He got what he deserved, she thought as she shuffled through her notes. Mission accomplished—at least one part of it. The rest would take care of itself.
It was time to hurry this presentation along so she could leave, so she decided to skip the section on holiday recipes and jump right to the closer, New England desserts. She’d found some good ones in her travels, and ran over in her head the few she would discuss here today.
But as she looked up, about to continue her talk, she noticed a commotion at the other side of the room, where a table with refreshments had been set up. A woman appeared to be lying flat out on the floor. She wasn’t moving. Perhaps she was even unconscious. What the heck was she doing? The silly thing was disrupting her presentation. Julia thought the woman looked vaguely familiar, though she couldn’t remember her name.
Then she noticed something else that caused her heart to skip a beat.
Though she couldn’t be certain, due to the distance, it looked suspiciously like a jar of pickles from the Sweet Pickle Deli. It sat on the refreshment table, right in the front corner.
Several women were hovering around the prone figure. “I think she’s ill,” one of them said loudly. “She ate too many of those pickles.”
“They’re the bad ones, aren’t they?” asked a second woman.
“Is there a doctor in the house?” someone else called out.
A male voice from another part of the room spoke up in response. “Yes, right here! I’ll take a look at her.”
A distinguished-looking gentleman stepped forward, holding a medicine bag. His steel gray hair was combed straight back, and wire-rimmed glasses perched on his thin nose. He hurried to the fallen woman, knelt beside her, and somewhat awkwardly opened the bag and rummaged around inside. Eventually he pulled out a stethoscope and fiddled with it for a few moments before plugging the listening stalks into his ears. He looked up and around. “Give us some room, please!” he said, and motioned for everyone to step back.
Using the stethoscope, he checked the fallen woman’s heartbeat, felt for a pulse, and pulled open her eyelids, one at a time, before shaking his head. “I’m afraid there’s not much I can do.”
A murmur of disbelief swirled around the room, and some of the women appeared visibly shaken. “It’s those pickles again,” one of them said, clearly stunned. “They’ve claimed another victim.”
But no one was more shocked than Julia von Fleming.
Another jar? How could that be?
How did it get there? she wondered. She hadn’t put it there. So where had it come from?
She felt her heart pounding. Could the jar on the refreshment table be her jar? Had she mixed things up and brought the wrong box into the building? She’d brought in several, including a box of her books and another one containing materials she might need for the presentation and an impromptu signing afterward. She liked to be prepared for every occasion. But had she been too careless this time, accidentally bringing in the box with the jars?
Karla Kincaid, the library’s director, was already down off the stage headed toward the opposite side of the room. The other staff members on the stage were standing now, talking worriedly amongst themselves in low whispers.
I need to check it right now, Julia thought, fighting the rising panic, which threatened to swell inside her. If someone else has died, the police will be suspicious of everyone here. They might even want to check our personal belongings and the cars out in the parking lot. She didn’t want to be caught red-handed with incriminating evidence. She should have ditched that box a day or two ago, but she held on to it, since she thought she might need it. But it had become a detriment, and potentially could get her thrown into jail.
She glanced around. Everyone’s attention seemed to be aimed toward the back of the room. No one was looking in her direction at the moment. A perfect time to disappear for a few minutes.
She left her notes where they were. She would pick up the rest of her materials and her purse later. Right now, she had to move quickly, before things got out of hand.
Without saying a word, she bowed her head low and walked off the stage, around the side of the room, and out the door before anyone noticed what she was doing. Moving quickly, she climbed the carpeted stairs to the main floor and hurried out of the building, all the while wondering where that jar of pickles had come from.
Surely it couldn’t be hers, could it? That seemed impossible. But she had to check. She had to make sure.
Had someone been digging through her stuff? Had someone broken into her car when it was parked out on the street and taken the box from the back without her knowledge?
If so, she had a pretty good idea who that person might be.
She chided herself. She’d been so careful. She couldn’t imagine what had happened.
Outside the library, her head still bowed low to minimize the chance that someone might notice her, she walked briskly toward her white VW.
FORTY-NINE
Standing in a back corner behind the stage, arms crossed, trying to look as inconspicuous as possible, Candy watched as Julia von Fleming left the room in a rush. The cookbook author appeared visibly shaken. She looked as if she was desperate to get somewhere fast.
So far, so good, Candy thought. The plan was working. Now, if the rest of it played out as they’d hoped . . .
Once Julia left the room, several key members of their team signaled to each other, indicating that all was clear, and Artie Groves, who had been playing the role of the doctor, got the message. “Oops, false alarm,” he said to those around him. “It appears I spoke too soon. I think she’s going to be all right.”
As if on cue, Maggie coughed several times, lifted a hand to her chest, and raised her head. “Those pickles were much too salty,” she said, sputtering a little with her tongue, as if to rid herself of the taste. “Next time, I’ll stop after the first one.”
There were signs of visible relief around the room, and a few women even applauded, but Candy barely noticed. She had her phone out and was sending out a quick text message:
She’s on the move. Parking lot, 5 mins.
