Town in a Strawberry Swirl (Candy Holliday Mystery)

by Haywood, B. B.

  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.

  Candy read it again, her gaze narrowing in on the words.

  Neil Crawford?

  Miles Crawford’s son?

  She glanced up at Wanda, who
had mentioned Miles’s son just a little while ago, when they were talking up in Candy’s office.

  What was he doing out at Blueberry Acres?

  Candy looked back down at the cryptic message, her head tilted in thought. After a few moments she keyed off the phone and slid it back into her pocket, her eyes lifting toward Cotton and the other ladies, who were still staring at her.

  She gave them a smile. “Let me see what I can do.”

  TWENTY-NINE

  The Jeep kicked up a little dust as she drove up the dirt lane toward the farmhouse at Blueberry Acres. Sunlight reflected off the barn’s tin roof, and off the hood of an old red Saab wagon parked in the driveway. It didn’t look familiar, and the Vermont plates probably explained why. She spotted Doc’s truck pulled over in front of the Saab, and off to her right, in an open, level area past the far side of the barn, near a stand of trees, she saw . . . something else.

  “What the heck is that?” she said to herself, squinting out through the passenger-side window.

  It looked like a round white tent, but unlike any tent she had seen before. There was something rugged yet exotic about it. It had a Marco Polo feel, as if it had been plucked off the plains of Asia from some nomadic tribesman.

  And then she saw the dog.

  He had apparently heard the Jeep crunching to a stop on the driveway, and he was coming to greet her, loping along the side of the barn in a friendly manner, tongue lolling out one side of his mouth, a great shaggy beast whose whole body seemed to be moving in anticipation of meeting her.

  He padded along happily toward her and came around the front of the Jeep just as she shut off the engine, and by the time she opened the door and stepped out, he was waiting for her. He gave her a soulful look and took a few casual steps forward to nuzzle her hand with a cold nose.

  “Well, aren’t you a friendly one?” Candy said, leaning over to scratch a little behind the dog’s ears. “You’re a big fellow, too, aren’t you? And what might your name be?” She patted him on the side several times, looking up and around. “And where did you come from?”

  She heard someone call to her from the house, and looked over to see a bearded man emerge from the back door and cross the porch. He waved as he came down the steps onto the driveway, looking like he’d lived here for years. “He seems to like you,” the bearded man called to her, indicating the dog with a flick of his finger.

  He was a tall man with an easy gait and an easy smile, an untamed head of hair that hung over his ears, and loose-fitting clothes that looked well lived in. His weathered face, lightly sunburned on the high cheeks and thin nose, was half hidden by a full beard, and his broad shoulders and sinewy arms, revealed by the rolled-up sleeves of his faded flannel shirt, gave him the appearance of someone who spent a lot of time out of doors splitting wood and pulling out tree stumps.

  “He’s very friendly,” Candy called back, continuing to pet the dog, who had looked over at the sound of his master’s voice but remained tight by Candy’s side, apparently content with the attention he was receiving. “What’s his name?”

  “He’s called Random,” the bearded man said as he approached, “and he usually doesn’t take to strangers so easily. He’s a bit of a loner, like his master, I’m afraid. But he’s obviously very fond of you.”

  “Well, he has good taste,” Candy said with a quick smile, and she affectionately scratched the top of the dog’s head.

  “I couldn’t agree more.” The bearded man stopped a couple of steps away and held out a long-fingered hand, with whitish fingernails against his tanned skin. “I’m Neil Crawford.”

  “Hi, Neil. I’m Candy.”

  They shook. Candy’s small hand seemed to disappear into Neil’s, which felt warm and a little callused. With some effort she pulled her gaze away from his and looked back down at the dog. “Random, huh? Why Random?”

  Neil looked down at the dog as well. “It’s from a book I read ten or twelve years ago, called Roverandom, by Tolkien. It’s the story of a dog’s adventures after he’s turned into a toy by a wizard. I’d read all Tolkien’s books when I was a kid, of course, and we had a family dog named Rover, so when Roverandom came out, I read that, too, and it made me think of that old dog.”

  Neil flicked a finger at the big shaggy animal still leaning up tightly against Candy’s leg. “Then, a few years ago, I got this one as a puppy from a friend of mine, and he reminded me of the dog in the book. I thought about naming him Rover Two or something like that, but I went with Random instead. And he fits his name. He’s a wanderer, and tends to roam around looking for adventure. But he always finds his way back home.”

  As if in response, Random appeared to spy something in the high grass at the edge of the fields to their right, and off he went with a low gruff in the back of his throat to see what he could find.

  Candy and Neil stood in silence for a few moments, watching him go, out past the barn and the odd tent behind it. Candy indicated the new addition to the landscape. “I suppose that’s yours?”

