“It’s a small impromptu gathering,” Mason told her with a gap-toothed smile, beckoning her forward, “to bring a little recognition to one of our town’s most honored citizens.”
“And who might that be?” Candy asked, looking around for the guest of honor.
“You!” Cotton Colby cried, and they all gave her a hearty round of applause.
“Me?” Candy was mystified. “What did I do?”
“You just saved the Strawberry Fair, that’s all!” Cotton said excitedly.
They’d set up a small PA speaker and microphone at the center of the gathering, and Cotton stepped up to it. She switched on the mic, tapped it a few times, flashed a confident smile, and started in.
“Ladies and gentlemen, I’d like to thank all of you for coming out here today on such short notice. As many of you know, I’m Cotton Colby, president of the Cape Willington Heritage Protection League, and I’d like to welcome everyone to the official ribbon cutting ceremony for our first annual Strawberry Fair!”
The applause started up again, accompanied by several well-rehearsed smiles. Wanda stepped forward to snap a few photos, and Cotton continued.
“As many of you know, we’ve been planning this particular event for several months now as a way to promote all of our village’s many positive aspects. And we’ve had the support of many wonderful people around town. I’d especially like to thank Chairman Flint, members of the town council, Chief Durr and everyone at the Cape Willington Police Department, all of our volunteers and supporters, and the Pruitt Foundation, which underwrote this event for us this weekend. We’re very grateful for their financial support. And now, I’ll turn over the festivities to Chairman Flint, who will introduce our guest of honor.”
With a final smile Cotton stepped aside, and Mason Flint approached the microphone. Since he was taller than she, he took a moment to adjust the microphone stand, tested it as well, and then gazed out across the crowd with a calm, seasoned demeanor. He began smoothly.
“Thank you, Cotton. I would just like to echo what she said and welcome everyone to our wonderful village. We appreciate everyone’s support, and I’d like to give a special thanks to Cotton herself and all the ladies of the Heritage Protection League for their efforts in planning and staging this exciting new event in our community. We’re very pleased to add it to our annual town calendar, and I hope we’ll be celebrating the Strawberry Fair for many years to come. In just a moment we’re going to cut the ribbon and officially declare the event open. But first I would like to recognize someone in our audience here today who was instrumental in ensuring the success of this event. From what I understand, without the assistance of Candy Holliday, the co-owner of Blueberry Acres and interim editor of our local newspaper, the Cape Crier, there would probably be no Strawberry Fair, since Candy helped arrange for a community strawberry-picking event tomorrow morning out at Crawford’s Berry Farm. I hope to see all of you out there, so we can make sure we have plenty of berries for tomorrow’s Fair!”
He paused, and looked in Candy’s direction. “Now, if you’d like to join us, we’ll cut the ribbon.”
Everyone applauded as someone nudged Candy forward, and somewhat hesitantly she joined Mason and the ladies of the Heritage Protection League. They all gathered around her with wide smiles as Wanda snapped more photos. Cotton then announced that Candy had been named the league’s first honorary member for her contributions to the community. Brenda Jenkins stepped forward to place the scissors into her hands, and after more carefully staged photos, Candy ceremoniously cut the red ribbon, doing her best to smile broadly and look honored, although she was still flummoxed by the whole thing. Everyone applauded again as Mason announced the first annual Strawberry Fair officially open.
And then it was over. Mason shook her hand quickly, gave her an odd look, and headed back up the avenue toward the opera house, while the crowd began to dissipate, gravitating toward a few of the food booths that had opened for the evening, although the primary events would not take place until the following day.
Candy handed the scissors back to Brenda, and Wanda gave her a big clap on the back. “You handled that beautifully, Chief. I got some great shots!” she said. “I’ll get them on the website right away. It’ll be great publicity for the Fair—and for the paper.”
Candy nodded. “Sounds like a good idea, though I’m not sure what just happened. How long have you known about this?”
Wanda waved a hand. “Cotton texted me an hour ago. They put it together on the fly. Thought it might be good publicity—and they’re genuinely happy you set up the berry picking tomorrow.”
“Yes, we definitely are,” said Cotton, stepping into the conversation. “Thank you for being such a good sport about all this. We didn’t really plan to surprise you, but it just turned out that way. You truly saved our event, though, and for that we’re grateful. Della’s sending out e-mail messages right now, as we speak, to everyone on our list. We hope to have several dozen people out at the berry farm tomorrow. I don’t know what we would have done if you hadn’t intervened for us and made this happen.”
“Well, I guess I was just in the right place at the right time,” Candy said honestly. “Fortunately it all worked out.”
“And we’re serious about an honorary membership,” Elvira Tremble said, joining them. “We talked it over and voted. It was unanimous.”
“Unanimous?” Candy looked around. “But your whole group’s not here. I don’t see Mrs. Fairweather.”
“Unfortunately, she isn’t feeling well,” Cotton said. “She’s home. But she gave us her blessing. She said she thought you’d make an excellent honorary member, considering all you’ve done for the league this week.”
“Mrs. Fairweather is home? But I was just over at her place, and she’s not there.”
