Town in a Lobster Stew chm-2 Read online

  In the end, though, she knew she had to do it. But she resolved to be smarter about it this time.

  She clicked the reply button, which opened a new window, and looked at the name in the address field’s To line. It was addressed to CinnamonGirl, followed by a series of five numbers, at a Gmail account.

  Candy typed, Okay, I’m interested. What do you know? and before she could think about it any more, she hit the send button in the upper left corner of the screen.

  She waited.

  Doc walked past again, still whistling and carrying a glass of iced tea. She hadn’t even noticed him going into the house. He walked off the porch and headed across the gravel driveway, past the Jeep and his old Ford pickup, to the barn again.

  Candy decided to follow him — at least partway. A little walk would help clear her mind, so she could focus on her article. She rose, set the laptop on a nearby wooden bench, and started after her father, though she angled off behind the barn, where she kept her chickens.

  Ray Hutchins had built the coop for her a year and a half ago, and had expanded it for her last fall, in partial payment for all she had done to help him out of a tight spot, he’d told her at the time. She’d had fifteen chickens last year but had lost two of them over the winter, so she was down to thirteen, which always seemed to be tempting fate — not that she was a superstitious person, she always reminded herself. She planned to expand her flock again this year when she and Doc drove to the annual Common Ground Country Fair up in Unity.

  She’d had foxes try to get into the coop several times, so she and Doc had reinforced the chicken wire around the sides and lower edges of the coop. She also made sure the chickens were in their roosts and closed up every night. And she always kept Doc’s shotgun close at hand, in the kitchen closet, just in case.

  Today the chickens were happy and chattering away as usual, oblivious to the cares and worries of those in the world around them. They pecked and scratched eagerly as she threw a few handfuls of feed onto the ground in the coop. She checked their water and looked around for eggs, though there were only a few. She’d already collected a bunch earlier in the day and decided to leave these until evening.

  When she got back to the porch, she checked her e-mail and found another message from Cinnamon Girl. This one was equally short:

  I can’t tell you this way. We have to meet.

  Candy puzzled over that. Was security an issue? Or was she being drawn out somewhere for a reason?

  Again, she thought, there’s only one way to find out.

  She hit reply again and typed, When do you want to meet?

  It took less than a minute to get an answer. This afternoon. 4 p.m.

  Where? Candy sent back.

  Backstage at the Pruitt Opera House, came the reply.

  Candy hesitated briefly. She had a history with that place. Finally she typed, How will I find you?

  I’ll find you.

  Candy thought a few moments before sending her next message. It’s Sunday afternoon. The place is probably locked up. How will I get in?

  She waited a long time for a reply. Back basement door. Come alone.

  Candy groaned.

  She knew which door Cinnamon Girl meant. She had used it before, on a rainy night the previous summer, when she’d entered the opera house after hours to hunt for a murderer.

  The Pruitt Opera House on Ocean Avenue also doubled as Town Hall, since the town’s offices were located in the building’s basement, where they’d been since the late 1970s. Candy knew the layout, and she knew how to get from the back basement door to the auditorium’s backstage area.

  At this time of year, the auditorium was used mostly for movies on Friday and Saturday nights. Earlier in the spring, a regional Shakespeare group had staged its annual production on the opera house’s stage — The Tempest this year. And the high school would hold its graduation ceremonies in the auditorium in mid-June. In early July, a series of performances by local folk musicians would take place on the stage, after which the auditorium would come into heavy usage for the second half of the summer, as the town’s thespians geared up for the annual musical production in August.

  Candy’s uneasiness returned as she pondered the last message from Cinnamon Girl. Why the anonymous e-mail? And why the secretive meeting at a public yet relatively inaccessible place? Why not meet in a coffee shop or in Town Park or in a parking lot somewhere? Why all the subterfuge?

  For a fleeting moment she thought about skipping the meeting. Why put herself in harm’s way? For all she knew, Cinnamon Girl could be a psycho.

