Town in a Blueberry Jam chm-1

by B. B. Haywood

  “And so you picked up the hammer,” Candy said.

  “It practically landed at my feet. Ray’s fingerprints were all over it.” Bertha looked at Candy, staring hard into her eyes, and just for an instant Candy saw the desperation that Bertha harbored deep inside, the panic... and the madness.

  “It was my chance. I had to take it. It was the only way out.” Her face suddenly hardened. “Just like now.” She motioned with the gun toward the door. “That way... and don’t make any sudden moves.”

  Maggie squeaked again in terror, but Candy decided the best way to handle the situation was to do what Bertha asked. Still, she had to try one more time. “Bertha, you can’t do this. How will you explain it?”

  Bertha shrugged. “Simple. It’s Sebastian’s gun.”

  “What?”

  “I took it from his place two nights ago when I was over there. He really shouldn’t have left it lying around. He’s made this much too easy.”

  “But...”

  “Shut up and get moving.”

  “Where are we going?” Maggie asked.

  “Up to the auditorium. I figure if I leave your bodies backstage it will be awhile before they’re found. Once they find the gun nearby, they’ll arrest Sebastian. He’s the perfect fall guy.”

  “But he has an alibi,” Candy told her. “We checked.”

  “It doesn’t matter. I’ll let the police figure it out. At least I’ll be out of it. And with the ballots destroyed, the last piece of evidence is gone. Now move.”

  They backed into the darkened hallway, Candy in front, followed closely by Maggie, with Bertha right behind them. Candy’s mind was in turmoil. What should they do? As she turned and started down the hallway, she thought of running, trying to escape into the dark building, but she was afraid Bertha would fire. She wasn’t too concerned about herself, but she was worried Maggie would get hit. She couldn’t take that chance.

  So she chewed at her lip, fighting down the fear, trying to think of some way out. She had taken only a few steps when she heard Maggie say to Bertha, “Oh, by the way, there’s one thing you forgot.”

  Maggie stopped, and Candy paused also, turning back to look over her shoulder at her friend.

  “What?” Bertha demanded, glowering at them over the pistol.

  “This!” In a sudden, fluid movement, Maggie brought up her hand and flicked the button on her umbrella, which she still carried with her. It popped open, spreading out like a shield, tossing off drops of water. She thrust the opened umbrella right up into the surprised face of Bertha, who stumbled backward with a grunt as the gun went off. But her aim was high, and the bullet went harmlessly into the ceiling above Candy’s and Maggie’s heads.

  Maggie screamed, threw the umbrella back toward Bertha, then dashed toward Candy. “Run!”

  Pulling each other along, barely containing their panic, they ran forward to the end of the hallway, paused briefly to look down another long hallway to their right, then turned left, pushed through a door, and started up a darkened staircase. Somewhere behind them, Bertha bellowed in anger.

  “Smart move!” Candy shouted as they took the stairs two at a time.

  “Let’s just hope it doesn’t get us killed.”

  Halfway up they reached a landing, turned left, and ran up more stairs. They pushed through another set of doors at the top — and found themselves in a side hallway that fed into the auditorium through a set of double doors. A narrow stream of faded red carpeting sloped downward toward the rear of the building, toward the backstage area. Candy saw an exit sign farther down the hallway but hesitated to go that far. She could hear Bertha coming up the stairs behind them.

  “Which way?” Maggie asked.

  Candy pointed to a door in front of them, directly across the hall. “That way.”

  “Into the auditorium?”

  “Maybe we can lose her in there.” Her decision made, she crossed the hall and pushed through a door into the space beyond... and they found themselves in the opera house’s auditorium. They had been in here less than a week earlier, the night of the pageant, when the place had been well lighted and full of people. But now it looked completely different, a vast, dark, hollow space, smelling of old wood, old fabrics, and ancient dust. A horseshoe-shaped balcony was directly above their heads; the stage was downward to their right, decorated with scenery for the upcoming performances of Oklahoma!

  “Is this where we wanted to be?” Maggie asked, close by Candy’s elbow.

