by Kate Bell
“I suppose there has to be something somewhere,” she said. “I’ll take a look, although I don’t know what I’m looking for.”
“Can you think of anyone that might have had something against him?” he asked.
She shook her head. “I can’t think of a single person that would do something like this to him. Is there any way this could be some kind of crazy accident?”
“No, I’m afraid not,” Ethan said. “I know this is difficult. And again, I’m so sorry for your loss. But we’re going to need you to identify the body. You’ll need to come down to the morgue.”
I inhaled at the word morgue. It was such an ugly word.
Veronica nodded and her face crumpled. She looked away, and I held a box of tissues toward her. “I’m sorry,” I murmured.
“I understand it has to be done,” she said quietly. “Let’s get this over with.”
I could hardly stand to watch Veronica in her grief. Losing someone that you love must be agony. I watched as Ethan stood up and escorted her out of the room to drive her to the morgue.
I didn’t accompany Ethan and Veronica to the morgue. That was more than I could handle. I really shouldn’t have been in his office while he was speaking to her, but no one had asked me to leave and it seemed less obtrusive to stay. I hoped she could find something in her husband’s office that would explain why he was in the haunted house that morning.
Chapter Eight
I was putting out a tray of pumpkin fudge when Evelyn McGrath walked through the door. I smiled. “Hi, Evelyn, how are you this morning?”
She gave me what looked like a forced smile, her brown curly hair drooping on the sides. She looked tired, and I wondered if the worry of the murder in the haunted house was taking a toll on her.
“I guess I’m as well as can be expected. I hope the police finish up their investigation in the haunted house soon. We’re losing money,” she said, stepping up to the display case and peering in.
“I don’t blame you. We need the haunted house open as badly as you want it opened after losing the corn and straw mazes,” I said.
She straightened up and looked at me. “It’s not that I’m not sorry Greg Richardson died you understand, it’s just that the haunted house is a large part of our livelihood. Charlie hasn’t been doing well with selling insurance, and we can’t lose another weekend without the income from the haunted house.”
“I forgot that Charlie sold insurance during the week,” I said. Most of the Halloween attractions were closed during the week, except for the week leading up to Halloween. Those jobs were really only second jobs for a lot of people.
This year’s Halloween season had been a disappointing one. First there was the call to end the Halloween season, then there were two other murders, the decimation of important events like the mazes, and now another murder and the haunted house was closed. I wasn’t sure we could handle much else going wrong at this point.
She nodded. “To be honest, I have to wonder if that insurance company is going out of business. They cut back their employee’s hourly pay, expecting them to make it up in commissions.” She rolled her eyes. “People have families and homes they need to pay for. I guess they think it will make them work harder on making those commissions.”
“That’s a shame,” I said, and put the last of the fudge into the display case. “I wouldn’t think people buy new insurance policies that frequently. Once people have their insurance, I think they keep it unless they were really dissatisfied in some way.”
“I know, right?” she said with a grin. “I think I want some of that pumpkin fudge. I can smell it from here and it smells delightful. A half a pound, please.”
“A half pound coming up,” I said and pulled the tray out of the display case again to cut it.
“If you want my opinion,” she said conspiratorially, “I think Joe Small may have had something to do with Greg’s death.”
My eyes went to hers. “Why do you say that?”
“He’s a complainer and a troublemaker. He argues with customers and I told Charlie we needed to get rid of him before he caused any real trouble, but you know how Charlie is. He had some kind of misplaced loyalty toward Joe. He wouldn’t get rid of him.”
“Oh? He had trouble with the customers?” I asked as I weighed out the fudge. Had Joe had trouble with Greg? Maybe Joe still had a key and had lured Greg to the haunted house before it opened Saturday morning.
She nodded. “He did. Two years ago he got into a fight with a customer that had had one too many beers. He nearly punched him in the face right in front of the haunted house! Charlie had to stop him. I could hardly believe it.”
“Wow,” I said, taking this in. “Joe has a temper?”
She nodded and leaned on the display case. “He does. I mean, sure the guy was a little tipsy, but it’s Joe’s job to entertain. He should have walked away from him while he could.”
“That doesn’t do much for the tourist trade, does it? Actors fighting with the guests?” I asked, wrapping up the fudge and putting it into a cute vintage looking paper bag for her. It sounded like bad news to me.
“No. He’s a nuisance, and he’s lazy on top of it. I also heard he rented a house from Greg Richardson a couple of years ago and he got evicted. It wouldn’t surprise me if he got his revenge on him.”
I nodded and rang up her purchase, taking this in. Joe may have been evicted from one of Greg’s rentals, but would he have been angry enough to lure Greg into the haunted house to kill him? And why the haunted house? Unless it was to try to pin the murder on Charlie.
I looked at her. “Evelyn, someone told me Charlie took all the keys back. If that’s true, then how would Joe have been able to get inside and kill Greg? And how would he get Greg inside the haunted house?”
She shrugged. “My husband thinks he took all the keys back, but let me tell you, that man is a little scatter brained at times. There were too many keys handed out to employees over the years for him to have gotten them all back. When he demanded them back a couple of weeks ago, he only got four back, and I know for a fact there were a lot more than that duplicated and handed out. Besides, I saw the broken window in the basement when I drove by.”
