by Kate Bell
She tilted her chin upward in consideration of my words. “Maybe. But I guess you can say I’m just like a mama bear. Don’t come near the ones I love, or else.”
“So I guess that’s an admission of guilt? What did Greg do that was so terrible?”
“He tried to take the haunted house away from Charlie. I had no choice in the matter, I had to do what needed to be done. Poor Charlie had worried himself nearly to death, and I was worried he would have a stroke or heart attack. He was up all night pacing the floor. The doctor told him his blood pressure was out of control and if he didn’t do something soon, it would be the death of him. So you see Mia, my Charlie’s life was at stake. He had worn a hole through his stomach with worry and the doctor said his heart would be next.”
I nodded, the phone in my hand was at my side. “Are you going to let Charlie go to prison for what you did?”
She shook her head. “No. I told you, I have the best lawyer money can buy. He’s actually my cousin, and he owes me a favor. And besides that, there’s no evidence that Charlie did anything because he didn’t do it. I’m confident he’ll get off. The problem I find myself with now is that you figured this out. And I’m certainly not going to jail for murder.”
Before I knew what was happening, she drew a gun from her purse with her free hand and held it on me.
“Evelyn, you don’t want to do this. We don’t have to go there,” I pleaded.
“I’m afraid you backed me into a corner, Mia. Get into my car,” she said motioning to her red SUV with the gun.
My mind scrambled for a way out. I was not getting in that car and I was not going anywhere with her. Nor was she going to get away with Greg’s murder. But I was stuck right then, and I very hesitantly turned toward her car. At that moment she closed the short distance between us and pointed the gun at my ribs. Before I had time to think, I drew back my elbow and hit her in the chest with it. She screamed and lost control of the gun as it flew out of her hand. I kicked at her leg and she went down on one knee while I scrambled for the gun.
Grabbing the gun, I pointed it at her. My hands shook and my head pounded, and I cautioned myself against pulling the trigger accidentally.
“I’m sorry Evelyn, but you’re not getting away with Greg’s murder.”
Evelyn turned to me and through gritted teeth said, “I am not going to jail. Do you hear me? I had no choice but to kill the person that was killing my husband. It was practically self-defense. There was nothing else I could do, don’t you see that?”
“Evelyn you can tell yourself anything you want, and you can even feel justified in your actions, but the rest of the world will see your actions as inexcusable.”
While keeping the gun trained on her, I dialed 911.
Chapter Twenty-four
Boo purred loudly and rubbed up against Ethan’s leg. After a moment he jumped onto Ethan’s lap, demanding to be pet.
“You’re kind of bossy, aren’t you?” Ethan said to Boo. He was answered with loud purring.
“I’d say Boo is pretty fond of you,” I said as I sat next to Ethan on my brand new sofa. I had ordered a sofa and loveseat two days earlier and it had been delivered late in the afternoon. We had had to skip dinner the night before when the police had arrived and arrested Evelyn at her home, and I had to go down to the station and give my statement. Thankfully, Ethan was at the station by the time I arrived and he took my statement from me. The adrenaline had been coursing through my body so hard I was shaking as I told him what happened.
“I’m glad you put things together and recognized the lipstick on Evelyn’s coffee cup,” Ethan said with a chuckle.
“If you want to know the truth, I kind of surprised myself. I mean, there were times that I wondered about Evelyn, obviously. And of course I didn’t feel that Charlie was the killer, but I still would have put my money on Frank. That is until Amanda mentioned Evelyn buying coffee from her shop early in the morning on the day Greg was killed. I would never have put it together if Evelyn hadn’t just come in and handed me that coffee cup with the same shade of hot pink lipstick on the lid.”
“Yeah well, it was pretty good detective work. I might have to take some tips from you,” he said and scratched Boo’s head. “I’ll never understand criminals that think they’re justified in their actions.”
“Me either,” I said and ran my hand across Boo’s shoulders. “I get it that Charlie and Evelyn had financial troubles, and I get it that financial problems are extremely stressful. Some people don’t handle stress very well at all, and I guess that was Charlie. But it seems like there had to be another way out of this thing other than killing Greg.”
“It’s a shame really,” Ethan said. “Everybody’s a loser here. Sure, maybe Charlie will be able to figure a way to save the haunted house, but Greg lost his life and Evelyn lost her freedom, so in effect, Charlie also lost his wife. And still, for now, the financial troubles remain.”
“Did she say how it all went down?” I asked him.
