Town in a Blueberrry Jam (26 page)

Up ahead, Cameron turned off toward Fowler’s Corner, but on an impulse, Candy gunned the Jeep and continued on, straight ahead.

Maggie watched Cameron’s taillights trailing off to their right, then looked curiously at her friend. “We’re not going home?”

“Not yet, no.”

“You’ve got something else in mind tonight?”

Candy looked over at her. “I do.”

“And what, pray tell, might that be?”

“I don’t think you’re going to like this, but we’re going to break into Town Hall.”

THIRTY-FIVE

“It’s unlocked.”

“How can that be? They don’t leave this place open at night, do they?”

“Who knows? But it’s a bit of good luck for us. Now we don’t have to break anything—we can just walk right in. Come on.” Candy pushed open the back basement door of the Pruitt Opera House and peered at the darkness inside. “Good thing I still had that gear from last night in the Jeep.” She flicked on a flashlight and shined the beam into a long dark hallway. Behind her, Maggie folded up her umbrella and noisily shook it out, letting loose a spray of raindrops.

Candy jumped. “Hey, watch where you’re shaking that thing,” she hissed, obviously spooked. “And try to keep it down, will ya?”

“I am keeping it down,” Maggie retorted. “Just taking care of my umbrella.”

“Did you have to bring that thing along?”

“I wouldn’t have if you hadn’t parked so far away.”

“I had to park far away. We’re breaking in, remember? I don’t want someone to see the Jeep parked out front.”

“Who’s gonna see it on a night like this?”

“It’s just a precaution.”

“Well, bringing the umbrella along was a precaution also. What if it starts raining heavy again?”

Candy let out a sigh of resignation and took a few steps over the threshold and into the basement hallway. “Let’s just get what we came for and get out of here.”

“What’d we come for again?”

“The judges ballots, remember? We’ve got to find out if anyone else threw their votes to Sapphire. It might tip us off to the murderer.”

“Oh yeah, that’s right. Well, lead on then, Macduff.”

“Just try not to leave a bunch of puddles behind with that dripping umbrella,” Candy said over her shoulder as she started down the dark hallway.

“Um, I think somebody else beat us to that.”

“What?” Candy stopped and looked back at her friend.

Maggie pointed ahead of them, along the hallway. “See there? On the floor.”

Candy gave Maggie a quizzical look, then turned and shined her flashlight downward, then out in front of her.

A trail of wet footprints led down the hall, away from them.

“Where’d those come from?” Candy asked.

They exchanged a look.

“Someone else must be in here,” Maggie said, dropping her voice into a worried whisper.

Candy shook her head as she studied the footprints. “Not necessarily. Someone could have come and left. It’s been raining for a while. How long does it take wet footprints to dry?”

“At least an hour or so, wouldn’t it?” Maggie asked hopefully.

Candy shrugged. “I’m not sure.”

“Maybe we should leave,” Maggie suggested, hope in her voice.

“No, we have to do this. I think we’ll be okay if we’re cautious. Come on.”

Further on, the hall ended at a cross corridor. Turning right, Candy saw a stairway at the end of another long hallway.

“The town council’s office is down there somewhere,” Maggie said, looking over Candy’s shoulder.

Candy nodded resolutely. “Okay. That’s probably where we’ll find the ballots.”

“Do you think they’ll have them locked up? In a safe, maybe?”

Candy didn’t reply. She had wondered that herself, thinking this could all be a complete waste of time. But they had to try, she reminded herself. She moved on, holding the flashlight close to her body, so it was half-hidden, its light muted. “I think there’s a light on up there.”

“Where?”

“In one of the offices. It’s real faint, though.”

“Maybe they leave a night light on.”

“Maybe.” Candy found that it took all the courage she had to take the next few steps. The old building creaked as the wind outside drove at it, creating odd moans and echoes that sounded from the dark, distant corners of the basement. Refusing to be spooked, Candy continued on, with Maggie close behind.

Doors passed by on the left and right, all closed, until they came to one that was open, on their left at the far end of the hall. The faint light Candy had seen from a distance turned out to be a desk lamp, its shade pulled down and angled so the light was directed against the back wall. Candy checked the nameplate on the door: TOWN COUNCIL.

“This is it,” Candy whispered.

It was a windowless office with three desks and long shelves for books against the back wall. Two of the desks were pushed up against the front and side walls, looking relatively unused. The third occupied a space about halfway into the room, and was positioned so it faced the door. Papers and files were stacked neatly on its desktop, and containers for pens, paper clips, and pushpins were arranged in a neat row to one side. A nameplate on the front of the desk identified its owner as Bertha Grayfire, the chairwoman of the town council.

Candy walked to the desk and scanned the papers, then looked back at Maggie. “Why don’t you keep a lookout, just in case anyone’s still hanging around. I’ll see what I can find.”

Maggie nodded from the doorway. “Okay, chief,” she whispered loudly. “Just make it quick. This place gives me the creeps.”

“You’re not the only one.” Candy walked around to the back side of the desk, took a moment to assess the layout in front of her, then carefully started paging through the files and papers on the desktop. She found nothing useful, so she stooped and started opening drawers. The top middle drawer was locked. In the ones that were open she found typical items: more pens, pencils, and other office supplies; a box of envelopes; a discarded address book; a box of tissues; a well-thumbed dictionary and an old, battered hardcover copy of
Robert’s Rules of Order
.

She paused for a moment as a notation at the bottom of the book’s spine caught her attention. She half lifted the book with her finger, tilting her head slightly as she studied it. Hand-printed in white block letters on the spine were the initials
C. W.

