Town in a Pumpkin Bash

by B. B. Haywood

  Candy smiled. “I thought I’d stop in and see you.”

  “But it’s not ready.”

  “What’s not ready?”

  “Well…I…uh,” Maggie stammered, looking like she’d been caught doing something she shouldn’t have been doing. “You weren’t supposed to know until tomorrow.”

  “I wasn’t supposed to know what until tomorrow?” Candy asked, giving her friend a puzzled look, then gazing past her, into the house. “What have you been up to all afternoon?”

  Maggie abruptly swung her hands behind her back. She’d been holding a needle and thread, and a piece of cloth. “Nothing.”

  “What’s that in your hands?”

  Maggie did something behind her back, and then brought one hand forward, waving it in the air. “Empty. See? There’s nothing behind my back.”

  “It’s in your other hand.” Candy leaned over, trying to look behind her friend’s back. “Blue cloth and thread? You stitching up some jeans or something?”

  Maggie’s eyes widened. “Yes, that’s it exactly! I was just stitching up some jeans and…I’m not done yet, so you have to go.”

  She made a move to close the door, but Candy had already started inside. “Don’t be silly. I’ll help you,” she said, unaware of the expression of surprise on her friend’s face. “Maybe we can get some dinner while we work.”

  “Well, I…I…I…” Maggie said, not moving.

  Candy stopped and looked back at her. “Are you okay? Something wrong?”

  “No, it’s just—” Maggie finally threw down her hands. “Oh, I can’t keep a secret from you any longer. It’s almost your birthday, right? Close enough, anyway. Besides, you can’t spend your last night in your thirties alone, can you? So you might as well come in and have a look.”

  She stayed several paces behind as Candy walked into the living room—and saw the gown thrown over the back of the couch. It was a shimmery blue strapless number that looked like it might once have been a prom dress.

  “What’s that?” Candy asked.

  “It’s one of Amanda’s old prom dresses.”

  “What’s it doing here?”

  “I’m modifying it.”

  “For who?”

  “For you.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, you’re going to the masquerade ball tomorrow night with Tristan, right? You can’t go to a masquerade ball without a costume—especially on your birthday.”

  “But…how did you know? That I needed a costume, I mean? I was actually going to ask for your help with it, but…I didn’t expect it to be done already.”

  Maggie waved a hand. “Well, that’s what friends are for, right? And it’s not quite done. I’d actually planned to spring it on you tomorrow as a surprise, but it’s probably better this way. We can finish it together. And, yes, we should order some pizza, because I’m famished. And I have some Chardonnay chilling in the fridge.”

  “But…” Candy kept looking at the dress, wondering how she might look in it. “So it’s a costume?” she asked.

  “That’s right.”

  “And just what exactly will I be going as?”

  Maggie gave her a look and put her hands on her hips. “Well, isn’t that obvious, honey? You’re going to be a Blueberry Queen!”

  FORTY-TWO

  She woke in the middle of the night.

  For a few moments she wasn’t quite sure where she was, or even if it was day or night. She lifted her head and turned to look back over her shoulder at the darkness outside the window, then checked the clock. It was just after two A.M.

  She’d fallen asleep in her own bed with the light on, she realized. She still had her clothes on, the ones she’d worn to the island the previous day, and to Maggie’s house. She remembered now that, when she’d finally made it back home late in the evening, she’d taken off her shoes, wrapped herself in a homemade flannel blanket she’d bought at a craft fair a few years ago, and snuggled down onto her bed, with the intent of closing her eyes for only a few minutes and taking a quick nap. But she must have been more tired than she’d realized. She’d slept for more than four hours.

  She blinked several times and sat up. Her brain protested at the abrupt movement, fogging her thoughts, and for a few moments, she was tempted to turn out the light, lay her head back down on the pillow, and go right back to sleep. But she couldn’t—not quite yet. There was something she needed to do.

  Experimentally, she sneaked a foot out from under the blanket to test the air. The room was chilly, since this early in the season they set the thermostat at sixty-five to conserve fuel. She was tempted to pad downstairs and notch it up a couple of degrees, but she didn’t want to wake up Doc.