“She did. Knowing the haunted house was in foreclosure, Greg had made Charlie an offer. Evelyn said it was ridiculously low and she wouldn’t let Charlie accept it. She said Greg kept hounding Charlie about accepting his offer, telling him he could get out from under the financial burden of the haunted house, and if he didn’t accept it, the bank would take the haunted house and he would end up with nothing. Charlie was under a great deal of stress over it all and was making himself sick.”
“Evelyn mentioned it was making him sick,” I said and scratched Boo’s ear.
He nodded. “Evelyn got tired of what she called Greg’s harassment of Charlie and decided to put an end to it by creating a fake email account in Charlie’s name. She emailed Greg and told him to meet her at the haunted house and had him enter by the back door which is why he never showed up on the camera near the front door.”
“And she killed him with the spear? Just like that?” I asked him. “Wasn’t Greg suspicious when she showed up at the haunted house and not Charlie?”
“She told him Charlie had gotten sick that morning and asked her to show up in his stead. She let him into the haunted house under the ruse that they needed a higher offer from Greg. She showed him around, pointing out how much the haunted house was actually worth until they got to the caveman display. There she stabbed him with the spear. But things didn’t go as planned,” he said.
“What do you mean?” I asked. “He’s dead, and that’s what she wanted, right?”
“She did get the intended end result, but not in the way she wanted. She was surprised to see the graffiti and was worried someone was in the haunted house with them, but when she didn’t see anyone, she continued with her plan. Except her plan was to make it look like that plastic caveman mannequin had fallen on Greg and he was accidentally stabbed by its spear.”
“Seriously?” I asked. “She wanted to blame it on the mannequin?”
“She thought she could arrange it to look like an accident and get away with it. But, the mannequin was a much lighter weight than she had anticipated and she couldn’t get the thing to lay down on top of Greg at the correct angle.”
I turned toward him. Ethan was trying to suppress a smile. “That’s nuts. That thing wasn’t flexible and there was no way it could have landed at the right angle.”
“No, it wasn’t flexible at all. It was poor planning to be sure.”
“It sounded like a lot worse than poor planning,” I said.
“Later she hoped that whoever had gotten into the haunted house to spray the graffiti would be blamed for the murder. That’s why she kept trying to point at others. She just couldn’t come up with a very good reason for Greg to be in the haunted house after hours.”
“What a heck of a time for Frank to choose to vandalize the haunted house.”
“Yeah, that was crazy, wasn’t it?”
“Wait, did Charlie know she had killed Greg? When he got to the haunted house, he looked kind of frazzled.”
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��No, he didn’t know. But he did know Evelyn had left the house early in the morning and she insisted he tell me that they were both at home. So, I’m sure he suspected something, but Evelyn insists he never asked her if she killed Greg.”
I nodded and sighed. “I hope this is the end of the troubles for Pumpkin Hollow. On the bright side, we’re keeping the Halloween season, but I don’t know if it will matter if we lose any more attractions.”
“I guess that just means we’re going to have to work harder to make up the difference,” Ethan said. “I still think that goat tying event might be a possibility.”
I chuckled. “Do you know someplace we can round up a bunch of goats real quick?”
“I guess that might be a problem,” he said. “But maybe I’ll make a couple phone calls. Do you remember Tom Baker from high school?”
“The name sounds familiar. Remind me.”
“He was on the football team and played halfback,” he said. “Remember? Red hair and kinda stocky?”
I nodded. “I do think I remember him. He was kind of quiet, wasn’t he?”
“Yes, he was quiet. And it just so happens that his dad owns a farm down the road a ways. Maybe he’s got some goats we can borrow.”
“Oh?” I said thinking this over. “And maybe he’s got some extra bales of straw that we could use for people to sit on and watch the goat tying?”
“It wouldn’t surprise me one bit if he did,” he said. “I’ll make a phone call tomorrow, but I can’t promise anything.”
“You don’t have to promise anything. I’ve got some other ideas to fill in the gaps, too. I just hope we can pull it together quickly.”
I looked at Ethan as he rubbed Boo’s head. Ethan was a good guy, in spite of the rough start we had had back in the seventh grade. I had finally forgiven him for telling everybody that I had spiders in my hair, and he had turned out to be a great guy. And I hoped he would be in my life for quite a while to come.
Author’s note
I love Halloween. It brings back so many memories from my childhood. There’s just something about dressing up and becoming someone else, even if it’s only for a few hours.
I hope you’re enjoying the mysteries in Pumpkin Hollow. Mia and Ethan are doing their best to keep criminals off the streets of Pumpkin Hollow and getting to know each other better in the middle. Hang around and see what happens next in Pumpkin Hollow!