Town In a Blueberrry Jam

by B. B. Haywood

  She started toward the Jeep, pulled open the door . . . but something held her back, kept her from climbing up into the seat. She turned and looked around. It was only an instinct, something gnawing at her, that made her close the door again and take a final walk around the house, with sharper eyes this time.

  And that’s when she noticed the well-worn path, angling off through the grassy field behind the house, toward a copse of trees in the distance.

  Now that was curious.

  I wonder where that leads?

  Her gaze rose, following the path into the distance. From what she could see, there were no houses back in that direction—no noticeable destination to which the path might lead. Perhaps it led to a garden, or a fire pit where Ray burned his trash.

  Yes, that was probably it.

  Still, her curiosity was piqued.

  Before she had even fully thought it through, she started along the path that cut a fine thin line through knee-high grasses, goldenrod, Queen Anne’s lace, and other weeds and wildflowers. This part of the property had obviously been neglected for years. At one time it might have been a well-tended field, lush with peas or beans, carrots, radishes and beets, corn and rhubarb and squash. Strawberries or raspberries might have been grown here, asparagus or new potatoes. But now it had gone to seed and showed no signs that it would change anytime soon.

  As she moved further on, the field gave way to a thick fringe of black chokeberry bushes, and then she was in amongst the trees . . .

  . . . and there it was, partially hidden by the leaves and branches.

  There was no missing it or mistaking it. Ten feet or so off the ground, utilizing the thick trunks of a half dozen trees set closely together, meticulously crafted with plywood walls, a shingled roof, and even real windows, was a tree house.

  Or rather, Candy thought as a jolt of realization shot through her, a tree fort.

  The reality of it all, of what she had just discovered, took her breath away.

  “Wow,” was all she could say.

  She stood there looking at it, studying it, for what seemed like the longest time, until she finally edged forward, toward it, then underneath it. It was fully a tenth of the size of the small shack in which Ray lived, and looked to be much more richly appointed and much more carefully cared for. It was obvious that Ray had spent not days, even weeks or months, but years tending to his hideaway.

  Not unlike Sapphire’s little attic hideaway, Candy thought. Strange how both of them felt a need to hide a part of themselves away from the public eye, and how both of them were irrevocably linked, in life and death.

  Shaking away these curious thoughts, Candy looked around for a way up. Finding a knotted rope that hung down from the underside of the tree fort, she gave it a tug, which revealed a spring-operated drop-down ladder that fell neatly into place, with its bottom step resting just a few inches above the ground.

  “Wow,” Candy said again.

  With a sense of discovery and expectation, she climbed the ladder and emerged at the top into a magnificent room, with a polished wide pine floor, a table and chairs, a rocker in one corner, a built-in bed with a mattress, a wood stove, and just about every imaginable amenity with the exception of electricity, though Candy had no doubt that Ray could have rigged that too if he had a mind to.

  And there, sitting at the center of the table, was a red-handled hammer.

  Just as Ray had said.

  She walked closer to get a better look at it but didn’t touch it. She didn’t want to get her fingerprints on it.

  She leaned forward, holding her breath.

  Sure enough, on the handle just below the claw head, was a small, almost imperceptible nick—a nick she had put there herself, when she mistreated the hammer while building her booth last Friday, almost a week ago.

  This was Ray’s hammer—there was no mistake about it. He had brought it here, to keep it safe.

  Which meant the hammer found in Sapphire’s house—the hammer that was used to kill her—had not been Ray’s.

  That hammer must have been the one that belonged to Ned Winetrop.

  It was evidence that just might prove Ray’s innocence.

  Candy knew she had to call the police—she couldn’t keep information like this to herself. Once the police saw what she had found, they would have to release Ray.

  She was turning to leave when something else caught her eye—a note card set on a side shelf. She couldn’t say what attracted her to it, except for perhaps the way it was displayed, as if in an honored position. Candy crossed to it, took it off the shelf, and read the typed message on the inside:

  Come to my house this evening at 9:30. Bring your toolbox. I need your help.