  Candy leaned into the door behind them, pushing it shut and looking for a lock. But she found none. She glanced around. “Which way?” she asked, uncertain.

  Maggie pointed frantically. “There! Backstage!”

  “But isn’t that where Bertha was taking us?”

  “Just get going!” Maggie pushed Candy in the back, and together they ran through the seats toward the center aisle. When they reached it, they angled forward toward the stage, then dashed back into the rows of seats on the far side of the auditorium, trying to put as much distance as possible between themselves and the door through which they had entered.

  As she ran, Candy kept looking back over her shoulder, expecting Bertha to burst through the door at any moment. But Bertha fooled them. A creaking sound from another direction drew Candy’s attention. She slowed, turned to look, and through a door behind them but closer to the front of the stage came Bertha.

  “She’s trying to cut us off!” Candy yelled, just as a shot rang out. Yelping in terror, Maggie dropped to her knees between the rows of seats. Candy crouched down beside her.

  “You can’t escape!” Bertha called out. “Give it up!”

  “What should we do?” Maggie asked, near tears.

  Candy looked around hurriedly. They weren’t trapped yet, but their options were narrowing. “Back that way.” She pointed up the aisle on the far side of the auditorium. “Stay low. Try to get back to the lobby, and we’ll get outside from there.”

  Maggie nodded, her eyes wild, but keeping her fear tamped down, she crept to the end of the row, then started up the far aisle as Bertha closed in on them.

  “Move! Quicker!” Candy encouraged in a low, urgent voice.

  As she ran, she glanced back over her shoulder. Bertha was running parallel to them, up the center aisle. She was moving sideways like a crab, her eyes holding tight to them, holding the gun low.

  She’s herding us, Candy thought with a chill as she shifted her gaze forward again. She came to a quick conclusion. “She wants us to go in this direction,” she said to Maggie as she rested a hand on her friend’s shoulder, slowing her. She knew they had to find another way out.

  Maggie looked around, falling to her hands and knees, her gaze pleading. “What should we do?”

  Candy urged her friend up and forward again as she tried to figure out their next move. Her gaze swept the auditorium, searching. And then she saw it, almost right in front of them — an alcove to their right, opening off the side aisle, with a narrow carpeted stairway going upward.

  Candy’s gaze followed it up, her eyes rising... to the balcony.

  “In here!” She dashed into the alcove, pulling Maggie with her as she heard Bertha shout in frustration.

  Up the staircase they thundered, panting now, knowing they were running for their lives. At the top they turned left, into the balcony itself, then right, running up a set of shallow stairs that ran along the rows of seats, heading toward the back row where they saw another set of doors. “We can go through there,” Candy said, pointing. “It should take us back down to the lobby.”

  “Think we can make it in time?”

  “We’ll have to, won’t we?” Candy pushed through the door. They emerged on a long landing with wide curving stairways on either side that lead down to the lobby below. Candy angled right, grabbed the railing, and started quickly down the stairs, but stopped midway when she heard footsteps below. Candy and Maggie both pressed back against the wall as a shadow emerged below them, turned, and loo
ked up in their direction.

  “You didn’t think you were going to get past me, did you?” Bertha said in a low, menacing tone. She waved the gun at them in a threatening manner. “Now get down here.”

  Candy cursed. Maggie grabbed her arm. “What should we do?”

  Instinctively, Candy pushed her back up the stairs. “We’re not giving up yet. Back the way we came. And stay down!”

  They both fell into a crouch, the better to avoid Bertha’s line of sight, and retraced their steps, heading back up the staircase and through the doors into the balcony. “We’re trapped!” Maggie said hysterically as they closed and leaned against the door behind them. Candy turned left, then right, trying to figure out what to do next, when she spotted another narrow staircase, heading up. “Not yet,” she said. “There must be another floor. Maybe we can get up to the roof and find a way down from there.”

  “The roof?” The words practically exploded from Maggie. “Oh my God! I wish I still had my umbrella!”

