Town in a Wild Moose Chase (26 page)

Ninety minutes later, she sat in a small, bare conference room at the Cape Willington Police Department, sipping on a cup of bad coffee and wondering if she’d ever get out of here alive.

Doc was somewhere out front, in some waiting area, probably wondering what the hell had happened to her. She hadn’t seen him since they’d whisked her away to this windowless room—decorated only with a table, a few chairs, an American flag, and a black-and-white framed portrait of the president—once they’d found out what she’d discovered.

She’d already been through the story more times than she could count, including what she’d found out about Duncan Leggmeyer, and thought she’d done a pretty good job telling it all as correctly and honestly as possible, emphasizing the parts about how hard she’d tried to stay out of it. Whether they believed her or not—well, she just hoped for the best, and that it didn’t involve jail time.

Chief Daryl Durr sat across from her, arms on the table,
hands clasped together, and tie loosened, perhaps in an attempt to show her how he’d managed to remain calm and reasonable. He was the last of several interviewers, though they’d been more like a series of interrogators, she thought. They had started out gently enough, but each subsequent questioner had become a bit more accusatory. Despite a few tense moments, however, there’d been nothing she couldn’t handle. She’d worked for the better part of a decade within the chaotic world of start-up high-tech companies in Boston. This was a piece of cake, comparatively. At least these people were sane.

Well, mostly.

A uniformed policewoman stood near the door, arms folded behind her, apparently guarding the exit in case Candy should attempt a daring daylight escape. She had actually considered it more than once over the past hour or so. But she didn’t think she could make it all the way out the front door, so she reluctantly dismissed the idea.

Instead, she remained seated in her chair and took another sip of coffee, which was growing cold.

Chief Durr now gave her his full attention. He’d been distracted earlier and had been called out of the room a couple of times. Something was going on at the station, she sensed. But they apparently had no intention of telling her what it might be.

The chief leaned back in his chair, rubbing his hand across his chin. “Explain one more time this thing with the moose, Ms. Holliday. You say you followed it into the woods? And it led you to Solomon Hatch? How is that possible?”

It wasn’t, Candy explained, but it had happened nonetheless. It all had happened just as she’d told them over and over again, despite how strange it sounded, she emphasized.

He gave her an “uh-huh,” but she couldn’t tell what was going on behind those narrowed blue eyes of his.

He asked her again about the contents of the burlap bag.
Whether she’d touched any of the items. Turned on the phone. Looked into the wallet.

She answered as honestly as she could.

“Did you touch the hatchet?”

“I did, but only briefly—and with gloved fingers—to turn it over and read the inscription. Solomon touched it too, when he took it out of the bag and later when he put it back inside.”

“Did he alter the evidence in any way, that you know of?”

To the best of her knowledge, she said, he hadn’t.

They talked about Duncan Leggmeyer then, and what Candy had discovered about his hatchet-throwing championship. She hadn’t been able to find any corroborating evidence online for that particular event, but she did find several grainy, low-resolution images of Duncan throwing axes and hatchets at other competitions. It seemed to be a hobby of his. Apparently, he was sort of the mountain-man type, as in several of the images he had longer hair and a thick beard.

But why would he have killed Victor Templeton? With a hatchet he’d won as a trophy in a contest?

That’s what the police are trying to find out
, she reminded herself.

She had some ideas of her own, of course, but for the moment she thought it best if she suppressed those as much as possible. At least until she was out of the police station.

The chief turned his questions back to Solomon, which made perfect sense. The old hermit was obviously a significant player in this mystery. He had found the body, and the murder weapon, and had moved the body—twice. Candy could understand how his activities over the past few days might appear more than a little suspicious. But when the questions became accusatory, hinting at the possibility of something more sinister, including a possible collusion with Duncan, Candy drew the line.

“Solomon was an innocent participant in all this, and
that’s all,” she told the chief. “He stumbled on the body by accident and did the best he could to make sure it got back into the right hands. Maybe his decisions weren’t all within the boundaries of established law, but he did in his heart what he thought was right. You can’t fault him for that.”

To her surprise, the chief agreed with her. “No, I can’t,” he said, steepling his fingers together and peering at her like a hawk. “But we also can’t instantly dismiss him as a suspect. He’s too heavily involved. I suppose he told you about his incident years ago, didn’t he?”

“He mentioned it, but we didn’t talk about specifics.”

The chief lowered his arms and leaned forward, his voice dropping into a low, folksy cadence. “He had some legal problems with us many years ago—back in the seventies, I think it was. That was before I got here, but I’ve heard about it a few times over the years, and reviewed the files. It was a pretty sensational event at the time. A local girl—someone close to Solomon—was murdered. Initially he was a suspect. I think he might’ve even spent some time in jail. Not many in town rallied to his support, and I suppose it made him bitter about it, though most of that seems to have worn away over the years. He doesn’t seem to hold much of a grudge. Eventually he was cleared, but as you’ve seen, it’s affected him. He’s become a recluse, living out at the place he inherited, and he’s skittish around the police. I suppose that’s understandable behavior, given what he’s been through, and for the most part we’ve left him alone out there. Still, after what’s happened here recently, and with his history, it’s only reasonable to see if there’s a connection. I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t follow up on it.”

Candy understood, but clarified, “There’s no way he could have done anything to hurt that man.”

“I don’t disagree with you,” the chief said, “but it would be best for all parties if we could just get together with him, talk about it, and clear this up right away.”

“Yes, it would,” Candy said, “but I don’t think that’s going to happen. He said he was leaving the area, and he didn’t say where he was going.”

