Town in a Blueberry Jam

Twenty-Six

Leaving their half-eaten sandwiches and the yellowed German documents behind, Herr Georg took her by the hand and walked to the front door. He flipped the OPEN sign that hung in the door window around so it read CLOSED, walked outside with Candy, and locked the door behind them.

“You’re closing in the middle of the day?” she asked him curiously.

“I must be outside, away from here, to talk about these things,” Herr Georg told her with a hesitant shrug. “This is more important than a few extra dollars, and it’s such a nice day. Let’s walk.”

Sensing the import of what he was about to tell her, she let him lead the way. “Okay, let’s walk.”

With an expressionless face, he started off. Saying barely a word to each other, they crossed Main Street and angled toward Ocean Avenue, which was busy with pedestrians window-shopping and scurrying about. It was a warm day with clouds building overhead. The humidity was on the rise, and the air was sharp with the unmistakable tang of salt and the sea. A flock of gulls arced above, cawing in their hunger and unending quest for sustenance.

As he walked, Herr Georg kept his head turned down, his hands clasped firmly behind his back. Candy tagged along as they turned down Ocean Avenue, passed the doorway that led up to the Cape Crier’s offices and, a little farther on, the glass front of Stone & Milbury’s. They crossed the street in front of the Pruitt Opera House and walked the rest of the way down the avenue, to Town Park.

With the dull roar of the rolling sea in their ears, they strolled past well-kept flower beds and over freshly mown grass, until Herr Georg spotted a bench in the shade of a thick oak tree. He approached it purposefully, sat down, and beckoned Candy to sit beside him.

“Do you know why I came here? Here, to Cape Willington?” he asked after they had settled themselves. When Candy shook her head, he gave her a melancholy smile. “No one knows, of course, except me — and, for a time, Sapphire Vine. But she is gone now. I had hoped that my secret would die with her, but it appears now that it will live on.”

He let out a tired breath. “I have run from that secret all my life. It is time for me to tell the story, to let it out into the world, for good or bad.”

Candy sensed the turmoil going through him. She felt deep regret at having brought the whole subject up in the first place. But, she reminded herself sadly, she had had no choice. She was on a quest to know the truth — and to save Ray. Still...

“Herr Georg, you don’t have to tell me if...”

He held up a hand, silencing her. “You’re right. I don’t have to tell you. But I want to. I have kept it inside for too long. The time has come for the story to be told. And you are the one I must tell it to, Candy. I am compelled to tell it, you understand, with all that has happened this week. You have been a good friend to me. I know I can trust you.”

“Of course you can trust me,” she said, “no matter what it is.”

He patted her hand. “I know, I know. But the story I have to tell is a painful one for me. It eats at my soul. You see,” he said, and his gaze shifted, out to the sea, far off to the east, “I was born on the other side of that ocean, on the distant shore, in Germany, just after the war — in the town of Wittenberg, along the Elbe River, southeast of Hamburg. I don’t remember much of my life there. Oh, small snips and bits here and there, a fleeting memory or two, but most of it is lost to me. My mother fled our home country a few years after the end of the war, taking me with her.”

“World War II?” Candy asked in clarification.

“Yes, yes, of course. I was born in 1946. We left in forty-eight. Not because we had to, but because my mother wanted to take me away from the fatherland — and away from my father.” Herr Georg’s gaze shifted back to her, and he looked hard into Candy’s eyes, unwilling to run anymore from his past. “My father was a war criminal — or so I was told by my mother, in her last breaths, before she passed from this earth. She told me he committed terrible atrocities — awful, terrible things — for which he was arrested and tried after the war. It was a dreadful time in our country’s history. My mother, to shield me from what was happening, to protect me from the repercussions of what might occur because of my father’s acts, took me first to England, then brought me here, to the United States, hoping to start a new life. And together we did just that.”

