Pumpkins And Trickery

by D. S. Mowbray

  “Detective, how is Mr. Mahoney’s case coming upon?”

  He taken his eyes off of the coffee and looks at me with his poker-face, not having expected this question by my end. “Are you still planning on solving another mystery by yourself, Ms. Holden?” he smirks, inquisitively.

  “Well, not exactly. It’s just that a lot of things seem off. You know, since after my statement I haven’t heard anything about further progress. It seems like you’re actually doing nothing at all.”

  “Well, things are not always how they look like. We’re actually working really hard on that. It’s more intricate than you’d think. Mr. Mahoney had a lot of connections, and lots of friends and foes at the same time. We’re trying to see the case by many sides. We’re looking into every personal connection of his possible. Quaint murders like this one take longer to solve.”

  “But it isn’t quint. Actually, I think that you have the murderer in front of your eyes and you just don’t like to see.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I told you that Jaylon, the guy who works at the pumpkin shop, is the one who arranged the compilation. And I did a little research on my own and found that he has a history of doing strange things, like purchasing bizarre items in a haberdashery store, taking medicinal pills, and acting strangely in public.”

  “I see you still haven’t resisted the urge to stick your nose into other people’s business.”

  “We might have a murderer among us and we’re doing nothing about it, refusing to see the facts, like, the way they are.”

  “He’s not the murderer,” he says shorty, getting me all confused.

  “What do you mean? How can you be so sure?” I feel as if I cannot accept this to be true. I feel like I have come at a realization and I cannot have the detective smash down all my hard work.

  “We interrogated him. We have reasons to believe that he’s not involved in this. Those reasons being classified.”

  I look around, confused. I don’t know what to believe anymore. How else can I explain Jaylon’s weird behavior? Everything about him has been quaint. So he was the easiest link. But now he’s not. And I have to find a new one.

  Chapter Thirteen

  With evening settling in, the coldness outside swirling without a care in the world and the darkness embracing every corner of the city, I decided to snuggle up on the couch with a mug of tea, Coral napping on the rug underneath the coffee table.

  Before making myself comfortable on my nightclothes, I had to arrange the pumpkins in my yard and stairs. I didn’t go with anything crazy this time. No exhausting carvings, no intricate craft work. Just simple autumn pumpkins adorning my yard. I know that the townspeople are probably not going to be happy about it, but you cannot make everyone happy every time.

  Before resting on the cushions, I hear something coming from outside that scares me a little. I try to soothe myself, thinking that it was probably just the activity of the nature raucously taking its toll in my yard, though when the cracking takes place for a second time, I decide to get out of the comfortability of the blanket and slip in my carpet slipper and head out.

  I snoop my head, with the door halfway open, and through the darkness I think I make out a shadow. Then the tree adjacent the fence looks bigger then always. That’s when I realize that someone is hiding behind it, that’s why their dark shadow is making it look stranger.

  “Hey, who’s there?” I ask. And then I regret that I let them know I saw them. They’d probably have more time to think their next move now.

  I climb down the stairs and bring myself in my yard, and then the person behind the tree tries to get out of the yard, by climbing the fence. I hurry my way to them, and throughout my stressfulness, I detect something on their hands. It’s dark though I can tell for sure that it’s a polo mallet that they’re holding.

  “Jaylon?” I ask, confused, without properly having seen his face. Then I move closer and the lights from the street now put highlight to his face. It’s really him. I knew it! “What are you doing here?” I proceed, and suddenly he’s given up on his attempt at climbing the fence to get out of my territory. “Oh, wait. You’re here to smash my new decorations, aren’t you? Busted,” I say with a melodious, pitchy, crawling voice.

  “Look, I can explain.”

  “Oh, please, save your explanations for the police. I think I’ve had enough of you. I knew it all along. I don’t know why I doubted for a second that you wouldn’t be the one behind my season decorations’ attack.”

  “It’s not how it looks like.”

  “Oh, yeah? You’ve actually got the nerve to deny the obvious. Man, you’re really crazy. I’m sure at some point you’re even implicated to what happened to Mr. Mahoney.”

  “I swear I didn’t do anything. You’ve got to listen to me.”

  “Why me? And more importantly, why my decorations? What kind of satisfaction did you get out of smashing them to bits?”

  “I know it was impulsive, though I couldn’t have you treat me like a murderer. You were after me since you found out about the fact that I was the one who arranged the vine composition. If you were going to keep up with that nonsense, other people were going to believe it too. And you know what that’d do to my reputation?”

  “So you had to go on and destroy all my adornments? What do you call that? Because to me it looks crazy and suspicious.”

  “I know. I’m sorry about that. I shouldn’t have destroyed your autumn decorations, but I just couldn’t handle the fact that you kept chasing me, trying to pin the blame on me. I wasn’t the one who killed him. Sure, I arranged those pumpkins, though, I swear I didn’t know a man hid underneath them.”

  “That’s just weird. But I think you’re going to have to explain that to the police, after I tell them that you were the one who did this to my yard.”

  “Please, don’t do that.” His voice sounds almost begging.

