Town in a Pumpkin Bash

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Town in a Pumpkin Bash Page 15

by B. B. Haywood


  Candy pointed up. “Maybe they did. Maybe it just burned out.”

  He looked up, a flash of annoyance crossing his face. “I’ll have to talk to the maintenance people about that,” he said, and finally found the right key. He inserted it in the lock, twisted it, and swung the door open for her. “After you.”

  It was like walking into a museum after hours. Low lights were lit through the foyer, but the side rooms were dark. And the grand staircase leading to the second floor was in shadows.

  Candy instinctively inched closer to Tristan. “Are you sure we should be in here?” she asked, barely above a whisper.

  “It’s my family’s home,” he said, his casual attitude returning.

  “Are you sure I should be here?”

  He laughed gently. “You’re my guest. Come on, the library’s over here.”

  Inside the dark, book-lined room, he walked to a side table and flicked on a lamp. “I could start a fire if you’d like.”

  Candy crossed her arms and rubbed her shoulders against the chill. Like most old houses in New England, Pruitt Manor had a few drafts. “That would be lovely.”

  “Would you like some tea? I can warm some up for us.”

  “I don’t want to put anybody to trouble,” she said.

  “Right.” Tristan held up a finger. “Tea first. Then the fire. Then the histories. I’ll be right back.”

  And off he went into the house.

  Candy was all alone at Pruitt Manor.

  She stood in the center of the room, her gaze rising to the shadowy ceiling, then to the shelves of books surrounding her. Slowly she twirled, until she’d made a complete circle, her eyes raking the volumes upon volumes of books.

  Where to start?

  She raised her shoulders and gave her head a shake. The best place to start was always straight forward. So she stepped up to the wall of shelves directly in front of her.

  But she paused, and as if drawn by a string, her head swiveled to the right. Over there, in another section of the library, Abigail Pruitt’s diaries were arranged chronologically on two shelves.

  Candy had studied them the day before but had been so focused on those specific journals that she hadn’t noticed what other books were shelved around them.

  Maybe all the Pruitt materials are shelved together, she thought.

  Changing her mind, she turned and walked to the shelves along the right wall, stopped a few feet in front of the dusty leather bindings, and began to scan the titles of the volumes stacked around Abigail’s diaries.

  It took her only a few moments to realize there was a common theme to all the books shelved in this section of the library. She saw an extensive collection of biographies, including multivolume sets devoted to the founding fathers, captains of industry, political figures, and the great names of the ages.

  She moved sideways a few paces. A bay or two to the right were volumes of poetry, language, and literature, and several shelves near the corner and around to the next wall were devoted to popular fiction.

  Candy stepped back toward the center of the room and scanned it again. Like any typical library, it was organized by subject matter, she realized. She just had to find the section devoted to history.

  She walked back toward the shelves where she’d left off and began circling the room, pausing every few steps to identify each section.

  Beyond the fiction section, toward the door through which they’d entered, were several bays devoted to scientific volumes on botany, anatomy, astronomy, geology, and archaeology, as well as books on engineering, math, transportation, and economics.

  She pursed her lips thoughtfully and moved on, past the door. Volumes on business and management lined the shelves here, followed by travel books, arranged by continent, with Africa, Asia, and Australia first, then Europe and the Americas, which stretched to the corner. She stepped around, spotting several shelves devoted to the great philosophic works and volumes on mythology, folklore, and the world’s religions. And beyond that, numerous works on the arts, music, photography, and architecture. They filled the wall into the back corner. She noticed the bottom shelves were lined with oversized books chronicling the works of the world’s grand masters.

  Finally, around the corner again, was a wall filled with volumes of history. Here she stopped and focused her gaze on the titles.

  Again, she noticed a simple pattern, essentially chronological, from the Egyptian, Greek, and Roman eras to a surprisingly large section on ancient Chinese history, with a respectable collection on Charlemagne and the Dark Ages, as well as the medieval centuries. Those were followed by volumes on the Renaissance, Reformation, industrial era, and modern era, and then localized volumes on New England and Maine history—and finally, a series of shelves devoted to the Pruitt histories.