That brought back some memory. What had it been? It took her a moment, but she finally figured it out. It was something Doc had told her a few days ago, about the flashlight that had been found at the bottom of the cliff where Jock Larson had died. The flashlight, he had told her, had the initials
C. W.
on it.

Candy let out a breath and rolled her eyes. Of course! She had thought the initials belonged to a person, and had wracked her brain to try to figure out who it might be. But the flashlight hadn’t belonged to an individual. It had belonged to the town!
C. W.
stood for
Cape Willington
!

For a moment she was elated, but quickly she realized it didn’t answer anything. In fact, it only made for more questions. Why had a town flashlight been up on that cliff in the middle of the night? Who had left it there? She pondered those questions as she continued her search.

At the bottom of the desk was a file drawer. Candy dropped to one knee, pulled it open, and had just started exploring the folders inside when Maggie spoke up. “Oh look!”

Candy’s head popped up over the desktop. “What is it? Is someone here?”

“No. Look. Pictures.”

She pointed, and on an impulse crossed the room to the far wall, where a series of framed photos had been neatly hung. Maggie studied them as if she were in an art gallery, nodding and smiling as she viewed one after the other. Candy went back to the file drawer but was distracted again by Maggie, whose voice suddenly took on a serious tone. “Candy, you’d better see this.”

Candy looked up again, her face scrunched in momentary annoyance. “What?”

“This photo.” Maggie tapped a picture frame.

“I’m kinda busy at the moment.”

“This is more interesting.”

Candy squinted, studying the photo from a distance. “What is it?”

“Come and have a look.”

Curiosity finally overcoming her reluctance, Candy rose and crossed the room. “So what’s so important?” she asked as she gently laid a hand on her friend’s shoulder.

Maggie pointed. “I’ve never seen it before. Have you?”

Candy turned to the photo Maggie indicated, focusing in on the image.

It took her a few moments to register what she was seeing. It was Bertha, she realized, although she hadn’t recognized her at first. Instead of being dressed in a business suit or street clothes, Bertha was wearing her Dolly Parton outfit—the one she wore every Halloween when she handed out candy at her home, and for costume parties. It had become a sort of trademark of hers over the years, and she milked it for all it was worth. It was a tight outfit, padded in all the right places, especially in the ample bosom and hips. She wore a pale blonde, almost white-haired wig, piled on top of her head in a beehive style.

Beside her stood Jock Larson, his hand tight around her waist, holding her close.

Jock Larson . . .

“Have you seen that picture before?” Maggie repeated, standing close to Candy.

“No, I . . .”

She stopped suddenly as something clicked inside her, and in a single, stunning moment, everything fell into place for her, and she saw the events of the past week laid out with incredible clarity, as if someone had quite abruptly, with the touch of a cosmic finger, aligned the planets across the starry sky.

“On my God!” A shudder raced through her as she turned to Maggie with the light of new understanding in her eyes. “That’s it! I’ll be damned,” she breathed, her hand instinctively clapping to her mouth as the realization spread through her. “It was her all along, wasn’t it? She’s the one who . . .”

“What are you doing here?” a harsh voice cut in.

Caught off guard, Candy and Maggie twirled clumsily—and found themselves face-to-face with Bertha Grayfire.

The chairwoman of the town council stood in the doorway, half in shadow, dressed much like Maggie had been the night before. Bertha wore black sweatpants, a dark gray sweatshirt under a dark blue Windbreaker, and black gloves. Her graying hair, usually neatly coiffed, was in disarray, as if she had just walked through a hurricane. In one hand she carried a flashlight; with the other she held tightly to a paper grocery bag.

Her gaze narrowed on the two women as she waited for an answer, but all she got at first were assorted babbles, stammers, and mumbles as Candy pulled Maggie away from the photos. Candy cast about for an excuse, her mind racing frantically, and finally blurted out the first sentence she could think of.

“We were . . . we’re, um, here to pay our property taxes!”

“Property taxes?” Maggie scrunched up her face and gave Candy an odd look, until Candy nudged her with an elbow, and Maggie finally got the point. “Oh, um, yeah, that’s right.” She forced a laugh, trying and failing to sound lighthearted. “You see, we were just wondering who to make our checks out to. I always get confused about that.” She looked at Bertha innocently, batting her eyes in expectation.

The silence that followed stretched dangerously long. Though she tried to maintain a calm appearance, Candy swallowed hard. She could hear her heart thumping in her ears and was sure she could hear Maggie’s heart pounding as well.

Finally Bertha spoke, in a tone that was low and harsh. “Property taxes were due three weeks ago. But I don’t think that’s why you’re here.” Her gaze shifted back and forth quickly, from Candy to Maggie, then to the photo on the wall. Her jaw tightened and her gaze grew hard as she turned back to Candy. “You were looking for these, weren’t you?” She nodded down toward the grocery bag she carried.

Candy was genuinely mystified at the question. “What?”

“The ballots,” Bertha said, her voice turning chillingly cold. “That’s why you came here, isn’t it? You’ve been running all over town the past few days, trying to help Ray. I’ve heard all about it. I know what you were looking for. And I knew you’d come here sooner or later—for the ballots. That’s why I shredded them.”

In an abrupt move, she tossed the grocery bag across the room, so that it landed with a plop at Candy’s feet. “Go ahead, get a close look.”

Candy didn’t need to look too closely. She could see from where she stood that inside the bag were the remnants of shredded documents, a confetti mix of green, white, and gray paper now ripped apart and undecipherable.