Gourd to Death

by Kirsten Weiss

If ? What was happening here? “Have you been talking to Charlene?”

  “No. Why?”

  Because I was starting to detect a theme. Charlene had been nagging me about my work life too. “I need to think about this,” I said slowly.

  “I’ve upset you. I didn’t mean to.”

  “I know. It’s just . . . I’m not sure how to respond to this, and I want to think before I do. This relationship—” I swallowed. “You mean a lot to me. I don’t want to screw things up. And right now, that means taking a breath.”

  How had Charlene seen relationship trouble was coming, and I hadn’t? And why had I let Charlene, the Sharknado of scheming, lie to me tonight? I knew that could only mean trouble. “I need to find her,” I said abruptly.

  “Val—”

  “Charlene lied about her date with Ewan. She wanted me out of her hair tonight.”

  “Now I’m worried.” He grabbed his car keys off the hook by the front door. “I’ll drive.”

  “You’ll have to. My van’s at Pie Town.”

  We hurried outside and sped in his sedan through the light fog.

  On Highway One, Gordon’s cell phone rang. Lifting one hip, he pulled it from the back pocket of his jeans and glanced at the screen. “It’s the station. Something’s up.”

  I tensed. “Charlene?”

  He put the phone to his ear. “Carmichael . . . Yes . . . I’ll be there in fifteen.” Gordon hung up.

  “What’s wrong?” I knotted my hand in the seat belt.

  “Nothing to do with Charlene—or the Levant/Cannon murders. But I’ve got to go. Mind if I drop you at your van?”

  “No, it’s fine.”

  He sped into the alley behind Pie Town and waited until I’d started my delivery van before roaring off.

  Pensive, I drove at a more sedate pace to Charlene’s house, thoughts of Gordon tangling with thoughts of Mark, my ex-fiancé. We’d been deliriously in love, and then Mark had begun pulling away, preoccupied with building his real estate business. I’d been so focused on starting up Pie Town, that I hadn’t noticed the drift until after I’d bought the blasted wedding dress.

  After our engagement had blown up, I’d eventually realized I couldn’t put all the blame on my ex. I’d been at fault too. Was I driving a wedge between myself and Gordon? Was I too obsessed with Pie Town?

  I turned onto Charlene’s street.

  Her yellow Jeep zipped in the opposite direction. A line of cars followed.

  I winced, blinded by the headlights.

  Tally-Wally and Graham puttered past in an ancient Oldsmobile.

  After the last car in the caravan passed, I made a U-turn and followed them onto the highway.

  We drove east out of San Nicholas, over the hill, and onto a wide freeway, heading south.

  Charlene wasn’t alone. She was with at least a dozen people. So, I probably had no reason to worry. But my stomach tightened. Why had she lied about seeing Ewan tonight?

  We passed a highway sign. ENTERING SAN ADRIAN.

  Nuts. I tried to swallow, my hands clenching the wheel.

  They were sabotaging San Adrian’s pumpkin festival.

  Chapter Twenty

  The caravan of vehicles parked on a quiet shopping street. Above the low brick buildings, the stars were dim, faded by nearby big-city lights rather than fog.

  I let my van drift to a halt behind Graham’s battered Oldsmobile.

  People in dark clothing emerged from the cars. They carried manila file folders beneath their arms. Flashing traffic barriers blocked the street, lined with familiar-looking columns of green stalls. Their canvases rippled emptily in the breeze.

  I stepped from my van, slamming the door harder than I’d planned, and strode to Charlene’s Jeep. “What’s going on?”

  Charlene pawed through a cardboard box balanced on the hood of her Jeep. “You made it. How was your date?”

  “Fine. What are you doing?”

  “Only fine?”

  “You’re going to sabotage the San Adrian Pumpkin Festival, aren’t you? Charlene, you can’t. Whatever you’re planning is probably illegal. Plus, it’s only”—I checked my phone—“eleven o’clock. You’ll get caught. It’s too obvious. There are still people around.”

  A couple emerged from a Georgian restaurant and strolled past. Wow. San Adrian had a Georgian restaurant? They really were cooler than San Nicholas.

  “We know what we’re doing.” Charlene slapped an orange ball cap onto her head. SAN ADRIAN PUMPKIN FEST was scrawled across the bill. “We’ve got disguises.”

