Town in a Blueberrry Jam (17 page)

Maggie’s jaw dropped. She looked as if she had just won the lottery. “Honey, just try to keep me away!”

TWENTY

Maggie walked over to the
Cape Crier
’s office on Ocean Avenue, since it was just a block away, but Candy drove the Jeep, thinking she might need it. She found a parking spot down toward the end of the block, across from the town park. Upstairs, Ben was pleased to see her. “Hi, Candy.”

“Hi, Ben. I’ve brought a friend of mine along. You know Maggie Tremont, right?”

“Sure. Maggie and I practically work next door to each other. Hi, Maggie.”

“Hi, Ben. This is really exciting—for Candy, I mean.”

He smiled, though he looked a bit frazzled. The sleeves of his blue oxford shirt were rolled up, his tie discarded, and his long brown hair was charmingly askew. He looked like a preppy school kid studying for exams.

“I’m really glad you decided to take this job, Candy,” he said honestly. “I’ve got everything ready for you.”

He handed her a manila folder. “Here are some forms for you to sign—a W-2, workman’s comp, that sort of thing,” he said, talking fast. “If you could get them back to me in a day or so, that’d be great. I’ll need your Social Security number so I can get you set up with payroll. You’ll also find a list of publishing dates for the rest of this year, and the deadlines for your column. Generally, it’s due every Monday at noon. Keep in mind that we suspend publication for two weeks at the end of August, which should work out pretty well for you—you’ll have only two columns due before the break, so you’ll have a little extra time to get your sea legs before we hit the fall issues, which can get hectic. Let’s see, what else? Don’t worry too much about a headline and deck—I’ll write those or the copy editor will. She’s a volunteer—great person—you’ll really like her. Anyway, about seven hundred words should do it each week—three pages typewritten. Nothing fancy with formatting. We use Microsoft Word. You can just e-mail the column to me—send it as an attachment.” He snapped his finger, as if he had just remembered something. “That’s right—I’ve got to set you up with a new e-mail address. You’ve got a computer at home, right?”

Candy nodded. It had been awhile since she worked a regular job, and she had gotten out of the habit of the daily grind, but she was keeping up with him okay. She wished again that she had brought a pen along to take notes. That’s something she would have to remember in the future, now that she was a columnist.

“Of course, you can use Sapphire’s office if you want to,” Ben continued. “There’s an old computer in there if you need it. It’s loaded with all the software we use. We can probably find some of her past columns on it so you can follow her formatting.”

Candy gulped, her enthusiasm suddenly zapped. “Sapphire’s office?”

Something in her tone made him pause. “Is that a problem?”

“Well . . .”

“The police have everything they need out of there, so don’t worry about that.”

“It’s just that . . .”

Ben’s brow fell, and he looked confused for a few moments, until Maggie piped in to help translate. “She’s worried about working in a dead woman’s office,” Maggie said matter-of-factly.

“Oh, I see.” But it was clear from the tone of his voice that he still didn’t totally understand.

“Maybe if we changed things around in there a little,” Maggie said helpfully to Candy. “You know, make the place your own.”

Candy shook her head doubtfully. She was wondering again if this was such a good idea after all. “I . . . I don’t know.”

“Tell you what,” Ben said. “Why don’t you two have a look around in there? You remember how to find it, right? See what you think. If it doesn’t work out, I can try to move you somewhere else, or maybe you can just work out of your home until we get it figured out, okay?”

Candy nodded, feeling slightly better. “That sounds acceptable.”

“Just give me a holler if you need anything. I’ll be around. Oh, and I’m having new business cards made up for you. They should be ready in a few days. In the meantime, you can use some of the generic cards we have floating around here. There might be some in Sapphire’s desk. If not, let me know and I’ll scrounge some up for you.”

Even with directions from Ben, it took Candy and Maggie more than five minutes to find Sapphire’s office in the rabbit warren of hallways and offices, which the
Crier
shared with a web-hosting company and a local quarterly real-estate publication. They made two wrong turns, winding up in a broom closet the first time and at a brick wall the next. But finally they opened a door and entered what had, until recently, been Sapphire Vine’s exclusive domain.