Moments later she was on the move herself. But before she left, she located Karla Kincaid, tapped her on the shoulder, and whispered into her ear, “Keep everyone here for a few minutes, okay?”
Karla nodded back. “Will do. Good luck.”
Candy crossed the room and climbed the stairs to the main floor. She headed to the front door, but before she exited, she stopped and peered out, scanning the parking lot.
She spotted Julia right away. She was just reaching her car, which was parked on the left-hand side of the lot near a wing of the building. She had a key fob clutched in her hand. She pressed it, and the VW’s hatchback popped open.
She moved quickly, dipping her upper torso into the car’s trunk space and rummaging around until she found what she wanted. She pulled out a small cardboard box, perhaps a foot square. She checked the contents quickly, shook her head, and then tucked it under her arm. Looking around, she spotted a Dumpster at the end of the library wing on her left. Without hesitation, she crossed to it in a dozen steps, peering surreptitiously in either direction as she approached it. Almost quicker than the eye, she raised the lid of the Dumpster and tossed in the box, then made a hasty retreat.
She scanned the lot as she returned to her car, but seemed assured no one had seen her. Candy remained out of sight just inside the main building.
Back at her car, Julia rearranged the boxes and then closed the hatchback. Palming the key fob, she pressed a button and locked up the car.
She appeared much more confident as she returned to the library—until she saw Candy, who had just stepped out the front door.
Julia stopped dead in her tracks, still halfway between her car and Candy. Her gaze narrowed and her jaw tightened. “You!” she said, her voice carrying across the lot.
“Yes, it’s me again,” Candy said as she started toward Julia. “I just thought I’d c
ome out and get some air, see what’s going on out here. Everything’s kind of crazy inside.”
Julia glared at her. “That was all your doing, wasn’t it? I’ll bet that was all an act designed to, what—throw me off my guard?”
“Something like that,” Candy said as she got closer.
“That jar wasn’t the real thing, was it?” Julia continued, still not moving. “It was a fake, a decoy? Where did you get it?”
“Actually,” Candy said, glancing back over her shoulder at the library, “it was the real thing. It’s one of Sally Ann’s. She had only two jars left from the deli, but she emptied one out for us. Of course, she saved the original pickles for herself. Don’t want to waste them on something like this. So we replaced them. The ones Maggie ate were store-bought. But,” she continued, her gaze returning to Julia, “it was smart of you to double-check.”
Julia was visibly angry. “You’re saying you interrupted my presentation for that . . . that charade?”
“A small but necessary ruse. And it worked, didn’t it? It caused enough doubt in your mind to make you come out here and get rid of that box you just tossed in the Dumpster.”
Candy was only a short distance away now, and Julia crossed her arms, as if to strengthen her defense against an invading enemy. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Let me guess,” Candy continued as she took a final few steps and stopped a few feet from Julia. “There are at least two jars inside that box. Because that would make sense, right? You had to be able to make good on the threat in that letter you wrote to the Pruitts, so you must have kept at least one jar nearby with the Sweet Pickle Deli label on it. I’m guessing the label on it looks fairly new, since you probably had it printed up just a few weeks ago—not like the one on the jar Sally Ann provided to us, one of the originals. You must have used either a local printer in New Hampshire or found someone online. I’m sure we could verify that easily enough. We’d just have to check your computer.”
“You’ll never get your hands on it. You can’t prove anything.”
“I’m getting to that,” Candy said, “because it’s the other jar that’s the important one—the ‘proof,’ as you call it. That’s the one piece missing in this whole puzzle—the jar Sally Ann Longfellow left out on her side porch Friday morning, the one Wanda was supposed to pick up and take to the cook-off contest. Someone switched those jars before Wanda got there, and whoever switched them left the jar from the Sweet Pickle deli in its place. But what happened to that jar of Sally Ann’s pickles?”
“I’m sure I don’t have a clue,” Julia said.
Candy accepted that answer and moved on. “Trudy Watkins says you stopped in at the canning demonstration at the general store on Thursday night. That means you must have been in town Friday morning. Just out of curiosity, where were you at the time those jars were switched?”
Julia’s face hardened. “Not that it’s any of your business, but I’ll tell you the same thing I told the police—I was in my hotel room, getting a little work done and preparing for the cook-off contest that afternoon. People saw me at the inn. I can prove I was there.”
“Be that as it may, you could have found an hour or so to slip out, drive to Georgia McFee’s place, and leave a jar in her mailbox, and then on the way back into town stop by Sally Ann’s and make the switch. That’s when Sally Ann’s jar would have gone into that box in your trunk. And it’s been there ever since, right?”
“That’s crazy,” Julia said. “I never heard such an absurd accusation.”
“You’ve probably been debating all weekend how long to hold on to those jars,” Candy continued. “There’s not much you could have done with them between Friday morning and today. You could have buried them somewhere, though I doubt you have a shovel with you, or dropped the box in a Dumpster, which you finally did. But you held on to them until now, because you thought they might come in handy at some point. That box wasn’t in your hotel room this morning, as far as I could tell, so it had to be in the trunk of your car, right?”
Julia’s eyes narrowed as she scrutinized her opponent. “You’re fishing,” she said.
