Halloween Party Murder

Leslie Meier, Lee Hollis, Barbara Ross

• Publisher: Kensington Cozies
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN:
  9781496733825
• eBook ISBN:
  9781496733849
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Crime & Mystery Literature
• Index: Literature

Visit small-town Maine in a trio of Halloween cozy mystery tales by New York Times bestselling authors Leslie Meier, Lee Hollis, and Barbara Ross.

HALLOWEEN PARTY MURDER by LESLIE MEIER
Tinker’s Cove newest residents Ty and Heather Moon turn their Victorian home into a haunted house to raise funds for charity. But when Heather overdoses on tainted drugs and Ty finds himself accused of murder, journalist Lucy Stone uncovers some sinister secrets in the Moons’ past linked to a conspiracy in her hometown . . .
 
DEATH OF A HALLOWEEN PARTY MONSTER by LEE HOLLIS
Everyone attending Island Times Food and Cocktail columnist Hayley Powell’s Halloween bash is dressed as their favorite movie monster. But when partygoers stumble upon Boris Candy’s bludgeoned costumed corpse, it falls to Hayley to discover who among her guests wanted to stop the man from clowning around permanently . . .
 
SCARED OFF by BARBARA ROSS
Three teenage girls having a sleepover on Halloween night get spooked when high schoolers crash the house for a party. But no one expected to find a crasher like Mrs. Zelisko, the elderly third floor tenant, dead in the backyard—dressed in a sheet like a ghost. With her niece traumatized, Julia Snowden must unmask the killer behind such a murderous trick . . .
 
“Entertaining . . . These puzzling cases are a seasonal treat for cozy readers.” —Publishers Weekly
 

DEATH OF A HALLOWEEN PARTY MONSTER

Lee Hollis

Chapter One

“Wait, don’t tell me!” Reverend Ted exclaimed, stopping Hayley as she passed by with a plate of hors d’oeuvres. “Prom Night Carrie!”

“Bingo,” Hayley said with a wink. Although pretty much everyone at the party had nailed her costume on the first guess. There were only so many movie-monster characters who would wear a cheap metal tiara and a satin, white prom gown splattered with fake pig’s blood. She had set down the flower bouquet that completed her look earlier so she could serve more food to her guests.

Hayley was excited to be hosting her first-ever private function at her new restaurant.

Hayley’s Kitchen.

She still could not believe it, even with the beautifully stenciled signage outside.

Hayley Powell officially owned her own business.

After she’d opened the doors to her new eatery, just two months ago, in the small coastal tourist town of Bar Harbor, Maine, Hayley’s Kitchen had quickly become the new local hot spot. Although most of the island summer visitors had departed immediately after Labor Day, Hayley had remained open, hoping to serve the town until at least Thanksgiving. And given the unexpected support from the community, she was now considering possibly even staying open until Christmas, almost unheard of in a tiny New England tourist town. But Bar Harbor desperately needed a year-round place for friends and families to enjoy a nice dinner out during the cold, unforgiving winter months, and Hayley was itching to fill that void.

She had decided to celebrate her newfound success by throwing a party. Halloween was her favorite holiday of the year, and so, with the help of her BFFs Liddy and Mona, she’d e-mailed invitations for what she hoped would be her first annual Halloween party at Hayley’s Kitchen, with many more in the years to come.

Once word got out that Hayley was having a soirée at her new restaurant, half the town had clamored for invites. But Hayley had insisted on keeping the guest list down to a manageable thirty attendees, at least for her first time out. But, of course, to no one’s surprise, about a third of those invited asked if they could bring a guest, and Hayley just couldn’t say no, so at last tally, thirty-nine people in a wide variety of colorful Halloween costumes were packed into her restaurant’s main dining room.

“What about me? Can you guess who I am?” Reverend Ted asked eagerly as he struck a pose, arms out.

Hayley smirked.

This was hardly a huge mental challenge.

Reverend Ted was in a tunic and sandals, wearing a gray wig and fake beard, holding a tablet made of Styrofoam with the Ten Commandments printed on the front of it.

“Um, wild guess, Moses?” Hayley shrugged.

The invitation had specifically requested, in the spirit of Halloween, that everyone come dressed as their favorite movie monster. Reverend Ted had obviously missed the memo. Moses was a far cry from the Creature from the Black Lagoon.

Reverend Ted relaxed. “I know, it’s a little on the nose. Local pastor comes as religious figure, but I didn’t have time to go buy a new costume, so I recycled this one from last year. I’m still new to town, so no one has ever seen me wear it before. By the way,” he said, snatching one of the hors d’oeuvres off her silver tray, “these little cheese pumpkins are delicious.”

