Punked by the Pumpkin: A Cozy Mystery (Sweet Home Mystery Series Book 4) Read online

  Punked by the Pumpkin

  by

  Constance Barker

  Copyright 2015 Constance Barker

  All rights reserved.

  Similarities to real people, places or events are purely coincidental.

  Chapter One

  “One little, two little, three little pumpkins…”

  I was happily doing my fall inventory in the back room of the Coffee Cabana while visions of pumpkin fairies danced in my head.

  “Pumpkin pie, pumpkin cream tea, pumpkin-spiced lattes, pumpkin perfume…”

  Yeah, I get a little carried away when it comes to pumpkin season. I could hardly wait for the Harvest Festival coming up a week from tomorrow and Halloween at the end of the month. If I could have any superpower, I’d probably have a magic wand that added pumpkin flavor to everything it touched. I know, half my friends would avoid me like the plague, but everything would be so…pumpkinny!

  It was just before 9 o’clock on Wednesday morning, so the “off to work” morning coffee rush was over, and I’d been alone in the shop counting boxes of pumpkin-spiced everything for the past 45 minutes. But the joy was beginning to wear off…

  “Aaahhhh! Why did I order a million little boxes, bottles, and bags of pumpkin spices and teas and syrups right before I did inventory? Why can’t I count any faster? And why am I talking to myself?”

  When I heard my voice crescendo to a fevered pitch in the empty coffee shop, I decided it was time to put down my clipboard for a minute and pour myself another cup of pumpkin-spiced coffee.

  Oh…I’m Lily Parker, the proprietor of the Coffee Cabana, the best little coffee shop in Sweet Home, Florida. I own it with my two sixty-something aunts, Essie and Hildie. They bring the baked goods and help out quite a bit, but play dumb when it comes to the business end of running a business – like inventory and ordering and taxes. But Hildie pays the bills and hands out our weekly “earnings checks” based on sales.

  I looked at my watch and realized that the ladies would be in any minute with the baked goodies, so I went back to my inventory. It makes it easier for me to get sympathy for all the hard work I do if they don’t catch me sitting down on the job.

  I took a sip of my pumpkin coffee and wondered why I put myself through this every fall.

  “Mmmm. It’s because I’m the biggest pumpkin fanatic in Sweet Home, Florida.”

  I lost count of the pumpkin tea bags when I heard the familiar little jingle from the bell on the front door. Must not be Essie and Hildie, I thought. You might say they’re the talkative type. Essie’s the cantankerous one and Hildie’s more quiet and laid back. They would be laughing and blabbering away about Tuesday Night Bingo at the Methodist Church last night or arguing about who did the best foxtrot on Celebrity Ballroom.

  I stepped into the front of the shop and discovered that it was indeed Essie and Hildie after all.

  “Good morning, ladies. How was bingo last night?”

  Essie walked up and set a tray of warm, fresh, and fabulous pumpkin muffins on the counter while Hildie turned the sign on the door from Closed to Open. She gave me a little scowl and then walked to the counter too. Oops. Maybe that’s why it wasn’t very busy in here the last hour.

  Something was a little off. Make that way off. They didn’t answer me. They didn’t talk to each other. They didn’t talk at all! They just went about putting the muffins into the display case. I helped, of course, so I could “accidentally” stick my thumb into one, ruining it so that I would have to eat it myself. Man, it was good. I just wished I could have concentrated on enjoying it rather than freaking out about my aunts’ odd behavior. I went along with the silent act until I couldn’t take it any more.

  “What’s going on Essie? Hildie, talk to me. We have to start planning things out for the Harvest Festival right now! The Golf Cart Parade starts right out front, and the whole town will be right outside out door. And then the hayride and the Annual Pumpkin Baking Contest will bring tons of people in from out of town on the weekend. We’ll be really busy. I can’t do it alone, ladies.”

  Nothing. I almost wished it had been bloodthirsty zombies in search of brains that walked into the shop. At least then the silence would make some kind of sense. But this was too eerie.

