parties. It had become a sort of trademark of hers over the years, and she milked it for all it was worth. It was a tight outfit, padded in all the right places, especially in the ample bosom and hips. She wore a pale blonde, almost white-haired wig, piled on top of her head in a beehive style.
Beside her stood Jock Larson, his hand tight around her waist, holding her close.
Jock Larson...
“Have you seen that picture before?” Maggie repeated, standing close to Candy.
“No, I...”
She stopped suddenly as something clicked inside her, and in a single, stunning moment, everything fell into place for her, and she saw the events of the past week laid out with incredible clarity, as if someone had quite abruptly, with the touch of a cosmic finger, aligned the planets across the starry sky.
“On my God!” A shudder raced through her as she turned to Maggie with the light of new understanding in her eyes. “That’s it! I’ll be damned,” she breathed, her hand instinctively clapping to her mouth as the realization spread through her. “It was her all along, wasn’t it? She’s the one who...”
“What are you doing here?” a harsh voice cut in.
Caught off guard, Candy and Maggie twirled clumsily — and found themselves face-to-face with Bertha Grayfire.
The chairwoman of the town council stood in the doorway, half in shadow, dressed much like Maggie had been the night before. Bertha wore black sweatpants, a dark gray sweatshirt under a dark blue Windbreaker, and black gloves. Her graying hair, usually neatly coiffed, was in disarray, as if she had just walked through a hurricane. In one hand she carried a flashlight; with the other she held tightly to a paper grocery bag.
Her gaze narrowed on the two women as she waited for an answer, but all she got at first were assorted babbles, stammers, and mumbles as Candy pulled Maggie away from the photos. Candy cast about for an excuse, her mind racing frantically, and finally blurted out the first sentence she could think of.
“We were... we’re, um, here to pay our property taxes!”
“Property taxes?” Maggie scrunched up her face and gave Candy an odd look, until Candy nudged her with an elbow, and Maggie finally got the point. “Oh, um, yeah, that’s right.” She forced a laugh, trying and failing to sound lighthearted. “You see, we were just wondering who to make our checks out to. I always get confused about that.” She looked at Bertha innocently, batting her eyes in expectation.
The silence that followed stretched dangerously long. Though she tried to maintain a calm appearance, Candy swallowed hard. She could hear her heart thumping in her ears and was sure she could hear Maggie’s heart pounding as well.
Finally Bertha spoke, in a tone that was low and harsh. “Property taxes were due three weeks ago. But I don’t think that’s why you’re here.” Her gaze shifted back and forth quickly, from Candy to Maggie, then to the photo on the wall. Her jaw tightened and her gaze grew hard as she turned back to Candy. “You were looking for these, weren’t you?” She nodded down toward the grocery bag she carried.
Candy was genuinely mystified at the question. “What?”
“The ballots,” Bertha said, her voice turning chillingly cold. “That’s why you came here, isn’t it? You’ve been running all over town the past few days, trying to help Ray. I’ve heard all about it. I know what you were looking for. And I knew you’d come here sooner or later — for the ballots. That’s why I shredded them.”
In an abrupt move, she tossed the grocery bag across the room, so that it landed with a plop at Candy’s feet. “Go ahead, get a close look.”
Candy didn’t need to look too closely. She could see from where she stood that inside the bag were the remnants of shredded documents, a confetti mix of green, white, and gray paper now ripped apart and undecipherable.
She looked up at Bertha, her expression changing. No sense in pretending any longer, of clinging to some semblance of innocence. They both knew where the truth lay. “Those were your white hairs, weren’t they? The ones I found in the folder in Sapphire’s home office?” She tilted her head toward the photo. “They were from the wig.”
Bertha seemed surprised for a moment, but then surprise gave way to a chuckle, though there was no joy in her voice. “So that’s where she put them. I’ve been looking for those damned strands of hair all week. I’m sorry you found it before I did.”
“Where did she get it?”
Bertha scoffed at the question. “You’re supposed to be the sleuth. Why don’t you figure it out?”
Candy already had her suspicions, which had gone unspoken until now. “My guess? In Jock’s bed.”
Another silence, as Bertha’s expression darkened. “You’re smarter than you look.”
“You wore the outfit for him, didn’t you?”
Bertha’s mouth worked, her anger obvious, but she apparently decided to play the game, at least for the moment. “Yes, if you must know. He had a fixation on the Dolly Parton thing. It was his idea in the first place. He liked me to dress up sometimes, give him a show. He was a little strange that way.”
Maggie gasped in sudden realization. “So you two were... an item?”
Bertha blew out a breath of air. “Oh, come on, Maggie. Try to keep up.”
“And Sapphire too,” Candy continued. “They were seeing each other?”
“Apparently. I only found out about that later. Jock was a busy boy, as you’ve no doubt heard.”
“That’s where she found the strands of hair... when she was in Jock’s bed.”
Bertha shrugged. “I suppose. She was an industrious woman — I’m sure you’ve heard that too.”
“And she used the evidence to blackmail you? So you’d let her win the pageant?”
At that, Bertha actually laughed. “You still haven’t figured it all out, have you? Here, I’ve got something to show you.”
Moving quickly, the town councilwoman crossed the room to the desk, took a set of keys from a pocket and opened the top middle drawer. She reached inside, her back to Candy and Maggie, blocking their view.
When she turned back around, she held a gun in her hand. “You want to know the truth?” she seethed, her face a twisted mask. “All right, I’ll tell you. Yes, Jock and I were having an affair — but it was much more than that. For six years I gave him anything he wanted. I kept quiet about us, just like he wanted. I was there whenever he needed me. I put up with his constant philandering. He told me he would marry me... so I waited and waited for him. But it never happened. Finally I realized he was playing me, just like he played with everyone else in this town. He used me, like he used everyone else. I threatened to leave him, to break it off for good, but he told me he just needed more time, that he would change.” She shook her head as she let out a low, sad sound. “But I knew Jock wouldn’t change. When I told him it was over, he begged me to meet him at our secret spot — up on Mount Desert Island...”
Maggie gasped, and Candy felt a chill go up her spine. They both knew what was coming next.
“I don’t know for sure what happened that night,” Bertha continued, her voice flat and unemotional. “I thought he might propose to me... that’s really what I thought... but I was as foolish as ever. He had no such thing in mind. He just wanted to make sure I kept my mouth shut about the two of us, once he broke it off. I was furious. I lashed out at him. He was standing too close to the edge when...”
Her voice trailed off.
Candy finished the sentence for her. “You pushed him too hard.”
Bertha’s gaze had grown distant, as if remembering the terror of that night. “He lost his footing, and then... he was gone.” She shook her head in disbelief. But she gathered herself quickly. Her gaze narrowed on Candy and Maggie. “So now you know. I killed Jock Larson.” She paused, raising the gun and pointing it right at them. “And now I’m going to kill you.”
Thirty-Six
“Bertha, you don’t have do this. Jock’s death was an accident.” Staring down the barrel of the gun, Candy found herself strangely calm, though her mouth was suddenly dry. Carefully, moving slowly, she held out her hands and tried to sound as friendly as possible, as if talking down someone about to jump off a rooftop. “We can get you