  The stairs led up to the control booth, a small, dingy workspace with sliding windows along the entire interior wall, overlooking the auditorium and stage below. A trio of ancient arc spotlights, sitting atop their three-legged stands, were spaced evenly across the room. Centered in front of the window were light and sound boards, and sitting on a table nearby was a fairly new laptop computer. Folding chairs, empty coffee cups and soda cans, abandoned jackets, and even a moldy old pair of sneakers were scattered about the room. A bank of lockers had been pushed up against one wall, and narrow shelves, overloaded with assorted equipment, hung from another.

  Candy looked up. In the ceiling she saw a hatch, and leading up to it, a black-runged steel ladder, set into the back wall. “That’s where we’re going,” Candy said, dashing to the rungs and taking them quickly.

  Maggie stood in the center of the room with a confused look on her face. “Where?”

  “The widow’s walk.”

  “But...”

  Candy gave her a fierce look. “No buts. Bertha will be here any minute. Now come on!”

  So Maggie went. It took Candy a few moments to figure out how to unlatch the hatch, but finally she threw it open, letting in wind and rain. Tilting her head down and squinting her eyes against the storm, she pushed up through the opening.

  Thirty-Seven

  The widow’s walk of the Pruitt Opera House was a small, octagonal space, about six or eight feet across. Candy emerged into the middle of it and was immediately assailed by the raging wind, which carried with it the remnants of the storm that, for the most part, had passed over them. Though the dome over their heads sheltered them from the worst of the rain, the raw wind tore at her as she bent to help up Maggie, who complained the entire time. “I can’t believe you brought us up here,” she huffed as she planted her feet beneath her and stood unsteadily. “When I said I wanted to escape, this wasn’t what I had in mind.”

  Candy barely heard her. She turned completely around, looking down over the waist-high stone walls of the widow’s walk, down at the sloping slate roof, slick with rain, and down over the side of the building to the ground far below. “Whoa. I didn’t realize we’d be up so high.”

  “How are we going to get down?” Maggie whined, looking out over the roof. “I don’t see a ladder or anything.”

  Candy felt her stomach tighten. “I don’t know but...”

  That’s when she caught movement out of the corner of her eye... and turned to see Bertha emerging from the hatch behind them.

  In one hand Bertha held the gun, wielding it like a spatula at a church social dinner. With the other hand she pulled herself up into the widow’s walk, grunting just a bit, all the while keeping a wary eye on Candy and Maggie.

  For one wild moment Candy was tempted to dash forward to try to kick the gun from Bertha’s hand, as she had seen done so often in the movies and on TV. But this wasn’t a movie, she quickly reminded herself, and she knew she couldn’t move faster than a bullet. So she and Maggie backed away, to the far side of the widow’s walk, as Bertha stood on shaky legs.

  She was huffing heavily. It was clear the chase through the opera house had winded her. But she looked no less angry. If anything, she looked more furious than before. She was seething, literally shaking with fury.

  “That was a stupid, stupid thing to do,” she spat as she backed to the opposite side of the widow’s walk, keeping the gun pointed steadily at Candy and Maggie. “I’ve got better things to do than chase you two through a building. I should have shot you in the basement when I had the chance. But you won’t get away again. It’s time to end this... now.”

  Candy and Maggie both yelped and shut their eyes as Bertha pushed the gun toward them, about to fire, but she was distracted by a shout.

  “Hey! You there, up on the roof!”

  The words were carried oddly by the wind, and for a moment none of them knew from which direction the shout had come. Candy opened her eyes and looked around desperately. It took her a few moments, but she finally spotted a figure on the street below. It was a man, dressed in black, standing under a street lamp. He was waving his hands frantically, as if to catch their attention, and shouted again. “What’s going on up there? Is everyone okay?”

  Candy knew instantly who it was — Judicious F. P. Bosworth, the town’s sometimes-invisible mystic, who obviously was being seen on this stormy night. She waved back at him, leaning into the side railing and shouting at the top her lungs: “Judicious! Help us!”

  “Shut up!” Bertha yelled, turning the gun first toward Judicious, then back to Candy and Maggie. “Shut up!”

