Town in a Strawberry Swirl (Candy Holliday Mystery) (3 page)

Maggie’s hand went to her mouth in an involuntary gesture. Disbelief showed in her wide brown eyes. “Oh no, that can’t be true. Not Miles. He’s too good a person.”

Herr Georg looked equally stunned. “But how can this be possible? What you’re saying is inconceivable. It’s preposterous. It’s . . . it’s . . .” He sputtered, unable to find more words to express his feelings. But his face turned a blustery red, evidence of his sudden distress. It made his white mustache and eyebrows stand out more prominently on his face. “Surely there must be some mistake,” he said after a few moments. “Perhaps it was an inaccurate report, or a case of mistaken identity, or a hideous prank. . . .”

Again his voice trailed off as another thought came to him. “But if this is true, and Miles really is gone, what does that mean for his customers? What will happen to the farm? Who will take care of the strawberries?” The baker shook his head, unable to absorb all the ramifications of this shocking bit of news. “Oh my, I hope it’s not true. For his sake, and for ours.”

“I agree with you on that,” Candy said, sharing his concerns, “but Dad sounded pretty definite about what he saw in that hoophouse.”

“And what exactly did he see?” Maggie asked, still holding on to a faint hope. “Could he have been mistaken, like Herr Georg said? Maybe a false report?”

Candy took a few moments to think back over her conversation with her father, but before she could respond, they heard a second siren, closer than the first but headed in the same direction—away from them, out of town.

Candy knew exactly what it meant. “The police are responding to the call,” she said softly, as if that settled the matter.

And it did. The sound of the sirens suddenly made it real for them.

“Dad must have been right. There’s been another murder.”

Falling into silence, all three of them leaned closer to the front window and looked out, turning their gazes northward, up along the gentle curve of Main Street, though they couldn’t see the police station from their vantage point. It was located just outside of town, up on Route 1, also known as the Coastal Loop. But they could see much of the rest of the village. The place had a festive feel today, probably due in part to the warmer weather. Flags and streamers flew from posts and lights, and signs in shop windows announced early-season sales and special summer deals. It was a colorful scene.

The summer season wouldn’t kick into high gear until after the Fourth of July, but late June always brought an early wave of tourists and travelers from places such as New York and New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts and Connecticut, who spent a few days or perhaps a week unwinding here along Maine’s rugged Downeast coastline. They soaked in the smells of the sea, the sights and sounds of the busy working village, and the warmth of the intensifying sunshine as they peered into shop windows, licked at ice cream cones, chewed on warm fudge or freshly baked pastries, and chatted with family, friends, and strangers.

Not surprisingly, no one seemed at all distracted by the sirens fading into the distance. The normal sounds of the village returned. Life went on as usual.

But not for Miles Crawford.

Candy felt a rising intensity in her chest, a signal that she was needed elsewhere. She leaned over, picked up her tote bag, and rose. “I have to go. Dad might need my help. Besides, I’m the editor of the paper now. I guess I have a new front page story to write. Time to get back to work.”

Maggie offered to go with her, and Herr Georg as well, for moral support. “We’ll close down the shop if we have to,” the baker told her, meaning every word.

But Candy shook her head. “I’m not sure what will happen when I get out there. I’m not even sure they’ll let me get close to the place. You’re better off staying here. I’ll drop by a little later on and fill you in on all the details.”

Moments later she was out the door and headed up the street to her old Jeep Cherokee, which she’d parked near the diner. As she went, she brushed back her honey-colored hair and glanced at her watch. It was almost ten thirty. The streets were busy with traffic and pedestrians. But she hardly noticed any of it.

Her mind was a swirl of thoughts and emotions. Her first concern was for her father. If what he had told her on the phone was true, and he had indeed found a body in the hoophouse out at Crawford’s Berry Farm, then the police would be involved, and Doc would be tied up for hours. There would be questions and statements, reports and documentation, photographs and fingerprints. She didn’t want him to go through that alone. He had turned seventy earlier in the year. He wasn’t a young man anymore. Who knew how something like this might affect him?

But she also knew he wasn’t easily rattled. Henry Holliday was good old Maine stock. He could take care of himself. He knew how to handle these types of situations, since he’d been indirectly involved with a few of them over the years. If he really had found a body, he’d approach it the same way he approached everything else in life—with common sense, professionalism, and toughness.

Her thoughts turned to the town next, and how it might be affected by another death, this time of a fairly prominent and well-established local citizen. Herr Georg was right, she knew, as much as she hated to think that way right now—what would happen to the berry farm and strawberry crop if Miles was gone? Would the berry-picking operations continue? Would his relatives take over? He’d been divorced and living alone for a while, Candy knew. She thought he had a couple of kids, though she had never met them and didn’t know their names. What would they do with the place? Would they put it up for sale, fulfilling the rumors swirling around town? And what would happen to it after that? Would the berry farm still be there in a year or two?

According to the rumors—which were completely unsubstantiated at this point, as far as Candy knew, and despite what Wanda Boyle had written in her column in the latest issue of the paper—some sort of real estate conglomerate had designs on the farm. Whispers around town said they planned to do away with the farmhouse, barn, and fields, and turn the property into some sort of upscale resort. It made sense, given the location and magnificent ocean views, but Candy had a hard time believing Miles Crawford would ever sell the place. He seemed entrenched out there.

But could there be a shred of truth to the rumors? Something that led to his apparent death?

Candy had to admit she didn’t know the answers to any of those questions, for she didn’t know much about Miles himself. He’d had a family out there once, she knew, but they’d all left. He ran the place pretty much by himself now. Maybe it had just become too much for him.

