Town in a Blueberry Jam

help. We’ll sort this out. Don’t make it worse.”

“She’s right!” Maggie managed to squeak. She pointed frantically at Candy. “Listen to her. She knows what she’s talking about. She’s smart!”

“Too smart. You know too much,” Bertha growled, brandishing the gun.

Maggie’s eyes grew wide. “You know what? Not a problem. We’ll just forget everything we said here. We won’t tell a soul. Will we, Candy?”

“It’s too late,” Bertha said. “It’s too late. Don’t you think I would end this if I could, if there was any other way? But there isn’t.” She glanced down at the bag of shredded documents, and suddenly Candy knew what Bertha was talking about. She felt cold in the pit of her stomach.

“You killed Sapphire too.”

“She forced me into it,” Bertha said, sounding more hysterical with every word. “She was a wicked woman... a wicked woman!”

“She used the hairs from the wig to blackmail you, is that it? To make sure she was chosen as the Blueberry Queen?”

“Oh no, not that. She knew how to play her cards at the right time. No, she didn’t blackmail me. She just went after the judges. I didn’t even know until I saw the ballots the night of the pageant. I knew instantly what she was doing, but I couldn’t say anything then. There were too many people around. I had no choice but to declare her the winner.”

“How many of the judges did she blackmail?” Maggie asked curiously.

“How many?” Bertha gave a mad cackle. “All of them!”

“All of them?” Candy shook her head in disbelief. She couldn’t help but, in some strange way, admire Sapphire’s scheme. And she saw the last pieces of the puzzle coming together. “So you went to her house that night, two days after the pageant, to confront her — to tell her you knew what she had done.”

“I wanted her to resign her crown,” Bertha explained. “I demanded that she do so! But you know what she did?” She paused as if waiting for a response, then answered the question herself. “She laughed at me. She mocked me.”

“And that’s when she told you about the hairs she’d found.”

Bertha nodded. “She told me all about her and Jock. She told me he loved her. Can you believe that? Jock, loving her? That horrid woman! She said she knew Jock and I were having an affair. And that she knew we went to that cliff together, that it was our secret rendezvous. She must have followed us one night — or Jock told her. Maybe he even took her up to that same spot — maybe he took all his girlfriends there. It doesn’t matter now. She put two and two together... and told me that if I kept her secret, she’d keep mine. But I couldn’t do it! I couldn’t trust her!”

“So you killed her,” Candy prompted.

“Oh, that wasn’t my plan, of course,” Bertha said, licking her lips. “I tried to reason with her, to explain what had happened, that it was just an accident... and that’s when Ray showed up. Sapphire made me hide in a back room while she talked to him. She had his hammer in her purse. She said she had found it and wanted to return it to him. She wanted more from him, I could tell, though what I don’t know. Perhaps she wanted to use him as a spy, something like that. But he wouldn’t play her game. He took the hammer and studied it, turned it over and over, then handed it back to her. When he said the hammer wasn’t his, she got furious. She went nuts! She threw the hammer aside, called him all sorts of terrible names. She was like a mad cat. She chased him out of the place.”

“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!”