Town in a Strawberry Swirl (Candy Holliday Mystery) (11 page)

She rushed into Candy’s office, a whirlwind of red hair and energy. “My, what a day it’s been!” she exclaimed in a measured tone, as if she’d chosen her words carefully before she’d arrived. Wanda could be a formidable woman when she wanted to, given her large frame, wide shoulders, and big hands. In the past she’d been known to haul around lumber and pound a few nails with her husband, Brad, who owned a remodeling and construction business. But she’d smoothed off some of her rougher edges over the past few years, and slimmed down as well. She’d toned down her wardrobe too. These days, she opted for a business-casual, small-town newswoman look that fit well in a low-key Maine coastal village. She favored khaki pants, flowing pale blue blouses, and penny loafers, like she wore today, sometimes accented by a scarf, a tasteful necklace, or a vest. It was a carefully honed image, Candy knew, but it worked, since it made everyone around her more at ease—which enabled her to manipulate the situation to her advantage, something she was very good at doing.

Wanda surveyed the room in a single glance, then went straight to Cotton Colby at the far end of the semicircle. She leaned over gracefully and gave the dark-haired woman a quick, warm embrace before anyone knew what was happening.

“There you are. And you’re looking just wonderful today, as usual. I’m so sorry I’m late, but you will
not
believe who I just talked to,” Wanda told Cotton in a casual tone, as if she were sharing a secret with a close friend. “He’s the older brother of a prominent senator’s hairdresser. This was quite a coup for me, I don’t mind telling you. I’ve been after this person for weeks!” As she spoke, she moved on down the line, greeting each lady in turn, pecking a cheek here, shaking a hand there, dolling out hugs everywhere. “But hard work pays off, I always say. I finally tracked him down. He gave me some wonderful anecdotes about growing up with such a talented sister—as well as some inside news about the latest happenings with the senator! I can tell you, it’s going to make a great story. I’m going to write it up for the next issue of the paper.”

The ladies all looked a little bewildered as Wanda spoke. No one seemed to know what to say to her, or even what Wanda was talking about. But no one seemed to care. Her casual, talkative attitude had completely disarmed them—even Elvira. All the fire had gone out of her eyes. Wanda had won them over before they’d had a chance to say a word to her.

“Now, I understand you ladies are here for a very important reason,” Wanda continued, her tone lowering and becoming more serious as she stepped back and dramatically put her hands together. “We have a Strawberry Fair coming up, right? So we’re going to put our resources together and see if we can build some positive energy around here, right!”

“Yes, you’re absolutely right,” Cotton said with a surprised smile. “That’s exactly what we’re hoping to do.”

“And we’re not going to let the events of this morning”—here Wanda wheeled around briefly, speaking in a low tone so only Candy could hear—“which you and I need to talk about, by the way”—before flipping back around and continuing—“stop us from helping out our community any way we can. After all, we need to protect our village’s heritage, right?”

“We couldn’t agree more,” Elvira said, nodding approvingly, and the other ladies gave their consent as well.

“You know what?” Wanda said, and she clapped her hands together. “I have a wonderful idea. Why don’t we get out of this stuffy old office and reconvene someplace that’s a little cozier, where we can have a nice cup of tea and chat about the Fair and this wonderful new group you’ve founded.”

The ladies perked right up at that idea. Knowing she had them in the palm of her hand, Wanda continued, “On my way up here, I stopped by that new tea shop downstairs and reserved us a table. Why don’t we let Candy get back to her work, and we can reconvene downstairs in”—she dramatically checked her watch—“shall we say ten minutes? How does that sound?”

The ladies all agreed it sounded like a splendid idea, and started chatting excitedly among themselves. They rose as a flock, and within a few minutes, after some brief final words, they were gone.

Wanda lingered, though. She leaned out the doorway of Candy’s office and waved to the departing ladies. “I’ll catch right up with you,” she called as they headed down the hallway and out the door. “Be sure to save me a seat!”

When they were out of earshot, Candy said, “Well, I have to admit, Wanda, you handled that brilliantly.”

The red-haired woman waved the comment away with a mild look of annoyance, as if she were batting away a fly. “Piece of cake,” she said as she fished her phone out of a pocket. “I got their lingo down to a science. You just have to know how to charm them. It’s not that hard.”

Candy knew there was a dig intended for her somewhere in there, but she let it go—again. Instead, as Wanda scrolled rapidly through the contact list on her phone, Candy said, “Apparently there was a mix-up. They thought they were meeting with you.”

“And I thought they were meeting with
you
,” Wanda said flatly, her eyes still focused on her phone. She touched the screen and held the device to her ear. “They said ‘the editor’ in their e-mails. They must have thought I was the editor. I’ve had that happen a lot around town lately. Common mistake, really, don’t you think?”

“I suppose so.”

“Good thing Betty Lynn texted me,” Wanda continued. “I was right around the corner, just about to get my nails done, and rushed straight over.”

“So when did you have time to reserve a table at the tea shop?”

