AN 8-OR 10-QUART POT. You’ll use this for cooking the fruits and vinegars. Some tend to boil over, so a larger pot is better. ( I learned this the hard way!)
CHEESECLOTH, MEASURING SPOONS, CLEAN DISH TOWELS, and a TIMER.
A JAR LIFTER. This usually comes with the canner and is used to remove the hot jars from the pot.
LABELS. To label and date the food after it is canned.
Prepare the jars for canning by washing them in hot water and then sterilizing them in boiling water for 10 minutes. Leave them in the hot water until ready for use.
Repeat the same process with the lids and bands.
Prepare your favorite recipe, fill the jars, and process them in the canner for the amount of time stated on the recipe, or adjust for altitude.
Remove them from the canning bath.
Then you have the “popability” test, as we call it. Make sure all of the jars make a popping sound, which indicates the lid has sealed. You can test this by pressing on the lid with your thumb. If there is an indentation, and the lid doesn’t pop back, it is sealed.
Now you can preserve your harvest and enjoy fresh food all year long!
Turn the page for a preview of B. B. Haywood’s next Candy Holliday Murder Mystery . . .
TOWN IN A CINNAMON TOAST
Coming soon from Berkley Prime Crime!
The place looked deserted.
It was the last house at the end of a winding dirt road, a weather-beaten wood-framed cabin with a small front porch and a peaked roof, sitting on a rocky spit of land that jutted out into the dark sea. White-framed windows, graying cedar-shake siding, and a red-painted front door gave it a rustic appearance. A brick chimney rose above the roof at one end, and a rusted weather vane at the other. A single rocker swayed back and forth on the porch. Windblown trees, a dwindling pile of firewood, and a few ragged lilac bushes dotted the property, which she’d heard had been in the Seabury family for generations.
The cabin’s windows were dark. Even though the sun was setting, there were no lights on inside. No car sat in the double-rutted parking spot at one end of the building.
It seemed no one was home. So where could he be?
With a concerned expression on her face, Candy Holliday pulled her teal-colored Jeep to a stop in front of the cabin and shut off the engine. As she opened the driver’s side door and stepped out, a sudden sea breeze tossed her honey-colored hair about. Absently, she brushed it aside, squinting into the gathering dusk as she turned slowly, surveying the oceanfront property with an inquisitive gaze.
It was certainly a prime piece of land, isolated and private yet within a short driving distance of downtown Cape Willington. A grass yard, still dull and flattened by the heavy snows of winter, extended a couple dozen feet behind the cabin, eventually giving way to dense shrubbery and a mixture of deciduous and pine trees, some heartier than others. Spring wildflowers—bunchberries and blue-bead lilies, goldthreads and purple trillium—were poking tentatively through the grasses and foliage in places, and Candy spotted a few wild raspberry and blueberry bushes along the back edge of the property, just coming into bloom.
On the ocean side, the land descended to a rocky barrier before dropping to a narrow pebble-strewn beach at the water’s edge. She could hear the swish of foaming waves upon the shore and the distant sound of a foghorn just starting up, though the early evening air here was still clear, and she spotted a star or two low in the purple sky to the west.
As for the cabin itself, it wasn’t anything fancy. Probably just a couple of bedrooms inside, she surmised, with a small kitchen and a living and dining room combination. But she imagined the ocean views from the porch, or from inside the cabin, were magnificent, and she had no doubt the place was cozy and comfortable.
Out of habit she tucked her hands up under her arms, though it was warm for a mid-May evening. But she could still feel the chill of an especially cold winter, which had only recently relinquished its grasp. After a final glance around, she walked up onto the porch, stepped over to the red door, and rapped on it several times. “Julius,” she called out, “are you home? It’s Candy Holliday. I’ve come to check on you.”
She waited a few moments, leaning toward the door, her ear turned toward it, but heard no response, nor any other sounds from inside.
She knocked again, louder this time. “Hello? Mr. Seabury?”
