The Pumpkin Muffin Murder (10 page)

“I think so, although all that sort of thing is a little beyond me. The police can’t do anything, though, until you file a missing persons report, and you can’t do that when Logan hasn’t even been gone twenty-four hours yet. I think someone has to be missing for at least forty-eight hours before the police can get involved.”

“That’s crazy!” Dana said. “He’s missing now.”

Phyllis made her voice as sympathetic as possible as she said, “That’s true, but you have to look at it the same way the police would. The first thing they’d ask you is if you and Logan quarreled recently. When you told them about your argument with him last night, they’d naturally assume that he didn’t come home because of that.”

“Well, what about today?” Dana demanded. “Why isn’t he here at the festival?”

Phyllis hesitated. She didn’t want to tell Dana what the police would say to that. Their theory would be that Logan was either shacked up with a girlfriend or had gotten drunk and was sleeping it off . . . or both.

Always the practical one, Carolyn stepped in just then and said, “Why are we standing here talking when we could be walking around looking for him? Logan could be here, Dana, and you just haven’t spotted him yet. Why, there are a lot of people in the park already. You can’t just say he’s not here.”

Dana thought about it for a second and then nodded. “I suppose you’re right.”

Carolyn took hold of her arm. “Phyllis and I will come with you. We’ll find him if he’s here to be found.”

“That’s just it. I’m afraid he isn’t.”

“Well, we won’t know until we look.”

They spent the next twenty minutes doing that, making their way through the crowd and looking everywhere they could think of for Logan Powell. They didn’t see any sign of him, although they did run into Sam and Bobby twice, and Eve once. Phyllis was glad to see that Bobby seemed to be having a great time. He had a turkey painted on one cheek and a pumpkin on the other. He pointed at the turkey and said, “Gobble, gobble, Gran’mama!”

“Gobble, gobble to you, too,” Phyllis said as she paused for a second.

“Everything all right?” Sam asked.

“Of course,” she said, but the look in her eyes made it quite clear that she didn’t know if that was the case or not.

Sam must have picked up on that, because he asked, “Anything I can do?”

“You’re doing it,” Phyllis told him with a little nod toward Bobby. Sam nodded in understanding and put a protective hand on the little boy’s shoulder.

“Come on, Bobby. Let’s see what other mischief we can get into.”

Phyllis caught up with Carolyn and Dana. “Your son is a police officer, isn’t he, Phyllis?” Dana asked. “Do you think he could do something to get around that forty-eight-hours business?”

“He’s a deputy sheriff, not a member of the Weatherford police,” Phyllis explained. “Anyway, he’s out of town right now and won’t be back until after Thanksgiving.”

“But maybe you know someone there . . . ?”

“I’m sorry,” Phyllis said, and meant it. “They wouldn’t listen to me any more than they would to you.”

Carolyn checked her watch. “I’m sorry, too, Dana, but I have to get back to the cooking contest. The judging is about to start.”

“I didn’t mean to take the two of you away from the festival. I’m just at my wit’s end.”

“I know. But you have to remember, Logan’s a grown man, and he can take care of himself. I’m sure he’ll either show up here at the festival later on, or he’ll be at your house when you go home.”

“I hope so,” Dana said. She made a visible effort to brighten her attitude. “Oh, well, maybe I’ll go see how the contest turns out. I haven’t had anything to eat yet this morning, so maybe I can sample the goodies after the winners have been announced.”

“That’s the plan,” Phyllis told her, smiling.

They returned to the cabin. The table at the front of the dogtrot was crowded with contest entries now, and a lot of people were standing around to watch the judging and then hear the results. Many of them were probably contestants, Phyllis thought, but there were plenty of hungry festival-goers, too. Dana joined them, but she still looked worried.

As Carolyn went into the dogtrot, she frowned at the bale of hay and the scarecrow. “That shouldn’t be back there,” she said. “No one can really see it that well. I don’t know who put that scarecrow right there, but it’s been bothering me all morning.”

