Caramel Killer: A Pumpkin Hollow Mystery, book 12 Read online

  “I’m glad you brought it. It was exceptionally tasty,” he said as he took a sandwich from me and put it on his plate. “And I’m glad you can cook, because I sure can’t.”

  I chuckled. “Have you got your Christmas shopping done yet?” I asked him as I set the rest of the food out.

  “Haven’t even thought about it,” he said, looking at me. “It’s not like I have anybody to shop for. Right? I mean, my parents told me to save my money so I can buy a house. They said they don’t want anything.”

  I looked at him, raising an eyebrow. “So, you don’t have anybody to shop for?”

  He shrugged. “No, I can’t think of anyone I need to buy a present for. Especially not anyone I would spend a lot of money on.”

  I narrowed my eyes at him. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised about that,” I said.

  “Oh, wait a minute,” he said. “I do have someone I can shop for.”

  “Oh? Who would that be?” I set the container of fruit salad on the blanket.

  “Your mom. She’s always giving me free fudge and I can’t forget about her. I’ll have to think of something really nice to get her. What do you suggest?”

  I sighed and narrowed my eyes at him. “We’ll have to work on something.”

  He chuckled and spooned some potato salad onto his plate. “You make really good potato salad. I don’t know if I ever told you that.”

  “No, you never told me that. I can’t wait for Christmas. I keep thinking about it. I’ve been looking at Christmas ornaments and I think I’m going to buy a few new things.”

  With Pumpkin Hollow being a year-round Halloween themed town, I would also add some Halloween decorations to my Christmas decorations. Some of them I had made myself, by adding Santa hats to jack-o’-lanterns, or other Halloween details. I usually added pumpkins and jack-o-lanterns to my Christmas tree along with other Halloween decorations.

  “Christmas will be fun.” He took a bite of his sandwich and groaned. “Oh my gosh, you’re the best sandwich maker in the entire world, too. How did I get so lucky to have a girlfriend like you?”

  I rolled my eyes at him. “You’re so dramatic. It’s just a sandwich.”

  He shrugged. “Yeah, but I really do appreciate you making this lunch for me and suggesting that we drive out here. It’s nice.” He said it very seriously, and I looked at him, one eyebrow lifted.

  “You’re welcome,” I said.

  “You know what I think would be fun?” he asked.

  “Tell me.”

  “It would be fun if we came out here on the weekend and went hunting. I hear the deer hunting is pretty good a little further out into the woods.” He picked up an oatmeal cookie and ate it.

  I stared at him. “No. I can’t get into killing wildlife.”

  “Oh? But you’re okay with eating meat you buy in the supermarket?”

  I nodded. “Only because I don’t have to see the animal actually die. And I’m certainly not going to kill anything. It’s fine for other people, but I don’t have the stomach for it,” I said. “Do you seriously want to go hunting?”

  He shrugged. “I used to do it when I was a kid. My dad and I would come out into these woods and hunt. The biggest animal I ever killed was a squirrel.”

  I chuckled. “A squirrel? What did you do with it? Did you eat it?”

  He raised one eyebrow. “Believe it or not, I did. And that was the last time I ever killed a squirrel. Or anything else for that matter.”

  I laughed. “Now that’s funny.”

  “I’m glad you enjoyed it.”

  We finished our lunch and laid down on the blanket, looking up at the sky. The day really was beautiful, and I was glad we had come out to enjoy a picnic lunch. The nights were getting very cold, and the snow would be here soon. I didn’t mind it though, I loved living where it snowed at Christmas time. It always added to the festive feeling of the holidays.

  After we’d laid back on the blanket and stared up into the sky for a while, Ethan turned and looked at me. “I had better be getting that to work. The chief is going to send out a search party if I don’t return soon.”

  I groaned. “I guess if you have to.” I sat up and leaned over and kissed him. “I’ll get everything put together so we can leave.” I began placing everything back into the basket and then I stood up, taking a step back as Ethan got to his feet. I felt something hard beneath my foot and I turned and looked behind me. “What’s that?”