  “Where did you get that?”

  Her eyes narrowed. “We’ve got our sources. Here’s one for you.” She pulled a contraband cap from the box and handed it to me.

  Four columns of empty stands lined the elegant street. Folders beneath their arms, her coconspirators disappeared amidst the green stalls.

  “Charlene, what are you up to?” I peered into the back of her Jeep. The jack-o’-lantern drone grinned up at me.

  “What’s in the folders?” I asked.

  Charlene opened the Jeep’s passenger door and slid the box onto the seat. “Decorations.” Tucking two thick folders beneath one arm, she shut the door and strode down the street.

  “You’re adding decorations?” I hurried after her. As pranks went, this one didn’t sound destructive. It wasn’t like they were sabotaging a water main or glueing doors shut. Maybe the easiest way to contain this was to go along for the ride. “All right,” I said. “What’s the plan?”

  She handed me a folder. “That’s the plan.”

  I opened the folder. A paper Easter bunny winked out at me. I flipped through the cardboard cutouts. Folding tissue paper eggs. Paper bunnies. Pastel butterfly garlands. “You’re—”

  “Easter decorations in their Halloween displays.” She cackled, turning the corner.

  Stacks of hay bales and pumpkins and sheaves of corn dotted the sidewalks. The setup wasn’t that different from our Main Street’s pumpkin festival. Just bigger and sleeker, with modern chain stores and better lighting.

  I raised a brow. “Easter decorations?”

  “It wasn’t my idea.” Her voice dropped. “But it should let some of the air out of their thirst for vengeance. There were a lot of worse plans I managed to veto.”

  “The fact that you’re the voice of reason is terrifying.”

  Tally-Wally slapped a giant pastel egg on the window of a cake-pop shop.

  “Don’t get used to it,” Charlene said. “It was Easter bunnies or a dance-off.”

  Good Lord. She wasn’t joking. I swallowed. “Give me a folder,” I said. “Let’s get this over with.”

  “You’d better be. W—They spent all afternoon putting double-sided tape on the back of these decorations. That way, you can stick them on fast and run. This is a high-speed operation. We’re in, we’re out.”

  “Gotcha. In and out.”

  Did it make me a bad person that the raid was . . . fun? My heart raced as I slapped Easter bunnies on windows and lampposts. I turned my back to shield my face when stray pedestrians strolled past. But no one paid me any attention.

  Since I was younger and speedier, I got through my folder of decorations before the others. The oldsters handed their folders to me and ambled down the street, leaving me to unfold tissue-paper eggs. I perched a 3-D Easter bunny on top of a stack of pumpkins.

  Graham ambled past with an empty wheelbarrow. “Keep up the good work, Val.”

  “Thanks.” I paused, clipping the egg open and staring after him. Charlene hadn’t mentioned wheelbarrows.

  Petronella’s father trundled past pushing another empty wheelbarrow. “Nice egg.”

  I pointed. “What are you—?”

  Winded, Charlene trotted up to stand beside me. “You done with those?” She set down the end of her wheelbarrow.

  I fumbled with the plastic clip. “Almost. What’s with the wheelbarrows?”

  “These are for the pumpkins,” she said. “Since
most of them were grown in San Nicholas, we’re taking them back.”

  My tissue-paper egg snapped shut. “What?”

  “For the pumpkin cannon.”

  “But that’s—”

  Her grin eerily resembled her jack-o’-lantern drone’s. “My idea. It won’t be much of a pumpkin festival without the pumpkins, will it?”

  “I thought you were trying to defuse the situation.”

  “We’re not stealing their giant pumpkins. Farmers brought those from all over the country to be weighed. It wouldn’t be right. Plus, we’d need forklifts. Not that those San Adrian people had any such fine thinking when they sabotaged our festival.”

  “They didn’t sabotage our festival!”

  She motioned toward the stalls. “This entire street is sabotaging our festival.”

  “This is stealing. It’s grand-theft pumpkin.”

  Graham trundled past, his wheelbarrow full of contraband gourds.

  “The Easter decorations won’t have much impact unless we reduce the amount of their Halloween decor.” Charlene grabbed a nearby pumpkin. She dropped it into her wheelbarrow. It clanged against the metal. “Taking the pumpkins is sending a signal.”

