All Saint’s day? More like All Hell Breaks Loose Day…
“Of course I heard something weird last night,” Mrs. Mollycoddle said. “There were howls and screams and shrieks and all sorts of unidentifiable noises! Though the kids did seem to love it. I’m thinking maybe I should do something fun next year. Not a gory haunted house, of course, I don’t go in for such things, but something… I don’t know.”
“Unicorns puking rainbows and sparkly fairies, perhaps?” Sergeant Riggs muttered under his breath. He wasn’t normally quite so cranky, but Mrs. Mollycoddle’s persistent good cheer, despite being told the gruesome display of blood and guts last night might have actually been real, was wearing on him. His partner heard the grumbling and stepped forward to take control of the interview.
“Thank you, Mrs. Mollycoddle, we’ll be in touch if there’s anything else we need to know.” Detective Campbell gave her a nod and started to walk off, but she stopped him with a hand on his arm.
“Oh, but Detective, I haven’t told you the most interesting part yet!” She batted her eyelashes at him and tried to look coy, which was a slightly disturbing image on a mid-fifties woman in a worn bathrobe with curlers sticking haphazardly out of a nest of mouse-brown hair. This might have been the most attention she’d gotten in years, and she wasn’t going to let her time in the limelight end quite so soon.
“And what would that be, Mrs. Mollycoddle?” Detective Campbell tried to keep the annoyance out of his voice, but he wouldn’t be able to put up with her shrill whining much longer. It’d already been a hard week, and while he hadn’t expected Halloween weekend to go smoothly, he’d expected something less than the… what was the latest count? Twelve – no, thirteen – homicides that had cropped up on this one property.
“I don’t think it was Mr. Pearson that was handing out the candy last night,” she said.
She leaned back on her heels, looking like she’d just bestowed the wisdom of the ancients upon an unsuspecting peasant. Her sly smile caused a tick to start up in the corner of his left eye, but he kept his voice neutral and he asked, “And why is that?”
“Well, I watched Mr. Pearson put up most of those decorations, you know. Not because I was spying or didn’t have anything better to do, mind, but we do have a neighborhood watch here and it is our duty to keep an eye out, and I was interested in what he was doing, so I did end up, as you might say, keeping a close eye on him. Just because I was interested in what he was doing, mind you, not that I thought Mr. Pearson was up to anything. He’s lived here nigh on thirty years, never caused anyone a bit of trouble, you know. Sweet man, really, always willing to help. Even though he did go a little overboard on trying to scare the kids. But it was harmless, it was, and he was a wizard with the special effects. Did he – oh, look at me, talking about him in the past tense! – does he work for a special effects company? I could see him as a prop builder.”
She paused to take a breath, and Detective Campbell snuck a glance at Sergeant Riggs, whose eyes had taken on a glassy, unfocused sheen as his brain tried to process the torrent of information spilling out of Mrs. Mollycoddle. He had a sneaking suspicion his own expression was quite similar.
“Mrs. Mollycoddle,” he said firmly, before she went off on another tangent. “Why is it you think it was someone other than Mr. Pearson handing out the candy last night?”
“He was too short,” she said.
“I’m sorry, what?” Sergeant Riggs broke in.
“The man – oh, I guess I really should say person, because who could tell under that costume – the person handing out candy last night was too short to be Mr. Pearson, and before you ask, no, there’s no way he, that is, Mr. Pearson, could just have been stooped over. Not that far, not without looking stooped over, which this figure didn’t. Even through all tattered rags hanging off the costume I would have been able to tell that. And we’re not talking a little too short, no, I’d hazard a guess that it was a good ten inch difference.” She paused, and looked at them with surprisingly shrewd eyes. “Now you’re wondering how I could possibly have noticed such a thing, and be so sure, eh? You doubt me. Well, let me show you how I know.”
She took off across the lawn, marching right through the line of police officers that were keeping the scene secure. They made a move to stop her, but at Detective Campbell’s nod, they let her through. She stopped at a swag of cheesecloth that hung down from the porch overhang.
