Pumpkins are Murder

by Kathy Cranston

  Stacey was good at chatting, Jessie thought cynically as they set to work. She resigned herself to not getting much work done that day. After all, who could chat and knock out drywall at the same time? She could barely hear a word her friend was saying when she was using the sledgehammer and she had an inkling that Stacey’s words might reveal something she hadn’t previously thought of.

  She thought back as she smiled and played along. Stacey had always shown an interest in the case. Jessie hadn’t thought it strange before. A lot of her friends liked to ask her for updates. In light of her strange discovery of the man who looked just like Stacey, though, did that take on significance? The simple truth was she didn’t know.

  And annoyingly, it seemed like Stacey wanted to talk about everything but the case that morning. Frustration grew within Jessie—was she sacrificing a whole morning of work for the sake of some chit-chat about reality TV?

  Finally, when she was about to give up and go to the Bakehouse, Stacey glanced at her.

  “So how’s it going, you know, with that bank guy?” She said it casually, as if it was just another thing that flashed through her mind.

  And maybe it is, Jessie reminded herself, knowing that it would be foolish to jump to conclusions and form links when there were none.

  How do I work this? she wondered. Does she really know more than she’s letting on? How can I find out?

  Fearing she was losing her mind and descending into a whole new level of paranoia, her mind worked furiously to form an answer that was both natural and useful from the point of view of the investigation.

  “Okay, I guess,” she said. “It looks as if they’ve found a guy.”

  “Oh,” Stacey said, sounding indifferent. Her eyes told a different story, though. Jessie had been watching her closely and had seen the way her pupils dilated.

  “Yeah,” Jessie said. “All signs point to him. I shouldn’t really be telling you this, of course.”

  “Oh, of course. I totally understand.”

  “Yeah,” she said, almost to herself as she pretended to assess their progress while maintaining a watchful eye on her friend. “Jeff Morton is guilty as sin. Don’t tell anyone, but the case against him looks cut and dry.”

  “I won’t,” Stacey said. “Oh my goodness! To think that there’s a murderer living in our town!”

  “I know,” Jessie said, reaching over and patting the other woman’s shoulder. “But don’t worry. He’ll soon be off the streets.”

  Stacey shook her head, exhaling sharply. “I’ll feel a lot safer when that happens.”

  I’m sure you will, Jessie thought.

  She wasn’t being unkind. No, she had been watching her friend closely when she dropped that name into the conversation. She’d had enough conversations about murders in the past to have seen a pattern in peoples’ reactions. Stacey had done everything right. It was easy to feign surprise and horror. What wasn’t easy was making one’s eyes look shocked when they weren’t. Stacey’s eyes hadn’t changed a bit, though the rest of her act was word perfect.

  And why was that?

  Jessie had the sinking feeling that her friend knew a lot more about the case than she’d been letting on.

  Now all she needed to do was find out more about the brother—how was she going to do that without raising the woman’s suspicions?

  A thought struck her then. What had Tony said about his friend? She struggled to remember. It had certainly sounded like the friend had more than a passing influence on the man deciding to call his bank manager.

  Bob, she remembered. Tony had mentioned his buddy Bob.

  Swallowing back a surge of butterflies in her stomach, Jessie washed her plate in the sink, deliberately turning her back to Stacey.

  “You know, the part that I don’t get is the guy in black that Bob and I saw. It doesn’t tie in with Jeff.”

  Stacey sighed, coming to her side with a dish towel to help. “I don’t know. Bobby was pretty convinced. Maybe the killer had a friend come along to help just in case things went wrong.”

  “Maybe,” Jessie said as breezily as she could. “I guess the important thing is they’ve got their guy. We can all rest easy in our beds.”

  “That’s so true,” Stacey said with a wide smile.

  Jessie’s stomach lurched. What part had her friend played in this? And had Jessie herself been played as the biggest fool of all?