I eyed her but didn’t tell her the window was broken from the inside. I was sure Ethan didn’t want that getting out. If there were still keys out there, then anyone could have gotten in. That left why? Why did Greg go into the haunted house after hours with the killer?
“I don’t know why Greg would be there after hours, though,” I pointed out.
“I don’t know either,” she said. “That’s the thing that bothers me. I just don’t get it.”
“Evelyn, can I ask you about the haunted house? Is it doing okay financially?” I asked as she ran her debit card through the card reader.
She looked at me sharply, her finger poised above the keypad on the card reader. “Of course it is. We’re doing fine. It’s just that losing another weekend of the Halloween season will hurt financially. I’m sure you can understand that.”
“Yes, of course,” I said quickly.
“The haunted house is doing well. It’s the most popular attraction in Pumpkin Hollow,” she said, tucking her debit card back into her wallet.
“It really is one of the biggest attractions,” I said agreeably. “I know there are always lines of people waiting to get in.”
She nodded. “Mia, I know Pumpkin Hollow is struggling, but I assure you that we are doing fine,” she repeated and smiled. “Charlie is so good with business. He’s always thinking of things to do differently to give the customers a little different experience each year. He thought up the caveman display two years ago, and it’s been very popular. Next year he said he thought he’d turn it into a zombie caveman display,” she said with a laugh. “He’s so funny. He’s always thinking of things like that.”
I chuckled. “That’s what we need around here. Someone thinking of different ways to bring more business in.”
&n
bsp; “Well, I had better get going. Did Ethan mention when he thought they would be done with their investigation?”
“He was sure they would be done with the part of the investigation that’s holding up the haunted house before the weekend. I certainly hope so,” I said, leaning on the front counter.
“Good. That’s what I wanted to hear.” She gave me another smile. “Well, like I said, I better get going. Charlie is going to wonder where I got off to. This fudge smells so good, I don’t know if I’m going to save him any. You have a good day.”
“You too, Evelyn,” I said and watched her go. I wondered if business at the haunted house was as good as she said it was. There was just something that made me think she might not be telling the whole truth.
Chapter Nine
Ethan had a day off and I had planned a short hike for us on the goblin trail and then dinner afterward. We parked at Pumpkin Center Park and headed for the four-mile trail that wound through the foothills just outside of town. It was late September, and the weather was crisp, but not cold yet. A fat puffy cloud scuttled by overhead and a light breeze blew. Fall was my favorite time of the year and I could hardly wait for Halloween. The leaves on the trees had already begun changing color, with some trees getting an early start on dropping their leaves.
“It’s a beautiful day, isn’t it?” I asked Ethan. I had to refrain from reaching out and grabbing his hand. We were walking fairly briskly, and it would be awkward.
“It really is. I love this time of the year,” he said looking at me and grinning.
“Me too. I can’t believe how beautiful the trees and mountains are. I think I had a great idea, coming out here for a walk.”
He chuckled. “I think it was a great idea, too.”
“So what do you think about what we know so far about the murder?” I asked him. He had been working long days since Greg Richardson had been killed and I hadn’t gotten the chance to talk to him as often as I wanted.
“Not nearly enough. The labs on the coffee cup came back. There were only partial prints on it, not nearly enough for an Id. Not that we could have done much with them, anyway. We still don’t know if the cup was from someone walking through the haunted house or if it came from the killer. We’ll just hang onto it in case we need it.”
“Really? I would have thought someone’s prints would have shown up. Whoever made the coffee, and then whoever drank it. What about lip prints? Can you Id someone based on lip prints?” I said with a chuckle.
He smiled. “I doubt it. We could do DNA, but matching DNA isn’t as easy as it looks on TV. Now, once we have a suspect, we can do a DNA test and see if there’s a match, but again, we don’t know if the cup is significant. Besides, if it is the killer’s cup, they may have worn gloves and the partial fingerprints could be from the barista.”
“So we don’t know for sure if the killer is a woman or a man yet. It seems like something should have come out of what we know so far, but we’ve still got nothing.”
“The problem with a public place like the haunted house is that there are too many fingerprints. There’s no way to tell which ones belong to the killer. There were some partial prints on the spear, but not much that was usable. We’re still looking into what we’ve got.”
“Would it do any good to stop in at the Little Coffee Shop of Horrors and see if anyone remembers someone with bright pink lipstick Saturday morning?” I asked wishfully.
He chuckled. “They’d have to have a pretty good memory. Not that it’s a terrible idea. Maybe they remember something unusual about a certain customer.”
“And if it belonged to our killer, they would have had to come in either Friday night or early Saturday morning. I’ll stop by and ask Amanda if she remembers anything unusual. It can’t hurt to ask even if it is a long shot.”
“That sounds like a plan,” Ethan said as the trail went up a small hill. “This is nice. I don’t know why I don’t come here more often to get some exercise in.”