She’d occasionally seen Miles around town, and had always thought of him as a solitary person, though he seemed relatively content. And he’d done wonders with his farm, working primarily alone. She was struck by the thought that if Doc hadn’t come along when he had and found the body, Miles might have lain there for days before someone stumbled across him.

There were other questions and concerns in her mind, including the obvious one:

If Miles really had been murdered, who could have done it?

She shivered at the thought that it might well have been someone local. That made the most sense, she knew. Everyone around town was talking about the rumored sale. Maybe someone didn’t want that to happen.

But who?

She could think of several people.

Which brought her to today, and the two meetings she had scheduled for this afternoon: one with Mason Flint, the chairman of the town council, and the other with members of a newly formed civic group, the Cape Willington Heritage Protection League. The meetings were an hour apart, starting at one o’clock. She’d scheduled them that way on purpose, in an effort to keep them to a manageable length of no more than forty-five minutes each. She needed to be back on her computer by midafternoon, so she could finish up a couple hours of work before heading home to Blueberry Acres to do a few chores and make dinner with her father.

But the day had become suddenly complicated, and she wasn’t sure what the rest of the morning or the afternoon would bring.

As she hurried along Main Street, weaving around strolling couples and families, those two meetings began to weigh heavily on her thoughts, especially the one with the members of the Cape Willington Heritage Protection League. Currently the league consisted of five women, who were very vocal about their concern not only for village’s heritage, but also for its reputation. They believed a number of unfortunate events over the past few years had cast a bad light on the community. Cape Willington’s image as a quintessential New England coastal village was threatened, they’d concluded. Somebody had to do something about it or risk permanent damage to the village’s character and reputation. So the ladies had started appearing at town council meetings, where they’d made their opinions heard. They wrote letters to the editor and hung up signs in shop windows and on bulletin boards at public buildings. They held meetings in a conference room at the library and requested audiences with prominent individuals around town, including members of the wealthy Pruitt family, requesting everyone’s support.

Over the past six months or so, they’d gone a step further, sponsoring events that promoted a positive image. The largest and most recent was the upcoming Strawberry Fair, a community get-together they’d planned for the upcoming Saturday afternoon in Town Park. It would be a relatively low-key affair, unlike some of the town’s bigger events, such as the Blueberry Festival, the Lobster Stew Cook-off, the Memorial Day Parade, and the Pumpkin Bash. There would be booths and activities, food tables, a strawberry pie baking contest, pony rides, and a farm animal petting area, as well as music and performances. They promised a fun, colorful event for all ages, one that celebrated the town’s history and heritage—and they wanted to make sure it was properly covered by the newspaper. They were campaigning for a front page story in the
Crier.

That was the alleged purpose of this afternoon’s meeting. But Candy suspected there was more to it. She sensed the ladies of the league wanted something else from her—perhaps an editorial coming out against the sale of the berry farm, or something like that.

At least she knew what Mason Flint wanted. The chairman of the town council had made no bones about his reason for wanting to meet with her: He wanted her help in quashing any rumors swirling around town about the sale of the berry farm. He’d already told her as much over the phone yesterday morning, when he’d called her himself to schedule the face-to-face in his office.

“As far as I can tell, there’s absolutely no truth to these rumors,” he’d said. “It’s bad for business. Those ladies of this so-called ‘protection league’ are just stirring things up for the sake of stirring things up. I need your help in calming them down. We need to smooth this whole thing over before the tourists arrive in full force for the Fourth of July. We don’t need any trouble in town right now.”

So Candy found herself being pulled in both directions, while fighting deadlines and doing her best to get ready for the harvest out at Blueberry Acres, which would start in earnest in about a month. That’s why she’d stopped in at the Black Forest Bakery for a cup of tea and a quick sit-down with Maggie. She’d needed a few moment’s respite from the hectic pace of the busy season.

Unfortunately, those moments had been fleeting.

Her thoughts angled back to the meetings. They were certainly important. But by the time she reached the Jeep and climbed inside, she’d decided to cancel both.

She dropped her tote bag onto the passenger seat and pulled her phone out of the back pocket of her jeans. She swiped and poked at the screen, calling up her contacts, searching for Mason Flint’s number. But before she made the call, she hesitated.

Was she overreacting? Maybe Maggie and Herr Georg were right about the alleged death of Miles Crawford. Maybe it really was just a false report, or a case of mistaken identity, or simply a hoax or a prank of some sort. Maybe Doc was being misled. Or maybe, if Miles really was dead, it hadn’t been murder at all, but a farm accident of some sort. Maybe he’d even died of natural causes. He couldn’t be more than sixty years old, but unfortunately those things happened all the time. It would be tragic, yes, but it wouldn’t be as earth-shattering as a murder.

Perhaps she should wait, and find out what really happened before she stirred things up more than they already were. Better to learn the facts first, rather than jumping to conclusions.

She reconsidered her decision about the meetings. She’d already delayed the meeting with the league members once, last week, citing deadline issues. If she called off the meeting today, she knew it would cause trouble. Same thing with Mason Flint. Although genteel on the surface, he could be tenacious when he wanted something. He wouldn’t let her easily escape a meeting about something that mattered to him, especially if the town was involved.

Without making any calls, she keyed off her phone, dropped it onto the seat beside her, and started the engine. Glancing over her shoulder, she backed out of her parking spot and headed south on Main Street. Traffic was congested in Cape Willington’s small downtown, and it took her a few minutes to reach the red light at the southern end of the street. She waited in line with other vehicles before making a right-hand turn onto the Coastal Loop, hoping for the best but prepared for the worst as she headed out toward Crawford’s Berry Farm.