  24

  “Let me get this straight,” Chief Daly said with a frown. “You’re now trying to tell me that Tony was set up too.”

  “No.” Jessie massaged her temples as she struggled to figure out how it must have worked. She decided to stick to the facts as she knew them because she wasn’t having any luck fitting the pieces together. “Look, there are so many strange aspects to this case—we already knew that. I went to visit Cassie last night. Her mystery man’s Tinder account had been deleted, but she’d been cautious enough to email herself a screenshot of it before she met him.”

  “And you recognized him?”

  “Not exactly. There was something very familiar about him but I just couldn’t place it. Then I went to the restaurant this morning to get some work done—it was the only way I could think of clearing my head. It hit me when Stacey came into the kitchen. The man in that picture could have been her double.”

  Chief Daly cleared his throat and looked at her intently. “That’s it? That’s your new development?”

  She sighed. “Bear with me, Chief.”

  “I’m not sure I can in this case. I’m sorry, Jessie. But we’ve got Tony in custody and there’s some significant evidence stacked against him. I can’t abandon that for the sake of some very tenuous links to a man who happened to use a dating app.”

  “And I’m not asking you to do that. Please. There’s more.” She took a deep breath as she worked to get things straight in her mind. “Okay, so I didn’t know the name of Stacey’s brother. But do you remember Tony Young mentioned his friend; the business owner friend who advised him to speak to his bank manager? He said his name was Bobby. Now, I asked Stacey this morning about the man dressed in black that Bobby claimed to see. I threw it in there as casually as possible. She didn’t flinch. She answered me. Isn’t that too much of a coincidence? Also, she’s been asking a lot of questions about the case. This morning I mentioned that Jeff was the suspect and she didn’t bat an eyelid. I’ve never seen anyone react so casually to the news that they’ve been living close to a murder suspect. She acted surprised but her eyes told a different story. There was no reaction in them.”

  Chief Daly chuckled and shook his head. “Oh, Jessie. You couldn’t just come out straight and ask her her brother’s name?”

  “No,” she said, not in the least bit offended by his laughter. If anything, she was glad he wasn’t fully discounting her theory—she had now told him everything she had. “I didn’t want to raise her suspicions. It might be that I already have—I can’t remember if she ever told me her brother’s name. But this way at least she might assume she’d mentioned it.”

  “What’s her last name?”

  “Holmes.”

  “Bobby Holmes,” the chief said thoughtfully. “I’ve never heard of him.”

  “They’re not from around here,” Jessie said. “But if it’s our guy, he was in the vicinity of Springdale when Cassie took a screenshot of his Tinder profile. And that’s despite the fact that he told her he was on a navy ship. Plus he goes by the name Shawn on Tinder.”

  “There’s no crime in lying on a dating website.”

  “No, there’s not. But it seems odd. He tells his friend Tony to meet with his bank manager during the parade. At the same time, he arranges to meet with Cassie during the parade—well, as Shawn. My guess is that he’s behind Jeff’s dash to that client meeting.”

  “What are you suggesting, Jessie?”

  She sighed. She still couldn’t believe that her friend had been involved in this. “I think he manipulated this whole thing. I can’t work
out why he didn’t show up for his date with Cassie. But it’s because of him that…” she gasped. “Do you know what? Stacey knew about the pumpkin too! The day after the murder! I thought she’d read about it in the Chronicle, but that detail was never released to the press, was it?”

  Chief Daly shook his head. “No, it wasn’t.”

  “Well then. How did she know?” Jessie bit her lip. Her friend’s betrayal stung, but worse still was the fact that it appeared she and her brother had conspired to frame or use innocent people. “Chief, do you believe me or do you think I’m going crazy?”

  He sighed. “It’s a pretty crazy story you’re telling me, Jessie. But your crazy theories have proven correct in the past.”

  “So you’ll bring him in?”

