Town in a Blueberrry Jam (27 page)

She looked up at Bertha, her expression changing. No sense in pretending any longer, of clinging to some semblance of innocence. They both knew where the truth lay. “Those were your white hairs, weren’t they? The ones I found in the folder in Sapphire’s home office?” She tilted her head toward the photo. “They were from the wig.”

Bertha seemed surprised for a moment, but then surprise gave way to a chuckle, though there was no joy in her voice. “So that’s where she put them. I’ve been looking for those damned strands of hair all week. I’m sorry you found it before I did.”

“Where did she get it?”

Bertha scoffed at the question. “You’re supposed to be the sleuth. Why don’t you figure it out?”

Candy already had her suspicions, which had gone unspoken until now. “My guess? In Jock’s bed.”

Another silence, as Bertha’s expression darkened. “You’re smarter than you look.”

“You wore the outfit for him, didn’t you?”

Bertha’s mouth worked, her anger obvious, but she apparently decided to play the game, at least for the moment. “Yes, if you must know. He had a fixation on the Dolly Parton thing. It was his idea in the first place. He liked me to dress up sometimes, give him a show. He was a little strange that way.”

Maggie gasped in sudden realization. “So you two were . . . an item?”

Bertha blew out a breath of air. “Oh, come on, Maggie. Try to keep up.”

“And Sapphire too,” Candy continued. “They were seeing each other?”

“Apparently. I only found out about that later. Jock was a busy boy, as you’ve no doubt heard.”

“That’s where she found the strands of hair . . . when she was in Jock’s bed.”

Bertha shrugged. “I suppose. She was an industrious woman—I’m sure you’ve heard that too.”

“And she used the evidence to blackmail you? So you’d let her win the pageant?”

At that, Bertha actually laughed. “You still haven’t figured it all out, have you? Here, I’ve got something to show you.”

Moving quickly, the town councilwoman crossed the room to the desk, took a set of keys from a pocket and opened the top middle drawer. She reached inside, her back to Candy and Maggie, blocking their view.

When she turned back around, she held a gun in her hand. “You want to know the truth?” she seethed, her face a twisted mask. “All right, I’ll tell you. Yes, Jock and I were having an affair—but it was much more than that. For six years I gave him anything he wanted. I kept quiet about us, just like he wanted. I was there whenever he needed me. I put up with his constant philandering. He told me he would marry me . . . so I waited and waited for him. But it never happened. Finally I realized he was playing me, just like he played with everyone else in this town. He used me, like he used everyone else. I threatened to leave him, to break it off for good, but he told me he just needed more time, that he would change.” She shook her head as she let out a low, sad sound. “But I knew Jock wouldn’t change. When I told him it was over, he begged me to meet him at our secret spot—up on Mount Desert Island. . . .”

Maggie gasped, and Candy felt a chill go up her spine. They both knew what was coming next.

“I don’t know for sure what happened that night,” Bertha continued, her voice flat and unemotional. “I thought he might propose to me . . . that’s really what I thought . . . but I was as foolish as ever. He had no such thing in mind. He just wanted to make sure I kept my mouth shut about the two of us, once he broke it off. I was furious. I lashed out at him. He was standing too close to the edge when . . .”

Her voice trailed off.

Candy finished the sentence for her. “You pushed him too hard.”

Bertha’s gaze had grown distant, as if remembering the terror of that night. “He lost his footing, and then . . . he was gone.” She shook her head in disbelief. But she gathered herself quickly. Her gaze narrowed on Candy and Maggie. “So now you know. I killed Jock Larson.” She paused, raising the gun and pointing it right at them. “And now I’m going to kill you.”

THIRTY-SIX

“Bertha, you don’t have do this. Jock’s death was an accident.” Staring down the barrel of the gun, Candy found herself strangely calm, though her mouth was suddenly dry. Carefully, moving slowly, she held out her hands and tried to sound as friendly as possible, as if talking down someone about to jump off a rooftop. “We can get you help. We’ll sort this out. Don’t make it worse.”

“She’s right!” Maggie managed to squeak. She pointed frantically at Candy. “Listen to her. She knows what she’s talking about. She’s smart!”

“Too smart. You know too much,” Bertha growled, brandishing the gun.

Maggie’s eyes grew wide. “You know what? Not a problem. We’ll just forget everything we said here. We won’t tell a soul. Will we, Candy?”

“It’s too late,” Bertha said. “It’s too late. Don’t you think I would end this if I could, if there was any other way? But there isn’t.” She glanced down at the bag of shredded documents, and suddenly Candy knew what Bertha was talking about. She felt cold in the pit of her stomach.

“You killed Sapphire too.”

“She forced me into it,” Bertha said, sounding more hysterical with every word. “She was a wicked woman . . . a
wicked
woman!”

“She used the hairs from the wig to blackmail you, is that it? To make sure she was chosen as the Blueberry Queen?”

