Town in a Lobster Stew chm-2

by B. B. Haywood

  “Of course.” Candy glanced down at her watch again. It was nearly two twenty. She had to be back at the farm in less than ten minutes to meet Cinnamon Girl, alias Wanda, and they were still stuck in postparade traffic.

  “So this mystery stew just happens to show up right in front of her? Doesn’t that sound awfully suspicious to you?”

  “It does.”

  Maggie leaned close and lowered her voice. “Do you think someone put it there on purpose, so Wilma Mae would see it?”

  “That’s my guess.”

  “But why?”

  “I don’t know. That’s what I’m trying to figure out. I can’t see where there’s anything to be gained by it. Unless...” Candy’s voice trailed off as a sudden thought came to her.

  “Unless what?”

  Candy glanced back over her shoulder, then said in a whisper only Maggie could hear, “Unless someone wanted to get rid of Wilma Mae. Maybe someone didn’t want her judging the cook-off. And they figured the best way to disrupt things was to put that stew in front of her and create a ruckus.”

  “I guess it worked, didn’t it?”

  “It certainly did.”

  The traffic thickened as the minutes ticked by all too quickly, and Candy soon realized there wasn’t enough time to take Maggie and Wilma Mae back to Maggie’s home in Fowler’s Corner and still make it to the farm by two thirty to catch Wanda.

  So at the intersection of River Road, Candy flicked on her signal again and turned left instead of right. “I know you’re going to hate this,” she told Maggie, “but you’re going to have to indulge me on something.”

  “What’s that? We’re not going home?”

  “We’re going to Blueberry Acres. I have to meet someone at the farm at two thirty, and I’m late. So you’ll just have to come along for the ride, okay?”

  “Well, sure, but... who are you meeting?”

  Candy looked as apologetic as possible, as if she were delivering some really bad news. “It’s Wanda Boyle.”

  Maggie’s shocked expression and silence told her everything she needed to know, but the situation couldn’t be helped.

  Ten minutes later they turned into the long dirt driveway that led to the farm. As Candy drove toward the house, she spotted Wanda’s SUV parked in front of the barn.

  She pulled the Jeep to a halt beside Wanda’s vehicle and turned toward her friend. “Look, you don’t even have to get out of the car,” she told Maggie. “Just sit tight and let me talk to her.”

  “What about Wilma Mae?”

  Candy looked around. The elderly woman was nodding off. “On second thought, maybe you should take her inside and let her lie down.” She handed the keys to Maggie. “As soon as I’m done here we’ll take her back to your place.”

  “Well, okay.” Maggie sounded uncertain as she looked over. “Just be careful. Whatever you do, don’t turn your back on her. I don’t trust her.”

  “Neither do I,” Candy said as she opened the driver’s-side door and climbed out.

  She found Wanda behind the barn looking at the chickens.

  “Hello, Wanda,” Candy said as she walked up behind her nemesis.

  Wanda turned, surveying her imperiously. “You’re late.”

  “I got stuck in traffic.”

  “I was just about to leave.”

  “Well, I’m here now. So what’s this all about?”

  Wanda stood with her body tense and her lips tightly pursed, displaying her disapproval at having been kept waiting. When she thought she had sufficiently communicated that fact, she nodded just slightly. “I’ll show you. It’s in the SUV.”

  Together they started around the side of the barn. Wanda walked just a little ahead of Candy, taking determined steps, as if she were a prizefighter about to enter the ring. She came around the end of the barn at full steam, crossed the driveway toward her vehicle, and practically walked right into Maggie, who was coming around the side of the Jeep.

  Both women froze in their tracks. After a few moments, their heads dropped and they took aggressive stances, like two stags on a mountaintop squaring off, antlers lowered. Candy could practically see the steam coming out of their nostrils.

  “What are you doing here?” Wanda growled.

  “I was invited,” Maggie responded roughly, giving no ground.

  “This is a private meeting,” Wanda insisted.

  “Fine by me. I want nothing to do with it, or with you. I just have to get Wilma Mae in the house. She’s worn out.”

