Town in a Wild Moose Chase

by B. B. Haywood

  “Think he’ll go for it?”

  “I think so. He sounds just as worried about Solomon as I am.”

  “Well, it’s a good plan… as long as he shows up.”

  Candy checked her watch and glanced at the door. “Hmm, you’re right about that. I wonder what happened to him.”

  A little earlier, when they’d found Ben in the park, he’d been standing apart from the crowd, off to one side by himself, deep in thought. After Candy had told him where they were headed, he’d agreed to meet them, but so far he hadn’t shown up.

  “He must have gotten distracted,” Candy said, reaching for her cell phone.

  “Sure he did, honey. That’s exactly what happened.”

  “I’ll text him and see where he is.”

  “That’s a good idea. I’m sure he just got sidetracked.” Maggie placed her chin in the palm of her upturned hand and watched curiously as her friend flipped open her phone and began to key in a quick message. “So how are things going with you and Ben, anyway?” she asked after a few moments.

  “Fine.”

  “You guys been doing anything… interesting lately?”

  Absently, Candy answered, “Not really. He’s been tied up with work a lot lately.”

  “So I’ve noticed. What’s he working on that’s so important, if I may ask?”

  “He hasn’t talked much about it.”

  “Isn’t that strange? He’s talked about everything else with you, hasn’t he?”

  Candy glanced up at her friend as she punched a few more buttons. “What are you getting at?”

  “Well, since last summer he’s been hanging out with you a lot, telling you all these things about his life and his family. But he hasn’t said much about his work, has he?”

  Candy finished keying in her message and pressed the send button. As she slipped the phone back into her pocket, she squinted over at Maggie. “So?”

  “So I’m saying that this sort of thing has been happening a lot lately. For the past few weeks you’ve been telling me he’s been distracted a lot. How many times has he canceled on you this month?”

  Candy had to think about that. “Now that you mention it, there have been a couple of times—two or three, maybe.” She shrugged. “He’s a busy guy.”

  “Yes, but doesn’t he seem busier than usual lately? When he comes in the dry cleaner’s, he barely talks to me. He seems like a different person.”

  “He is a different person, after what happened last summer.”

  “I know that, but something else has happened lately. I can sense it in him. He seems, well, more preoccupied than usual—if that’s possible. He mumbles a lot now—have you noticed that? And he walks with his head down a lot, like he’s looking for a lost fifty-dollar bill.”

  Candy nodded but said nothing. She’d noticed lots of changes in Ben over the past eight months or so, and most had been positive. So when he’d become immersed in some new project, she hadn’t overreacted. She’d asked him about it a couple of weeks ago, and he’d told her vaguely what he was working on—something to do with the history of the town, he’d said. She hadn’t pressed him on it, and hadn’t thought much about it at the time, but she realized Maggie was right. Whatever he was working on, it was starting to occupy more and more of his time.

  She was about to say something to Maggie when her cell phone buzzed. She fished it out of her pocket again.

  Ben had texted her a message: Got held up sorry will touch base soon.

  “Well, shoot,” Candy said softly as she closed the phone and tucked it back in her pocket. “It’s happened again.”

  “Ben?”

  “He got held up.”

  “There you go.”

  “But I thought things were going so well,” Candy said, a little bewildered at this most recent development. “He’s been hanging around the farm so much for the past six months that I thought things were starting to get…”

  She let her voice trail off but Maggie finished the sentence for her. “Serious?”

  “Yeah, I guess that’s the right word. Though I’m still not sure if that’s what either of us wants.”

  “Girl, you and him need to have a heart-to-heart talk very soon and figure out what you want to do.”

  “I thought that’s what we were doing.”

  “Maybe he had a different reason on his mind for getting cozy with you.”

  “Like what?”

  Maggie shrugged. “He’s a man. Who knows? Why don’t you ask him?”

