The Pumpkin Man

by John Everson

  “Didn’t you question her?” Nick asked. “I assume she was a suspect?”

  The captain nodded. “I talked to her a bit after Charlie’s murder. She acted shocked and upset that someone had tried to re-create the whole horror of what happened so long ago. I didn’t press her too hard at the time because it was just a single murder. There was no pattern yet. But, after Hank and Angel were killed I had a hunch that she knew more than she was saying. We called your aunt a couple times but she didn’t answer. Then I found out why. I drove up and found her dead on the floor, right here, in front of the fireplace. Just like the others, her head had been cut off.”

  Jenn shivered. Her dad had never told her Meredith was murdered! She’d never really thought too hard about where or how her aunt died either. She hadn’t wanted to.

  “But . . . assuming it was even possible that he was brought back from the dead, why would Jenn’s uncle hurt Meredith if this was all about revenge for him?” Kirstin asked.

  “He wouldn’t,” the captain agreed. “It wasn’t him. Whoever killed your aunt was not the same person who killed Charlie and the DeVrieses.”

  He stood up and walked toward the fireplace, paced back and forth while he talked. “Meredith’s murder was different. Not to be disrespectful,” he added, addressing Jenn, “but the way the killer took off her head was not like the others. No finesse. And the pumpkin he left in its place was . . . remedial. Crudely carved triangle eyes and mouth. A hack-job jack-o’-lantern. Not like your uncle at all.” He shook his head. “No, it wasn’t done by the person who killed Erik and Charlie. Whoever killed your aunt was different. I figure he didn’t want her to talk. She knew something about all this, and I would bet my life that she set it all in motion. But she must have had help, and whoever was helping her got scared and tried to stop it.”

  “But it didn’t stop,” Jenn said.

  Jones shook his head. “No, it didn’t stop.”

  Nick stared at a stone on the right side of the fireplace, the stone that covered the Ouija board. “Genie’s out of the bottle,” he said.

  Jenn was quiet for a moment before she looked at the captain. “You say the heads of those kids were never found?”

  Jones nodded.

  Kirstin frowned. “You don’t think . . .”

  Jenn nodded. “I think you might find them kids just outside our back door. Someone kept a bunch of skulls in our kitchen, locked in a drawer.”

  Jones released a long sigh. “Of course they were. Let’s take a look.”

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-TWO

  The day that Brian died never seemed to end. After watching cops march back and forth through the house for a couple hours, their numbers slowly growing, an ambulance team arrived. Two burly men disappeared into the back bedroom and reappeared a short time later with Brian’s body on a stretcher. He was covered in a white sheet.

  Captain Jones took Jenn, Kirstin and Nick back to the station to get formal statements, and so they all relived the night and morning yet again. He took them one by one into his office while the others waited in a small room with an older woman named Edie. She appeared to be the captain’s secretary as well as the station’s dispatcher, receptionist and barista. She kept coming out from behind her desk to refill their cups from a coffeepot kept on a warmer next to her.

  They were still at the station when Officer Barkiewicz returned. The captain excused himself so that he and his subordinate could talk. The two stepped into a conference room with a window facing the reception area, and Jenn watched Barkiewicz gesturing animatedly behind the glass. The captain only nodded. At last, the captain opened his mouth to speak, patted Officer Barkiewicz’s shoulder and then reopened the conference room door.

  “We’re going to need a day or two to comb the house,” he announced to Jenn. “I’d like you to stay someplace accessible, in case we need to talk.”

  “Are we suspects now?” Kirstin asked, her forehead lined from frustration or exhaustion.

  The captain shook his head. “Given what I told you about earlier, you’re not very high on my list. But I need to know where you are.”

  “We don’t really know anyone—” Jenn began, but Nick cut her off.

  “They can stay with me for a couple days, if it’s okay for us to go back to San Francisco. I need to get back to work. I can give you my contact and my bosses, if that helps.”

  The captain thought a minute and then nodded. “Let Edie know where you’ll be and how I can reach you.”