“Thank you, Ted,” Hayley said, not wanting to be rude, but quickly moving on. She had so much to do. The party had only started a half hour ago, and she was already running low on food. She had spent the past week cooking and baking in the few hours she was not busy running the restaurant. She was closed on Mondays, so that finally gave her a full day to finish preparing. Although she was not about to admit it to anyone, Hayley was using her guests as guinea pigs. She had made a wide array of recipes from her card file for the party, and she was hoping to see what was popular and what was not before she decided whether or not to add them to her permanent menu or nightly specials.

Suddenly, there was a loud crash.

Hayley spun around to see Freddy Krueger, with the iconic molded face mask, hat, striped shirt, and glove with fake steel claws. He had dropped his cocktail glass, and it had shattered all over the floor. His eyes were bulging out at the sight of a giant shark standing next to him.

“Sorry, Cappy,” the shark said.

Hayley instantly recognized the voice inside the big bulky foam shark costume.

It was Mona.

As if reading her thoughts, Liddy was suddenly at Hayley’s side. “Why on earth would she choose such a cumbersome costume, knowing the room would be so packed with people? I tried to warn her, but since when does she listen to me? That’s the fourth person she has bumped into in fifteen minutes. If this keeps up, you’ll have no glassware left by the end of the party!”

Freddy Krueger bent down to pick up the shards of glass off the floor. Feeling guilty, Mona bent down to help, but she was weighted down by her unmanageable costume and pitched forward, landing flat on the floor, facedown.

“Shark down! Shark down!” Mona cried, her voice muffled. She rolled over onto her back, arms and legs sticking out of the costume, flailing.

Liddy couldn’t help but giggle, and Hayley nudged her, flashing an admonishing look. Mona’s greatest fear was anyone laughing at her. She dreaded embarrassment of any kind.

Freddy Krueger tried to lift her up but couldn’t do it on his own, so he signaled a couple of buddies, a sexy vampire and a furry thing—maybe the Wolfman, was Hayley’s best guess—who bounded over to help with the heavy lift. Together, they managed to haul Mona back up to her feet; they could see her red, puffy face inside the shark’s mouth, a border of shark teeth surrounding it, almost as if she was inside a big, round picture frame.

“Thanks, guys,” Mona barked as she marched over to Hayley and Liddy. “He should have watched where he was going!”

“Oh, it’s his fault?” Liddy gasped, incredulous.

They could see Mona glaring at them from inside the shark’s mouth. “At least I came as a famous movie monster! Liddy, you didn’t even bother dressing up! You just came as yourself!”

“What are you talking about?” Liddy scoffed. “I did not come as myself!”

“You’re wearing your own wedding dress, the one you had custom-made for your big wedding day that blew up in your face! Who else could you possibly be?” Mona argued.

Poor Liddy’s ill-fated wedding day had involved the groom not showing up, but that was another story that neither Hayley nor Liddy were anxious to revisit anytime soon.

Liddy put her hands on her hips. “And I suppose the green makeup, black lipstick, and giant fright wig don’t give you any clues as to who I’m supposed to be?”

Mona casually shook her head. “The green complexion did give me pause, but I figured you just ate too many of those gravestone-shaped sugar cookies and were feeling nauseous . . .”

“Bride of Frankenstein!” Liddy wailed. “I’m supposed to be the Bride of Frankenstein!”

Mona studied her from inside the shark’s mouth. “Oh . . . I see it now . . . I guess . . .”

Liddy was coming to a slow boil.

Hayley put her hand on Liddy’s shoulder to help calm her down. “She’s just messing with you, Liddy.”

“I know. I guess I just don’t get Mona’s peculiar sense of humor. Maybe it works on some other level, some different frequency, like one that only dogs can understand.”

Liddy brushed some cookie crumbs off her white wedding dress. She had lent the same dress to Hayley’s daughter, Gemma, the year before when she wanted to go to a Halloween party as Glinda the Good Witch from The Wizard of Oz. At least they were getting some good use out of the dress after Liddy was forced to box it up and store it in her attic, since it had been custom-made and she was unable to return it to the dress shop.

“Food’s getting pretty low; people are scarfing it down faster than I can put it out. Would you two mind helping me restock?” Hayley asked.

“Lead the way, Carrie,” Liddy said before turning back to Mona. “Come on, Jaws.”

“I’m not Jaws, I’m Meg,” Mona protested.

“Who’s Meg?” Liddy asked, puzzled.

“Meg! The megalodon from that Jason Statham movie!” Mona sighed.

“The mega-what?” Liddy laughed, shaking her head.

“A megalodon, which means big tooth, a giant extinct shark! My kids loved that movie!”

“Whatever happened to a simple great white like Jaws? I wouldn’t even get in a swimming pool for two years after seeing that movie!” Liddy said.

“Jaws is old news, so twentieth century,” Hayley joked.

As the three women made their way to the kitchen, they passed a woman with flat brown hair, wearing a flannel shirt underneath a denim coverall dress, filming the party with her phone while lugging around a large sledgehammer.

Liddy cranked her head around to get a good look. “Hayley, who is that woman? I don’t recognize her.”

