Death by Pumpkin Spice

by Alex Erickson

  “We’d better go,” Will said, looking like a man about to head to the hangman. “I want to get this over with.”

  I took his hand and we started back toward the ballroom. No matter what happened, I wasn’t going to let him do this alone.

  14

  Paul was waiting for me when we got back. He strode over to where Will and I stopped, just inside the ballroom. Will’s hand had gone clammy with sweat. Our eyes met and I saw a nervousness there that made me start to feel sick to my stomach. Paul, thankfully, didn’t notice. He had his hat off and was running his fingers through his hair in a frustrated way.

  “Have you learned something new?” I asked, worried he’d somehow already heard about Will and Jessica’s relationship and was going to grill him about it.

  “Nothing that will help,” he said with a sigh. He nodded to Will and then replaced his hat. “It seems like everyone here knew our vic, and very few of them had a positive view of her. It doesn’t make my job any easier when it seems as if half of my possible suspects act as if they are happy she’s dead.”

  Will’s hand tightened on my own.

  “Hey, there’s Darrin,” I said, noticing the other man near the drinks. “Why don’t you go ahead and visit with him while I talk to Paul?”

  “You sure?”

  I could tell he really wanted me to say yes. He didn’t want to tell Paul about his past any more than I did.

  “I’m sure,” I said, plastering on a smile. “Go have fun.”

  He gave me a relieved smile. “I’ll find you later,” he said, before hesitating and then leaning down and giving me a quick kiss on the cheek. He gave Paul a nod and then walked briskly away.

  We both watched him go, Paul with a bemused expression on his face. When he turned back to me, it sobered pretty quickly. “Okay,” he said. “I take it there is something you wanted to talk to me about?”

  “I talked to Margaret Yarborough,” I said.

  Paul didn’t look impressed. “And?”

  “And I learned a few interesting things about her and Howard’s relationship.”

  A skinny man with a liver-spotted scalp turned to face us, interest in his eyes. He didn’t bother to hide the fact he was eavesdropping on our conversation. I wondered if you could even call it eavesdropping with how open he was being about it.

  Paul noticed, grimaced, and then took me by the elbow. He led me out of the ballroom, giving the man a glare as he went, and took me down the hall, into his makeshift interrogation room. He closed the door behind us before he turned to face me.

  “I figure we should do this privately.” He leaned on the edge of the table. “These people don’t seem to know the meaning of decorum. For as much as they try to act as they are better than everyone else, I’m finding it hard to like anyone.” He sighed. “So, what did you learn?”

  I took a deep breath to prepare myself. This wasn’t something I was going to enjoy.

  “Turns out, both Margaret and Howard Yarborough had their share of extramarital lovers.”

  “Were they open about it?”

  “Margaret says they were.” And I still couldn’t wrap my mind around it. “She claims everyone does it, though I assume she means her friends and acquaintances, because I sure don’t.” And I had no intention of ever taking part in something like that.

  Paul chewed over the information for a moment. I saw when he came to the same conclusion as I had because his eyes widened slightly and his shoulders tensed. “Did Mr. Yarborough sleep with our victim?”

  “I’m not sure,” I said. “Margaret didn’t seem to know either, or at least, she said she didn’t.” I wouldn’t put it past anyone to lie if they thought it would serve them better than telling the truth, especially since Jessica had been murdered.

  “Someone has to know,” Paul said, clearly speaking to himself.

  I answered anyway.

  “I think I know someone who might.”

  “Really?” He rose from his seat at the table and slid into full-on policeman mode. He was ready to march right out of here and snatch whomever I named right out of the ballroom and drag them down here by their ear if he had to.

  Fortunately, he wouldn’t have to go that far.

  “Quentin Pebbles,” I said. “He might know.” I bit my lip, worried about how he might take what I was about to say next. “I want to talk to him.”

  Paul’s face went carefully blank. “Why?”

