Gourd to Death

by Kirsten Weiss

  We hurried down the straight passage and into the black-painted barn.

  Its high-ceilinged interior blazed with orange twinkle lights. They swagged the rafters, the wooden posts, the ticket counter.

  Behind the counter, Joy looked up from her comic book. “Everything okay?” She raised her voice over the roar of the generator.

  “Where exactly did you see Alfreda?” I adjusted Frederick over my shoulder. I might be morphing into a seventysomething conspiracy theorist, but at least I was warm.

  “Your boyfriend asked me the same thing.” Joy nodded toward the rear of the barn. “She was headed toward the pumpkin cannon.”

  “Then that’s where Carmichael went,” Charlene said, staring at her phone. “We should check somewhere else instead of covering the same ground.”

  “Agreed.” Going in the opposite direction also meant we were less likely to run into trouble. I’d seen enough of it in the past to be okay with letting the pros handle any danger.

  “Where’s Marla?” Charlene glanced up from her phone’s screen.

  Joy laid her comic book beside the cash register. “She went with Gordon,” Joy said.

  “And he let her?” Charlene asked.

  “Well,” Joy amended, “it was more like she went after Gordon.”

  “That vamp’s after him, Val.” Charlene’s brows skewered downward. “He’s not safe.”

  “I’m not worried about Gordon,” I said.

  Takako patted my arm. “You shouldn’t be. He’s a keeper.” She smiled bitterly. “Though I suppose you’ve no reason to trust my judgment. Not after . . .” She clamped her mouth shut, but I knew what she’d meant to say.

  After my father.

  “He’s handsome and charming and fun. None of this was your fault. None.” We’d talk later, in private, about guilt and forgiveness. But for now . . . I shook my head, fighting back a wave of raw grief. How do emotions and memories get so tangled? I’d thought I’d been busting my butt at Pie Town to honor my mother’s memory. But in part, I’d been doing it to escape memories of my father.

  I swallowed and turned to Joy. “If someone wanted to meet privately here, where could they go?”

  “We’ve got some outbuildings,” Joy said, “where we keep supplies, but we keep them locked. There’s also the corn maze, since we’re closed, but I don’t know what idiot would go in there.”

  “Let’s assume the locks on the outbuildings aren’t a problem,” I said, “and check there.”

  Joy rolled the comic book into a tube. “Suit yourself. Do you want company?”

  “Maybe it’s best if you stay here.” Charlene didn’t look up from her phone. “Man the fort.”

  Joy saluted with the comic book. “Will do.”

  We exited the barn. Fog drifted like smoke across the tops of the corn.

  “Where to?” Charlene asked.

  “Is the drone still flying?” I asked.

  She peered at her phone screen. “I thought it might be useful, but I don’t see Alfreda anywhere.”

  I pointed. “The sheds Joy mentioned are behind the barn, I think.” And they were roughly in the direction of the pumpkin cannon. “Why don’t you and Takako stay here and watch the drone?”

  “Gordon told us to stay together,” Takako said.

  Charlene kept her gaze glued to her phone. “I’m not going to miss the action. Just steer me in the right direction.”

  We circled the barn, and I pointed out hazards before Charlene could trip over them. Behind the barn, three ramshackle wooden sheds tilted on the uneven ground.

  “I’m flying over the cannon now,” she said over the growl of the generator. “I see your detective but not Alfreda.”

  Takako grasped Charlene’s elbow and steered her around an abandoned tire. “What about the cornfield?”

  “I’m looking,” she muttered, “I’m looking. It’s this blasted fog. I think it’s messing with the night-vision sensor.”

  I rattled the padlock on one of the buildings. “She’s not in here.”

  We walked to the next. A generator grumbled inside, cables snaking to the barn. The door hung ajar. I pulled it wider and peered inside. A generator. Red, plastic gas cans. No Alfreda.

  I exhaled. “Empty. Maybe third time’s a charm.” Or maybe Alfreda was long gone.

  Takako came to walk beside me. “I overheard what you were saying to Detective Carmichael. Do you actually know who killed those optometrists?”

