Town in a Lobster Stew

Thirty-Nine

“I see you’ve found it. I’d wondered where she put it. The silly woman was trying to hide it from me.”

His voice was surprisingly calm as he took a few steps into the shed. The fog seemed to cling to him, as if reluctant to let him escape its grasp. He wore a black jacket, gray shirt, and dark slacks. He also wore gloves, Candy noticed.

“Why don’t you set that ledger right back down on the desk,” Roger instructed her, “and step away from it.” He swung the gun toward Bob. “Both of you. Back over that way.” He motioned toward the workbench.

When they both hesitated, stunned by his sudden appearance, his face abruptly turned dark and his eyes lashed out at them, full of ferocity. “Now!” he shouted, jabbing at them with the gun. They both jumped. Bob sprang out of his chair as if bitten by a spider, and Candy quickly shuffled sideways, dropped the ledger on the desk as Roger had instructed, and moved away.

Side by side, she and Bob backed up, toward the side workbench. Both of them held their hands up in the air, even though Roger hadn’t asked them to. It seemed appropriate, and was more instinct than anything, especially when facing down the barrel of the metal gray pistol he held. They were both too shocked to speak.

Roger’s face had returned to its previous calm state, his sudden burst of anger gone as quickly as it had appeared. His eyes, though, were bright and glassy, with thin pinpricks of light shining out, as if lit from within. When he was satisfied they were a safe distance away, he strode purposefully across the shed, keeping the gun loosely pointed in their direction. He stopped in front of the desk, let out a visible sound of relief, and slowly reached out toward the ledger, as if it were some great talisman he had found only after a long, arduous quest.

“So here it is at last,” he said, taking it in a gloved hand. He studied its cover, then used his thumb to flip it open and read the first page. Satisfied, he closed it again and turned toward Candy and Bob.

“I’m sorry to put you though all this,” he said, sounding genuinely concerned. “It wasn’t supposed to be this difficult. It was a simple arrangement. I paid Charlotte — ”

“You paid Charlotte?” Candy cut in.

Roger looked slightly annoyed at the interruption. His mouth twitched at the edges. “As I said, we had an arrangement. She would acquire the ledger, she would take that recipe she wanted, and then I would get the ledger, with everything else in it.”

“Why, Roger?” Candy asked, her curiosity getting the better of her. “What’s in that ledger that makes it so important?”

“Information,” he said after considering her question for a few moments. “Valuable information.”

“And that made it worth everything you’ve done — including murder?”

He gave her a hard look.

When he didn’t answer, she went on. “You killed Charlotte, didn’t you?”

In response, he reached into his jacket pocket. He pulled something out, glanced at it, and tossed it toward Bob. It hit the maintenance man in the chest. He flinched and fumbled for it but couldn’t grab hold of it, and it clattered to the floor between Bob and Candy.

It was a roll of dark green fishing line.

“Does that answer your question? I borrowed that from your boyfriend,” Roger said to Candy, allowing a trace of mockery to enter his voice. “Ben’s a very trusting fellow, you know — and not as observant as you’d expect for a newspaper man. He never noticed it was missing from his tackle box. Of course, he’s had other things on his mind this weekend — like that old man’s murder... and, of course, you.”

“What?” Candy wasn’t sure she’d heard him correctly.

Roger almost laughed at her expression. “You heard me right. He likes you a lot, you know. He talks about you all the time — even when everyone else around him gets tired of hearing about you. But at least it was a way for me to keep up with what you’ve been doing around town the past few days. You’ve been quite active, I’ve heard. Interviewing that old woman. Searching for her recipe. Judging the cook-off with me. Finding the body. Getting that promotion — oh yes, I heard about that too. Ben has been a perfect gentleman at spilling all the secrets about your investigation. Of course, he had no idea what he was doing — or who he was spilling his secrets to,” Roger added with a slight grin.

Candy gasped, suddenly angry. “You’ve been using him.”

“And setting him up,” Bob added, looking down at the fishing line.

“Of course I have.” Roger flashed his white teeth as his grin grew. “What are friends for?”

Candy couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “You betrayed him? But I thought — ”

“What, that we were friends? That’s what he thinks. But we never were. He was a family friend of sorts, and I met him a few times in college. The rest is a fabrication I’ve nurtured over the years, hoping I could tap into it someday. And it looks like today is the day.”

“But why kill Charlotte?” Candy asked. “What did she ever do to you?”

Roger’s face turned dark again. “She went back on our deal, that’s why.”

“Because she realized you betrayed her too?”

Roger glared at her. “You’re smarter than you look. How did you figure that out?”

“Something Oliver told me earlier today. He said Charlotte was furious with him when she didn’t win the cook-off, and confronted him. She kept saying, He promised, he promised. She was referring to you, wasn’t she? You promised her she’d win that contest — and then you went back on your deal. You made sure she lost, even though she was using Mr. Sedley’s recipe.”

At that, Roger chuckled. “Well, yes, it’s true. I thought it’d be fun to play with her a little. You know the old saying: you can’t always get what you want.”

“You purposely dismissed that recipe — and you placed that bowl of stew in front of Wilma Mae too, didn’t you? Because you wanted to get rid of her. You didn’t want her campaigning for Mr. Sedley’s stew.”