“I know, I love being outdoors like this. The weather is perfect for hiking,” I said. The air was brisk, but the exercise kept us warm enough that we didn’t need to wear a coat. Fall was my favorite time of the year, for obvious reasons. But even if I didn’t live in a town that celebrated Halloween all year long, I would have loved it. There was something about falling leaves, chilly evenings, and the clean smell of the great outdoors.
***
“I almost forgot and I’m afraid to ask,” I said to Ethan as we sat at the local steakhouse having dinner after our hike. “But how did things go yesterday?”
Ethan picked up his glass of water and took a sip before answering. He put his glass down and looked at me. “I’m not sure that I like this new position. Taking Veronica to identify her husband’s body was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. But, she did identify him.”
I nodded. “I don’t think I could have done it. It would be too depressing.”
“It was actually done by showing her a photograph. She didn’t have to see him in the morgue, but it’s still a difficult thing to go through,” he said.
“It would be hard, no matter how it’s done,” I agreed.
“I just hope she can find something among his papers at home that will help us figure out who did it.”
I looked over my menu briefly. Then I looked up at Ethan. “Where was his car? How did he get to the haunted house?”
“It was parked behind the haunted house. We’ve dusted it for prints but we don’t have anything back on them yet. Could be the killer rode over there with him. I think I’m going to have the T-bone steak with sweet potato fries.”
“Great choice,” I said, looking over the menu. “I just don’t understand why he was killed at the haunted house. The obvious choice for his killer is Charlie, isn’t it? It’s his haunted house. I think I’m going with a cheeseburger and the sweet potato fries on the side. I love sweet potato fries.”
“It could be Charlie, but just because it’s his haunted house doesn’t mean he did it. We have a broken window that was broken from the inside and the graffiti. That bothers me a lot,” he said, laying his menu at the edge of the table. He picked up his glass of water again and took a sip.
“Maybe Greg was the person spray painting the wall and Charlie caught him. A struggle ensued, and he accidentally speared him,” I said and laid my menu on top of his.
He chuckled. “That’s not a bad theory. But why would Greg break into the haunted house to tag it?”
I sighed. “I don’t know. Tell me again, how excited are you to get your new promotion?”
He grinned at me. “Well, let me tell you, I am really thrilled for this opportunity. The thing is, I didn’t get a pay raise with this new job, but I sure did get a lot more responsibility.”
“Seriously? I would have thought you would have gotten a pay raise for all the extra responsibility.”
“They managed to get out of giving me a pay raise by having me still be a patrol cop when a detective isn’t needed,” he said looking at me. “Technically, I’m still just a police officer out on the streets. The chief said they couldn’t afford to give me a raise.”
“I’m so sorry, Ethan. They really should have done better and gotten you a raise.”
He shrugged. “It doesn’t bother me that much. I really enjoy doing investigations. It’s kind of like putting a puzzle together, you know? And it’s a lot of good experience that I may be able to parlay into more money someplace else, especially after I pass the test to become a detective.”
“I’m glad you got it anyway,” I said, picking up my glass of tea. “Maybe once you pass the exam, they’ll find the money to give you a raise.”
He nodded. “Let’s talk about you now,” he said with a grin. “How are things going for you? I’m glad the website has been doing well, I’ve been on it several times. I like everything you’ve done with it.”
I had created a website to try to bring business back to Pumpkin Hollow with interactive pages
for each of the Halloween themed businesses. It was helping, but maybe not on the scale I had hoped for. It needed more work.
“Thanks. I’m really enjoying the fact that I’m living back at home. I mean, back home in Pumpkin Hollow, not living in my parents’ house. To be honest with you, I’m kind of feeling a little like a failure having to live with my parents again.” As much as I loved my parents, I was a grown woman at twenty-eight and I needed a place of my own.
“You shouldn’t feel that way,” he said. “A lot of people end up moving back with their parents for a short period after college. It doesn’t mean you failed. It just means you needed to take a little breather from life to sort things out.”
I smiled at him. He had a really positive way of looking at things. “Thanks, Ethan. I hadn’t thought about it that way. But to tell you the truth, I really think it’s time I started looking for my own place. I love my parents, they’re the best. And I love being able to spend a lot of time with my mom, both at home and at the shop. But I really think it’s time to get my own place.”
“I’ll keep my eyes open and if I see an apartment or house for rent, I’ll let you know.”
“I appreciate that. Before I left Michigan, I got rid of all of my furniture and nearly everything I own. I don’t have much right now, but I don’t mind going shopping for furniture and other stuff. Actually, I enjoy shopping. A lot. Getting my own place would be a great excuse to buy things,” I laughed.
He chuckled. “Why does that not surprise me?”
I smiled at Ethan. I really liked him. He had grown up a lot since the seventh grade when he told half the student body that I had spiders in my hair and that they liked living there because I smelled. Yeah, he did that.
“We really need to get some ideas going for the Halloween season,” I said. “We’ve lost two events, three counting the temporary closure of the haunted house, and we need to do some brainstorming.”
“I’m pretty sure we’re going to have the haunted house up and running by the weekend,” Ethan said. “And didn’t you mention goat tying? Maybe you could work on that. Of course, you’d have to round up some goats.”