“I suppose we could move it,” Phyllis said.

“Good idea. There’s still a few minutes before the judging starts. You grab the scarecrow, and I’ll drag the bale of hay out into the open where it’s more visible.”

They went around the table and walked across the dogtrot. Phyllis looked for the stake that was supposed to hold up the scarecrow, but she didn’t see one at the back of the figure’s overalls. The way it was propped against the cabin wall supported it enough for it to stay upright, she supposed. She reached for the scarecrow’s shoulders, then suddenly drew back as her hands closed over the flannel shirt.

“What’s the matter?” Carolyn asked.

“That scarecrow doesn’t . . . feel right,” Phyllis said.

“What do you mean, it doesn’t feel right?”

“It’s too heavy. Too solid. Like it’s stuffed with something besides paper and dried weeds.”

“That’s impossible,” Carolyn said. “Let me get it.”

She stepped past Phyllis, grabbed the scarecrow under the arms, and started to haul it upright. Then she gave a startled yelp, let go of the scarecrow, and stepped back so fast she almost lost her balance. The scarecrow dropped onto the hay bale, tilted to one side, and toppled to the cement floor of the dogtrot, landing with a solid thud.

“Phyllis, that . . . that’s not right!” Carolyn said.

Phyllis swallowed hard. “I know.” The scarecrow’s straw hat had fallen off when it landed, and the burlap bag that was supposed to form its head had pulled away from the shirt, revealing a narrow strip of what looked like human flesh. “There’s someone in that costume.”

“Oh, my God!” Carolyn leaned over, and before Phyllis could stop her, she took hold of the burlap bag and pulled it off. Then she dropped the sack, stumbled backward, and cried out in shock.

Staring up at them from a twisted, agonized face were the lifeless eyes of Logan Powell.

P
hyllis knew all too well that evidence at a crime scene should never be disturbed. If she’d had time, she would have warned Carolyn to leave the body alone. They had already disturbed it enough.

But it was too late for that. Logan’s corpse was lying there in plain sight, where scores, if not hundreds, of festival-goers passing by could see it, and Carolyn’s startled cry had drawn plenty of attention. Several women screamed, men shouted questions, and Dana Powell suddenly shrieked, “Logan! Oh, my God! Logan!”

She rushed past the judge’s table, ran through the dogtrot, and tried to reach her husband’s side. Phyllis got in her way and grabbed her by both arms.

“Dana, no!” she said. “We have to stay back. . . . Everyone has to stay back until the police get here.”

“That’s my husband!” she cried as she struggled against Phyllis’s grip. “Let me go! Is he alive? Somebody help him!”

Logan was beyond help. Although Phyllis wished it weren’t the case, she had seen enough bodies to know when someone was dead. As she tried to hang on to Dana, she looked over her shoulder at Carolyn and said, “Call the police!”

That wasn’t necessary. Even while Carolyn was trying to get her cell phone out of her purse, a couple of the officers who were on duty at the festival came trotting up, drawn by the sudden commotion. They took one look at Logan’s body garbed in the bizarre scarecrow costume and knew they were going to need help. One of the cops grabbed the walkie-talkie that was clipped to his belt and started trying to raise his superior.

The other officer stood beside the body and started waving everybody back. When Dana cried again, “He’s my husband!” the cop pointed a finger at her and ordered sternly, “Stay right there, ma’am! There’ll be an ambulance here shortly. Are you injured?”

He had to ask the question again before Dana managed to shake her head. Tears streaked her face. She wasn’t trying to pull away from Phyllis anymore. Instead she stood there shaking as Phyllis put an arm around her shoulders and tried to comfort her.

Suddenly, Dana’s knees unhinged, and she would have fallen if Phyllis hadn’t been there to hold her up. Even though Dana was slender, having her turn abruptly into deadweight put a strain on Phyllis’s muscles.

