Town in a Lobster Stew chm-2

by B. B. Haywood

  Could Wanda Boyle have done such a thing? Would she have broken into Wilma Mae’s home, climbed those stairs, found this bedroom, and activated the release mechanism that opened the drawer?

  Why would she have wanted the recipe in the first place?

  As Candy pondered these questions and continued to study the drawer, she said hmm several times, causing Wilma Mae to look at her expectantly. But since she wasn’t a forensics expert, she didn’t know what to do next. Look for fingerprints? Hair samples? Fibers? Way out of her league. She was hardly an investigator of any sort, even in the broadest definition of the term. She still found it amusing that people around town thought of her as a detective at all — which, of course, she wasn’t. She knew that better than anyone.

  And here was the proof.

  A helpful note from the alleged thief would have solved the problem — perhaps with an address and phone number to make things easier? In the end she had nothing concrete, no theories or suppositions to offer the elderly woman.

  As they headed back downstairs, Candy tried to sort out all she had just heard and seen.

  Wilma Mae was quite a tale spinner — that much was true. But was anything else?

  Candy was torn. The practical part of her couldn’t help thinking that maybe Wilma Mae had simply misplaced the ledger that contained the recipe — left it out on another shelf somewhere, or in the back of another drawer, or given it to someone and simply forgotten she’d done so. People forgot where they put things all the time. Even Candy did it, all too often, much to her frustration. And Wilma Mae was well into her eighties. These sorts of things happened.

  That was the simplest explanation. But was it the right one?

  Maybe Wilma Mae was telling the truth. Maybe someone — Wanda Boyle? — had stolen the recipe from the elderly woman... but again, Candy asked herself, why?

  There seemed to be only one logical explanation: the Lobster Stew Cook-off. Wilma Mae had said the recipe was valuable. It probably was, Candy realized — in more ways than one.

  Because, ultimately, it was an award-winning recipe.

  That could make it very valuable to certain people in town. But was it worth the risk of stealing it from the home of an elderly woman? That was the part that nagged at her the most. Who could, or would, do such a thing? Who would be that desperate?

  Candy almost let out a quick laugh. Knowing this town, she could probably think of a half dozen people, and not even break a sweat doing it.

  In some strange way, it was all starting to make sense to her. Winning the annual cook-off was a fairly prestigious achievement around town — the newspaper devoted substantial portions of two issues to it. There was no doubt some people were petty enough to steal recipes from one another if it gave them a competitive edge. These sorts of things happened in small towns all the time. Didn’t they?

  And it certainly could have happened here in Cape Willington, Maine, given its overabundance of unique characters.

  Couldn’t it?

  Candy felt a quick chill go up her spine, a mixture of nervousness and excitement, as she realized she might be onto something. Call it intuition, a sixth sense, or what-ever, but she had to admit she was inclined to believe Wilma Mae.

  And that made her pulse quicken, knowing what — and who — she faced.

  Wanda Boyle? Why, of all people, does it have to be her?

  Candy shook her head and absently brushed back her honey-colored hair.

  She knew what she had to do.

  Standing in the kitchen, she told Wilma Mae she’d dig around, ask a few questions in town, and see what she could find out.

  Wilma Mae was beside herself with gratitude. “I can’t tell you how happy I am,” the elderly woman said enthusiastically. “Oh, I can pay you! Mr. Wendell left me a little money. And I know Mr. Sedley and myself would both be so grateful if you could get the recipe back for us. It would be like finding a lost member of the family — that’s how much it means to us.”

  “Mrs. Wendell, I could never take your money,” Candy said honestly. “Besides, I don’t know if I’ll find out anything at all. Just give me a few days to poke around. I’ll give you a call over the weekend and we can talk then.”

  Wilma Mae laid a thin-boned hand on Candy’s arm and gave her a sweet smile. “I knew you were the right person to call. I don’t know how to thank you.”

  Candy felt touched. “I haven’t done anything yet... but I’m glad to help if I can.”

  She thanked Wilma Mae for the tea, dropped her pen and reporter’s notebook into her purse, and said her good-byes.

