Town In a Lobster Stew (37 page)

Candy let out a quick breath. She felt her eyes begin to water.

She’d finally found what she’d been looking for all this time.

It was Mr. Sedley’s ledger, hidden away here in Bob Bridges’s maintenance shed.

She looked up in sudden shock. Her heart thumped again in her chest, more powerfully than before. She felt her blood turn cold. She teetered unsteadily, almost tumbling from the workbench.

Someone was at the door. She could hear the padlock rattling outside. The click of the key in the lock sounded as clearly as if it’d been positioned just inches from her ear. She heard the lock slipping away from the metal door handles, heard the hinges creak as the doors were pulled open. “Who left the lights on in here?” a voice muttered as a dark figure strode into the shed.

Candy gasped.

Bob Bridges stopped in his tracks, his head swiveling toward her.

A look of complete confusion clouded his face for a few moments as he studied her, trying to figure out what he was looking at. His gaze shifted briefly to the ledger, which she still held in her hand, and then upward again as their eyes locked.

A scowl came to his face. “What are
you
doing in here?”

Candy couldn’t move. She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t speak.

She’d been caught red-handed!

Bob Bridges took a few steps toward her, his face flush, his eyes hardened and accusing. “You shouldn’t be in here. What do you think you’re doing up there?” He leveled a finger at her. “Get down from there right now,” he said angrily.

Candy instinctively jumped and let out a yelp, but she had no intention of doing as he asked. “Stay away from me, Bob,” she said, holding out one hand toward him. Her heart thumped in her chest as she twisted her head back and forth, searching desperately for an escape. But there was only one way out—the shed’s double doors.

And right now, Bob Bridges stood between her and freedom.

As he came toward her another few steps, she moved away from him, along the top of the workbench to her left, slipping sideways like a crab, toward a back corner of the shed. She kept her eyes on Bob, not on her footing. As she moved, she knocked over a neat stack of illustrated workbooks and nearly tripped. One of the books slid off the workbench onto the floor, landing with a slam.

Bob gave her a distressed look. “Hey, don’t mess anything up!”

“Just stay away!” she yelled back at him with all the force she could muster. “Don’t come any closer. I know what you’ve been up to.”

He gave her a quizzical look. “Now what the hell does that mean?”

“You know exactly what it means.” Candy glanced back over her shoulders, looking for a weapon. She’d reached an area of the long workbench where he kept woodworking tools. She spotted a variety of blue-handled chisels, arranged according to size, hanging on the pegboard against the wall. She grabbed the longest one and brandished it like a knife. “Just back away and no one will get hurt!”

Bob stopped dead in his tracks. He held up two hands. “Hey, hey, calm down.”

Candy looked around frantically. Her gaze settled on the double doors again.
If I could just get there before he does
. . .

Bob had shifted his position, shadowing her as she moved along the bench toward the back of the shed.
There might be a chance
, she thought,
if I can just slip past him.

Moving quickly before she had a chance to reconsider, she ran back along the top of the workbench toward the other end. But about halfway along she sprang off, holding the ledger tightly against her chest with one hand and the chisel in the other. She angled her jump in the direction of the door, hoping it would cut her travel time to the outside. But she landed awkwardly, since she couldn’t use her hands to balance herself properly, and it took her a few moments to recover her footing.

By the time she’d regained her balance, the compact physique of Bob Bridges was blocking her path.

And he didn’t look like he was about to let her pass.

Candy pulled to a stop, her feet slipping slightly underneath her. She scrambled backwards, holding out the woodworking tool. “Just stay where you are. Remember, I have a chisel and I know how to use it.”

“I know you got a damn chisel in your hands. I can see the thing pretty clearly from here,” Bob growled, flicking his gaze from the weapon to her face and back again. “Don’t you go hurting anyone with that thing now, especially yourself. I just sharpened it the other day.”

“Well . . . that’s good then. At least you know what you’ll get if you take another step.”

Bob’s head tilted oddly, as a dog might if it heard a high-pitched sound. “Hell, I don’t know what’s got into you,” he said in a mystified tone. “You’ve been coming around here the last few days, snooping around and causing trouble, and now you’re breaking into the facilities, stealing things, and threatening me with my own damned chisel. What the heck do you want?”

“I just want to get out of here,” Candy said. She retreated a few more steps, until the workbench poked her in the back.

“Well, okay,” Bob said. “Just take it easy now. No one’s gonna hurt you.”

Candy wasn’t fooled. “Yeah, I bet that’s what you told the others, huh, Bob?”

Again, he gave her a strange look. “Others? What are you talking about?”

“I saw the tarpaulin. Or at least one exactly like it. And the fishing line. I know all about those.”

“About what?” His gaze shifted to the neatly folded tarp in the back corner, giving Candy the chance she needed to try for the door again. She scooted to her left, then her right, and dashed forward, headed around him, moving as quickly as she could. But he moved quickly too, shuffling across the floor, blocking the exit again. “Hey, you’re not getting away yet.”

She yelped again and retreated. “Stay back, Bob.”

“Look, I’m not playing games.”

“Neither am I. Let me go,” she said warily, watching him in case he charged her.