  “That we’re criminals?”

  “That we won’t be trifled with.”

  “It’s going too far,” I hissed.

  “Oh, are you scared?”

  “I’m an adult!” I snatched the fallen paper egg from the pavement.

  “Who’s putting paper eggs up in a rival town’s pumpkin festival.”

  Tally-Wally and Mr. Scala rolled past, maneuvering stolen pumpkins around a hay bale.

  I grabbed the pumpkin from Charlene’s wheelbarrow and returned it to the pyramid. “We’ve done enough.”

  “Killjoy.” Charlene turned on her heel and stalked away.

  “I am not a killjoy,” I called after her. “I’m just being an adult.”

  I stared down the road. In a short time, the San Nicholas contingent had removed every pumpkin they could carry. The only pumpkins left were the small pyramid beside me. And they looked pretty sad now.

  I returned the Easter egg to the top of the pumpkins and grabbed the empty wheelbarrow. I recognized it from Charlene’s garden. She’d want it back.

  A police siren burped. Blue and red lights flashed at one end of the street.

  I swore and dropped the end of the wheelbarrow. Its metal stands clanged on the pavement.

  Pressing against the canvas side of a nearby stall, I edged toward the other end of the street.

  My pulse accelerated. A second police car parked behind the traffic barrier on the opposite end of the festival.

  I was trapped.

  Crumb. Crumb, crumb, crumb! I whipped off my bright orange hat and ducked between two stalls. Mouth dry, I crouched between the green canvases.

  Footsteps padded toward me. I scrambled under the heavy canvas, emerging into a stall with a long table and nothing else. I crawled beneath the table and slithered under the canvas into another stand.

  A flashlight whitened the fabric wall from behind.

  I kept moving, winding dizzily in and out of the stalls, staying a step ahead of the cop with the flashlight. At some point, I’d run out of stalls. I was going to get caught. And arrested. Evading the police, wasn’t that a crime too? Would I go to jail? What would happen to Pie Town?

  “Hey, Sam,” a familiar male voice said.

  My shoulders hunched.

  “GC.” Another man chuckled. “What are you doing here?”

  “I got a tip some scofflaws from San Nicholas might be raiding your pumpkin festival.” Gordon’s deep voice vibrated with suppressed laughter.

  I buried my face in my hands.

  The other man laughed louder. “Easter bunnies.”

  “Is that the extent of the vandalism?”

  “It’s all I can see right now. I wish it would put a damper on this damned festival. It’s attracted every teenage punk in the county who wants to smash a pumpkin.”

  Gordon made a sympathetic noise. “Mind if I take a look around?”

  “Be my guest. I’m already fed up.”

  A set of footsteps walked away.

  “You can come out now, Val,” Gordon said.

  I edged from beneath a table and rounded the corner of the empty stall. “How did you—?”

  “Charlene called.” He regarded me, an amused expression on his chiseled face.

  “But you were an hour away.”

  “Not exactly. I didn’t like how we left things. So, I followed you at a distance, in case Charlene was pulling a stunt too hot for you to handle.”

  “I thought you had a police emergency?”

  “Two minutes after I dropped you off, the dispatcher called back. It was a false alarm.”

  I glanced down the column of stalls. A flashlight bobbed at the far end of the street. “So, you saw us pranking the San Adrian festival and did nothing?”

  “It’s not my jurisdiction.” His broad shoulders lifted beneath his navy sweater. “Besides, I never liked San Adrian.”

  * * *

  “Petronella?”

  My assistant manager pivoted from her spot at the kitchen’s metal counter. In the dining area, Sunday-morning customers clattered and chattered.

  “Um,” I said, “I need to step out for a bit. You okay to manage the shop?”

  “Yes,” she said, emphatic.

  “The lunch rush will probably start . . .”

  Her brow creased with annoyance. Of course, she knew when the lunch rush would start.

  “Okay then.” I tugged off my apron. “I’ll see you when I get back.”

  I stuck my head through the swinging door into the dining area, where Charlene lounged at the counter. “Want to come with me to Laurelynn’s pumpkin farm?”

