© 2011 Josi S. Kilpack.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the publisher, Shadow Mountain®. The views expressed herein are the responsibility of the author and do not necessarily represent the position of Shadow Mountain.
All characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Kilpack, Josi S. author.
Pumpkin roll / Josi S. Kilpack.
p. cm.
Summary: Sadie Hoffmiller is in Boston, Massachusetts, with her boyfriend, Pete Cunningham, babysitting his three young grandsons. The boys insist that Mrs. Wapple, the woman who lives across the street, is a witch, and Sadie and Pete are anxious to distract the boys from such Halloween-induced ideas. Then Mrs. Wapple is attacked in her home, and Sadie finds herself embroiled in a series of unexplained occurrences with life-or-death consequences.
“A Culinary Mystery.” — t.p.
ISBN 978-1-60908-745-6 (paperbound : alk. paper)
1. Hoffmiller, Sadie (Fictitious character) 2. Halloween—Fiction. 3. Witches—Fiction. 4. Babysitting—Fiction. 5. Boston (Mass.)—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3561.I412P86 2011
813'.54—dc22 2011017598
Printed in the United States of America
Publishers Printing
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To my Kylee-Bear, the very best thing about October. Love you, sweetie.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Acknowledgments
About the Author
"Berry" Delicious Praise...
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Enjoy this sneak peek of Banana Split
Chapter 1
So, what’s the difference between a sociopath and a psychopath?” Sadie asked as she put the last plate in the dishwasher.
Pete Cunningham, Sadie’s boyfriend—though that was such a juvenile term—looked up from where he was replacing a hinge on a flat-fronted kitchen cabinet. “One starts with an S and the other starts with a P,” he said before going back to the task at hand—one of the two dozen items from his self-imposed honey-do list. They were in Jamaica Plain, a suburb of Boston, watching Pete’s grandsons while Pete’s son and daughter-in-law spent six days in Texas where Jared had just accepted a residency following his completion of medical school at Boston University.
“Funny,” Sadie said with exaggerated dryness. “I meant in a psychological way—how are the disorders different from one another?” She sat down on one of the cheap kitchen chairs that went with the cheap kitchen table. Jared and Heather had been poor college kids for ten years, during which time they’d had three children; cheap was all they could afford. The din of little boys playing in the other room was at a moderate level, giving Sadie and Pete a rare chance at adult conversation.
Pete turned the final screw and stepped back to shut the cabinet, which now hung perfectly. “This question wasn’t inspired by my grandchildren, was it?”
As if waiting for an invitation, three redheaded boys, graduating in height from tallest to shortest, ran into the kitchen. Kalan, the oldest, darted behind Pete, while Chance and Fig—a nickname somehow derived from Finnegan—held plastic swords above their heads, trumpeting a war cry in pursuit of their brother. All three boys had taken off their shirts to further emphasize their warrior physiques as only a six-, four-, and three-year-old could.
“Get ’em, Grandpa! Get ’em good,” Kalan yelled.
Sadie smiled as she watched the show; it was her favorite—Grandpa Pete.
After using a series of karate chop actions to fend off the blows, Pete grabbed the plastic blade of one sword and then the other.
“I cut your hand off!” Chance yelled, tugging at his sword.
“Hand!” Fig repeated, pulling on his sword as hard as he could.
Pete lifted both swords until the boys had no choice but to let go. They stared at him with angry pouts.
“Gib it back!” Fig demanded.
Pete smiled. “I can’t.”
“Yeth you can.” Fig held out his hand. “Gib it back!”
“It’s almost time for bed.” Pete put the swords on the counter behind him.
All three boys immediately began whining in protest.
“If you get ready by yourselves, we’ll have dessert before story time.”
Sadie lifted her eyebrows, and Kalan yelled, “Dessert!”
“Ice cweam!” Fig yelled.
“Not ice cream,” Pete said, opening the refrigerator door. “Aunt Sadie made a pumpkin roll.”
“Bread?” Chance asked, crinkling his nose and sticking out his tongue. “Bread’s not dessert.”
“Not bread—cake.” Pete pulled out the platter of rolled cake with cream cheese filling.
“Cake!” all three boys said at once.
