Spunker had finished his supper. He looked up with surprise as I scurried back through the kitchen. He trotted behind me into the service porch and watched as I snooped around. Thank goodness animals couldn’t talk. The seed basket and the hand labeled packet of seeds grabbed my attention again. It seemed the pumpkin patch wasn’t just the unlikely setting for Beverly’s tragic death. My instincts, which were sometimes remarkably sharp, told me that the pumpkins played a role in all of it.
I leaned back to get a glimpse of the front door. I could see Virginia’s chestnut and gray hair over the top of the window curtains. She was still talking to Briggs.
I grabbed the basket off the shelf and reached for the pumpkin packet. I smoothed my fingers over the thick paper. It was empty. I took a closer look at the label. Featherton Hybrid Seeds was printed across the bottom in a tiny font. Featherton was the name of the nursery in Chesterton. In fact, they were delivering some marigolds to the shop in the morning.
I’d spent long enough looking for my imaginary dropped key. Besides, I was more than a little interested in the conversation outside on the porch. And there was one more thing I needed to ask Virginia about, something she had, of all things, told Spunker. Because even if they can’t talk, we humans spend plenty of time talking to them as if they could.
Detective Briggs looked up from his rather solemn expression as I stepped out onto the porch.
“Did you find it?” he asked me, temporarily pulling away from his conversation with Virginia.
I blinked at him. “Find what?”
His head tilted just slightly. “The key?”
“Oh yes, right. Just remembered, it’s in the basket on my bike.”
“Thought it might be.” Smooth and plain-spoken as he was, he was not terribly skilled at hiding sarcasm.
I glanced over at Virginia and saw that she was clutching a tissue. Her eyes and nose were red. Interesting. It was almost as if she had just learned that her neighbor was dead, instead of hearing it twenty minutes ago from me.
“I’ll get out of your way. Take care, Mrs. Hopkins, and again, I’m so sorry about Beverly.” I tilted my head toward the yard as I walked past Detective Briggs, but he didn’t catch on to my discrete head motion.
“Mrs. Hopkins, you’ve had a great shock,” Briggs said as I descended the steps, slowly, in case something of note was said on the porch behind me.
“Yes, I think I’ll go inside and rest my aching head,” Virginia said.
“Oh, Mrs. Hopkins,” I called back up to the porch. Detective Briggs turned around and waited for me to continue. Sometimes he worked so hard to keep an official, stern face it made the tiny muscle in his jaw twitch. (I hoped I wasn’t causing it.)
“Would you like me to close the pig pen? You mentioned that you thought Taylor left it open when Spunker came in with muddy paws.”
“No, don’t worry about that.” There was the slightest hint of a chortle, but Virginia swallowed it back quickly. After all, her neighbor had just died. “That pig is far too lazy to wander out from his pen.”
“Of course. Is that Franki Rumple’s son, Taylor, you’re talking about? One of the twins?”
“Yes. He comes over to fix things that are broken around the farm. He’s not the ideal handyman, but he’s all I can afford.”
“Miss Pinkerton,” Detective Briggs said sharply. “The sun is setting. You should get on your way if you’re riding a bicycle.”
“You are absolutely right. But Detective Briggs, if you have a moment, I just needed to ask you something about city ordinances.”
He seemed to be assessing whether or not I actually had a city ordinance question. Which I didn’t. “Isn’t it something that can wait?” he asked.
I shook my head once. “No, it’s a very pressing matter. I’ll just wait out by my bicycle until you’re finished with your conversation. And, if you don’t mind, Mrs. Hopkins, I’m going to wander through your patch and admire your pumpkins.”
“Absolutely, dear, and thank you for helping me inside.”
I skirted around the pumpkins and headed straight to the center piece, the carefully guarded pumpkin in the middle. Virginia Hopkins certainly had the overall demeanor of a sweet, elderly woman. It was almost ludicrous to imagine her doing anything as sinister as killing her neighbor. I reached the biggest pumpkin. A long curly vine snaked out of its stem. I followed it with my eyes to the source plant. Just as I’d expected. Virginia’s pumpkin was still firmly attached to the plant.