Maggie was thrilled with what she saw. “It’s just as I always dreamed it would be,” she said breathlessly. “This proves that she was a really, really twisted person.”

“Remember, you’re speaking of the dead,” Candy cautioned as she stood uneasily by the doorway.

Maggie ignored her. “Look, she has kitties on the walls! And look at all these cute little notes she wrote to herself! It’s all so wonderful!”

But while Maggie was thrilled with the unexpected treasures she found, Candy felt just the opposite. She swore she could feel Sapphire’s ghost inhabiting the place—and it wasn’t a happy ghost.

“I can’t work in here,” she said suddenly.

“Well, I agree, it is a bit dreary,” Maggie said, looking around. “It could use some sprucing up, maybe better artwork, and it needs a fresh coat of paint. That would help a lot. A nice eggshell, maybe? Or a soft mauve?”

“That won’t work.”

“Some new furniture?”

“Nope.”

“Flowers? Doilies? I could stencil a nice design around the walls for you.”

Candy shook her head.

“Well, what do you want to do then?”

Candy motioned to the computer. “Ben said there were some past columns on there. I’ll pull them off and put them on a disk. And I’ll dig around and grab some files, haul everything back home, and work from there. Maybe Ben can find another office for me in the next week or so.”

Maggie sighed. “Okay, if that’s
really
what you want to do, I’ll help you, but it sure seems like a wasted opportunity to me.”

They set to work, but Maggie couldn’t stay long—she had to head back to work at one thirty. Forty-five minutes later, Candy had assembled everything she thought she’d need, including many of the files from the cabinet, notebooks with scribbled messages, stacks of newspapers with Sapphire’s past printed columns in them, a handful of generic business cards, assorted business cards of individuals and companies around town that might serve as story leads, a well-thumbed address book, and copies of some of Sapphire’s e-mails she had printed out for later viewing.

She shut down the computer, loaded everything into two battered old banker’s storage boxes she had pulled out of the back of a closet, carried them down to the Jeep, then stopped back in to see Ben.

“We’ll work it out,” Ben said optimistically after she had explained everything to him. “Don’t worry about it for now. Just work on your column, and keep in touch. I’m here if you need anything. And I’ll find you another place to work. At the very least, I’ll move you in with someone else temporarily.”

She flashed him a smile. “Thanks for understanding. Sorry to be so childish about this whole thing.”

He waved a hand at her. “Don’t even think about it. I understand completely. Besides, like I said, you’re doing me a favor, right?”

“Right. Thanks, Ben,” she said as she headed out the door. “You’re a doll.”

And she meant it.

TWENTY-ONE

Candy stopped back at Duffy’s to pick up Doc, who had finished his game of pool and was back in the corner booth with the boys, and together they drove home. Before she unloaded the Jeep, she checked on the girls, who seemed as happy as ever. She gave them a few cupfuls of cracked corn and egg-laying pellets, freshened their water, gathered their eggs, and laid some clean straw in their roosts.

Then she carried one of the boxes filled with Sapphire’s papers and files into the house.

“What’s that?” Doc asked as he opened a bottle of beer, a good local brand called Thunder Hole Ale, brewed in Bar Harbor.

“Homework,” Candy said as she dropped the box onto the kitchen table.

“Got more in the Jeep? Want me to grab them?”

“One more. That would be great.”

“Coming right up,” Doc said, setting his beer aside as he walked out to the Jeep and retrieved the other box.

“What’s in here anyway?” he asked as he set the second box down on the table, beside the first.

“Sapphire Vine’s old papers, notes, and files. Ben thought it might help if I went through them, so I could see what kind of research she’d done—formatting, contacts, that sort of thing.”

“Well, you’ve got pretty big shoes to fill. Her columns were mighty popular, you know.” Doc at least had the good sense to add after a few moments, “But I’m sure yours will be just as good.”

She gave him a sideways smirk. “Yeah, right, thanks for the vote of confidence.”

“Hey, let me know if you need any help. I’ve got some experience as a wordsmith. And not just that ancient history stuff I’ve been working on. I’ve written about modern topics, for newspapers and magazines. They don’t give full professorships to monkeys, you know. You have to be published.”