“See this? I watched him put it up, and I’m sure it hasn’t changed. The bottom edge lines up perfectly with the knob on the porch light, there.” She pointed at the fixture. “It was there when he put it up, I noticed. I, personally, would have lined it up with the top of the fixture, but then… anyway, that’s neither here nor there, point is, when I watched him put it up, he had to duck to get under it. Mr. Pearson was – there I go again! – is a tall man. Tall and thin. The person who was handing out candy last night didn’t have to duck at all to get under this swag. In fact, there was quite a bit of clearance between the top of their head and the bottom of it. I’d say six inches, at least. And Mr. Pearson would’ve been hit in the nose by it, probably, so… maybe as much as a twelve inch height difference? And that’s what put me in the mind that it might have been a woman, because Mr. Pearson was – is – tall, yes, but the person there last night was awfully short for a guy. Not that guys can’t be short, but odds are someone that height is a woman. Or a teenager. Oh, I’d never thought of that. I don’t think Mr. Pearson had kids, but maybe a nephew or a niece! Not that I know if he had siblings, either. He never really said much about family at all…”
She finally trailed off and Detective Campbell was quick to break in. “Thank you very much, Mrs. Mollycoddle, you’ve been very helpful! If you’ll just go with Officer Blake, here, she’ll take your statement and have you sign in. And let us know if you remember anything else of significance.” He handed her a card, regretting it the moment he did so. At least it only had his office number on it, not his cell phone, but he had a feeling there would be a lot of messages from the inquisitive Mrs. Mollycoddle.
“Well, she was a handful, but that was a good catch,” Sergeant Riggs said as they headed for the car. “If it wasn’t him handing out the candy, it raises a few more questions.”
“As if we needed more questions. We have all the questions we can handle, and then some. This whole case is… perplexing. I think the first thing we have to find out is when the props were replaced with the real bodies. I can’t imagine they were real bodies from the start, the decomposition would have attracted too many flies, and someone would have been suspicious of the smell. My guess is the bodies were swapped last night, after the trick-or-treaters had come and gone.”
“Because how better to cover up the very real screams of someone being tortured and killed than by using them as a soundtrack to a haunted house?”
Detective Campbell nodded, and they climbed into the car. He sat there for a moment before starting it, lost in thought. “The thing that bothers me most…” He broke off and shook his head.
“What?” Sergeant Riggs flipped open his notebook and started scribbling, but it was obvious he was still paying attention to his partner. “What bothers you most?”
“Mrs. Mollycoddle. There’s something about her that seems wrong. Off. She comes across as a flighty old dingbat, but she’s very observant and very specific. She’s a lot smarter than she lets on. It’s probably nothing, I just…”
“We’ll run a background check on her, just to make sure. Just routine, as she is a witness providing possibly valuable information. We can’t overlook the possibility that she’s trying to intentionally mislead us. Maybe she and Mr. Pearson had a fling, and she’s covering for him. Maybe she’s hiding him out in her basement as we speak!”
They both shuddered at the thought of being held by Mrs. Mollycoddle, both figuratively and physically.
“Thanks, and you’re right, even without any gut feeling of mine, we should check her out. If her story is true, and Mr. Pearson wasn’t there last night… or rather, wasn’t handing out candy last night, he might be one of the victims. Doc should know about that possibility, might help her narrow down the possible victims. Once she even figures out how many victims we’re talking about.”
Detective Campbell’s cell phone rang, and he snapped it open. “Yes? Uh-huh. What? Really? Okay, okay, we’ll be there in a few minutes, on our way. Thanks.” He sat back and closed his eyes, his mind racing.
“So?” Sergeant Riggs prodded when the detective remained silent for longer than usual. He didn’t want to interrupt his train of thought, but the suspense was wearing on him.
“You’re not going to believe it,” Detective Campbell said slowly. “Apparently, the hospital morgue is missing quite a few bodies that were set to be autopsied today. Fourteen, to be exact. They disappeared some time last night.”
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