  She stood looking at them for several moments, then dropped into a crouch. The family histories all had similar tan-colored covers, and started about midway down the bay of shelves. She dropped a little lower, checking to see if one of the later volumes was missing.

  Maybe, she thought, after the library returned the collection to Pruitt Manor, the missing volume—number twenty-three, if she remembered correctly—had been found. If so, that at least would clear up one mystery. But she noticed right away that one of the volumes was unaccounted for, as an index card had been inserted between two volumes on the lowest shelf. She moved in for a closer look.

  “What on earth are you doing down there?” a voice croaked somewhere behind her.

  Surprised, Candy jumped to her feet and spun around, her heart thumping in her chest.

  And spotted a shadowy specter in a floor-length black cape, lurking in a seam of darkness just beyond the open door.

  TWENTY-SIX

  Caught off guard, Candy didn’t know what to say. She tried to speak, but her tongue seemed stuck to the roof of her mouth with fright. She backed up a step and finally managed to stammer, “What? I’m sorry….I…I…” She stopped, searching her brain for more words, but none came out.

  Tristan walked in at that moment, rescuing her. He carried a silver tray with a pot of steeping tea and several porcelain cups. “Ah, Aunt Helen, there you are,” he said casually to the specter confronting Candy. “What are you doing lurking by the door like that? You’re scaring poor Candy. She probably thinks you’re some cadaver risen from the dead. Come over here and have a seat, and I’ll pour you a cup of tea. Candy has some questions for us.”

  The specter moved forward, through the door into better light, and Candy saw now that it was indeed Mrs. Pruitt. She wore a floor-length dark purple robe, and her hair was wrapped in a green and gold scarf. “I thought I heard voices,” she said, her voice low and coarse, as if she’d just been awakened from sleep. “What are you two doing in here, causing a disturbance at this hour of the night?”

  Ignoring the sharpness in his aunt’s tone, Tristan set the tea service on a small mahogany side table, lifted the pot, and expertly poured three cups. “Candy’s turned up some interesting information,” he said in response. “We came back to the house to research the histories.”

  “The histories?” Mrs. Pruitt stopped halfway across the room and turned her sharp gaze on Candy. “Why would you have any interest in those dusty old books?”

  Tristan flopped down into a wingback chair, his long legs sprawled out in front of him. “It seems we have not one but two missing volumes. And Candy thinks she’s made a connection to at least one of them.”

  Mrs. Pruitt’s mouth tightened, and her gaze narrowed on Candy. “Explain.”

  “Well,” Candy said, thinking quickly and feeling the pressure, “I’m still putting the pieces together, but it all seems to lead back to the body of an unidentified female, who was found in the pumpkin patch twenty years ago. She allegedly died of exposure, and after the investigation into her death, her body seems to have mysteriously disappeared. But I think she might be the same woman as this person named Emma, who has some connection to Sebastian J. Quinn”
She explained about the folder she’d spotted on the front seat of Sebastian’s car, all the while gauging Mrs. Pruitt’s reaction to this news. She knew she was fishing, but she also suspected there was some link between the Bentley and the dead woman’s body. “Does that name ring a bell? Someone named Emma?”

  The matriarch had listened attentively, and now shook her head almost imperceptibly as she crossed the rest of the way to a chair near Tristan. “No.”

  Candy continued, undeterred. “It’s a little confusing, I know. Like I said, I’m still trying to fit it all together. But Sapphire Vine was looking for her tombstone—for Emma’s tombstone,” she clarified. “It all seems just a little too coincidental, doesn’t it?”

  Mrs. Pruitt frowned and she leaned forward, plucking a cup of tea from the silver tray with bony fingers. “Sapphire Vine was involved in this?” She sounded dismayed, but there was an undertone of interest in her words.

