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  Praise for

  Town in a Lobster Stew

  “This is a charming cozy… With seafood and recipes adding to the flavor of a Town in a Lobster Stew, subgenre fans will enjoy spending early summer in Maine.”

  —The Best Reviews

  Town in a Blueberry Jam

  “In this debut mystery, Haywood has picked a winning combination of good food and endearing characters.”

  —Sheila Connolly, national bestselling author of Bitter Harvest

  “An interesting cast of characters in a quaint Maine town. It’s not Cabot Cove, and thank God for that. Candy Holliday is an intriguing new sleuth in the lighthearted mystery genre.”

  —Bangor (ME) Daily News

  “A delicious mix of yummy food and a good small-town mystery.”

  —The Romance Readers Connection

  “This is a charming and amusing Pine Tree State cozy in which Cape Willington is vividly described so that the reader feels they are attending the Blueberry Festival. The cast is solid as the residents bring out the ambience of the seaside village… A fresh spin to B. B. Haywood’s first Candy Holliday whodunit.”

  —The Best Reviews

  “A winning combination of great characters, warm setting, and mischievous locals will appeal to cozy lovers every-where.”

  —Romantic Times

  Berkley Prime Crime titles by B. B. Haywood

  TOWN IN A BLUEBERRY JAM

  TOWN IN A LOBSTER STEW

  TOWN IN A WILD MOOSE CHASE

  TOWN IN A

  Wild Moose Chase

  B. B. Haywood

  BERKLEY PRIME CRIME, NEW YORK

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

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  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE: The recipes contained in this book are to be followed exactly as written. The publisher is not responsible for your specific health or allergy needs that may require medical supervision. The publisher is not responsible for any adverse reactions to the recipes contained in this book.

  TOWN IN A WILD MOOSE CHASE

  A Berkley Prime Crime Book / published by arrangement with the author

  PRINTING HISTORY

  Berkley Prime Crime mass-market edition / February 2012

  Copyright © 2012 by Robert R. Feeman and Beth Ann Feeman.

  Cover illustration by Teresa Fasolino.

  Cover design by Diana Kolsky.

  Interior text design by Kristin del Rosario.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  EISBN: 9781101560198

  BERKLEY® PRIME CRIME

  Berkley Prime Crime Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  BERKLEY® PRIME CRIME and the PRIME CRIME logo are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

  For James and Soren, as always

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thanks to the many readers and fans who have embraced the residents of Cape Willington, Maine, and provided nu-merous creative ideas and suggestions. As you’ll see, a few of those suggestions have been incorporated into this book. Special acknowledgment to Bill Hall of B&G Blueberries, who shared buckets of fresh-picked blueberries, provided valuable details about blueberry farming, and opened up his barn for a quick peek (even though he said it was too messy). Thanks to Sandre Swails and Jeanine Douphinett for their fabulous recipes and friendship, to Kae and Jon for lunch and career advice, and to Rock, Diane, and Laura Lee for continued support and good wishes. Finally, Leis Pederson’s keen storytelling instincts helped make this a better book. For more information about Cape Willington, Maine, and details on current and future books, visit www.hollidaysblueberryacres.com.

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Twenty-Seven

  Twenty-Eight

  Twenty-Nine

  Thirty

  Thirty-One

  Thirty-Two

  Thirty-Three

  Thirty-Four

  Thirty-Five

  Thirty-Six

  Thirty-Seven

  Thirty-Eight

  Thirty-Nine

  Forty

  Forty-One

  Forty-Two

  Forty-Three

  Forty-Four

  Forty-Five

  Forty-Six

  Forty-Seven

  Forty-Eight

  Forty-Nine

  Fifty

  Epilogue

  PROLOGUE

  He found the body at the bottom of a gully, lying on its side, half buried in the snow.

  The white moose had led him to the spot.

  It wasn’t the sort of thing he’d expected to see when he set out from his fishing camp on English Pond that morning. If he’d had the good sense to let the moose be, or if he’d turned back at the edge of his property, or if he’d just stayed inside and worked on his carvings, he’d never have gotten himself mi
xed up in the whole blasted affair. But he walked right into it, all right. And he couldn’t really blame himself, could he? The day was too nice, too welcoming, and he couldn’t let the opportunity pass him by. They’d had some warmer weather lately, but it was coming to an end. Colder air and flurries were moving in, according to the almanac, which was accurate seventy percent of the time. Best get the chores done quickly while the nice weather lasted.