“I’ll keep that in mind, Bonzo.”

“Hey, I heard that!” Doc called as he walked into the living room, flicked on the TV, and settled himself in to watch
Ellen
.

Candy sat at the kitchen table, unloaded both boxes, and started sifting through the files. Most contained worthless stuff—nothing much she could use. She tossed those files onto a discard pile on one side of the table.

A few files contained some notes and interesting stories that might be helpful in the future. Candy set those aside, intending to start her own filing system.

Then there were a few that confused her. Most of the files were labeled on their front tabs with names or subjects—not much guessing was required to figure out what was in them. But she found a handful of files—fewer than a dozen—that had no labels or names on them, and no indication of what was inside.

One, for instance, had the mysterious nomenclature BAK1946 printed in Sapphire’s childish letters on the inside front cover. It contained only a few e-mails, which Sapphire had printed out.

“We must come to an agreement about this, or else,” read one of the e-mails, one that had been sent by Sapphire.
A rather threatening comment
, Candy thought. Underneath that line, and indented a few spaces, was the message Sapphire had replied to. It read, “I’ve asked you not to contact me about this again. I cannot help you.”

Candy’s brow furrowed in thought. Whatever message from Sapphire this mysterious person had replied to had been deleted.

She flipped back through the other pages in the file. There were a few copies of printed e-mails with messages similar to the first one. Sapphire’s notes and tone grew increasingly threatening, and the unnamed person who replied grew increasingly reticent to do whatever it was she was asking. But there was no indication of the name of the person Sapphire had been exchanging e-mails with, or even the person’s gender.

There wasn’t much more in the file. A photocopy of an aged black-and-white photograph, showing a mother with a young child sitting on her lap. A yellowed newspaper clipping in German, which Candy couldn’t read. A few notes that made no sense.

German?

Candy looked back at the inside front cover.

BAK1946.

BAK? Could that stand for Baker? Herr Georg?
What year had he been born?
she wondered. He was in his early to mid sixties, she guessed. Counting back, she realized it was entirely possible he could have been born in 1946. But it didn’t make any sense. Why was Sapphire e-mailing Herr Georg? And what was it that she wanted him to do?

The thought crossed Candy’s mind that it might have something to do with the pageant. Maybe she
was
trying to bribe him.

Or maybe she was
blackmailing
him.

That could open up a whole new bucket of worms.

Candy set that file aside and picked up another. This one was just as intriguing as the first. It had information in it about all five judges of the Blueberry Queen Pageant, including phone numbers and e-mail addresses. Sapphire had placed checks beside the names of all five judges and circled two of the checks—those beside the names of Herr Georg and Sebastian J. Quinn.

That might fit
, she thought,
if she was blackmailing both of them
. But if Herr Georg’s file was here, where was Sebastian’s? She double-checked. There was no file with his name on it, nor any that looked as if it contained any information about him.

Curious.

She opened a third mysterious file. This one intrigued her the most. On the inside front cover were the initials
C. Z.
It didn’t take Candy long to figure out who that might be—Cameron Zimmerman.

Amanda’s boyfriend.

Unlike the others, this was a thick file, with clippings, photographs, and photocopies of old papers going back nearly twenty years. Sapphire had obviously done a lot of research on Cameron. There were numerous newspaper clippings of his educational and athletic achievements—making the honor roll in seventh grade, scoring a goal in junior varsity soccer, that sort of thing. A number of fuzzy candid snapshots of him that looked like spy photos, taken from behind bushes or at great distances, apparently without his knowledge. Candy even found a few pages that had been ripped from high school yearbooks, on which his images appeared.

Candy was surprised by the detail of the information she found.
Sapphire’s been stalking him for years
, she realized.
But why
?

There were also pages and pages of notes that traced Cameron’s history over a period of nearly fifteen years. Addresses and phone numbers. Detailed information about his parents, Moe and Debbie Zimmerman. Moe was a trucker; Debbie worked at a hair salon. Cam was their only child.

Candy read through the papers with growing interest. But it was a notation scribbled at the bottom of one of the last pages that caught her attention and made her sit up straight in her chair.