  Candy nodded. “I found a black-and-white photo of Emma’s tombstone in a folder Sapphire left behind. She must have been searching for it for some reason, but I don’t know why, and I don’t know if she ever found it. And she was also interested in the missing volume of Pruitt history, which struck me as odd.”

  Mrs. Pruitt shook her head. “That nasty woman was involved in all sorts of wicked schemes. Who knows what she was after.” Her scrutinizing gaze turned to Candy again. “You say she was looking for a missing volume?”

  Nodding, Candy turned back to the section of the shelves that held the histories and dropped to one knee. “She was looking for this right here.” She pointed to the index card, which she delicately pulled out from between the books. There was a brief note written on it, which she read at a glance, and then held up for Mrs. Pruitt to see. “Volume twenty-three of the Pruitt family history. It’s still missing, according to this card.” She pointed to the old books lined up on the shelf. “I just checked myself. It still hasn’t been returned.”

  “I’d forgotten about that,” Mrs. Pruitt admitted. “But now that you mention it, I seem to recall that that book has been missing for decades. We thought it was lost forever. Sapphire Vine took that as well?”

  Candy shook her head. “This volume went missing from the Pruitt Public Library sometime before August 1972, according to a notation made by a librarian at the time. That was more than twenty-five years before Sapphire showed up in town. So she couldn’t have taken it, since she wasn’t in the area back then. But for some reason she was interested in it, and she must have been looking for it.”

  “But why?” Mrs. Pruitt asked. “What interest could she have had in an old history book?”

  “That’s exactly what I said,” Tristan pointed out.

  “And it’s what we’re trying to figure out,” Candy added. “It’s why we came back here tonight.”

  She paused. There was more she wanted to say but she wasn’t quite sure how to broach the subject. So Tristan did it for her.

  “There’s something else, Aunt Helen. Candy’s heard through a source that a Bentley was seen driving near the pumpkin patch twenty years ago, right around the time the body of that unidentified woman was found.”

  “A Bentley?” Mrs. Pruitt stiffened her back noticeably. “Our Bentley?”

  “Who else owns a Bentley around here?” Tristan asked pointedly.

  Several moments passed in which no one spoke. Mrs. Pruitt suddenly looked very frail. She carefully considered the ramifications of this latest, possibly incriminating piece of evidence before she finally responded in a barely perceptible voice. “You don’t suspect me? Or”—she gasped as her eyes widened—“Hobbins?”

  “We don’t suspect anyone,” Tristan said easily. He’d risen and crossed to the fireplace, where he began to lay out a bed of kindling with practiced hands, snapping twigs and branches to the proper size, then arranging them on the grate as he went. “Candy has simply unearthed some intriguing information that seems to indicate our family’s implication—perhaps in some small way, perhaps in a larger manner—in a twenty-year-old mystery, which is in a roundabout way linked to some of the more recent murders in town.”

  “So why are you here,” Mrs. Pruitt demanded of her nephew, “searching through these histories?”

  He shrugged. “We’re simply trying to discover who might have been in residence here at Pruitt Manor during that time period.”

  “When was this again?” Mrs. Pruitt asked, her head swiveling back toward Candy.

  “Twenty years ago, at around this time of year,” Candy said, then added, “That would have been in the fall of 1992.”

  Mrs. Pruitt nodded and pursed her thin, pale lips as she thought. “Mother had passed away by then,” she confirmed. “Of course, if it was around Halloween, other members of the family might have been in residence. But I can’t imagine anyone would…certainly Hobbins wouldn’t…” She broke off, her expression falling into confusion.

  “Let’s not get dramatic just yet,” Tristan said evenly. “We’re just trying to figure it out.”

  Gently, Candy asked, “How long has Hobbins worked here at Pruitt Manor?”

  Mrs. Pruitt frowned and looked affronted. “How would I know such a thing?”

  “Well, you’d have to think back,” Tristan said helpfully, coaxing his aunt along. “Was Hobbins working here when Abigail was still alive? Or did he start after she’d passed on?”