  “You weren’t going to stop, were you?” I look at the mallet in his hands. “What did you get out of this? What kind of accomplishment did destroying my ornaments give you?”

  “The first smashing, I did. And I’m not proud of it. I was scared and terrified and I just took it out on your pumpkins. But I wasn’t here about that this time.”

  “Then why are you here?” Seriously, I doubt he’s telling the truth. Why does he have a polo mallet in his hands, unless he wanted to play a little smashing game on my vines?

  “I’m here to apologize, and to explain,” his voice grows milder and if I’m not mistaken it sounds more sincere now. But I’m not sure whether I detected that clearly.

  “You can do that, after I report your encroachment to the detective.”

  “I’m taking pills, but you already know that,” he sounds like he’s whining now, and that’s enough to get my full concentration, forget about the reporting thingy and focus on his words. “I’ve been seeking therapy for months now. Because of the problem that I have. You know, it’s really complicated when you have a disorder. It’s difficult to make connections and interact with people. And then this happens. I find myself implicated into a murder mystery that I have nothing to do with, and you keep chasing me trying to pin this on me. Do you have any idea how baffling this is for someone who’s trying to settle peace with himself and the world? You know, someone who’s trying to recover from some illness that didn’t ask for. And it’d be so easy for people to believe you, since you’re, you know, normal and all. And I’m the lunatic.”

  “That’s why you started yelling every time I approached you,” I’m coming to grasp the reasons these weird things happened. “Because if you let them think I was attacking you, there wouldn’t be any more room for me to turn this on you.”

  “That’s right. I know that I might be the obvious link, I’m not connected in any way to the murder of Mr. Mahoney.”

  “Then why are you holding a mallet in your hands?”

  “Because I’m sick. You don’t know me. And I don’t expect you to. B
ut there are many layers into people’s perspective. I had to deal with terrible stuff in the past, then someone spurred this disorder in me. And I feel like I have to be protected and help myself every second, in every place. That’s why I buy so many mallets. I feel as though someone would attack me.”

  I feel like a fool now. Looking down, I realize once again, that people are multidimensional creatures. There are so many dimensions rendering into people’s lives. And what we see isn’t always what there really is. There are always going to be sides of other people that we will probably never know about.

  “I’m not going to tell anybody that it was you who destroyed my yard a couple of days ago.” I mutter, voice barely a whisper. Through the darkness, I can almost see the ghost of a whisper on his lips. “And I’m sorry for what you had to go through, and for having to have put you in this position.”

  His smile becomes more obvious now, and he waddles across the fence, and I look at him while moving away. Getting back inside, I look at Coral napping on the couch without a care in the world and I sigh.

  There are so many mistakes that we do in life, and most of the time, we go ahead incapable of acknowledging them as such. We go around hurting other people, and we don’t even know that we do.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “Word in town is that Mrs. Mahoney is going to sue her brother in law. According to her he has been able to manipulate his brother prior to the murder. She is shocked she didn’t inherit a single part in the hotel.”

  “Well, it is shocking,” I tell Kierra, who, I’ve noticed, recently has become the town’s gossip mill imperceptibly. She knows just about everything about everyone. “To find that your husband didn’t leave you a dime.”

  “He didn’t actually not leave her anything. Actually she got a lot from her husband, expect for the hotel. Which, as far as I’ve heard, she really wanted the most.”

  A few moments go by as I have to deal with other customers who stop by, and after that I see someone so beautiful that strikes a chord and then I remember that it’s Kierra’s boyfriend. She didn’t tell me that he’s stop by, but I guess, after all, she was very busy with her gossiping to actually think of him.

  “Hey, Tyson. It’s nice to see you.” I smile at him so widely as if I’m the one he’s come to meet here. Oh, he’s just so pretty is all.

  “Hey,” he stops for a second that I think that he has a hard time recalling my name, but then I realize that he’s just focusing on his girlfriend. He gives her a peck on the cheek, while I gawk at them.

  “Would you want me to get you something?’ I ask the first moment he stops snuggling with his girl.

  “Um, no, thanks. We were just on our way out.” He explains.

  “Tyson only stopped by to give me a lift. We’re going at the movies right now.” Kierra picks up from there, making a more proper explanation.

  “Oh, have a nice time,” I mutter as they’re making their way out of the door.

  And then I’m left alone. Surprisingly, for the next couple of seconds no one visits my shop, and this is a nice time for me to focus on my thoughts just for a second, before someone barges in and interrupts me from my contemplation.

  I just couldn’t get what happened last night at my yard out of my head. I was so convinced Jaylon was the one after the murder, I almost made a mess out of it. But, luckily, he cleared the air. And strangely, it’s not like I feel any better now. He had a lot going on in his life, he didn’t actually need me making it more intricate for him.

  Just think about how many people we impact intricately with our egotistical, feigningly forethought averments. It just goes to show that maybe we should stop at some point and realize that it’s best if we keep our requisitions to ourselves, in this way letting the people deal with their own obstinacies.

  I get disconnected from my contemplation when Heather shows up, and I look at her wriggling around with a new attitude. I cannot crush my desire to know what is going on, since lately she’s been rendering on the same uneventful, monotonous vortex.