  “I don’t know. We have a pretty solid case against Tony. What you’ve just told me sounds somewhat plausible but I don’t know how we’d even begin to prove—”

  “I’ve got it!” Jessie exclaimed. “If we can bring up Bobby Holmes’s DMV photo then we can at least prove he’s the same guy that contacted Cassie. We can show it to Tony too and see if he identifies him as the friend Bobby who advised him to meet with Albie Parker on the day of the murder. If Bobby Holmes used his home computer to contact Jeff, we can link him to that too.”

  Chief Daly stared at her. Finally, he looked away and shook his head. “You know, you’re turning into a half-decent detective. When you put it like that, I can’t very well ignore this. I’ll be back in a moment.”

  It took more than a moment. Chief Daly returned about a half hour later holding a sheaf of papers.

  “Oh,” Jessie muttered, disappointed. She hadn’t realized it was going to be a common name.

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “Some of these are random printouts of other guys named Bobby. We can’t very well go in there and show Tony just two or three pictures. After all, he’s going to be grasping for anything he can use to get himself off the hook.

  Feeling better, Jessie flicked through the pages, able to rule out some of the men straight away. And then she saw him. She tapped the page. “This is him. For sure.”

  Tony, though grumpy and uncooperative, finally agreed to have a look through the photos. He became more and more agitated as he worked his way through. The chief had selected a large range of men called Bobby and had deliberately placed the picture of the man Jessie had identified in the center of the pile.

  “This is him,” Tony muttered.

  Jessie was watching from the observation room. She leaned forward. To her frustration, she couldn’t see which one he had chosen.

  Thankfully she didn’t have to wait for very long. Chief Daly came into the observation room a few moments later and held up a printed picture.

  It was him. It was the man who Cassie was supposed to meet.

  “I think it’s time we talked to Bobby Holmes,” Chief Daly said gravely.

  25

  Jessie phone buzzed within five minutes of Bobby Holmes’s arrival at the police station. If she had believed her friend had nothing to do with the crime, that illusion vanished now. Stacey’s name flashed on the screen.

  Feeling a bolt of dread, she hit the ‘answer’ button.

  “Jessie,” Stacey cried before Jessie could even say hello. “What on earth is going on? They’ve brought in my brother? Are you serious?”

  Jessie swallowed. Whether or not Stacey herself was involved, it was still an awkward thing to have such a tense conversation with a friend. She glanced toward the secure area of the police station, not wanting to miss a moment of the interview.

  “Hi, Stacey,” she said, deciding to play dumb. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Of course you do!” Stacey snapped. “You told me they had Jeff Morton.”

  “They do,” Jessie said mildly.

  “How come they brought Bobby in?”

  “I don’t know, Stacey,” Jessie said, frowning.

  Stacey cursed—Jessie had never heard her do that before. “Of course you do! Why have they brought in my brother?”

  “I’m sorry, Stacey,” Jessie said, now very eager to end their call. “I have no idea what’s going on. I’m at…” she’d been about to lie and say she was at the café, but realized that she was afraid to. How well did she really know Stacey? What was she really capable of? Would she go after Bee if she couldn’t find Jessie? “I’m at home. I have no idea what’s going on.”

  “You’re lying!” Stacey hissed. “I thought you were my friend!”

  Jessie’s gut reaction was to feel guilty. After all, she hated lying to friends and it wasn’t like they had solid proof that Stacey’s brother was involved in the murder. Then the realization hit her. “How do you know that?” she whispered.

  “Because I can see you! I’m outside the police station!”

  Jessie glanced out the window and saw her friend standing across the street. She wore such a look of hatred that Jessie had to look away.

  “I’m ready to go through now,” she said quietly.

  Officer Stanley nodded. “Sure. Go ahead and I’ll buzz you through.”

  “Just so you know,” Jessie said, jerking her head toward the outside door. “They guy they just brought in—that’s his sister outside. You might have trouble in a moment.”

  “All in a day’s work,” Officer Stanley said cheerfully, not looking in the least bit concerned.