  So instead she climbed quickly out of bed, grabbed her laptop from where it sat on a dresser nearby, and jumped back into bed. She sat cross-legged and pulled the blanket tightly around her again as she set the computer down in front of her and booted it up.

  She knew what had awoken her—the nagging thought, even while asleep, bubbling up from deep in her subconscious mind, that there were unanswered questions she needed to resolve.

  As she waited for the computer programs to load up, she glanced at the clock again.

  It’s after midnight, she realized. That means it’s Wednesday, the thirty-first of October.

  “Happy birthday, girl,” she said softly to herself. “You’re forty years old now.”

  She smiled wryly. It didn’t feel too bad, actually.

  She let out a deep breath as she moved her index finger over the computer’s touch pad and opened the browser window.

  She had stopped at Maggie’s house the previous evening with every intention of discussing all the information she’d learned on the island. She’d wanted to tell Maggie about the Wren Estate, and the lost tombstone she’d finally found, and about her conversation with Nettie Trotter, and how she’d found the volume of Pruitt history. She wanted to talk about the thief who had stolen her daypack—and everything in it—and describe her wild chase up the two-lane island road, on the trail of the unidentified culprit. And she’d wanted to see what she could find out about the second Latin phrase inscribed on Emma’s tombstone.

  But Maggie had been so excited about the Blueberry Queen costume she’d designed for Candy, and had seemed so resolved in making sure Candy enjoyed her final night in her thirties, that there’d never been a good time to start a discussion about the island, or Emma, or the inscription, or the murder of Sebastian J. Quinn, or tombstones, or books, or whatever. Candy had tried a couple of times to bring up the subject of her island adventure, first over pizza, and then later on in the evening when they were talking about their final day at the pumpkin patch. But in the end, she’d decided against ruining the increasingly jovial tone of the evening, especially after they’d both had a few glasses of wine and were giggling about something or other. She’d never found an appropriate time to disturb the evening’s lighthearted mood.

  And, she realized now, it was probably for the best. She wasn’t sure anyone else could help her at this point. She had all the puzzle pieces she needed. Now she just had to fit them together.

  So she moved the cursor to the browser’s search box and keyed in the English translation of the second Latin phrase she’d found on Emma’s tombstone:

  He is wise who is industrious.

  She hit the return key and leaned in for a closer look as the results came up on the screen.

  The first few search results were for Biblical phrases that contained the words wise and industrious: one a passage from Ecclesiastes and another from Proverbs.

  Candy scanned those quickly but dismissed them just as quickly. She knew that wasn’t what she was looking for.

  But a little farther down the page she saw a search result that was a better fit—and one that didn’t totally surprise her.

  It was a link to a website that specialized in family names and crests.

  The underscored link was titled, Sykes Family History
and Crest.

  The Sykes family.

  So that’s it, Candy thought as she felt a small twist in her stomach.

  The motto in question was part of the Sykes family crest.

  She clicked on the link. On the resulting page, her eyes were instantly drawn to the right, where she saw an image of the crest with the Latin inscription SAPIENS QUI ASSIDUOS in a wavy banner above it.

  Candy leaned back a little, her brow furrowed and her mouth a tight line as she considered the ramifications of what she had just learned.

  The two Latin inscriptions engraved on Emma’s tombstone were the mottos for two prominent New England families who had long histories in Maine and Cape Willington—the Pruitts and the Sykes.

  So why were those two mottos on the tombstone?

  Candy leaned in again and focused in on the web page. The Sykeses were an Old English family, she read, just as the Pruitts were Welsh. Sykes was an old Anglo-Saxon name, and had had a variety of spellings going back to the Middle Ages—Sikes, Syks, Sikkes, and the like. Members of the Sykes family had first settled on the North American continent during the late sixteen hundreds in places like Virginia and Maryland.

  And, she knew, at least a few of them had put down roots in Down East Maine, and specifically in Cape Willington, sometime in the seventeen hundreds—around the same time the Pruitts first arrived in the area.