  I thought I’d try another tack. I had brewed a pot of coffee with allspice, cinnamon, and a pinch of nutmeg mixed into the coffee grounds to give it that pumpkin-spiced flavor. I poured one cup of that, one cup of regular coffee with a shot of pumpkin syrup from a bottle, and one with a spoonful of dissolving pumpkin spice from my coffee man.

  “Taste these and tell me which one the customers will like best.”

  This had to get a rise out of them. They always had a cup of coffee in the morning, and they loved pumpkin almost as much as I did.

  They didn’t even look at the coffee mugs on the counter. I noticed now that they seemed to be avoiding eye contact with each other as well. Besides the trays of muffins, there was also a brown grocery bag they had placed on the counter lying in its side.

  Hildie went around to the service side of the counter and pulled an over-sized cake pan out of the bag. It was filled with what looked like a huge, thick, rectangular pumpkin pie without a crust. Was it a pumpkin cake? Some kind of pumpkin bars? I had no idea. My aunt put some ice in the blender along with a couple of large scoops of the mystery pumpkin stuff and turned it on. A minute later she poured it into a glass and handed it to me.

  It was pumpkin pie…and this was the best pumpkin pie smoothie I’d ever tasted. Add coffee, and it would be a great frappe too. She covered the cake pan with plastic wrap and put it in the small refrigerator under the back counter.

  Essie already had her purse straps over her forearm. Hildie grabbed her purse, and they both headed toward the door. Three steps ahead of her sister, Essie let the door close before Hildie got to it, so she opened it without a word and sat in the passenger seat of the girls’ golf cart out front. Just like that, they were gone.

  I was stunned, speechless, and a little mad. I had only a few days to get this inventory done – while apparently running the coffee shop by myself – and to plan and make all the preparations for the festival. What the heck?

  I had just gotten started recounting the shelf of pumpkin tea bags when I heard the jingle of the front door again…causing me to lose count again. Complete silence…again. I headed to the front, guns blazing before I even got out of the back room.

  “Okay, girls, this is a business, and I can’t do everything all by…”

  It was Trevor Barton, the 16-year-old son of Mike Barton who ran a local landscaping business.

  “…myself. Hi, Trev.”

  Maybe Trevor was 17 by now. He was just starting his junior year of high school and had helped me and Jules out quite a bit over the summer. He was the head of my “teen posse” that got a lot of intel for us during a rash of thefts and break-ins. After that, he began as kind of a law enforcement intern with Police Lieutenant Eli Davis, our local detective and, well by now I guess you can say that Eli’s my guy.

  Trevor had been doing some ride-alongs and was writing about his experiences for the school paper. I guess the excitement of police business kind of got into his blood over the summer. Maybe it has something to do with his mother being in prison for murder, but that’s another story.

  “Hi, Miss Parker. I just thought I would see if Officer Davis was here or if you knew where he was.”

  “Nope. Haven’t seen him. He doesn’t get in here too often. Maybe he’ll call at lunch time.”
/>   “Hmmm. Okay. If you were my girlfriend, I’d be in here all the time.” Hmmm, charmer. Works for me kid and worth a beverage.

  “Can I get you something to drink?”

  “Naw…”

  “It’s on me.”

  “Thanks, but I gotta get back to school. I finished my math test early, so I rode my bike over here to see if he I could find him.” Trevor looked at the clock on the wall. “Well, I still have about 45 minutes. Could I have a bottle of apple juice?”

  “Coming right up!” I opened the bottle and handed it to him. “Trevor, I wish I had your math skills. You finished your test an hour early, and I can’t even count tea bags right.” I flashed my clipboard at him and tapped the line item.

  “Can I see that?”

  He looked at the list of products in the column at the left and then at the space for the counts next to them. I had only done the first three.

  He walked towards the back room. “Are these all in the same order they’re in on the shelves?”

  “Uh…yup. Top to bottom, left to right on each shelf.”

  Toe Thompson and Harvey Davis walked in just then. They were a couple of local regulars who lived near the Sinking Springs Retirement Community in town. Toe drove an old pickup truck, which he just had painted a rather bright orange with creamy-colored off-white doors with his name and phone number. Harvey drove his famous golf cart with a shark fin on top.

