The Saucy Lucy Murders (32 page)

Full of tangled weeds and dried husks of plants, the vegetable bed looked sad and lifeless. Except for the pumpkin patch. The basketball-sized orange gourds lay barely hidden beneath fat brown, prickly leaves, their vines snaking across the ground. They thrived because they were one of the last vegetables to be harvested. They ripened just in time for Halloween.

Halloween.

Lexie recalled way back in June she’d reserved
a booth at the Trick-or-Treat Festival traditionally held every year at the Moose Creek Junction Community House. Mom and Dad always encouraged her and Lucy to spend Halloween night trick-or-treating there rather than wandering the neighborhood in schlompy costumes begging for candy. Even back then, in a small town like this, it had seemed a safer option.

Lexie had loved attending the event to hand out treats to the children because it reminded her of a kinder, gentler time. It also reminded her of when Eva was a little girl, when she had lovingly hand sewn the costumes and goodie bags and walked her daughter around their neighborhood, pretending to blend into the shadows. Even then, things had seemed simpler.

Halloween was tomorrow. Would she have the guts to brave the gossips and go to the festival, as she had done since she’d moved back, with treats for the little goblins and ghouls?

“Peter, Peter, pumpkin eater …”

Lexie turned to see Aunt Gladys wearing the leopard print caftan and feathery slippers. Her face, still covered with the mint green facial mask shell, cracked at the corners of her mouth as she sang. Lexie rolled her eyes. It could be worse, she thought. At least the silly old gal hadn’t come out naked.

Seeing she had caught Lexie’s attention, Aunt Gladys lifted the sides of her caftan and did a merry jig as she continued with her song. “… had a wife
and couldn’t keep her. So he put her in a pumpkin shell and there he kept her very well.”

“Nice morning,” Lexie said.

Aunt Gladys stopped cavorting, cocked her head to the side and batted her eyelashes. “Excuse me? Do I know you?”

Here we go again, Lexie thought as she sank down in an old lawn chair. “I’m your niece, Aunt Gladys. Lexie. Don’t you remember?”

Aunt Gladys put a finger to her lips and looked thoughtfully into the distance. “You wouldn’t try to fool an old woman, would you?”

Lexie shook her head.

Aunt Gladys snapped her arthritic fingers. “That’s right! I know who you are. Forgive me, I’ve suffered a momentary lapse in memory.”

Lexie smiled. “I think we need to go inside so you can take your medicine and have some breakfast.”

“Good idea,” Aunt Gladys said. “I need my power drink. Stimulates my brain cells, you know. Helps me think a lot clearer.”

It would stimulate my puke reflex, Lexie thought.

“Did you hear Junior last night?” Aunt Gladys asked. “He was making such a ruckus on the roof I had trouble sleeping again.”

Lexie stood and took Aunt Gladys’ elbow, steering her toward the back door. “I’m afraid I’ve never seen Junior.”

Aunt Gladys stopped and her eyes went wide. “You’re not in cahoots with him, are you? I couldn’t
live here any longer if you were.”

“Of course I’m not,” Lexie said. “Now please, come inside.”

“What are we going to do today?” Aunt Gladys asked innocently.

Hide out, Lexie thought. Then, in her mind’s eye, she saw a flash of all the smirking townspeople’s faces. She considered how they were gossiping mercilessly about her. Fabricating lies and distorting the truth. Wickedly putting her out of business for no good reason. They should all be ashamed for making a difficult time in her life even worse.

She needed to show them. Show them she wasn’t afraid. Remembering the apples she’d picked from a tree in her yard that now sat piled in two bushel baskets in her pantry, she suddenly knew what she and Aunt Gladys would do today.

“Have you ever made caramel apples, Aunt Gladys? Or carved a pumpkin?”

Aunt Gladys scratched her head. “My housekeeper, Irene, used to do all that for Bruce when he was a little boy.”

“What about when you were a girl?” Lexie prompted. Aunt Gladys shrugged and her eyes filled with tears. She looked at Lexie with a panic-stricken expression. “Hell’s bells, Leslie. I … I don’t remember.”

Lexie felt a sliver of compassion for the old woman’s fading memory. “That doesn’t matter because today we’re going to do all of those things.
Tomorrow evening, you and Lucy and I are going to the Trick-or-Treat Festival.”