Herr Georg’s gaze shifted away again as he went on. “We took a steamer to New York City, where we lived for a few years. I remember the transatlantic passage well, and many of my earliest memories are of that city. We changed our name, tried to start a new life — but our history was soon discovered. The sins of my father followed us to our adopted country. So we moved again, northward — to Worcester, then to Lewiston, and finally to Calais, at the far eastern edge of Maine — as far as we could go and still remain in this country. My mother loved it there — she said she felt as close to the fatherland as she could be and still live in America. You see, even though she hated what her country had done, she never forgot her heritage, and she would not let me forget it. To make ends meet, she worked as a cook, then as a baker. She was quite accomplished and made a small name for herself, and so I learned from her. When she died I came here, because I loved this village when I visited once with my mother. I love the sea, and I loved the people here. And here I have been ever since — and my secret has remained buried... until Sapphire Vine started digging around in my past.”

“How did she find out about it?” Candy asked in a hushed tone.

Herr Georg shrugged. “Who knows? She was a gossip, you know — she talked to so many people. Somehow, somewhere, she heard rumors about me, or read something about me that sparked her curiosity — I don’t know for certain — but she soon found out about my past, and my father’s atrocities. One day — five years ago or so — she confronted me, almost as you just did in the shop. She told me she had evidence — documents. I didn’t believe her at first. I told her she was mistaken. Then she showed me one of them. She had many more, she said. I didn’t know whether to believe her or not, but I could not take the chance.”

Candy felt a flash of anger go through her. “What an awful woman!”

“Oh yes, she certainly was that,” Herr Georg said, “and much worse than you even know. You see, she threatened to reveal what she had discovered about me — that my father was a Nazi war criminal. Of course, I couldn’t let that information get out to the public — I have a reputation to protect, you know, one that I have spent many years building. If such a story were to leak out, I would be ruined.”

“So what happened?”

Herr Georg sighed and shook his head. “What could I do? I offered to pay her to keep her silent.”

“She blackmailed you?”

“Yes, blackmail.”

“And she’s been blackmailing you ever since?”

He nodded.

“How much have you paid her?”

Herr Georg shrugged. “Thousands, perhaps tens of thousands. I honestly don’t know. Every few months, when she needed money, she would call me up or send an e-mail. And not just money. The woman was relentless.”

It took a moment for the rest of Herr Georg’s statement to register with her, and like a knife it struck her deep. Instantly she knew what he was talking about. She couldn’t help gasping. “Not just money? You mean the pageant!”

Herr Georg’s head fell again. Almost imperceptibly, he nodded.

Candy quickly put it together. “She threatened to reveal your past... unless you rigged the scoring so she would win!”

Herr Georg shook his head. “Oh no, no, nothing as conspiratorial as that! Yes, I gave her much higher scores than she deserved, and I scored the other contestants lower than they deserved. But that is all. I didn’t change the scores for the other judges! You must believe me, Candy, when I tell you that I didn’t think it would make any difference. I honestly didn’t! I thought my scores would have no effect on the outcome of the pageant. There were four other judges. I was certain Haley would win by enough points that mine wouldn’t alter the outcome.”

He raised his eyebrows, let out a breath. “But, of course, it did. I have lived with this terrible thing I have done ever since.”

“Herr Georg, I... I don’t know what to say.”

“Please, Candy, don’t think ill of me. I had no choice. I had to do as she asked. You see that, don’t you?”

“Well,” Candy said after many long moments, “I can understand why you voted for Sapphire, yes, and why you gave her money. But it was a foolish thing to do in the first place. No one cares about your past. It wouldn’t have mattered to anyone. And now — well, now you’re in a tight spot. You realize that if the police find out about this, you will become the prime suspect in Sapphire’s death. After all, you had motive. You’re the only person so far who’s had good reason to see Sapphire dead.”

He turned to her then, a pleading look in his eyes. “But they must not find out about this, Candy. They must not! I despised Sapphire, yes — I hated what she was doing to me. But I didn’t kill her! I could never do such a thing! You must believe me!”

For whatever reason, Candy knew he was telling the truth. “I believe you, Herr Georg — I really do — but the question is, will anyone else? And there’s another question that’s even more important.”

“What’s that?”

“Well, if you didn’t kill Sapphire, and Ray didn’t... who did?”