  He’d laid up plenty of firewood for the season, but he liked to keep a good supply of kindling and lighter stock on hand too, and it needed replenishing. So he’d pulled on his light winter gear, stepped into his insulated boots, yanked the slat-sided sledge out from under the lean-to next to the woodshed, and headed out into the snowy woods, dragging the sledge behind him.

  The sun was out, slanting through bare branches and wet-trunked trees, and the snow crust was freeing up, loosening from the bottom and softening at the top. As he trudged across the winter landscape, he unhooked the top two buttons of his flannel shirt, and the ones at the wrists as well. He’d worn only the shirt and an insulated undershirt with his old down vest, which had flattened considerably over the years. It was warm out for a morning in late January, so the heavier stuff wasn’t required. He might have worn too much as it was. The mercury had touched forty-three degrees a couple of days ago, and had inched above forty yesterday. Temperatures were supposed to drop this afternoon, but the warmer air lingered, a few degrees above the freezing mark, continuing its gentle assault on the fringe of ice and snow that had tightly encased every single living and nonliving thing around Cape Willington for the better part of six weeks.

  They’d had a couple of blizzards in early and mid-December, and a doozy of a sea storm right after the new year that left nearly twenty inches behind. The snowpack had thickened, and piles of snow driven by the hard winds had grown to chest height and beyond. But the January thaw of the past few days had cleared out some of it—enough so he could maneuver his way through the woods, going about his business.

  A few birds sang high in the branches, and he looked up. A mild burst of wind brushed past his face, and he smelled the life hidden beneath the snow, aching to burst free. He looked down and swallowed. Not for the first time he missed Abby, his retriever. She’d loved days like this. She’d be in her glory if she were out here with him today. He’d had her for nearly fourteen years, but she was gone now, and he hadn’t had the heart to replace her yet. He didn’t know if he ever would.

  So nowadays he devoted most of his attention to the animals in the woods around his camp. He knew some of them by sight and could recognize their tracks. The forest creatures had been busy over the past few days, given the warmer weather. As he headed off in his usual direction, following a narrow path that looped around the west side of the pond, he spotted their familiar marks.

  Just up ahead, bird tracks circled a low berry bush. Obviously they’d found a few remnants of interest. Off to his right, he could see the bony footprints of a gray squirrel, which had ventured out from its nest in a weathered old oak. Farther on, in a grove of thick pines, he came across the tracks of a lone chipmunk, out foraging while it could. While crossing a low, reedy spot he spotted a few faint footprints with webbing between the toes—the hind feet of a beaver, which had a place nearby, on one of the streams feeding the pond. Another half mile on he spotted the five-toed footprints of a red fox, probably made sometime during the night or early morning hours. It seemed to have spent some time through here, sniffing out vole tunnels beneath the melting snow.

  As he approached the stream he noticed how busy it sounded, its waters rushing under a shelf of ice that had broken open in a few places. Here he saw more tracks—a raccoon, whose prints looked like small, elongated human hands, and a thin weasel.

  He found a good place to pull the sledge across the icy stream and headed up toward Cooper’s Ridge, picking up kindling as he went. The weather of the past few weeks had knocked down quite a bit, and the work went quickly through the morning. Twice he returned to the camp, the sledge piled high with wood, which he stored away in the shed before heading out again, going out farther each time.

  He’d inherited the camp from his uncle twenty-seven seasons ago. It had been a beat-down place when he took it over, but he’d fixed it up over the years and made it livable. The camp consisted of a one-room, open-beamed cabin right on the bank of the pond, plus a shed, chicken coop, makeshift boat shed, and a few other outbuildings. For nearly a decade he’d spent his summers here, only a few months at first, but it seemed as the years went by he was always arriving earlier in the spring and leaving later in the fall, until finally he’d just moved in full-time. He’d had two propane tanks, a hundred pounds each, installed at the back of the place, which gave him hot water, a few lights, and heat when he needed it. He made his dinners on a wood-burning cookstove, and usually warmed the place with that and a smaller woodstove he’d had for fifteen years. It was an efficient operation, though he needed six or seven cords of wood in a season, plus all the kindling he could gather.