“But then Maggie collapsed in there, and you thought your jar of poisoned pickles might have somehow made it onto that refreshment table today. That’s what you came out here to check—and to get rid of the evidence once and for all. Because the truth is, those two jars, especially the one with Sally Ann’s label on it, link you directly to the crime.”
“It sounds like you’ve given this a lot of thought,” Julia said, still standing with her arms crossed.
Candy shrugged. “Like I said, it’s just common sense.” She nodded toward the Dumpster. “And it’s easy enough to verify. We just have to check that box and see what’s inside.”
For a moment a look of fear flashed through Julia’s eyes, but she fought it down, and instead gave Candy a defiant look. “Even if you’re right, you still can’t prove anything. My fingerprints aren’t on those jars. Despite what you say, there’s nothing to tie me to them. You might say you saw me toss them in the Dumpster, but it’s my word against yours.”
“Maybe so,” Candy said, “so indulge me for a minute—since there’s no one else around, and it’s just your word against mine. I can figure most of this out. I take it this was partially about the money—the two hundred thousand mentioned in the extortion letter to the Pruitts—but it was also about you and Maurice Soufflé, wasn’t it? That was the point of this whole thing from the beginning—to place the blame for the poisoned pickles on him. Possibly to ruin his reputation. And possibly—at least it’s my guess—to try to flush him out of his lair, wherever that might be. Am I close?”
Julia studied Candy for a few long moments, and checked to make sure they were alone in the parking lot before she continued. “Close enough. You’re certainly getting warm.”
Candy took that as a signal to continue. “Yesterday when I was up at the Spruell place, Marcus told me that you wanted a cut of his deli business, and with good reason, since he used some of your family’s recipes, didn’t he? Your last name is Kaufman, isn’t it? The original pickle recipe Maurice used was attributed to someone named Mabel Kaufman. A relative of yours? Your mother? Grandmother?”
Julia looked somewhat surprised. “How did you find out about that?” she wondered, her face drawn in thought. But then it dawned on her, and she held out a finger for emphasis. “Sapphire Vine, right? That’s where you saw a copy of that original recipe. I gave it to her years ago, as evidence. I’m surprised she held on to it. It was my grandmother’s recipe, of course. She’s responsible for those pickles everyone loves, not Maurice. He stole it from me.”
“So you had the recipe all along? But you said you’ve been trying to get it from him all this time.”
Julia shrugged. “A fabrication. My goal was to nail that guy for what he’d done.”
“So you were feeding Sapphire information about Maurice?”
“I was doing anything I could to try to bring him down,” Julia admitted, “but no one would listen to me. They were all too wrapped up in his pickles. Everyone kowtowed to that man. They kissed the ground he walked on, all because of their stomachs. No one had the courage to stand up to him—except one or two people, like Georgia McFee.”
“So why leave a jar in her mailbox?” Candy asked.
“Because I figured she was smart enough to know what it was. I honestly didn’t think she’d eat any of them. I thought she was too smart for that. Guess I was wrong. On the other hand, it helped point the finger toward Maurice in a pretty strong way. The stronger the evidence, the better. I wanted to destroy him in any way possible, from his reputation to, well, . . .” She let her voice trail off.
“So you followed me to Old Town yesterday and waited until I was gone to surprise him at his house, right?”
“I won’t go into details, but it’s safe to say I got the drop on him, yes. Of course, he was very surprised to see me, although at first h
e didn’t know who I was, since I’ve changed my appearance since he last saw me. But he figured it out pretty quick.”
“So why now?” Candy asked. “Why wait so long to take your revenge if he cheated and betrayed you so many years ago?”
Julia’s expression grew angry again. “Because of Maurice! Because of his greed and arrogance! He contacted me through my website a few months ago, and said he knew my true identity. Said he would expose me unless I split my book profits with him. Imagine that—he refused to share his profits from the deli with me, but demanded I share mine with him! So I had to fight back. I had to stop him, in any way possible.”
Candy thought she had all she needed for the moment, but she had a final question. “There’s one detail I can’t quite figure out,” she said, sensing that Julia was growing impatient and was ready to move on. “Why almost eat that pickle on Friday? Why put yourself in danger if you knew it was poisoned? Why not let someone else take the first bite, although if I remember correctly, you tried to get Herr Georg to do just that.”
Julia gave her an indulgent look. “It’s called deniability. It removed me as a suspect for most of your investigation, didn’t it? That was the whole point.”
“Were you actually going to eat it?”
Julia shook her head. “Not really. Maybe a nibble or two—nothing that would be too damaging. I knew what I was doing. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I believe they’re expecting me back inside. I have a presentation to finish.”
“I’m afraid you won’t be doing that,” Candy said, “because in a few minutes you’re going to be placed under arrest.”
Julia scoffed at this prediction. “You’re not listening. I just told you—you have nothing you can pin on me. I’ll deny everything I just told you. I’ll tell the police you made the whole thing up to protect yourself after you killed Marcus Spruell. You have no evidence I did any of this. So, if you’ll stand aside . . .”
Town in a Sweet Pickle Page 26