  “I’m not sure.” But in my heart, I knew. I knew because I understood the reason behind it all, and that understanding sickened me. I opened the door, and Charlene bumped into me from behind.

  “Isn’t it obvious?” Charlene asked.

  “Not to me,” Takako said.

  “Dr. Levant’s cousin,” I said, “Denise Tatari.”

  Alfreda stared from the shadows of the ramshackle wooden shed, her oval face pale. “You shouldn’t have come.”

  Denise stepped from the shadows. “No, you really shouldn’t have.” She aimed a gun at Alfreda’s back.

  I sucked in my breath. “Denise.” Slowly, I raised my hands.

  I’d been right, and I hated myself for it.

  Denise clucked her tongue. “Alfreda, look at all the trouble you’ve caused.”

  “It wasn’t Alfreda.” I tried not to stare at the gun. The gun. But the idea of it was overwhelming, all consuming. My heart thumped against my ribs, filled my ears with sound. “The police know too. They’re looking for you.”

  “I don’t believe you.” She nudged Alfreda with the barrel. “Move.”

  Alfreda edged toward the open door.

  I backed from the shed, Charlene clinging to my vest with one hand.

  “Come on.” I hoped Denise didn’t notice my trembling hands. “You had to know it was only a matter of time before you got found out. A closed corporation only allows for thirty-five shareholders. You had way more than that. You were running a sort of pyramid scheme like in that play The Producers. That’s what Dr. Cannon meant when I overheard him on the phone in the grocery store. You’d sold more than thirty-five shares or partnerships or whatever. You used the money from the excess shares to pay the older investors’ dividends.”

  The skin bunched around Denise’s eyes. “I had to save my company. This wasn’t about greed. The software development was taking longer than I expected. If I didn’t get more money to pay the engineers, everything would have fallen apart. You know what it’s like, all those people depending on you.”

  “I . . .” I did know what it was like. Pie Town was more than a business, more than a livelihood. It was part of me. But to kill someone over it? Acid burned my throat. “How did Dr. Cannon figure it out?” Stall, stall, stall. At some point, Gordon would realize Alfreda wasn’t where he’d thought she was and return to the barn.

  “Tristan wasn’t smart enough to realize I was talking to him from a couple aisles over.”

  “So,” I said shakily, “you pushed the rack on top of me?”

  “It was a bad decision. I’d hoped to crush him.”

  “You nearly killed me instead.”

  We stood in the open now. The fog had thickened, hugging the top of the barn.

  “But you did attack me at the haunted house,” I said. “And you tried to run Charlene and I off the road at Laurelynn’s barn.” Gordon, see us. “Why?”

  “When I saw you in the haunted house, I panicked. I thought you were after Elon. I had to stop you.”

  “It just made Elon look guilty,” Charlene said.

  Denise’s face creased in a pained look. “That’s why I went after you at the pumpkin patch. I thought it would make Laurelynn look guilty. Everyone knew she hated my cousin.”

  Denise had been pinballing, panicked, reacting irrationally. She still was. “But Laurelynn didn’t hate Kara as much as you did,” I said. “What happened?”

  “She had to always be so perfect,” she spat. “And she never let me forget it. Things came so easily to he
r. She never understood what it took to build a real company.”

  “Then, when things started to go wrong at your company, you couldn’t let it fail.” Charlene tried to edge in front of me.

  I blocked Charlene with my arm.

  “Of course, I couldn’t,” Denise said. “How could I? It’s my business.”

  Takako glided in front of me. “It’s over,” my stepmother said. “The police have an APB out for you.”

  “Then I guess I’d better buy some time,” Denise said. “Into the maze, all of you.”

  She nudged Alfreda with the gun.

  The tall woman stumbled forward with a faint cry.

  We walked behind the barn toward the cornfield. “But why the pumpkin?” I asked. “Why drop one on Kara?”

  “I went to the haunted house that morning to see Elon. I just wanted to see him, that’s all. But Kara was there, on the street. She accused me of trying to steal her husband. I never did. Never! But she wouldn’t listen. She told me she knew all about the extra shareholders and was going to expose me. There was a pitchfork nearby. I didn’t think. I just used it. And then I realized what I’d done.”

