Pumpkin Patch Pervert: The Sequel

Mary Shukes and Suisan 'Sue' R



Jim Ellison, Detective -- Major Crimes, was not having a good day. It was Monday, and that was always bad, but this morning? It was worse.

Blair Sandburg was still howling over the incident from last night. Jim could hear the younger man as he tried to stifle the laugher in the shower.

Trying to ignore the noise, Jim walked into the kitchen for his first cup of coffee, and there it was. On the kitchen counter, page 2, the article.

Cascade Detective Busts Pumpkin Violator

Complete with a photo from the files of one Detective Jim Ellison, dressed in a tux, from when he had received the Cop of The Year award.

"I'm never going to live this one down..."

"Hey! Jim! Did you see the paper?" Blair asked as he came bouncing down the hall from the bathroom, a huge grin plastered on his face. "I set it to the page with your 'daring' exploits." The young anthropology student ducked as a potholder flew at him from the kitchen.

"I suppose you think this is funny, don't you, Chief?" Jim's voice was a low growl as he stalked down the hall to grab his own shower time.

Hiding his actions from his roommate, Blair dressed quickly then grabbed the cordless phone, taking it out to the balcony with him.

Keeping his voice low, "Hey, H? Have you seen page two of the Times yet?" The laughter that came from the other end of the connection was loud. "Oh, man! Did you two really catch that guy in the act?"

"Yeah, we did. Man, you should've been there. Thought Jim was going to wreck another truck!"

"Hairboy, you do realize that we cannot let a moment like this pass by without harassing him, right?" The evil grin on Henri Brown's face was evident to the young man, even over the phone.

"Oh yeah! So," Blair dropped his voice even lower, "You need any help?"

"I think Rafe and I can handle it. Better that you stay away from this. We just have to work with the man -- you live with him. Could get ugly."

Blair ducked his head in agreement, "Okay, I've got classes this morning anyway. Can you get someone to make a video tape?"

Henri thought about that for a few minutes, "Yeah, I think Rhonda keeps one handy, I'll ask her if we can borrow it."

"Cool! Look, gotta run. Talk to you later."

Blair hung up the phone and walked back into the loft just as Jim was heading up the stairs to his room.

"Problems, Chief?"

"Nah, just had to talk to one of my fellow TA's -- need someone to cover my afternoon class if I'm going to help you on that surveillance case on Commerce."

Jim tried to read his friend, but for some reason he was having trouble getting a clear reading. Shrugging, he continued up the stairs to change for work.

Fifteen minutes later, he was hustling his roommate out the door. "Sandburg! Hurry up or take the bus! I'm late!"

*Just like I planned, Jim. All according to plan.* Blair snatched up his backpack from the floor and raced out the door, locking it behind him as he ran. "Jim! Oh, man! Wait up!"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ellison stopped in front of Hargrove Hall, "You sure that your mechanic's going to have the Volvo ready by noon?"

Slinging his backpack up onto his right shoulder, Blair slid out of the truck. "Yeah, Paul said it was just the alternator, this time. Had to rebuild it."

Jim winced as the kid slammed the truck door shut. "Watch it, Chief! This is your only mode of transportation until you get that rattle-trap of yours fixed."

"Oh, sorry, man!" Glancing at his watch, Blair made a screwy face. "Oh, crap. Late again! Look, I'll call if I'm going to be late, all right?"

Putting the ancient Ford truck into gear, Jim replied, "Yeah, yeah. One way or the other, I'll see you later."

Jim watched as Blair Sandburg fairly flew up the long sidewalk, past the now defunct fountain, and into the Hall. Pulling away from the curb, Jim found himself muttering, "Damn kid, he's going to burn out if he keeps up this pace."

Watching from behind the smoky glass doors, Blair pulled out his cell phone and made a call. "He's enroute, ETA fifteen minutes. You ready?"

"As ready as we'll ever be. Do you know how hard it is to find gourds like that this time of year?"

Several students bypassed the hysterical Grad student as he convulsed on the floor just inside the main doors of Hargrove Hall. One of the Associate Professors stepped out of her office and saw who was causing the disturbance. Shaking her head, she chose to ignore the young man and walked to the lecture hall. "Just what the students need to see, a grad student losing his mind in the hallway."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Meanwhile, back at the station, Henri and Rafe were setting up various kinds of pumpkins on and around Jim Ellison's desk. There were big ones and little ones, round ones and not so round ones. In fact, there was absolutely no room left on or around Jim's desk for anything else.

Jim was going to have a heart attack when he saw this, thought H. Maybe I'd better alert the medics, just in case.

They proceeded to put up streamers, orange and black, to aid in the visual.

Ellison's had this coming for a long, long time. Now we get to have some fun and paybacks at the same time.

Just to make it more fitting, they proceeded to cut little, round holes in each and every pumpkin with instructions to "insert here'.

Simon looked out of his office at the shenanigan's going on in the bullpen. He just knew he was going to have to deal with some bloodshed somewhere along the line. Ellison's not going to take this lightly, he thought.

Then he promptly decided to get into the act. Being the Captain had its advantages.

Simon called Rafe into the office. Rafe was not looking too happy...being called into Simon's office this early in the morning was NOT a good thing.

"Rafe," Simon said, "do you remember that Halloween bust? The one with the perps using all those candles in some sort of rite?"

"Yes," Rafe replied.