  She slid from her barstool. “About time. We’ll take—”

  “The van,” I said, before she could suggest the Jeep. “I need to pick up some pumpkins.”

  Charlene made a face but followed me into the pink delivery van, and we drove to the pumpkin farm. “You’re mad about last night,” she said. “I can tell by that constipated look on your face.”

  “I do not look—” Ugh! The truth was, I was peeved. But I was mad at myself. I’d actually been having fun until the cops had shown up. “I nearly got arrested.”

  My delivery van bumped down the pumpkin farm’s rutted road.

  She folded her arms over her green knit jacket. “If you’d stuck with me, you wouldn’t have been in that fix in the first place. And I wouldn’t have lost a perfectly good wheelbarrow.”

  “If you—” I tucked a coil of hair into my chignon. “If we hadn’t raided their pumpkin festival, I wouldn’t have had to hide from the cops.”

  “If you hadn’t followed us—”

  “You knew I would. You even had an extra folder for me. And a hat!”

  “So, you’re claiming entrapment?”

  “No.” I sighed. “I’m responsible for my own actions. Whatever did or might have happened was my fault.”

  The miniature train choo-chooed past my van.

  “Our problem,” she mused, “is we didn’t go far enough. Things are escalating. I heard San Adrian vandalized the sign at the corn maze last night.”

  “Was anyone caught?” I asked.

  “No.”

  “Then you don’t know who vandalized the sign. It could have been kids.”

  She snorted. “Kids from San Adrian.”

  “Please let it go.” I edged the van into a spot at the farthest end of the lot, beneath a eucalyptus tree.

  We walked through the pumpkin patch, and I marveled again at all the flowers in bloom. California is far from perfect, but it’s darned near Nirvana for natural beauty.

  At the rear of the barn, a large gray farm truck, mud coating its windows, sat parked, its bed loaded with pumpkins.

  Laurelynn stood in front of a half-closed barn door. The paint at the back of the barn was
peeling, revealing strips of faded wood. By her feet sat crates filled with blue-gray pumpkins.

  “I’m glad you want these.” Laurelynn nodded toward the Blue Hubbards. “No one else does.” Coils of her black hair spilled from the top of her headscarf, an orange-and-yellow geometric design.

  “Then why’d you grow them?” Charlene asked.

  “It was an experiment.” She jammed her hands into the pockets of her black apron and glanced toward the barn door. “I read they were great in pies, but I should have known better. Most people who come here aren’t looking for baking pumpkins. They want something they can carve and stick a candle inside. Kara—” She grimaced and shook her head.

  “Kara?” I asked.

  “Last year she said I should stick to the basics. I guess I wanted to prove her wrong.”

  Angry voices erupted from inside the barn. Color blossomed on Laurelynn’s cheeks. She nudged the door shut with her foot.

  “Well, it’s Pie Town’s gain.” I handed her the check. “These Blue Hubbards bake string-free and silky smooth. They’re perfect for my pumpkin chiffon, and for pretty much every other kind of pumpkin pie.” And I really had underestimated the demand for pumpkin this week.

  The faded door swung open. Mrs. Thistleblossom glared out, her ancient face puckering. “You two. I should have guessed.”

  Startled, I stepped backward. “Guessed what?”

  “A spy!” She called over her shoulder and stepped into the yard. A breeze rippled her moldering black gown.

  Denise and Elon emerged from the barn.

  “Spies?” Elon’s brown eyes, flecked with gold, seemed dazed, a night bird blinded by headlights. He jammed up the sleeves of his loose, brown cardigan. The cuffs dropped again to his wrists.

  My laugh was faint. “Spies? What’s there to spy on?” And why were my top murder suspects consorting at the back of Laurelynn’s barn? It was enough to make me join Charlene’s conspiracy-theory bandwagon. “What are you doing here?”

  “Mrs. Thistleblossom was telling us about last night’s vandalism at the corn maze.” Elon carefully avoided looking at Laurelynn. “Denise is a sponsor.”

  It sounded like one of those not-quite-lies, and it didn’t explain what had brought them here in the first place.

  Denise shoved up the cuff of her black company jacket and checked her watch. “We’ll repaint the sign.” The morning sun set alight the reddish highlights in her hair. “It’s annoying, but not a disaster.”