Death of a Pumpkin Carver (7 page)

“Poor Uncle Otis. The old guy probably wandered into the graveyard drunk as a skunk, tripped, and banged his head on the tombstone and died,” Danny said, shaking his head while standing with Hayley behind yellow police tape that had been tied around two adjacent gravestones.

Danny fancied himself an armchair detective after spending years in front of the TV drinking beer and watching
CSI
and
Law & Order
reruns.

Hayley found it annoying because he was just not very good at solving the crime despite his overinflated ego. She remembered when they were first married they would watch a
Murder, She Wrote
episode on cable and Danny would spend the whole hour guessing every suspect questioned, and then after the delightful Angela Lansbury would unmask the killer and motive in the final segment, Danny would nod in agreement and proclaim, “See! I told you!”

Hayley would just wring her hands and keep her mouth shut in order to avoid an argument. But it took every ounce of strength not to blurt out, “You have no idea what you're talking about!”

Danny also appeared unimpressed with Hayley's recent history of investigating and solving local crimes with a striking success rate. Or if he was impressed and just not showing it, he probably figured he was the one who taught her everything she knew.

Hayley was shoved aside by a crowd of gawkers mixed with a few local reporters, who all jostled into position to get the best look at the crime scene. She elbowed one aggressive photographer sharply in the ribs who tried pushing her out of the way before realizing he freelanced for the
Island Times
.

Bar Harbor Police Chief Sergio and two of his officers, Donnie and Earl, carefully combed the blocked-off area for evidence while a forensics team examined the body and snapped pictures in order to make the determination as to just what happened to poor old Otis Pearson. Hayley scanned the scene and noticed a trail through the mud leading from the gravel path to the tombstone.

“Danny, look at that over there. There's a path through the mud but no footprints. It looks like something was dragged off the beaten path over to that row of tombstones where Otis was found. If someone dragged a body through the mud, the body would likely erase any sign of footprints.”

“What are you trying to say, Hayley?” Danny asked, barely paying her any mind as he watched the forensics team in action. “Man, why didn't I become a CSI guy? I would've been so good at it.”

“I'm saying maybe someone killed Otis somewhere else and drove him here in a car, and then dragged his body over there and left it to confuse the police.”

“That's ridiculous, babe. Why do you automatically assume Otis was murdered? You need to stop reading so many mystery novels. Otis was a klutz and a drunk. He fell and hit his head. End of story.”

Sergio wandered over to Hayley and Danny, and the obnoxious pushy photographer leaned into Hayley in order to eavesdrop on the conversation. Hayley gave him another quick jab in the ribs, and with a grunt, he moved out of her personal space.

“What's the story so far, Sergio?” Hayley asked, keeping her voice down.

“Severe trauma to the head. He definitely died from his injury. At least that's the preliminary assessment,” Sergio whispered, not wanting the crowd to overhear him sharing details of an open investigation with his sister-in-law.

But of course, given Hayley's history in town, most of the crowd already assumed that was exactly what he was doing.

Danny chuckled with a self-satisfied smile. “You've got to learn to trust me, babe. Like I've been saying, he fell and hit his head on the gravestone.”

“Don't gloat, Danny. It makes your smile crooked and it's really unattractive,” Hayley said.

“I don't believe he fell here. I think whatever gave him the head injury happened somewhere else,” Sergio said, instantly wiping the smile off Danny's face.

“What do you mean?” Danny sputtered.

“The way the body is positioned doesn't line up with him tripping and hitting his head on the flintstone.”

“
The Flintstones
? What's he talking about, Hayley? Why is he talking about a cartoon? I'm confused,” Danny said, turning to Hayley.

She rested a hand on his arm. “He means tombstone.”

“Why didn't he say that?” Danny asked, turning back to Sergio.

“I did,” Sergio seethed.

“I'm sorry to second-guess you, Sergio, but couldn't Otis have fallen over there? Maybe he was still alive and tried crawling for help and just died in that position,” Danny said confidently, determined to defend his original theory.

“The mud trail that leads over to his body suggests someone dragged him from the gravel path and there are plenty of tire tracks to support the theory he was driven here,” Sergio said. “No, he was brought here from somewhere else.”

Officer Earl sauntered over to Sergio, rubbing his hands together and then wiping them on his pants. “You got a handkerchief or a moist wipe or something I can have to clean off my hands, Chief?”

“What the hell did you touch, Earl?” Sergio asked.