  “You’ve got your guy; that’s what I heard,” Bobby was saying. His posture and facial expression screamed hostility.

  Chief Daly wasn’t put off by this. “It doesn’t matter what you heard. I’m not here to discuss whatever rumors are swirling around town. I want you to tell me where you were on Saturday afternoon.”

  Bobby shrugged. “I don’t see why I should.”

  “Why did you agree to come down here for a chat?”

  “Because I was raised right,” Bobby said, sitting forward and smirking. “What have you got on me? Absolutely zero.”

  “Did you know Albie Parker? Ever had an argument with him?”

  “Nope.” Bobby’s self-satisfied smirk grew even bigger.

  “So you won’t have any objection to telling me where you were on the afternoon of the parade.”

  “That’s none of your business, I’m afraid.”

  So much for being raised right, Jessie thought. She couldn’t believe that this man was her friend’s brother. Then again, how well did she actually know Stacey?

  “This is an active murder investigation, son. Now, you can cooperate and tell me what I need to know in an informal setting. Or I can arrest you and you can tell me what I need to know.”

  “What if I plead the fifth?”

  It was clear the chief was losing patience. “Why would you do that if you’re innocent?”

  Bobby’s expression brightened. He almost seemed like a different man from the surly guy who had sat in the interview room a moment before. “Why indeed? Well, as it happens I was in the company of a very pleasant young lady that afternoon.”

  “What young lady?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know her name.”

  “How did you meet her if you didn’t know her name?”

  Bobby winked. “How do you think?”

  Jessie balked. She liked this new peppy version of Bobby Holmes even less than she liked his sullen act.

  “I don’t know,” Chief Daly said with remarkable calm. “You’re going to have to enlighten me.”

  “I’ll leave you to find your own pickup techniques.”

  By now, Jessie’s hands were balled into fists. How dare this man speak to her aunt’s husband in such a way! He really was the most irritating man she had ever set eyes on!

  But the chief was wholly unaffected. “Like I told you before, we can do this the easy way or the hard way.”

  Bobby shrugged. “I don’t know her name. I deleted the app.”

  “Well then where did you meet her? I presume you did the gentlemanly thing of persuading her
to pay for the room?”

  Bobby paled a little on hearing this. He recovered quickly. “Maybe.”

  “Where did you meet her?”

  “I can’t recall.”

  “Can’t or won’t?”

  Bobby smirked. “Maybe a bit of both.”

  “So what this comes down to is you won’t tell me the name of the woman you were with that day.”

  Bobby shook his head. “I don’t need to. You’ve got nothing on me.”

  “No, but how do you think it’ll look if you don’t tell me?”

  “It goes against my civil liberties. You can’t just run around town accusing innocent men of murder.”

  Jessie stared at him in a mixture of disgust and confusion. Now Bobby was acting like an activist, throwing himself at the mercy of the police for the sake of his cause.

  “I’m getting a little tired of this, young man,” Chief Daly said.

  “Your sort always does. When are you going to realize you can’t intimidate me into confessing to a crime I didn’t commit? This isn’t a police state. I have rights!”

  “Yes, you do. Do you want to know who else had rights? Albie Parker. Now, either you tell me the name of the woman you were with or I’ll go to Judge Carter and seek a warrant to search your property.”

  “Good luck with that,” the man sneered. “You’ve got nothing on me. Nothing at all. No judge in the state is gonna give you a warrant based on nothing.”

  At this, Chief Daly sat up a little straighter and smiled at the young man. “See, that’s where you’re wrong, son. Judge Carter is a good friend of mine. We play golf together. He’ll give me a warrant for any reason I care to name and there’s not a thing anyone can do about that.”

  Bobby’s bravado was visibly weakened. He sat forward, looking noticeably shaken. “Fine,” he muttered. “Fine. Her name is Amy Jordan and we spent the afternoon at an apartment in town.”

  26