Town in a Lobster Stew chm-2

by B. B. Haywood

  As she’d expected, Oliver was busy — very busy. She found him in the front lobby, greeting guests and directing staff members. Robbie was behind the check-in counter, dealing with a heavily bejeweled woman who held a small white-haired dog loosely in her left arm. Alby hurried past with a handful of papers, seeming to barely recognize her. The place was hopping.

  Candy walked right up to Oliver and tapped him on the shoulder. “Hi. We need to talk.”

  He turned to look at her. It took him a few moments for his face to register recognition. “Candy? What are you doing here?”

  “I need a few minutes of your time.”

  He frowned. “I’m sorry, but as you can see, that’s quite impossible today. We’re very busy.”

  “Oliver, we need to talk now.”

  He gave her an annoyed look. “If you call the office and make an appointment, I’ll be glad to see you tomorrow or Wednesday afternoon.”

  “This can’t wait. It’s about” — she leaned forward and whispered — “Charlotte Depew.”

  At the mention of Charlotte’s name, his face pulled down into a deep frown. “What makes you think I know anything about her?”

  “I don’t know if you do,” Candy said, her voice still low, “but I know the judging at the cook-off on Saturday was tainted, and I know Charlotte should have won.”

  “Won?” Oliver scrutinized her with his small, dark eyes. “I didn’t have anything to do with that. You and Roger Sykes were the judges.”

  “You’re right, we were.” She paused. “But I saw your contestants’ sheet with the X across it. You obviously saw it too. Something’s going on here, Oliver. I need to figure out what it is. And I need your help. Of course,” she added, “I could always just go to the police and tell them what I know.”

  “Hmm.” He considered that, his eyes darting back and forth across the lobby. After a few moments he pointed down the hallway. “Perhaps we should talk privately in my office.”

  “Perhaps we should.”

  She let him take the lead, since she didn’t want to appear as if she knew the way. Halfway down the hall, he headed through the door into the office suite, angled across the receptionist’s area, and entered his office. His loafers brushed across the thick carpeting as he walked to his desk, moving around it as he glanced down at several messages left for him. Standing behind the desk, he quickly sorted through them with elegant, manicured fingers. “Sit down,” he said without looking up. “But close the door first.”

  She did as he requested. When she had settled into one of the dark red leather-upholstered chairs in front of his desk, he sat himself, folded his fingers together in front of his chin, and looked up at her. “Now, what’s this all about?”

  Candy came right to the point. “The cook-off contest.”

  “What about it?”

  “Someone tried to rig the results.”

  Oliver’s brow fell. “That’s a serious charge — especially since you were one of the judges. How exactly were the results to be... rigged, as you call it?”

  “By changing the order of numbers assigned to the contestants. There was a sheet on Robbie’s clipboard — ”

  “Ah yes, the sheet.”

  “So you know about it?”

  “Of course I know about it.”

  Candy nodded. It was time to show her cards. “So you were the one who put that big black X across the sheet and wrote the words fake list at the top? Right?”

  Oliver took the longest time to respond. He appeared to be running a number of scenarios through his head, searching for the best way to answer. Finally he leaned back in his chair and took a deep breath. “Yes, in fact, I did.”

  Candy wasn’t surprised he’d done it, but she was surprised he confessed to it so readily. Finally she was starting to get some answers. “So, you x-ed out the sheet because you suspected the list had been tampered with,” she said, more as a statement than a question.

  “Yes.”

  “You didn’t create a new sheet and change the numbers back to their original order?”

  He shook his head. “There was no time. When I discovered there was a problem, it was too late in the morning and too close to the judging.”

  “What made you realize something was wrong with the list?”