“I wanted a smoke but dropped my lighter and it fell right between the dead guy's feet and I had to move his boot to get to it—”

“You touched the body?” Sergio yelled, eyes blazing.

“Well, no . . . I . . . I mean . . . just the boot . . . I just had to get my lighter . . .”

“Have you learned nothing since you've been with the department, Earl? You never touch anything until forensics has completed their investigation. Congratulations! You've just compromised an active crime scene!”

“Man, when you put it like that, it sounds kind of bad,” Earl said softly, regretting ever admitting anything to the chief.

“So what's on your hands, Earl?” Hayley asked, noticing a green sticky goo on the tips of his fingers.

“I don't know. It was on the soles of Otis's boots. It's like glue and I can't get it off,” Earl said, annoyed, keeping one eye on Sergio to gauge his anger.

“Well, go over and have forensics take a sample before you wash it off, do you think you can do that for me, Earl?” Sergio sighed.

“Yes, sir,” Earl said before scampering off like a scolded child.

“I've got to get back to it. I'll see you later,” Sergio said before marching back over to the dead body.

Danny watched Sergio standing over the still body of his uncle Otis a few minutes and then his eyes welled up with tears. “I can't believe he's gone, Hayley. He was my favorite uncle. We were drinking his moonshine and swapping stories just the other night and now he's gone . . . forever . . .”

Danny reached out for a comforting hug from Hayley.

She hesitated, not sure she was ready to open herself up to a tender moment with her ex-husband. Danny was a terrific actor and so there was a question of whether or not his emotions at this moment were genuine. But she decided to give him the benefit of the doubt and put her arms around him and held him close.

The
Island Times
freelance photographer took the opportunity to snap a few shots of Otis's grieving nephew. When Danny heard the flashes going off, he began wailing and putting on a good show.

Sergio noticed the commotion and made a beeline back over to them. “One thing I forgot to mention, Danny.”

Danny raised his head off Hayley's shoulder but kept his arms firmly fastened around her as he sniffed. “What's that, Sergio?”

“Don't go far. I need you to stick around until we conclude our investigation.”

Danny nodded, hugged Hayley tighter, and then said, “Of course, Chief. I wouldn't dream of going anywhere until we get to the truth about what happened to poor Uncle Otis.”

“Good,” Sergio said, before turning around and walking away again.

Danny was saying the right words, but Hayley could tell he was rattled.

He shifted nervously and kept clearing his throat.

She knew all his mannerisms from years of experience.

Danny Powell was in full-on panic mode.

And usually when that happened it wasn't long before he would disappear.

Hayley pulled her car off the main road and down the dirt driveway to Otis Pearson's shack in the woods near Tremont to find a police cruiser with its blue lights flashing parked out front.

When she got out of the car and walked up the creaky wooden steps of the shack, Sergio suddenly appeared from around back to greet her.

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

“I came here to see Danny, and make sure he doesn't try to blow town before he's given the all clear. What about you?”

“I came to ask him a few questions but when I got here the door was wide open and there didn't appear to be anyone inside. I was just checking around back to see if he was chopping wood for the fireplace or something.”

Hayley laughed to herself over the idea of Danny chopping wood.

He wasn't a man who was rejuvenated by manual labor.

He usually bought the wood with Hayley's money.

Or stole a few logs from the neighbor's pile.

“Come on, let's go inside,” Sergio said, leading the way.

Hayley followed close on his heels.

Sergio stopped in the doorway and looked around at the mess.

There were rat droppings in the corner next to the couch and flies buzzed around the dirty dishes piled high in the sink and the fireplace was caked in soot.

Plaid shirts and stained underwear were draped over a couple of rickety chairs and some moonshine jugs were upended on their sides on the floor.

Sergio shook his head, disgusted. “Looks like the place has been torn apart and ransacked.”

Hayley snorted. “Uh, no, this is just how Otis keeps house. The place looks exactly the same as when I was last here, which was only a few days ago.”

Sergio stared at her in disbelief.

Sergio led her over to the sectioned-off area where Otis slept. The dirty, musty mattress on the floor had been violently ripped open.

There were chunks of yellow foam strewn everywhere.

“Was that mattress in such a sorry state when you were last here?” Sergio asked, eyebrow raised.

“No. Other than those nasty stains it was pretty much intact.”

“Then someone
has
been here. Any idea what he or she might have been looking for?”

“I'm afraid so. Otis doesn't believe in banks. He told me he stashes his savings, something like forty grand, in that mattress.”