He’s the one
, it read.

“The one?” Candy said out loud. “The one what?”

“What?” Doc called from the living room.

“Nothing!” Candy called back.

“Hey, you should see this,” Doc said. “Ellen’s giving away iPods to her studio audience again. And you should see what else they’re getting.”

“Just a minute, Dad.”

Candy started going back through the files again, searching for other notations, but there was nothing unusual that jumped out at her.

Except, she realized with a start, for the fact that despite all she had found in Sapphire’s office, there was a lot of information that seemed to be missing—information that Sapphire, as thorough as she seemed to have been, should have collected.

In other words, there were huge gaps in Sapphire’s research.

For instance, there was a file on Cameron but practically nothing about any other student, or any teachers or school administrators. Practically nothing on the local police force or town council or county commissioners. Nothing about local businesspeople. Nothing on Mrs. Pruitt. Nothing on Maggie or Amanda.

And nothing on any of the other beauty pageant judges. Or any of the other beauty pageant
contestants
, for that matter.

In fact, nothing at all about the pageant.

Now that’s odd
, Candy thought, scratching her head. Ben had told her Sapphire was going to write her next column on the pageant, and that she had done some research on it. But there was nothing here about the pageant. Nada.

That doesn’t make any sense
, Candy thought,
especially when she was a contestant herself. There should be reams of information.

But there was nothing.

Maybe the police took those files
, she thought,
or maybe Ben has them
.

Or maybe Sapphire kept those files somewhere else—someplace private, where no one else could get a look at them. . . .

Candy was still sifting through the files, mulling them over, when Doc walked back out into the kitchen. Candy barely noticed him.

“That was a pretty good show,” he said in a conversational tone. “Too bad you missed it.”

“Huh?” Candy looked up.

“Ellen.”

“Oh. That’s great, Dad.”

“Hey, I’m gonna take a walk up through the fields before dinner. Want to join me?”

“No thanks. I’m going to work here awhile longer, then I’ll start dinner.”

“Okay.”

He was almost out the door when he stopped and turned back. “Oh, by the way, I almost forgot to tell you. I got some new information from Finn today. He talked to his source at the police department this morning. That guy we met, Officer Safford, was right about Ray’s lawyer. Seems he’s some superexpensive guy who works for a big firm up in Bangor. And guess who’s picking up the tab for his services?”

That caught Candy’s attention. She looked up. “Who?”

“You won’t believe it if I told you.”

“Daaad . . .”

“Okay, okay. It’s Mrs. Pruitt.”

Candy scrunched up her face. “Mrs. Pruitt is paying for Ray’s lawyer?”

“That’s what I said. In fact, this guy she’s hired is associated with the firm that handles all her estate and business affairs. Strange, huh?”

“Very.”

“Something else. They’ve been interrogating Ray—”

“Interrogating him?”

Doc nodded. “—and apparently he just keeps repeating the same thing over and over. Says he didn’t do it and says it’s up at the fort. The police have no idea what he’s talking about, and he’s not telling them. You know what he might mean by that?”

Candy had to think about that one. Finally she shook her head. “I don’t think so. The only fort I can think of is Fort O’Brien, that old Revolution-era fort up by Machias. But it’s just a ruin now, isn’t it? Just the foundations or something like that? I don’t know what that would have to do with anything.”

“Yeah, I thought the same thing. Well, I guess we’ll let the police figure it out. Just thought I’d ask.”

He gave her a wave and disappeared out the door, leaving Candy sitting at the kitchen table, gazing over the remnants of Sapphire Vine’s life.

But only partial remnants, Candy realized.

There had to be more.

She crossed to the phone, picked it up, and dialed Maggie at the insurance office.

“I’ve only got a second,” Maggie said. “What’s up?”

“You got any plans for tonight?”

“What do you have in mind?”

“You’re going to say I’m crazy, but I’m thinking about breaking and entering.”

“The old B-and-E? You
are
crazy. You can get yourself arrested for that, you know.”

“So I’ve heard. But I’ve got to do it. It just might save Ray. You with me?”

“Of course! How could I pass up an offer like that? So whose house are we breaking into?”

“Sapphire Vine’s.”