Town in a Pumpkin Bash

by B. B. Haywood

  The other volume was larger. She hefted it in her hand. It had some weight to it.

  “Now I wonder what this could be,” she said.

  She checked the spine, and then the title page.

  It was, indeed, Volume XXIII of a larger collection with the overall title, A History of the Pruitt Family in Maine, 1789–1975.

  This particular volume encompassed the years 1940 to 1949.

  It was the book stolen from the Pruitt Public Library in 1972.

  “The family crest is near the front,” Nettie told her, indicating with a wiggle of her finger for Candy to turn a few pages.

  Candy nodded and complied.

  And there it was, a two-color crest with a red shield at the center, showing a prancing lion, and above it, surrounded by filigree, was a steel helmet, as if from a suit of armor.

  And in an elaborate ruffled banner across the bottom, in Old English script, was the phrase DEUS PASCIT CORVOS.

  God feeds the ravens.

  It was, Candy realized, the Pruitt family motto.

  THIRTY-NINE

  By two fifteen, Candy was out on the pier, watching the sea to the north. Five minutes later she was back on the mail boat heading home—though they were going the long way around, since the boat first had to make stops at Grand Cranberry Island and Islesford, also known as Little Cranberry, before heading back to Northeast Harbor.

  Candy settled herself on a bench inside the cabin, as she’d done before. It was more crowded now than on the last trip, and she had to wedge herself in between a teenager and a fisherman. But most of the passengers disembarked at Grand Cranberry, and on the final leg back to the mainland, there were half as many people on board, so Candy had a chance to stretch out a little, and to finally take a look at her treasure.

  She’d tucked away the volume of Pruitt history in her daypack. After she’d explained to Nettie that the book had been taken—perhaps stolen—from the Pruitt Public Library in the summer of ’72, and that the rest of the volumes subsequently had been returned to Pruitt Manor, the elderly woman had placed it in her hands and insisted that she return it to its rightful place.

  And that’s exactly what Candy intended to do.

  But first she planned to have a look through it, in an attempt to answer at least two questions that were buzzing around her brain.

  First, why had Emma stolen the book from the library—what was in it that she sought?

  And second, why had the Pruitt family motto been engraved into Emma’s tombstone?

  Was Emma a Pruitt? And if so, which of them was she descended from?

  There were several scenarios Candy could think of right off the bat. For instance, Emma could have been Cornelia’s child—or, more likely, Abigail’s.

  That, at least, would explain all the secrecy.

  But if that were true, who had the father been? She guessed the second Latin phrase engraved on the tombstone—the one that read, when translated, he is wise who is industrious—might answer that particular question.

  Was it another family motto? And if so, for whom?

  There were any number of possibilities.

  Candy could think of several herself.

  Or perhaps she was all wrong about it. Perhaps Emma had simply been a long-lost Wren heir—a cousin or a distant relation.

  But then why make a mystery of her burial? And why neglect to put the dates of her birth and death on the tombstone?

  That was the real clue, Candy realized—the tombstone itself, and specifically the second engraving. Whatever it meant, she’d be able to get to the bottom of it once she got back on the mainland and had a signal on her smart phone, so she could search the Internet.

  Until then, she was going to have a look through the book on Pruitt history.

  As she’d discovered before, when she’d paged through a volume in the library out at Pruitt manor a few days ago, it was fairly dry stuff—names and dates, places and events that meant little to her: extensive biographies, long explanations of legal affairs and financial issues….

  She considered the dates—the 1940s.

  Why had Emma been interested in that decade?

  Candy sighed and flipped toward the back—and that’s when she spotted the folded piece of paper inserted between two pages. It looked as if it had been torn from the bottom of a writing tablet—perhaps as a bookmark, Candy thought.

  She lifted out the slip of paper and unfolded it.

  There was a single sentence written on it, in a small, neat hand with an unsharpened pencil:

  To find the key, search that which binds.

  That was all it said.

  Candy stared at the note, wondering what it meant, when a passenger walked past—a thick, hooded figure wearing a sweatshirt and sunglasses. He nipped the end of Candy’s knee with his leg as he passed by, almost sending the book flying from her lap. He reached out to grab it, evidently to keep it from falling to the floor. But Candy was able to catch the book first and folded it into her arms.

  “Sorry,” he said in a low voice, his face turned away from her.

  She wanted to say, “Hey, buddy, watch where you’re going,” but held herself back. No point in getting into an argument over something that had obviously been an accident.

  “Don’t worry about it,” she told him.

  “Sorry,” he said again gruffly, with a deep cough, as he straightened and moved off, looking back only once.

  She watched him as he walked out of the passenger cabin onto the stern deck, and then turned her attention back to the handwritten note.

  To find the key, search that which binds.

  Had Emma written it and slipped it between these pages? Or had it been there longer, from before Emma had taken the book? Perhaps it had been put there by another library patron. Perhaps it was simply what it looked like—a bookmark.

  And perhaps not.

