Town in a Strawberry Swirl (Candy Holliday Mystery) (17 page)

“Maybe,” Candy said with a slight tilt of her head, subtly expressing her skepticism.

“Or maybe it was someone else,” Wanda said. “Maybe it was that son of his.”

“What son?”

“The oldest one. He’s back in town.”

“Miles’s son is here? How do you know that?”

“Heard it from someone over at the police station,” Wanda said. She headed out, pausing in the doorway as she went. “He had to check in with the authorities. Family, you know. And he also made a stop at the funeral parlor. I don’t know where he’s staying, though. He’s a pretty handsome guy, from what I’ve heard. Backwoods type, bushy red beard, that sort of thing.”

“And what’s this son’s name?” Candy asked, intrigued.

“His name is Neil. Neil Crawford.”

Doc had a thousand thoughts going through his mind as he climbed into his truck, cranked up the engine, and backed out of his parking spot on Main Street, headed for home.

He took the old familiar route, south to the red light at the corner and then right on the Coastal Loop, which put the bright ocean to his left. As he drove, he thought about all that had happened over the past twenty-four hours or so, including the most recent news concerning Lydia, and chided himself for starting this whole mess in the first place. If he hadn’t left that darned shovel over at Sally Ann’s place, he wouldn’t have set off this mystifying series of events that resulted in Miles’s death, and now Lydia’s as well. Yesterday he’d thought he and his daughter had settled the matter, when they’d tracked the shovel from Blueberry Acres back to Lydia and reported their findings to the police. But now, with her dead, the whole thing had gone up in smoke, and new questions emerged.

Had Lydia died because of injuries sustained in the car accident, or had she actually been poisoned, as Finn suggested? And what did that mean? Was the poisoning accidental, or intentional?

Did Lydia murder Miles, or had she been an innocent bystander?

If Lydia
had
clobbered Miles over the head with that shovel, why had she left it at the scene of the crime to incriminate herself? And if she
hadn’t
killed Miles, then who had? Had the same person murdered Miles and then poisoned Lydia as well?

That last question was the one that bothered Doc the most, for if someone had murdered Miles and then left that shovel at the scene of the crime to incriminate Lydia, as his daughter had first suggested yesterday, then it meant this whole thing could be premeditated—a murder planned in advance.

And Doc—and his shovel—had been an integral part of the plan.

Of course, there was another possibility. The whole thing didn’t necessarily have to be premeditated. The shovel simply could have fallen into someone else’s hands by happenstance—been passed around town another time or two. Only later, when it came time to do the deed and the plan was made, had the shovel been worked into the equation.

Either way, the realization that a garden tool from his farm had been used for such a nefarious purpose—as a murder weapon and as a device to incriminate an innocent person in the crime—made him angry in a certain way, but it also made him more determined than ever to get to the bottom of this, and find out who had hauled him and his daughter into the events surrounding the murder of Miles Crawford.

Doc and his buddies had chewed over those events for more than an hour at the diner, and had come up with a number of viable scenarios for the reasons behind the recent deaths. But it had been Artie Groves who had been most adamant about the ultimate motivations behind the two murders. “It’s all because of that property of his,” Artie had said as he sat in the corner booth at the diner. “Trust me on this. Find out what’s going on out at that berry farm, and this whole mystery will start to unravel for you.”

He’s right
, Doc thought as he drove out toward Blueberry Acres.
It all centers on the Crawford place
.

Then another thought struck him:
Was there a reason Miles had been so unsociable all these years
?
Maybe he knew something he purposely kept from the rest of us—something about the farm
.

Of course, since Miles ran a you-pick-it operation for several weeks during late spring and early summer, there were people going in and out of his farm all the time. If he was trying to hide something, he wasn’t trying very hard.

Besides, what possible secret could have cost him his life?

Still, Doc thought, Artie had been on to something. “That shovel is essentially inconsequential,” he had further postulated at the diner. “It was a means to an end, a way for the real murderer to deflect attention by casting blame on Lydia, and it worked perfectly. At this point,
no
one
seems to know what really happened out there, since the two key people who might provide some real insight—Miles and Lydia—are both dead. But the most important question we should ask is not
who
murdered Miles, or
how
, but
why
? And that’s because of the berry farm. Unfortunately, Lydia was ancillary to the whole thing, a scapegoat—and she died because she probably knew too much.”