  He looked at me. “What’s what?”

  I move my foot over on the blanket and I felt what must be a thick tree root. “That,” I said and picked up the blanket. “Ethan?”

  “What?” he asked brushing the leaves from his leg.

  “Is that what I think it is?” I asked, staring at the leaves on the ground.

  He moved to my side and looked at the place I was staring at. “Depends on what you think it is.”

  The leaves had shifted beneath the blanket when I picked it up, exposing what looked like someone’s arm, clad in a blue and black plaid flannel shirt.

  “An arm?”

  He nodded, looking unconcerned. “Then you’re right. It’s an arm.”

  Chapter Three

  I was sitting on a nearby tree stump with the blanket I’d brought wrapped around myself, watching Ethan as he knelt beside the body. Thankfully, or maybe unthankfully, there was a body attached to that arm I had stepped on. I was glad the body was intact. I shivered.

  “Do you think he’s been dead long?” I asked from where I sat.

  He nodded without looking at me. “I would say at least a day. Could be a little longer or a little less than that.”

  A breeze had begun to blow, and I pulled the blanket tighter against myself. Then I remembered that the blanket had lain on top of a dead body and I jumped, tossing the blanket to the ground. “Oh,” I said, staring at it.

  Ethan looked at me, and smiled, reading my mind. “It won’t hurt you.”

  “It could. We don’t know how he died.”

  He turned back to the body and swept some leaves away from his head.

  “Who is it?” I couldn’t go over there and look into the face of whoever was laying there. Seeing his arm the way I had was more than enough to freak me out.

  The look on Ethan’s face was grim as he looked at me again. “Fagan Branigan.”

  I gasped, and then I groaned. “Fagan Branigan? How terrible.” Fagan owned the costume shop in Pumpkin Hollow. Last year when the City Council tried to end the Halloween season, Fagan had been one of the most vocal opponents of that move. He was one of the key people that helped us to keep it.

  “It is terrible,” Ethan said. “I hate to see someone I know dead.” He took his cell phone out of his pocket and called the police station.

  When he got off the phone, I said, “I can’t believe it’s Fagan.”

  “It’s a shame,” he agreed.

  “Can you tell how he died?” I asked him. I still wasn’t going over to look at Fagan.

  “Looks like he was shot,” he said, getting to his feet. He had brushed away most of the leaves that had covered Fagan’s body and he stared down at him as he laid there.

  “Do you think it was a hunting accident? He’s wearing a plaid jacket. Maybe he was out here hunting, and somebody accidentally shot him.” I glanced around the woods and strained my ears to see if I could hear anyone nearby. I didn’t want to become a victim of someone else’s careless hunting.

  “I don’t see that he has a gun,” he said brushing away more of the leaves with his foot. “I suppose he could have dropped it somewhere close, and it’s here beneath the leaves. It was windy last night.”

  I nodded. “That’s sad. Hunting isn’t a safe sport.”

  “It is if you know what you’re doing,” he said noncommittally. He kept moving his foot around in the leaves looking to see if there was a gun or anything else that might tell us why and how Fagan had been shot.

  “I guess so,” I said. “I feel bad for
his wife. I guess you’ll have to tell her?”

  He nodded. “I guess I will. Why don’t you go ahead and go home? I’m going to be here for a while and there’s no reason for you to stay.” He looked up at the sky. Dark clouds had begun to slowly move in. “It might rain.”

  I looked up at the sky. I could feel the moisture in the air. “I think it will,” I said and stood up from the tree stump. “Maybe I should help you look around for a gun.”

  He turned and looked at me. “Thanks, but I really don’t need you to do that. This may be a crime scene and I can’t have anyone wandering around it. You might accidentally destroy evidence.”

  “So you think somebody killed him on purpose?” I asked, taking several steps closer to him. I would rather it be a hunting accident rather than a murder. It would be easier on his family.

  “It’s too early to say,” he said looking at me. “But until I know for sure, I’m going to treat it like it’s a murder. I can’t take the risk of losing evidence in case it’s needed later.”