  She still had the book open on her lap, to the place where the note had been inserted, and was about to start reading that page, when the boat’s horn tooted. Looking up, she saw they were approaching Northeast Harbor. She folded the note back into the book and closed it, then slipped the volume snugly into her daypack and prepared to disembark.

  It was almost four by the time they were docked again. The clouds over the mainland were dark and blowing quickly northeast along the coastline. For the most part the rain had held off, she thought absently as she walked to the parking lot and climbed into the Jeep, dropping the daypack into the passenger seat.

  When she started the engine, she noticed she was low on gas and decided to fill the tank before she left Mount Desert Island to drive back home. She remembered seeing a gas station up the island road about ten minutes, in a little settlement called Somesville, so she headed in that direction.

  Fifteen minutes later, she pulled up beside an empty pump, jumped out of the cabin, and dashed into the brick-sided convenience store to pay for the gas. It was rush hour on the island, especially with the last of the tourists headed back to their hotels or out for dinner, so she found herself standing in a long line.

  As she waited, she glanced out the window toward the gas pumps.

  Her brow fell, and she had to focus in on what she was seeing.

  A strange person was lurking around the side of the Jeep.

  What’s he doing there? Candy thought, tensing.

  He was looking in the side windows, moving toward the front of the vehicle.

  With a quickening of her heart, she realized it was the same beefy guy in the hooded sweatshirt who had bumped her on the boat, almost knocking the book from her lap.

  Before she could register what she was seeing, he’d opened the passenger-side front door, snatched the daypack out of the front seat, and dashed off toward the main road.

  Candy’s eyes widened as her instincts took over. “Hey!” she yelled. “Hey! That guy just stole my daypack!”

  She ran out the front door in disbelief, only to see the hooded thief jump into a late-model
sedan and tear out onto the main road headed north.

  Without hesitation, Candy dashed out to the Jeep, fishing the keys out of her pocket as she ran. She slipped into the driver’s seat, started up the engine, and roared after him.

  FORTY

  The back end swung out, tires spinning on the damp, leaf-strewn pavement as she mashed down on the gas pedal. The Jeep leapt out onto the two-lane road, its engine whining. She heard someone beep a horn behind her as she cut into the traffic but she didn’t care. She could feel the heat rising in her face and her hands were clamped tightly on the steering wheel.

  How dare the thief take her bag! she thought as she searched the twisty two-lane road ahead, which wound through forested land. There were several cars in a tight line before her, but none of them looked like the sedan she sought. She thought she might have spotted it farther ahead, but she couldn’t be sure.

  She gunned the Jeep and started passing cars one by one when she could, making sure she had adequate room as she leapfrogged forward, though once or twice she cut things a little too close. But she was upset. She wasn’t about to let some thief make off with her bag.

  As she drove, her mind assessed what exactly she had put in the daypack, and what exactly he might have been after. Perhaps he’d thought there was money in it, or other valuables. And, to Candy, it did contain her valuables—the tools of her trade, including her notebooks, camera, and digital recorder. Items that were valuable to her but to no one else. It’s possible the thief could have been after any one of those items.

  But, no.

  She was almost certain he’d been after the book. The Pruitt history. He must have seen her paging through it on the boat and for some reason decided it was of some value. He’d tried to knock it off her lap. He must have been trying to take it from her then.

  But now he had it, and with it, the note.

  The note.

  She didn’t know if it was significant or not, but she hated to lose anything at this point. At least it was easy to memorize; she’d write it down in her notebook the moment she had a chance.

  But then she shook her head. He’d taken her notebooks! And her camera, and recorder, and all her research and important papers, and everything she needed for work.

  In a sudden moment of panic, she reached around and felt her back pocket. She couldn’t remember where she’d put her phone. Was it in her pocket—or in the daypack?

  But after a few moments of frantic searching, her fingers finally found the hard plastic outline of the phone, and she touched it reassuringly through the pocket’s jean fabric.

  At least the thief hadn’t stolen everything.

  And if she had her phone, then she also had photos of the tombstone, so she still had a record of the exact wording of the two inscriptions in Latin.

  But why had the thief been interested in the book? She never had a good look at his face—she vaguely remembered that he’d looked like a younger person, perhaps in his thirties—but she hadn’t noticed anything else about him…his eyes, the color of his hair…anything.

  Because he’d been wearing the hood and sunglasses—as if he were trying to disguise himself, as if trying to blend into the crowd.

  He was stalking me! she realized with a start.

  That’s why he’d been wearing that sweatshirt with the hood—to hide his true identity.

  For some reason, that thought angered her again, and she stepped back down on the accelerator pedal as the indicator on the speedometer jumped forward. She came around a tight curve and saw a straight stretch of road, and there, far up ahead, where the road curved again to the right, she saw the sedan she was looking for.

  She stood on the pedal as the engine’s whining grew more shrill and the wind raced past her windows. She was clocking near seventy on this narrow island road. She’d surely get a ticket if she came across a patrol car right about now.

  The sedan disappeared around the curve in the road, hidden again behind a thick screen of dull green spruce and pine, with a few rust-colored deciduous trees mixed in. She coaxed the Jeep a little faster, knowing she was pushing it to its limits—and knowing she couldn’t sustain this pace for too long on this road.