  “Are you all right?” Judicious called up to them.

  Candy jumped up and down frantically. “No! Get help!”

  Caught out in the open, and apparently thinking it would be better to get rid of any witnesses first, Bertha swerved, took aim at Judicious, and fired once, twice, just as a car came up Ocean Avenue, its headlights cutting into the darkness. Just before the car reached Judicious, it swerved and bounded up on the sidewalk, its horn blaring... and that’s when Candy saw something she would never forget for the rest of her life.

  Maggie, crouched over like a football player, lunged forward with her shoulders lowered. She covered the space between them and Bertha in an instant, tackling Bertha around the waist. They slammed back against the railing on the far side, both of them grunting. The impact knocked the gun from Bertha’s hand. It flew over the side of the widow’s walk and clattered down the roof, falling over the edge into darkness.

  Bertha was stunned momentarily but quickly regained her senses. She wrapped her arms around Maggie’s head and squeezed tight. The two of them fell to the floor in a tangle of arms and legs, kicking and punching.

  For a moment Candy was stunned. Maggie? Tackling Bertha? She was sure that hadn’t just happened. She turned to look back down at the street. Judicious had disappeared, but the car door opened and Ben spilled out, looking up at her on the widow’s walk. She waved to him, screamed for help, then looked back at Maggie and Bertha.

  They were still fighting, and she realized with a jolt that her friend needed her. She crossed the space in a near dive, landed on her knees beside Bertha, and wrapped her hands around the chairwoman’s thick arms. But rather than being big and flabby, they were strong and muscular. She hadn’t known Bertha had been working out, and was impressed as well as surprised. It was like wrestling with a python, she thought vaguely as she tried to pull Bertha off her friend.

  They struggled for a few moments until, temporarily able to free herself, Maggie pulled away. Her hair was a terrible fright, her face red and distorted. Bertha kicked out at her while pushing herself back against Candy, and twisting, she turned her attention from one of her attackers to the other. Her eyes were red with fury as she reached out with thick fingers, wrapping them around Candy’s throat. She hooked her legs around Candy’s, then pushed her back and rolled onto her, pinning her to the floor.

  Candy felt the pani
c rise inside her as Bertha leaned close, breathing into her face. “I waited too long to do this,” she snarled, tightening her fingers. “You’ve meddled in my life for the last time.”

  Candy clawed at Bertha’s fingers, trying to break their grasp on her neck, but it seemed an impossible task. She saw spots in her eyes, felt rain pelting her face and fire in her lungs. Panicking, she tried to kick up with her knees, to push Bertha off, but it was like trying to free herself from the grasp of a bear. She felt her air being cut off and let out a raspy breath, her eyes rolling back into her head.

  And then she saw another arm move across her face and tighten around Bertha’s neck. Suddenly Bertha was pulled back, off her. Candy sucked in a deep breath. She rolled to her side, rubbing at her throat, trying to get her wind back.

  She took several more gulps of air before she looked to see where Bertha had gone. It was Maggie who had saved her, pulling the chairwoman off her. They were involved in a life-and-death struggle now, and Bertha was winning. She was like a cornered creature, inhuman, fighting for its life, trying to lash out at all costs, inflicting what damage it could. The chairwoman punched out with clenched fists, striking Maggie about the face and shoulders, and Maggie, trying to protect herself, could only cover her face with her hands as she curled in on herself and backed up against the wall.

  Knowing she had the upper hand, feeling victorious, Bertha rose unsteadily to her feet. She stood glaring down at the two of them. “You’re both pathetic,” she snarled between gasps of breath, her face twisted so that she was nearly unrecognizable. “To think I was worried about you. You have to put up a better fight than that if you want to beat me.”

  She looked around for her weapon, apparently unaware that it had gone over the side. When she found it nowhere, she pushed the wet hair back from her forehead, then rubbed her hands together. “Okay, I guess we’ll have to do this the hard way.” She looked from one to the other, then settled on Maggie. “You’re first.”