Pumpkin Roll

by Josi S. Kilpack

  “Okay, boys,” Sadie said, ushering them off the couch. “She’s just a silly old lady. And there’s cake in the kitchen, so let’s eat.” She chose to believe Mrs. Wapple hadn’t caught them spying, but was simply . . . being weird, like Kalan said.

  “Cake!” Fig shouted as he bounded off the couch. Chance and Kalan followed, though Kalan kept glancing over his shoulder. Pete finished herding them into the kitchen, and soon they were arguing about which piece of cake was the biggest.

  Alone in the living room, Sadie hurried to the right side of the window near the floor lamp where the pull cord for the heavy blue drapes was tacked behind the curtains. Before she pulled the blinds closed, she turned off the lamp, hoping it would make her less visible. Then she looked at Mrs. Wapple one last time. The woman was still on the sidewalk. Still staring with her finger pointing toward the house. No, not the house—pointing at Sadie.

  Sadie swallowed and pulled herself a little further behind the heavy curtains. But she didn’t take her eyes off the strange woman outside.

  Mrs. Wapple lifted her hand so that it was pointing at the sky, and then she closed her fingers into a fist. Still staring in Sadie’s direction, she punched her hand upward at the precise moment that the lightbulb in the lamp next to Sadie exploded with a pop. Sadie jumped out of the way as a thousand tiny shards of paper-thin glass tinkled to the floor.

  “What was that?” Pete asked, stepping into the doorway.

  Sadie looked at him. “The lightbulb exploded,” she said, refusing to consider the coincidence that it had happened at the same time Mrs. Wapple had punched her fist over her head. Didn’t lightbulbs have to be turned on to shatter like that? She looked out the window again, but Mrs. Wapple was gone.

  She wasn’t on the sidewalk; she wasn’t digging in the garden. She was gone.

  Sadie felt a strange tingling sensation wash over her skin like a cold breeze as Kalan’s words came back to her: “Mama says she’s a witch.”

  Good thing Sadie didn’t believe in that kind of thing.

  Pumpkin Roll

  3 eggs

  1 cup sugar

  1 cup canned pumpkin

  1 teaspoon baking powder

  1 cup flour

  ½ teaspoon salt

  ½ teaspoon nutmeg

  1 teaspoon ginger

  2 teaspoons cinnamon

  Filling

  1 (8-ounce) package cream cheese (softened)

  ¼ cup butter, softened

  1 cup powdered sugar

  ½ teaspoon vanilla

  Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 11x15 jelly roll pan and line the bottom with parchment, wax paper, or a silicone mat. (The cake will stick to the pan otherwise since it’s such a thin layer.) In a medium-sized mixing bowl, beat eggs. Add sugar; mix well. Add pumpkin; mix well. Add the rest of the ingredients; mix well. Pour batter into prepared jelly roll pan (mixture will be thick). Smooth out as evenly as possible. Bake for 20 minutes.

  While cake is baking, spread out a large dish towel or flour-sack towel on the counter. Sprinkle with ¼ cup powdered sugar. After removing cake from oven, immediately turn cake out onto the sugar-coated towel. Remove parchment, wax paper, or silicone mat from bottom of cake. Roll the cake and towel up together the long way. (The towel keeps the cake from sticking to itself; the powdered sugar keeps the cake from sticking to the towel.) Put the towel-rolled cake on a cooling rack and let cool at least 30 minutes.

  While cake is cooling, make filling by beating cream cheese until smooth. Add butter and beat until smooth. Add powdered sugar and vanilla. Mix well.

  When cake has cooled at least 30 minutes, carefully unroll it from the towel. (It might crack; there’s nothing you can do about that.) Spread with room-temperature cream cheese filling. Re-roll cake without the towel. Put cake on platter and cover. Refrigerate until serving—at least 1 hour, though 3 hours is best. (I usually cut the roll in half before I put it in the fridge or the freezer so it’s easier to work with.)

  Cake freezes well for up to 2 months when wrapped tightly in aluminum foil. Serve chilled or frozen.

  Serves approximately 14.

  Chapter 2

  That’s it?” Shawn asked on the other end of the phone the next morning, the Monday of what should prove to be a busy week.

  “Isn’t that enough?” Sadie asked, annoyed that he was so hard to please. Kalan had wanted to walk the three-quarters of a mile to school so she’d obliged him and was speed-walking her way back in order to work off at least some of last night’s pumpkin roll—and the additional slice she’d had that morning. Calling Shawn, her twenty-one-year-old baby boy, and catching up while she exercised was simply good multitasking. Her breath fogged in the air as she spoke; a cold spell had settled across the East Coast overnight, but she was staying pretty warm due to the exertion. “Exploding lights and drawing pictures in the air is pretty out there, if you ask me.”

  “Well, I mean, it’s weird. But you’re in Boston, Mom, and it’s almost Halloween. You’d think you could drum up something a bit more exciting.”