  It was signed Sapphire in a flowery script, with a swooping S and a little heart over the i.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Candy knew instantly what it was. The note Sapphire left for Ray, asking him to come to her house that night—the night she was murdered.

  So Ray had been telling the truth about the note too. More proof that he was probably innocent.

  Which meant, as Maggie said a few days earlier, the real killer could still be lurking somewhere around Cape Willington.

  That thought gave Candy a chill. Suddenly spooked, she put the note back on the shelf, right where she had found it, and climbed back down the ladder. She started off through the trees toward the house, all the while looking around her, expecting at any moment to be ambushed by the real killer. But if there really was such a person, he or she wasn’t hiding in these woods.

  Half walking, half running, she passed through the field, circled the house, and climbed into the Jeep. She panicked for a moment when she thought she had lost her keys but found them in her back pocket. “Candy, stop trying to scare yourself,” she muttered as she started up the engine. But as a precaution she made sure all the doors were locked. Then, tires spinning and shooting up clouds of dust and gravel, she whipped the Jeep around and sped back to Blueberry Acres.

  She was grateful to see Doc’s truck parked in the driveway. He was out behind the house on the lawn tractor, mowing the yard. Candy waved to him and he waved back, thinking she was just saying hello. When she waved more frantically, he shut down the mower. “What’s wrong?”

  “I found Ray’s fort!” she called to him. “And his hammer. I’m calling the police.”

  That brought Doc running. He followed her inside and paced impatiently around the kitchen as she called the police station. She talked directly to Daryl Durr, Cape Willington’s chief of police, and told him what she had found. She agreed to meet him back at Ray’s place in ten minutes.

  “Come on,” she said to Doc. Candy was too nervous to drive, so they climbed into Doc’s truck and off they went, down to River Road and across to the Loop at the opposite end of the Cape, then out of town to Ray’s place.

  It took the better part of an hour for the police to search the tree house, since they had to conduct a thorough investigation. The hammer, Sapphire’s note, and other items they deemed important went into paper evidence bags. After that, they searched the surrounding woods as well as the inside of Ray’s house again and questioned Candy at length. Chief Durr frowned when he heard her story. “What were you doing out here in the first place?” he asked in a gruff tone. She had thought about how she was going to answer that, knowing she would be asked, and decided it was best just to tell the truth—that she heard that Ray had mentioned something about a fort, and she set out to find it.

  “Well, it seems we have some loose lips around the station,” the chief said angrily. “You’re aware that this is an official police investigation, Miss Holliday? And that what you’ve done is completely out of line? Not to mention dangerous?”

  “Yes, I realize that,” Candy said contritely, “but I just wanted to help. Ray’s our friend. I knew he couldn’t have killed Sapphire Vine.”

  “Well, you did the right thing in calling us right away. This does shed some new light on the sit
uation.” The chief looked over as one of his sergeants walked past with the evidence bags. Then his gaze shot back to Candy.

  “We’ll take a look at what we’ve got and reassess the case.” He leveled a finger at her. “But I’ll have no more interference from you, ya hear? Your investigating days are over, right?”

  “Um, yes, Chief Durr.”

  He held her gaze for a few moments, trying to intimidate her with his stare, then turned away. “Well, all right then. I’ll let you off the hook this time. Besides, I’ve got more important things to do than lecture you. Seems like all hell is breaking loose in this town.” He shook his head and frowned. “We’ve got your statement, so you can head back home. We’ll call you if I need anything else.”

  “What about Ray?” Doc asked. “He can go free now, right?”

  Chief Durr shook his head. “That’s up to a judge to decide. He’ll hear the evidence in the morning, or maybe this afternoon if we can hook up with him. Can’t make any promises, though.”