“I admit, it was a last-minute decision,” Roger said. “I didn’t completely know what I’d be facing until I arrived at the inn that morning. But it seemed a little too troubling to have Charlotte using that old man’s recipe, and that old woman as a judge. I had to defuse the situation — so I improvised. Oliver helped. He told me the number of Charlotte’s stew. He said it had been compromised.” Roger shrugged. “It was easy.”

“So you got Wilma Mae out of the way, and you made sure someone other than Charlotte won.”

Roger gave her a sly smile. “From what I understand, I wasn’t the only one who was trying to influence the outcome of that contest. The entire judging process was tainted — as you probably know, I’m guessing.”

Candy indeed knew. She pressed on. “So why kill Charlotte? What did she threaten to do to you?”

“Oh, she made plenty of threats,” Roger said, his smile disappearing. “That woman could get her fur up when she was mad. She was incensed when she lost the contest. She threatened to destroy the ledger, so I’d never get it. She used it as leverage.”

“You made another deal with her, didn’t you?” Candy surmised. “What did you offer her?”

Roger let out a grunt. “What she wanted.”

“And what was that?” Candy asked.

“She wanted to get out of this two-bit town, if you must know. She wanted a more prestigious job, possibly at some museum in Boston or New York. I told her I had a few connections, I’d pull a few strings for her. And, of course, I offered her more money.”

“And the handover was supposed to take place at that picnic area up along the English River, wasn’t it?”

“She was supposed to have the ledger with her,” Roger confirmed, “but of course she didn’t. She said she’d hidden it away where I’d never find it. She said she wanted double the amount we agreed on. Apparently she’d read through the ledger and knew what was in it.”

“So you killed her,” Bob cut in, his face twisting in anger.

“I’d just left Ben’s place. I didn’t bring my fishing gear with me on the trip up here, so I borrowed some from him. I had it in the trunk. And I’d stuck the fishing line in my pocket, just in case I had to use it. Turns out it was a little messier than I thought. Good thing I was wearing gloves.”

“And for what? That damned ledger?” Bob asked incredulously. He inched forward. It was clear he was having thoughts of rushing Roger, maybe trying to overtake him. But Roger waved the gun at him.

“Stay right where you are. And yes, because of the ledger. Charlotte was the one who brought it to our attention, you know. I only found out about it recently. She said she’d heard rumors about what was in it — and I’m not talking about the recipe. Apparently Old Man Sedley let a few secrets slip when he was volunteering around this place.”

“Like what?” Candy asked, unable to contain herself. “What’s in that ledger that’s worth murdering someone?”

“If you must know,” Roger said, his gaze narrowing on her, “Sedley wrote down a few things back in the forties that are very important to my family. But that’s all you need to know for now. I met with Charlotte a few weeks ago, and we put our plan together. I agreed to fund the operation — and I helped her out by driving a willing participant her way.”

“Robbie!” Bob burst out, suddenly seething. “You tricked my son!”

Roger turned toward him, regarding him as if he were a bellboy at a hotel. “He was very helpful,” Roger confirmed. “He played right into our hands — no pun intended.”

“So you brought a ringer into one of your games to clean out Robbie, and then what?” Candy asked.

“Then we waited. It was only a matter of time. Eventually, we figured, Robbie would tell Bob — ”

“And Bob would tell someone around the museum, and eventually Charlotte would get involved and make him an offer,” Candy finished.

“Now we’re getting to it,” Roger said, sounding very pleased with himself. “It was all too easy. But in the end, it wasn’t easy, was it?” He looked at Bob. “You fell for it right away, just like you were supposed to, didn’t you, Bob? Just like we’d planned. You were supposed to steal that ledger for us, get the money for your son, which of course came right back to me, and then go away. But you had second thoughts. And look what happened. Two people died.”

“You can’t pin this on me, Sykes,” Bob said.

“Oh, but I can. And I will. It took me a while to figure it out myself, but there’s a perfect way to do it.” He pointed toward the fishing line. “The evidence is right there. And it’s in your shed, Bob. The police will surmise you took the fishing line from Ben, or maybe not. I’m sure you have other rolls of fishing line around here. It doesn’t matter. The point is, you had every reason to kill Charlotte — and James Sedley. You had a motive to do what Charlotte wanted, and then you put her out of her misery. Or, at least, that’s what the police will think. You did it because of the money and your son’s gambling debts. Didn’t you, Bob?”

The maintenance man could barely contain his anger. “You know I didn’t.”

“It’s only fitting, you know,” Roger continued, “since if you had just done your job the way you were supposed to and stolen that recipe yourself, Old Man Sedley and Charlotte might both still be alive. But somehow she screwed up the theft — veered from the plan, entered on the wrong side of the building or something stupid like that. And she got caught. And... well, we all know the rest, don’t we?”

“You can’t blame this on anyone but yourself,” Candy said.

Roger turned back to look at her. “It doesn’t really matter anymore, does it? What’s done is done. Now it’s just a matter of cleaning up some loose ends.”

“Like us?” Bob asked.

“Like you,” Roger confirmed. “It’s fairly simple from here.” He looked back out over his shoulder. “We’re headed to the tower, Bob. You’ve got the keys, right?”