Town in a Lobster Stew

She read it again. So. That answered the question of where Charlotte had found the blueprints.

She hadn’t found them. They’d been given to her.

But by whom?

Perhaps by the same person who killed Charlotte, Candy realized with a start.

But that didn’t make sense. Why would someone give Charlotte the plans and then kill her?

Candy studied the scribbled lines again. There was no signature, no way to determine who had written those sentences.

Wanda broke into her reverie. “Raises all sorts of questions, doesn’t it?” she asked, her voice seeming out of place in the serenity of Doc’s office.

“Yes, it does.” Candy looked up. “But it also answers a few.” She tapped at the blueprints with her index finger. “This is the missing link. We know the recipe was stolen, right? We know Charlotte used it to create her stew for the cook-off. You told me that yourself. And now we know how she got her hands on the recipe. She took it from Wilma Mae’s house, using these blueprints, which showed the exact location of the document drawer — and the ledger.”

“Right.” Wanda gave Candy a smug look. “Just like I said, Sherlock.”

Candy stiffened as something clicked inside her, and a long-suppressed knot of irritation suddenly unraveled. She could hold it back no longer as she straightened and turned to face the larger woman. “Wanda, what’s up with you?” she asked angrily.

The smugness abruptly disappeared from Wanda’s face. “What?”

“I mean, come on, what’s with the attitude?”

Wanda’s face settled into a cold mask. “I’m sure I don’t know what you’re referring to.”

But Candy was having none of it. “You know exactly what I’m referring to. It’s these smug comments you’ve been making over the past few days. Calling me Sherlock. My name is Candy. You can call me either that or ma’am. We’re done with the Sherlock thing. You got it?”

Now Wanda looked offended. “Well!” she said. If she had had a feather boa, Candy thought, she probably would have flipped it back over her shoulder and stormed off.

“And while we’re on the subject,” Candy continued, “did you use this same attitude with Charlotte?”

Wanda’s expression changed again, to one of wariness. “What do you mean by that?”

“You’ve been after Charlotte for a while, haven’t you, like a dog nipping at her heels. Why, I don’t know. Maybe you wanted her job too, just like you wanted mine. Or maybe you just like to throw your weight around. It really doesn’t matter much to me. But whatever it was, it drove Charlotte to desperate measures.”

There was silence for a few moments. When Wanda responded, her tone was icy. “If you must know, yes, I thought the woman was incompetent, and I let her and others know it. She was good at PR and in playing Little Miss Director. But the archives were a mess, and she was often rude to her volunteers.”

Candy read between the lines. “Like you?”

“Yes, like me. I offered her lots of suggestions for improvement. But do you think she listened to me? Noooo.” Wanda mimicked Charlotte’s voice, which sounded a bit eerie to Candy. Wanda continued, her voice growing angrier. “I watched her file all my suggestions away in some drawer in her office, and that was that. She had no intention of following through on any of my ideas.”

“So you went over her head.”

“Of course I did. Someone had to know what was going on around that place.”

“You sent a letter to the board, which got Charlotte in hot water.”

“I was just trying to improve the archives.”

“You were trying to get her fired.”

“I was tired of being ignored.”

“Well, I guess she stopped ignoring you, didn’t she? I suppose she tried to reason with you.”

“She tried, yes.”

“And I suppose you told her to go take a hike.”

Wanda nodded, her face still hard. “Something like that.”

“And I suppose she didn’t take that well.”

A pause. “No, she did not.”

“So she started trying to figure out ways to beat you, didn’t she? She went to great lengths to get that recipe so she could win the cook-off — breaking and entering, at the very least. And possibly murder. And she did it all to prevent you from winning.”

Wanda shrugged, unimpressed. “I suppose so.”

“You created an enemy.”

“I have plenty of enemies. What’s another one?”

At that moment, Maggie poked her head into the room. “Did someone say enemies?”

Wanda completely ignored the interruption, but Candy glanced at her friend. “Hi, Maggie.”

“Having a nice chat?” Maggie smiled sweetly.

Candy’s eyes shifted back to Wanda. “I suppose you could say that.”

“Well, I know you kids are having fun in here, and I hate to break up the party, but I just got a call from Amanda and Cameron. They came back a little early, and I’d sure love to head back home to see them. So whenever you’re ready, we’ll be waiting in the kitchen.”

“Is Wilma Mae doing okay?”

“She’s fine. A little tired, but she’s a trooper.”

“Okay,” Candy said. “We just need a couple more minutes in here.”

“Sounds good.” Maggie looked at Candy and mouthed something that looked like Be careful and then wiggled her fingers at them. “So, um, carry on, you two. Try not to break anything.”

When she was gone, Wanda abruptly turned toward the table and began to fold up the blueprints. “This was a bad idea,” she announced. “I shouldn’t have come to you. I’m leaving.”

Candy was mildly amused. “What’s the matter? Did I get too close to the truth?”

“It’s nothing like that. I thought you could help.” She stuffed the document back into its envelope. “Pretend you never saw this.”

“But I have seen it.”

“Then forget it,” Wanda said, her voice rising.

“I can’t.” Candy was surprised to find herself strangely calm. “Let me ask you something, Wanda. You said you found these plans in Charlotte’s office. You went in to look for the ledger, didn’t you? So did you find it?”

Wanda hesitated only briefly before she answered. “No. She must have hidden it well. But I’m sure it’s there somewhere. I ran out of time. I only had a couple of minutes. I found this instead and hightailed it out of there.”

“So you just went into her office and removed evidence without telling anyone?”

Wanda looked at her blankly. “Evidence?”

Candy pointed at the manila envelope in Wanda’s hands. “ That is evidence. The police will certainly search her office, if they haven’t done so already. They’ll be looking for clues to her death. And you’ve got an important one right there. You should take it to the police.” Candy paused, as her own words struck her. “We both have clues that will help them solve this mystery. And we can’t sit on them any longer. We both have to go to the police. Today. Right now.”

Wanda’s face grew tight. “Why would we want to do that?”

“So they can find Charlotte’s killer.”

“But that’s what we’re doing, isn’t it?”

Candy gave her a look. “We?”

The word hung between them. Wanda obviously had let the word slip, but seemed to regret it.

After an awkward moment, Candy cleared her throat. “Look, I’m glad you showed the blueprints to me,” she said, trying to sound a note of reconciliation. “But I’m not a detective, and I don’t work for the police. I’ve already been reminded of that. So you need to take that document over to the station. I’ll go with you, if you want.”

“And tell them what? I stole the blueprints from her office?”