  “What’s up, sweetie?” My lust for learning is uncrushable for sure. I am asking her about the intriguing thing occurring inside her tablet PC which she holds in her hands and that has captured her attention and interest altogether.

  “I’m writing this new article about the new mystery in town that everyone is talking about, and I think I’ve got some pretty good leads. I’m this close to,” she gestures a trivial distance with her fingers, “finding it.”

  I’m all kinds of perplexed, but, no wonder. The detective, himself, told me, this was such a complicated case and it’d require them to dig deeper and deeper into every connection and action that Mr. Mahoney had taken prior to the murder. And I have Heather here telling me that she’s almost uncovering the murderer. Now, that’s surprising.

  “Oh, yeah? And who do you think did it?” I raise an eyebrow, a little playfully, finding this new endeavor of hers a little funny.

  “No doubts, his wife.” She says it as if it’s the most normal thing to ever exist.

  My eyes bulge out in a protrusive way. “Heather didn’t you learn your lesson last time you decided to jump into conclusions too fast and share your hunches with the world?”

  “I’m a little offended that you’re calling my reasonably settled facts hunches.”

  “Yeah? And what would you say they are? I mean, gossiping around town and turning the tea into investigating leads.”

  “I saw his wife debating with some girl who works at the pumpkin store. I saw her when we went there together. The one who offered us tea.”

  “You mean, Alyvia?” I find the news a little bit surprising to be honest.

  “That one.” She mutters inexpressibly and types something on her tablet.

  “Why would Mrs. Mahoney argue with her?” I mutter as though to myself.

  “Now that’s exactly what I call suspicious. Now my trail of evidence goes like this: she actually killed her husband, intending to inherit the hotel and all his other worldly possessions, without knowing about the secret arrangement between Mr. Mahoney and his brother regarding the hotel’s possession rights. The revelation of the truth when the will got public had her disoriented and now she’s going around town, acting crazy and shouting at everyone who shows up in front of her. Note to self: don’t get in her way anytime soon.”

  “Heather, didn’t you think for a moment that they might’ve been arguing about some other thing; as in the kind of essential thing that could lead us towards the reasons of Mr. Mahoney getting killed?”

  “Nah, that’s not possible. The woman is cuckoo. I don’t think she’s able to have a normal conversation with everything that is going on into her life at the moment.”

  “My suggestion is, don’t just jump in too fast. We do not want to irritate other people right now. Remember what happened to my yard? That might look like just a nice-case scenario compared to what an enraged person could carry on with.”

  “Ansley, I’m a journalist, it’s my duty to shed some light to the people and share the truth that everyone is so afraid of.”

  Oh, God, here she goes again with the journalist-heroic crap.

  “Besides, how else are people supposed to protect themselves, if they don’t know who they’re up against?” she proceeds.

  Well, she’s making a good point, that is only is her hunches were well-based. Though I’m not going to lie, I find this little arguing between Alyvia and Mrs. Mahoney a little surprising.

  I let Heather get stuck in her prospect article, while the next customer takes all my words away. My world perplexes when he comes around, and I cannot gather control of my own self. Why should he have that impact upon me?

  Meanwhile I’m not realizing that I’m gawking at him like a star-struck addict.

  “Gideon, you came back,” I fumble as if he’s come here just for me, never mind that I own a cupcake shop and my company is almost never the purpose behind people gathering around here.

  “Obvi
ously your cupcakes had me under some charm or something. I knew that I shouldn’t come here now, since there’s a meeting I need to attend to in let’s say the next few minutes, but I just couldn’t resist the lure of your scrumptious baking.”

  “Oh, I’m so happy that you feel like that.” I cringe a little, thinking that I’ve made a mess of words even though I didn’t. That’s how fumbling his presence nearby me is. “Not about your addiction,” I say, feeling like there’s room for clarification on spot. “About your liking my cupcakes.”

  “As far as I know, there is nobody in the vicinity that has been able to withstand to your baking.” His voice is a little playful, there’s a smile on his face but not really, eyes glinting and squinting a smidge at the same time. I feel like he’s teasing me. “Guess I’m no exception.”

  “Oh, Gideon,” I feel like an introduction is needed right this moment, since Heather is gawking at us, mesmerized and confused at once. “This is my friend, Heather. Also known as the town’s journalist. Heather, this is my new neighbor, Gideon.”

  Heather expends her arm flirtatiously and they shake hands together. Her eyes are beaming in a million ways of flirting right now. And I just roll my eyes to that.

  “So, Gideon, are you here for the same lemon cupcake that you liked so much?” I ask, trying to get these two apart from each other, before they decided to spark an instant love interest.

  “Oh, actually I’d rather try something new this time. I figured I’d savor a new kind of your specialties each time I come here. It’s the only way to know which of your baking is my favorite.”

  “Nice customer strategy.” Heather congratulates him, which he responds to with a smile and a nod. Oh, thanks God. I don’t think he’s so into her as she is. Really it’s not hard to grow an affectual liking towards him, with his husky arms and his white tee that clings to them, his really nice and lean figure, not to mention his proud loftiness. I guess he’s the perfect catch for any girl out there.