  Up ahead, a car pulled out of a side road, headed away from her in her own lane, and began to accelerate, but slowly. She considered passing the vehicle but another was coming toward her in the opposite lane, forcing her to back off on the accelerator pedal. She was approaching another settlement of perhaps a dozen or so buildings, and a crossroads, and she had to back off even more. And as she slowed, she could feel her resentment and frustration rising.

  She wasn’t going to catch him, whoever he was.

  He had disappeared. And he’d taken her daypack—and the book—with him.

  FORTY-ONE

  Dusk was near as she drove back into Cape Willington—and mischief was in the air.

  It was the night before Halloween, and jack-o’-lanterns were lit in the windows of homes all along the Coastal Loop. In some of the yards, children in costume played or romped about excitedly. It was clear to Candy, as she passed by, that some of the kids could barely contain themselves, and she could understand why. Halloween had an energy and mystery all its own among the holidays, and next to Christmas, was probably the most fun of all.

  Candy herself had mixed feelings about the holiday, due in no small part to the fact that she’d been born on Halloween. Not being an ostentatious type of person, she’d never been much for dressing up, but having been born on the thirty-first, it had been expected of her. Many of her earlier birthdays had, in fact, been Halloween costume parties, and she’d often been expected to have the most stupendous costume of all. Many times she did, with her mother’s help. Holly Holliday had been born on a holiday as well—Christmas—so she knew something about having a birthday on a day of celebration. She’d done everything she could to make sure her daughter’s birthdays were always special and individual.

  So as Candy grew older, the parties had become more low-key and personal, and since her mother had passed away, she had lowered her birthday expectations even more, since party planning was not one of her father’s top skills, and everyone else’s Halloween plans usually took them in different directions.

  And, for the most part, that was fine with her.

  Still, she was looking forward to the Pumpkin Bash celebration in town tomorrow, since at least there would be some celebrating going on by some people, and maybe she could experience that in some way vicariously, since she was sure little had been planned for her.

  Besides, she didn’t have time to party. She had a mystery to solve—and she still had a number of clues that needed following up.

  And now, suddenly, there was another layer—and another theft of an old book.

  What was so important about that old volume of Pruitt history that made it worth stealing—twice?

  Most of all, she was saddened that she’d let it slip right through her hands—an important piece of the puzzle, snatched away from her before she’d had a chance to really study it, and all because she’d let her guard down for a few seconds.

  Now she wasn’t quite sure what to do.

  After finding the book at the caretaker’s cottage on the island, she’d planned to drive straight over to Pruitt Manor and deliver it into Mrs. Pruitt’s hands. But that plan changed the moment the thief had opened the Jeep’s passenger-side door and made off with her daypack.

  Should she still drive out to Pruitt Manor and explain what had happened? Should she tell Mrs. Pruitt and Tristan about the note she’d found slipped inside, and ask them if they knew what it meant?

  To find the key, search that which binds.

  Should she tell them what she’d found out about Abigail Pruitt, and her mysterious trip to Wren Island?

  And what should she tell them? That she suspected Abigail, or her sister Cornelia, might have given birth to an illegitimate child? That the young girl had been placed into an orphanage in Lewiston until she w
as in her teens, and then practically imprisoned at an isolated old house out on the point of an island reachable only by boat?

  Should she ask them why the Pruitt family motto was engraved on the girl’s tombstone?

  Did they even know the tombstone existed? Or the estate? Or Wren Island itself?

  Surely Helen Ross Pruitt had to know something about that.

  She had given all these questions a lot of thought as she drove back home, trying to sort out all the links, names, and relationships. She’d established that Abigail’s maiden name was Wren, which was her link to the island and the estate. But why had she visited Emma on her birthday, bringing along a document for the young woman to sign? And if Emma really was Abigail’s child, then that meant she was also Helen Ross Pruitt’s half sister, wasn’t she? Or perhaps her cousin, if Emma was Cornelia’s child? Was that why they’d hidden her away on Wren Island? To keep her existence a secret, and to keep her away from the rest of the family so as not to cause a scandal?

  In the end, as she drove down Ocean Avenue toward the traffic light at the foot of the broad boulevard, Candy decided it was all too much to dump on the Pruitts without having more evidence and a better idea of what was really going on.

  She needed someone to talk it over with, to help her organize her thoughts, before she went any further.

  So she drove to the house of the one person she thought might be able to help her figure it all out—and the one person she decided she’d like to spend a little time with on her last night as a thirty-something-year-old.

  She drove to Maggie’s house in Fowler’s Corner.

  The green Subaru wagon was in the driveway, so Candy knew her friend was home. She also knew she should have called ahead, but it had been a last-minute decision, and she knew Maggie wouldn’t mind if she dropped in unexpectedly. Maybe they could even order a pizza for dinner and have a glass of wine or two to celebrate Candy’s impending milestone.

  She rang the bell and waited. Maggie finally opened the door, looking flustered. “What are you doing here?” she asked, as if the tax collector had knocked on her door.