  I nodded and wrapped my arms around myself. “Of course.” I could hear a car driving down the highway from where we stood. “Do you think that’s the other officers?”

  “I hope so,” he said. “No need for sirens. He’s been gone for a while.”

  I sighed. I tried to think about what I knew about Fagan. Was he a hunter? I couldn’t remember him ever saying that he was, but that didn’t necessarily mean anything. In the fight to keep the Halloween season, we had spent enough time together planning events and strategies to increase business to get to know one another. But most of our conversations had centered around how we were going to save the season and not on in-depth personal things.

  I turned as I heard a car traveling down the dirt road we had driven to get here. Within a few minutes, a police cruiser came into view. Jasper Smith was driving, and he parked beside my car and got out, striding quickly across the ground between us.

  “Hey Mia,” he said nodding at me, and then he turned to Ethan. “What’s going on?”

  “We found Fagan Branigan dead here beneath the leaves.”

  I went back and sat on the stump as Ethan explained to him how we had found him. Ethan might have wanted me to go home, but I wanted to hang around for a few more minutes.

  “His wife came into the police station less than twenty minutes ago to report him missing,” I heard Jasper say. I turned and looked at him.

  “How long was he missing?” I asked.

  Jasper turned and looked at me, eyebrows raised. “Less than twenty-four hours. We told her she needed to wait until five o’clock this evening before reporting him missing. He never came home from work.”

  I looked at Ethan. “That doesn’t sound like a hunting accident to me,” I said.

  “Doesn’t to me, either.” Ethan frowned.

  Within a few more minutes two more cruisers pulled up and parked near my car. I said hello to them when they arrived on the scene. They looked at me curiously but didn’t ask why I was there, and I didn’t volunteer anything.

  After speaking with Ethan, the officers began digging around in the leaves near the body. I knew the coroner had been called, but it could be hours before he showed up. I wrapped my arms around myself and stood up again. I began searching around the stump just in case Fagan had been out here for a while before he had died. I still held out hope that this was an accidental shooting rather than someone targeting him. But what was he doing out here in the woods?

  “Maybe there’s something at his shop that will tell us why he came out here,” I suggested to Ethan.

  The other officers looked at Ethan and I could tell they wanted him to ask me to leave. They were just too polite to say it. I brought them fudge from time to time, after all. Ethan glanced at them, then headed over to me.

  “Mia, I really need you to leave the crime scene. We’re going to be here for quite a while investigating, and like I said before, I don’t want you to accidentally contaminate evidence or the crime scene.”

  I sighed. “I know, I’ve got to go. I’m just kind of freaked out that it was Fagan, and that I saw his dead arm.” I looked up at him and my eyes widened when I realized what I’d said. “Sorry, that sounded wrong. What I meant is, I’m kind of shaken up because I saw him dead.”

  He grinned at me. “That was really wrong, Mia,” he said, trying to sound serious. He chuckled. “But I know what you’re saying. It is hard when someone you know dies.”

  I nodded. “But I guess if I’ve got to go, I’ll leave.”

  He smiled at me again when I made no move to leave. “Now?”

  I looked past him to Fagan, laying lifeless there on the ground, staring up at the sky. “Yeah, I guess I’ll go now.” When I still didn’t move, he took me by the shoulders and gently turned me around in the direction of my car. Then he leaned close to me and whispered, “Mia go home and take a nap or something. I can’t have you here.”

  I sighed. “Okay, fine. I’m going.”

  I slowly walked to my car, and when I got there, I turned back to where the officers were still looking through the leaves. Ethan had already turned around and headed back to them. I was suddenly filled with sadness at the realization that Fagan was really dead. And from the look of it, he had most likely been murdered.

  There was no way I was going home to take a nap though. I was going to be lucky if I could even sleep tonight. I felt bad for Fagan, and I was filled with dread at the thought of Ethan having to tell his wife that her husband wasn’t coming home.