  “That you’d murdered your cousin?” Charlene said.

  “No, that I’d accidentally framed Elon. The pitchfork was from his haunted house. I couldn’t let him take the blame. So, I moved her body. I put her in my pickup, but I had to get rid of her quickly. When I saw the giant pumpkins and the forklift, I realized it was the perfect spot.”

  “But the police found the pitchfork,” I said. “They know where it came from.”

  “It doesn’t matter.” Denise’s gun wobbled. “You said they know I did it. He won’t be blamed. Now hurry. Get inside.”

  We walked into the maze.

  “Keep going,” she said.

  “You know,” I said, “that’s not a bad idea. Run!”

  We sprinted around a corner, taking random turns through the rustling corn. I didn’t care if we got lost. I didn’t care if Denise got away—Gordon would catch up with her eventually. I just didn’t want to be found.

  The sound of the generator faded. I stumbled to a halt, panting.

  Alfreda slammed into my back, knocking me to my hands and knees. Frederick’s claws dug into my chest, and I whimpered.

  “Sorry, Val.” Alfreda winced and gave me a hand up. “Sorry, Frederick. I’m sorry about all of this.”

  Charlene snorted. “What did you think would happen when you tried to blackmail a killer?”

  “Where’s Takako?” I asked, anxious.

  “Here.” She stepped around a corner of the maze. “Who’s got a phone?”

  “Phone! Right!” I fumbled in my vest pocket and pulled out my phone, dialed Gordon. And for once, I got a signal.

  “She’s not here,” he said.

  “We found Denise in one of the sheds behind the barn.” My words tumbled over each other. “She knows the cops are on to her. She’s running, and she has a gun.”

  He cursed. “And Alfreda?”

  “She’s safe with us.”

  “Okay. Stay put.” He hung up.

  “He said to stay here, out of the way.” We were safe, but nausea swam up my throat. “She killed two people for a business.” I thought of all the mad things I’d done for Pie Town. About my mother’s insurance money, her recipes that had gone into the pie shop. If someone tried to take it from me . . .

  Charlene gripped my shoulder. “You and Denise are not the same.”

  “I know,” I lied. But I could become her, if I wasn’t careful.

  So, I couldn’t let that happen. I’d relax my grip on control. I’d give myself and Pie Town some breathing room. And I’d already taken the first step, telling Gordon I was handing over more management to Petronella. “I’m just worried about Gordon. She’s got a gun.”

  Her hand squeezed. “And he knows it now.”

  “Right.” Gordon knew what he was doing, but Denise had a gun. Anything could happen. Anything could go wrong, and my blood pulsed erratically.

  “Alfreda,” I said, “when I ran into you here the other night, you were waiting to meet Denise, weren’t you? At ten o’clock?”

  “Yes. When you showed up”—Alfreda shrugged—“I chickened out.”

  “You were lucky you did,” I said. “She thought I was you. We were both wearing knit caps that night, and through a scope, in the dark, from a high angle, we must have looked the same.”

  “Through a scope?” Alfreda asked, wan.

  “I was in the center of the maze, where you were supposed to be. Denise tried to kill me with the pumpkin cannon. I’m only surprised she didn’t finish the job when you came to her cousin’s office earlier today.”

  She pressed her hand to her throat. “But you turned up there too. You saved me.”

  Takako sniffed and frowned.

  “Blackmailers rarely come to a good end,” Charlene said. “And how long are we going to hide in here? Frederick’s going to get cold.”

  “Oh. Right.” I reached to lift the cat off my shoulders.

  “Keep him. I’ve got my hands full watching the drone action.” She dug into the pocket of her yellow jacket.

  “Do you smell smoke?” Takako asked.

  I sniffed.

  Charlene pulled out her phone and fiddled with the screen. “Let’s see how fast this baby . . . Oh.” Her voice dropped.

  “Oh, what?” I asked, alarmed.

  “We need to go back.”