  “But you have the evidence right there that he didn’t do it,” Candy persisted. “It was Ned Winetrop’s hammer that killed Sapphire—not Ray’s. He deserves to be let go.”

  “Well, now, we have to go by the book on this one. Got a lot of people watching how we handle this thing. We’re not a bunch of hicks, you know. We’ve got procedures to follow.”

  “You gonna pick up Ned Winetrop?” Doc asked.

  Chief Durr scratched the back of his head and scowled. “You know I can’t comment on that officially, Doc . . . but unofficially, sure, we’ll pick him up and bring him down to the station for questioning. That’s all you’ll get out of me today, though. You folks head back home now. There’s nothing else to do, and I’m in no mood to be quizzed anymore on our procedures.”

  Candy hesitated. She wanted to say more, to know more. But Doc, sensing Chief Durr’s building annoyance and his daughter’s exasperating stubbornness, put his arm around her shoulder. “Come on, Sherlock,” he said, steering her away from the police chief. “You’ve done all you can do here. Let’s go home.”

  TWENTY-NINE

  It was well past four-thirty by the time they arrived back at Blueberry Acres. The sun that had been so bright that morning had disappeared behind a shield of low clouds blowing in from the west, pushed across the sky by a strong wind. Doc pulled up in front of the barn but left the truck idling. Candy started to climb out, then hesitated. “You’re not staying?” she asked in surprise.

  Doc gave her that look he gave her so often these days, the one that told her he just couldn’t sit still right now. “I think I’m going to run over to the police station, see what I can find out about Ray. Maybe I can speed up the process to spring him.”

  “But Dad, he’s not even there. He’s up in Machias, and so is the judge. These things take time.”

  Doc shrugged impatiently. “I got to do something. Can’t just sit around here waiting.” He pulled the gear shift into reverse and revved the engine. “Want to come along?”

  Candy didn’t have to think long before she gave him an answer. “No thanks. I’ve done enough of the Cagney and Lacey bit this week. It’s time for a break. I’m going to check on the girls, grab a glass of wine, and sit for a while.”

  Doc nodded. “I shouldn’t be too long. Tell you what. I’ll swing back by to pick you up, and we can head to Duffy’s for dinner. It’s Thursday—you know what that means.”

  “Duffy’s world-famous meatloaf special?”

  Doc grinned. “Dripping in gravy with smashed potatoes and buttered peas. It’s a hard deal to pass up. What do you say?”

  “Mmm, mmm.” Candy stepped back and swung shut the cab door. “My mouth is watering already.”

  He laughed. “I knew I could tempt you. See you in forty-five minutes or so.”

  Candy gave him a wave as she headed around the barn to the chicken coop. The girls were clucking away, happy and guileless as ever, scratching at the earth and poking around their coop. She fed and watered them, then checked to see if there were any other signs of forced entry—paw prints in the dirt around the exterior, dug-up earth, any place some predator might be trying to widen a gap in the cage with a sniffing nose or a clawing paw. But there was no evidence to be seen. The critter that had come around a few nights earlier hadn’t made another appearance—but that didn’t mean it wouldn’t be back. With the blueberries ripe in the fields, animals came from all over to partake of a free meal. Birds were the worst culprits, of course—some days it looked like a feathered convention out there in the barrens—but deer also frequented the fields in the early mornings, and even a stray bear might wander out among the bushes at this time of year.

  Candy made a mental note to keep Doc’s shotgun close by the back door.

  She took a cursory walking tour of the property, just to check on things, then angled toward the house. Her mind wandering off on a myriad of different things, she climbed the steps onto the back porch, reached in her pocket for the house key—and froze.

  Shards of glass littered the back porch near the door.

  Her eyes jerked up.

  One of the window panes in the door was broken, and the door itself was ajar.

  Candy took a step back, forcing herself to stay calm as her heart thumped in her chest. She cast a look behind her, wishing Doc hadn’t left so quickly. But he was gone. She was alone.