  Sadie huffed extra hard to make a point. “I’m not in Boston Boston,” she corrected him. “I’m in Jamaica Plain, a quiet little suburb, and I think the excitement of the last year has completely destroyed any sense of normalcy you ever had,” she said with only slightly exaggerated disappointment. She really did worry that her involvement with five murder cases in the last twelve months had done some kind of damage to her son; he was a little too excited about helping her out with her newly formed PI business—Hoffmiller Investigations. Before he could defend himself, she changed the subject. “How’s that skip trace going?”

  “You don’t have to call it a skip trace anymore, Mom. Use the lingo: skip.”

  “Fine,” Sadie said, appreciating a turn-of-the-century Victorian home that stood on the corner. It had been beautifully restored—as had many of the historic homes in this area—and she wondered if it was on one of the walking tours the city offered. Sadie would love to see the famous hand-carved woodwork and stained-glass windows of the old colonial homes up close. And yet, while there were $700,000 homes on this street, Jared lived a few blocks away on a tired-looking street full of bland little rental houses.

  The front lawn of the next house sported latex zombie hands sticking up from the grass and a giant spiderweb that stretched from the eaves of the framed porch to the bottom of the steps. A very large, though realistic-looking, spider hovered just above the front doors. Sadie preferred the zombies.

  A gust of wind blew a swirl of fallen leaves around her ankles, and she picked up her pace, imagining the cream cheese filling melting off her backside with every step. She tuned back into the conversation with her son. “How’s the skip going?”

  “His mom’s neighbor saw his car leave early in the morning. I’m pretty sure he’s at least sleeping there. I’ve got a process server set up to go at eleven o’clock tonight.”

  “Excellent,” Sadie said. “And you’re keeping good notes, right?”

  “Perfect notes,” Shawn said.

  Sadie could tell he was proud of himself and it helped her feel better about giving him some of her investigation work while she was out of town. She’d been an official private investigator—though Colorado didn’t require an actual license other than the basic business license—for almost five weeks. On the one hand, most people would find what she’d done so far pretty boring work: locating parents who had skipped out on child support or heirs who needed to be found to fulfill the requirements of a will. She’d had one case of a cheating husband. On the other hand, however, Sadie loved the work! Most of her information hunting could be done over the phone or via the Internet, which made it infinitely flexible. And there was just something invigorating about unraveling a mystery—even a boring one.

  During the first few weeks of being open for business, Shawn had helped her research a detail here and there, but when three full cases came in the day before Sadie was supposed to catch a plane to
Boston, Shawn had said he would handle them himself. She had planned to supervise him, but he had hit the ground running and had done an impressive job so far without her.

  “The other two cases are coming along as well,” Shawn continued. “I have a lead on the deadbeat case that looks pretty good—I should know this afternoon. Do you have more for me to do?”

  “I don’t think so,” Sadie said.

  “But something new came in, didn’t it?”

  Sadie considered her options for a moment but couldn’t deny that she had her hands full with three little boys and an inexperienced grandfather. Even if she wanted to do some of the work herself, the time simply wasn’t there. Not this week. And she hated putting people off if she didn’t have to, especially when she was still establishing her business. “I did have something else come in last night. It’s a woman looking for an ex-boyfriend from fifteen years ago.”

  “Why does she want to find him now?” Shawn asked.

  “She has a fourteen-year-old daughter,” Sadie replied, with no need to elaborate. “I’ve already scanned the social networking sites. I found nothing, which leaves us with only her last known information about him.”

  “I see. Fifteen years is a lot of time to dig through.”

  “I know.” Sadie began taking deeper breaths as her exertion caught up with her. “I have to tell myself not to wonder whether or not it’s the right thing to find him. If he’s a mess, I . . .” She paused for a breath. “I might tell her we didn’t find anything. We might not be able to find anything anyway.”

  “Maybe you should give it to Jane,” Shawn suggested. “She’s good at the outdated stuff.”

  Sadie frowned. While it was true that she’d used Jane Seeley, a reporter she’d met several months ago, to find bits of information she hadn’t been able to locate on her own, she had yet to feel completely comfortable with the younger woman. Shawn had made peace with his poor opinion of Jane from the past—her investigative skills had him in awe—but Sadie couldn’t quite get to that point. Her own reluctance made her question her misgivings. Was she simply holding a grudge?

  Yes, she and Jane had gotten off to a rocky start, and Jane had followed it up with an article that Sadie was still recovering from, but Jane had also been invaluable in Portland and nothing but helpful and encouraging since then.

  “She’s never taken an entire case,” she said out loud, pretending that was her only concern.

  “Well, give me the case, then, and if I need her, I’ll ask.”

  Sadie bit her lip and slowed her pace, taking in a bit more of the holiday decorations. Not all homes were in the holiday spirit, of course, but most of them displayed some type of tribute to ghosts and ghouls. Of course, just being located in New England meant that every home was decorated for the season with vibrant colored leaves. Even living in small-town Colorado, with its rich foliage that made autumn a treat, didn’t compare to the sheer number of trees here in Massachusetts and the celebration of colors that exploded this time of year.