  Oliver motioned dismissively with his hand. “Simple. It wasn’t my handwriting. I assigned those numbers to the names myself, though Wanda helped me distribute the lists.” He stopped and eyed her closely, as if he suspected that’s where she was getting her information. But he let his suspicions pass for the moment and continued. “It was a fairly close re-creation, of course. No one else would have noticed it. But I did. The numbers weren’t shaped properly. It was plainly obvious to me. But it caught me off-guard. As I studied the numbers more closely, I realized the arrangement was off. Two of them had been switched.”

  “Let me guess. The numbers for Charlotte Depew and Wanda Boyle.”

  Oliver looked impressed. “Well, well, well. Now how would you know something like that?”

  “I keep my eyes open.”

  “Yes,” he said slowly. “I bet you do.”

  Candy pressed forward. “So, you knew the numbers had been switched. How did you handle it?”

  “Well, as I said, there was no time to create a new physical list. But it didn’t really matter. Since only those two numbers had been transposed, I simply had to remind myself to reverse those numbers mentally if required later. Hence the X across the sheet and the note to myself. But in the end it didn’t make any difference, did it, since none of the contestants in the top three was involved in the... rigging? When you and Roger chose your top three, I double-checked the names and numbers on Robbie’s sheet to make sure I was right. There was no crossover, or tainting, as you call it, to affect the outcome.”

  “I don’t believe it,” Candy said.

  “What?”

  “You said something to Roger about it, didn’t you?”

  That’s the part that had taken her a while to figure out — Roger’s odd behavior at the cook-off. Why had he purposely steered away from the cinnamon-flavored stew? Everyone else who had tasted it had considered it good enough to win awards. So why hadn’t Roger?

  In the end, after talking to Wanda, Candy had come to agree with her. Charlotte Depew’s cinnamon-flavored recipe should have won that contest, just as it had done the previous thirteen times it had been entered. That was the point of the whole thing, wasn’t it? It’s why Charlotte — or whoever had stolen that recipe, and more than likely murdered Mr. Sedley — had done it. For the silly recipe, as Wilma Mae had called it.

  What had the elderly woman said? Candy thought back to the morning she had interviewed Wilma Mae, which had been just a few days ago, but seemed on the other side of a chasm of time now, separated by the deaths of two people.

  . . . he was mostly just tired of all the commotion that always seems to follow him and that silly recipe of his around.

  That was it.

  Candy felt cold. That silly recipe was indeed causing all sorts of commotion.

  Oliver must have told Roger about the switched numbers, she’d realized after much consideration. That’s why Roger avoided the stews cooked by Wanda and Charlotte, calling them gimmicky. Somehow he must have known which stews were theirs, and he’d refused to consider either of them for the top three. So, in a way, the results had been tainted. The stew that should have won had not.

  She turned back to Oliver, not realizing she’d turned away. Her musings had overtaken her for a few moments. He appeared to have spoken, but she had missed it. “I’m sorry, could you repeat that?”

  Again, Oliver gave her an annoyed look. “I said, why would you say something like that?”

  Candy looked at him, and this time there was nothing but honesty on her face. “Because Charlotte’s recipe should have won.”

  Oliver sighed impatiently as he straightened in his chair, as if ready to rise, bringing the meeting to a halt. He che
cked his watch. “Candy, I’m a busy man. I don’t have time for games. If you have something to ask me, then ask. Otherwise, I have an inn full of guests and an overworked staff to deal with.”

  He gave Candy a hard look as she bit her lip. Her mind raced. There was something else. What was she missing?

  Suddenly she remembered. She sat forward and returned his look. “Okay, Oliver, one last question and then I’ll get out of your hair. What did Charlotte say to you when she approached you after the contest?”

  “After the contest?”

  “That’s right. She came up to you on the lawn, didn’t she? She had something to say to you.”

  Oliver stiffened as he recalled the incident. “Oh yes. I know what you’re referring to. Yes, she did approach me, in a very angered state. I thought she was just upset because she’d lost the contest. I said a few words to try to calm her down, but she obviously wasn’t listening to me. I told her I’d be happy to discuss the situation with her at a later date...” His voice trailed off for a moment as the memory of the episode took full shape in his mind. “And then... and then she said something very strange to me.”

