Town in a Pumpkin Bash (11 page)

Pruitt Manor occupied a prime piece of property along the Coastal Loop, sitting for
more than a hundred years on a rocky, pine tree–covered promontory that jutted out
into the sea, with unhindered views of the ocean to the south and east. Its only neighbor
on that stretch of coastline was the historic Kimball Light which sat at some distance
from the main building on a ledge of land donated by the Pruitts in the early years
of the previous century. It was now in private hands.

Hobbins, the butler, must have heard her coming as she rolled to a stop in the cobblestoned
courtyard that fronted the English Tudor–style manor, for he opened the stately front
door as she came up the flagstone walkway. The stocky, pug-faced butler, smartly dressed
in a starched white shirt, black tie, and dark suit, his salt-and-pepper hair trimmed
down into a tight crew cut, gave her a gracious nod.

“Ms. Holliday, good afternoon,” he said in greeting, with not even a trace of a smile
on his fleshy lips.

“Hello, Hobbins,” Candy said politely. “It’s good to see you again. How’s the Bentley?”

“Finely tuned and running like a charm,” he assured her, allowing the hint of an eye
twinkle to break through his emotionless expression.

It was a small moment that passed between the two of them, a remembrance of an episode
that had occurred a couple of years earlier, when Candy had been snooping around the
garage at Pruitt Manor, searching for a murder weapon. When Hobbins had chanced upon
her, practically catching her red-handed, she’d quickly invented a story about her
interest in the Bentley. Apparently buying the ruse, Hobbins had told her more than
she’d ever needed or wanted to know about the car.

She’d been out here to Pruitt Manor only once since then, for tea with Mrs. Pruitt
a few months later. Maggie had come along for that visit, and they’d had a wonderful
time.

Now here she was again, on the trail of another mystery that somehow seemed to lead
to the front door of Pruitt Manor.

The manor’s foyer, into which she stepped, looked just as Candy remembered it. The
Queen Anne–style chairs were in their proper places, and the ornate wood paneling
had been freshly polished until it gleamed. The men and women depicted in the austere
portraits hanging on the walls—obviously Pruitts of generations past—still stared
down their patrician noses at her, but now she noticed some family resemblances to
Tristan, which made them a little less intimidating.

“Tristan and Madame await you in the conservatory,” Hobbins said, returning to his
formal demeanor. “If you’ll follow me.” The butler turned on his heel and started
off, leading the way through the house.

Tristan and Helen Ross Pruitt were waiting for her in a magnificent, glassed-in room
at the back of the manor, overlooking the rear lawn and the sea beyond.

As she entered the conservatory, Tristan rose and came to greet her, holding out his
hand. He had changed his clothes, and now was wearing gray slacks and a dark shirt.
They shook hands warmly.

“Candy, thanks again for accepting my invitation,” he said, unable to hold back a
grin. “You’ve met my aunt, right?”

Candy smiled at the thin, elderly woman who sat straight-backed in a wicker armchair.
Mrs. Pruitt looked much the same as Candy remembered her. She was dressed in shades
of gray and lavender today, her long skirt and jacket well tailored to fit her bony
frame, and accented by a single strand of pearls and small silver earrings. Her carefully
coiffed bluish gray hair was pulled back from her high forehead and pinned elegantly
behind her head, which caused the eye to focus on her pale, creamy skin, thin rose-painted
lips, and long, Romanesque Pruitt nose. Her wide-set eyes were intelligent and ever
watchful.

Typically around town, Mrs. Pruitt put on a stern demeanor, but today she seemed distracted,
even a little flustered, though she appeared to gather herself as Candy stepped forward
to shake her hand, tucking away any concerns she had.

“Hello again, Candy,” the elderly woman said softly but pleasantly, managing a subdued
smile. “How nice to see you.”

“It’s wonderful to see you again too. I hope I’m not causing you any inconvenience
by showing up on such short notice.”