  Outside, a cool wind blew past her, tossing about her hair and carrying with it the fresh, newborn smell of spring. The chilly breeze pushed her gently along the front walkway, but the midday sun warmed her as she climbed into her old teal-colored Jeep Cherokee, which was starting to show its age. She cranked up the engine, backed out of the driveway, and drove toward the center of town, her mind still occupied with thoughts of Wilma Mae, Wanda Boyle, and the missing lobster stew recipe.

  It took her only a few minutes to reach Ocean Avenue, a gently sloping central boulevard lined with quaint shops, restaurants, and other businesses. It ran in length only for a long, stretched-out block, from Main Street at its northerly end to Town Park, the Lightkeeper’s Inn, the Coastal Loop road, and the sea at its southerly tip. Its most notable feature was the Pruitt Opera House, which stood in stately fashion halfway down the avenue on the northern side.

  Candy glanced at the opera house as she turned onto Ocean Avenue. It had been there, on the building’s high widow’s walk, that one of the most harrowing experiences of her life had occurred on a rainy night ten months ago. Even now, the memory of that raw, windy night gave her goose bumps as images of the life-and-death struggle flashed through her mind.

  Quickly she shook away those thoughts and turned her attention back to the matter at hand.

  Finding a parking spot along Ocean Avenue in July and August, at the height of the busy summer tourist season, could be a tricky business, but she found plenty of spaces today. It was the Thursday before the Memorial Day weekend — the end of spring but not quite summer — and the bulk of the incoming visitors had yet to arrive.

  Still, Candy could sense a definite air of excitement around town. Cape Willington nearly doubled in size each summer, as the seasonal people arrived to open up their cabins and camps, and out-of-state cars clogged the streets and took up all the good parking spots. At the height of the summer season, in July and August, Ocean Avenue buzzed with conversations and laughter as the sidewalks, shops, cafés, and rustic seaside inns filled up with families and couples looking to spend a few days or weeks out of the day-to-day rat race of the rest of the world and enjoy some much-needed vacation time right here in Candy’s very own cozy coastal village in Downeast Maine.

  She pulled the Jeep into a coveted parking spot right in front of the offices of the Cape Crier and across the street from Stone & Milbury, the insurance agency where her best friend Maggie Tremont worked. She thought of stopping in briefly to say hi to Maggie but decided she had to check something first. So she pushed through a wood and glass door, identified as number 21B, and dashed up a set of well-worn wooden stairs to the second floor, where she entered the rabbit-warren collection of offices that housed the meager staff of the Cape Crier.

  She found the editor, Ben Clayton, in his office, sleeves rolled up, hair uncombed, staring intently at a computer screen, and stabbing at the keyboard as he swore softly under his breath.

  “Hi, Ben.”

  “Oh, hi, Candy. I thought you weren’t coming in until tomorrow.” His eyes flicked to her and back to his computer screen, but he didn’t stop typing. His fingers continued to move rapidly over the keys as he got his last few thoughts down before being pulled away into a conversation.

  Candy was used to the maneuver. She’d seen it before. It was simply his way of multitasking.

  “So how’d the interview with Wilma Mae go
?” he asked.

  “It was... revealing, to say the least. She has plenty of stories to tell, that’s for sure. First we had tea, and then we talked about all sorts of things.”

  “Oh? Like what?”

  “Well, her collection of ketchup bottles, for one thing. And Cornelius Roberts Pruitt, Helen’s father, who was quite a randy fellow, as it turns out. And Wilma Mae’s famous lobster stew recipe. And a secret compartment in the upstairs bedroom of her house, created by some architect named Mulroy. And, oh yeah, it sounds like we might have a recipe thief around town — possibly someone who’s trying to rig the Lobster Stew Cook-off.” She paused and smiled at him. “Anything else you’d like to know?”

  Ben whistled. He stopped typing, leaned back in his chair, crossed his arms, and looked up at her. “Okay, you had me at ketchup. Wow, it sounds like you had a great interview. What’s this about a recipe thief? And someone rigging the cook-off? That sounds pretty big. You got a story here?”

