Who Slew Jack O'Lantern? (part 1 3/4)

When a Halloween party turns deadly and every suspect has a motive and none have an alibi, can Detective Leadbutt solve the case? Always in the shadow of his more famous brother-in-law, Chief Ironsides, he is determined more than ever to solve this unsolvable case. Time is running out. Can he avoid eating humble pie before the guests have pumpkin pie?

Leadbutt, notepad in hand, slowly walked around the remains of Jack O'Lantern. The broken body resembled a ... smashed pumpkin. "What else would a smashed pumpkin look like," he thought to himself, "but a smashed pumpkin?" He wrote down that it was gourdy sight, but hurriedly scratched out the line and replaced it with "gory sight." He cocked his head in the direction of the hall to where the guests were milling around.
...."Good grief!" he exclaimed. He got the attention of one of the waiters and said, "Tell that DJ to shut off that music." He shook his head as the waiter hurried off to comply to his request. Was there no respect for the dead anymore? He had a dead pumpkin and they were playing "Bullet With Butterfly Wings" by a group called Smashing Pumpkins. He muttered to himself, "If they want to play that music at his funeral that's one thing, but not at my crime scene!"
....Jack O'Lantern had been quite a large chap. It was said that he weighed close to 300 pounds. He was thinking how difficult it would be to smash a pumpkin that big. He decided that initially he would interrogate those guests who would have that kind of strength. He chuckled as he saw one little fellow in particular in the crowd. "I think I can safely rule out the Pillsbury Doughboy!"
....He started studying the initial statements of the guests, which had been taken by the officers who had been the first on the scene. He spread them out on a table and sorted them by their physical size and possible strength. It wasn't scientific, but it did give him a place to start once he was finished checking out the scene of the crime.
....He noticed a curious gash across the head of the victim. "Head?" He thought. "For crying out loud this guy was all head!" He presumed that a blow to the head with a blunt instrument must have subdued him and caused him to fall from one of the floors above. "Ouch. That must have smarted," he whistled as he looked up at the building's facade. He caught a sudden movement from one of the landings. Someone's head had been looking down upon the scene. From the area of that landing he heard music wafting from a room above.
...."I'll be damned! Another Smashing Pumpkins song." He recognized this song as "Disarm." It was curious that that group's songs would just happen to be playing this night. He stepped over a set of tracks that ran out into the fresh fallen snow and disappeared in the darkness beyond. "Funny," he thought, "There was no snow on the ground when I got here."
....Shortly he was upstairs following the wet tracks on the hall carpeting. He stopped at the door and read the placard: Jack O'Lantern. He knocked on the door and it swung open. A shapely young woman stood before him, a drink in her hand, dancing by herself to the music on a CD player. "Tonight, Tonight," was playing. "Whew", he thought to himself, "That's Mrs. Jack O'Lantern?"
....Smiling she said, "You like The Smashing Pumpkins, Detective Leadbutt?" He nodded, unable to take his eyes off the slit in her dress that ran up to her hip.
...."I see you followed the wheel chair tracks up here to our room. Astute detective work on your part."
...."You know who I am? How'd you know about the tracks?" Leadbutt was confused. The mystery was getting stranger by the moment. She had mentioned wheel chair tracks, but he was certain the tracks had belonged to a serving cart.
...."Why, you mean to tell me you didn't read the script, Leadbutt?" He spun around stunned. He knew that voice. What was he doing here? So it was wheel chair tracks he thought. It was him, none other than Chief Ironsides.
...."Why my dear, Leadbutt," she cooed. "Didn't you bother to read the script?" He turned back to face her. Was she mocking him?
....He decided to play along and asked, "What script? What are you both going on about this script?"
....'"The script for this blog, oh brother-in-law of mine!" Ironside could tell by the look on Leadbutt's face that he had no idea what they were talking about. "Look," he began, "I never had a brother-in-law on my TV show. Think about it."
....Mrs. O'Lantern ran her hand up to her hip bringing more attention to her exposed leg as she spoke, "Yes, please think about it. How many women like me would be married to a pumpkin. Besides, I'm not a gourd person." She walked across the room and knocked on what seemed to be a sction of invisible glass. "That's the inside of a computer screen. We are actually just words on a monitor on the other side."
....Leadbutt's face turned ashen. He had to sit down for a minute. He needed a stiff drink. The woman and Ironside were pointing to the table next to the chair. He turned and there was a ... drink. He could have sworn that the table and drink weren't there when he walked into the room. He tried to take a drink, but the contents of the glass were frozen solid. He sighed, that wasn't what he meant by a stiff drink. He was startled by a voice from somewhere beyond. It sounded like "OOPS!" Just as suddenly it was quiet. The contents of he glass were no longer frozen, he held a normal drink!
....Ironside smiled and said, "'Typo. The Blogger typed in your drink wrong. Spell-Checker doesn't correct wrong words, only mis-spelled words."
....Leadbutt looked at the woman with a leer forming on his face, "Do you mean to tell me that if he wanted to, he could have you standing on your head here in the middle of the room?"
...."No...No!" She screamed to no avail as she suddenly was turned upside down suspended in mid air. Her dress fell from her body to her armpits. Just as Leadbutt had suspected, she was wearing nothing under her dress except for stockings. Helplessly flailing her arms in a futile attempt to cover her exposed parts, she watched as Ironsides and Leadbutt exchanged high fives.
....Ironsides looked up at the spot of the screen and shouted, "Okay Pointmeister, you can let her down. We had our fun, and your readers had their laughs!"
....In an instant she was back on her feet, but the dress remained bunched at her armpits. "Put the dress down, damn you!" She shouted.
Ever so slowly the dress slipped downward and was finally back in place. Suddenly she screamed. Somehow Ironsides had managed to get himself caught under the dress. He was firmly pressed against her, his forehead on her navel.
....While they struggled, she trying to get him out from under her dress and he trying to stay there, Leadbutt had found a copy of the "script." He ignored the thump behind him when Mrs. O'Lantern and Ironsides tumbled to the floor. Curiously, he thought, the woman seemed to be putting up less of a fight, like maybe she was starting to enjoy it.
....An angry glare was apparent in his eyes, as Leadbutt threw down the script, stepped over the no-longer struggling couple, and headed to that point in the room in front of the invisible screen.
...."So this was not a murder story? That "body" is just a pumpkin someone smashed? This has all been just a BLOG for you to get a few laughs from the paltry few visitors you're going to get! At our expense? You made me dumb enough to believe that a pumpkin could walk around?"

Without a second thought, Leadfoot let loose his best punch at the screen! OUCH!

This blog has experienced technical problems at this time and will discontinue this posting until further notice.

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