  And yet, her instincts told her the opposite.

  It was that moniker that eventually decided her. It was a subtle clue, designed to let her know that whoever this person was, she (Candy assumed it was a she, though she supposed it could be a he) knew certain details about Wilma Mae’s recipe — and might know a lot more.

  Candy checked her watch. It was a quarter to three.

  If she was going to do this, she had to get moving.

  She rose again, set her laptop aside, and crossed to the barn. Doc was fiddling around on a workbench, listening to a game on the radio. He looked around when Candy walked in. “What’s up, pumpkin?”

  “Do you have Finn’s number? I need to give him a call.”

  “Finn?”

  “Yeah, I... have a question for him about the opera house.”

  Doc gave her a quizzical look. “What are you up to?”

  She crossed her arms. “Just my job, Dad. So, Finn’s number?”

  After a few moments he shrugged. “It’s somewhere on my desk. Check the Rolodex on the right-hand side. I think I put his old business card in there.”

  She started back toward the house. “I’m going to give him a call, then I’m going out for a while. I have some research to do.”

  “Just be careful, pumpkin. It’s a tough world out there.”

  “Don’t I know it, Dad.”

  Twenty-One

  Finn Woodbury lived with his wife Marti in one of the newer condos along the English River. It was a small community of buildings known as Water’s Edge, upriver from the older neighborhood of Fowler’s Corner, where Maggie lived. Finn and Marti spent a good bit of time there, from late April through late December, but when the coldest weather set in at the beginning of each new year, they usually hitched up the fifth-wheeler they kept in the backyard and headed down Interstate 95, making a beeline for an RV park in Central Florida, about an hour south of Orlando, where they waited out the winter season in warmer weather. And every spring, when they made the trip back up I-95 and returned to Cape Willington, they usually brought a few crates of oranges, a big bag of Spanish moss, and some pretty good suntans.

  Finn opened the door when she rang the bell. He was eating a ham and cheese sandwich. While he chewed, he motioned her inside, closing the door behind her.

  “Come on back,” he said, waving a hand. “I’m just having a snack. Want something? A Coke? A beer?”

  “No thanks, I’m fine,” Candy said as she followed him back to the kitchen.

  “Go ahead, have a seat,” Finn said as he sat himself. “Marti’s out shopping. She wanted me to go with her, but she was headed to some of those discount stores over near Ellsworth. Treasure hunting, she calls it. We got a house full of treasures, I told her. We don’t have room for any more. But that never stops her. She says it makes her happy, and who am I to stand in the way of her happiness?”

  He paused, took a bite of his sandwich, and looked at her as he chewed. He wore cargo shorts and a green golf shirt today; his tweed jacket, which he always had on when he went out, was slung over the back of his chair. He was only a little taller than Candy, and broad, though he didn’t seem overweight. His stomach was still tight, and his toned legs indicated he kept himself active. His salt-and-pepper beard was neatly trimmed. He looked at her with studious brown eyes. “So, you need my help with something?”

  “Yeah, thanks for taking the time to s
ee me. I... have this meeting in a little while, and I wanted to talk to you about it first.”

  He sat back in his chair. “What kind of meeting?”

  “Well, I suppose you could say it’s with some sort of informant.”

  “I see.” Absently he took another bite of the sandwich, followed by a pull from a can of Coke, as he thought this over. “So what’s the name of your informant?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Uh-huh. And how did this informant contact you?”

  “E-mail.”

  “No way to identify the sender?”

  “It was a Gmail account. Someone named Cinnamon Girl.”

  “Cinnamon Girl, huh? Just like the old Neil Young song. Interesting.” He stared down at a nondescript spot on the floor for a few moments, then asked, “So, where are you meeting this person, and when is it going down?”

  She told him. “That’s why I wanted to talk to you first — to find out what I’m walking into.”

  “Why, are you worried?”

  She had to admit she was.