  I got in my car and headed back to town. Somehow, Fagan had ended up dead in the woods and I was going to figure out how that had happened.

  Chapter Four

  I drove back to town intending to drive by Fagan’s costume shop. When I pulled up front, I parked and got out of my car. The costume shop was dark, and I went to the door and pulled on the handle. It was locked, of course, I hadn’t expected anything else. I put my hand up to the darkened glass and peered into the shop. In the dim light the security lighting provided, everything looked normal. I really hadn’t expected anything less there, either, but I had to look. I glanced around at the nearby shops. Nothing looked out of the ordinary.

  “Hi Mia,” I heard someone say. I turned and saw Sonia Perrins from the used book shop next door. She had a bottle of glass cleaner in one hand and a roll of paper towels in the other. “Isn’t it a lovely day?”

  I smiled at her. “Yes, it sure is.” I glanced up at the sky. “Looks like we might get some rain this afternoon.”

  “I hope so. I love the rain. Don’t you?” She turned and sprayed glass cleaner on her shop door.

  “Yes, I love the rain, too.” I glanced at the costume shop and then turned back to her. “The costume shop isn’t open today?”

  She looked at me and squinted at the shop. “No, Fagan said he was going to take a couple of days off. He said something about taking a trip to the woods. Gina Van usually runs the store when he isn’t there, but I don’t know where she is.”

  “He did? Does he have a cabin there?”

  “I think he did say something about having a cabin,” she said uncertainly. “I was busy with a customer when he stopped in yesterday, and I wasn’t paying close attention to what he was telling me.” She chuckled. “I would love to have a cabin in the woods. He must have some money to be able to have a second home like that. I’m doing well enough to have one.”

  “I guess with the Halloween season ending, costumes probably won’t be as in demand for a while.” I glanced at the door again and wished I could get inside somehow.

  “Yes, I’m sure his business slows down quite a bit after the Halloween season. But you know how people are these days, they’re into that cosplay business, and I think that has given him quite a bit more business than he used to have.”

  I nodded. “I bet that provides a good bit of extra business. Good for him. I know he has a website where he sells costumes online.”

  “Yes, he says he do
es quite a bit of business online.” She sprayed more glass cleaner on the door and wiped it away with the paper towels. “The internet sure has changed the way people do business, hasn’t it?”

  Sonia was in her early sixties, but she looked younger. She kept herself fit and moved with the ease of a much younger woman. She had had her shop for as long as I could remember, and I liked to stop in occasionally and buy books. “Yes, it sure has. We do quite a bit of business online. Sonia, do you remember what time Fagan stopped in and talked to you?”

  She stopped what she was doing and thought a moment. “I don’t know, I think it was sometime in the afternoon. Maybe around two o’clock? I had just gotten back from lunch and was unpacking a new shipment of books and putting them away. Sometimes when it’s slow, he stops over to say hello and we’ll talk about business.”

  I nodded. “Did he say exactly how long he was closing the shop for?”

  She looked at me now. “I think he said he was taking a long weekend. Is there something that you need right away?”

  I crossed my arms in front of myself and shook my head. “No, I guess not. I bought a costume here a few weeks ago, and it doesn’t fit quite right. I thought I could return it and get a refund.” I had bought a 1950s costume with a felt poodle skirt, and it really didn’t fit very well. I was sure I could make it work, but it was a convenient reason to be asking about the costume shop.

  “I see,” she said nodding. “Well, I think he’ll probably be back on Monday.”

  I tried to come up with something else to ask her in the hopes of getting more information from her, but I didn’t want to arouse her suspicion. The only people that knew Fagan was dead right now, were me and Ethan, and the other police officers. I didn’t want news of his death spreading around town, especially since his wife hadn’t been told yet.

  “I see,” I said. “I guess I can come back on Monday.”

  “I stopped in at the candy store and bought some of that candy corn fudge that your mother makes for the Halloween season,” she said, looking at me again. “It sure is tasty. I don't eat a lot of sweets, but I do enjoy your mother’s fudge.”