  “If anyone would know about Jessica’s love life, it would be her boyfriend,” I said. “He might have learned about the affair and proposed to her to make it seem like he still loved her, but was planning to kill her the entire time.”

  “Which means you are back to suspecting him of murder,” Paul said.

  “Not really,” I admitted. “But he might know someone else who might want to kill her for similar reasons. If Quentin doesn’t know about Jessica’s past lovers, whether they include Mr. Yarborough or not, maybe one of her girlfriends might. She could have confided in one of them at some point. You know, girl talk.”

  Paul frowned. “I have yet to meet anyone who liked her enough to be her confidant.”

  “Which is why I should talk to Quentin!”

  Paul crossed his arms and gave me a skeptical look. “And he will talk to you about it because . . . ?”

  “Because he might be willing to talk to a kind face, rather than a policeman who suspects him of murder?” It came out as a question when I was really shooting for confidence.

  Paul actually smiled. “You do have a friendly look about you.”

  “Flatterer.” I looked away so he wouldn’t see the blush that colored my cheeks.

  Paul sighed and closed his eyes as he rubbed at them. I was afraid he would turn me down and insist on talking to Quentin on his own. I had no doubt he would be able to get the information he needed out of the other man, but I really wanted to be involved in the questioning. At this point, it felt like it was just as much my case as it was Paul’s.

  “I have to be in the room,” he said, opening his eyes. “If you’re right and he knew about an affair with Mr. Yarborough, he might react poorly about being questioned about it. Even if he didn’t know, he might not like being confronted with it. And I’d rather not leave you in the room alone with what could very well be a murderer.”

  “I’ll be okay,” I said, but then hurriedly added, “but I’d like you to be with me, just in case he’s stubborn.”

  “I shouldn’t be doing this,” Paul muttered. “Wait here. I’ll go get him.” He stepped out into the hall and closed the door behind him.

  Alone, in the room with the skull and movie posters, my nerves started jumping. I went for the bookshelves, hoping to find something to get my mind off what I was about to do. I felt bad questioning Quentin, especially if he had nothing to do with Jessica’s murder. I might be asking about things he didn’t know about her, which, in turn, would make him even more miserable than he already was.

  As expected, the books were mostly about scary stuff: horror movies, Halloween decorations, and the like. I pulled one of the books, The Art of Blood, from the shelf and flipped through the pages. Who knew there were so many ways to create and display fake blood? I was pretty sure Howard had employed them all somewhere within the house.

  I put the book back on the shelf with a shudder. I couldn’t imagine spending my life dedicated to the macabre. I didn’t hold it against him. In fact, I was sort of intrigued by it. I would have loved to meet the man face-to-face, but it was far too late for that.

  The door opened behind me and I moved to stand beside the table. Quentin walked in, Paul behind him as if to make sure he wouldn’t try to run. His eyes were red and puffy, and his hair was a tangled mess on his head. He looked as if he’d just been dragged from bed.

  His gaze fell on me and the faintest flash of annoyance passed over his face before he sat down at the table. He looked from me to Paul, then heaved a sigh. “What now?” he asked, sounding as put out as h
e looked.

  “My associate would like to ask you a few questions,” Paul said. He nodded to me and stepped back against the wall, which put him out of Quentin’s line of sight.

  I didn’t want to hover over the poor man, so I took a seat across from him. I folded my hands and rested them on the table in front of me. I felt stupid in my deerstalker hat and considered taking it off. I’d had enough of the costume party and was in no mood to continue with the charade. I might be dressed like Sherlock Holmes, but I was about as far from the master detective as you could get.

  “Once again, I’m so sorry for your loss,” I said, not sure I’d actually expressed it earlier. I doubted he would remember either way.

  Quentin nodded and looked down at his hands. I noted absently that his fingernails weren’t nearly as manicured as Will’s.

  Focus, I warned myself. Getting distracted and thinking of Will, no matter how innocently, wouldn’t help me get Quentin to talk. I’d be more likely to drool all over myself.