  He was silent as he considered the words, his gaze distant. Then his eyes darted back and met Candy’s. “She said, He promised, he promised. She repeated it several times, with great conviction. It was, to be honest, somewhat... disturbing.”

  “What do you think she meant by that?” Candy asked, intrigued.

  Oliver shook his head. “I honestly have no idea.”

  “Did she say anything else?”

  He thought about it but quickly shook his head. “Not that I can recall.” He stopped, his eyes darting again, his lips working. “There was... one other thing, though.”

  She watched him, enthralled. “And what would that be, Oliver?”

  “Well, it was something else I noticed that day — something very strange. Right before Wilma Mae fainted.”

  “Yes?” Candy said, coaxing him on.

  “Well, I was quite cautious with the samples that day. I supervised Robbie, Alby, and the other staff members as they collected the bowls of stew from the contestants, and I double- and triple-checked with Robbie to make sure each sample was correctly positioned next to the proper placard. I didn’t want any mix-ups, and everything was correct the final time I checked. And then” — he blinked several times — “and then I looked over, and I saw one of the bowls of stew sitting right in front of Mrs. Wendell.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, it was the oddest thing. Someone had moved one of the bowls of stew — and placed it directly in front of her.”

  Candy’s eyes turned away, and she felt her heart quicken as she considered the ramifications of that. Had someone placed Charlotte’s bowl of stew in front of Wilma Mae on purpose, knowing she would recognize it as Mr. Sedley’s recipe? And if so, why?

  It also meant...

  Her gaze snapped back to Oliver. “It means someone else was trying to sabotage the results.”

  He sighed wearily and checked his watch again. “Honestly, I don’t know what it means. But I don’t have time to figure it out right now.” He stood. “Candy, this has been enlightening, but I hope we don’t have to talk about it again. And I hope you’re discreet about what you’ve learned. Juanita Perez cooked a great stew. She deserved to win. As I’ve said, I’m confident in our judges’ final decision. I’d like to leave it at that, if it’s all the same to you.”

  Thirty-One

  Her cell phone rang the moment she walked out of the inn. She fished it out of her pocket as she trotted down the stairs. Stepping onto the lawn, she angled to her left, back toward Ocean Avenue, moving at a quick pace. “Hello?”

  “Where are you?”

  “Hey, Mags. Sorry, I got delayed. I had to make another stop.”

  “Everything go okay? You find that person you were looking for?”

  “I did. Nice work getting me out of there.”

  Maggie laughed softly. “Hey, it was a cinch, thanks to that disgusting old bottle of ketchup. And it was actually kind of fun. They never even noticed you were gone.”

  “Were they upset?”

  “Naw, they’re fine. Juanita got them some soda water and we got most of the stains out. It livened up the place for a few minutes, and then they got to talking about some golf trip they’re planning and disappeared into that little world of theirs.”

  “Are they still there?”

  “No, they headed out to see the parade.”

  “They left you alone?”

  “We told them to go ahead.”

  “You and Wilma Mae didn’t go along?”

  Maggie lowered her voice over the phone. “We talked about it. Wilma Mae wanted to watch the ceremony out at the cemetery. But we’re getting a little... tired. I’m thinking maybe we should take her home.”

  Candy put a hand to her forehead. She’d been so busy, she hadn’t considered how Wilma Mae must be feeling, what with all that had happened in her life lately. “You’re right. The poor thing’s been through a lot. Okay, I’m on my way. I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

  She keyed off the phone and was just about to close it when she noticed an alert telling her she had a new text message. Curious, she thumbed through the menus and read the subject line on the top message.

  It was from an unidentified number.

  She pressed the middle button, displaying the message:

  Hi there cinnamon girl again we have to talk your place two thirty be there you want to see this.

  Candy’s mouth tightened.

  Cinnamon Girl. Wanda.