“Of course not,” Mrs. Pruitt told her. “You’re Tristan’s guest, so of course you’re
welcome. And Cook has held lunch for us. I believe everything’s ready.” She pointed
to a small white garden table set up near the conservatory’s rear windows, and draped
with a cream-colored linen tablecloth.

Lunch was promptly served once they were seated, and started with fresh-baked rolls
and a crisp garden salad with
small grapes, sunflower seeds, thin slices of cucumber, and green onions, topped with
feta cheese and balsamic vinegar. That was followed by broiled lamb chops with a delectable
rosemary-mint sauce, diminutive roasted potatoes, and asparagus tips in a light cheese
sauce.

Their conversation was occupied by small talk as they ate, with Tristan asking about
the farm and Candy’s job at the newspaper, while Mrs. Pruitt was curious about Maggie’s
activities. “Your friend has such a delightful sense of humor,” Mrs. Pruitt observed,
and she cast a sharp glance at Tristan. “We should have thought to invite her to join
us today as well.”

Tristan returned his aunt’s rebuke with a casual smile, unprovoked by her comment,
but Candy came to his rescue nevertheless. “Maggie has a little homework to do for
Chief Durr,” she said simply.

“Oh, yes.” Mrs. Pruitt’s lips drew into a tight line. “Tristan told me about the unfortunate
incident that occurred today out in the field where you’ve been working.” There was
a hint of disdain in her words, as if she had no use for the type of manual labor
required for farmwork. But she let any further comments go unspoken.

Candy, however, used the shift in conversation to pursue her true reason for agreeing
to lunch at Pruitt Manor. She turned to Tristan. “This morning, when we were out at
the pumpkin patch, you mentioned something about Sapphire Vine’s house—the
haunted house
, you called it. You said you wanted to ask me some questions about it.”

Her comments resulted in a sudden silence around the table. Candy peered at him, raising
an eyebrow.

He responded by taking up his cloth napkin, which he used to dab at the corners of
his mouth. His gaze shifted toward his aunt before flicking back to Candy. “Well,
yes,” he said finally. “I suppose we should talk about that.”

But before he could proceed, Mrs. Pruitt leaned forward and placed her thin hand on
her nephew’s wrist. “Tristan,
where are your manners? It’s not polite to talk about business at the dining table,”
she told him in a gently admonishing tone. “I agree this is a conversation we need
to have. But please, we must be civilized. Let’s finish the delicious dessert Cook
has made for us before we reveal our most intimate family secrets.”

So they had dessert—fresh-baked pumpkin pie topped with a dollop of homemade whipped
cream—before they adjoined to the library with their coffee and tea to hold their
conversation about “intimate family secrets,” as Mrs. Pruitt had called them.

The library was cozy and comfortable, a middle room tucked between two larger ones
on the north side of the house. A tall, narrow window overlooked the shedding trees
in the side yard and let in some light. The library, Candy saw as she scanned it,
was well stocked with newer books as well as a number of volumes that looked like
they dated back a hundred years or more. And Candy imagined some of them did. Here,
too, were a few smaller portraits hanging in nooks and alcoves, presumably of more
Pruitt ancestors. But she also recognized some familiar faces in smaller black-and-white
photographs that hung around the room or sat on shelves and side tables.

Tristan helped her identify some of them. They’d settled
into wingback chairs, and he pointed around the room casually, as if he’d identified
these images for hundreds of people before her. “That’s Eleanor Roosevelt with my
grandfather,” he told Candy, “and over there is Henry Ford with a great-great uncle.”

“And that one?” Candy asked, pointing at a framed photo that sat in a prominent spot
on a nearby shelf.

Mrs. Pruitt answered. “That’s my father, Cornelius Roberts Pruitt, with Andrew Carnegie.
It was taken in the early nineteen hundreds in New York. My father was still a teenager
then, and Carnegie was in his late seventies.”

Candy was impressed. “Your family has quite a fascinating history,” she said, her
gaze still wandering around the room, studying the old books, photographs, and furniture.