Chapter 15
I pulled my sweatshirt out of the basket on my bicycle and zipped it on. The sun had dropped low enough that the cool ocean air swept onto shore. Out on the horizon, a tall cluster of billowy white clouds signaled that Port Danby would wake to heavy fog.
Detective Briggs was still scratching notes on his pad of paper as he spoke to Virginia. She seemed to crumple a little more with each question. Sometimes I wish I had super hearing to go along with my super sense of smell. It would have been nice to hear what was being discussed.
I looked across at Beverly’s pumpkin patch. A small sparrow was sitting on Mr. Darcy-crow’s top hat. Officer Chinmoor had haphazardly draped yellow caution tape around the area where Beverly’s body had been discovered. The remnants of the broken squash sat as a grim reminder of how the poor woman ended up face first in her prize pumpkin.
I looked in the direction of Myrtle Place and didn’t see any sign of my crow. Hopefully, he’d made it to the porch. Not that I worried about Kingston as much as I worried about the havoc he might cause on his way home. Aside from occasionally terrorizing smaller wild birds and even the unsuspecting cat, Kingston was just a little too comfortable around humans. He had been known to swoop down and join people at their backyard barbecues and park picnics. On one disastrous occasion, he even landed on a woman’s large straw hat. The woman ran around screaming something about Alfred Hitchcock and the birds. In Kingston’s defense, the hat was decorated with yellow baubles that looked like cooked egg yolks. Something told me the woman never wore that hat again, which, in a fashion sense, was probably for the best.
Detective Briggs walked down the steps as Virginia slipped inside. Briggs had a surefooted way of walking that let you know he was a man of integrity. And he had a pretty broad set of shoulders to go with that self-assured stride. He surveyed the pumpkin patch as he walked past.
I was nearly bursting with information to tell him. He seemed to sense that. For a moment, I thought he was going to stroll right past me or just wave and tell me to go home. But he rounded the driveway post and the mailbox and walked over to where I stood with my bicycle.
“Does this have a light? It’s getting toward dusk. That is the hardest time to see cyclists on the side of the road.”
“I’ll be very careful. I’m just heading to Loveland Terrace.”
“Ah, Loveland Terrace. Right by the old Hawksworth Manor. Then you should be wary of teens driving past on their way to the mansion. They like to head up there and hang out.”
“Yes, I’ve noticed. I have yet to visit the place, but I must say, the whole murder-suicide story is intriguing. When I finally have a free moment, I’m going to read up about it.”
“So you’re interested in murder mysteries?”
“You noticed? I did a lot of reading as a kid. Agatha Christie, Sherlock Holmes, the Hardy Boys. My nose might be considered special, but I can tell you as a kid who couldn’t eat a piece of toast while smelling day old chicken in the trash can, it was anything but special. I was so skinny, I didn’t have many friends. I think the other kids thought I was sick.” I hadn’t told the story for empathy, but there was a genuine hint of it in his face. Whenever the serious detective veneer broke away for a second, it gave a glimpse into his real character. And I liked what I saw.
“How did you learn to control it?” he asked.
“It took some time and working with experts who knew all about hyperosmia.”
“Hyperos—never heard of it.”
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“It’s a heightened sense of smell. I guess I’ve taught you something today. “
“I guess you have.” He pushed his pad of paper into his pocket. “But it seems a heightened sense of smell is an understatement.”
“Thanks. I think. Speaking of that. I took the liberty of snooping around the crime scene.”
He smiled and shook his head. “Not yet. Let’s wait for the autopsy.”
I pointed at him. “But you think it might become a crime scene, don’t you?”
He slid his chin back and forth. It seemed he was considering whether or not to answer. The black beard stubble I’d noticed in the diner was heavier and darker. But then it was getting close to evening, so that made sense.
“It might be a crime scene. There are some things that don’t look quite right. The bloody lump on the back of her head,” he added before I could. “It’s just hard to understand why someone like Beverly Kent would be the target for homicide.”
I looked toward Virginia’s house. I caught a glimpse of her standing in her front window. She disappeared quickly. “I’ve heard that the pumpkin contest is quite a big deal in town.”