It was, Doc thought, a compelling argument, and one that got him thinking.

For the past few years, Doc had been working on a number of writing projects, mostly nonfiction historical works. He’d taught ancient history at the University of Maine up in Orono for more than thirty years, but after retiring, he’d turned his interests more toward New England and local history. A few years back, as part of the weekend festivities surrounding the town’s annual Winter Moose Fest, he’d delivered a public lecture about the town’s founding families. In preparation for the lecture, he’d done quite a bit of research about prominent local families, including the Pruitt and the Sykes families, who had deep roots in the village of Cape Willington and the surrounding region. Both families had arrived in the area in the early to mid-1700s, the Sykeses as seafarers and the Pruitts as landholders and owners of the first mill on the cape. And through the generations, there had been more than a little ill will between the two families, as they clashed at one time or another over the years. On occasion, their disagreements had flared up into actual feuds.

Many of those feuds had been about land, since even the earliest settlers had highly valued the Cape’s prime properties, and land speculation had run wild as the village became established during the 1800s. Doc recalled a story he’d read a few years back, recounting a tale in which a male member of the Sykes family had lost a valuable piece of local property to a Pruitt in a poker game. That, in part, had stirred up bad blood between the two families, and it had continued for decades, if not centuries.

Doc had no idea if the animosity between the two families continued today. He knew there had been an issue with a current member of the Sykes family a few years back. Doc suspected his daughter knew more about that episode than she had revealed, but he had never pressed her on the matter. She was a grown woman, on the north side of forty now, as someone had said to him once, and he left her to her own decisions. If she kept some information close to her chest, she must have a good reason for doing so. Still, he worried about her involvement in the rash of murders that had plagued their community over the past four or five years, and was concerned that these two most recent murders, as well as the others, could somehow all be tied together.

That was why he was headed back to Blueberry Acres.

Artie’s theories had jogged something in the back of his mind—a memory, something he decided he needed to check on. So he had jumped into his truck and headed home. He wanted to check the notes he’d made for that lecture a few years back, and look through a few historical resources he kept in his office at home.

He took a right on Wicker Road and a few minutes later turned left onto the dirt lane that led back to Blueberry Acres. The summer before, they’d put up a sign out here at the street, with an arrow pointing in their direction. They hadn’t yet opened the blueberry fields to the public, since they ran primarily a commercial operation, but they were thinking of changing that. They’d even talked about opening a small farm stand, or perhaps even a garden or craft shop, as a way to make better use of their property and generate some additional income.

As he came up the dirt lane toward the farmhouse, Doc was surprised to see an old red Saab station wagon sitting in the driveway in front of the barn. He didn’t recognize the vehicle, which made sense, since he noticed it had out-of-state license plates. Green plates. Vermont.

Who did they know from Vermont?

As his truck came alongside the other vehicle, he glanced in the windows. The second-row seatbacks were folded down, and the rear cargo area behind the front seats was stuffed to the roof with personal belongings and outdoor gear. There was more on top. Attached to the slightly rusting roof rack was an assortment of lumber, canvas, and more gear under a heavy opaque plastic tarp.

Doc pulled to a stop just in front of the Saab and looked out the windshield as he shut off the engine. There was no one around, as far as he could see. The place looked deserted, as it should be, since Candy was at her office in town.

He opened the driver’s side door and stepped out, still searching for any sign of a visitor. He took a few steps across the dirt parking area toward the blueberry fields and heard a dog barking somewhere up ahead.

Doc raised a hand, shielding his eyes against the bright June sunlight.

He hadn’t been mistaken. There was indeed a dog, fifty or sixty yards away, running lazily along the edge of one of the fields. Doc scanned the landscape, but he could see no one else around.

What was a lone dog doing out here, running through his field? A stray? A neighbor’s pet?

He heard something rattle inside the barn.

Abruptly he turned toward the sound, spinning on his heels. He still shaded his eyes, but his pupils were constricted because of the brightness of the day, so all he could see inside the barn were shadows.

“Hello?” he called out. “Someone in there?”

He heard a low, muffled reply and vaguely saw a figure motion toward him.