As the town’s unofficial historian, Julius Seabury was a fixture around the village, and a favorite with tourists. For more than a decade, on weekends and holidays, he had settled himself at the foot of the towering English River Lighthouse, sitting in a folding chair at a card table he’d set up to display multiple copies of his self-published books. Most were short hundred-page histories of the lighthouse, its lightkeepers, the attached museum, prominent local citizens past and present, and the village itself. The books were filled with insightful commentary accompanied by vintage photographs pulled from the museum’s archives, and they sold like hotcakes—a couple hundred on a good day in the summer, when vacationers flooded into the area, thanks in no small part to Julius’s ebullient, chatty nature.
Candy had known him for years, and had talked to him many times. During their conversations she always learned something new, and he’d provided important information that had helped her solve a mystery or two. He was a kind soul with an active mind. And he was missing.
She’d left dinner with family and friends on this warm spring evening to go out looking for him, worried that something might have happened. As the best man for the upcoming wedding of Herr Georg Wolfsburger, the owner of the Black Forest Bakery, and Maggie Tremont, Candy’s best friend, Julius was supposed to have joined them all for dinner at the Lightkeeper’s Inn that evening to discuss the wedding plans. But he never showed up. So Candy had volunteered to go out looking for him.
He was getting older, she knew, becoming more frail. He didn’t get around as well as he used to, and he could be forgetful at times. Maybe he’d mixed up the date or time, she hoped, or maybe he was just working on another book and everything else had slipped his mind. She’d tried to call him, but his phone just rang. So she’d jumped into her Jeep and driven out to check on him.
She knocked a final time on the red door, rapping hard with her knuckles, and then backed away, stepping down off the porch. She walked the entire way around the cabin, peeking in the windows to see if she could spot anyone inside. But it was too dark to make out much of anything, and she saw no shadows moving around. She wondered if she should try to find a way inside, but decided against it for now. Best not to overreact—at least, not right this moment.
Just to make sure he wasn’t meandering around the property somewhere, she walked a long, wide circle around the cabin, going all the way back to the edge of the yard, and finally checked down by the water. But there was no sign of Julius Seabury anywhere.
Where else could he be?
Only one other place, she thought.
If he wasn’t there, she’d call the police.
After a final look around, she climbed into the Jeep and drove back into town. But rather than returning to the Lightkeeper’s Inn to rejoin the dinner party, she headed to the English River Lighthouse and Museum, which was located near the inn on Route 192, known locally as the Coastal Loop, since it arced around the village like a large fishhook, hugging the coastline the entire way.
The lighthouse and museum were a second home to Julius. Perhaps he was there conducting research, or just walking the property.
Since it was after five P.M., the museum and lighthouse were closed, and the parking lot was nearly empty. But she thought she recognized Julius’s old red station wagon parked off to one side, where the employees and volunteers liked to park their cars. It was just a short walk from there down to the lighthouse and museum.
She loved coming here, and visited often, though not as much lately as she would have liked. It was always an impressive sight, the whitewashed lighthouse tower rising
beside the red-roofed Keeper’s Quarters, a two-story Victorian-style cottage that housed the town’s historical museum on the first floor. Upstairs were the historical society’s archives, where Julius spent quite a bit of time conducting research for his books.
As she came down the walkway toward the rugged shore, she noticed immediately that a light was on upstairs at the Keeper’s Quarters, visible through one of the windows.
She felt a sense of relief. So he is here, she thought, and hurried down the slope toward the small compound at the water’s edge.
It consisted of several buildings, including a separate wood-framed garage, a maintenance shed, and a low brick structure that housed the foghorn, in addition to the tower itself and the Keeper’s Quarters. The lighthouse dated back to 1857, and occupied a point of black rock where the English River met the Atlantic. A light mist had started rolling in from over the ocean, and she heard the foghorn’s low, soulful note, much louder now, though the sound was directed out to the sea.
She wasn’t expecting the door to the Keeper’s Quarters, or any of the buildings, to be unlocked, but she hoped she might be able to attract the attention of whoever might be inside, or perhaps she could get a key from the maintenance man, if he was still around. So she was surprised when she climbed the gray-painted wooden steps to the side door of the cottage and found it not only unlocked, but ajar.