His laugh was short and dry. “Yes but then everything is a big deal here in Port Danby.”
“Did you happen to notice that Beverly’s prize pumpkin had been cut from its vine?”
He looked over toward the yellow tape and then back at me. “I didn’t. But I don’t see how that matters.”
“It’s just that the contest isn’t for two weeks, and the pumpkin could still—”
“—grow, but not if it was cut off.” He finished for me. “You’re right. I’ll keep that in mind.”
“Virginia’s pumpkin is still attached. In case you were wondering. Oh, and I smelled lantana on the sawdust around Beverly’s patch.”
He looked slightly confused.
I waved my hand at the long stretch of lantana. “It has a very distinctive odor, and it separates the two farms.”
There were two lines that creased next to his mouth when he grinned. “Just as it would be hard to understand a motive for killing Beverly, it would be equally hard to picture Virginia stalking her neighbor with a garden hoe. But, again, I’ll make note of the pumpkin plants.”
I made a point of looking at his shirt pocket where he’d slipped his notepad. An audible sigh followed as he pulled it free.
I stretched my neck and glanced at his pad. “You have very nice writing for a man,” I noted.
His grin tried to break free again, but he kept it hidden. “Anything else, Miss Pinkerton? Pinkerton,” he repeated. “Any relation to the famous Pinkerton detective of the nineteenth century?”
“Don’t I wish. No relation to Allan Pinkerton, unfortunately. But I understand my great-great grandfather, Norville Pinkerton, invented a pair of socks with reinforced toes. But then he lost the toes in an accident and didn’t need the socks after all.”
This time he couldn’t hold back the grin. He clicked the pen closed. “I’ll let you get on your way before it’s too dark. Thank you for your help today.”
“My pleasure.” I climbed onto the bicycle.
“Where’s the crow?”
“Hopefully waiting for me on the front porch. I’m sure we’ll see each other again, Detective Briggs.”
“I’m sure. Oh, and Miss Pinkerton, leave the police work to us.”
“I will try but I can’t always help what this nose does.” I tapped the side of my nose. “It sort of has a mind of its own.”
Chapter 16
The layer of clammy fog was so pervasive, it seemed to seep beneath the doors of my house. I decided to wait it out for an hour or so, figuring it wouldn’t be wise to ride a bicycle in a pea soup mist. Drivers would have a hard enough time as it was. The last thing they needed was to be watching out for a silly woman on her bicycle. I could have taken my car, but I’d grown fond of riding around town on two wheels. It gave me a certain sense of freedom, something I never had in the busy, traffic choked city where a simple bike ride was basically attempted suicide.
Nevermore danced around my legs, wrapping his long, striped tail around my jeans as he did his seductive ‘feed me’ routine. I held my breath and forked the chunky bits of meat into his bowl. Cat food was one of those smells that could overwhelm me and make me nauseous if I didn’t take precautions. I had finally found the one cat food that filled two necessities, least smelly for me and best tasting for Nevermore.
I washed up, poured myself a cup of coffee and stepped out onto the front porch. One thing I loved about fog, and a coastal fog most of all, was that it always carried remnants of the earth and sea with it. This morning’s was particularly briny as if it had hovered out over the ocean for a long time before coasting in to blanket the town. I closed my eyes and searched for hints of linen from sails, fuel from boats and the salty odor from the crowded tide pools nestled in the rocks below the cliffs.
“Hey, neighbor,” Dash called from the sidewalk, breaking me from my thoughts. Captain was plodding along next to him on wide, fuzzy paws. The dog had a jaunty blue scarf tied around his thick neck. Dash stopped at the foot of his driveway and held out his arms. “Beautiful day, isn’t it?”
I laughed. “I suppose we have entirely different definitions of beautiful.”
“That’s because you work inside and I work outside. I love the sun, but it sure can be a bother when you’re out working in it.”
“Ah, I see your point.”
“Well, have a nice day.” His Hollywood caliber smile followed. Nutty woman that I was, I immediately made a quick mental contrast between my dashing neighbor and the more severe and far more serious detective. I had no idea why my mind went that direction, but it certainly did.
