Town in a Lobster Stew

nineteenth-century explorer or an archaeologist overseeing a dig in Egypt.

As she watched him work, she wondered, not for the first time, if he ever thought of getting married again. He seemed comfortable enough with the bachelor life, but she detected moments of loneliness in him, when he thought she wasn’t watching him and let his guard down. Whenever she asked him about it, he would just wave his hand, give her an indulgent smile, and tell her not to worry about him.

“But I do worry about you, Dad,” she would say.

“And I worry about you too, pumpkin,” he’d reply. “But for the most part, we’re both doing okay, right? So what else is there to worry about?”

And, strangely enough, when he put it like that, she had trouble arguing with him. Ten years ago, she’d never envisioned herself here, living with her father on a blueberry farm in Downeast Maine, and she couldn’t say it was exactly where she’d hoped to be at this stage of her life, at her age. But she also couldn’t say it bothered her too much. She had, she knew, learned to simply accept it. Life was what it was, she’d decided one day. The harder you pushed against it, the harder it pushed back. So all you could do was learn to live with it, make the best you could of it, and try to be happy.

Until something happened that shook your life in a way you’d never expected.

That had happened to her several times before. Now it was happening again.

Whoever stole the lobster stew recipe must have murdered Mr. Sedley.

She went inside around noon, showered, and changed. It was her third hot shower since discovering Mr. Sedley’s body the previous day. Most of the smell was gone from her hair and body, but it still seemed to linger in her nostrils and on her fingertips. She had hoped the garden dirt would erase some of that smell, and it had. The remnants were faint now, but the images still lurked in her mind.

Doc had had the TV on that morning when she awoke, and news of the murder was being reported on all the local channels. But she did her best to ignore watching it. Sensing her distress, Doc had flicked off the TV as they drank their coffee before heading outside.

Now, feeling fresh and strangely cleansed by the earth, she called Maggie to see how Wilma Mae was doing and then settled herself in a chair on the front porch with the sun in her face, her notebooks within easy reach, and her laptop balanced on her knees. It was time to write.

She’d planned to work on her column and an article for the paper, but half an hour later she found herself staring at a blank screen, wondering where her mind had gone.

She’d been thinking about the body in the basement again. And the missing recipe. And the secret drawer in the front bedroom. And the cook-off, and the contestants. And Judicious’s odd comment: Just remember to keep a close eye on everything that happens today. And the sheet of paper with the X through it. And the booths she hadn’t visited, where the answers she sought might have been found.

Whoever stole — and made — the lobster stew recipe must have murdered Mr. Sedley.

Candy’s thoughts returned again to the cook-off contestants, for they were the most likely suspects in Mr. Sedley’s murder. Who could have done it? she wondered. Wanda? Quite possibly. Burt Ramsay? Again, possibly yes. But who else?

As Candy thought about it, she realized there were some contestants she could eliminate. Melody Barnes for one — Candy had been at her booth and knew the woman well. She had no real motive for stealing the recipe, as far as Candy could tell. She had come in third in the competition using her grandmother’s recipe. So why would she need Mr. Sedley’s? Plus, Melody had used tomatoes in her stew, which had been absent from the cinnamon-flavored one.

And she thought she could probably eliminate Bumpy Brigham. Bumpy, Candy decided, just didn’t have murder in him. Besides, she knew his secret stew ingredients. He had told her. So she could tick him off the list.

Who else?

Tillie Shaw? Doubtful. The woman didn’t seem to have a mean bone in her. Anita Weller? Delilah Daggerstone? Charlotte Depew? Lyra Graveton? Walter Gruthers?

Juanita Perez?

Candy shook her head. None of them seemed like murderers to her. Mr. Sedley was just a kindly old gentleman. She found it difficult to imagine any of them doing to him what she’d witnessed in the basement.

How had he wound up down there, rolled up in the tarpaulin like that? she wondered. Who put him there?

Again, she asked herself, Who?

She kept coming back to two names: Wanda Boyle and Burt Ramsay.

She had walked by Burt’s booth yesterday morning at the cook-off. Had she seen a bottle of cinnamon among his supplies? She couldn’t remember — she hadn’t looked that closely.

If only she had had the time to visit Wanda’s booth and taste her stew. That would’ve given her the answers she needed.

Doc passed right by her, whistling and blocking the sun for an instant as he headed toward the barn, and on the spur of the moment she asked him, “Dad, how many stews did you sample yesterday at the cook-off?”

“Huh? Stews?” He stopped, looking at her with a slight grin, and thought about it for a moment. “Four, maybe five. Why?”

“Which ones? Which were your favorites?”

“Well, let’s see. I tried Bumpy’s, of course, which wasn’t too bad. I walked over and had some of Melody’s. And Burt Ramsay’s...”

“What did you think of his stew?” she cut in.

“It was okay — a pretty typical lobster stew. About what I expected. Kind of a thick, almost gritty texture. Why?”

“Did you taste any cinnamon in it?”

Doc gave her a funny look. “Cinnamon?”

She waited.

His grin twitched as he considered the question. “I don’t know. I can’t say it jumped out at me. Why?”

“Just wondering.”

He sharpened his gaze on her. “Are you on the case?”

Candy shook her head. “I don’t know. I’ve been politely warned off by Chief Durr.”

“And it’s a good thing,” Doc said, his voice suddenly turning stern. “These aren’t games being played out there, pumpkin. People are getting themselves killed. Look what happened last summer with you and Maggie up on that widow’s walk. These are dangerous times. It’s best to just walk away and leave the investigations to the police.”

Candy made a face at him. “You sound like Chief Durr.”

“Well, I guess we think alike. We’re just trying to keep you out of trouble.”

“Trouble,” Candy insisted as her cell phone rang, “seems to keep finding me.”

She glanced at the name on the phone’s readout, then flipped it open. “Hi, Ben.”

“Hello, Candy. I just called to see how you’re doing. I heard what happened yesterday. That must have been quite a shock for you.”

“Yeah, it was pretty awful. But I’m glad we found him when we did. The poor old guy.”

“You got that right. It’s a real shame. Do they know what happened to him yet?”

“If they do, they haven’t told me.”

“Look,” Ben said, and she could almost hear him leaning forward, as he did sometimes when he was moving to a more intense topic of conversation. He was probably also rubbing his forehead in a thoughtful way. “You have some connections over at the police department, right?”

“Connections?” Candy had to think about that. “You mean Finn?”

“Yeah. He knows someone inside, right?”

“I guess so — at least, that’s what he’s said.”

“Do you think you could give him a call, see if you can find out what’s going on with this murder?”

Candy was surprised. “Me?”