Sergio's mind raced. “So if the rest of the place looks exactly the same as when you were here previously, and only the mattress appears to have been disturbed, then whoever came here and stole Otis's money knew exactly what he or she was looking for and where to find it.”

Hayley walked over and inspected the mutilated mattress.

It made sense.

Sergio moved up behind her. “Who else besides you knew Otis kept his money in there?”

Hayley winced.

Just like Lucy Ricardo used to do when she didn't want to admit something to her Cuban bandleader husband.

“Hayley . . .” Sergio said, drawing her name out just like Ricky Ricardo when he would say, “Lucy . . .”

He even had the Desi Arnaz accent to boot.

Except it was Brazilian instead of Cuban, but still, it was close enough.

Sergio turned Hayley around and stared at her with the serious, commanding police chief look he often used to intimidate people. “Did Danny know about the money in the mattress?”

Hayley nodded.

She couldn't believe it.

She didn't want to believe it.

Could Danny have killed his own uncle for forty grand?

She couldn't even entertain the possibility.

But it wasn't looking too good for him at the moment.

Sergio gripped her shoulders.

“Where is he?”

Hayley shrugged. “I . . . I don't know. I thought he would be here . . .”

But a part of her knew exactly where her troublesome ex-husband was right now.

Probably hightailing it out of town.

If he wasn't already across state lines.

“He's guilty, Hayley,” Bruce said, stuffing an onion bagel slathered in cream cheese into his mouth, and then wiping a smudge of cheese off the corner of his lip with his tongue. “And the sooner you come to accept it, the easier it will be.”

Danny wasn't the only one who considered himself a crack detective.

Bruce Linney, too, had come to believe he was as observant and sharp and adept at deductive reasoning as any Arthur Conan Doyle creation.

Hayley let out a sigh behind her desk at the
Island Times
office and tried to focus on items left to do in her in-box.

“Danny adored his uncle Otis, Bruce,” Hayley said, not entirely comfortable being the lone defender of her ex-husband. “Why would he want to kill him?”

Danny stuffed the rest of his bagel in his mouth. “To get his grubby hands on his uncle's money! You just don't want to see the truth. I'm sorry, Hayley. In my experienced view, this is pretty much an easy, open-and-shut case.”

“Stop talking with your mouth full, Bruce. Didn't your mother ever teach you manners?”

Bruce wiped his mouth with his forearm. “Don't try changing the subject. You know I'm right.”

Hayley swiveled around in her office chair and glared at him. “You always do this, Bruce. You always go with the obvious theory. That's why you're so wrong all the time.”

“
Wrong
? When am I wrong . . .” Bruce swallowed the last word because he knew he was setting himself up for a humiliating rundown of all the recent local-crime cases where he had pointed his finger at the wrong person.

Hayley was tempted.

She desperately wanted to put him in his place and make him feel small for not considering how she was feeling about the mounting evidence against her ex.

But instead, once again, she found herself rushing to Danny's defense. “My ex-husband may be a liar and a cheat and a cad, but that doesn't make him a murderer.”

“But you always said he was terrible with money, and would often borrow from questionable sources, and wind up getting himself in some pretty major debt. What if he got desperate? What if he needed a wad of cash and fast? He knew where he could find forty grand. That much money could fix a lot of problems.”

Hayley felt her whole face flush with rage.

Bruce was being insensitive to how she was feeling and wholly ignorant of how his casual, off-the-cuff deductions were hurting her deeply.

She suddenly lashed out. “What's your problem, Bruce?”

“Problem. I don't have a—”

“Are you jealous?”

Bruce scoffed. “Jealous? Jealous of what?”

Hayley stopped herself.

She couldn't believe what she had just said.

Bruce was still playing catch-up.

He was confused.

She decided to let it go.

And hope what she was implying wouldn't dawn on him.

“Why would I be jealous of—?”

And then, of course, it dawned on him.

“Are you saying . . . ? Oh, Hayley, really. You think I'm jealous because of
you
. . . ? That's . . . that's crazy . . .”

“I didn't say me. You said me. All I meant was Danny is handsome and charming and women seem to love him and sometimes other men resent that. I never mentioned me specifically.”

Bruce raised a hand in protest. “You implied it! You did!”

There was an awkward silence.

Hayley was waiting for Bruce to deny he was jealous because of Danny's relationship with Hayley.

But he didn't.

He just stood there not knowing what to say.

The tension lingered for a few more uncomfortable moments.

Luckily the door to the office blew open and Sergio walked in with Danny.