"Good," said Simon, "I want you to go down to evidence and secure those candles. Think you can handle that, Detective?"

"Yessir," Rafe replied. "All of them, Sir?"

"No, just the orange and black ones, if you please," replied Simon.

Rafe hurried to do Simon's bidding, not liking the evil glint in his eyes.

Simon just sat there, chuckling. Revenge was sweet.

When Rafe came back with the candles, they had about 5 minutes until the arrival of their victim...and they were ready. Everyone was at their desk with the exception of Rafe and Simon.

Simon took the candles from Rafe and shooed him away. He promptly inserted a candle in each of the holes that had been carved in the pumpkins. He then went around lighting said candles, after making sure the dripping candles wouldn't set anything on fire.

And so, Jim Ellison walked into Major Crimes to see his desk covered in pumpkins of assorted sizes and shapes, all with a lit candle inserted.

He had smelled the hot wax upon leaving the elevator, but thought nothing of it. Until he stepped into the bullpen and found his desk and surrounding area, liberally covered in... "Very funny, guys. Very funny."

Stalking over to his desk, he found the final insult. There, in a nice black frame, the article that had appeared in the morning's paper.

And that wasn't all. For scattered among the various lit pumpkins, he couldn't believe his eyes. "And just where in Cascade does one find pumpkin flavored condoms? Connor?"

The Australian Inspector looked up, innocence plastered all over her face. "And just what make you think *I* would know something like that?"

Jim grew puzzled, she was right. She couldn't know about the specialty store near the campus, unless... Nah, he wouldn't do that, would he?

"Okay, so if it wasn't you, I guess that only leaves..." Jim looked around the bullpen, trying to find the guilty party, "Rafe?"

The dark haired detective shook his head, backing away from the man with his hands raised in mock surrender. "No you don't, not me. Try someone else."

Looking past the well dressed man, Jim spotted the other possible candidate. "Brown! What are you doing with that video-cam?"

Henri never dropped the camera, just smiled as he kept recording the event. "Just recording history, man. Not often that someone can do something like this to you and get away with it."

"Captain!" Jim looked to Simon for help.

Grinning around the cigar clenched in his teeth, the tall Captain shook his head. "Sorry, Ellison. You're on your own. You're a detective, you figure it out. Oh, and by the way?"

"What?"

"You're letting wax drip on your reports."

Cursing under his breath in chopec, Jim hurried to blow out the candles. But he wasn't fast enough to save his notes on the Commerce Vandal case.

Deciding to no longer play along with the sick joke put on him by his coworkers, he started to clean up his desk. Leaving the streamers fluttering in the faint breeze from the air vents.

"Jim?"

The soft voice of Rhonda, Simon's secretary, drifted over his shoulder to grab his attention.

"What is it Rhonda?"

"Can I have a few of those?" She asked pointing at the tiny, foil wrapped items that Jim had so neatly stacked near his computer.

Jim's face lit up with a smile, "Sure, wouldn't want you to run out."

She whapped him on the shoulder, "They're for my sister." Taking the few that he offered, she smiled serenely. "I prefer the strawberry ones myself," she whispered, her voice going no further than the edge of Ellison's desk.

But the comment had the desired effect, one which was caught on video tape for all prosperity. No one had ever seen Jim Ellison blush quite that hard before.

Comments like that could put a man into an early grave. Especially since the lady delivering the lines was married. Happily so.

"Okay, people. We've had our fun. Now back to work." Simon's voice echoed over the heads bent in silent laughter on various desks. "Ellison, get rid of that trash, will you? Last thing I want is my Department smelling like overripe, over used squash."

The laughter that broke out was in no way quiet. Nor was it polite. But it had the wondrous effect of making everyone feel less tense and thus ready to face the bright Monday.

After securing the video cassette, putting it the one place that no one dared go, Ellison's fellow detectives helped him to clean up the mess on his desk.

By the time Blair Sandburg arrived at a quarter after Noon, there was no sign that anything untoward had taken place. But he knew better. Several uniformed officers had stopped him on his way upstairs to regale him with the tale. Now, he tried to wipe the smirk off his face as he approached Jim's desk.

"Hey, Jim. Made it."

Twinkling blue eyes looked up at the observer as Jim handed over a sheaf of papers. "Glad you could make it, Chief. Any chance I could get you to retype these notes for me?"

"Yeah, sure, no problem."

Taking the papers from his roommate, Blair felt something, well, slick on them. Closer examination proved to him that it was a waxy substance. "Uh, Jim? What happened to these?"

"Just a practical joke, Sandburg. Nothing to worry about."

"Uh, huh." Blair dropped his backpack on the floor by Jim's desk, then pulled the computer keyboard to where he could reach it. "Why do I think I missed something?"

Leaning over, Jim answered, "Well, Chief, next time you help these guys set me up, make sure that you're here to see the results." And with that, Jim produced the cassette tape that he'd managed to filch from Simon's desk when the Captain wasn't looking and handed it over to his friend. "But you can see the whole thing later. Henri got it on tape for you, just like you asked."

Blair took the tape, his hand shaking as he fought to control the laughter welling up in his gut. "Oh, man! You heard! Didn't you? That sucks! Next time, I do all the planning from my office at Rainier."

"Good idea." Jim reached out and delivered a friendly cuff to the back of Blair's head. "But there had better not *be* a next time."

The End.

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