  “Wilma Mae?” Wanda’s head swung toward the Jeep. She spotted the elderly woman sitting in the backseat.

  At the same time, Wilma Mae saw Wanda. Her eyes grew wide with fright as she recalled the times Wanda had come to her house, demanding to see Mr. Sedley’s recipe.

  Seeing her reaction, Maggie opened the rear door and spoke softly to Wilma Mae, motioning for her to step out. But the elderly woman refused, clutching her purse tightly and shaking her head in fear.

  “What’s wrong?” Maggie asked.

  Wilma Mae could only shake her head and point.

  Maggie spun on Wanda. “See what you’ve done? Now you’ve scared her.”

  Wanda took a step forward, but before she could say anything, Candy interceded. “Wanda, what did you want to show me? Let’s get this over with.”

  It took a few moments for Wanda to register the words, but finally she wheeled away. “Fine,” she huffed.

  She crossed to her vehicle, opened the back door, and pulled out a large manila envelope, which she held tightly. It was clear she had no intention of handing it over to Candy just yet. “Is there someplace we can look at this... in private?”

  Candy and Maggie exchanged a brief, knowing look before Candy waved her hand. “Come on, we can talk in Doc’s office.”

  Taking the keys back from Maggie, she walked to the house and unlocked the door. She walked through first, with Wanda right behind her. As she entered the kitchen, Candy took a quick glance at the Jeep and saw that Maggie had managed to coax Wilma Mae out of the backseat. The elderly woman stood uncertainly, looking about her.

  Candy turned back to Wanda. “This way.”

  Doc had taken one of the rooms at the back of the house for his office. Its hardwood floors were covered with dark area rugs, bookshelves lined the walls, and a large wooden desk, piled high with books, folders, and papers, occupied one end of the room.

  After glancing around, Wanda crossed to a table underneath a large window that looked out over the blueberry barrens behind the house. She cleared a spot on the table, opened the manila envelope’s flap, and withdrew an aged, folded document from inside. Delicately she unfolded the document, laid it out on the table in the space she had cleared, and flattened it carefully with her hands to smooth the creases. When she was done, she stepped back so Candy could get a better look at it. “Have any idea what this is?” she asked smugly.

  Candy switched on a light and stepped closer. She knew right away what it was. “Some type of blueprint.”

  “That’s right, but a blueprint for what?”

  Candy held Wanda’s gaze for a moment, then leaned closer for a better look.

  It was a single sheet, perhaps three feet long and two feet wide, with several design sketches on it, drawn in thin, precise lines and annotated with an architect’s hand. The sketches showed different angles of a carpentry project. A shelving unit, Candy realized as she leaned in even closer.

  It hit her quickly, and she couldn’t help gasping. “They’re the plans for the shelving unit in Wilma Mae’s upstairs bedroom.”

  “That’s right.” Wanda jabbed a finger at the blueprints. “And if you look right here, you can see the design for the secret drawer.”

  Candy studied the drawings for several moments. Wanda was right. She looked up. “These are Mulroy’s plans?”

  “A copy of his original, as far as I can tell,” Wanda confirmed.

  “But that means...” Candy’s mind worked quickly as the ramifi
cations quickly became apparent. Slowly she straightened. “Whoever had these plans would have known exactly where Wilma Mae had hidden the recipe for Mr. Sedley’s lobster stew.”

  “That’s right, Sherlock.”

  Candy took a step back as her gaze narrowed on Wanda. “Where did you get these?”

  Wanda squared her shoulders back proudly, well aware that she had once again scooped the town’s amateur detective. “I found them in Charlotte Depew’s office.”

  Thirty-Two

  “Charlotte.” The word left Candy in a long breath. She’d been reluctant to believe it was true, but here was more proof. All evidence pointed to Charlotte as the one who had stolen the recipe from Wilma Mae’s house.

  One mystery, it appeared, had been solved. But larger, deadlier questions loomed.

  If Charlotte had stolen the recipe, had she also murdered Mr. Sedley?

  And who had killed Charlotte?