“Oh no, not that. She knew how to play her cards at the right time. No, she didn’t blackmail me. She just went after the judges. I didn’t even know until I saw the ballots the night of the pageant. I knew instantly what she was doing, but I couldn’t say anything then. There were too many people around. I had no choice but to declare her the winner.”

“How many of the judges did she blackmail?” Maggie asked curiously.

“How many?” Bertha gave a mad cackle. “All of them!”

“All of them?” Candy shook her head in disbelief. She couldn’t help but, in some strange way, admire Sapphire’s scheme. And she saw the last pieces of the puzzle coming together. “So you went to her house that night, two days after the pageant, to confront her—to tell her you knew what she had done.”

“I wanted her to resign her crown,” Bertha explained. “I demanded that she do so! But you know what she did?” She paused as if waiting for a response, then answered the question herself. “She laughed at me. She
mocked
me.”

“And that’s when she told you about the hairs she’d found.”

Bertha nodded. “She told me all about her and Jock. She told me he loved her. Can you believe that? Jock, loving
her
? That horrid woman! She said she knew Jock and I were having an affair. And that she knew we went to that cliff together, that it was our secret rendezvous. She must have followed us one night—or Jock told her. Maybe he even took her up to that same spot—maybe he took all his girlfriends there. It doesn’t matter now. She put two and two together . . . and told me that if I kept her secret, she’d keep mine. But I couldn’t do it! I couldn’t trust her!”

“So you killed her,” Candy prompted.

“Oh, that wasn’t my plan, of course,” Bertha said, licking her lips. “I tried to reason with her, to explain what had happened, that it was just an accident . . . and that’s when Ray showed up. Sapphire made me hide in a back room while she talked to him. She had his hammer in her purse. She said she had found it and wanted to return it to him. She wanted more from him, I could tell, though what I don’t know. Perhaps she wanted to use him as a spy, something like that. But he wouldn’t play her game. He took the hammer and studied it, turned it over and over, then handed it back to her. When he said the hammer wasn’t his, she got furious. She went nuts! She threw the hammer aside, called him all sorts of terrible names. She was like a mad cat. She chased him out of the place.”

“And so you picked up the hammer,” Candy said.

“It practically landed at my feet. Ray’s fingerprints were all over it.” Bertha looked at Candy, staring hard into her eyes, and just for an instant Candy saw the desperation that Bertha harbored deep inside, the panic . . . and the madness.

“It was my chance. I had to take it. It was the only way out.” Her face suddenly hardened. “Just like now.” She motioned with the gun toward the door. “That way . . . and don’t make any sudden moves.”

Maggie squeaked again in terror, but Candy decided the best way to handle the situation was to do what Bertha asked. Still, she had to try one more time. “Bertha, you can’t do this. How will you explain it?”

Bertha shrugged. “Simple. It’s Sebastian’s gun.”

“What?”

“I took it from his place two nights ago when I was over there. He really shouldn’t have left it lying around. He’s made this much too easy.”

“But . . .”

“Shut up and get moving.”

“Where are we going?” Maggie asked.

“Up to the auditorium. I figure if I leave your bodies backstage it will be awhile before they’re found. Once they find the gun nearby, they’ll arrest Sebastian. He’s the perfect fall guy.”

“But he has an alibi,” Candy told her. “We checked.”

“It doesn’t matter. I’ll let the police figure it out. At least I’ll be out of it. And with the ballots destroyed, the last piece of evidence is gone. Now move.”

They backed into the darkened hallway, Candy in front, followed closely by Maggie, with Bertha right behind them. Candy’s mind was in turmoil. What should they do? As she turned and started down the hallway, she thought of running, trying to escape into the dark building, but she was afraid Bertha would fire. She wasn’t too concerned about herself, but she was worried Maggie would get hit. She couldn’t take that chance.

So she chewed at her lip, fighting down the fear, trying to think of some way out. She had taken only a few steps when she heard Maggie say to Bertha, “Oh, by the way, there’s one thing you forgot.”

Maggie stopped, and Candy paused also, turning back to look over her shoulder at her friend.

“What?” Bertha demanded, glowering at them over the pistol.

“This!” In a sudden, fluid movement, Maggie brought up her hand and flicked the button on her umbrella, which she still carried with her. It popped open, spreading out like a shield, tossing off drops of water. She thrust the opened umbrella right up into the surprised face of Bertha, who stumbled backward with a grunt as the gun went off. But her aim was high, and the bullet went harmlessly into the ceiling above Candy’s and Maggie’s heads.

Maggie screamed, threw the umbrella back toward Bertha, then dashed toward Candy. “Run!”

Pulling each other along, barely containing their panic, they ran forward to the end of the hallway, paused briefly to look down another long hallway to their right, then turned left, pushed through a door, and started up a darkened staircase. Somewhere behind them, Bertha bellowed in anger.

“Smart move!” Candy shouted as they took the stairs two at a time.

