Town in a Sweet Pickle

by B. B. Haywood

  Candy stood frozen, unmoving, with her hands still held up. “Please don’t do that. I don’t mean any harm.” She paused, and decided to push her luck a little. “You’re Marcus Spruell, aren’t you? You used to own the Sweet Pickle Deli in Cape Willington?”

  If her words meant anything to him, he didn’t show it. His face remained impassive. “What of it?” he muttered after a few moments.

  “Have you heard what’s going on down there?”

  He nodded, almost imperceptibly. “I’ve heard.”

  “Someone has died, eating pickles from jars with the Sweet Pickle Deli label on them, and two other people were poisoned.”

  He took a few moments to respond. “I don’t know anything about that.”

  “So you didn’t poison those pickles and put those jars out where people could find them?”

  “Bah!” He spat out the word. Candy almost expected him to add humbug! “Now why would I do a stupid thing like that,” he asked angrily, “especially with the name of my old deli on those jars?”

  Good question, Candy thought. But she had a response. “You had a lot of enemies in town when you left. Some people think you wanted to get revenge.”

  “Revenge?” He said the word uneasily and made a face. “Fools. Jealous fools. Glad I left when I did.”

  Needing a moment to think, to try to figure out her next question, Candy turned to survey the house and barn before returning her gaze to the cottage. “How long have you lived out here?” she asked.

  He brandished the shotgun again. “None of your damn business.”

  She pressed on. “You’re out here alone, aren’t you?” When she received no response, she asked, “When did your mother die?”

  That seemed to visibly affect him. The muzzle of the shotgun aimed back down toward the ground at his feet. “Two years ago,” he said softly.

  “And you were taking care of her, weren’t you?” Candy asked. “That’s why you used to close down the deli and disappear for a day or two. She needed you.”

  He seemed to shrug, though she couldn’t be sure. “I did what I could.”

  “Is that where you got your recipes? For the pickles and your other dishes? From your mother?”

  Again, no response, other than a tight glare.

  Candy finally lowered her hands, though she didn’t move otherwise. “Some people say you stole those recipes,” she said, trying to make it sound as nonthreatening as possible.

  Now he bristled and sneered at her. “Where’d you hear that? From her?”

  “Her? You mean Wanda?”

  “Who’s Wanda?” he growled.

  “I don’t . . . who were you just referring to?”

  “Her! That woman! Gloria!”

  “Gloria?”

  It was the same name the teenaged girl had said to her last night at the pizza parlor: “There was one person who might have worked here back then, when the place was a deli,” the girl had told her. “I think her name was Gloria. . . .”

  Candy forged ahead. “So, this Gloria . . . she worked for you at the deli, didn’t she?”

  “Of course she did. And she was always a problem, from the very beginning,” the ragged man said with obvious contempt. “Told me she wanted a cut of the profits. Wanted me to make her a co-owner. Imagine that! I’m the one who put up the money for that place, not her! I’m the one who built that business and made it a success, not her! She was just a hired hand, a contributor of sorts, yes, but . . .” His voice trailed off and his glare returned. “Like I said, it’s none of your business, is it?”

  “Someone has died,” Candy said, “and others still might. Our town is being threatened. If you know something that could help us get to the bottom of this, you should tell us—tell the police, someone. . . .”

  “No!” he said emphatically.

  She chanced a step forward. “Mr. Spruell—Marcus—if you . . .”

  “No,” he said again, in a lower, more threatening tone. “I have nothing more to say to you, or to the police, or to anyone.” He raised the muzzle of the shotgun. “Now get off my property before I stop being a nice guy.”

  Candy knew she had already pushed her luck as far as she dared. She nodded and turned, heading back to the Jeep, but then she paused and turned back toward him. “I’ll leave my card,” she said. “If you want to talk later, or think of something else you’d like to . . .”

  But he cut her off. “Don’t bother. Just get out.”

  The whole way back to her Jeep she could feel his eyes boring into her back—and perhaps the muzzle of that shotgun as well. It seemed to take a long time for her to walk across the dirt driveway, along the length of the house. She heard thunder somewhere far off to the west, and the crunch of the ground under her shoes as she took each step.

  At the Jeep she went to the passenger-side door and opened it, chancing a look back as she did so. He was still standing there in front of the cottage, the shotgun still in his hand, though the muzzle was lowered toward the ground again.

  She reached into her tote bag, dug around, and pulled out one of her business cards. She thought of walking it back to him, but immediately dismissed that idea.

  Instead, she walked up onto the porch of the main house and pulled open the screen door just a tad. She slipped her card into the gap between the door and the frame, and then closed the screen door tightly, so it held the card securely.

  It was the best she could do.

  She took a final look back at Marcus Spruell—dark, angry, ragged, without a hint of civility on his bearded face—then returned to the Jeep, climbed inside, started the engine, and drove off.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  It looked like a mirage—a ghost that came out of nowhere.

  At first it didn’t register in her mind, which was preoccupied with other thoughts—of Marcus Spruell and jars of poisoned pickles, of labels old and new, of shadowy figures and dead goats, and even of Maggie, Herr Georg, and impending weddings.

