Town in a Blueberry Jam

Two

“Dead?” At first Candy wasn’t sure she had heard what she thought she had heard. Maybe her ears weren’t working right. She almost smiled, thinking Doc was just playing with her, as he sometimes did. “You’re kidding.”

He shook his head. “’Fraid not, pumpkin.” His face was stern; there was no trace of a smile to indicate a joke. “Jock’s gone, that’s for sure.”

Candy felt a chill go through her that made her think of winter’s coldest day. Suddenly hushed, she asked, “What happened?”

Doc started to speak, but his voice was low and hoarse. He paused, took a moment to clear his throat. Obviously the conversation at the diner that morning had been more spirited than usual. It must have been quite an event. The boys are probably in a frenzy, Candy thought. The whole town probably is.

Her next thought was, This is big news. I’ve got to call Maggie.

Gathering himself, his voice grave, Doc said, “Well, the information’s still pretty sketchy. But what’s clear is that sometime late last night, Jock took a nosedive off a cliff up on Mount Desert Island — ”

“Oh my God.” Candy’s hand went to her mouth.

“ — and fell to the rocks below, or at least that’s the official version. He must have landed hard. Probably killed him instantly.” Doc paused. “I’ve seen those rocks. I was up there just a few weeks ago.” He took a deep breath. “Anyway, at some point during the night, his body must have rolled into the water and drifted out to sea. But the tides brought it back in this morning. He washed up on Sand Beach sometime around daybreak. Some elderly tourist up from Maryland found the body. Gave her quite a shock, too, or so I’ve heard.”

“Dad, that’s awful.”

Doc Holliday nodded. “Yeah it is.” He shook his gray-haired head. “This whole thing seems so unreal. I guess it’s just hard to believe he’s really gone. It sure is going to shake up this town, though.”

Falling into silence, he leaned back against the counter, arms crossed and head bowed, and for the first time in a while Candy took a good look at her father. The crags on his face seemed deeper, his dark brown eyes more guarded. His clothes were as rumpled as ever, though, hanging loosely on his frame. He had never been a burly man, but he seemed thinner these days, though not frail. He was getting stronger again, she realized, after years when it seemed he would never fully recover. Despite his efforts to conceal the truth with his humor, the death a few years ago of Holly, Doc’s wife and Candy’s mother, had hit him hard, and it had taken him a good while to recover from the loss. In the end it had taken a major change — retirement from the university and the purchase of a blueberry farm in a small Maine coastal village, at the strong urging of his daughter — to help him start his recovery. The farm, his life’s dream, had become his raison d’etre, keeping him busy and giving him purpose. He started writing again, beginning to fill the hollowness inside him with books and research and activity and friends. And he had quickly adopted this community as his own, taken its people into his heart, its history into his bones.

Now the town’s loss was his loss. And it seemed to draw him back just a little into the funk he had worked so hard to pull himself out of.

Still, Candy thought, he and Jock had never been good friends. Come to think of it, they had disliked each other. A lot.

It was all because of that parking spot, Candy recalled. She hadn’t lived here then, hadn’t yet pulled herself out of the downward spiral in which she had, for a time, floundered herself. But she had heard the story from Maggie Tremont, her best friend in town.

Jock (Maggie had told her) was like a god around Cape Willington. That might have been an overstatement, but it was hard to deny that Jock had put the place on the map, given it a face to the rest of the world. If nothing else, he had been for decades the town’s adventurous soul, its favorite son — though a somewhat immoral and often arrogant one, filled with the juice of life. He was not shy to claim his privilege, whatever that might be. For the past few years, that privilege extended to a primo parking spot in front of Duffy’s Diner every weekday morning and at around noontime, when Jock stopped in for a cheeseburger and a bowl of homemade chicken noodle soup. New in town and unaware of the etiquette that followed Jock around, Doc parked in that spot one morning and had promptly been warned by both Dolores, the waitress, and Juanita, who worked the counter. Doc listened but hadn’t moved his car; he wasn’t about to play that game.

When Jock walked in, stomping about and complaining loudly that his parking spot had been taken by some blasted out-of-towner, and that he had been forced to park almost a half block away — an inconceivable affront to his quasi-celebrity status — Doc calmly assumed responsibility and then proceeded to tell Jock, to the horror of all in listening range, that the parking spots in town were for the general public, available on a first-come-first-served basis, and that it was foolish and downright undemocratic to assume they could be reserved for any one individual. With that, he paid his check and left, leaving stunned diners and a sputtering, disbelieving Jock in his wake.

Once they got off on the wrong foot, it had never been set right. Jock took to getting up extra early so he could get to the diner before anyone else to claim his spot, and Doc let him have it, ambling in at his usual time, around eight. Jock usually sat at the counter, so Doc opted for the corner booth. Jock had his friends, so Doc found others. After that first meeting there had been few words between the two, and there had never been any overt confrontation, but it was clear they rubbed each other the wrong way.

So why was Doc so upset now?

With a start, Candy realized there was more to the story, something he hadn’t told her yet. She could see it in his eyes now; somehow she had missed it earlier, or misinterpreted it. Her mind lurched off in a different direction as she thought back over what Doc had said...

He took a nosedive off a cliff and fell to the rocks below... or at least that’s the official version...

She shuddered as she was struck by a horrendous thought.

“Dad... was it an accident or... did he jump?”

Doc’s gaze shifted toward her. “Suicide?”

Candy had the impression he was ready for the question but still held something back. She pressed on. “Well, it’s possible, isn’t it? Unless he was just trying to dive in. You know — doing something crazy. Maybe he had a few drinks in him and took it as a challenge.”

Doc shook his head. “Jock pushed the limits, but he wasn’t crazy.”

“Well, then he either fell by accident... or he jumped.”

But Doc wasn’t buying it. “That doesn’t make any sense. Jock was treated like a god around here. He never had a care in the world — got everything he wanted. No, pumpkin, I don’t think he jumped. I think the real question is, did he fall... or was he pushed?”