Town in a Lobster Stew

Twenty-Two

Thirty minutes later, she stood at the back basement door of the Pruitt Opera House.

Candy reached out and tentatively turned the door handle. It was unlocked, just as Cinnamon Girl said it would be. She pushed open the door, peered inside, and couldn’t help giving a last look back over her shoulder, just to make sure.

She’d parked the Jeep on the far side of the lot, near the stage door. Finn was crouched down in the backseat, hidden from view. She absently touched the black button mic attached to a bra strap and, with the other hand, tapped the transmitter tucked into her back pocket. The wire snaked around her body inside her blouse. She just hoped the little spy gadget worked the way Finn said it would.

They had tested it out a few times around Finn’s place before they left. Finn had gone upstairs and outside to determine its range. It seemed to work fine.

Still, Candy was nervous. She knew she might be overreacting, creating villains when there were none, but after what had happened the last time, she didn’t want to take any chances. She just hoped she wouldn’t need Finn’s help at all — that whoever this Cinnamon Girl was, she (or he) was legit, and nonthreatening.

Taking a deep breath, she walked inside, letting the door close behind her. She entered a darkened hallway, illuminated by dim off-hours lighting. Still, she could see the way ahead clearly enough. The long hallway was deserted.

Before she took a step forward, she instinctively looked down.

She’d visited Town Hall several times in the past year or so but always entered by the main door upstairs. The last time she’d been in this hallway, on a stormy night ten months ago, she’d seen wet footprints tracked across the floor — a tip-off she should have paid more attention to. But today there were no footprints of any kind, no sound, no movements — nothing to indicate anyone had been this way recently.

She’d brought a flashlight with her, just in case, in a black canvas shoulder bag she used sometimes for work. She liked it because she could flip the bag back behind her when she didn’t need it, so it stayed out of the way, and it was large enough to carry all the notepads, files, pens, business cards, water bottles, and other work-related items she needed, plus a digital tape recorder, an address book, and her cell phone. Today, it also carried a flashlight.

She pulled out the flashlight and held it low, though she didn’t flick it on yet, and started forward, walking as quietly as possible. She wore tennis shoes, and at times they squeaked on the tiled floor. But she found she could minimize the squeaks by walking on the sides of her feet. Cautiously, and a bit awkwardly, she crept forward and soon reached the end of the corridor.

Just as she’d done on that night ten months ago, she turned right into another long corridor. It too was dimly lit. At the far end, she knew, was a stairwell that led to the upper floor. That’s where she was headed.

She moved more quickly now, not wanting to linger any longer than she had to, passing by the closed doors of a number of offices, many of them leased by the town. Near the end of the hall, on the left, was the town council’s office, reserved for the use of the council chairman and selectmen. Since last November’s election, the office had had a new occupant, Mason Flint, a retired schoolteacher who’d been a selectman and chairman of the finance committee before becoming council chairman. He’d won the position not only because of his experience in local politics, but also because he promised to improve tourism and bring stability to the town. Candy had met him a couple of times. He seemed like a nice fellow, and so far his tenure had been uneventful.

Still, the office also held unwanted memories for Candy, so she hurried past the closed door without stopping.

As she reached the end of the hall, she turned left and pushed through a door to a dark staircase. The last time she’d been here, she’d dashed up these stairs two at a time in near panic, but now she started up them more cautiously, one at a time, peering upward as she went. But the stairwell, like the hallways, was empty.

At the top of the stairs she turned left, pushing through another set of doors, and entered a long hallway with faded red carpeting that ran along the entire right side of the auditorium. It sloped gently downward to her right and eventually led through another door to the backstage area. Candy briefly considered heading along the hall in that direction but decided against it. Instead, she stepped straight across the hall and pulled open another door, which led into the auditorium itself.

The elaborately decorated auditorium of the Pruitt Opera House seated three hundred and fifty people in clothupholstered seats, but tonight it was empty, like the rest of the building. It was a great, oddly hushed space that held its own special memories for her. A few lights had been left on high in the ceiling and under the balcony, which loomed above her on her left. The stage was down to her right. The main house curtain, she noticed, was open.

That’s good, she thought. At least it won’t be too dark backstage.

She hesitated before she moved on. She thought of checking the audio device to make sure it was working but realized it made no difference, since she had no earpiece and couldn’t hear Finn. It was only one-way audio. Well, she thought, I’m not in the FBI or anything like that. I don’t have access to the latest high-tech gear. This is just amateur detecting. So, she told herself, go ahead and detect. Get on with it.

She turned right and headed down the side aisle, which sloped downward toward the front of the auditorium.

As she walked, she listened, but she could hear nothing except her own soft footsteps and her own breathing. Even the traffic outside on Ocean Avenue and the Coastal Loop was almost inaudible in here. Horace Roberts Pruitt, the grandfather of Cornelius, had built the opera house well, with thick walls and architectural techniques designed to insulate the building against exterior noise.

Candy slowed, her gaze moving back and forth, as she approached the stage. An eight-foot pit area stretched before the first-row seats, and steps led up to the stage itself. She hesitated only briefly before climbing the steps.