“We do,” Tristan admitted, “and that’s one of the reasons I invited you out here today.
You see, part of our family history is missing.”

“Oh, really?” As she spoke, Candy noticed out of the corner of her eye that Mrs. Pruitt
shifted uncomfortably at the change in conversation.

Tristan appeared to notice also, but he cleared his throat and pressed on, his voice
lowering. “We—Aunt Helen and I, as well as the rest of the family—believe there’s
been a theft, you see, and we thought you might be able to help us figure out what’s
happened.”

“A theft?” Candy’s gaze swept the room again, her curiosity piqued. “What was stolen?”

In response, Tristan rose and walked to a shelf lined with older books that had worn
leather covers. Some of the old books were greatly aged and spotted, as if they’d
been left outside for weeks, while others were more elegant and gently used, with
faded gold leaf on the edges. They were of various shapes, sizes, and thicknesses,
and took up the better part of two shelves.

Candy’s gaze focused in on several of the leather-bound books, looking for the titles
on their spines, but she could
see none. As her gaze swept along the shelves, she noticed an open spot, as if one
of the books had been removed but never returned.

Tristan indicated the spot. “It’s a journal. A diary, actually, written by my grandmother,
Abigail.”

“Abigail?” Candy’s gaze was locked on the spot.

“My mother,” Mrs. Pruitt clarified, “married to Cornelius.”

“Oh!” Candy finally made the connection. She’d heard stories about Cornelius Roberts
Pruitt, and knew some of his history, but she’d been only vaguely aware of his wife’s
name.

It was all starting to make sense.

Abigail Pruitt.

Mrs. A.P.,
she thought, remembering the handwritten inscription on the library index card she’d
found in Sapphire’s files.

Helen Ross Pruitt continued, her gaze fixed firmly on Candy. “As Tristan said, we
believe someone has stolen one of my mother’s diaries.”

Candy scrunched up her face. “Why would someone do that?”

“That’s exactly what we’d like to find out,” Tristan emphasized, returning to his
seat and dropping into it.

“My mother had her secrets, that is certain,” said Mrs. Pruitt, folding her hands
into her lap and straightening herself in her chair. “We’ve speculated that her diary
was stolen because of something she might have written in it, but we haven’t been
able to determine what that could be. You see, Mother was a prolific diarist. She
felt someone needed to chronicle the family’s history here in New England, and she
took that task upon herself. She was actually Father’s second wife. The first died
giving birth. She was quite a frail creature, from accounts I’ve read. The child died
a few days later. My father was obviously distraught at the loss of both his wife
and first child, and remained unmarried for many
years until he met my mother. He was nearly twenty years older than her, so he would
have been in his late thirties then, though Mother was barely out of her teens when
they met. He’d spent the war years—this was World War I—mostly in Boston, managing
the family’s shipping and timber businesses, and that’s where he met my mother in
the years after the war.”

Mrs. Pruitt paused to take a sip of tea. Candy and Tristan waited in silence until
she carefully returned the teacup to its saucer and continued. “Mother was from a
fairly well-off family, and she liked to have things a certain way around the house,
as she’d been taught. When Father first brought her here to Pruitt Manor, she was
horrified, for the place had fallen into disrepair. It had been practically abandoned
by the family for nearly a decade at that point, during the war years. It was built
in the 1880s—around the same time my grandfather, Horace Roberts Pruitt, built the
Pruitt Opera House and the Pruitt Public Library. The estate’s yards and gardens were
a disgrace when my mother arrived, the furniture was dusty and out of date, and the
staff was without direction. With Horace’s blessing and Father’s money, Abigail immediately
set out to make things right. She began a complete renovation and restoration project.”

Mrs. Pruitt pointed toward the back of the house, where they’d had lunch earlier.
“The conservatory was one of her additions, and the Garden Room at the opposite end
of the building, as well as the Lavender Wing, which was named and decorated by Mother
herself. That became the family wing, with a nursery and our bedrooms when we were
young. As you may have noticed, lavender remains one of my favorite colors to this
day.”