The Pumpkin Man

known. Meredith had moved out to California—someplace north of San Francisco—right after college, and had only returned to the Midwest on a few occasions for brief visits. Jennica had always gotten the impression her dad disapproved, but he’d rarely spoken of her. The more she read of her aunt’s journal, the more she saw why. His sister had been a witch!

She probably wasn’t the usual “black hat and broomstick” kind of witch, Jennica figured, not like kids thought of them, but Meredith Perenais’s journal was not your typical “Today I got my oil changed and the kid at the supermarket asked me for my ID even though I’m fifty” kind of thing. She did note some of the more mundane things she did, but most of her activities seemed to revolve around going out to the estuary where the Russian River met the ocean to meditate, or to gather a certain type of fish scales, or to climb the surrounding hills in search of some rare herb. At the end of such passages, she would offer recipes for the materials she’d been gathering.

Today I called George home from the market for a bit of play. He thought I was just aching for him, and I let him think that—men are happier when they feel like we’re starving for their thrusts and groans—but I found this entry in an old book from a plantation voodoo priestess in Georgia and I’ve been anxious to try it. I lay in bed and feigned exhaustion when he finished, but as soon as the front screen slammed I moved to the bathroom to gather what he’d given.

Yesterday I gathered the spider plant leaves and the fish. This morning I visited the Muldaurs and bought two hens. The full ritual calls for a fire with the bones of an innocent at the hottest point of its core. I don’t know if an innocent animal will do, but it can’t hurt to try. I’m only going to use the result to improve our garden this season.

I’ve set the fire pit in the backyard with the bones of one of the chickens and some white birch logs. The next step is to combine the fish eyes in a broth of freshly blooded fowl, the consummated secretions of a lover (hence my tryst today) and the spider plant. The whole mess must boil from dusk to midnight, and only then should the words be said and the circle danced around to invoke the . . .

Jenn glanced up from the journal with images of her silver-haired aunt dancing naked around a campfire through the California night and shivered. The picture in her head was ludicrous. It was not a picture she wanted to maintain. She peered out at the class, who were mostly quiet and reading. A couple paper-ball fights were going on surreptitiously in back, but she ignored them. Then she looked at Rudy’s desk. The chair was still empty and the puddle still there.

Bastard! she fumed. He’d never come back. You’d think she’d have learned after all these years. Boys like Rudy played you to get exactly what they wanted and then . . .

She took a deep breath and stilled her anger. It was her own fault for giving in. She should have made him sit there the whole period, or better yet, written him a detention. She was too easy on these kids and knew it.

The end-of-period bell rang, and the room emptied faster than a fire drill. But when they were all gone, there was still someone standing in the doorway: Sister Beatrice.

Crap. Had the nun found out she’d lost Rudy? What kind of trouble had the delinquent gotten himself—and now, consequently, her—into?

Sister Beatrice walked slowly into the classroom, her eyes surveying all as if considering how to redecorate. Or demolish. Jennica shrank a little at her approach. She might have moved to the front of the class, but she would always be a little afraid of nuns. And, unlike most, Sister Beatrice still wore her black-and-white habit.

“How are you doing, Jennica?” the older woman asked.

Jenn shrugged. “Okay, I guess.”

“I saw that the police are still looking for clues. It was on the news again last night.”

Jenn nodded. “They don’t seem to be getting anywhere.”

The sister put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed. “Our prayers are with you, always.”

Jenn smiled.

“Please ask them to keep the name of your school out of the reports when they mention you, though. If you could,” the sister added.

So, the PR aspect of her tragedy, not concern, was the real reason for the sister’s visit.

“We have been getting calls from parents concerned that the person who did this horrible thing to your father might be a threat to their children at Holy Name—because he might be after you, they think. I’ve told them that there is absolutely nothing to worry about, that you’re not in any trouble. So there’s no danger. But . . .”

Jenn almost choked. “I’ll do what I can,” she promised, and looked away from the principal to begin gathering up her papers. Leave it to Sister Beatrice to show the compassion of a killer.

“Thank you,” the sister replied. Turning to leave, she was almost out of the room before she thought to offer, “God bless.”

CHAPTER

FOUR

Richard Murphy had not had the winds of fortune at his back. Aside from the clothes in his closet and the run-down furniture Jennica had abdicated, the sum total left in his will after paying funeral expenses came to a few hundred dollars. A lifetime of working, and he had never managed to save much of anything. The few stocks he’d bought had gone south, and the life insurance policy he’d held for twenty years had been allowed to lapse six months before. She could see him crinkling his brow and shaking his head in confusion over that one.

“I guess I just got busy,” he’d say. “I didn’t mean to let it go.” Words to die by.

Jennica visited the lawyer’s office on Saturday afternoon to receive the final documents, along with the only substantive thing that she would ever see again from her father. And it hadn’t even been his, really. It was the deed to a house in California. Her aunt Meredith’s place. A couple weeks ago she’d barely known anything about the woman; now she was studying her aunt’s private journal and taking possession (at least on paper) of the woman’s house. Life (and death) moved in strange ways.

At home, Jenn picked up a sheaf of mail from the tiny silver box in the apartment building foyer and hurried up the twisting stairs to the fourth floor. “Kirstin?” she called. “You home?”

Something that vaguely resembled her friend and fellow Holy Name teacher came plodding out of the kitchen holding a package of frozen vegetables to her head with one hand and pressing a terry cloth robe closed with the other.

“Nice ice pack,” Jenn observed. “We have to eat those peas, you know.”

Kirstin flopped heavily on the couch and groaned. “I told you to come to the Tender Trap last night.”

“Mmm-hmmm. And you’re a good example of why I didn’t.”

“You missed a lot of free tequila. The boys were generous.”

Normally, to look at her, you’d think Kirstin was the ultimate sorority girl: blonde and blue-eyed, busty and giddy. In so many ways, Jennica’s opposite. But the two had been best friends for years. Right now, though, with no makeup, hair askew and a pale, drawn face, Kirstin did not maintain her usual allure.

Jenn shook her head. “I don’t think I missed anything at all.” She dropped the pile of mail and papers on the coffee table and fished out a manila envelope. “Anyway, I needed to get this stuff done.” She pulled a sheaf of legal papers from the envelope and held them out for Kirstin to see. “Look! I’m now the proud owner of a house in River’s End, California! Wherever that is.”

“Cool,” Kirstin said. “When are we going?”

“Going?” Jenn echoed. “We’re not going. My dad went out there, cleaned up some of my aunt’s things and found someone to take care of the place. He was trying to have it rented out as a furnished cottage, but so far nobody’s taken the bait. Not in three months. I don’t really want to be a landlord, so I’ll probably just sell it.”

Kirstin grimaced. “Well, I think you should at least go and check the place out before you dump it. You’ve never been, right?”

“No,” Jenn said. “I think the last time I saw Meredith was when Mom died—and she came up here.”

For a second, Kirstin’s face lit up. “I smell a Spring Break trip!” Then a frown appeared, and she pressed the