“But you’ve got to get ready for bed first,” Pete said, lifting the platter out of their reach and looking to Sadie for help out of the mess he’d made.
She turned to Kalan. “Will you help your brothers put on their pajamas?”
Kalan was only six, but he understood what it meant to be the big brother, so he grabbed an arm of both younger boys and began pulling them out of the room.
“Are you sure cake before bed is a good idea?” Sadie asked once they were gone. It was after eight o’clock and the pumpkin roll was supposed to chill for a few hours so that the filling would set up—it had barely been two. She’d planned to have it tomorrow evening.
“What’s the fun of having Grandpa stay over if you can’t have cake right before bed?”
It was hard to argue with such logic.
“I should have asked you first, though, since it’s your cake,” Pete said, holding the platter with both hands as though trying to determine what to do with it now. “Sorry.”
It was easy to forgive. “I wasn’t planning to eat it all myself.” Sadie took the platter and went up on her tiptoes to kiss Pete’s cheek as she passed him on her way to the counter. “You’re a fabulous grandfather,” she said, putting the platter down and heading for the newly repaired cabinet to retrieve some plates.
“I don’t know about that,” Pete said, watching her busy about the kitchen. “This may turn out to be the longest week of my life.”
Sadie laughed and grabbed a knife to slice the roll. “Haven’t you ever played Grandpa full-time?”
“No,” Pete said, moving to the sink to wash his hands. “Pat went a few times when the kids went on vacations or had babies or whatnot, and we had Brooke’s kid
s for a weekend here and there, but I haven’t been called upon since Pat died.”
Sadie looked up at the casual mention of his late wife, liking that he was becoming more comfortable merging his old life with the new possibilities of their relationship. “Well, then, I’m glad I could be a part of this new experience,” she said. “And rest assured, you’re doing wonderfully—cake before bed notwithstanding.” She grinned at him as she carefully sliced the cake.
“I appreciate the validation,” Pete said with a nod, leaning against the counter as he dried his hands with a dish towel. “Even if I don’t really deserve it.”
Sadie carefully lifted each slice of cake spiraled with cream cheese filling before putting it on a plate. It was so pretty. A moment later, Pete’s arms snaked around her middle and his lips pressed against her neck, sending a tingle down and then back up her spine. She turned in his arms, holding the knife out to the side so as not to appear threatening.
“I couldn’t have done this without you,” he said in a tender voice. “Aunt Sadie is amazing with these kids.”
“I’m glad it worked out,” Sadie said. She’d been very uncomfortable with the idea when Pete had first invited her. Staying in the same house with him didn’t seem right, given that her reputation had suffered some painful blows in recent months, but the more she considered the possibility, the more she wondered why she cared so much what people thought of her. She was a woman of high standards, and the people who truly cared about her knew that.
A phone call with Heather, Pete’s daughter-in-law, assured her that the boys could share one bedroom, which would give Pete and Sadie their own separate rooms. Heather was warm and easygoing and loved the idea of having double coverage for her boys. Pete and Sadie had sat down and set specific rules—not venturing into one another’s bedrooms, kissing kept to a minimum and only in vertical positions. Since attaining a new level in their relationship, they had both realized that age didn’t factor into chemistry as much as they would have suspected.
It had been so nice to have uninterrupted time with Pete, and she’d always loved New England in the fall, which made the trip a good choice so far. She and Pete had arrived three days early—Pete stayed with the family, but Sadie had stayed at the Courtyard Marriott a few miles away in Brookline—so the boys could get used to them before their parents left for Texas. Sadie and Heather had hit it off as well in person as they had on the phone.
“It’s been fun getting to know Jared and his family from the inside-out,” she added, looking up at Pete and trying not to get lost in his hazel eyes.
“And they love you,” Pete said. He leaned in for a quick kiss before eyeing the knife still in her hand. “Maybe I should let you get back to work before one of us gets hurt.”
Sadie laughed and turned back to serving.
Pete pulled out a chair. “So, why the interest in psychopaths and sociopaths?”
Sadie shrugged. “I caught part of a Law & Order episode the other day. They seemed to be using the two terms interchangeably in the show. Are they two names for the same thing?”