  “Maybe I should,” Candy said thoughtfully, trying hard again not to let herself jump to conclusions. But she couldn’t help wonder, in the back of her mind, if the events of eight months ago were somehow linked to the odd behavior she’d witnessed around town today.

  NINE

  It was near dark when they left the inn. They chatted as they walked to their cars, hunkered down in their winter coats against the chilling air. A brisk wind had kicked up, flicking ice crystals off the tops of snowbanks and tree limbs, whipping stinging white swirls at them. Candy angled her face downward and raised her scarf around her ears and the back of her neck as she waited on the sidewalk for Maggie to climb into her ten-year-old Subaru wagon. The car whirred to life, and Maggie waved and flashed a smile as she backed out of the parking space and started down Ocean Avenue.

  Candy’s Jeep was only a few spaces away but she made no move toward it. With her hands stuck deep in the pockets of her coat, she turned slightly, her eyes following Maggie’s car as it rolled down the street, braking at the light, where several cars waited for it to turn green.

  Candy let her gaze drift over toward Town Park, which had quieted down substantially, though a few couples and families lingered, illuminated by the lights strung from trees as they examined the mountains of melded ice that had risen in their midst, and pointed out the beginnings of the ice carvings.

  As Candy shifted back around, raising her left arm so she could check the time, her gaze shifted as well, raking casually along Ocean Avenue.

  Officer Jody McCroy stood halfway down the street in the halo of a streetlight, watching her discreetly, notebook in hand.

  Candy felt her stomach tighten, though she did her best to hide her surprise. She didn’t want him to know she’d seen him. And she didn’t want to look too guilty.

  Though what she might be guilty of, she had absolutely no idea.

  She made a show of glancing down at her watch, but she wasn’t focusing on the time.

  Her mind was racing. Why is he following me around? And what is he writing down in that notebook of his?

  A wave of irritation rippled through her, and for a moment she thought of walking up to the officer and confronting him about his apparent obsession with her. But she lost her resolve when her cell phone buzzed again, breaking into her thoughts.

  It was another text from Ben.

  Apologies I can’t make it tonite see you tomorrow luv b

  Candy read the message twice before she sighed, flipped her phone closed, and slipped it back into her pocket. “My love life sucks,” she said to no one in particular.

  But, she knew, it just proved that Maggie was right about Ben. He was devoting more and more time to this mysterious project of his, but what could it be? He’d become so open with her over the past six months or so, talking about his life and loves and family and travels, and even occasionally his dreams. Now he was closing up again.

  What had happened?

  After she thought about it, she realized there might be a way to find out.

  As surreptitiously as possible, she glanced back down the street in the direction of Officer McCroy. But he’d retreated to the shelter of the inn, where he hovered by the door, talking to one of the inn’s security people. He was angled away from her, intent on the conversation.

  Candy turned to look behind her, and saw she was standing near the door to the second-floor offices of the Cape Crier.

  Moving quickly, she fished her keys out of her pocket
and unlocked the glass door, which led to a wooden staircase. Scooting inside before Officer McCroy spotted her, she relocked the door and hurried up the stairs. A dim wall light at the top pushed back the oncoming shadows. She checked the door to the newspaper’s offices and, finding it locked, used a second key to open it. Inside, she disarmed the motion-detector security system and again made sure the door was locked behind her, before she paused to catch her breath and survey her surroundings.

  The place was empty.

  She checked her watch again. It was still early—just after six. But the offices were all dark.

  She slipped her keys back into her pocket and considered turning on the hallway lights, but decided against it, opting for a more surreptitious approach. She wasn’t doing anything illegal, but with Officer McCroy wandering around outside, keeping a wary eye on her, she felt it best to remain discreet.

  She still had her tote bag with her, so she felt around inside for a flashlight. When she flicked it on, she kept it aimed low so no one could see it from outside.

  She walked about halfway along the hall to where two doors opened on her right. One led to a small office used for storage. The space also held a couple of desks used by volunteers and interns when they worked at the newspaper.

