PUMPKIN SEASON

From: Sabrina Tate
Of:  The Bad Luck Cat Mysteries
By:  Kay Finch

I had never seen so many pumpkins in one place before I moved to Lavender, Texas, and experienced October in the Texas Hill County for myself. I moved here from the big city. Sure, I saw pumpkins in Houston - for sale in the grocery store and decorating the front porches of homes during Halloween and Thanksgiving seasons. 

From time to time, I'd drive by a church with a big lawn full of pumpkins. Nothing to match the huge quantity of pumpkins grown in the fields around here and put on display at the nearby pumpkin patch where thousands of families come to celebrate the season, take pictures of their children amidst mountains of pumpkins, play games, and eat candy apples.

Turns out the annual Lavender Pumpkin Festival is quite the big event. I would have enjoyed the event a lot more if my cat, Hitchcock (who, by the way, is not bad luck) hadn't taken me over to the pickup with the dead man inside. He looks like such a sweet and innocent cat, but he knows how to pull a fast one.

See, Hitchcock often finds a way to catch a ride into town. I guess he wanted to see the festival for himself. Next thing I knew, there we were, looking into the truck window and finding the body. Not a good place to be as my nemesis, Deputy Patricia Rosales, headed in my direction. Just my luck. 

One of these days I'll learn my lesson and stay at home in the Monte Carlo Cottage to work on my novel in progress.  After all, if I kept the work schedule that I should keep, I wouldn't have time to discover murders in our midst.

Kay Finch is the National Best-Selling author of the Bad Luck Cat Mysteries by Berkley Prime Crime.  Though her character, Sabrina Tate, has left the paralegal profession behind to move to the Texas Hill Country, Kay still works as a paralegal at a Houston, Texas law firm. She resides in a Houston suburb with her husband and pets where she is working on Bad Luck Cat Mystery #4 – The Black Cat Steps On a Crack. Visit her at www.kayfinch.com.