  Old Toe was a lifelong bachelor and handyman who made a living doing odd jobs, and Harvey was a widower and the father of Officer Eli Davis. They were both in their 60s, and sometimes they would take my aunts out for dinner or dancing. There were a few sparks between Toe and Essie. She’d been widowed for quite a few years now and seemed to have an interest in Toe. Harvey was sweet on Hildie, but she’d never been the marrying kind, or even the kind to have a regular man in her life.

  Okay, now this was a little weird too. Toe and Harvey were whispering. At least they were talking – not much, but a little. And it was all in whispers. They sat at their usual table near the counter.

  “Would you gentlemen like to try our pumpkin-spiced coffee today, or the usual stuff?”

  “Tea for me, please,” Harvey whispered.

  “Me too,” Toe said, almost inaudibly. “And a little honey.”

  I went to get the mugs of hot water and the tea bags, but I was wondering if I had woken up into some kind of parallel universe with a somewhat twisted reality. Tea? They had never ordered tea in their lives. Honey?

  I set the cups down in front of them with the teabags steeping. Harvey turned his face to me and there were claw marks from his forehead, over his eye, and all the way down his cheek.

  “Can I get an ice cube please?” Harvey asked with half a smile. “This looks like it might be too hot for my throat to handle.”

  Harvey could drink boiling hot coffee right from the pot. He liked it hot, “with a little burn,” so this was an odd request too.

  “What happened to your face, Harvey? Did you try to give Hildie a little kiss?”

  “It was Miss Pickles,” Toe whispered while his buddy blew on his tea.

  Miss Pickles was Harvey’s old cat. She was always a sweetheart to every man but a she-devil around women.

  Harvey just kind of shook his head. “Yeah, I don’t know what got into her. I was holding her against my chest and she was just purring away. And then I guess something behind me outside the window must have spooked her. Wham! She let out a screech, and those claws just came right out. She let one swipe go down my face and then scampered out of the room. Can’t even get her to go back in the living room now.”

  I brought over a cup of ice for the guys, and then I just had to ask. “Guys, what in the world’s come over you?”

  “Waaah, wah oooooh,” Toe sang out, in pretty good tune actually.

  I looked at him quizzically.

  “It’s an old song, you know, from the Elvis era when music was music, What in the World’s Come Over You? Don’t remember who sang it though.”

  “Anyway…my aunts were in here earlier and didn’t say a word. Now you guys are whispering, and even the cat is on edge. I’ve never seen anything like this before.”

  “BEEEE…FORE!”

  This time it was Harvey in full voice and deep melodic tones. Guess he found his voice. I just threw up my arms.

  “Anything else I can get you guys? Harvey, you want your muffin as usual? Got your chocolate chip ones or pumpkin.”

  Harvey had gone silent now, just quietly sipping his tea. That bellow must have shut him up.

  “Say, Harvey.” I thought I’d try to see if I could get another word out of him. “Don’t you usually have a birthday around Harvest Festival time?”

  Toe nodded and answered for his friend. “Day before Halloween,” he whispered.

  “How old is he going to be? Toe…”

  “Hmm?”

  “How old?”

  “Oh…66.”

  “OHHHHH…SIXTY-SIX.” Harvey came out of his trance long enough to spook the heck out of me again with his bellowing repetition of his age. I was almost ready to clobber the good side of his face when Trevor stepped up behind me.

  “Here you go, Miss Parker.”

  Trevor handed me back the clipboard. I looked at it, and every item on the list had been counted. He even corrected two of the items I’d counted incorrectly.

  “How in the world…?”

  “It’s easy. It’s just multiplication and addition. Sometimes subtraction, like this one: There would have been 144 same as these, but there were seven missing so it was 137…no counting involved. It helps if you straighten them all out into nice rows and stacks. Hope you don’t mind if they’re straight now. Well, I gotta go. Thanks for the juice. Sorry…I left the bottle in back.”

