She had something more important to do right now.
Inexorably, her gaze was drawn across the room, to the filing cabinet in the corner. She focused in on the bottom drawer, the one labeled with only two letters:
She’d avoided going into that drawer for a long time — but she knew she could avoid it no longer.
It was time to have a look at Sapphire Vine’s old files.
Six
Sliding out of her chair, she crossed the room and fell into a cross-legged seating position in front of the filing cabinet’s bottom drawer.
For the longest time she just sat there, staring at it. She knew she was dredging up old mysteries and unwanted problems. She knew she was delving into the twisted mind of a dead woman. She knew she should probably have followed an earlier instinct and just burned the files, committing them to ashes, which was where they truthfully belonged.
But she hadn’t. They were still here, in her possession. And they were here for a reason.
With a great force of will, she moved her hand to the drawer’s metal handle. Taking a deep breath, she slid the button aside with her thumb and pulled open the drawer.
She hadn’t been in these files for ten months, since she’d inherited them from Sapphire Vine, the newspaper’s previous community columnist. Sapphire had been many other things as well, including a gossip, a blackmailer, the reigning Blueberry Queen, a keeper of dark secrets, and ultimately a murder victim. She’d been brutally struck down in her home with a red-handled hammer. Finding her killer and solving the mystery of her death had been Candy’s first true case — and it had almost gotten her killed.
Last summer, when Ben had placed the files in Candy’s hands, they had helped her track down Sapphire’s murderer. But with the mystery solved and the murderer arrested, Candy had brought the files back here to the office, stuffed them in the bottom drawer of the filing cabinet, and left them there, secrets and all.
Some of the folders Candy had opened and perused in an effort to find the murderer. She had not looked at the rest, however, and with good reason. Sapphire had been quietly assembling private, personal, and often damaging information about many of Cape Willington’s residents. And the former Blueberry Queen was not averse to using that information for her own gain. That’s what led to her death.
So Candy had left the tainted files alone — and had overcome an instinct to burn them and bid them good riddance. She couldn’t help feeling, back then, that at some point in the future the files might come in handy.
That time had come.
She leaned forward and started working her way back through the files, carefully checking the labels. She didn’t have to flip back too far to find the one she wanted. It was a thick folder labeled
Candy pulled it out, glanced around to make sure no one was watching, hesitated just a moment, and opened the cover. Curiously, she started paging through it.
“Just as I thought,” she muttered to herself a short while later.
Sapphire had assembled a hefty dossier on Wanda Boyle. Newspaper clippings abounded, covering most of Wanda’s activities over the past few years. Sapphire had also included a few grainy black-and-white photos — apparently taken surreptitiously — of Wanda consorting with many of the town’s more powerful and wealthier individuals.
That made sense. Wanda did whatever she could to ingratiate herself with the popular folk around town. But after studying the photos, Candy could see nothing inappropriate going on. All the photos had been taken at what looked like public events. No bedroom shots or anyone in a compromising position. It was probably just Sapphire snooping around, looking for dirt that wasn’t there — a modus operandi that had, at times, yielded boffo results for the gossip columnist.
Candy pursed her lips as she dug farther back into the folder, where the documents were crisper and starting to turn brown with age. Sapphire had included a few pages about Wanda’s husband, who was a building contractor and remodeler, and some brief notes about Wanda’s children — their ages, teachers, and classes, mostly.
Candy found the whole thing creepy. Even now, nearly a year later, Sapphire’s level of obsession and attention to detail still horrified yet fascinated her.
She went back and forth through the folder a few more times before finally pulling out the documents she wanted.
One was a year-old newspaper clipping about Wanda’s volunteer efforts at the Cape Willington Historical Society, located in the red-roofed Keeper’s Quarters out at English Point Lighthouse, just a block or so from here. Dating back to 1857, the lighthouse stood on a point of black rock near the mouth of the English River, which formed the northern boundary of the village of Cape Willington.
The other document, in Sapphire’s own flowery handwriting, provided details about Wanda’s parents and siblings, including an older brother named Owen, who just happened to be a cabinetmaker and carpenter.
That had caught Candy’s attention. Wanda’s brother was a carpenter? Could he have been the one who worked on Wilma Mae’s shelving unit and discovered the secret document drawer?
It sounded just a little too convenient, though, didn’t it? Then again, maybe she’d already discovered her first clue to the mystery.
She was in the process of stuffing the folder back into the filing cabinet when Maggie walked in.
Although Maggie was not a slim woman, neither could she be called full figured. She had a few curves and a few extra pounds, yet she carried herself well, with a certain grace and fluidness of motion. She always dressed well, with discreet makeup that accentuated her best facial features — her prominent cheekbones and her dark, flashing eyes. Her chestnut hair was stylishly cut and naturally curly, resulting in a lush and, Candy often thought, attractive look for her.
Maggie was also incredibly vivacious, a good counter to Candy’s more subdued, thoughtful personality.
“Hey stranger,” Maggie said, entering the room like a fresh spring breeze. “I saw the Jeep out front and thought I’d stop in to say hello real quick. I haven’t seen you all week. What have you been — ”
She stopped abruptly when she saw her friend sitting on the floor in front of the filing cabinet instead of at her desk. She gave Candy a mystified look. “Honey, what are you doing down there on the floor? Are you okay?”
As casually as she could, Candy rose to her feet and nonchalantly dusted off her jeans. “Oh, sure, sure, I’m fine.”
“Well what were you doing down there?” Maggie repeated.
“Oh, you know.” Candy stuck her hands in her back pockets. “I was just... you know, relaxing.”
“Relaxing?” Maggie blinked several times as she looked from Candy to the still-opened drawer. Quickly her mind registered what was going on. She gasped. “You were looking in the bottom filing cabinet, weren’t you! You were going through
None too discreetly, Candy reached out with a sneakered foot and slid the bottom drawer closed. “Who, me? Naw, I was just, um, practicing my yoga moves.”
But Maggie was having none of it. “Don’t give me that. You don’t do yoga — though that’s not a bad idea, you know. Hey, we could do it together — get us a couple of those cute leotard things, or maybe even capri pants. I’d probably wear black, because of my figure and all, but with your hair color you’d probably look good in a...” She paused, catching herself. “Hey, wait a minute. Don’t try changing the subject on me, missy.” Her gaze narrowed on her friend. “You were looking through Sapphire’s old files, weren’t you?”
“Um, well, I...”
Maggie leveled a finger at her. “Aha! So I was right. And you didn’t even call me!”
“I was going to but, well... it was a spur-of-the-moment kind of thing.”
“But you said you weren’t going to look at those files ever again unless it was an extreme emergency. Those were your words:
“Um, well,” Candy said hesitantly, “I guess this is sort of an emergency.”