  During a historical presentation at the annual Moose Fest celebration last January, Doc had discussed Cape Willington’s famous families, and she’d sat in and listened to some of it. He had described, among other things, how the Sykes family had come to the cape, and some of the difficulties they had early on. One of them, Captain Josiah Sykes, had fallen on hard times and reportedly gone mad.

  Several members of the Sykes family still lived in New England. If she remembered correctly, the main family home was in Marblehead, Massachusetts. But a nearby, abandoned mansion that had also belonged to the Sykes family had burned down back at the beginning of the year. And Candy had already had run-ins with several members of the current family, including Porter Sykes, a Boston developer, and his brother Roger, a restaurateur—both of whom also just happened to be old college friends of Candy’s sort-of boyfriend, Ben Clayton.

  But as Candy pondered all these apparently coincidental connections, other parts of the puzzle began to click into place.

  The Pruitts. And the Sykeses.

  Mottos for the two wealthy families listed side by side on Emma’s tombstone.

  But why?

  It must have something to do with the missing volume of Pruitt history, Candy thought. Why had Emma taken that book, covering those years in the family’s history? What significant events had occurred during the 1940s?

  Certainly much must have happened during the war years—as well as the prosperous years that followed.

  Candy felt a spark of realization, and recalled a story she’d heard once that provided a link between the Pruitts and the Sykeses.

  And one specific individual from each family.

  Cornelius Pruitt.

  And Daisy Porter-Sykes.

  Candy felt a jolt as a thought swept through her:

  They’d been together at a resort in Maine during the late 1940s.

  It was a story she’d heard from Wilma Mae Wendell, an elderly former resident of Cape Willington. Wilma Mae had been the keeper of a valuable lobster stew recipe, given to her by a friend and admirer, James Sedley. When Mr. Sedley was murdered and the recipe stolen from a secret document drawer in Wilma Mae’s house, she’d commissioned Candy to find it for her—and along the way solve the mystery of Mr. Sedley’s death.

  Wilma Mae had also been an avid collector of ketchup bottles. Her collection numbered in the hundreds. She’d kept them throughout her house on Rose Hip Lane, on shelves and in cabinets, in boxes and drawers—and one day she had shown Candy the bottle that had started it all.

  It was an empty bottle of ketchup that had once been used at the Lodge at Moosehead Lake sometime in the summer of 1947—and when it was still filled with ketchup, it had been used by Cornelius Pruitt, the husband of Abigail Pruitt and father of Helen Ross Pruitt, one morning when he’d been having breakfast with his mistress, Daisy Porter-Sykes.

  Candy remembered Wilma Mae telling her that, during the late 1940s, Cornelius had taken to spending a week or two every summer at the lodge, ostensibly to be alone so he could “cleanse his soul and commune with nature,” as Wilma Mae had put it. But that was all a smoke screen so he could arrange for some personal time to dally in illicit affairs.

  On that certain summer morning at Moosehead Lodge in 1947, Cornelius had tipped a ketchup bottle—the very one in Wilma Mae’s collection—over a plate of steak and eggs, and slapped the bottom so firmly that ketchup had squirted all over the tablecloth, and right onto the morning dress of his current paramour, the very married and very attractive Mrs. Porter-Sykes. Daisy had been so upset at Cornelius for ruining her dress that she’d broken up with him on the spot and stormed out of the room.

  But what if, Candy wondered, she had been pregnant at the time?

  And what if the child had been Cornelius Pruitt’s?

  What if, months after breaking up with Cornelius, Daisy Porter-Sykes had given birth to a child in secret?

  And what if Emma had been that child?

  Candy shivered, and it had nothing to do with the chill in the room.

  What would Daisy have done with the child?

  Given it up for adoption?

  Sent it to an orphanage in Lewiston?

  That’s how unwanted pregnancies were often dealt with in those days, Candy knew. Daisy had been a relatively young woman, wife of wealthy Gideon Sykes of Marblehead. If she’d become pregnant by Cornelius Pruitt, it would have been scandalous, and she’d more than likely have lost everything, disavowed by both men. So what would have been the sensible thing for her to do? Keep the pregnancy a secret from both men? Take an extended “vacation” before she started showing? Have the child in secrecy, and afterward give it away? Or arrange for an orphanage to take the child?