  So when she saw it, she had to blink several times, clearing her vision and her mind so both could focus on the baby blue pickup truck turning off the main drag onto a side road, glimpsed from the corner of her eye.

  By that time she’d been driving all afternoon and into the evening—five hours on the road already—and the weather had worsened again. After clearing up earlier in the day, the low clouds had returned, and as she turned off Route 1, heading south on the Coastal Loop toward Cape Willington, a light rain began to fall, making visibility hazy. Feeling tired and hungry, she drove through the dusky twilight and gathering shadows in a bit of a daze, following a line of cars that stretched six vehicles ahead of her.

  She was only a mile or two down the road when she spotted the baby blue pickup truck, which had been some distance in front of her. It slowed, red taillights flaring, and made a right turn onto a narrow side road. Initially, it didn’t quite click in her mind, but when she drew near the side road and saw the truck’s taillights receding into the distance, she realized what it was: the vehicle she’d encountered the night before, driven by the shadowy figure who had appeared to be following her.

  She couldn’t pass up the opportunity to follow it, so she checked her rearview mirror and pulled off to the side of the road, where she waited patiently for the traffic behind her to pass. She then made a quick U-turn and headed back the way she’d come.

  She drove slowly until she spotted the side road the baby blue pickup truck had taken. She’d passed it numerous times before but never paid it much attention. A small, almost unreadable sign at the intersection identified it as West Shore Road.

  In this section of Maine, numerous small, craggy-coast peninsulas jutted south into the cold waters of the North Atlantic. Cape Willington sat at the southern tip of one such peninsula. None were very long or very wide, maybe five to fifteen miles in length and about the same in width. Candy figured this small road cut across the northern end of the peninsula, probably skirting a large body of water known as Dandelion Pon
d before it reached the opposite coastline a few miles to the west. From there, the driver of the baby blue pickup truck could turn either north, following the western leg of the Coastal Loop back up to Route 1, or south along the coastline-hugging road before reaching the peninsula’s southern tip, curving around, and coming into Cape Willington from the west.

  There was a small harbor along that northwestern shore, Candy knew, and most of the homeowners in that area were lobstermen or fishermen or those who made a living off the sea in some way. A little further down was an old mill, and near that was a small nine-hole public golf course, called the Old Mill Course, which featured several holes along the ocean. But other than that, there wasn’t much in this part of the peninsula.

  As she followed the distant taillights of the baby blue pickup truck, staying a respectable distance behind, she passed small, isolated wood-frame houses, nothing fancy, usually with dirt or gravel driveways. Some had garages but many did not. She also spotted a few mobile homes here and there. Like many backwoods roads in Maine, this one was lightly traveled, carrying only local traffic. Tourists and visitors to the cape tended to stay on the eastern road into and out of Cape Willington.

  It took only about ten minutes to drive straight across the northern section of the peninsula. Up ahead, Candy saw the baby blue pickup truck brake briefly at the intersection with the western coastal road before turning south and heading further down into an unpopulated area. As the road shadowed the coastline and the houses thinned out, the truck picked up speed, and Candy was tempted to goose the gas pedal to keep up. But the low rolling clouds coming from the west had squeezed out the last of the day’s light, and an inky blackness settled over the wet road, lit only by the Jeep’s weak headlight beams. Candy was patient and kept the distant taillights in view as much as possible, but at times they disappeared around curves in the road, only to reappear on the straightaways.

  She passed what looked like the old mill and the golf course, both dark. With the limited visibility on such a curvy road, Candy eased off the gas pedal even more, which put her further behind the baby blue pickup truck, until eventually she lost sight of it completely.

  She wasn’t too worried, though, since she knew there weren’t many places the pickup truck could go. In a few places side roads, or often just dirt lanes, led off the main western road, and she eyed those carefully as she passed by, in case the pickup truck had turned off onto one of them. But she saw no signs of that, so she continued straight ahead. She could always circle back later and search those roads more thoroughly, if needed. She also kept an eye on driveways and mailboxes, just to see if anything jumped out at her.

  They were only a few miles outside of Cape Willington when the red taillights popped back into view, brighter than before. The truck was braking and making a turn to the right, toward the ocean. It was still some distance ahead but Candy realized she was familiar with this area and, for the first time, thought she might know where the pickup was headed—though she hoped she was wrong.

  The road led to a few houses on a ridge of land overlooking the ocean. The first one in line, which Candy could almost see from the main road as she approached the turnoff, was a tan and stone single-level house with an attached garage, illuminated now by the pickup truck’s headlights. There were several vehicles parked in the driveway, and the baby blue pickup truck pulled in beside them. A cord of wood was piled on one side of the driveway, and an American flag on a tall flagpole occupied a prominent spot in the front yard.

  Candy slowed as she neared the turnoff and finally pulled off to the side of the road. She left the Jeep running but killed the headlights, just in time to see the lights of the pickup truck go out also. A moment later the driver emerged.

  Candy could make out nothing specific about the person, due to the distance and the shadows. But whoever it was moved quickly, heading into the house.