“That’s Randy,” Hayley answered, chuckling.

“What?” Liddy gasped, surprised. “Who is he supposed to be, the mother from Psycho?”

“Oh, come on, Liddy, it’s so obvious. He’s Annie Wilkes,” Mona howled.

“Who?”

“From Misery, the Stephen King book. Kathy Bates won the Oscar for playing her?” Hayley said.

“Oh, right,” Liddy said. “What’s the sledgehammer for?”

“You really are not a movie person, are you?” Hayley remarked as they headed through the swinging doors into the kitchen.

Hayley stopped suddenly.

From the moment she’d stepped foot into the kitchen, she’d sensed something was amiss.

Liddy instantly noticed her tensing. “Hayley, what is it?”

“Some food’s missing,” Hayley said ominously.

“What do you mean? I see plenty of it on the table over there,” Mona shouted from inside the shark’s mouth.

Hayley nodded. “Yes, but I also had several pans of my Mummy Meat Sliders and Pepperoni Pizza Pockets shaped like jack-o’-lanterns that I took out of the freezer to thaw so I could pop them in the oven. But now they’re gone.”

They heard rummaging coming from behind the pantry door.

“Who’s in there?” Hayley shouted.

The rummaging suddenly stopped.

“There is nowhere to go!” Hayley warned. “You better just come out here right now!”

There was a little stalling, but finally, the evil Chucky doll emerged from the pantry.

Or at least it was someone dressed like the evil Chucky doll.

It was actually Mona’s sixteen-year-old son, Chet.

“Chet, what the hell are you doing? You know you’re not supposed to be back here!” Mona yelled.

“I know,” Chet mumbled. “But Hayley’s out of those little Thai-Spiced Deviled Pumpkin Eggs, which were awesome, so I came to see if there were any left.”

“I’m sorry, Chet, we’re totally out. I should have made more,” Hayley said with an apologetic smile.

“Did you move the pans that were sitting right over there?” Mona demanded to know.

Chet quickly shook his head. “I didn’t touch anything!” He paused for a moment, then reached into the pocket of his Chucky-inspired overalls. He withdrew his hand, which held some cookies—one bat, one ghost, one black cat. “Except these. But I only took three for later. Okay, five. I already ate two . . .”

Suddenly, they heard a bloodcurdling scream.

It echoed throughout the kitchen but had come from the dining room. Hayley, Mona, Liddy, and Chet all dashed out of the kitchen to investigate.

The main dining room had quieted down, everyone shocked by the ear-splitting outburst.

Hayley stepped forward to address her shocked guests. “What happened? Who screamed?”

There was silence as everyone waited for the guilty party to confess, but no one stepped forward.

Finally, Annie Wilkes, or Randy, stepped forward and pointed a finger. “It was the Mummy.”

All eyes fell upon someone dressed as the Mummy, who stared down at the floor, embarrassed.

Hayley gasped. “Sergio?”

The Mummy nodded slightly.

“But it sounded like a woman screaming,” Liddy said.

The Mummy sighed again, now utterly humiliated. “No, Liddy, it wasn’t a woman; it was me. I apologize for startling everybody. I got scared, and I lost it for a second and yelled.”

“That was no yell,” Mona said. “That was a full-on, damsel-in-distress scream if I ever heard one!”

All the party guests erupted in laughter.

Sergio was normally the brave, macho chief of police of Bar Harbor, and so it was quite disconcerting that such a high-pitched cry had come flying out of his mouth.

Although wrapped up like a mummy, Sergio Alvares’s handsome face was still exposed, and he looked as if he wished he was anywhere else in the world at this moment.

“What scared you so badly, Sergio?” Hayley asked.

Sergio again did not want to admit anything. He just stared at the floor, lips pursed.

“Pennywise,” Randy, his husband, answered for him.

Suddenly, Pennywise the Clown, from the It movies and another popular Stephen King novel, proudly stepped forward, white-gloved hand raised. He certainly looked exactly like the creepy killer with the white painted face, large forehead, gray crinkle clown suit with ruffled pant legs and puffed sleeves. In one hand, he held a red balloon. Pennywise moved slowly, eerily toward Sergio, holding out his balloon.

Sergio shrieked again and jumped back.

The partygoers erupted in laughter, even louder and more raucous this time.

“So I hate clowns! Sue me!” Sergio bellowed.

In an effort to alleviate her brother-in-law’s supreme embarrassment, Hayley recruited everyone nearby to help set out whatever food was left and not missing. Pretty soon her guests forgot all about the Pennywise incident and were focused on the appetizers fresh out of the oven, while Hayley, Liddy, Mona, and Randy gathered around Sergio, who was shaking slightly, more than a...

Table of contents

• Praise
• Also by
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• HALLOWEEN PARTY MURDER
• DEATH OF A HALLOWEEN PARTY MONSTER
• SCARED OFF
• RECIPES - Vee’s Gluten-free Pumpkin Cookies