“Hey, babe. Miss me?” he said, his megawatt smile on full display.

Bruce sighed and rolled his eyes.

Danny threw his arms around Sergio. “Hey, man, thanks for the ride.”

Sergio kept his arms at his side, refusing to hug Danny back.

“So I guess the Bar Harbor Police Department is now a taxi service,” Bruce said mockingly.

“I didn't just give him a free ride,” Sergio said, doing a slow burn. “I had Officers Donnie and Earl stationed at the Trenton Bridge to make sure Danny didn't try leaving, and sure enough, they intercepted him trying to get off the island in his rental car.”

“Danny!” Hayley hollered.

“Everybody calm down. I wasn't trying to blow town. I was just going shopping at the Bangor Mall to buy some presents for my kids.”

Hayley, Bruce, and Sergio just stared at him.

He wasn't fooling anyone.

Sensing he had no supporters, Danny rushed up to Sergio and grabbed him by his thick, muscled arms. “Trust me, Sergio. I am not going anywhere until we get to the bottom of my dear uncle's senseless death. You can trust me. We're family.”

“Please don't touch me, Danny,” Sergio said quietly.

Danny continued to grasp Sergio's rock-hard biceps. “I love you, man. It kills me that you don't believe me.”

Sergio glared at Danny's hands gripping his arms. “I'm not going to tell you again. Don't make me hit you.”

Danny let go and held up his hands, fingers splayed open, defeated. “You're like impenetrable. Most gay guys love it when I flirt with them.”

“Oh, Danny . . .” Hayley said, shaking her head, embarrassed.

“I'm going to keep an eye on you, Danny,” Sergio said. “So don't try anything stupid.”

Danny nodded, annoyed that Sergio was immune to his charms.

“If I had the manpower, I'd keep a man posted at your uncle's shack to make doubly sure you don't try to go anywhere again.”

Danny smiled. “There's no need to have an officer tail me. It's a complete waste of resources. I'm not a flight risk.”

“Shut up, Danny,” Hayley said.

Danny retreated like a chastised boy and stared at his shoes.

“Maybe you could help me out, Hayley,” Sergio said.

“Me? How?”

“Maybe Danny could stay with you. That way you could keep an eye on him.”

Danny perked up again. “That is an excellent idea, Chief !”

“No! Absolutely not! That's a terrible idea!”

Danny grabbed Hayley's hands and pulled them toward his chest, resting her fingers upon his heart. “Babe, please. I can't stay at that shack. What if the killer is lurking around Tremont and attacks me in that remote cabin in the woods where I am all alone and defenseless?”

“That's the biggest bunch of bull pucky you've ever come up with, Danny!” Hayley yelled, not at all willing to go along with this cockamamy plan.

“Hayley's right! It's the worst idea I've ever heard!” Bruce blurted out.

At least Bruce was in her corner.

But it made her wonder why.

“Please, Hayley, I have nowhere else to go . . .” Danny begged with his big puppy-dog eyes.

“Stop being so melodramatic! You're not staying with me!” Hayley said before turning to Sergio. “Why can't he stay with you and Randy?”

This caught Sergio off guard.

His mind raced to come up with a valid excuse.

But he couldn't and he was starting to panic.

Danny finally came to his rescue.

“I can't sleep in a strange house. Not after the trauma I've just been through. Losing a close relative under such violent and emotionally wrenching circumstances. I need familiarity. I need people around me that I love and trust. I need my kids.”

The kids.

That was his secret weapon.

Hayley had always felt guilty after the divorce keeping the kids in Maine with her while Danny moved to Iowa.

He may have been a lousy husband but he was a loving and devoted father.

And he actually resembled a kind and thoughtful and caring human being whenever he was around Gemma and Dustin.

And he knew in his gut that would get to Hayley.

She was wavering.

And she hated herself for it.

“Please,” Danny said in a quiet and reasonable tone. “It's just for a few days until they clear me. I'll be on my best behavior.”

He knew she was going to cave.

But he waited patiently for her to say it out loud.

“Okay,” Hayley whispered.

Danny had to refrain from whooping and hollering.

Hayley wagged a finger at him. “You sleep on the couch.”

“Of course. This is going to be great. Just like old times.”

He gave her a quick peck on the cheek.

“Yes. Old times,” Hayley said, “when we'd have a big fight and I'd make you sleep on the couch.”

Danny was euphoric.

Sergio was relieved.

Bruce was apoplectic but struggled to conceal it.

And Hayley just had a huge sense of dread.