  She turned on the Jeep’s headlights again and inched forward, toward a row of mailboxes just ahead. She angled the headlights so she could read the name on the side of the first box: WATKINS.

  Candy’s guess had been right, as much as she hated to admit it. The baby blue pickup truck, driven by the person who apparently had followed her the previous night—the shadowy figure, as she thought of it in her mind—had stopped at the oceanfront home of Trudy and Richard Watkins.

  THIRTY-SIX

  She killed the headlights again, turned off the engine, and sat for a while in the Jeep by the side of the road, waiting and watching, arms folded in front of her against the oncoming chill. Was this a quick stop by the driver of the pickup truck, just to say hello to Trudy and Richard? Was some sort of meeting taking place? Were they friends? Or did the driver actually live there?

  As time stretched on, Candy began to sense it was the latter. The house looked buttoned up for the night. Exterior lights were extinguished, though a warm interior glow continued to show through the curtained windows. The pickup truck in the driveway didn’t move, nor did any of the other vehicles. It appeared no one was going anywhere.

  Candy waited a reasonable amount of time, then started the engine again and edged away before flicking the headlights back on and increasing speed. She continued south, following the narrow, winding coastal road, which would soon loop around the southern tip of the peninsula and take her eastward to Blueberry Acres and Cape Willington.

  So what did it all mean?

  She had a hard time believing that either Trudy or her husband had been the person who had followed her the previous night, and as far as she could recall, neither of them drove a baby blue pickup truck, since she’d never seen it around town before yesterday.

  Trudy’s nephew Brian Jr., who was helping them out in the store, was new in town, and Trudy said he was staying with them—here, in this house by the ocean, where the Watkinses had moved half a dozen years ago after selling a large farm property they’d owned inland. It was, Trudy had told Candy a few years ago, their dream retirement home, though neither of them planned to retire for a while.

  The baby blue pickup, then, must belong to Brian Jr. But did that make him her alleged follower—the shadowy figure? The lean, blond-haired young man certainly fit the description of the person who had appeared to stalk her on the village’s rainy streets the night before. She could imagine him in a baseball cap and black rain jacket, walking down the street in front of the pizza parlor.

  But why would Brian Jr. have any interest in her?

  For a few moments she was tempted to turn around, drive back to the Watkins place, knock on their front door, and start asking questions. But while she was still contemplating her next move, her cell phone buzzed. She slowed as she fished it out of her tote bag.

  “Candy, it’s Tristan,” the voice at the other end said.

  Her mood brightened immediately. “Tristan, hello! This is an unexpected call—and a pleasant surprise.”

  “Hope I’m not interrupting anything.”

  “No, not at all—just out for a . . . drive.”

  “Have you had dinner tonight?” he asked.

  She had to think about that. “Honestly, I don’t think I had lunch. In fact, I think the last time I had anything to eat was at breakfast with you at Pruitt Manor.”

  “You must be starving then. Interested in meeting me at the Lightkeeper’s Inn in, say, twenty minutes?”

  “I’m on my way. Hey, how’d everything go today?”

  “I’ll tell you over dinner.”

  As she keyed off the call and slid the phone into a pocket of her cardigan, she realized just how hungry she was, and stepped a little harder on the gas pedal. She toyed with the idea of stopping in at Blueberry Acres to change, since she’d pass close by it on the way into town. She’d been in her current clothes all day, though she’d dressed nicely enough that morning, in fairly new jeans and a pale green mock turtleneck top with her long tan sweater.

  Although a little wrinkled and shapeless, given her travels that afternoon, her outfit would stil
l be appropriate for the Lightkeeper’s Inn, which wasn’t an overly fancy place, so she decided to skip Blueberry Acres for now. She had another stop she wanted to make first.

  She drove into town about ten minutes later and found a parking spot halfway along Ocean Avenue. It was close enough to the Lightkeeper’s Inn, but upon climbing out of the Jeep, Candy headed in the other direction first, up the broad avenue to Main Street, then left at the corner and down to the end of the street, to the pizza parlor.

  The place was still open, so she pushed through the door and approached the counter, hoping she wasn’t too late. But it was a long shot, she knew, since it was nearly seven thirty.

  “Hi, is Phil the manager around?” she inquired.

  A minute later she was back outside. Phil had already gone home for the evening. She’d have to come back in the morning to talk to him.

  Huddled under her umbrella, she followed the route she’d taken the night before, walking the short distance along the Coastal Loop toward the inn. Though the weather wasn’t quite as rough as it had been the previous evening, she still felt a certain rawness in the air, and pulled her sweater tighter around her.

  She found Tristan at a table near the dining room’s stone fireplace, checking his phone, with a bottle of wine and two filled glasses waiting for the both of them.

  “Hope you don’t mind that I already ordered us something to drink,” he said, looking up as she sat down across from him.

  “I’m glad you did. It’s been a long day,” she said, and they clinked glasses before sipping the wine.

  After exchanging pleasantries, Tristan told her of his meetings with the police and the town council. “They listened,” he said, “but I’m not sure there’s much they can do about it at this point. As you pointed out, that letter is evidence of a premeditated situation, but that’s about all we can conclude from it right now—until something else turns up in the investigation.”