Town in a Blueberry Jam

She looked up at Bertha, her expression changing. No sense in pretending any longer, of clinging to some semblance of innocence. They both knew where the truth lay. “Those were your white hairs, weren’t they? The ones I found in the folder in Sapphire’s home office?” She tilted her head toward the photo. “They were from the wig.”

Bertha seemed surprised for a moment, but then surprise gave way to a chuckle, though there was no joy in her voice. “So that’s where she put them. I’ve been looking for those damned strands of hair all week. I’m sorry you found it before I did.”

“Where did she get it?”

Bertha scoffed at the question. “You’re supposed to be the sleuth. Why don’t you figure it out?”

Candy already had her suspicions, which had gone unspoken until now. “My guess? In Jock’s bed.”

Another silence, as Bertha’s expression darkened. “You’re smarter than you look.”

“You wore the outfit for him, didn’t you?”

Bertha’s mouth worked, her anger obvious, but she apparently decided to play the game, at least for the moment. “Yes, if you must know. He had a fixation on the Dolly Parton thing. It was his idea in the first place. He liked me to dress up sometimes, give him a show. He was a little strange that way.”

Maggie gasped in sudden realization. “So you two were… an item?”

Bertha blew out a breath of air. “Oh, come on, Maggie. Try to keep up.”

“And Sapphire too,” Candy continued. “They were seeing each other?”

“Apparently. I only found out about that later. Jock was a busy boy, as you’ve no doubt heard.”

“That’s where she found the strands of hair… when she was in Jock’s bed.”

Bertha shrugged. “I suppose. She was an industrious woman-I’m sure you’ve heard that too.”

“And she used the evidence to blackmail you? So you’d let her win the pageant?”

At that, Bertha actually laughed. “You still haven’t figured it all out, have you? Here, I’ve got something to show you.”

Moving quickly, the town councilwoman crossed the room to the desk, took a set of keys from a pocket and opened the top middle drawer. She reached inside, her back to Candy and Maggie, blocking their view.

When she turned back around, she held a gun in her hand. “You want to know the truth?” she seethed, her face a twisted mask. “All right, I’ll tell you. Yes, Jock and I were having an affair-but it was much more than that. For six years I gave him anything he wanted. I kept quiet about us, just like he wanted. I was there whenever he needed me. I put up with his constant philandering. He told me he would marry me… so I waited and waited for him. But it never happened. Finally I realized he was playing me, just like he played with everyone else in this town. He used me, like he used everyone else. I threatened to leave him, to break it off for good, but he told me he just needed more time, that he would change.” She shook her head as she let out a low, sad sound. “But I knew Jock wouldn’t change. When I told him it was over, he begged me to meet him at our secret spot-up on Mount Desert Island…”

Maggie gasped, and Candy felt a chill go up her spine. They both knew what was coming next.

“I don’t know for sure what happened that night,” Bertha continued, her voice flat and unemotional. “I thought he might propose to me… that’s really what I thought… but I was as foolish as ever. He had no such thing in mind. He just wanted to make sure I kept my mouth shut about the two of us, once he broke it off. I was furious. I lashed out at him. He was standing too close to the edge when…”

Her voice trailed off.

Candy finished the sentence for her. “You pushed him too hard.”

Bertha’s gaze had grown distant, as if remembering the terror of that night. “He lost his footing, and then… he was gone.” She shook her head in disbelief. But she gathered herself quickly. Her gaze narrowed on Candy and Maggie. “So now you know. I killed Jock Larson.” She paused, raising the gun and pointing it right at them. “And now I’m going to kill you.”

THIRTY-SIX

“Bertha, you don’t have do this. Jock’s death was an accident.” Staring down the barrel of the gun, Candy found herself strangely calm, though her mouth was suddenly dry. Carefully, moving slowly, she held out her hands and tried to sound as friendly as possible, as if talking down someone about to jump off a rooftop. “We can get you 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