  Neil nodded. “It’s my yurt,” he said with a smile.

  “Your yurt?” Candy turned back to him with a quizzical look.

  Neil was about to explain when Doc came out of the house and called to them with a wave. “Hey, you two! Come on inside! I’ve got lunch on the table.”

  He’d made grilled cheese sandwiches with rye bread and thick slices of sharp cheddar he’d picked up at the deli in town, accompanied by homemade potato salad, thick deli pickles, and iced tea with fresh slices of lemon.

  As they ate, Neil filled them in on the past twenty-four hours.

  “I was as shocked as anyone by Dad’s death,” he said, his smile falling away as he addressed the difficult subject. “I have a fifteen-acre homestead in Vermont, west of the Green Mountains near Bristol. I moved there ten years ago with my ex-wife, who was from Montpelier”—here he paused, glancing at the both of them—“but I managed to keep the place when we broke up. Dad wanted me to come back and work the berry farm with him, but I’d more or less established myself over there. The place has a small apple orchard, vegetable gardens, and some good stands of scrub pines and hardwoods I can sell for firewood, plus a pond and some berry fields. I keep sheep as well, though the flock is only a couple dozen at this point. I make a decent living off of it, but it’s hard work to do by yourself.”

  He paused, taking a bite of a crisp pickle, and gazed out the window for a few moments before he continued. “Plus, to be honest, Dad can be—well, could be—a little hard to live with at times. He wasn’t the most communicative person, which you probably know if you spent any time with him. He tends to stay to himself, much like Random out there.” Neil pointed toward the window with his head. “That’s why my mom left, I guess. But Dad and I got along okay. He gave me a lot of advice over the years about farming and running an agricultural business. He knew what he was doing. Well, anyway, as soon as I heard what had happened to him, I drove right over. I got here late last night. I stopped by the police station this morning, and the funeral home. I’m heading out to the farm this afternoon to check it out.”

  “Have the police given you any more information about what might have happened?” Doc asked.

  Neil shook his head. “I haven’t been able to get much out of them. They interviewed me for about an hour, asking about his friends, acquaintances, possible enemies, that sort of thing. But I hadn’t seen him in six months or so. Last time we got together was at Christmas. We talked on the phone a few times, but both of us were pretty busy, I guess.”

  He fell into silence, a hurt look coming into his brown eyes, which were flecked with streaks of yellow, Candy noticed now that she sat close to him. He seemed to be remembering what might have been, running through memories and regrets in his head.

  Candy thought it was time to change the subject. “What about the yurt?” she asked, pointing out the window in the direction of the barn.

  A casual smile returned to Neil’s face, outlined by hi
s beard, which was redder than his hair. “That’s my temporary living facility. I lived in that yurt for almost a year while I was remodeling my place in Vermont. It’s surprisingly cozy. So I threw it in the car when I came over, along with some other things I thought I might need.” He paused again. “I wasn’t sure what I’d find when I got here. I’m not even sure I want to sleep in Dad’s old house, even though the police have cleared me to enter. And I’m not crazy about hotel rooms. Most of them—well, they’re not my style. I’m more comfortable on my own.” He nodded toward Doc. “Your father’s allowed me to set it up here for a few days, until I can figure out my next move, if that’s okay with you.”

  “Of course,” Candy said. “Stay as long as you’d like. It’s the least we can do.”

  “And the yurt’s pretty interesting,” Doc said, brightening. “It’s much studier than a tent, and he set it up in about forty-five minutes. He’s even got some furniture in there.”

  “Furniture?” Candy asked in amusement as she looked over at Neil.

  The smile widened just a bit. “Well, it’s not like I have a three-piece bedroom set in there—just an airbed, a folding table and chairs, a small shelf, that sort of thing.”

  “I told him he could use the bathroom, kitchen, and laundry here whenever he wanted, until we get this whole thing at the berry farm sorted out,” Doc said. He glanced over at his daughter to make sure she was okay with this arrangement, but Candy had already moved on.

  “So, do you have any idea what might have happened to your father?”

  Neil shook his head. “I’m as much in the dark as everyone else. That’s why I’m headed out there this afternoon—to see if I can figure it out.” He paused and looked at them. “And I’d like the two of you to go with me.”

  THIRTY

  They took the Jeep, since Neil’s car was filled with his gear and the cab of Doc’s truck would have been a tight fit. Candy opened the back hatch so Random could jump up, which took a little coaxing. Then she closed it behind him and moved around to the driver’s side door. Doc waved Neil toward the front passenger seat and climbed into the Jeep’s second row, pushing aside a folded umbrella, well-used work gloves, a fleece jacket, a box of empty pots, wire flower hangers, and a few small gardening tools.