Gourd to Death. Kirsten Weiss
we didn’t violate any fire codes.
“Takako!” I wiped my hands on my apron and searched the crowd for Gordon. He wasn’t there. “It’s nice to see you again. Do you want to come into the kitchen?”
She drew her hands from the pockets of her San Nicholas Pumpkin Festival jacket and hugged me. “I can? I’m allowed?”
“As long as you don’t mind wearing a hairnet. And don’t mind the robot pumpkin.”
Takako stepped away and bumped into a hipster with a beard a lumberjack would have envied. “I had to wear a net in the fish cannery, and I think your pumpkin is escaping.”
The pumpkin motored through the crowd, eliciting shrieks, laughs, and jumps.
I tugged down my apron. “Charlene, control that thing.”
Obediently, the pumpkin pivoted. It motored under the Dutch door and stopped beneath Charlene’s chair, behind the register.
Charlene leaned from her seat. “You worked in a fish cannery, Takako?”
“In Alaska,” she said. “But only for one summer.”
“So did I.” Charlene retrieved Robo-squash and set it on the counter. “I can’t stand salmon anymore.”
“Neither can I!”
“Or sea monsters,” Charlene said. “Damned Tizheruks. One snatched Sam right off the dock in Ekuk.”
Takako’s brow crinkled. “Tiz . . . ?”
“Why don’t you come on back?” I nodded toward the gently swinging door. “We can talk while I plate pies.”
Takako followed me into the kitchen.
I grabbed a hairnet from a box atop the old-fashioned pie safe and handed it to her.
Takako snapped the net over her wavy black hair.
“This is my assistant,” I said, “Abril. Abril, this is Doran’s mom, Takako.”
Abril smiled shyly and cut slices of apple-cranberry pie. “Hello.”
While Takako and Abril got acquainted, I grabbed a ticket from the wheel in the window.
The pumpkin chiffon was popular. I plated another slice and slid it through the window.
Takako leaned against a metal counter. “Your business is booming, Val. Your mother would be proud.”
An ache pinched my heart. “I’m sorry she never got a chance to see Pie Town.” We’d plotted and planned it out before she’d died. Her insurance money had even gone into the start-up. A part of her was here, in spirit.
Charlene, followed by her rolling pumpkin, ambled into the kitchen. “Still working, I see.” She fiddled with a black control box. The pumpkin ground to a halt beside the haint-blue pie safe.
I slid a slice of harvest pie onto a plate and set it in the window. “What else would I be doing today?”
“You haven’t taken a break all day.” Charlene’s forehead scrunched. She maneuvered the robot arm upward.
Abril shot Charlene an indecipherable look.
“I don’t mind skipping breaks during the pumpkin festival,” I said. “I had a mini turkey pot pie for lunch.”
“Eating on your feet while you work isn’t a break,” Takako scolded.
“That’s what I said,” Charlene said. Her robot knocked the box of hairnets to the floor. Moving creakily, she retrieved the box. “Petronella, Abril, and the coppers have got it handled. I’m old. I need a break. So do you.”
Abril nodded. “Have your lunch break, Val. Get out and enjoy the festival.”
“But I don’t—”
“It’s settled.” Charlene pushed me toward the alley door.
Giving up, I stripped off gloves, hairnet, and apron. “Fine,” I said, “but only if we go to the haunted house.” I loved haunted houses, and it would have made me sick to miss this one. Plus, Dr. Levant’s husband, Elon, had worked there. I doubted he’d be there the day after his wife’s murder. But maybe one of his colleagues could tell us where he’d been the morning his wife had been killed.
“There’s a haunted house?” Takako asked.
“In the old jail,” Charlene said. “The church does it up every year for charity.”
The robot bumped after her.
“You can’t bring that to the haunted house,” I said.
“Why not?” Charlene asked. “I can afford the ticket. And I need to test it under adverse conditions.”
“You know,” Takako said, “I’ve never been inside a haunted house. Not a fake one I mean.”
“You’ve been in a real haunted house?” Charlene asked.
“That’s what the locals claimed,” my stepmother said.
I grabbed my orange-and-black hoodie from a hook on the door and followed them outside. The foggy air was a pleasant slap to the face. I inhaled deeply, scenting salt from the nearby Pacific.
Charlene and Takako ambled down the alley, the pumpkin racer zipping ahead.
Since this was more harvest festival than spooktacular, the decorations were mostly pumpkins, pumpkins, and more pumpkins. Pumpkins stacked beside doorsteps. Pumpkins on hay bales. Minipumpkins in shop windows. At least there was no question of mismatched colors.
Off Main Street, the town had set up wooden photo cutouts designed from vintage Halloween postcards. Grinning tourists stuck their heads through the holes, transforming into old-fashioned witches and devils for the camera. A tractor towed a wagon full of hay bales and tourists down one street.
We passed a bouncy castle full of shrieking children. Teens putted in a minigolf graveyard. Toddlers hugged goats in a petting zoo. The goats mehhed, weary expressions in their big brown eyes.
Private homes had gotten into the spirit too. Pumpkins lined porch railings, and witches on broomsticks crashed into trees.
We stood in line for tickets at the old jail, a square, concrete building. Above its green doors a placard read: JAIL, BUILT 1911. The haunted house was actually in the more sizable red barn at the rear.
I looked at the clock on my phone.
“Stop checking the time and enjoy the moment.” Charlene maneuvered the pumpkin around a stroller. The toddler hung over its side, watching the pumpkin fly past. “It’ll be over all too soon.”
I blew out my breath. Easy for her to say. I was responsible for Pie Town and payrolls.
“How’s Frederick doing?” I asked Charlene, changing the subject.
“Frederick?” Takako asked. “Have you got a gentleman friend?”
“My cat,” Charlene said. “And he’s hiding at home. He hates pumpkin.” She smiled. “But I might have a gentleman friend.”
Was she getting serious with Ewan? The two were perfect for each other. He even owned a fake ghost town. I opened my mouth to ask, and the racer made a sharp turn beneath my feet. I stumbled, scowling.
“Whoops,” she said. “Sorry.”
The line moved quickly, and soon I was handing over cash for tickets for the three of us. I had to buy a child’s ticket for the pumpkin.
A tall, middle-aged man with thinning brown hair stepped from the jail. He smiled wearily at the ticket seller. “I’ll take over now, Gladys.”
“Elon?” Charlene grasped his hand. “What are you doing here today? I was sorry to hear about your wife. What a terrible loss.”
“Thank