  “No problem. Why don’t you take a pumpkin muffin with you? They’re still a little warm.”

  His eyes lit up, but he wasn’t comfortable taking things for free.

  “Come here,” I said walking over to the display case. “I’ve got a defective one I can’t sell.” I grabbed one and set in in front of him.

  “What’s wrong with this one?” He looked at me suspiciously.

  I took his hand and stuck his finger right down the center of it. “Someone poked it with their finger.” Three bites and it was gone. “Any message for Eli if I see him?”

  “Well, there’s just been a lot of strange stuff happening on the edge of town, especially by the cemetery at night. Some damaged stuff and weird sightings. But I’ll see him after school. Thanks!”

  “And thank you! And, say, Trevor…” I wanted to see if he might have some time to help me with the Harvest Festival preparations, but he was already out the door and back on his bicycle.

  I pressed the crumbs left on the countertop from Trevor’s muffin onto my finger and finally savored the satisfying pumpkin flavor while I tried to make sense of this day. It started out as Dawn of the Living Dead and moved to Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Then Harvey’s cat attacked him for the first time ever. Maybe it’s in the air and cats can sense the presence of invisible aliens. And now we’ve got weird things happening at the cemetery? This day is starting off like a scary movie, and I was going to be ready for whatever might jump out of the woodwork at me. Another shot of pumpkin java might help.

  Chapter Two

  Precious little changed over the next several days. The aunts were still giving me the Harpo Marx treatment. At least Harpo had a horn, but Hildie and Essie just smiled and walked away like aloof pussycats. Hmmm…maybe cats are taking over people’s bodies?

  If I was going to go it alone at the Coffee Cabana, I would have to start early. It was time to decorate the coffee shop for the festival and the fall holidays. I liked decorating, so it might be a good way to improve my mood too. And, no doubt, my best friend and business neighbor, Jules Ledger, would be excited to give me a hand.

  “Lilyyyyy…”

  I heard a plaintive holler co
me from the backroom.

  “Lily, help me. I can’t get through the door. I’m going to drop everything in a second.”

  Jules was halfway through the back door holding a pumpkin against her thigh and trying to keep a box from falling with her knee and hand. I grabbed the basketball-sized pumpkin and set it inside, and then I took one end of the box and helped her carry it in.

  “Let’s go right into the front and set it on the counter. What all do you have here?”

  The large box was filled with colorful orange, black, and tan construction paper and streamers, sheaves of harvest wheat, a scarecrow, a dozen real fist-sized pumpkins, and a paper turkey that unfolded into a colorful 3-D display. In her hand Jules also had an old-fashioned corn broom with a bamboo handle.

  I took the broom from her and smiled as I set it on the countertop.

  “Don’t you dare ask me if I flew in on that, Lily Parker.”

  She knew me too well. Her pretty brown eyes looked as menacing as she could make them…so, about as scary as a sugar plum fairy…but I could tell she meant business. Since she was being so helpful, I decided to play nice. “Love your dress, Jules. Is it new?”

  Jules was a couple of years younger than me, about 30, and had recently come into a bit of money from an unexpected divorce settlement. She quit her job at the dentist’s office and opened a small community newspaper and print shop in the storefront next door to me. Her office and printing press were in the back, and she turned the front into a little shop selling office and school supplies, art supplies, and party decorations. She loved writing and art and fashion, and her little Sweet Home Gazette was becoming quite successful.

  “Do you really like it? It was on sale at the Outlet Mall in Sabina, but I changed the hem and took the sleeves off.”

  “I love it.” I have no idea where she finds the time to get all artsy and craftsy.

  Jules was one of those dark-haired, dark-eyed beauties who would look stunning in a anything. She probably could have been Miss USA if she wanted to. I, on the other hand, was more suited to Miss Complex Carbohydrates or maybe the Sweet Potato Pie Queen. An extra 20 pounds and thin, lifeless dishwater blonde hair were my most prominent features…although people say I have a cute face. Actually, when I smile I am kind of cute. Just sayin’.