“Well,” Pete said, folding his arms over his chest, “they’re both antisocial personality disorders, which means they function 100 percent on what they want.”
“That means they have no moral code?”
Pete shook his head. “Not necessarily. Many of them still live by a moral code, but only because it gets them what they want. The terms are often used interchangeably, but to those who care to differentiate, sociopaths are generally classified as such because they don’t fit very well in society. Psychopaths, on the other hand, have an uncanny ability to mimic the way normal people act. They can appear to play the part of average citizens whereas sociopaths tend to stand out more. Neither of them has a conscience—but one group can pretend that they do. The definition seems to change every few years though, so don’t quote me.”
“Are they all violent?” Sadie asked.
Pete shook his head again. “Many of them live relatively normal lives and are contributing members of society. They become dangerous once their disorder escalates to the point where they are aggressively acting on their most base instincts. They don’t think rules—including laws—apply to them. That’s usually where I end up coming in with my police badge.”
“That’s scary,” Sadie said. “To think there are people with no conscience living their lives among the rest of us.”
Pete nodded in agreement. “But, like I said, they aren’t all criminals. For example, Pat was involved in the PTA for years, and I’m pretty sure there were a few psychopaths involved in that organization.”
Sadie smiled to herself and moved to the table, putting a fork by each plate as she considered the vastness of Pete’s knowledge. Then she paused. “Shouldn’t the boys have been back by now?”
Pete cocked an ear toward the doorway. “I hate to interrupt them if they aren’t screaming. . . . Wait.”
Sadie heard it too. Whispers. She and Pete shared a quick look and then bolted toward the hallway that joined the kitchen and the living room. Sadie reached it first and came up short when she saw the three boys kneeling on the couch and peeking over the back in order to look out the big picture window. They were in their pajamas, she noted, but were obviously intent on something happening outside. She looked over her shoulder at Pete standing directly behind her, and he shrugged.
Slowly they moved into the room, Sadie veering to the left side of the couch and Pete toward the right. They leaned forward to look out the window, and Sadie scanned the street to figure out what the boys were looking at. After a few moments, she spotted a woman across the street, digging in a flower bed outside the house . . . in late October . . . at night. And she wasn’t using a trowel to worry out some dead flowers; she was using a spade and making a pile of dirt on the sidewalk that led to the front door.
“Who’s that?” Sadie asked Kalan, who was closest to her.
“Mrs. Wapple,” Kalan said quietly.
“What’s she doing?”
“Being weird.”
“Does she do weird things a lot?”
Kalan nodded and folded his arms over the back of the couch, resting his chin on his hands. “We like to watch her when Mom turns off the TV.”
“She’s a witch!” Chance said.
“Witch!” Fig repeated.
Sadie’s eyes flickered to the large cardboard cartoon witch on the wall—one of a dozen decorations Heather had put up in preparation for Halloween next week.
“I think she’s just . . . digging,” Pete said. But Sadie knew he found it strange as well.
“Mr. Forsberk’s dog pooped on her grass, and she cast a spell on it and it got hit by a car,” Kalan said.
Sadie directed a look at Pete, inviting him with her eyes to help her out. He didn’t get the cue. “I feel bad for Mr. Forsberk’s dog,” she said, “but unless Mrs. Wapple was driving the car, then it was probably just a very sad accident.”
“It wasn’t,” Kalan said, still wide-eyed and sincere. “It was a spell. Mama even said.”
“Your mom said it was a spell?” Pete asked for clarification.
“Well, no,” Kalan said. “But she did say Mrs. Wapple is a witch.”
“A witch!” Fig said, loudly this time, and began jumping on the couch. Apparently his interest had waned. “A witch, a witch, a witch.”
Pete tried to shush him, and Sadie once again launched into her defense of the poor old woman digging across the street. Then Chance pointed out the window, his mouth open. Sadie followed his gaze and was startled to see Mrs. Wapple facing them, standing on the sidewalk that ran parallel to the street rather than on the walkway leading to her house. The streetlight down the block illuminated the gray hat made of some type of coarse fabric on her head and her long dark hair that fell in frizzy waves past her shoulders. As they watched, Mrs. Wapple lifted her hand and began drawing pictures in the air with her index finger.
Pumpkin Roll Page 1