The Pumpkin Man

“She hasn’t answered the doorbell,” the captain announced. A pile of pumpkin fragments was strewn across the porch near his feet.

“Give her a minute.”

Jones shook his head. “I rang and went back to the car before you got here.”

“Oh,” Scott said. “Maybe she went to the store.” He really didn’t want anyone else to be dead.

Jones nodded at the side of the house. “Car’s in the garage,” he said. “I looked.”

“Maybe . . . she went for a morning walk?”

“We’re going in,” Jones said.

“Without a warrant or an order?” Scott asked. “Are you crazy?”

“If I’m right, nobody’s going to even think to question us.”

“What if you’re not?”

The captain sighed. “You know I am.”

As Scott held the outer screen door off his superior’s back, Jones pulled out a skeleton key and began working on the front door. The lock gave easily, and Jones pushed the door open. The house was quiet and shadowed, but enough morning light filtered into the hallway that he could see the pumpkin piece that lay just a few feet away near the baseboard. He walked over and picked it up, and he rubbed his thumb across the warty orange skin. When he held it up, it was coated in red.

“She’s dead,” he whispered.

“You don’t know that,” Scott growled.

“Yes,” Jones said. “Yes, I do.”

They made their way down the hallway from the kitchen to the bedrooms and confirmed quickly that Emmaline’s bed had not been slept in. “The basement door’s open,” Scott pointed out as they walked back.

The captain knelt down to stare at the white vinyl tile of the kitchen floor in front of it. “And there’s blood here,” he announced.

They found Emmaline two minutes later, after gingerly navigating the basement steps. When Jones saw her abused body stretched out nude on the mud floor, head missing and replaced by a face carved in a pumpkin shell, he almost threw up. Nobody in town had ever seemed to care for Emmaline Perenais Foster, yet she was one of them. And she was a Perenais, which really made things confusing.

“Who’s next?” was all he could think to say.

Only a few seconds after that, he finally grasped that there was a man’s body hanging from the ceiling. Jones looked at the horrified expression of the man, and at the marbles that had replaced the dead man’s eyes. Still, there was no mistaking who he had been.

“Holy shit,” he breathed.

“What?”

“This is Harry,” Jones explained. “Harry Foster. I’m sure he helped lynch the Pumpkin Man—er, Emmaline’s brother George—all those years ago. He was the first one of the mob to die, but not from murder. Someone dug him up and moved him here. Was it Emmaline? It must have been.”

“That’s fucked-up,” Scott whispered.

“Tell me about it.”

“Just do me a favor and call the coroner,” Jones muttered.

After Scott ran up the stairs to comply, the captain stared at Emmaline’s body. He shook his head and whispered, “I can’t believe they took you, too.” He glanced at the ghastly expression of the mummified Harry and then at the blood that soaked like dark water into the earth around Emmaline’s neck. “What did you do with her head?” he whispered to no one in particular.

When Scott’s feet clattered back down the stairs, Jones was leafing through the Book of Shadows on the small table near where Emmaline died. He couldn’t read any of it, but his fingers were drawn to shuffle through the pages, what with its strange words and symbols. As he did, he felt a tight spot clutch at his chest. The book frightened him to the core.

“You sure Jennica Murphy and her boyfriend were okay?” he murmured.

“Yeah,” Scott said. “Well, I talked to Nick, not Jenn. But he seemed fine.”

“Go home and get some sleep.”

“Huh?” Scott looked puzzled.

Jones shook his head and grimaced. “You slept through last night. Tonight I want you up there and alert. You’re keeping an eye on them again, and this time I’d like you to actually stay awake.”

The rookie scowled but didn’t have an answer for that. He skulked away to another corner of the basement, ostensibly looking for clues, but Jones knew he was just embarrassed.

Jones didn’t waste the opportunity. He picked up the book and walked with it up the stairs. With a quick look behind to make sure that Scott wasn’t following, he walked to the squad car and opened the door, slipping the book into the empty glove compartment. He had a feeling that the book might be valuable, though not to the police. This was something outside of law and order. Scott could stake out the old Perenais place as much as he wanted; he wasn’t going to be of any use to the people inside. This was a matter of the spirit.

He hoped that the book would be of use to Jennica Murphy. Because hers was the soul that was in danger.

CHAPTER

FORTY-SEVEN

“Friday I’m in Love.”

The notes sounded from where her cell phone was perched just around the corner, where it sat on a small table, plugged into the wall while she was in the shower. Jennica grinned as she wiped the soap from her forehead and hummed along. The song hadn’t reflected much about her personal life until recently, but it always made her smile. At the moment, though, she wondered who was calling. Nick was here. Kirstin was gone. And so was virtually everyone else in her life. Since she’d come to River’s End, her phone hadn’t exactly leaped out of its cradle with messages. Jenn had never had a large posse of friends.

After a few repeated croons from The Cure’s Robert Smith, the bedroom went quiet again. Jenn’s brow wrinkled as she pressed her face into the warm spray, rubbing her palms up and down her waist and thighs, speeding up what had begun as a lazy shower because now she was really curious. Who was calling her? And why?

She was just in the process of rinsing the last conditioner out of her hair when the faint but unmistakable ringtone began again.

“What the hell?” she said, and in three bars had turned around and killed the shower. But rather than just dashing out to answer, she grabbed a towel to soak up the worst of the water before she slipped across the floor.

Even as she toweled her face and arms dry, the phone quit its jaunty anthem and was silent once again. Jenn made a face and finished drying herself off. Who needed to reach her so bad?

She toweled off her legs and stepped into the bedroom to pick up the phone. As soon as she thumbed the thing on, the red message text glowed on the screen.

Jenn clicked the button, dialing into her voicemail, and the message light went off. She keyed in her password and hit the pound key, and then her curious smile turned to worry as a familiar voice filled her ear.

“Jennica,” the man said. “This is Captain Jones. I have some news for you that I’d really rather not tell you over the phone. Please call me.”

He left a string of numbers, but she didn’t have a pen. However, Jenn knew the phone could dial him back automatically so she wasn’t worried. She saved his message so the next could begin.

This one she had a hard time fathoming, though she recognized the voice immediately. Sister Beatrice from Holy Name.

“Jennica,” the nun said. “We hope you’re having a good summer. We’d like to talk to you about coming back to school this fall. It looks like enrollment is up, and we need good teachers who care about their students.