger, I’d show up after school and he’d have bottles of root beer in the fridge fo
r us. I felt like the coolest kid in the world when Dad twisted off the cap of a root beer bottle and gave it to me. We’d hit our bottles together and he’d ask me about my day.
As a kid everything was big and dramatic.
Spelling tests. Math tests. A little scuffle with the school bully - Kyle.
And no matter what I said, Dad listened. And when I asked how his day went, he always said better now. Meaning with me there, he was happy. I was the reminder of why he worked so hard. I never understood what that meant until I was an adult.
Now he was slipping away.
There were now more bad days than good.
I kept my cool with the nurse who turned her back on Dad, but what happened was unacceptable and dangerous. I was lucky to have good neighbors who knew about Dad’s condition. They’d keep an eye out for him, but all it took was one quick mistake of him stepping into the road with a car coming… or a million other tragic things.
I calmed myself and reminded myself that Dad was in bed, sleeping.
Things were as normal as they were going to get.
I wished for better days, but I knew the reality of his disease.
The good days were going to continue to fade.
In the back of my mind I knew there may come the time when I’d need to make the tough decision of having him live the rest of his days somewhere else.
That wasn’t today or tomorrow, so I chased those thoughts away.
I quietly shut the bedroom door and went to check on the next person who lived in my house.
I smiled as I carefully opened Lo’s bedroom door.
She looked at me and dropped her cell phone.
“Hey,” I whispered.
“Hey,” she said.
“Kind of late, right?”
“Yeah,” Lo said. From the glow of her TV, I saw her cheeks blushing. “I couldn’t sleep.”
“Probably from all that texting you’re doing,” I said.
Lo let out a nervous laugh. “I… Ben…”
“It’s okay,” I said.
“What are you doing awake?” Lo asked. “Are you okay?”
“I’m good. Just can’t sleep. Not because I’m texting Trevor either.”
“Sorry,” she said. “I promise, I’ll be up on time.”
“I know,” I said. “Don’t worry, I won’t say anything. You’re a good kid, Lo. Just please keep studying, keep doing what you’re doing, okay? I know it’s probably not easy to live here at times, so-”