  Whatever was going on here, she would have to handle it herself.

  She knew the smartest move would probably be to jump right into the Jeep and get the hell out of here. But this was her house, and Doc’s—she wasn’t about to abandon it to some wayward thief.

  She took a few steps forward, avoiding the glass on the porch, and looked in through the door window. From here, she could see no one in the kitchen, no movement, no shadows that shouldn’t be there.

  The place looked empty, but someone could still be here, in another part of the house.

  She listened for a moment, holding her breath.

  No stray footsteps, creaking floorboards, door hinges squeaking, heavy breathing—nothing to indicate that the person who had broken the window was still around.

  Moving quickly and quietly, she pushed open the door, tiptoed to the kitchen closet, yanked it open, and pulled out Doc’s shotgun. Her eyes constantly scanning, on the lookout for a hostile intruder, she crossed to the junk drawer, pulled it open, and reached way in the back, her fingers groping for a box of cartridges. She grabbed half a dozen and pushed two into the gun’s magazine.

  She pumped the action, thumbed off the safety, and tucked the butt into her shoulder, her finger resting lightly on the trigger guard.

  She moved forward purposefully then, stepping first into the living room, turning a complete circle, searching everywhere at once, eyeing along the gun’s sights. Next, she went into Doc’s den at the back of the house. She searched quickly and thoroughly. Then on to the dining room, the downstairs bathroom, and the laundry room, working her way back to the kitchen.

  Nothing.

  She paused and listened again for any unfamiliar or revealing sound. But again, nothing.

  Tucking the butt of the weapon deeper into her shoulder, lining up along the sights, she moved upstairs as carefully and quietly as possible. Naturally several of the steps creaked under her sneakers, but that couldn’t be helped.

  Still, if anyone was up there waiting for her, they would know she was coming.

  Adrenaline rushed through her body, her ears roared, her breathing sounded monstrously loud. But she ignored all those things. When she reached the top of the stairs, she moved efficiently, starting with the room to her left—a guest room. She checked the closet, under the bed, in the back corner behind the bureau.

  Next was Doc’s bedroom. Same procedure, same results.

  The upstairs bathroom, and then her room.

  Five minutes later she was back downstairs in the damp, dimly lit basement, holding down her nervousness as she checked every corner, every sha
dow. Again, the search turned up nothing.

  She lowered the shotgun and climbed the stairs back to the kitchen, her gaze still wandering watchfully. But she was fairly certain now that whoever had broken the window must have taken what they wanted and left.

  Or maybe, she thought, it was just an accident—someone had come by to visit, gotten careless, and left guiltily before she and Doc arrived. But that seemed far-fetched.

  More than likely, they had been robbed. Burglary was uncommon around these parts—some folks still left doors and windows unlocked—but not unheard of. Candy did a more thorough search of the house, still carrying the shotgun with her. Nothing seemed to have been taken—the TV, DVD player, checkbooks, and what little diamond jewelry she owned were all still in their places. Even the engagement ring Clark had given her way back when was still tucked into its place in a corner of her jewelry box.

  She walked back into the kitchen. That’s when she noticed what was missing.

  Sapphire’s files were gone—all of them.

  Last she remembered, they had been sitting on the table in two piles, in front of Doc. Could he have taken them? It was possible, she thought, but that didn’t make sense. Where would he have taken them, and why hadn’t he told her if he had?

  No, someone else must have taken them—someone who broke into their house for that purpose. But who? Who even knew she had them? She hadn’t told anyone about the files, except Herr Georg that morning, and she told him only about his own file. He couldn’t have known she had more. Ben knew she had some files, of course, and Maggie. But why would they steal the files from her? They could have had access to the files at any time—all they had to do was ask.

  Candy was about to pick up the phone and call the police to report the break-in when it rang, making her nearly jump out of her skin.

  “Damn, I hate phones,” she muttered to herself as she set the shotgun aside and picked up the receiver. “Hello?”