“I talked to her on the phone just a little while ago, and that’s where she said she was at,” Elvira confirmed. “She’s been cooped up there all day—which is somewhat unfortunate, since we could have used her help. Fortunately, Alice stepped in and we managed to get everything done.”
“But that doesn’t make sense,” Candy said. “Her place is dark. It’s all closed up.”
“Maybe she’s gone out,” Cotton suggested.
“Possibly. But you just said she wasn’t feeling well. Why would she go out?”
“Well, I’m sure it’s just a mix-up,” Elvira said, her clipped tone returning. “Nothing to worry about.”
Candy hesitated. She briefly thought of asking Elvira about her activities at the historical society’s museum, and her alleged interest in the comings and goings of Miles Crawford, but her cell phone buzzed, distracting her. The ladies had fallen into a conversation among themselves about last-minute preparations for the Strawberry Fair, so she fished out her phone and checked the display.
It was a message from Neil: Better get out here right away.
FORTY-THREE
Neil Crawford stood in his late father’s bedroom, staring down with a grave expression at the items arrayed on the top of the bed. They smelled of age and earth and old leather. Neil stroked his beard absently as he studied the items, lost in thought, wondering what his father had gotten himself into.
He’d thought the metal box, which he’d dropped off at the bank, was his father’s only hiding place for valuables. But after digging around the house, Neil had found rolls of money stuffed into emptied prescription bottles in the medicine cabinet, and some heirloom jewelry wrapped in a old towel and stashed inside a heating duct that was no longer in use. Neil also seemed to remember his father telling him about a small hiding place behind one of the bricks in the back wall of the fireplace in the living room, though he hadn’t been able to locate it yet.
But he had found something else—something much more staggering—at the bottom of an old footlocker pushed into the far corner of his father’s bedroom closet. His father had piled old blankets and coats on top of the trunk in an effort to disguise it, and the ploy
had almost worked. Neil himself had glossed over it during his initial sweep of the house. Only when he returned to make a more thorough search of the bedroom had he taken notice of it. He remembered seeing it when he was younger, and guessed it was from the fifties or sixties, possibly handed down to his father by his grandparents. It had been painted dark green at one time, with brass hardware and a sturdy leather handle, but now it was badly scuffed and tarnished with age, and looked as if it had journeyed to the edge of the earth and back. The clasp was brass as well, and locked, but after some searching, Neil had found the key in a black jewelry box at the back of his father’s sock drawer.
Returning to the closet, he had set aside the blankets and clothes, pulled the footlocker out into the room, unlocked it, and opened the lid. Inside he found more or less what he expected—old clothes, keepsakes, and photos from earlier times. Everything smelled old and musty.
Neil had removed the items one at a time, uncovering a few old boxes at the bottom of the trunk, including a small, battered cardboard one labeled Christmas Ornaments.
That was where he had found the treasure.
At least, that was what he guessed it was. Taken from the old oaken box his father had dug up, the one that had once allegedly belonged to Silas Sykes.
Those items were now on display on top of the bed. Neil had laid down an old blanket first, and then lined up the items so he could survey them in greater detail.
There were four palm-sized leather drawstring pouches, tightly tied and bulging with what turned out to be a variety of old coins. Some were similar to the one he’d found in the metal box, but others were much older, dating back two hundred years or more, Neil noted in amazement. The pouches were heavy as he weighed them in his hands, each in turn, before investigating their contents.
A smaller leather pouch, which had deteriorated somewhat, held perhaps a dozen large gold nuggets. And a sixth pouch, the smallest of the lot, held a few rough gems—sapphires and rubies, Neil guessed.
And then there was a seventh pouch, the largest of the group. It was document-sized, with a rectangular rather than a round shape. It was leather also, finely tooled. The initials S.S. were clearly noticeable, worked into the leather in a neat scrolling design.
There appeared to be small snakeheads at the top of the two S’s.
The large document pouch was empty.
Still, it appeared his father had indeed found the buried treasure of Silas Sykes.
Which would perfectly explain the reasons behind his father’s murder.
At his initial discovery, Neil had texted Candy. He wasn’t quite sure how to proceed, and wanted her opinion, since she was more tapped into the local community and the police than he was. He didn’t want to disturb the evidence more than he already had. He had considered calling the police, but had decided to contact Candy first.
That had been—he checked his watch—not quite ten minutes ago.
He thought he heard the sound of a vehicle approaching outside, so he went to a second-floor window on the other side of the house and looked out. He saw nothing, however, other than his old red Saab parked in front of the barn.
He turned away from the window but thought he heard a muffled thump coming from outside. It sounded like a car door closing.
He returned to the window and scanned the driveway and yard again. But clearly there was no other car out there in the driveway, other than his and his father’s.
Then he saw a shadow move across the floor of the barn.
Someone was out there.
Candy, he thought. She must have pulled up her Jeep on the other side of the barn. But what was she doing in the barn? Why hadn’t she just come into the house?
He left the pouches of coins, gold nuggets, and jewels on the bed, although he picked up another old blanket he’d dropped on the floor and covered the treasure with it, just in case. Then he went downstairs and headed out toward the barn.