Wanda held up a finger and said into the phone, “Yes, hello, this is Wanda Boyle. I’m with the
Cape Crier
newspaper upstairs?” She listened a minute. “Well, thank you!” she said, her face brightening. “It’s so nice to talk to you again too. Listen, would you be able to do me a huge favor and set up a table for a group of six? Yes, right away, if you could. They should be walking in your door right about now. And would you be able to bring us a nice green tea, maybe something with mint or jasmine? And could we also get a fruit infusion—maybe a Turkish apple or a ginger peach, something like that? What’s that?” She listened again for a few moments. “That sounds perfect! I’m on my way down. I’ll see you in a few.”

She lowered the phone and poked at the screen. “I have to run, but a couple of quick things before I go. First, we have to figure out what to do about the berry farm.”

“In what way?” Candy asked guardedly.

“I need to know who’s covering what, so we don’t duplicate our efforts.”

“Oh, right! Like figuring out the angles, divvying up the assignments, that sort of thing.”

Wanda nodded. “I have Jill the intern working on a few sidebar items about the Crawford property, and a volunteer who knew Miles is writing a tribute. If it’s okay with you, I’m going to focus on the investigation. This could be big, you know.”

“I know,” Candy said, again holding back details of her own involvement with the murder—at least for the time being.

“This is the stuff they give out Pulitzers for.”

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Candy cautioned. “Let’s just try to get the next issue out on time.”

“Right. So I’m heading over to the police station as soon as I’m done with the league ladies, and I’ll put together some ideas and e-mail them to you a little later on.”

Candy nodded. “Sounds good. Anything else we need to talk about?”

The red-haired woman glanced at her watch and edged toward the door. “Just the office situation—I’m going to move all my things into your old office this evening.”

“My old office?” Candy was caught off guard by this pronouncement.

“Sure, that’s where the community correspondent has always worked, right? Out of that musty office back in that dark corner of the building?”

“Yes, but . . . why would you want that office? You already have a desk,” Candy said.

Wanda waved a dismissive hand. “I’m tired of working in that little cubbyhole up front with the interns and the volunteers. When people walk in, they always ask me for directions to the bathroom or want me to help them unclog the printer. I need a place where I can close the door, so I can think, write, and do some interviews. Besides”—she twirled a finger in the air, motioning around the room—“you’ve moved in here. You don’t need your other office anymore.”

“Yes, but I still have stuff in there,” Candy said.

Wanda shook her head, her red hair flying. “Not much, really. I checked. Just scarves and mittens and such, and some dusty old files in that beat-up filing cabinet pushed back into the corner. I glanced at them but they look worthless. I’ll throw them out if you want me to.”

Candy tried to make her reaction as casual as possible. “No, I’ll take care of them. Those are . . . some personal files of mine. I’ll box them up and take them home. In fact, you’re right. I’ll finish cleaning out that office this afternoon and you can have it. It’ll be ready for you to move in by tonight.”

Wanda was gone a few moments later, satisfied she’d gotten what she wanted once again. But Candy knew she’d just escaped a rather delicate situation.

I should have taken care of those files years ago
, she thought, angry at herself for her letting them linger there as long as they had.
They should have been destroyed right away.

Betty Lynn scrounged up a few empty boxes for her and offered to help her do whatever she was doing, but Candy declined, saying she just needed to clean out a few papers and files. She carried the boxes to her old, dark office and tossed them into the middle of the floor. They landed with dull thuds, which echoed dimly in the hollow room.

Over the weekend, Candy had taken down the last of the posters she’d hung up on the walls to brighten the place. She’d also removed the old calendars and production schedules, the handwritten Post-It Notes, and Betty Lynn’s HR memos, which had dotted the walls. She’d relocated a large cork board to Ben’s old office—
I guess it’s officially my office now
, she told herself—a few days ago. She’d already cleaned her stuff out of the drawers but had left behind some general items—boxes of paper clips and rubber bands, rulers and pens that barely worked. There wasn’t much left, as Wanda had pointed out—just a few old scarves and a battered folded umbrella hanging from a wall peg, and some mittens and gloves on a lower shelf.

She wasn’t sad to leave this office. The memories were too mixed, too scattered. But she’d spent a lot of time in here, tapping out stories on her computer. That, at least, was something to dwell on, at least for a few moments.

She had moved most of her files over to her new office as well. But she’d left one drawer in the filing cabinet untouched.

It was the drawer at the bottom, the one labeled
S.V.

The files in the bottom drawer had once belonged to Sapphire Vine, the paper’s community columnist before Candy took over the job. Sapphire had been struck down in the living room of her home on Gleason Street several years ago, and upon her unfortunate passing, her work files had found their way into Candy’s hands. She’d also inherited lesser-known personal files Sapphire kept squirreled away in a secret attic hideaway.

In the files, Candy had found evidence that Sapphire was spying on some of the local villagers, and using the information she’d learned to blackmail certain people. Candy had resolved most of those issues years ago, but felt there still might be a few bombshells hidden deep within those files, though she’d resisted looking for them herself, wary of what she might find.