“Let’s just hope it doesn’t get us killed.”

Halfway up they reached a landing, turned left, and ran up more stairs. They pushed through another set of doors at the top—and found themselves in a side hallway that fed into the auditorium through a set of double doors. A narrow stream of faded red carpeting sloped downward toward the rear of the building, toward the backstage area. Candy saw an exit sign farther down the hallway but hesitated to go that far. She could hear Bertha coming up the stairs behind them.

“Which way?” Maggie asked.

Candy pointed to a door in front of them, directly across the hall. “That way.”

“Into the auditorium?”

“Maybe we can lose her in there.” Her decision made, she crossed the hall and pushed through a door into the space beyond . . . and they found themselves in the opera house’s auditorium. They had been in here less than a week earlier, the night of the pageant, when the place had been well lighted and full of people. But now it looked completely different, a vast, dark, hollow space, smelling of old wood, old fabrics, and ancient dust. A horseshoe-shaped balcony was directly above their heads; the stage was downward to their right, decorated with scenery for the upcoming performances of
Oklahoma!

“Is this where we wanted to be?” Maggie asked, close by Candy’s elbow.

Candy leaned into the door behind them, pushing it shut and looking for a lock. But she found none. She glanced around. “Which way?” she asked, uncertain.

Maggie pointed frantically. “There! Backstage!”

“But isn’t that where Bertha was taking us?”

“Just get going!” Maggie pushed Candy in the back, and together they ran through the seats toward the center aisle. When they reached it, they angled forward toward the stage, then dashed back into the rows of seats on the far side of the auditorium, trying to put as much distance as possible between themselves and the door through which they had entered.

As she ran, Candy kept looking back over her shoulder, expecting Bertha to burst through the door at any moment. But Bertha fooled them. A creaking sound from another direction drew Candy’s attention. She slowed, turned to look, and through a door behind them but closer to the front of the stage came Bertha.

“She’s trying to cut us off!” Candy yelled, just as a shot rang out. Yelping in terror, Maggie dropped to her knees between the rows of seats. Candy crouched down beside her.

“You can’t escape!” Bertha called out. “Give it up!”

“What should we do?” Maggie asked, near tears.

Candy looked around hurriedly. They weren’t trapped yet, but their options were narrowing. “Back that way.” She pointed up the aisle on the far side of the auditorium. “Stay low. Try to get back to the lobby, and we’ll get outside from there.”

Maggie nodded, her eyes wild, but keeping her fear tamped down, she crept to the end of the row, then started up the far aisle as Bertha closed in on them.

“Move! Quicker!” Candy encouraged in a low, urgent voice.

As she ran, she glanced back over her shoulder. Bertha was running parallel to them, up the center aisle. She was moving sideways like a crab, her eyes holding tight to them, holding the gun low.

She’s herding us
, Candy thought with a chill as she shifted her gaze forward again. She came to a quick conclusion. “She wants us to go in this direction,” she said to Maggie as she rested a hand on her friend’s shoulder, slowing her. She knew they had to find another way out.

Maggie looked around, falling to her hands and knees, her gaze pleading. “What should we do?”

Candy urged her friend up and forward again as she tried to figure out their next move. Her gaze swept the auditorium, searching. And then she saw it, almost right in front of them—an alcove to their right, opening off the side aisle, with a narrow carpeted stairway going upward.

Candy’s gaze followed it up, her eyes rising . . . to the balcony.

“In here!” She dashed into the alcove, pulling Maggie with her as she heard Bertha shout in frustration.

Up the staircase they thundered, panting now, knowing they were running for their lives. At the top they turned left, into the balcony itself, then right, running up a set of shallow stairs that ran along the rows of seats, heading toward the back row where they saw another set of doors. “We can go through there,” Candy said, pointing. “It should take us back down to the lobby.”

“Think we can make it in time?”

“We’ll have to, won’t we?” Candy pushed through the door. They emerged on a long landing with wide curving stairways on either side that lead down to the lobby below. Candy angled right, grabbed the railing, and started quickly down the stairs, but stopped midway when she heard footsteps below. Candy and Maggie both pressed back against the wall as a shadow emerged below them, turned, and looked up in their direction.

“You didn’t think you were going to get past me, did you?” Bertha said in a low, menacing tone. She waved the gun at them in a threatening manner. “Now get down here.”

Candy cursed. Maggie grabbed her arm. “What should we do?”

Instinctively, Candy pushed her back up the stairs. “We’re not giving up yet. Back the way we came. And stay down!”

They both fell into a crouch, the better to avoid Bertha’s line of sight, and retraced their steps, heading back up the staircase and through the doors into the balcony. “We’re trapped!” Maggie said hysterically as they closed and leaned against the door behind them. Candy turned left, then right, trying to figure out what to do next, when she spotted another narrow staircase, heading up. “Not yet,” she said. “There must be another floor. Maybe we can get up to the roof and find a way down from there.”