  The second door opened into Ben’s office.

  The room was dark except for the red, green, and amber glows of indicator lights on computer equipment, power strips, the printer, a charger, a digital clock, and the phone. Ben’s beat-up brown leather chair was pushed under the desk. The flat computer screen glowed with a dim gray light. In hurrying out of the office at the end of the day, he sometimes forgot to turn off his computer, though Candy suspected he sometimes left it on overnight on purpose so in the morning all his open files, applications, and browser tabs would be right where he’d left them the night before, and he’d already be logged on to the production server. That way he could start right in, his ideas as fresh as the day. He often kept unfinished articles, notes, and layouts open on his desktop, though minimized into the dock at the bottom of the screen. Candy thought she might find a few clues there. Or she could check his e-mails or the computer files open on the desktop to see if anything interesting jumped out at her. She could also check the hard-copy files in the lower right drawer of his desk or in the old metal two-door filing cabinet pushed into one corner, with stacks of research books piled on top, many of them spewing numerous colored bookmarks and sticky tabs.

  She could search in all those areas, if she wanted to. She was alone here. No one would ever know.

  But she would know.

  She hesitated by the door. Even though there might be answers here, she was reluctant to betray Ben’s trust by rummaging through his office.

  So she postponed the decision and instead headed to her own office. It was an interior room with no windows, so she closed the door and flicked on the overhead light.

  She dropped her coat and scarf in a chair, turned on her computer, and while she waited for it to power up, fished Preston Smith’s ice blue business card out of her tote bag. He’d mentioned an assistant but had failed to give Candy the person’s name. Nevertheless, she dashed off a quick message to the generic e-mail address listed on the front of the card, then turned to other matters.

  She’d convinced herself that Solomon had been truthful when he’d told her he’d found a body in the woods. So who had it been? She was determined to find out.

  She spent the next forty-five minutes going back through recent issues of the newspaper, as well as her own e-mails and notes, searching for clues about anyone around town who might be missing. She paid particular attention to the community pages, including her own column. But nothing unusual caught her eye, other than a senior citizen who had wandered away from an assisted living facility and a couple of missing cats.

  She pulled out her cell phone and scrolled down through her list of contacts, giving each name an opportunity to spark a memory or help her make a connection. But again, nothing stood out.

  She listened to the voice messages on her phone next, with similar results, and finally turned back to her computer.

  She’d searched through her own and the newspaper’s resources and found nothing about any missing persons, or anything that would give her a clue to the mystery Solomon Hatch had quite literally laid at her feet. But one resource remained—the one she was most reluctant to search, the one managed by the only other local news provider in town.

  Wanda Boyle’s website.

  She had started thinking about it earlier in the day, when she spotted Wanda at the center of the group of celebrating workers and sculptors. Wanda had been plenty busy around town the past few days and had probably talked to as many people as Candy had—maybe more. She’d probably posted several items in the past few days. Her blog might hold a clue or two.

  Candy realized she was holding her breath as she keyed the words cape crusader into the search engine window and clicked the link to Wanda’s site. She’d been on it a few times before but hadn’t bookmarked it. For some reason she could never quite figure out, it always made her uncomfortable.

  The site loaded quickly. Candy leaned in closer for a better look.

  It was a fairly simplistic yet eye-catching design, with flashy typefaces and bright lime green and fluorescent purple colors. In the upper left corner was a fairly large photo of Wanda, dressed as a pseudo-1940s reporter, wearing a rumpled trench coat and fedora, flashing a press badge, with a logo in a Superman-style typeface that read THE CAPE CRUSADER superimposed over the image.

  Other than that it was a typical blog, with daily postings down the middle, a link to other local resource sites on the left side, and a calendar of events and archive on the right, as well as a series of photo albums with digital images Wanda had taken around town.