  Candy stood with her arms crossed, staring down at the plans. So Charlotte had managed to get her hands on exactly what she needed to win the Lobster Stew Cook-off — details about the document drawer secreted away in the shelving unit designed by James Patrick Mulroy. The architect’s plans showed the exact location of the drawer, as well as the device that activated it.

  But had Charlotte used that information to steal the recipe herself, or had she conspired with someone else, who stole the ledger for her?

  It was an interesting question, but either way, Charlotte was still implicated in the crime.

  So where had Charlotte found the plans? Probably in the museum’s archives, Candy surmised. It would have been easy enough for Charlotte to dig around up there for hours after work, when the place had emptied out and she could go through the file cabinets undisturbed. She’d probably discovered the plans in the back of some forgotten drawer located in an ancient cabinet secreted away in a dark corner of the archives, some place only she knew about, where no one else looked.

  Not even Wanda.

  Or, Candy thought, maybe she got them somewhere else.

  Her gaze was drawn to the upper left-hand corner of the blueprints. Someone had written a message there. She leaned forward again, her eyes squinting so she could see a little clearer. Uncrossing her arms, she put her hands on the table and leaned forward even more, her head twisting around to match the slope of the lines.

  The writing was clearly in a different hand than the original architect’s — cursive, slanted, and scribbled hastily, as opposed to Mulroy’s neatly printed block letters. Still, the message was easy enough to read:

  Here are the plans. PS Make sure no one else sees this.

  She read it again. So. That answered the question of where Charlotte had found the blueprints.

  She hadn’t found them. They’d been given to her.

  But by whom?

  Perhaps by the same person who killed Charlotte, Candy realized with a start.

  But that didn’t make sense. Why would someone give Charlotte the plans and then kill her?

  Candy studied the scribbled lines again. There was no signature, no way to determine who had written those sentences.

  Wanda broke into her reverie. “Raises all sorts of questions, doesn’t it?” she asked, her voice seeming out of place in the serenity of Doc’s office.

  “Yes, it does.” Candy looked up. “But it also answers a few.” She tapped at the blueprints with her index finger. “This is the missing link. We know the recipe was stolen, right? We know Charlotte used it to create her stew for the cook-off. You told me that yourself. And now we know how she got her hands on the recipe. She took it from Wilma Mae’s house, using these blueprints, which showed the exact location of the document drawer — and the ledger.”

  “Right.” Wanda gave Candy a smug look. “Just like I said, Sherlock.”

  Candy stiffened as something clicked inside her, and a long-suppressed knot of irritation suddenly unraveled. She could hold it back no longer as she straightened and turned to face the larger woman. “Wanda, what’s up with you?” she asked angrily.

  The smugness abruptly disappeared from Wanda’s face. “What?”

  “I mean, come on, what’s with the attitude?”

  Wanda’s face settled into a cold mask. “I’m sure I don’t know what you’re referring to.”

  But Candy was having none of it. “You know exactly what I’m referring to. It’s these smug comments you’ve been making over the past few days. Calling me Sherlock. My name is Candy. You can call me either that or ma’am. We’re done with the Sherlock thing. You got it?”

  Now Wanda looked offended. “Well!” she said. If she had had a feather boa, Candy thought, she probably would have flipped it back over her shoulder and stormed off.

  “And while we’re on the subject,” Candy continued, “did you use this same attitude with Charlotte?”

  Wanda’s expression changed again, to one of wariness. “What do you mean by that?”

  “You’ve been after Charlotte for a while, haven’t you, like a dog nipping at her heels. Why, I don’t know. Maybe you wanted her job too, just like you wanted mine. Or maybe you just like to throw your weight around. It really doesn’t matter much to me. But whatever it was, it drove Charlotte to desperate measures.”

  There was silence for a few moments. When Wanda responded, her tone was icy. “If you must know, yes, I thought the woman was incompetent, and I let her and others know it. She was good at PR and in playing Little Miss Director. But the archives were a mess, and she was often rude to her volunteers.”

  Candy read between the lines. “Like you?”