  The woman seemed to appear out of nowhere with a clipboard, and Nick wrote down his address and phone number. Then he passed the clipboard to the girls, who added their cell phone numbers.

  “We’ll need to get some clothes and things from the house,” Jenn said. “Will they let us in?”

  The captain nodded. “I’ll let them know on the radio that you’re coming.” He handed Jenn a business card with his name and RIVER’S END POLICE DEPARTMENT typed on it in neat, nondescript lettering. “Check in with me tomorrow, if you would. Officer Barkiewicz will drive you back.”

  The trio followed the younger cop out into the bright sunshine of midafternoon, squinting. The day seemed distant, surreal. They had just spent the last couple hours in a police station talking about a murder, about the headless body of the man Kirstin had slept with the night before. About Nick’s best friend. About a killer who took heads and left pumpkins. It didn’t seem possible. At the same time, it was.

  The three smooshed into the backseat of Officer Barkiewicz’s squad car. The policeman didn’t say anything as he got them onto Route 1 and then drove up the hill through the town.

  When they arrived, the surreal feeling of their situation increased. The place looked innocent despite the squad cars parked in the driveway, just a quiet little brick home overlooking heaven. The fields of grass sloped away and down toward a quiet town. The Russian River shimmered from blue to white in the distance, rays from the setting sun touching the water and setting it afire. Jenn blinked away a tear and looked back at the house, at the brown hills speckled with the emerald highlights of trees.

  How could this happen here? she wondered. What exactly had her aunt wrought? Somehow, she had to find out. Because clearly the Pumpkin Man was not confined to River’s End. It was confusing, really. Mostly the murder spree had been confined to a very specific group of people, but the killer had taken her father’s life in Chicago. And it had taken Brian, another innocent. Would she be next? The thought of its shadow looming across her bed as she slept made her shiver.

  The house was quiet as Barkiewicz walked them to Kirstin’s room to get her things. Jenn put her arm around her friend’s shoulders as they stopped in the doorway. The room looked cold. All that had changed since the morning was that the bed had been stripped and the body removed, but still their surroundings seemed . . . unfriendly. Jenn squeezed Kirstin’s shoulder in sympathy. The stains of Brian’s blood were still visible on the mattress.

  “Go get your stuff,” Kirstin said. “I’ll be okay.” She pulled away from Jenn and got a suitcase from the closet.

  Nick, Jenn and Officer Barkiewicz went to Jenn’s room, and she pulled out her own case as Nick sat on the bed.

  “I’ll be back in a minute,” Officer Barkiewicz said. “I just want to go down to the basement and let the others know we’re here.”

  Jenn piled a couple pairs of pants, a few shirts, some underwear and socks into the suitcase, and then she laid her long white bookworm nightshirt over the top. She closed the case and went into the bathroom to gather her toothbrush, hairbrush and other necessities, which she slipped into the outside compartment; then she stood in the center of the room, surveying her dresser and bed. It was strange to pack when she didn’t know exactly when she was coming back or what she might need in the meantime.

  She pulled a jacket from her closet, reopened her case and threw it in. Then she zipped up her luggage and started to carry it to the front room.

  “Let me,” Nic
k said. He deftly removed it from her grip. The gesture made Jenn’s chest feel warm, though she knew it was stupid. But, he really did care. His best friend was dead because of her, but instead of running he had decided to help.

  “Thanks,” she said, and watched his back and shoulders as he rounded the corner and stooped to set the bag down near the front door. She liked watching him move.

  He turned and caught her gaze. She felt her face flush, but he didn’t react to that. He just bent to kiss her and put his arms around her in a tight squeeze.

  “You all right?” she whispered.

  He nodded against her shoulder. “But I’ll be better after I hit the head,” he declared, and he broke the embrace, kissing her once on the forehead before he stepped off down the hall.

  Jenn stood alone in her aunt’s front room, staring at the shelves of books on the occult. Somewhere in all of that there had to be an answer to what was happening here. But damned if she knew where to look.