  “Could be,” Candy said, tilting her head thoughtfully to one side, “or maybe it’s just a case of a misplaced ledger. I’m not sure which, but I’m going to check it out, see if it leads anywhere. Hey, what have you heard lately about Wanda Boyle?”

  “Wanda?” Ben made a face as if he had tasted something particularly nasty, and shrugged. “Just the usual, I guess. She’s got her fingers in about every pie in Cape these days. She was doing some political canvassing last week — either for or against global warming, I can’t remember which. Not sure it matters much, as long as she gets her name in the paper. She’s been collecting clothes and books for the thrift sale at the Unitarian church — helps put a little shine on her image, I guess. I think she’s in charge of the graduation committee at the high school. She’s both a comanager and an entrant in the Lobster Stew Cook-off — I’m not quite sure how she’s going to pull that one off. Seems like a conflict of interest to me. Why doesn’t she just go for the trifecta and judge it too? Then she can make sure she wins the whole kielbasa, which is one of her lifelong goals. And, oh yeah, I think she’s trying to get together an all-female version of a barbershop quartet. She’s obviously going to sing the low part.”

  He paused, his brow furrowing in concern. “So what’s up? Is she giving you trouble again?”

  Candy waved a hand. “Naw, nothing like that. I was just wondering what you’d heard.”

  Ben shrugged. “It’s always the same with her. Wanda this, Wanda that.” Another pause. “Are you doing research? Is she going to be in your next column?”

  Candy sighed. “She’s in every column. That’s part of the problem, isn’t it?”

  “You got that right. I guess every town needs a busybody. At least it keeps things interesting.”

  “That’s for sure.” Candy indicated the computer screen. “So how’s the next issue coming?”

  He ran a hand across his rugged face as his gaze returned to the glowing screen in front of him. “It’s coming. The busy season’s upon us.”

  “It sure is.” She tapped the doorway with her hand. “Well, I’ll let you get back to work.”

  She had just started down the hall when she heard Ben call after her, “Hey, are we still on for Friday night?”

  She stopped, retraced her steps, and popped her head back into his office. “We are, as long as it’s something a little more upscale than Duffy’s Main Street Diner, please.”

  He grinned at her, but she saw a tiredness around his eyes. “I’ve heard there’s a new Italian place up on Route 1. They actually have tablecloths. And the antipasto’s supposed to be pretty good too. I thought we might try it.”

  “Mmm, I love Italian. Sounds good to me.”

  “Who knows,” Ben said as his fingers starting moving over the keyboard again, “I might even spring for a bottle of Chianti. Maybe even two.”

  Candy laughed. “Mr. Moneybags, huh? Okay, you’re on.”

  As she started off again, her smile lingered. After they met last summer, it had taken Ben nearly six months to ask her out. Early on, they had chatted over coffee, rubbed elbows in the office, and occasionally grabbed lunch together, but nothing more than that. Ben had always maintained a respectful professional distance.

  Candy didn’t mind that he took his time. She had simply enjoyed having someone else her age, and single like her, to talk to. But eventually his tone had changed. He became more playful, more willing to joke with her, and as he had lightened up she had sensed his interest in her.

  She had expected him to ask her out on a date around Christmas or New Year’s, but he waited until Valentine’s Day. They had a wonderful dinner together that night, and had been going out together ever since, though usually just a few times a month, due to their busy schedules and all.

  As they started dating, she began to find out more about him. After graduating from Boston University with a degree in journalism, Ben started working for a newsweekly and spent most of the next decade and a half overseas, primarily in Africa and the Middle East, but also in Europe and Asia, traveling from one assignment — and one conflict — to another. He had been married twice, but both had been brief — three years to a British woman whom he’d met in Africa, less than eighteen months to an American journalist based out of Spain. He had no children. Coming back to the United States, he had sought a less stressful job, one where he could settle in for a while and focus on local news. A college friend of his, whose father owned a few weeklies in New England, suggested the job at the Cape Crier. After visiting the town and giving it some thought, he had taken the job, expecting to stay a year or two. He was now in his fourth year as editor.