  “I’ve had a chance to talk to a few people around the party,” I said. “I was hoping that I could ask you a few questions about what I’ve heard?”

  Quentin shrugged, not looking at me. “Sure. Fine.”

  I considered multiple ways to say it, from blurting it out, to talking around the issue, but nothing seemed right. How do you ask a man if his murdered girlfriend had climbed into bed with a man three times her age? I was beginning to regret not letting Paul deal with the questions, especially since he was a real police officer and, well, I wasn’t.

  Finally, I decided just to start talking and hope something I said would get to the point.

  “Mrs. Yarborough was telling me about the way . . .” I almost said, “you people,” but that sounded off-putting and rude. “She says her husband had many mistresses.”

  Quentin didn’t even so much as blink or glance up at me. “Yeah? So? What does that have to do with me?”

  A new tactic sprang to mind and I ran with it. “She admits that she has done the same.” I paused, hoping I wasn’t overstepping my bounds. “But with men.”

  Quentin glanced up at me then, clearly confused. “So?”

  “Were you one of them?”

  He didn’t explode at me or make a disgusted face like I expected he would. Instead, he shook his head. “I was with Jessica.”

  “And she was faithful to you?”

  Now I had his attention. Quentin’s gaze rose to meet mine. “She was with me.”

  “You said earlier you wanted to tame her, that you thought she might have had other boyfriends, including while she was with you.”

  His eyes narrowed slightly and his jaw bunched as he clenched his teeth. “I did.”

  “Do you think Mr. Yarborough could have been one of them?”

  Silence. Cold, stony silence.

  Paul shifted by the door as if he expected Quentin to leap across the table at me. With the look he was giving me, I wasn’t so sure he wasn’t thinking about it. There was an anger to his eyes, though I wasn’t sure whether it was targeted at me or at some residual hate for Jessica and what she’d done to him, real or perceived.

  But Quentin didn’t budge from his seat. He forced himself to stop clenching his jaw and spoke slowly. “Jessica . . . did things.” He took a slow breath. “I don’t know any of the men, never cared to. I’m not naïve. She wouldn’t suddenly change just because we were dating.”

  “So you think it could be a possibility that she’d slept with Howard?”

  His left eyelid twitched as he answered. “If she thought she could get something out of it, I suppose.” It looked as if it hurt him to admit it.

  I glanced at Paul, who made a “go on” gesture.

  “What do you mean by that?”

  Quentin closed his eyes and rubbed at his temples. He kept rubbing as he spoke. “Money. Gifts. She viewed sex as a means to an end. If the guy was young and good looking, then she might do it for fun. If he was older, or ugly, she would look for other ways to benefit.”

  I was aghast, but couldn’t say I didn’t suspect it, not after the rumors I’d heard about her. “And you were okay with this?”

  He snorted for an answer.

  “Do you think she could have slept with Howard Yarborough in the hopes of making some money from it?”

  Quentin’s hands dropped into his lap as he leaned back in his chair. “I don’t know. I blinded myself to how she really was, okay? I wanted her to love me, but I was a fool. Still am, I guess. I knew she went out with me the first time because she thought she could get something from me, but we somehow connected. It might not have been a strong connection, but it was there. I know she felt it, too, or else she would have dropped me long ago.”

  He looked like he was about to break down and cry, but I couldn’t stop, not until I was sure I had everything I could from him about this. I didn’t want to have to ask him about any of this ever again. He was already hurting enough, and I was making it worse. If he turned out to be the killer, I wouldn’t feel as bad, but for now, I felt like garbage prodding at the wound so much.

  “Do you know if she had this ‘connection’ with anyone else?”

  The hurt in Quentin’s eye was nearly enough to get me to back off, but one look at Paul told me I was getting somewhere. It might not prove who killed Jessica Fairweather, but it would go a long way in giving him a firmer suspect.

  “She might have,” he said after a tortured moment. “In fact, after what she did to me, I’m almost sure of it.”

  “Do you know who?”

  He shook his head. His entire body sagged as if defeated. “I was blind.”