  “Think it’s a scam?”

  “I don’t know. I just know someone who insists on staying anonymous wants to meet me in a very odd place.”

  “It can get pretty dark in that backstage area,” Finn said thoughtfully, “even in the middle of the day. That’s the point, of course. No windows, little light. It’s probably a good place to meet if you wanted to remain anonymous. This person can just stay in the shadows if she or he wants to, and talk to you from there — or come up on you from behind.”

  “I know.” She gave him a long look.

  He seemed to understand. “So you need a little backup.” It was a statement, not a question.

  “I was thinking about something like that, yes.”

  “Where’s Maggie? Doesn’t she usually help you out with this sort of thing?”

  “She’s keeping an eye on Wilma Mae.” Candy hesitated before she added, “Besides, I put her in a lot of danger last time. This time...” Her voice trailed off.

  He smiled. “This time you’d rather put me in danger.”

  “Well” — Candy raised her eyebrows — “when you put it that way...”

  He took a contemplative bite of the sandwich. “Did this informant tell you to come alone?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay, at least we know the ground rules. But nothing says we can’t bend them a little.” His eyes suddenly widened as he held up a thick finger. “You know what? I have just the thing.”

  He set down his sandwich, got up from the table, and crossed to a drawer at the far end of the kitchen counter. He pulled it open and started digging through it, burrowing under various tools, seed packets, menus, bulbs, candles, batteries, matchbooks, plastic boxes of screws and nails, user guides, pens and pencils, and other assorted and sundry items. He finally found what he was looking for near the back, pulled it out, slammed the drawer closed with his hip, and returned to the table.

  “Here you go,” he said, holding it up for her to see.

  It was an earpiece with a thin wire that connected it to a small black box with a skinny six-inch antenna. He also held up a small black button about the size of a penny with a clip on the back of it, also attached to a small black box by a thin wire.

  “What’s that?” Candy asked, peering at the devices.

  Finn displayed it proudly. “It’s an audio bug and receiver. I pieced it together myself with parts I bought at Radio Shack. It’s got a range of about fifty feet or so, so I’ll have to stay close by.”

  “Close by?”

  “Sure, like in the parking lot maybe. Here.” He leaned forward and attached the small black button to the collar of Candy’s blouse. He slipped the black box in her left front pocket. “It helps if we can get the miniature mic as close to your mouth as possible. It should be concealed, of course. It would’ve helped if you’d worn something like a turtleneck, so we could just hide it under the fold, but we’ll figure it out. We’ll have to hide the transmitter too, but that can go anywhere. And we’ll string the wire inside your clothes.”

  He held up the earpiece connected to the black box with the antenna. “I’ll be outside in the car. I can even lie down in the backseat if that would help, so no one will see me — especially your informant. Don’t want to scare them away. Then I just pop this earpiece in, and I can hear everything you say. If you get into trouble, just holler. I’ll be there in two shakes.”

  Candy eyed the device skeptically. “You think this’ll work? I’ll be backstage at the Pruitt. Even if I need your help, it would take you a few minutes to get in there from the parking lot if you entered by the back basement door.”

  Finn shook his head. “That’s the best part. There’s a stage door the actors and crew use. It opens from the backstage area right into the side parking lot. I can jump out of the car and be there to help you out in less than thirty seconds.”

  “But isn’t that door locked?”

  Finn grinned. “Sure it is. It’s got a new security keypad on it. I know, because I asked to have it installed. I’m a show producer, you know. I’ve got a little clout around this town.”

  Candy smiled with him. “And because you’re the producer, you know the combination to the keypad, don’t you?”

  He raised his arms in an exaggerated shrug. “What can I say? I’m good at what I do.” His expression turned serious again as he set the gear on the table and sat back down. “Listen, Candy, this doesn’t have anything to do with Mr. Sedley’s death, does it?”