  She wished that Meredith were around to ask. She’d never really known her aunt. She hadn’t even gone to the funeral, since Holy Name was in the midst of finals at the time. She remembered meeting the woman long ago, and she remembered her aunt as a bit quirky and quiet. But she also remembered a sense of humor. A sense of compassion. If only she could go back in time and talk to her. Get to know her better. Maybe she’d understand some of this.

  Jenn walked over to the fireplace. After a glance behind her to confirm that she was still alone in the room, she removed the stone, set it on the floor and slipped her hand into the darkness. From the hole she withdrew the Ouija board and its planchette; then she replaced the rock.

  She stared at the simple graven alphabet and doubted herself for a moment. Could it really be this simple?

  The sound of Jenn’s suitcase zipper closing cut the air just as Nick and Kirstin both reappeared. Nick was carrying Kirstin’s suitcase. Apparently he practiced equal opportunity chivalry.

  “I wanted to be prepared and pack some pretzels and beer, but Nick promised he had plenty,” Kirstin said.

  “It’s a bachelor pad,” he agreed. “Brian has a good stash of pornos, too.” Then he realized what he’d said and his face fell.

  Jenn rolled her eyes, but for an instant her mind flashed on the stash of magazines she’d thrown away at her dad’s. Men really were all the same.

  “Ready to go?” she asked.

  “Just give the word,” Nick promised.

  “Word,” she answered. If only it were that easy for everything.

  Nick deftly removed the suitcase from her hand as soon as she picked it up and shouldered the door open with both hers and Kirstin’s cases in his hands. She stifled a laugh as he stumbled his way forward, determined to muscle all their luggage to the car at once. Kirstin didn’t leave home without three sets of shoes, a barrage of aerosols and a hair dryer that made stylists at her spa jealous.

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-THREE

  “It was supposed to end with her death,” the man grumbled. He’d just awoken after a deep sleep on his living room couch. The pale blue velour cushions were smeared with something dark. He knew what it was without looking. What he didn’t know was whose.

  He twisted his legs off the couch and his foot landed on something hard yet yielding. Absently he bent down and picked it up: a smashed hunk of pumpkin. Without warning, he broke into a machine gun round of sneezing.

  “Enough already!” he screamed, whipping the pumpkin piece against the brick wall north face of his old house. He’d had the drywall removed a few years earlier to enlarge the room, but the extra space had disappeared again as he slowly filled it with discarded furniture and other rescued junk. The pumpkin stuck momentarily to the brick, then peeled back and fell behind a magazine rack. Its flesh left a wet orange splotch.

  He left the shard where it lay and walked to the bathroom. As soon as he flipped the light on, he wished he hadn’t. The flecks of blood on his cheeks looked like measles. His eyelids were clean, but the rest of his face was coated like he’d been painting a ceiling in dark red paint. Tiny trails of red crusted his earlobes and splotched the white seams of his undershirt. The blue button-up he wore atop the tee was mottled in stains; from his chest to his belly, you wouldn’t have been able to tell the shirt’s original color.

  He stripped off both shirts, looking in the mirror to see if there was blood on his naked chest, but beneath his speckled face was simply the pale white skin of a man who didn’t get out much. His paunch bespoke a distinctly unhealthy diet, and his still unpleasantly wet and sticky jeans bespoke murder.

  He angrily stripped off the pants, a tear escaping the corner of his eye and cutting a path through dried blood as it slid down his cheek. He piled the clothes in a small heap. As with so much of his wardrobe these days, he’d be burning them in the fire pit out back. He’d need to restock his fuel soon; at the rate he was going he’d be through his wood in no time. He’d had to get rid of a lot of evidence.

  He stepped into the bathtub and turned on the water, as scalding hot as it would get. Then, with a rough bath brush, he scrubbed and scrubbed until his skin was as red as the blood he struggled to escape. With every stroke of the brush, he whispered to himself, but no matter how many times he said them, the words didn’t come true.

  “It was supposed to be over. It was supposed to end with her death!”