“What’s that again?” Doc asked, taking a few steps closer. The dog had spotted him and was barking again, loping across the field in his direction. It was a big shaggy dog, Doc saw, with a thick coat of white and gray hair, a big muzzle, and big feet.

“Is that your dog?” Doc asked the shadowy figure in the barn, pointing off toward the field at the approaching animal.

Another muffled reply.

Doc had reached the barn door. “What the heck are you doing in there?” he called. “You know this is private property, right?”

This time he heard the reply. “I’m checking your garden tools,” the figure said.

Doc squinted into the shadows. “You’re . . . what?”

The dog was sniffing at his heels now. It was a bigger animal than he’d realized. It stood almost waist high. Its long furry coat was speckled in places with bits of leaves and twigs, and its nose held some moist dirt, as if it had been sniffing at the ground. But fortunately the animal looked friendly enough. It gazed up at him with pale eyes.

“Hello, boy,” Doc said, and then he turned back to the shadows. “Well, who the heck are you anyway?” he asked the stranger. “Can I help you with something?”

The figure approached him then, and Doc began to make out the details: a man of medium build, a few inches under six feet, wearing faded clothes and worn boots, with a rugged face, sunburned cheekbones, mocha-colored eyes, long brown hair, and a thick reddish-brown beard.

“I didn’t mean to intrude,” the bearded man said. “I was just looking at your shovels.” He stuck out a calloused hand. “My name is Neil Crawford.”

The House of Style beauty salon was one of the busiest places on Main Street. It occupied an older storefront a few doors south of the Black Forest Bakery, wedged between a florist shop and an arts and crafts store on the corner. Many of the storefronts along the ritzier Ocean Avenue, anchored by the stately Pruitt Opera House halfway down the block, were newer and more attractive, having been updated or renovated in recent years. But despite its lofty name, the House of Style looked more like a workaday business, with a brick-and-glass facade, a display window with decorations that changed seasonally, and a single glass door that led inside to a large, comfy waiting area in the front, and through an archway into a back area, with three chairs, two sinks, and three hair dryers.

Candy had just spent nearly fifteen minutes talking to the salon’s owner, Freda Winters, an affable woman in her mid-fifties who excelled at hairdressing while making pleasant conversation and ensuring every visitor felt welcome in her shop. She always had the latest story, the silliest joke, or the juiciest piece of gossip, gleaned from her many appointments during the day.

It had taken a little coaxing—and an appeal to her civic pride to help solve this latest murder case as quickly as possible, so they all could get back to village business—but Freda had finally allowed Candy to take a peek at her appointment ledger for the past few months. Candy wanted to get an idea of who might have been at the beauty salon around the same time the shovel had disappeared from Lydia’s car six weeks or so ago.

Candy didn’t have an exact date for that alleged theft—Lydia had never given her one—but she thought she could narrow it down to a general range of time, taking into account the numerous times the shovel had changed hands after leaving Blueberry Acres. Fortunately, the appointments were fairly well established from week to week, with the same people coming in at the same time. Wanda, for instance, had a standing date at one o’clock on Tuesdays. Cotton Colby came in Thursdays at three, and Mrs. Fairweather came in Thursday mornings, though once or twice over the past couple of months she’d switched to a midafternoon slot on the same day. Elvira Tremble and Della Swain came in on different days, and at less frequent intervals. Alice Rainesford and Brenda Jenkins apparently visited different salons, or none at all, for their names weren’t in the book anywhere, though it was certainly possible one or all of the ladies had stopped by the salon at one time or another simply to visit, say hello, and catch up on the latest news, much as Doc and the boys gathered at the diner.

Candy asked Freda about Lydia’s visits and her car. She also asked outright, though in a tactful way, about any animosity between Lydia and some of the other women who had appointments on Thursday afternoons.

“You’re talking about the league ladies, right?” Freda said with a roll of her eyes. “Well, so far it’s more of a cold war than anything else. I wouldn’t say there was open animosity between them and Lydia, but they were definitely wary of each other, mostly because of the whole thing with that berry farm. But there was something else with some of the women, particularly Cotton—possibly because she’s their leader, I guess. She and Lydia seemed to have a genuine dislike for each other, for some reason. So I’ve found the best way to handle the situation is just to keep all of them apart. I’ve tried moving some of their appointments to different days but they’re all stubborn as mules—though don’t tell them I said that. They’re also pretty good customers!” She laughed easily. “But I try to hustle the league ladies out before Lydia arrives. And it usually works. Of course, it helps that Lydia normally wouldn’t stop in until she’d made sure all their cars were gone. I’ve seen her circle the block half a dozen times or more, waiting for the last of them to leave.”