As he walked, he continued to scan the area, searching for the source of that sound he’d heard. But he saw nothing. He walked across the driveway in front of the barn, past his car to the edge of the building, so he could look around the side. “Candy?”
He heard another sound then, a clatter in the barn, as if a couple of tools had clashed together.
He looked curiously back the way he’d come. “Candy?”
Silence.
He called a third time, but again received no reply. Still, he was certain he’d heard something.
He walked back around to the front of the barn, looked into the shadows, and then took a few steps inside. The sun had disappeared half an hour ago, and darker weather was moving in, so the lighting in the barn’s interior was muted. Still, Neil didn’t need much light to see by. He’d been in here enough times to know his way around.
“Candy, are you in here?”
If she was, there were only a few places she could be. On the other side of the lawn tractor parked along the wall. Behind the pallets of fertilizer. Or in the small tool room in the far corner.
Or, he thought a moment later, she could be behind him, in the small alcove where his father used to do some paperwork.
He heard a footstep and a faint singing sound, felt a shift of air as something behind him moved. He turned.
Just in time to see the flat blade of a shovel coming right toward the side of his head.
FORTY-FOUR
As Candy drove out of Cape Willington, headed toward Crawford’s Berry Farm, she wondered what Neil’s message could mean.
He said he’d found something, but what?
Probably what he’d gone out to look for, she guessed.
The contents of Silas Sykes’s buried treasure.
What had been inside? she wondered again.
She thought of her father’s search of the archives at the historical society, and considered calling him. But as it turned out, he beat her to it. The cell phone buzzed in her pocket and she fished it out.
“Where are you?” her father asked.
“I’m headed out to the berry farm. Neil said he’s found something.”
“I found something as well,” Doc said.
“What?”
“The reason nobody knew much about that property, and the reason the Sykes house and graveyard were never documented. The folios have been removed.”
“The what?”
“The folios, the leaves . . . pages of manuscripts. They’ve all been cut out. It looks like someone purposely went through the historical record and wiped out any reference to that property.”
“But how is that possible?” Candy wondered. “Who would do such a thing?”
“That’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it?” Doc said. He hesitated a moment. “Everything going okay with you?”
“Yeah, why?”
“Just wondering. Listen, if you need me for anything, just give me a holler. I’m going to check through a few more records before I head over to the diner. See you there soon, right?”
She keyed off the phone just as she spotted the turnoff for Crawford’s Berry Farm, and the sign with the red arrow pointing toward the barn, farmhouse, and fields off to the right, on the picturesque slope that stretched across the coastal landscape, now under a threatening cloud cover as the ocean to her left began to churn.
She spotted Neil’s red Saab right away, and the tail end of another car parked behind the barn. It looked like a tan sedan of some sort, an older car. She studied it for a few moments but didn’t recognize it.
Spotting no one, she pulled to a stop in front of the farmhouse, shut off the engine, and stepped out. She scanned the buildings and fields, then crossed the driveway and stepped up onto the porch. She knocked on the door and tried the handle. It opened for her, and she stepped inside.
“Hello? Neil?” she called out. “It’s Candy. I’m here.”
She listened for a few moments and stepped farther into the kitchen. The room was darkening. No lights had been turned on. She heard nothing
. “Neil?”
She checked the lower floor but found him nowhere, so she moved to the bottom of the wooden staircase and, with her hand on the end post, called up the stairs.
“Neil, are you up there?”
The house creaked as the wind rose outside, the only reply she received. She waited, not sure why she was hesitating. Something about this didn’t feel right, though she couldn’t quite explain why. A warning bell, though still faint, was going off in her head.
There had been two cars outside—Neil’s Saab and the tan sedan. At least two people were out here at the farm. So where were they?
She began to climb the stairs slowly, right hand sliding lightly up the banister. A couple of the steps squeaked under her weight. The sounds were like thunderclaps in the silence of the house.
As if reading her thoughts, a low, rolling rumble of thunder echoed in the distance. A weather front was moving through. It would turn cooler and clearer tomorrow, in time for the Strawberry Fair. But first this front would bring unsettled weather tonight.
At the top of the stairs she paused before first turning left and searching the two rooms to the north side of the building, and then the rooms on the south, which overlooked the ocean, though today the blinds were all pulled closed, putting the rooms in shadows. She flicked on lights as she went from room to room, and flicked them off behind her. She moved quickly but cautiously, though she never felt threatened. Only slightly uneasy.
But she found no one. She had, though, found a curious scene in what she guessed was the master bedroom. Someone—Neil, she supposed—had pulled an old beaten-up trunk from the closet. It sat near the bureau, opened, its contents removed. And there were two old blankets tossed carelessly onto the bed. But other than that she saw nothing of interest.
Back downstairs she did one more sweep before she headed back outside.
She decided to check the barn next.
Thunder rumbled again, closer this time. The clouds had an ominous look. Hot, moist air was being pushed toward them from the west, along the edge of the front. The treetops at the far ends of the strawberry fields were being tossed about by the strengthening gusts, as was Candy’s hair. She pushed back at it as she crossed the driveway at a quick pace, head turning back and forth, searching.
Town in a Strawberry Swirl (Candy Holliday Mystery) Page 24