  “Not likely,” Alfreda said. “Even if I wanted to, which I don’t, do you have any idea where we are in this stupid maze?”

  “Out of the frying pan and into the stew,” Charlene said. “The cornfield’s on fire.”

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Fire.

  The acrid scent was unmistakable now, carried on a breeze that rattled the cornstalks.

  “Where is it?” I pivoted, searching for a landmark and unable to get my bearings. High walls of corn hemmed us in and obscured the eastern hills, wherever they were.

  Charlene studied her phone. “The flames are on the south side, by the parking lot, and moving north, toward us. We can’t take the shortcut out or the regular cut for that matter.”

  “We need to move,” Takako said.

  Alfreda whimpered. “Why did I come here?”

  I patted Frederick to calm the limp cat. “Okay, let’s head northwest, toward the highway and away from the flames.” There was another field due north of this one, and I didn’t trust the fire to stick with burning corn. “Er, which way is northwest?”

  Charlene bit her bottom lip. “Hold on. I need to give the drone more height . . . Too high—stupid fog. There!” She pointed. “That way.”

  Wordless, Takako switched on her phone’s flashlight and plunged into the corn.

  We followed. Stalks slapped at our faces, stinging our bare skin. We cut across the maze’s paths, but we never stayed on them long.

  The smell of smoke grew stronger.

  Charlene paused to reorient the drone. She cursed under her breath.

  “What?” I asked. “What’s wrong?”

  “There’s another fire now,” she said, “along the highway.”

  I swallowed, throat dry. “You mean it spread?”

  “No,” she said, “it looks like a second fire.”

  “Maybe it jumped.” Alfreda’s breath came in short, high-pitched gasps. “Fires can jump, can’t they?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Takako said. “We can’t go west anymore.”

  “There’s a dirt road to the east,” I said, “where the cannon is. The road forms a crescent, curving to the barn and parking lot. On the other side of the cannon it drops along the field to the north. If we hit that road, we can decide which is the best route from there.”

  Takako nodded. “It’s as good a direction as any. Which way?”

  Charlene pointed.

  We jogged through the field, the corn whispering disaster at our panicked passage.

&n
bsp; Alfreda stumbled and cried out.

  Charlene whirled. “If you’ve turned your ankle, so help me we’re leaving you. We’ve got no time for damsels in distress, especially when they’re blackmailers.”

  Alfreda straightened, wincing. “No, I can go on.”

  “Good,” Charlene said.

  We huffed forward.

  I tried to ignore the thickening smoke. “How did you find out about Denise’s scam?” I asked Alfreda. A cornstalk whacked me in the face, and I rubbed my cheek.

  “I was helping Kara with all sorts of financial issues, including her taxes.” Alfreda panted. “She was a big investor in Denise’s company. Kara was unhappy with what she thought were low returns. I tried to explain the returns were actually pretty good for a new business, but she wouldn’t believe me. Kara was insulting, so I decided to prove her wrong.”

  We emerged on another path in the maze.

  Charlene wheezed and braced her hands on her knees.

  My gut clenched with worry. “How are you doing?” Eyes streaming, I laid my hand on her back.

  Charlene coughed. “It could be worse.”

  “How?” I pressed a hand to the stitch in my side and tried not to inhale the burning smoke.

  “Marla could be here.” She straightened and examined her phone. “We’re off target. We’ve got to head that way.” She pointed.

  Charlene was tiring, her steps slowing. I kept a hand near her elbow, in case she stumbled. Charlene was tough, but I didn’t think she’d be able to take much more of this.

  “So, you decided to learn more about Denise’s company,” I said to Alfreda. “Then what?”

  “It’s a small town,” she said. “The more people I talked to, the more people I realized were investors. The numbers were easily over thirty-five, the maximum for that type of corporation.”

  Covering my nose with my sweater sleeve, I shoved through the corn. “And you knew there was a con.”

  “No,” Alfreda said, “not right away. Just because she’s got more investors than the state allows doesn’t mean she was conning the investors. It might have been an administrative error. But I told Kara. That’s when she fired me.”

  “For what?” Takako asked. “Giving her bad news?”