  Mrs. Pruitt thought about that for quite a while. Finally she spoke softly and hesitantly, as if under interrogation. “His father—Hobbins Senior, we came to call him—was hired by my father, Cornelius. He devoted his life to our family and worked for us for decades, although his health worsened considerably toward the end of his life. I can’t recall exactly when Hobbins the son took over his father’s responsibilities—possibly around the same time Mother fell ill. At the end of her life, she would have relied increasingly on the son…Gerald,” she confirmed. “Of course, we never called him by his first name when he was professionally engaged at the manor. He was always just Hobbins, like his father.”

  “And that was long after you’d left the house, of course, to attend college, marry, and start your own family,” Tristan said.

  “Of course.”

  “So Abigail died in, what, 1987? So we can accurately guess that the younger Hobbins has been working here for, what, twenty-five or thirty years, something like that?”

  “Something like that,” Mrs. Pruitt agreed. “I don’t keep track of those types of things.” She turned back toward Candy. “Do you really think he could have had something to do with this…other death?” the elderly woman asked directly.

  “It’s possible,” Candy replied. “That’s why I’m here.” She hesitated, considering her next words carefully. “There is one other thing: Tristan told me about a locked drawer in Abigail’s writing desk.” He had mentioned it to her at dinner, when he’d been describing some of Abigail’s eccentricities.

  Mrs. Pruitt stiffened perceptibly at the remark but, true to her breeding, responded in a controlled manner, although she shot a questioning look at her nephew. “So you’ve learned of that as well?”

  “It all could be connected,” Tristan interjected. “I’ve said so for years. You have your suspicions as well. You might as well come clean and tell Candy the whole story.”

  “There’s nothing to tell,” Mrs. Pruitt said firmly, folding her hands in her lap. “It has nothing to do with whatever else is going on in town, I’m sure of it. My mother’s writing desk is an antique. It’s been in the family for generations, and it’s quite valuable. And yes, a small document drawer containing, we believe, some of Mother’s most personal items has remained locked since her death. We haven’t been able to open it for fear of damaging it.”

  “Because we’ve never found the key,” Tristan pointed out.

  “It wasn’t among Mother’s belongings or keepsakes,” Mrs. Pruitt confirmed with a nod of her head, “or in any of the safe-deposit boxes, or any other secure place we can think of to
look.”

  “So there’s a locked drawer, and a missing key as well,” Candy said thoughtfully, biting her lip. “This just keeps getting more and more confusing. But there has to be some link between all of these items—the drawer, the key, the diary, the missing volume of history, and the tombstone. Find one,” she said, her gaze drifting to the shelf that held Abigail Pruitt’s diaries, “and the rest might just fall right into our laps.”

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Tristan lit a fire and, as it caught and began to warm the room, they freshened their tea and talked about the mysteries swirling around them. Candy settled briefly into a stiff-backed chair near Mrs. Pruitt but felt too restless to sit for long, so she finally rose and walked back to the shelves, where she closely examined several volumes of Pruitt history. They had finely tooled leather covers, thick linen paper, and lines upon lines of small black text that would take days, if not weeks, to read through. She delicately flipped through several volumes but her mind wasn’t focusing on the words before her.

  Instead, she was thinking about the missing history volume—the one Sapphire had been looking for. What had happened to it? Had it simply been lost—misplaced by some innocent library patron? Or, like Abigail Pruitt’s missing diary, had it been purposely taken by someone? If so, for what purpose? And could the dates encompassed by the volume—the 1940s—have any significance?

  The index card she’d pulled out from the lower shelf was simply a placeholder, containing no information, other than an alert that the volume was missing from the series. So she replaced it and stepped back, studying the collection as an entirety.

  What’s the link, she wondered, between all these seemingly unconnected pieces of information? What was the thread that wove through them?

  But even as she asked herself the question, one name stood out from the others in her mind.

 

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