  That had to be it!

  It would explain so much, Candy realized—including the lack of a last name on the tombstone.

  Was Emma Smith, alias Emma Wren, actually Emma Pruitt?

  But how, Candy wondered, did Abigail Pruitt fit into all this? If Emma had been Cornelius’s illegitimate child, how had Abigail found out about it? Had Cornelius even known he’d borne a child? And why did they keep Emma out at Wren Island…and bury her there?

  And, perhaps most importantly, how was it all connected to the death of Sebastian J. Quinn, and the theft of Abigail’s diary by Sapphire Vine?

  And what about the note Candy had found hidden between the pages of the book on Pruitt history, before it had been stolen from her?

  To find the key, search that which binds.

  The key to what?

  Candy’s head was spinning, and her brain was feeling foggy again. So much to think about, so much to sort out—and so much still unknown.

  She felt she was making progress though. She was onto something. But as she powered down her laptop, set it on the floor beside the bed, and settled back down under the flannel blanket, too tired to change into her pajamas, she knew she still had work to do.

  She also knew that, step-by-step, she was getting closer to finding the killer.

  FORTY-THREE

  Doc was waiting for her downstairs in the morning with coffee made and a beaming smile on his face. He gave her a hug and a kiss on the cheek. “Happy birthday, pumpkin,” he said warmly, and held out her chair for her as she settled at the kitchen table, which was decorated with a bouquet of autumn flowers. In the middle of the place mat in front of her sat a small, wrapped jewelry box with a card beside it.

  “Did you sleep well?” Doc asked, walking back to the counter to fill mugs of coffee for them.

  Candy studied the jewelry box with interest. “Pretty good, I guess. I slept in
my clothes.”

  Doc gave her a curious look. “Why did you do that?”

  Candy shook her head. “I don’t know, really. I just never put on my pajamas. Too tired, I guess.”

  “Well, I can see why. A lot’s been going on around town lately, that’s for sure,” Doc said knowingly as he set a mug of coffee down in front of her, and a plate of something that looked perfectly scrumptious.

  Candy’s eyes widened at this unexpected treat, and she inhaled its rich, fruity aroma. “Is that what I think it is?”

  “Yup, probably is,” Doc said with a smile. “Sent over by special messenger this morning.”

  Now it was Candy’s turn to give him a curious look. “Special messenger?”

  “I’ll explain later.” He pointed at the German breakfast pastry he’d set down in front of his daughter and grinned. “So?”

  She turned her attention back to the heavenly confection. “Well, it’s an apfeltasche, isn’t it? Like a sort of strudel, with a fruit filling?” She studied it more closely. “Looks like apples and blueberries, with some cinnamon, judging from the aroma.”

  It was delicately brown, a crisp, flaky pocket pastry stuffed with a warm fruit filling that literally burst out of it in a passion of color—mostly purplish blues and cinnamon golds—and topped with a delicate framework of icing. Candy lifted the fork Doc had also laid on the table for her and used it to test the pastry’s flakiness, then cut off a corner and sampled it. For the next few moments, she savored the mixture of flavors and textures. “Mmm, that’s amazing,” she said when she’d finished. “There’s only one person I know who makes pastry like that. Is Herr Georg in town?”

  Doc smiled slyly. “Like I said, I’ll explain later. Once you’ve finished your little snack and opened your present, I’ll warm up the truck and we’ll head to the diner for the next course.”

  Candy arched an eyebrow. “The next course?”

  Half an hour later, as they slid into the corner booth at Duffy’s Main Street Diner, Candy received a round of birthday wishes and even a few scattered cheers and applause, not only from Bumpy, Artie, and Finn, but also from the diner’s staff, including Juanita and Dolores, the two waitresses, and even a few of the regular patrons. Juanita rushed over with a second cup of coffee and a stack of warm blueberry pancakes dripping in butter and fresh maple syrup.