“Do you think you could find this cave of his again?”

She actually gave that some thought. It had crossed her mind a number of times since she’d walked out of the woods. Finally she shook her head. Again, she decided complete honesty was the best approach, but she phrased it in the language of the woods, mimicking something the old hermit had said.

“Anything’s possible,” she told the chief, “but it started snowing right after I got back to the farm. Those woods change a lot after a snowfall, you know. Even a little one. It makes everything look different.”

He wasn’t completely accepting of her cryptic answer, but there wasn’t much he could do about it.

After another ten minutes he ran out of questions. He rose, giving her a nod and an appreciative smile. A brief moment of understanding passed between them, and she sensed in him some admiration for what she’d done in locating the old hermit and the victim’s effects. For a moment he let down his guard and allowed a weary look to cross his face.

He’s probably had a rough weekend so far
, she thought.

And the weekend’s not even half over.

She had places to go and things to do, and it looked like the interview was done, but he had some parting words for her.

“We may need you to come back in tomorrow or Monday to clarify some points,” he told her. “I guess I don’t have to warn you to stay in the area. No crossing state lines or anything incriminating like that. And please, Ms. Holliday—Candy—try your very best to stay out of our investigation.”

She promised she would.

“And,” he continued, “if you hear of anything else—anything at all—call me immediately.” He reached into his shirt pocket and took out two cards. “One’s for me. One’s
for Officer McCroy. He’s still assigned to you, though he’s off on some godforsaken wild goose chase at the moment, which is just the kinda thing we don’t need right now. But he’ll be back a little later on. You need anything, you call one or both of us anytime. Got it?”

“Got it, Chief.”

With a sigh of resignation he let her go.

She felt like she’d just been released from the principal’s office.

Back in Doc’s truck, she let out a deep breath of her own and could hardly contain her relief. “Wow, what an ordeal.”

“You okay?” her father asked, sounding worried.

“Well, they refrained from beating me, if that’s what you mean. For a while there I wasn’t sure they were going to let me go.

“They were pretty hard on you, huh?”

Candy shrugged and looked out the window. “I don’t know. More than anything else, I was worried about missing my date with Ben tonight. And I was worried about you sitting out there in that drafty waiting room. But in some strange way, I was okay with all of it. It’s like I almost knew what to expect. I’m afraid I’m starting to get used to these sorts of things happening to me, Dad.”

It was a sobering thought. They were silent the rest of the way back to the farm.

Her cell phone buzzed as she climbed out of the cab, alerting her to unread messages. While Doc walked onto the porch and unlocked the front door, Candy flipped open her phone and clicked through to the proper screen.

Ben had called almost an hour ago. He’d left a message. And Maggie had texted her, reminding her to stop by the house to pick up her dress for the Moose Fest Ball that evening.

Needing a moment to collect her thoughts, she flipped the phone closed and looked up at the sky. It was still overcast, though the flurries had stopped. The clouds sunk low,
seeming to practically graze the tops of the trees in some places. They’d have more snow this evening. She could sense it in the air, which had a raw, almost sensual feel. Perfect weather for a winter ball.

But her mind couldn’t help wandering in other directions. She turned her head slightly, letting her gaze drift down from the sky, to her left, falling to the tree line on the ridge at the far side of the blueberry field behind the house.

The chief had sent more officers into the woods this afternoon, she’d heard, but she doubted they’d find anything. Solomon was probably long gone by now. They’d recovered the body and knew there was only one, that of Victor Templeton. They had the murder weapon. Any incriminating footprints or tracks around the murder scene had been covered up by… someone or something, according to Solomon. Candy guessed the old hermit had also covered his own tracks on the way out of town, to avoid detection and to ensure no one could follow him, wherever he’d gone. The items taken from the body had been retrieved and delivered to the proper authorities. Both she and Solomon had done their parts.

And yet, she couldn’t help feeling that it wasn’t over yet—at least, not for her.

She thought back over the items Solomon had laid out on the table in front of her. A wallet. Car keys. A cell phone. A brass hotel room key…

How many hotels around here still use keys like that?
she wondered.

Almost immediately she thought of someone who might know.

Maggie had worked at Gumm’s Hardware Store on Main Street all last summer and fall, until she’d switched jobs and taken the counter position at the dry cleaner’s, which paid her an extra fifty cents an hour. She’d loved working for Mr. Gumm but had needed the extra few dollars a day. She’d
even cried on his shoulder when she left. He threw her a party. Maggie had loved it.

She might know something about hotel room keys.

It was worth a try, Candy thought. She needed to head over there anyway to pick up the dress for the ball. So she told Doc she was running out on a quick errand, jumped into the Jeep, and drove over to Maggie’s place at Fowler’s Corner.

She found Maggie sitting in a tastefully decorated room tucked into the back corner of her two-story, green gabled house. It had once been a playroom for Amanda, Maggie’s daughter, but over the years it had morphed into a family room and an office, a place where Amanda did homework and Maggie sewed on quiet evenings. When Amanda left for college, Maggie transformed it again into a cozy work space and retreat for herself. Here, she kept her small collection of business and community awards and mementos, mostly from her days at the Stone & Milbury Insurance Agency, along with her burgeoning collection of salt and pepper shakers, a small library of mystery and romance novels, a variety of scented candles of all shapes and sizes, a few hand-painted miniatures of lighthouses, and plenty of photos of Amanda, Amanda’s boyfriend Cameron, and other family members and friends, including several of Maggie and Candy together, taken over the past few years.