Then Sam was there at her side, saying in his deep voice, “Let me give you a hand.” He got his arms around Dana, who turned and buried her face against his chest as she sobbed. Sam leaned against the cabin wall as he held her and awkwardly patted one big hand on her back.

The cop who had called for help on his walkie-talkie came over to Phyllis and asked, “Do you know who that man is?” He gestured at the corpse.

“His name is Logan Powell,” Phyllis told him. “He’s a member of the chamber of commerce, and he was one of the organizers of this festival.”

“What the heck happened to him? How’d he wind up dressed like a scarecrow?”

“I have no idea,” Phyllis said honestly.

“What’d he die of?”

“You’re asking the wrong person,” Phyllis pointed out.

Now that she thought about it, though, she hadn’t noticed any blood on the clothing that made up the scarecrow costume. She looked at it again, as best she could with Logan lying there on his side, and still couldn’t see any bloodstains on the overalls and flannel shirt. There weren’t any on the burlap bag that had been placed over Logan’s head, either. It still lay there on the ground near the body where Carolyn had dropped it.

Lines of pain and stress were etched into Logan’s face, but Phyllis didn’t see any actual injuries on it. He didn’t appear to have been attacked. In fact, as far as she could see, he looked like a man who had died of natural causes.

Other than the fact that he was dressed like a scarecrow, of course. That was about as
un
natural as you could get.

She looked over at Sam, who was still holding Dana Powell, and asked quietly, “Where’s Bobby?”

“Over yonder with Eve.”

He nodded, and Phyllis looked in the direction he indicated. She saw Eve and Bobby standing in the crowd of curious festival-goers. Eve had a firm grip on one of Bobby’s hands. Phyllis gave her a quick nod of thanks. At least she didn’t have to worry about Bobby while all this commotion was going on. Not his physical well-being, anyway. He looked a little confused and upset, probably because so many of the adults around him felt the same way.

Carolyn came up beside Phyllis and murmured, “This is awful, just awful. Poor Dana.”

“How do you think Logan wound up in that costume?”

“I have no idea,” Carolyn said, echoing what Phyllis had told the police officer a few minutes earlier. “The very idea is just . . . weird.”

That was a good word to describe it, all right, Phyllis thought. And she wondered, not for the first time, why these weird, awful things always seemed to happen while she was around.

The crowd parted, and several more uniformed police officers came through the gap, followed by a stocky man in blue jeans and a Weatherford Kangaroos sweatshirt. Phyllis recognized him as Ralph Whitmire, the chief of police. From the looks of the chief’s clothes, he had been attending the festival, not working at it as part of his duties. That had certainly changed now. He stopped short and looked at Phyllis over Logan Powell’s body.

“Mrs. Newsom,” Chief Whitmire said.

“Hello, Chief.”

Whitmire frowned. “You found the body?”

“Well, as a matter of fact, Mrs. Wilbarger and I did.”

Whitmire looked over at Carolyn, nodded, and said, “Mrs. Wilbarger.”

Carolyn just said, “Hmmph.” She hadn’t forgotten that both she and her daughter had been suspects in a murder several years earlier. Probably she never would.

Whitmire turned to his men and went on, “All right, secure the area. Crime Scene’s already on the way, along with an ambulance.”

“Do we close down the festival, Chief?” one of the officers asked.

Whitmire looked around at the park and at all the people already crowded into it. He sighed and said, “No, just get some crime-scene tape and string it around these trees.” He waved a hand at the oaks surrounding the two cabins. “We’ll keep everybody away from this part of the park as much as we can, but let them go on and enjoy the rest of the festival.”

“What about a canvass?”

“With this many people, and the manpower we have?” Whitmire shook his head. “Impossible. Anyway, we don’t even know for sure that there’s been a crime here.” He glanced at the corpse. “Something weird, for sure, but maybe not a crime.”

One of the officers who was first on the scene pointed at Dana, who wasn’t crying anymore but still stood huddled in Sam’s arms. “That’s the dead guy’s wife, Chief.”