“Have any of your customers had anything stolen from their vehicles while parked in front of your shop?” Candy asked. “Maybe a couple of months ago?”

Freda shook her head. “Other than bored teenagers getting into trouble? We had that rash of robberies from cars a few months back, remember? Turned out to be high school kids having a little fun. But other than that, no, nothing that I can recall.”

Now, as Candy stood outside on the sidewalk in front of the salon, she surveyed the street she’d walked up and down dozens, perhaps hundreds, of times over the past few years. But she looked at it with sharper eyes today. She was trying to determine the feasibility of Lydia’s claim. Could someone have walked out here on the street in broad daylight and taken a shovel from a parked car without being noticed?

After surveying the scene and giving it some thought, she decided that, yes, it was certainly possible, though it would not have been easy. The street in front of the House of Style was busy, but this was also the lower part of town, away from the more active and tourist-friendly Ocean Avenue. Gumm’s Hardware Store, a popular destination throughout the day, was on the opposite side of the street, a couple of doors up, and the deli down on the corner, opposite the arts and crafts store, could be busy around lunchtime. Of course, traffic backed up periodically from the light at the lower intersection. But there were moments when all the activity cleared out, and it was certainly possible someone could have made a quick grab, especially if shielded by other cars and trucks parked along the street.

From Lydia’s description, Candy identified the area where the real estate agent had most likely parked her convertible on the day in question, and tried to judge how well someone inside the beauty salon might have seen the vehicle. She also looked at the surrounding storefronts and shops, wondering if someone else coming from a different establishment could have taken the shovel. But after all her efforts, she reached no definitive conclusions. Anything was possible, she decided, if the timing was right. Lydia could have been telling the truth—or not.

Candy checked her watch. It was just past eleven. A good time, she thought, to stop by the Black Forest Bakery. The morning rush would be over, and the lunchtime crush yet to begin.

She wanted to ask Maggie again about the timing of Miles Crawford’s visit to the bakery the previous morning. Miles had delivered strawberries around seven thirty or eight, according to Herr Georg. But Lydia said Miles had e-mailed her around eight, allegedly from his home. There could be a simple explanation, such as a smart phone, Candy thought—but it also seemed like a timing conflict to her. She felt she needed better information on where Miles went yesterday morning—and when. He obviously couldn’t be in two places at once. It was a loose end she felt she needed to tie up.

She’d hoped Maggie and Herr Georg could help her with that. But much to her surprise, the bakery was still crowded, even at this hour of the morning. The long line at the counter hadn’t dwindled much from the last time she’d stopped by earlier in the day. Maggie looked busy but happy in her element, greeting customers, filling orders, and ringing up sales on the cash register.

Candy waved as she entered, and her friend waved back, then motioned to her. Candy came around the side of the counter and waited as Maggie took an order from a customer, then turned aside and leaned in close to her. “I need to talk to you sometime today,” she said. “When can we meet?”

Candy thought about it a moment. “How about four o’clock? The Lightkeeper’s Inn?”

Maggie nodded. “That’s perfect,” she whispered. “I need some of your expert advice.”

“About what?”

Before Maggie could answer, she was drawn back to her customers, but she tossed a dreamy glance to the door that led back to the kitchen and smiled wistfully, like a schoolgirl in love.

Momentarily confused, Candy glanced over at the door and then back at Maggie. Her brow furrowed. “Herr Georg?” she mouthed.

Maggie gave her a wink. “Four o’clock,” she said before scurrying off to fill an order.

“Okay, I’ll meet you there,” Candy said, “because I need to talk to you as well.” But Maggie was so busy she didn’t hear her friend, so Candy gave her a quick wave good-bye and headed back out the door, angling across the street and down Ocean Avenue.

