Fudgy Fatality: A Pumpkin Hollow Mystery, book 10 by Kathleen Suzette (good books for high schoolers .txt) 📗

He glanced over his shoulder, but didn’t invite me in. Instead, he walked out onto the porch and closed the door behind himself and went to lean on the porch railing. “I guess you can talk to me for a minute. What do you want?”

I sighed and walked over to one of the rocking chairs and sat down uninvited. “What’s going on John? What have you been up to since you got back to Pumpkin Hollow?”

He slowly walked over to the other rocking chair and sat down. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. I’ve been job hunting and not doing much more than that. What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about Olivia Summers.”

He narrowed his eyes at me. “Olivia Summers? What about her? Has Ethan found her killer?”

“Rumor has it that you were seen with her at the Ghostly Grins Café the morning she died. Is it true?”

He stared at me and then began slowly rocking back and forth. He looked out across the front yard for a moment. “Why? What difference does it make if I was with her the morning she died?”

I was stunned by this. Was he really with her? And if so, why didn’t he admit that to Ethan, and why did Christy say he wasn’t with her?

“So you were with her, then? Right before she died? Did she seem like she was worried about anything?”

He turned back to me, a grin on his face now. “Who said I was with her? I didn’t say that. Why are you so interested in all of this? You seem to have gotten super nosy since I moved away from Pumpkin Hollow. I don’t recall you being this nosy before.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “I’ll tend to my nosiness thank you very much. I’m asking you a question. Were you with her right before she died? And if so, what happened? Did she mention anything she was concerned about?” I left out the part about wondering whether he was the one who had killed her. I saw his parents’ cars in the driveway, so I thought I was relatively safe here, but I suddenly wondered if I was in the presence of a killer.

He turned back to me. “We might have had breakfast. But she never mentioned feeling like her life was in danger. I wonder if murder victims ever have a premonition that they’re about to die? I suppose some people do, but not many, otherwise there wouldn’t be nearly as many murders as there are in the world.”

I stared at him, considering whether he was really a maniacal killer or just being a jerk. “The problem is that too many people don’t go with their gut reaction when they sense something bad is about to happen. Did you kill Olivia, John?”

He snorted and shook his head. “Of course I didn’t kill her. Why would I do that? Do you really think I’m capable of murder?”

I shrugged. “I’ve been surprised before. What happened the morning you had breakfast with her?”

“We just happened to run into one another at the café and we sat down together. Nothing more, nothing less.”

“And she didn’t hint that she was worried about anything?”

“She complained about her job. She was going to stop in that morning and catch up on some work that she didn’t get done on Friday and she was down about having to spend her Saturday morning doing that.”

“I guess it would be a bummer since it was the opening day of the Halloween season and the parade was about to start,” I said thoughtfully.

He nodded. “She was also angry about some of her coworkers. She said she was having to do the lion’s share of the work around there and that was why she had to come in on a Saturday. She hoped I could get a job there so I could help her out.”

I turned to look at him. “Did she say which coworkers?”

He nodded. “Pretty much all of them. She said she hated her job and wished she had never taken it. She especially complained about Carla Steele, though. Apparently the two didn’t get along.”

“Did it sound like anything serious?” I’d heard this before, and I wondered if she had gotten specific about the problems.

He shrugged. “What’s serious? I’ve had plenty of coworkers that I couldn’t get along with over the years. It’s something we all have to deal with at some point in our lives. But I worked with both Olivia and Carla when I worked there. Honestly, Olivia was a bit of a prima donna and Carla was moody. I told her she should look for something else and she said she was.”

“Was it a cut-throat company?” I asked.

He shrugged. “I think any company that deals with sales can be, but I don’t think it was more cut-throat than any other company. Of course, they’ve got a new manager now, so maybe he’s made things worse since I left.”

What he was saying made sense. Maybe Olivia was just used to getting her way and a new boss made things harder for her. “What time did she leave the café?”

He looked at me and narrowed his eyes at me. “You sure are nosy. Does Ethan know how nosy you are? Has he caught on to that?”

I rolled my eyes. “Believe me, Ethan knows all he needs to know about me. What time did she leave?”

He thought about it a moment. “I guess around nine o’clock. Maybe a few minutes before. I wasn’t looking at my cell phone and taking note of the time. I didn’t realize I was going to be grilled about it.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “Can you remember anything else she said that might be important?”

He shrugged. “I really can’t remember much about the conversation