  I hated to do it, but I had to ask, just to be sure. “Did you kill Jessica because you found out she was sleeping around behind your back?”

  Quentin didn’t get angry. I think he’d already spent it, and all that was left was misery. He looked up at me, eyes filled with sadness, and said, “I didn’t hurt her.”

  “Do you know anyone who might have? Were there any guys hanging around her lately she didn’t seem to approve of? Any strange calls or visits? Anything at all you can remember might help.”

  “When you get involved with Jessica Fairweather, you know what you are in for,” Quentin said. I wasn’t sure he actually heard my questions. “No one who had any interest in her would hurt her. She didn’t put on airs. She didn’t pretend to be something she wasn’t.” He looked up at me then. “What happened to her had to have been a mistake.”

  I had nothing further for him. He didn’t know who Jessica had been with, and I wasn’t going to push the issue any more than I had. Paul seemed satisfied with my questions. He stepped forward and gently led Quentin out of the room, out to wherever he was storing him. I remained seated, feeling like crap for asking such horrible questions. How could anyone do this on a regular basis?

  Jessica had been murdered after a failed proposal. It would be easy to simply assume the boyfriend had done it, or one of his friends, or even a jaded ex. It would also be easy to assume she’d been killed because of all of the people she’d been with. Someone had to be unhappy about it.

  But we weren’t dealing with normal society here. Many of these people here tonight had slept around, if Margaret Yarborough could be believed. Until now, no one had died because of it as far as I was aware. Sure, there was always a first time, but I had a feeling it went deeper. There was something I was missing, some small piece of information that would break the entire case wide open.

  But what?

  Paul returned a minute later. He stopped just inside the door and crossed his arms over his chest. “What do you think?” he asked.

  “He didn’t do it,” I said, pushing away from the table. I wanted to be out of there. “That’s the only thing I’m sure of.”

  “Yeah.” He sighed. “I agree.”

  “But I am starting to think he might be right about one thing.”

  “About?” Paul asked, stepping aside as I walked past him and into
the hall.

  “About Jessica’s death,” I said, hugging myself. “Whoever killed her made a mistake.” I looked Paul in the eyes. “I don’t think she was the intended victim.”

  15

  Paul let me return to the ballroom without pressing me on why I thought what I did about Jessica’s murder. Either he agreed with me, or he didn’t think my assumption had any merit. I was okay with both, really. We would know the answer eventually.

  Will was with his friends, and I decided to let him have some time with them. I was afraid he’d want to go talk to Paul about his former relationship with the victim. I know I’d told him he should do it, but I was second-guessing myself. From what I gathered, they’d dated a really long time ago. It shouldn’t be pertinent now.

  I scanned the rest of the crowd, hoping to spot some of my friends. Jules and Lance were nowhere in sight, and when I saw Vicki, she was standing with Mason, talking to his dad, Raymond, and his latest flame, Regina Harper. No one looked happy in that conversation, and I for one wasn’t about to join in on the less-than-pleasant gathering.

  I wandered over to the snack table as my stomach gave a loud protest about being ignored for so long. I picked up a cookie and carried it over to the punch, where I grabbed a cup and filled it from the nearest punch bowl. One sniff told me that both my cookie and my drink were pumpkin. I started salivating.

  And then I remembered Jessica Fairweather and the pumpkin her body was found sprawled in.

  That did it. I set aside the cookie, no longer hungry, and the drink went right back down onto the table. I hoped I wasn’t put off pumpkin forever, but for right now, I’d take a pass on it.

  “Krissy.”

  I closed my eyes, counted to three, and then turned, not bothering to even attempt a smile. “What do you want, Robert?”

  “I just want to talk,” he said, holding out his hands as if to show me they were empty. He wasn’t wearing his mask, which was something of a relief. It meant I could tell him off, and look right into his eyes while I was doing it.

  “I’m not in the mood to talk,” I said with a weary sigh. “There’s been a murder if you haven’t noticed.”