“Well, that’s unusual,” she said softly to herself as she pushed the door further open and stepped inside.
The last light of the day still leaked in through the windows, so it wasn’t completely dark inside. Still, shadows gathered in the corners and along the back walls, so she turned and looked for a light switch. She found it on the wall near the door and flicked it on. A row of fluorescent lights stuttered on overhead, illuminating the main exhibit room.
Still standing by the door, which she’d left open behind her, she looked around and listened, but she neither saw nor heard anyone. There were several rooms on this level, so she thought she’d take a quick look in all of them before heading upstairs.
To her left was the long front counter, stacked with brochures and handouts. She took a few steps toward it, leaning over to get a look behind it, but she saw no one.
Further back, on the other side of the counter, a shadow-filled hallway led to the lighthouse. The door at the far end of the hall was locked at all times. Still, she rounded the counter and checked the door just to make sure. As she had suspected, it was locked.
The door to the office of the museum’s director was locked as well—again, as it should be.
She checked the other rooms, making a quick reconnaissance, flicking lights on and off as she moved from one area to another. They were all empty. No one in sight. Outside the windows, out over the ocean, the mist thickened and the darkness deepened.
She thought of calling out, but hesitated. Something about the silence made her uneasy, though she couldn’t tell what or why. Instead, she listened. She could hear the ocean, the whistle of the wind through the shrubbery outside the open door. But nothing inside.
She was beginning to think the place was empty. She’d been mistaken. Someone must have just left a light on upstairs by mistake. Or maybe a security spotlight had come on for some reason. If Julius was up there, she was sure she’d hear him rustling around.
Still, she had to check, just to make sure. Maybe he’d fallen asleep while conducting research, or maybe he’d been injured somehow, though she tried not to let her mind jump to conclusions. She passed through a doorway on her right into a small exhibit room off the main hall, and took the wooden stairs to the second floor.
As below, there were several rooms up here, including a narrow one under the eaves that served as a lab for identifying, cleaning, cataloging, and maintaining items in the museum’s collections. At the top of the stairs, a single overhead light was turned on, which she’d seen from the outside through the window. Two of the larger rooms, to her left and straight ahead, were dark, but she knew they were equipped with shelving and tables to accommodate some of the society’s archives.
She checked the larger room first, on the cottage’s ocean side. She flicked on a light switch just inside the door and took a few steps into the room, but a quick look around revealed nothing.
She turned off the light and moved to the smaller room next, which contained many of the town’s older records.
And that’s where she found him.
He was sprawled on the floor, lying in an awkward manner, belly down, one hand thrown above his head, as if he’d been hailing a cab—or trying to defend himself. He was wearing dark brown pants and a threadbare gray cardigan sweater, which was bunched up around his torso. His gray hair was disheveled and sticking up in places. His head was turned sideways, so his left cheek rested on the hardwood floor. The one eye she could see was closed.
She hesitated for a few moments just inside the door as her mind registered the scene before her. Then, with a mixture of shock, concern, and surprise, she rushed to him, falling to one knee.
“Julius,” she called out, and touched him on the back of his shoulder. There was no response. She called his name again, several times, and finally, reluctantly, checked the pulse at his neck.
There was none. He was already growing cold.
She was closer to him now, and, as her gaze shifted, she could see an indented area at the back of his head, concave and a few inches long.
Suddenly spooked, she backed away, moving swiftly in a low crouch. Her foot hit something heavy and knocked it off to one side. It rolled across the floor with a harsh clatter.
Candy twisted around, her heart thumping as she searched for the object. Finally she spotted it as it bumped into the far wall.
It was an unopened bottle of champagne.
Something about the shape jumped out at her, the curve of the bottle.
She stared at it in confusion. What was that doing here?
Then she realized what it was. . . .
The murder weapon.
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Town in a Sweet Pickle Page 29