Candy Corn Murder Read Online Free Page A

procedure?” said Heidi.
    Lucy knew when she was beaten. Sign-in sheet procedure? Wouldn’t a scribble do? Apparently not, she thought, inwardly seething as she followed Heidi up the walk—the very short walk, which she covered in five paces. She knew because she counted.
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    â€œYou’re late,” said Phyllis when Lucy arrived at the Pennysaver office on Main Street. The office was a relic from the days when the local weekly was printed in the back room, and still smelled faintly of the hot lead of the Linotype machine the typesetter used back then. Now, of course, the entire paper was formatted on computer and sent electronically to a printer in the nearby town of Gilead. But the antique regulator clock still hung on the wall, the plate-glass windows were covered with ancient venetian blinds that rattled, and a little bell on the door jangled whenever anybody came or went.
    â€œI had to learn the proper sign-in procedure at Little Prodigies,” said Lucy. “Where’s Ted?” she asked, naming her boss, Ted Stillings. Ted was the publisher, editor in chief, and star reporter for the weekly, the former Courier and Advertiser, which he’d inherited from his grandfather, a famous New England journalist.
    Phyllis patted her strawberry blond hair with a hand sporting glittery nail polish and peered at Lucy over her harlequin reading glasses. She was wearing a shirt decorated with a scattering of embroidered autumn leaves and had a string of orange beads around her neck. Phyllis’s closet was stocked with clothing appropriate to every season, and she was working her way through her autumn collection. “Covering a murder,” she said, answering Lucy’s question.
    â€œA murder?” Lucy couldn’t believe it. Tinker’s Cove was a small town where people routinely left their doors unlocked and even left their car keys in the ignition when they ran into the Quik-Stop for a gallon of milk or a lottery ticket. “Who was killed?”
    â€œBuzz Bresnahan’s pumpkin,” said Phyllis, with a nod that set her double chin quivering.
    â€œOh, dear,” said Lucy, somewhat doubtfully. “Are they sure it’s murder? Maybe it’s vine borers or mildew?”
    â€œNope. Buzz is a master gardener. He’d know how to deal with bugs and diseases, believe me, and his pumpkin was a favorite to win the weigh in. If you ask me, somebody’s eliminating the competition.”
    â€œWith an ax,” said Ted as the bell on the door jangled, announcing his entry. “That pumpkin was smashed to bits.” He paused. “Buzz took it pretty hard. It’s like losing a member of the family, really, when you consider how he raised the little sprout and watered it and fertilized it. That pumpkin had real potential.”
    â€œAn ax!” exclaimed Lucy as the horror of the situation dawned on her. What if a pumpkin killer was on the loose, putting everyone’s giant pumpkins at risk, including Priscilla? What would happen to the festival then? Even worse, how would Bill cope with the loss of his beautiful golden gourd?
    â€œI better let Wilf know,” said Phyllis, reaching for the phone. Her husband also had a promising pumpkin growing in their garden. “He was talking about setting up a motion detector and some lights. I thought it was crazy, but now maybe it’s a good idea.”
    â€œHe should add a siren,” advised Ted. “That oughta scare off any pumpkin killer. And if he adds one of those closed-circuit TV cameras, he could get a photo of this psychopath.”
    â€œGood idea,” said Phyllis.
    â€œI think you’ve gone a little mad,” said Lucy. “It’s just a pumpkin, after all.”
    Ted and Phyllis looked at her as if she were the one who’d gone completely off her rocker.
    â€œWilf loves his pumpkin,” said Phyllis. “He’d be devastated if anything happened to