“Yipee! I promise I’ll be good, too. Cross my heart and hope to die.” Aunt Gladys crossed her heart with her forefinger. “I know exactly what we can wear. I’ve got some costumes from a number I did in Vegas years ago.”

Lexie experienced a moment’s flicker of hesitation. If Aunt Gladys wore them in Las Vegas, no doubt they were X-rated. She wasn’t so sure they’d be appropriate for a bunch of anal-retentive pilgrims and their offspring. Then again, with a little tailoring, maybe the costumes were just the thing to wake up the town and make them realize they couldn’t keep her down.

The next day, Lexie, Lucy and Aunt Gladys took turns examining themselves in a full-length mirror in Aunt Gladys’ room. From the ex-Las Vegas showgirl’s costume trunk, they had fished out gauzy yellow, purple, and orange satin tutus complete with matching tights, spotted butterfly wings, and curly black antennae.

As Lexie had feared, the showgirl outfits were revealing up top, especially since she had a fair amount of cleavage. After discussing the problem for a while with Aunt Gladys and Lucy, Lexie produced several colorful T-shirts from Eva’s dresser drawer. Putting
them on and knotting them at their waists worked.
Voila,
the exotic tutus instantly became more acceptable for the family event.

Aunt Gladys, Lucy, and Lexie loaded the Halloween treats into a large Tupperware container and put it in Lexie’s truck. Lexie also threw in the Halloween decoration box from the garage, a roll of masking tape, and the two pumpkins she and Aunt Gladys had carved.

“For Pete’s sake, Lexie,” Lucy said as they drove to the Community House in the bumping and grinding truck, “can’t you afford a new vehicle yet? This one is hideous.” Her fingers gripped the seat with white knuckles and her antennae slipped askew on her head when the vehicle lurched and backfired.

“Not unless you’ve won the lottery and want to share,” Lexie said.

Lucy sighed heavily.

“I’ve kind of gotten used to it.” Aunt Gladys adjusted a gauzy wing on her back. “It’s like the Tower of Terror ride at that theme park in Califor-nia—Fantasyland isn’t it? Anyway, it takes you way up in the sky and drops you back down …
ker-plunk, ker-plunk, ker-plunk.”

Ignoring their complaints, Lexie watched as the Community House, a large white clapboard building near the city’s small recreational reservoir, Buffalo Lake, came into view. In the parking lot, people had stopped their cars and walked their excited children to the entrance, adjusting their costumes.

When Aunt Gladys, Lucy, and Lexie arrived, business people were festooning their wooden booths with spooky Halloween paraphernalia. They stopped what they were doing to stare at the three women and talk amongst themselves. Lexie ignored their catty comments, which were whispered just loud enough for them to hear, and went over to the Chamber of Commerce’s check-in desk.

With Aunt Gladys and Lucy right behind her, she marched up to the president, Morton Frost, a tall man with old-fashioned brown and gray mutton chop whiskers. Standing there in his pin-striped three-piece suit, he reminded Lexie of the Wizard of Oz, working his evil behind closed doors and curtains, trying to fool everyone.

“I reserved a booth for the Saucy Lucy Café,” she told him.

He nonchalantly flicked lint from his expensive suit and perused a piece of paper on the table in front of him. “Hmmm, I’m afraid I don’t see you here.”

“There’s got to be some mistake,” Lexie said, feeling like a complete idiot in her purple butterfly costume and antennae. Her face surged with warmth. “I made the reservation months ago.”

He gave her a smug look. “I’m sorry to say it’s not here.”

“Let me have a look at that, you pompous ass wipe.” Aunt Gladys grabbed the paper from his hand and held it under her nose.

“Aunt Gladys,” Lexie mumbled, afraid she was
going to get them kicked out.

Aunt Gladys stared at the paper for a second, making faces. She elbowed Lucy hard in the ribs and shoved the paper at her. “Quick, read this crap for me. I can’t see a blessed thing.”

Lucy grasped the list and squinted at it. “Ah, there’s the Saucy Lucy. We’re assigned to booth G.” She tapped a line on the paper with a fingertip. “Mort, you simply must get yourself reading glasses.”