  Jared’s house was on the next street and she was ready to cool down. “I’ve already given you three cases,” she said. Part of her hesitation was concern that Shawn was overcommitting himself, but part of her also felt the itch of wanting to take this case herself. No, she didn’t have time, and, yes, she’d committed to not make this a working vacation, but . . .

  “I’m caught up in all my classes,” Shawn said, driving to the heart of her objections. “I promised you I wouldn’t take your stuff on if I couldn’t do it, and I won’t, but fall soccer is over and basketball registration isn’t until next week so I don’t have much to do this week.” Shawn worked at a local youth recreation center in Michigan. “I can do this, and I could use the money. I’ve got to get my hands on the new Xbox—it’s awesome.”

  “Okay,” Sadie said with a laugh. Such a big man, and yet such a little boy at the same time. She needed to trust him to manage his own time. “I’ll e-mail you what I’ve got, but use Jane only if you have to, okay?”

  “Deal,” Shawn said, his tone both relieved and lighter. Sadie wondered when he was going to tell her that he’d changed his major from sports medicine to criminal justice. She’d figured it out about three weeks ago, thanks to her new skills at uncovering information, but Shawn had yet to tell her, and she was content to wait him out. “I better head to class,” he continued. “We’re still on for Saturday?”

  Sadie smiled, remembering the plans they had made when she announced she’d be traveling to his neck of the woods. Michigan was still several hours away, but closer than Colorado. He had school and some work meetings on Friday, but when he finished he would drive to Boston, probably arriving just a few hours after Heather and Jared got back from Dallas. They planned to all go to Salem on Saturday for a day of Haunted Happenings—an encompassing title of events hosted in the City of Witches every fall. Shawn and Sadie could then spend Sunday together before Shawn had to leave. She wished they could have more time together, but she didn’t want him to miss school for it. She had developed a continual fear that he might drop out of college altogether and didn’t want to tempt such thoughts.

  “I am so excited to see you!” Sadie said. “It’s simply breathtaking here this time of year. Remember when we came with Bre—what, seven years ago?”

  “How could I forget?” Shawn said. “It was humiliating to tell people we’d gone all the way to Boston to see yet another zoo. I hated it when it was her turn to choose the family vacation.”

  Sadie laughed. “As opposed to your choice of Ohio so we could visit the Pro Football Hall of Fame?”

  “Um, that’s practically a religious study, Mom.”

  Sadie laughed some more. “You’re a silly boy.”

  “But at least I’m not an animal freakazoid,” he said, referring to the name he’d made up for Breanna when he was little. Sadie hadn’t seen her daughter in months, not since she left for London on an internship with the London Zoo. It was hard coming to terms with the fact that Breanna might live the rest of her life in England. Sadie felt sad every time she thought about that, but now was not the time to feel sorry for herself. She was seeing her boy this weekend in the most beautiful place in the world this time of year—two reasons to celebrate.

  “I got your e-mail with the MapQuest map, by the way,” Shawn said. “You keep forgetting I have GPS on my phone.”

  “It’s always nice to have a backup,” Sadie said. She’d had her phone for months and could barely figure out how to set the alarm, let alone use the fancy-Nancy apps Shawn had downloaded for her. “I also signed us up for the after-dark Ghosts and Gravestones tour that goes over the famous haunting of the city. They talk about the North End tunnels and the Lady in Black; it sounded like something right up your alley.”

  “Sounds great,” Shawn said. “You got us in the Saturday night before Halloween?”

  Sadie smiled, quite pleased with herself. “It was the first thing I did once I knew we were coming. I’d heard about it from people who had taken the tour before and didn’t want to miss it. I just hope it’s not too scary for you.”

  Shawn laughed. “As long as you’re there to protect me, I’ll be okay. I better get going, though, I’ve got class in ten minutes. Enjoy those grandkids of yours!”

  Sadie nearly corrected him but realized he was teasing her about how close she and Pete were getting. He also knew how much she wanted to be a grandma, rather than Aunt Sadie, and the thought that these boys might one day be her grandsons made her smile. “Alright, I love you, my boy.”

  “Love you too, Mom. I’ll look for that e-mail about the long-lost boyfriend-father deal.”

  Sadie ended the call and put her phone in her coat pocket before pulling the collar up as a stiff wind came at her from the north. It had been nice weather when she and Pete arrived in Boston, but it had gotten colder every day since. Despite the temperatures, however, she loved autumn, loved New England, and was glad to be out of Garrison, Colorado, for a little while.
Things had been changing for her over the last year, ever since the discovery of her neighbor’s body in the field behind her house, and whereas she once felt perfectly accepted and comfortable in her small town, she now felt as though she were growing out of it. Most of her investigative work was from Fort Collins, an hour west of Garrison, but she’d even had a couple from Denver hire her; her world was so much bigger than it used to be.