  Captain Harlan Jones closed the door to his office quietly, but firmly. He’d sent Scott with Jennica Murphy and her boyfriend back to the house, and Edie had stepped out for a bit, so for a little while, he had the station all to himself. His feet were heavy as he walked across the small office, and levered himself into the well-worn desk chair. He closed his eyes as he sank back, and tried to shake the events of the day, and the past few weeks, from his mind.

  How could this be happening again? And what was he going to do to deal with it?

  The what he needed to ponder. He knew the how. There was no question. There never had been, really.

  Meredith.

  Just the thought of her name made him shiver. He remembered her as she had been when she’d first arrived in River’s End, all those years ago. A young, fresh, pretty girl, not so different from her niece Jennica. But once she’d moved into the old Perenais place, she’d begun to change. It was subtle at first, but once the word got out that the “new girl” was practicing some of the “old” ways . . . well, it wasn’t long before people were walking up the hill at odd hours, sneaking about in the dark hoping to buy charms and spells from Meredith Perenais, without anyone knowing.

  But everyone knew everything about one another in a small town like this. Say what you want about the modern age and enlightened thinking in twentieth-century society, but that was all just talk. Once they stripped off those fancy business suits, people at their heart remained superstitious savages, ready to dance around the campfire and sacrifice goats in the night to appease the invisible spirits that they’d scoff at during the daytime at the office.

  Jones had just been a rookie back when people began to go to Meredith for magical aid, and for a long time, he had himself refused to believe in old wives’ tales. He’d laughed at the idea that Meredith Perenais was a witch. Until the night that he responded to an emergency call from the bartender at Casey’s. He remembered that night as if it were yesterday.

  Jones had been working with Patrick Donovan the night that Gillan Beans phoned in that 911. George and Meredith Perenais had been out for the night at the bar along with a bunch of other regulars. The liquor had been flowing well, apparently, because comments began to fly about drinking with a “dirty witch,” and the fists had begun flying pretty fast. Gillan had screamed for George and Elden Spraig to take it outside, and they had, followed by a handful of men who’d been cheering Elden on. Then she’d called the police.

  When Jones and Donovan pulled up in the squad, the two men were circling each other in the front parking lot, surrounded by the rest. Elden had picked up an i
ron rod from somewhere, and was swinging it wildly at George. Before they had stopped the car, Jones saw Meredith leap into the ring and grab hold of Elden’s head, but just as fast as she entered the ring, she was dragged out of it by two of the bystanders. As Jones and Donovan slammed the doors of the squad and moved in to break up the fight, the two men disappeared around the corner of Casey’s, with Meredith kicking and screaming in their arms.

  “Get the girl,” Donovan said. “I’ll handle these idiots.”

  Jones nodded, and cautiously walked around the side of Casey’s, gun drawn. There were no lights on this side of the bar, and Jones squinted through the shadows along the side of the building, looking for the men. Just as he reached the corner, he heard Meredith screech. As he rounded the corner, he heard one of the men laughing. The other said, “Let’s see if a witch looks any different underneath her cape than other girls. Maybe she’s got broomstick burns!”

  Jones stepped around the corner to see one of the men—Gary Burton—holding Meredith to the back siding of the bar with one large burly arm, while he covered her mouth with the other.

  Her eyes bugged out as she struggled and screamed beneath his hand in anger.

  Meanwhile, Sid Coleman, Gary’s usual partner in crime, was pawing the girl and laughing. “Let’s take a look, shall we,” he said, and ripped Meredith’s blouse open to expose the silky swell of her breasts behind a white lace bra.

  “That’s called sexual assault,” Jones announced. “You’re already in some shit here, and if you don’t want to get in any deeper, I’d suggest you let go of that woman. Don’t bother running, I know where you guys live.”

  “Shit,” Sid said, as Gary released Meredith’s arms. She pulled her blouse shut as well as she could; Sid had popped a couple buttons. “We were only playing with her while Georgie and Elden was scrapping. We didn’t do nothing at all.”