Dash walked inside with Captain, and I went back into the house for my heavier sweatshirt. I had a bit of time before I needed to get to the shop and decided to use that time for a quick stroll up Maple Hill to Hawksworth Manor. After all, could there be any better time to visit the scene of a grisly murder than an eerie, gloom filled morning?
Kingston was not happy when I made him stay behind, but even with stark black feathers, he was far too hard to keep track of in a heavy fog. I pulled the hood of my sweatshirt up over my head of dark blonde hair. It tended to curl into Shirley Temple style tendrils in damp air, a look I’d fought with every form of hot hair torture implement in my teens. Now I just let nature take its course. It was amusing how things you were obsessed with as a self-conscious teen, faded easily into oblivion once you were well into adulthood. I had actually hated my full bow shaped lips as a young girl, and I worked hard to minimize their impact by drawing them in whenever I felt a boy was looking at my lips. Eventually, I discovered where boys and men were concerned, they were an asset and not a flaw.
I strolled out onto the sidewalk and turned in the direction of Maple Hill. Since the Hawksworth Manor was the only building on the hill and since it had been built long ago, the white sidewalk ended abruptly and a gravelly path lined the curved incline leading up to the manor.
The house was truly a gothic masterpiece, complete with two pointy turrets mostly stripped of their green roof shingles. Multiple stories with steeply pitched gable roofs sat in between the turrets. Dark, dusty window panes stretched across the front. More than one window opening was covered with plywood, signaling that the leaded pane had long since been broken. With the mist so heavy, I could only see the tops of the bulbous cement balustrades running across a balcony that acted as the roof over the front porch. In its glory days, and before its occupants were brutally murdered, the house must have been quite a grand sight sitting up on its lush green hill. Now it almost looked sorrowful from neglect.
Unfortunately, the historical grandeur of the place was slightly ruined by the hastily constructed chain link fence the town had propped up around the exterior of the house. Multiple warning signs were posted around the fencing. But my intuition, and the multiple soda cans and beer bottles strewn arou
nd the foundation of the house, assured me those warning signs were mostly ignored. A five foot chain link was hardly an effective barrier for thrill seeking teenagers or ghost hunting tourists. Or overly curious flower shop owners.
The fog didn’t just provide spooky atmosphere, it provided me with the perfect cloak. I walked to a set of bricks that some clever trespasser had set up to easily climb the fence. I put my feet on the bricks and carefully climbed over. Another smart thinking person had set bricks on the other side. The bricks wobbled some as I stepped on them.
Patches of grass and weeds lined the path leading up to the wide front steps. I looked back toward the road and discovered that, even through the gray mist, there was an incredible view of the entire town and coastline from the top step. The early morning sun had made some headway with the fog, but a dark gray mass of clouds still hovered above the ocean. In the distance, gulls screeched in annoyance about the bad weather over the water. How marvelous it must have been for the Hawksworths to stand out on their porch with their cups of hot tea and coffee and gaze down at the picturesque view. But how sad that their grand life came to an abrupt, bloody end.
The most I’d hoped for with my clandestine climb over the fence was a dust covered squint through a window or two. I walked to the magnificent stately front doors. They were at least twelve feet tall with ornately arched tops. Two lion face door knockers stared down at me with metal hoops hanging from their patina covered fangs.
Just for fun, I stepped back in time and lifted the ring to give the door a knock. As I visualized myself standing in a crinoline bustle and whalebone corset waiting for one of the servants to greet me, the massive door creaked open. I stepped back quickly, worried that a guard or possibly even a thief was inside. But the only thing that ushered out was the stale, musty odor of century old dust and mold.
I hesitated but for only a brief second. I had an opportunity to look inside a piece of Port Danby history, and I wasn’t going to waste it. I promised myself I wouldn’t go too far inside, and I’d stay off of rickety stairs. It would be terribly embarrassing to have to be pried out of a collapsed staircase inside a house that was clearly marked do not enter. I could only imagine the snide remarks and grins Detective Briggs would produce on such a discovery.
Marigolds and Murder (Port Danby Cozy Mystery Book 1) Page 7