  “Yes, like me. I offered her lots of suggestions for improvement. But do you think she listened to me? Noooo.” Wanda mimicked Charlotte’s voice, which sounded a bit eerie to Candy. Wanda continued, her voice growing angrier. “I watched her file all my suggestions away in some drawer in her office, and that was that. She had no intention of following through on any of my ideas.”

  “So you went over her head.”

  “Of course I did. Someone had to know what was going on around that place.”

  “You sent a letter to the board, which got Charlotte in hot water.”

  “I was just trying to improve the archives.”

  “You were trying to get her fired.”

  “I was tired of being ignored.”

  “Well, I guess she stopped ignoring you, didn’t she? I suppose she tried to reason with you.”

  “She tried, yes.”

  “And I suppose you told her to go take a hike.”

  Wanda nodded, her face still hard. “Something like that.”

  “And I suppose she didn’t take that well.”

  A pause. “No, she did not.”

  “So she started trying to figure out ways to beat you, didn’t she? She went to great lengths to get that recipe so she could win the cook-off — breaking and entering, at the very least. And possibly murder. And she did it all to prevent you from winning.”

  Wanda shrugged, unimpressed. “I suppose so.”

  “You created an enemy.”

  “I have plenty of enemies. What’s another one?”

  At that moment, Maggie poked her head into the room. “Did someone say enemies?”

  Wanda completely ignored the interruption, but Candy glanced at her friend. “Hi, Maggie.”

  “Having a nice chat?” Maggie smiled sweetly.

  Candy’s eyes shifted back to Wanda. “I suppose you could say that.”

  “Well, I know you kids are having fun in here, and I hate to break up the party, but I just got a call from Amanda and Cameron. They came back a little early, and I’d sure love to head back home to see them. So whenever you’re ready, we’ll be waiting in the kitchen.”

  “Is Wilma Mae doing okay?”

  “She’s fine. A little tired, but she’s a trooper.”

  “Okay,” Candy said. “We just need a couple more minutes in here.”

  “Sounds good.” Maggie looked at Candy a
nd mouthed something that looked like Be careful and then wiggled her fingers at them. “So, um, carry on, you two. Try not to break anything.”

  When she was gone, Wanda abruptly turned toward the table and began to fold up the blueprints. “This was a bad idea,” she announced. “I shouldn’t have come to you. I’m leaving.”

  Candy was mildly amused. “What’s the matter? Did I get too close to the truth?”

  “It’s nothing like that. I thought you could help.” She stuffed the document back into its envelope. “Pretend you never saw this.”

  “But I have seen it.”

  “Then forget it,” Wanda said, her voice rising.

  “I can’t.” Candy was surprised to find herself strangely calm. “Let me ask you something, Wanda. You said you found these plans in Charlotte’s office. You went in to look for the ledger, didn’t you? So did you find it?”

  Wanda hesitated only briefly before she answered. “No. She must have hidden it well. But I’m sure it’s there somewhere. I ran out of time. I only had a couple of minutes. I found this instead and hightailed it out of there.”

  “So you just went into her office and removed evidence without telling anyone?”

  Wanda looked at her blankly. “Evidence?”

  Candy pointed at the manila envelope in Wanda’s hands. “ That is evidence. The police will certainly search her office, if they haven’t done so already. They’ll be looking for clues to her death. And you’ve got an important one right there. You should take it to the police.” Candy paused, as her own words struck her. “We both have clues that will help them solve this mystery. And we can’t sit on them any longer. We both have to go to the police. Today. Right now.”

  Wanda’s face grew tight. “Why would we want to do that?”

  “So they can find Charlotte’s killer.”

  “But that’s what we’re doing, isn’t it?”

  Candy gave her a look. “We?”

  The word hung between them. Wanda obviously had let the word slip, but seemed to regret it.

  After an awkward moment, Candy cleared her throat. “Look, I’m glad you showed the blueprints to me,” she said, trying to sound a note of reconciliation. “But I’m not a detective, and I don’t work for the police. I’ve already been reminded of that. So you need to take that document over to the station. I’ll go with you, if you want.”