“Okay, you can go,” he said, “but you can’t take that with you.” He indicated the ledger, which she still held tightly against her. “That belongs to the museum. You’ll have to leave it here.”

“Leave it here?” Candy nearly shouted the words as anger mixed with the fear and panic inside her. “It’s not yours. You stole it!”

At this accusation, he looked more annoyed than anything else. “Quit goofing around and put it back.”

Candy clutched the ledger tighter to her chest. “I’m not goofing around. And I’m not giving it back. It doesn’t belong to you.”

“Of course it belongs to me.” Bob sounded irritated now. “You found it in my shed, didn’t you?”

“That’s right. I found it in
your
shed, Bob. What are you doing with it?”

“Oh hell, I don’t know.” He squinted at the object. But he couldn’t see its cover clearly, since she still held it tightly in her arm. “What the hell is it, anyway? It looks like some sort of book or something.”

“You know perfectly well what it is. It’s the ledger, Bob. The one written by Mr. Sedley.”

“Sedley?” At the mention of the name, Bob’s brow fell dramatically.

“That’s right. He gave it to Wilma Mae Wendell for safekeeping, but you stole it from her, didn’t you?”

Bob finally seemed to understand what was going on. His face went pale. “It’s Old Man Sedley’s?” he asked after a moment, as if the realization had only just hit him. He shifted his gaze to the ledger, studying it. Suddenly he straightened and walked forward, holding out his hand. “Here, let me have a look at that.”

Candy darted off to one side again, out of his reach. “Just stay back.”

“Look here now,” he said, planting his feet and putting his hands on his hips. “I’ve had just about enough of this. Maybe you should tell me what’s going on, so we both know.”

Something in his tone made the fear, panic, and anger inside Candy suddenly dissipate. She still stood warily in a combative stance, and she still held the blue-handled chisel out in front of her. But she was looking more closely at Bob now. She was starting to realize that something was not as it seemed. “You mean you don’t know?”

“Know what?”

“About the ledger.” For some reason she couldn’t explain, she held it out in front of her, so he could see its cover. “
This
ledger. It was stolen from Wilma Mae’s house last week. You took it, didn’t you, and hid it up there on that shelf.” She pointed.

“No, I didn’t,” he retorted.

“But I found it there.”

“Well, I don’t remember putting it up there.”

“Don’t remember?” Candy was flabbergasted. “How could you not remember something like this? You obviously take really good care of things around here, Bob. You even arranged the tools alphabetically.”

“And by category and size,” Bob put in.

“Right, by category and size,” Candy repeated, though she hadn’t noticed that. “So how come you don’t remember putting this ledger up on that shelf?”

Bob’s confusion grew. He tilted his head again and scratched thoughtfully at his chin. “Well, now, that’s a darn good question.”

Now Candy was confused. “What do you mean?”

“What I mean is, you’re right. I know everything that’s in this shed. I know exactly where I put things. I even have a map that shows where I’ve placed every item, and a complete inventory of all the museum’s equipment. But I don’t remember ever putting a ledger up on that shelf. And I certainly don’t remember stealing it from Wilma Mae’s house.”

He paused, his face shifting, becoming more thoughtful. “But I think I know who did.” He held out a hand. “May I see it?” He paused. “Please?”

Candy held it tightly a few more moments, uncertain of what to do. But something in his tone made her trust him. He seemed more curious now than threatening. “Just remember,” she said, “I have a chisel.”

“I remember.” He still held out his hand.

Hesitantly, she extended her arm and gave him the ledger.

He took it carefully, drew it closer, and examined its cover. “If this is what I think it is . . .”

He opened to the first page and read the inscription. Grunting softly, he flipped back through a few pages. “It is Old Man Sedley’s, isn’t it?” He shook his head, deep in thought. “I can’t believe she actually did it.”

Candy knew instantly who he was talking about. “Charlotte! She took it, didn’t she?”

He looked up at her. “You know about that?”

Candy nodded. “I’ve heard things about Charlotte, yes. But honestly I don’t know what to believe. Or who to believe. So why don’t you tell me. What’s going on here, Bob?”

Suddenly he seemed very weary. He closed the cover of the ledger, looked over at his desk, and crossed to it. He flopped down heavily in the office chair, set the ledger on the desktop, and rubbed at his forehead with thick fingers. “I never should’ve got myself mixed up with her in the first place.”

“You were helping her, weren’t you? That’s why you stole the ledger for her?”

“Stole it?” Bob shook his head, his eyes hard again. “I keep telling you, but you’re not listening. I didn’t steal it.” He paused, and his face drew down into a long mask of regret. “But she wanted me to.”

“She did?” Candy took a few steps toward him. “She asked you to steal it?”

“More than that,” Bob said. “We made a deal.”

“What kind of a deal?”

When he hesitated, she spoke again, coaxing him. “Two people are dead. You need to tell me everything you know. Then we need to go to the police.”

He placed his hands on his knees and sighed. “Well, I guess you’re right. It’s just . . .” He paused again. “Well, there are other people involved.”

“Like who?”

At that question, Bob suddenly looked ill. “Like my son Robbie.”

“It’s that boy that got us into this,” Bob said, a pained expression on his face. “And those damned poker games of his.”