Slowly she crossed toward center stage, feeling strangely vulnerable. Hearing an errant creak from the auditorium, she turned on her heels and looked out over the sea of seats, then up toward the balcony, then back to the wings on either side of her, where she saw nothing but shadows among the side curtains.

She turned to face the rear of the stage, where a long, closed curtain hid the backstage area from her view. She took a few tentative steps toward the rear curtain, still looking back and forth, her eyes watching for any sign of movement. “Hello? Anyone here?” she called softly. She paused and listened for a reply but heard nothing.

“Hello?” she called again. “Cinnamon Girl?”

As she reached the rear curtain, she turned to look into the shadows in the right and left wings.

Did something move there?

She saw it then, to her left — a flickering light, briefly, as if signaling to her.

“Hello?” she called a third time, though now her voice was more of a whisper. She took a few steps in that direction.

A light flashed in her eyes. She stopped abruptly.

Just as quickly as it had come, the light disappeared. A low, indistinct voice spoke from the shadows. “Over here.”

“Is that you?”

No response.

Hesitantly, Candy took a few steps toward the shadows of the left wing, where the voice had come from. As she drew closer, the voice spoke again. “Back here.”

This time, she decided it definitely sounded like a woman’s voice.

She let out a breath. She hadn’t realized she’d been holding it in.

Candy reached the wing and peered deeper into the shadows, but she could see nothing. “Where are you?”

“Back here.”

The voice, low and muffled, had come from her right. She thought of flicking on the flashlight she still held but hesitated. She didn’t want to spook Cinnamon Girl, so for the moment she left it off. But she tightened her grip on it, her thumb resting on the switch, ready to flick it on at the first sign of trouble.

But she didn’t need it. The other light flicked on at that moment, shining at her feet. “This way,” the voice said, drawing her on.

Candy took a step or two forward. “Who are you? What information do you have?”

“Closer.” The voice sounded mysterious but not menacing.

So Candy moved closer. The light still shone on the floor at her feet, creating a path for her, guiding her along. She stepped around a few pieces of scenery, a pile of stacked chairs, a wooden table behind the rear curtain.

She could make out the shape of the person now, standing about twelve feet in front of her, though she could see no distinct features. The tall, thick stage curtains on either side of them muffled most sounds, but she thought she could hear the other person breathing.

As she approached, the flashlight’s beam swung away and then flicked off. The two of them stood silently for a moment, facing each other in semidarkness.

Candy squinted, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the dim light. She cleared her throat. “Okay, so here I am. What did you want to tell me?”

“It’s simple,” the shadow said. “There’s something fishy going on in this town, and it has nothing to do with lobster stew.”

Candy considered that. “So what do you think is going on?”

“I think,” the shadowy figure said in a low voice, “that one of the cooks yesterday was using a recipe stolen from Wilma Mae Wendell.”

“What makes you say that?” Candy asked, immediately suspicious. She had told only a few people about the stolen recipe, though it was possible Wilma Mae herself had let her guard down and mentioned it to someone at the cook-off. Still, Candy didn’t want to give anything away — at least not yet.

The shadow was silent for a few moments. Then the voice said gruffly, “She asked you to find it for her, didn’t she?”

“Find what?”

A sound of exasperation leaked out of the shadow. “The lobster stew recipe. The one Mr. Sedley used to win the cook-off all those years. He gave it to Wilma Mae, and she’s been keeping it for him. But someone stole it from her place — sometime this week, is my guess. So now she’s got you looking for it, right?”

Candy took a small step forward, her thumb still resting on the flashlight’s switch. “How do you know all this?”

“Ha!” the shadow said, ignoring Candy’s question. “I knew it! I was right!” After a moment of gloating, the shadow continued. “There’s something else. Yesterday, at the cook-off, someone interfered with the judging.”

That gave Candy a jolt. She felt her uneasiness return as she recalled a similar episode that had occurred ten months earlier — an episode that ended in murder.

“So who interfered?” she asked.

“Me,” the shadow answered.

Candy crept forward another step, her senses sharpening. “What’s going on? Is this some sort of joke?”

“It’s no joke. It’s deadly serious.”

Considering what she had discovered yesterday, Candy couldn’t disagree. She took another step forward. “How do you know so much?”

“Because I was there yesterday, at the cook-off. I saw what went on. But it turned out all wrong. That’s the problem. And now Mr. Sedley’s dead. That’s an even bigger problem. And I’ve been trying to figure out the connection between the two. I’ve unraveled some of it, but I can’t do it all on my own. You have the answers I need. That’s why I contacted you.”

Candy’s curiosity surged. She inched forward another step as she squinted into the darkness, trying to get a better look at Cinnamon Girl’s face. She thought she could dimly make out some of the features. “Who are you?” she asked again, this time drawing out the words.

When the figure didn’t answer, Candy decided she’d had enough. In a quick, precise movement, she raised her flashlight, flicked on the switch, and aimed the beam directly in Cinnamon Girl’s face.

It looked oddly grotesque in the harsh light, all sharp angles and unflattering lines. But there was no mistaking the identity of the person standing in the shadows backstage at the Pruitt Opera House.

Just as she’d suspected. “Wanda Boyle.”