She still wasn’t completely sure why she’d kept the files this long. Her brain had told her, many times, that it would be best simply to destroy them—shred them, burn them, bury them, whatever, and get rid of all the uncomfortable secrets they held—but her instincts made her hold off on doing that, for she suspected the information they contained might prove useful someday. So she’d dumped them into the bottom drawer of the filing cabinet in the corner and left them there to gather dust, until she decided what to do with them.

As it turned out, her instincts had been right. Two or three times over the past several years, she’d dipped into the files, searching for information she hoped would help her solve a mystery or two. At those times she’d gone through only specific files, such as the ones devoted to Wanda Boyle and the wealthy Pruitt family, so she knew those at least contained nothing particularly damaging. That was how most of the ones she’d seen had been—filled with random clippings and aging photos of townspeople going about their everyday lives. Sapphire had assembled the files more for informational purposes than anything else, but a number of them held secrets and revelations that could ruin reputations if the information leaked out, and a few were meticulous in detail about their subjects’ lives—evidence of Sapphire Vine’s snooping and far-reaching schemes. For that reason, Candy had kept the files to herself, not hiding them but not putting them on full public view, hesitant to let anyone else—especially someone like Wanda—get a good look at them.

Still, Candy knew someone might someday stumble over them, as Wanda had. For whatever reason, Wanda hadn’t yet made the connection between
S.V.
and
Sapphire Vine
. Maybe the events of those days had simply, finally, faded from memory.

But Wanda was right about one thing—the files were now too old, and the information they contained too outdated, to be of any use anymore. It was time to destroy them—and the secrets they contained—once and for all.

Candy pulled a box over toward the filing cabinet, sat cross-legged on the floor in front of the bottom drawer, and slid it open. In quick order she started lifting files out of the drawer and loading them into the box. She’d been back through the files before—she knew what the labels read. No need to dwell on them, she thought. The quicker they were gone, the better. She’d made up her mind. She filled up one box and reached for another.

Some of the files were thicker than others. All had labels and descriptions written in various colors by Sapphire’s own hand, often embellished with curlicues and whimsical designs. Candy tried hard not to let them distract her as she pulled them out of the drawer and stacked them into the box, but she couldn’t help glancing at some of them. Eventually curiosity got the better of her, and in the end she allowed herself to take a quick peek inside two files—one devoted to Miles Crawford, and the other to Lydia St. Graves.

Since the files hadn’t been updated in years, they wouldn’t contain any recent information, she knew, but they might provide a tidbit of information or some unknown background detail to help her better understand what had happened between those two.

The Crawford file contained only a handful of clippings from the
Cape Crier
, including a couple of community news briefs written by Sapphire herself. Most of the articles were about the strawberry fields, written for issues published in late May or early June to coincide with the start of the picking season. There were a few old recipes as well, and a few photos of a younger Miles, including one with his family, Candy guessed—a wife and two teenaged sons, both with long, reddish-brown hair. It looked like the photo had been taken sometime in the nineties, long before Candy had arrived in town. There was also a faded clipping about some legend connected to the farm, but a major part of the article was missing. Candy could make neither heads nor tails out of it. None of it, she decided quickly, was of any value.

She tossed the file into the last box and picked up Lydia’s folder, but it, too, contained only a few random clips—Lydia as Realtor of the year, Lydia giving a talk at a business luncheon, Lydia closing a deal on a well-known property. The clips were at least four or five years old, and many of them were older than that. Again, nothing that Candy could use.

It only confirmed her decision to destroy the files once and for all, she thought as she tossed Lydia’s file on top of the others. So she sealed up the boxes and started carrying them down to the Jeep, one or two at a time.

Betty Lynn had gone out. Jesse had disappeared. The front office where the volunteers and interns worked was empty. The place was deserted, so Candy was left to load the boxes in the Jeep herself.

She pounded up and down the staircase a couple of times, and on the final trip down she almost ran into Rachel Fairweather, who was coming up the stairs. Candy barely avoided knocking the elderly woman backward, sending her all the way to the bottom.

“Oh my!” Mrs. Fairweather exclaimed as Candy halted herself and backpedaled up a step or two. She teetered a little before catching her balance. When she had her footing again, she held the boxes over to one side so she could see around them. “Is that . . . Mrs. Fairweather? Are you all right? I almost ran over you.”

The elderly woman held tightly to the side rail with one hand, and clutched a serving dish in the other. “Yes, yes, dear, I’m fine. Thank you. Just a little surprised.”

Candy took another step back, and up. “What are you doing here?”

“Oh, I hope I’m in the right place,” Mrs. Fairweather said. “I’m looking for the newspaper office.”

“Well, yes, this is the right place, but—”

“I have an appointment. For a meeting. At two o’clock,” Mrs. Fairweather said. “I’m supposed to meet with Wanda Boyle, the editor. You see, I’m the secretary for the Cape Willington Heritage Protection League. I’m not late, am I?”