Things were hopping in Town Park, where the ladies of the Cape Willington Heritage Protection League were busy making preparations for the Strawberry Fair, which would take place the following day. Tents, booths, and tables were going up, along with a children’s arts and crafts area, a covered stage for performances, a roped-off ring for pony rides, and a food service area. So far the weather had held. The sky was still as blue as the sea, the day was warming, and the smell of salt air rode on the light breeze.

Candy had barely entered the park when she was approached by Wanda Boyle, walking stiffly alongside Cotton Colby, Della Swain, and Elvira Tremble.

“We have a problem,” Wanda informed her as they drew near. She indicated the unhappy ladies. “There’s been a mix-up. They have no strawberries for the Strawberry Fair.”

Candy came to a stop. “I thought that was taken care of days ago.”

“We thought so too,” Cotton said, her mouth a tight red line. “We were under the impression that Miles Crawford delivered the berries to a warehouse we rented down by the docks, just as a holding place for a few days, until the day of the Fair. But the berries never arrived. Apparently they weren’t quite ripe enough, and he wanted to give them another day or two. We’ve found out”—she raised the back of a hand to her mouth and cleared her throat uncomfortably—“we’ve found out that he left a message with one of our members a couple of days ago, explaining that the delivery would be delayed. Unfortunately, that message was never communicated to the rest of us. Our member forgot to mention it. So when we got to the warehouse this morning, well, needless to say, we were shocked to find it empty.”

“We have no strawberries!” Della Swain said, her face a mask of regret and concern.

“So what are you going to do?” Candy asked.

Elvira gave her a hard look. “Well, we’re not going to cancel the event, if that’s what you think.”

“No, of course not,” Candy said, agreeing with her.

“But we have a strawberry shortcake booth to run tomorrow,” Della said worriedly. “We
have
to get some berries—and fast.”

“Can you get them from somewhere else?” Candy asked. “From another farm?”

“It’s possible,” Cotton said. “Alice and Brenda are checking on that right now. But why should we do that when we have fields full of them just a few miles from here?”

“We realize there are some complications to overcome,” Elvira said. “Naturally, with Miles gone, it makes our task more difficult. We can’t just ring him up and ask him to drop them off in the morning, can we?”

Candy wasn’t quite sure what she was getting at. “No, of course not. Do you have an alternative plan?”

“As a matter of fact, we do,” Cotton said, “and it involves you.”

Candy wasn’t sure she liked the sound of that. “Me?”

“You’re a berry farmer,” Cotton pointed out. “You know something about that business. You run your own farm. And you apparently have the ear of the chief of police.” Cotton’s eyes darted toward Wanda, and Candy realized that she must have told them about the chief’s visit to Candy’s office earlier that morning.

So that’s how news gets around town so fast
, Candy thought, casting a furtive glance in Wanda’s direction.
I have a spy right in my own office
.

“We need your help,” Cotton said pointedly. “We’d like you to talk to Chief Durr for us.”

“About what?”

“We’d like permission to take a large group out to the berry farm this afternoon or evening, or even in the morning. We have a long e-mail list Della helped us assemble. We can send out a quick blast and get several dozen people out there on an hour’s notice, so we can pick the berries we need.”

“We also had an arrangement with Miles about the price of the berries,” Elvira added, “which we’d like to remain in place. I’m not sure who we’d talk to about that, but it’s rather important. This is not a fund-raising event, of course, but we’d prefer not to lose money on it. The strawberry shortcake booth was going to be our main source of revenue.”

“We’re coming to you because we think you’re the right person to help us expedite this,” Cotton said with a great deal of forthrightness. “We need those strawberries, and we need them now. This is our league’s first major event, and it’s designed as a way to promote the village and our local culture. Without strawberries, our Strawberry Fair will be a complete bust. And there are fields of berries just waiting to be picked out at that farm. We have to do this as soon as possible. So will you help us?”

It was, Candy admitted to herself, a viable plan. She took a few moments to think it through, but before she could respond, her phone buzzed in her back pocket.

Well aware there were four pairs of eyes watching her, waiting for a response, Candy reached around, pulled out the phone, and swiped her finger across it, squinting at the dark screen in the bright sunlight.

It was a text from Doc:
Stop by the house as soon as you can. Neil Crawford’s here. There’s something you need to see.