  Candy read the message again, her eyes lingering on the last few words: you want to see this.

  See what? Had Wanda found the ledger?

  Candy checked the time on her phone. It was a few minutes before two o’clock. She flipped the phone closed and slid it into the front pocket of her jeans. If she wanted to make it back to her place in time to meet Wanda, she’d have to hurry.

  Now that the parade had passed, Ocean Avenue was jammed with people hurrying off in every direction as the first cars allowed back onto the road started inching their way up along the Loop. She could hear the sounds of the band and sirens fading into the distance as the parade marched northwest toward Stone Hill Cemetery.

  She quickened her pace, but immediately the dispersing crowd slowed her up, making her move in starts and stops. At this pace I’ll never make it home in time to meet Wanda, she thought.

  On a sudden impulse she reached into her pocket for the phone and called Maggie again. “Can you meet me at the Jeep? I have to hurry.”

  “Sure. What’s up?”

  “I’ll tell you in the car.”

  A short time later, feeling a bit bedraggled after rushing about and fighting her way through the crowds, she saw Maggie standing beside the Jeep, and waved.

  “Who’s your hairdresser?” her best friend asked as she walked up.

  Candy gave her a half smile. “Why?”

  Maggie discreetly indicated her hair. “You might want to make an appointment.”

  Candy’s hand instantly went to her hair. “Does it look that bad?” she asked in an exaggerated whisper.

  “Nothing a good comb-through won’t fix.” Maggie reached up to brush back several loose strands of Candy’s hair and arrange it a bit. “There, that helps. Oh, here. You probably need this.” She handed over Candy’s purse, which she’d been carrying. “I found your keys and opened it up. I hope that’s okay.”

  She pointed through the window. Wilma Mae was sitting in the backseat, wrapped in a shawl. When she saw Candy, the elderly woman waved with her fingers and smiled weakly.

  Candy opened the driver’s-side door and climbed in. “How’s she doing?”

  “She’s hanging in there. Aren’t you, Wilma Mae?” Maggie flashed a wave at the elderly woman as she scooted around the front of the Jeep and climbed into the passenger seat. “We had fun with the boys, but then they took o
ff and left us girls sitting in the booth alone, so we sort of watched the parade from there.” She looked over at Candy as she snapped her seat belt closed. “So, it sounds like you’ve been busy.”

  “I have, and I found out some interesting things.”

  “Like what?”

  Candy started up the Jeep, checked the rearview mirror, and looked behind her as she backed out. “Like Wanda was trying to get Charlotte fired.”

  “Really?”

  “Yup, and I got some interesting news from Oliver about the cook-off and that stew Wilma Mae tasted.”

  “My, my.”

  “And, oh yeah, Captain Mike’s watching my back.”

  Maggie laughed. “Captain Mike? That old geezer?”

  “The very one. If I’m ever in trouble, and you need to get help, he’s definitely the one you should call.” And as they sat in a long line of cars waiting to exit the parking lot, Candy told Maggie everything she’d found out about Charlotte and Wanda and the contestants’ sheet on Robbie’s clipboard and the mysteriously mobile bowl of lobster stew that had somehow showed up in front of Wilma Mae.

  “Who could have put it there?” Maggie asked.

  “I can think of several people right off the bat.” Candy flicked on her signal and finally made a left-hand turn out of the parking lot onto the Loop, aided by a uniformed police officer, who held the traffic back for them. Maggie waved politely at the nice officer. “Like Robbie Bridges.”

  “Or Roger Sykes.”

  “Yup, there’s him. Alby could have done it too, I suppose. Even Wanda, though I don’t recall seeing her around the judges’ table. Or maybe there’s someone else we don’t know about yet.”

  “Of course, that’s the stew Wilma Mae ate,” Maggie said softly, turning around and giving the elderly woman a smile. But Wilma Mae was staring out the window in silence. She seemed oblivious to their conversation.