  He’d decided to make the third trip his last, but the moose tracks caught his eye. They were easy to spot—larger than the deer tracks he often saw around his place. Deer frequently overnighted in sheltered areas on the other side of a hillock behind the cabin, but moose weren’t as common around here. They tended to stay farther north, but a few wandered down on occasion to explore the woods around Cape Willington. They were shy, quiet, distant creatures, who preferred to stay pretty much on their own. They didn’t seem to mind his presence, though, when he came upon them in the woods.

  From the prints, this one looked like a newcomer; it had a V-shaped wedge cut out of one hoof, something he didn’t recognize. The tracks were fairly fresh, headed southeast. Proceeding in a straight line that cut right between the trees.

  That struck him as odd. He stood for the longest time staring at the tracks.

  Rather than meandering through the trees, stopping here and there, searching out any leafy shoots that might have become unburied by the retreating snow cover, this particular moose had headed in a singular direction, unwavering, as if drawn by an invisible line to some unseen point in the woods up ahead.

  He squinted through the trees, trying to see where the moose had headed. What was going on in those woods? he wondered. But the tracks disappeared into a miasma of mut-ed browns, sullen grays, and dirty whites, giving him no clue. He knew the general direction, though.

  The moose tracks were headed toward Blueberry Acres.

  Candy and Doc Holliday’s place.

  He looked behind, knowing he should turn back. Best not to get too curious or too involved. He had the kindling he needed; he should head home. But for some reason he would never be able to explain, he turned the other direction, leaving his sledge where it sat, and trudged off through the wet, heavy snow after the moose tracks.

  He soon began to sense that he and the moose weren’t alone in the woods, and he felt a prickling on the back of his neck, in part because he started hearing things he couldn’t quite place—an odd, distant crackle that sounded suspiciously like the crunch of snow as a boot stepped down, or the snap of a broken branch as someone passed nearby, carried on the faint wind that wove through the woods.

  And then there came a single, sharp thudding sound, like an ax entering a tree. It sounded as if it had been made by a human. He’d never heard an animal make a sound like that.

  There was probably a simple explanation. A few hikers or homeowners out today, gathering firewood like he’d been doing. Or kids playing hooky from school, pulling a sled or two, cutting through the woods to meet up with friends.

  But something in his bones told him it wasn’t that simple. Something else was going on. The vibrations were off. The air felt wrong. He stopped several times, looking back over his shoulder, willing himself to turn around and head home.

  But the moose tracks drew him on. He followed them across the contours of the land.

  Soon
he heard a snort. He slowed his pace, moving forward cautiously. The trees parted, and quite suddenly he came upon the scene.

  He froze.

  Standing directly in front of him, on a rough edge of land that fell off to a gully behind it, stood a white moose.

  He’d heard about them but never seen one before, though a buddy of his from up near Millinocket had seen one once, a decade or two ago, or so he said. They were more common in Canada, in places like New Brunswick, off to the east of Maine, and Ontario, to the northwest, and all the way up to Alaska. But sometimes one or two were seen around New England. He’d heard they weren’t albinos but true white moose, whose coats turned darker in the summer but lighter during the winter months. It was some sort of genetic thing, someone had told him. This one had a few darker spots and smudges on its coat, which was long, thick, and a little shab-by for the winter season. The animal stood about six and a half feet tall at the shoulders, he figured, and had shed its antlers, giving it a bald, almost comical look. It had ridiculously long, thin legs, which held up its thick, muscular body. The elongated head ended in a drooping snout. The hump at the top of the shoulders was particularly pronounced in this one, shown off by the wet spiked fur sticking up from the top of it.

  The moose watched him with large brown eyes for a few moments, turning its head from side to side, as if agitated.

  He backed away a little. He’d heard stories of people being trampled by moose. It was never a good thing to approach or upset one.

  But this particular fellow remained where it was, its head turning and dipping so it could look down into the gully at its side.

  Then it looked back at him.

  He cleared his throat and said softly, “Hello, fella. You’re a rare sight around here. You’re not lost, are ya?”

  If the animal understood, it gave no indication, until finally its head shook in a rapid movement, causing the dewlap—the loose patch of fur and skin hanging under its neck—to jiggle around furiously.

  He took that as some indication to continue. “So… do you need help? You doing okay?”