Town in a Blueberry Jam

innocent as a newborn baby.”

Finn cleared his throat. “Um, well, not necessarily.” They all looked over at him. For a moment everyone was silent.

“Well,” Doc said finally, breaking the silence, “it’s obvious you’ve heard something through your usual sources. You gonna tell us what you know or do we have to beat it out of you?”

“I think we should give him a sound rapping about the head and shoulders,” Bumpy suggested.

“Naw, he’d probably enjoy it,” Artie added with a grin.

Finn leaned forward over the table. “Okay, I’ll tell you,” he said, his voice conspiratorially low, “but you can’t say nothing.”

Everyone groaned. “Enough with the horseshit,” Artie said.

“Yeah, cough it up,” Doc added. “You know something, so spill it.”

Finn’s dark eyes shifted around the diner, as if to make sure no one was eavesdropping. Convinced he wasn’t being overheard, he folded his arms on the table and lowered his voice even more, to a coarse whisper. “Well, like I said, you haven’t heard this from me, but they arrested Ray because they have stone-cold evidence that he murdered that Vine woman.”

“Evidence?” Candy said testily. “What kind of evidence could they possibly have?”

Even as she asked the question, she wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answer. Finn told her anyway.

“From what I’ve heard from the boys inside, they found the murder weapon, right there at the scene of the crime, and they traced it right back to Ray.”

Artie snorted. “Who would be stupid enough to leave the murder weapon at the scene of the crime?”

“Well, that’s the point, isn’t it?” Finn said. “Who would be stupid enough to do that?”

They all sat in silence for a moment as the question answered itself.

“So what was this murder weapon that incriminated Ray?” Candy finally asked, still refusing to believe.

Finn glanced over at her, then said to them all, with as much drama as he could muster, “A hammer. A brand-new red-handled hammer.”

Candy closed her eyes as the air seemed to go out of her. “Oh no.”

Finn nodded. “From what I’ve heard, someone-Ray, allegedly-took that hammer and bashed in Sapphire’s skull from behind. Blunt trauma. Pretty gruesome, they say. She must have died instantly. Never knew what hit her.”

“That’s awful,” Bumpy said.

“Terrible. Just terrible,” Artie agreed, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose with his middle finger.

“But what makes them think Ray did it?” Doc asked angrily. “Did they find him there? Did anyone see him do it?”

Finn shook his head. “Not that I know of, but there are witnesses who saw Ray’s truck parked in front of Sapphire’s house last night. And someone said they heard shouting coming from the house at around nine last night.”

Candy opened her eyes but kept them focused on the table in front of her, unable to look at the others in the booth. It all seemed so unreal. She looked at her hands, but even those seemed foreign to her as she anxiously rubbed them together.

She had seen that hammer before-had held it in these very hands. And now it was a suspected murder weapon, wielded-apparently-by someone she knew.

At someone she knew.

Suddenly she felt very sick.

THIRTEEN

Their food was delivered, but Candy found she had lost her appetite. She sat for a while with Doc and the boys, listening to their back-and-forth banter, which turned quite salty, as it often did. She stayed as long as she could, her stomach churning, until finally she pushed the plate back and excused herself from the table. “I’m going to run over to Gumm’s and pick up that chicken wire,” she told Doc. “I’ll meet you back at the truck in fifteen minutes.”

He looked up, his gaze narrowing. “You all right? You’re looking kinda pale.”

She smiled weakly. “I just need some air.”

“You gonna finish that?” Bumpy asked, pointing to her uneaten lunch.

“It’s all yours.” She left without another word, giving them a halfhearted wave before walking out of the dark coolness of the diner. Once in the bright sunlight of the midsummer afternoon and away from the talk of murder, she felt a bit better. The day was hot and the humidity was building again. Dark, ominous clouds were piling up above the western horizon. It’s going to turn stormy, the news announcer had said on the noonday forecast.

She had been right in more ways than one.

Clutching her purse, Candy crossed Main Street, dodging cars and pedestrians, and headed down the block toward Gumm’s Hardware Store at the far end. A few of the townsfolk said hello to her as she passed them on the way, but she replied absently, still feeling shaky.

Ray’s hammer, she thought as she walked inattentively, head down. The same hammer I used the other day when Ray came over to the farm to help with the booth. I held the murder weapon in my hand. I held the weapon that killed Sapphire Vine.

She felt her stomach churning even more. For a moment she thought she was going to be physically sick, but she forced it back as another thought struck her: My fingerprints are probably on the murder weapon. What if they think I had something to do with Sapphire’s death?

Now she really thought she was going to be sick.

Trying to shake off her queasiness, she pushed through the front door of Gumm’s and into the coolness again. Cameron, Amanda’s boyfriend, stood behind the counter, looking incredibly bored.

“Hi, Cam,” she said, giving him a wave.

“Oh, hi, Candy. How’s it going?”

“Not so great right now. Where do you keep the chicken wire?”

He pointed, looking concerned. “Back corner, next to the rakes and shovels. Everything okay?”

“Yeah, it’s just… things are a little crazy. So how’s Amanda doing?” she asked as she started off down the aisle.

“She’s okay. Glad the pageant’s over.”

“All of us are,” Candy said as an image of a postpageant Sapphire Vine flashed unbidden through her mind. She saw Sapphire standing in the living room of her little yellow house, being struck in the head from behind by a shadowy figure that held a red-handled hammer…

Candy shook away the frightening image.

She’d been positive there was no way Ray could have done such a thing, but now she wasn’t so sure. Could he really have killed her? she thought as she wandered back through the aisles of the hardware store, still feeling as if she were in a daze. Of course he could have, she realized after a moment. Just about anyone can be pushed over the edge, given the right circumstances. Maybe she pressed him too hard about something, or maybe she was blackmailing him…

Blackmail. Now that was an interesting thought.

There were rumors around town about that, Candy recalled. Some said, in whispers, that Sapphire found great joy in digging around for dirt on various townsfolk. It was said she even kept secret files on some people. Maybe Sapphire had turned up something about Ray’s past that he didn’t want known. It was a possibility, Candy realized. What do you really know about him, anyway? Everyone has secrets. Maybe Sapphire found out what Ray’s were. Could she have confronted him, put a good scare into him, backed him into a corner so he felt he had no choice but to hit her over the head with his shiny new hammer?

But what could it have been? What could have provoked him into doing such a thing?