Aunt Gladys snorted. “Reading glasses my ass. He’s just being a c—”

Lexie cupped her hand over Aunt Gladys’ mouth and nudged her away. “We’ll just clear out of here, Mr. Frost. Sorry for the trouble.”

Red as a persimmon, Frost glared at the women as they toted their boxes to the designated booth and set everything down. “What’s his problem?” Lucy nodded at Frost. “Mort’s usually not like that.”

“It’s the murders,” Lexie responded. “I told you, people are giving me the cold shoulder. They think they’ll get their hands dirty if they associate with me. That’s why they’re not eating at the café. That’s why we’re shut down.”

“Sons of perdition,” Lucy snapped. “Let those without sin cast the first stone, let the—”

“Hey, gabby pants,” Aunt Gladys said to Lucy as she struggled to lift a carved pumpkin out of a box. “Could ya quit flappin’ your jaw for a minute and give me a hand here?”

With a frustrated grunt, Lucy went to help Aunt
Gladys.

Ignoring Frost’s snub and the business people’s whispered comments, Lexie busied herself hanging up orange and black crepe paper and ghoulish cardboard jack-o-lanterns, black cats, spiders, and witches. In one corner, the city hall organizers had arranged a spook alley, complete with creepy graveyard with headstones, cobwebs, and scary looking creatures of the night. An array of candlelit jack-o-lanterns sat on a crooked stone fence, their faces flickering in the dimly lit room.

Finally, it was time. Someone opened the double doors and ghosts, witches, and goblins of all sizes shuffled into the main hall, their goody bags ready, excitement practically crackling in the air. Squealing with delight, they trooped from booth to booth in small groups, chanting their, “Trick-or-treats,” in exchange for goodies. Parents stood at the back of the room, talking amongst themselves and keeping a watchful eye on their little ones.

Aunt Gladys, Lucy, and Lexie each had a bowl of caramel apples to hand out, but the children took one look at their booth and steered clear. Lexie became angrier and angrier by the minute. It appeared the children, having been properly briefed by their parents, were purposely avoiding their booth. “I think we should go,” Lexie said. “We’re wasting our time.”

“Don’t give the old battleaxes the benefit of seeing you defeated,” Aunt Gladys said. “Show ’em what you’re made of. You are a Castleton, after all,
even if you did go and marry that numb nuts boy who knocked you up.”

Lucy, who was drinking punch from a paper cup, coughed and sputtered. Turning as red as the punch, she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and glared at Aunt Gladys. Another pearl of wisdom from the peanut gallery, Lexie thought. Aunt Gladys was right. She needed to stand her ground. Come hell or high water.

Finally, one little boy of about eight, dressed like a vampire, approached their booth. “Tre-e-e-k-or-tre-e-e-e-at,” he muttered through long white fangs, his brown eyes sparkling with mischief.

Lexie smiled and plopped a caramel apple into his outstretched bag. “Are you Count Dracula?”

“Uh huh,” he murmured.

“Thanks for coming to our booth,” Lexie told him.

“I like caramel apples,” he said.

“So you’re not a ‘fradie cat like the other kids, eh?” Aunt Gladys settled one bony hand on her orange, silken hip.

He nodded and Aunt Gladys plopped another caramel apple in his bag.

“Can you tell us what they’re afraid of?” Lexie asked.

Count Dracula looked around the room, as though checking to make sure no adult saw him talking to the enemy. “You guys are bad. And Theresa’s mom says you are both witches. Lots of the moms are saying that.”

Aunt Gladys snorted while Lexie and Lucy exchanged concerned glances.

“Why?” Lexie asked.

“I dunno. That’s just what they say.” He pointed at Lexie with one of his black-clawed fingers. “They say you …” he peered around again, then said in a whisper, “kill your boyfriends.”

Lexie’s heart wrenched. “That is absolutely not true.”

He shrugged. “I think they’re all goofy. Everybody knows witches are just make-believe. Thanks for the apple!”

With that, Dracula ran off, cape flying behind him, and joined the rest of the costumed children in the surging crowd.

Aunt Gladys shook her head. “I told you this town was full of backwater hogwash.”

Lucy slammed her bowl on the counter. “I’ve had about enough of this nonsense. I think it’s pointless to stay here any longer—the kids are all dodging us.”