  The most recent postings—three or four, just a few paragraphs each—concerned today’s ice-sculpting activities and the upcoming Winter Moose Fest. Wanda had posted snippets of several interviews with sculptors, as well as the images she’d taken just a couple of hours earlier.

  She’s fast, Candy thought. And she’s good.

  She’d caught Liam Yates complaining about the speed of the ice-block unloading process. Apparently, two of the hired temporary workers had failed to show; Candy made a note to check into it. Gina Templeton promised that her husband, Victor, who had been delayed, would arrive on Friday or by Saturday morning at the latest. Preston Smith told Wanda he was charmed by the event, mentioned a special sponsorship program he was promoting, and extended warm and congratulatory words for everyone who had anything even remotely to do with the event, which he was anxiously awaiting to see when it came to fruition on Saturday. Oliver LaForce was pleased to be involved in local efforts to bring the art of ice sculpting to Cape Willington, and his new executive chef, Colin Trevor Jones, expressed his enthusiasm for this great event and, flashing a charming smile (according to Wanda), added his hope for its continued growth and success.

  Candy made a noise of disgust in her throat and scrolled on down.

  Wanda had also interviewed a few of the folks who would be driving sleighs in the parade tomorrow, including an eighty-five-year-old farmer from New Hampshire who had been tending horses since he was three, and was driving a sleigh that had been owned by his grandparents, who had homesteaded in the state in the eighteen hundreds. Wanda included a photo of the farmer, who went by the name of Mason Parker. He stood angularly next to his horse, Jack, and both animal and master had similar disinterested expressions. Mason’s family owned a maple sugar shack and pancake house between Nashua and Keene in the southern part of the state. He and Jack gave hay-wagon rides in the fall and sleigh rides in the winter through the family’s property. He usually traveled with his wife, he said in the article, but she hadn’t come with him this time, as she’d been feeling poorly lately.

  Wanda had compiled a complete listing of all the sleighs and drivers who were scheduled to appear in the parade, and Cand
y skimmed through the list, searching for anything unusual, but nothing jumped out at her. It was all routine stuff. A father-and-daughter team, named the Summerfields, minus the mother, who had apparently stayed home. A teenage boy, his grandfather, and his uncle—where were the parents? But most were older couples from surrounding towns and villages—places like Ellsworth and Bucksport and Winter Harbor. Two of the entries were from Mount Desert Island, while a few had come from farther away, from the west toward Fryeburg or south toward Portland.

  Wanda had done a competent, thorough job, Candy thought as she read through the blog post. She’d even kept track of those who had already arrived in town and those who had yet to arrive. The Schmidts, Carvers, Frosts, Bonvieves, and Dockenses were checked in at local hotels and inns, while the Cobbs, Franks, Hawthornes, Delamains, and Tuckers were scheduled to arrive by Friday afternoon. The stragglers would just make it for the twilight-timed parade. There were also a few other ice sculptors still due in, including Duncan Leggmeyer and Baxter Bryant, along with Baxter’s wife, Bernadette.

  In the next post, Wanda passed along some last-minute tips from two of the town’s snowplow operators, Francis Robichaud and Tom Farmington, who described the conditions of the town’s streets and sidewalks, and advised on parking for the weekend’s events.

  It wasn’t Pulitzer Prize–winning journalism, but it was decent enough for a community blog, Candy had to admit.

  In that moment she couldn’t help but feel a tinge of jealousy. She, Ben, and a few volunteer correspondents had already covered much the same ground in the previous issue of the paper, but Wanda had done it all on her own, in a matter of hours. She was tenacious and driven in a way Candy couldn’t completely understand. She’d seen it quite often in metropolitan Boston and New York, but it seemed out of place here in quiet, slow-paced Maine, where business suits and cold competitiveness were generally left at the border, and life was more off the beaten path, even in cities like Portland, Augusta, and Bangor. Then again, cold competitiveness in particular could rear its head anywhere—even here in Cape Willington, Maine.