  Candy had anticipated the question and had formulated her answer on the drive over. “It might, but I’m just trying to help out a friend. Wilma Mae asked me to do a little digging around.”

  He didn’t seem convinced. He leaned forward, putting his elbows on the table. “Look, I’ve been hearing some buzz from the station. They’re saying Mr. Sedley had serious trauma to the head. He probably had a few other broken bones too, and maybe a broken neck. Someone beat him up pretty good. But there’s something else. They’re saying he didn’t die where you found him. They think his body was moved. Somebody probably killed him somewhere else in the house — upstairs maybe, either accidentally or on purpose — and dragged or carried his body down into the basement. At least, that’s what they’ve figured out so far.”

  “Do they have any suspects?”

  “I don’t know yet. And there’s one more thing — the tarp.”

  “The one he was wrapped in?”

  “That’s right. They’re saying it’s not Wilma Mae’s — it came from somewhere else.”

  “You mean... what? The murderer brought it with him?”

  Finn shrugged. “Who knows what’s going on? But my point is this: you’re walking into very murky territory here. This is serious business, Candy. I wouldn’t take any chances if I were you. If there’s any indication — anything whatsoever — that you’re in danger, just yell out my name — don’t hesitate — and I’ll be on my way. I don’t want you to get yourself hurt.”

  She reached across the table and clapped her hand on his wrist. “Finn, thanks for doing this for me.”

  He patted her hand and gave her a guarded smile. “Hey, no problem. It’s the least I can do. You know, I could probably get in trouble for helping you, but what the hell. It’ll be fun. Just like the old days. Besides, Doc would never forgive me if I let something happen to you.”

  “Finn Woodbury,” Candy said, her voice suddenly stern, “you are under no circumstances to tell my dad about this. Is that understood?”

  He nodded silently, as if chastised.

  “This is just between you and me,” she continued. “At least for now. Or unless we find a killer. In that case, I’ll share the credit with you.”

  He held out his hand to shake. “It’s a deal.”

  Twenty-Two

  Thirty minutes later, she stood at the back basement door of the Pruitt Opera House.

  Candy reached out and tentatively turned the door
handle. It was unlocked, just as Cinnamon Girl said it would be. She pushed open the door, peered inside, and couldn’t help giving a last look back over her shoulder, just to make sure.

  She’d parked the Jeep on the far side of the lot, near the stage door. Finn was crouched down in the backseat, hidden from view. She absently touched the black button mic attached to a bra strap and, with the other hand, tapped the transmitter tucked into her back pocket. The wire snaked around her body inside her blouse. She just hoped the little spy gadget worked the way Finn said it would.

  They had tested it out a few times around Finn’s place before they left. Finn had gone upstairs and outside to determine its range. It seemed to work fine.

  Still, Candy was nervous. She knew she might be overreacting, creating villains when there were none, but after what had happened the last time, she didn’t want to take any chances. She just hoped she wouldn’t need Finn’s help at all — that whoever this Cinnamon Girl was, she (or he) was legit, and nonthreatening.

  Taking a deep breath, she walked inside, letting the door close behind her. She entered a darkened hallway, illuminated by dim off-hours lighting. Still, she could see the way ahead clearly enough. The long hallway was deserted.

  Before she took a step forward, she instinctively looked down.

  She’d visited Town Hall several times in the past year or so but always entered by the main door upstairs. The last time she’d been in this hallway, on a stormy night ten months ago, she’d seen wet footprints tracked across the floor — a tip-off she should have paid more attention to. But today there were no footprints of any kind, no sound, no movements — nothing to indicate anyone had been this way recently.

  She’d brought a flashlight with her, just in case, in a black canvas shoulder bag she used sometimes for work. She liked it because she could flip the bag back behind her when she didn’t need it, so it stayed out of the way, and it was large enough to carry all the notepads, files, pens, business cards, water bottles, and other work-related items she needed, plus a digital tape recorder, an address book, and her cell phone. Today, it also carried a flashlight.