  He was, in many ways, a unique type of a person, Candy thought as she walked along the dark hallway toward her office. Perhaps that’s why he fit in so well here in Cape Willington, where everyone was a little different. Educated and well traveled, he was also essentially a loner, who preferred to live alone, fish alone, hike alone, and work alone. He had varied interests — William Faulkner was an idol of his, as were Ian Fleming and Max Ernst, the British surrealist. He liked to listen to Texas blues music and watch college football, and he loved English soccer. Manchester United was his team. He apparently knew how to play cricket, though Candy had never witnessed him doing so. But he had talked about it a few times over dinner, trying to explain the complex rules of the game to her. She had always found it too confusing, but she still liked listening to him explain it. He had a few close friends who called or visited him from time to time — mostly college buddies and colleagues from his years overseas. But he hadn’t sought out many friends here in Cape — he simply didn’t seem to need them. Candy often spotted him alone, sitting at the back of some coffee shop or café along Ocean Avenue or Main Street, eating a pastrami on rye or sipping at a cup of coffee while reading the Columbia Journalism Review or Sports Illustrated.

  Thinking through it all, Candy had a hard time finding much common ground between the two of them. Was he the right fit for her? It was a question she’d asked herself several times over the past few months. But usually, in the end, she decided she was overthinking the whole thing. Better, she decided, to just take it a day at a time and see what developed. In the meantime, Ben was a good guy to hang out with, and they had fun together.

  The fact that she was dating again especially pleased her father, Doc, who worried endlessly about his daughter’s happiness. And it gave Candy something to talk about with her friend Maggie.

  So, at least for the moment, it was a comfortable relationship, for both her and Ben.

  She hurried past the offices of Judy Crockett, the newspaper’s fortyish part-time sales rep, who floated through the day in a constant state of giggly lightheartedness until she picked up the phone and dialed a client, at which point her steely core of arm-twisting resolve kicked in; and Betty Lynn Spar, the great-granddaughter of a sea captain, who took her name and ancestry seriously. Her shouts of “Ahoy!” and “Full steam ahead!” could be heard periodically throughout the day as she scur
ried about the office handling phone calls and mail, running errands, brewing coffee, greeting visitors, keeping track of ad accounts and payroll, and generally making sure everything was, according to Betty Lynn, “shipshape.”

  As Candy passed by the office of Jesse Kidder, the paper’s rail-thin, shaggy-haired, lip-pierced graphic designer and on-call photographer, she paused to stick her head in the door.

  “Hi, Jesse. Hey, are you covering the cook-off on Saturday? I’m just wondering if I should take a camera with me or if you’ll be there to save the world from my horrible photography.” As she spoke, she glanced over Jesse’s shoulder at his computer screen, where he was working on a mock-up of the upcoming issue’s front page.

  Jesse swiveled to face her, running a hand over his stubbly face. He smiled indulgently. “Your photos aren’t that bad, Candy. You just need to work on your composition. And your light exposure. And your focus. And your depth of field. And your resolution.” He paused, considering what he’d just said. “On second thought, I guess I’d better take those shots. What time do you want me there?”

  “You’re a sweetheart! Thanks so much. I’m showing up about nine, but if you’re there by ten or so that should be good. We can get some shots of the contestants preparing their stews, and maybe some close-ups of the ingredients — you know the type of thing I’m looking for.”

  He nodded. “I’ll get some crowd shots too — maybe a photo of a cute little girl eating a bowl of lobster stew — you know, human interest stuff.”

  “That sounds great. Oh, and you should probably shoot the judges and stay for the awards ceremony if you can, so you can get a few pix of the winner.”

  “You got it, chief. What time does that take place again?”

  “The judging starts at noon, and it should all be over by one or so. After that, you’re done. I might even throw in a little free food. Deal?”

  “Sounds like an offer I can’t refuse. See you there.”

  Candy’s office was next to Jesse’s. She blew out a breath of air as she sank into her desk chair and, with mild trepidation, scanned the messages Betty Lynn had left her, all decorated with little drawings of anchors, lighthouses, and life preservers.