Candy knew instantly what it was. The note Sapphire left for Ray, asking him to come to her house that night-the night she was murdered.
So Ray had been telling the truth about the note too. More proof that he was probably innocent.
Which meant, as Maggie said a few days earlier, the real killer could still be lurking somewhere around Cape Willington.
That thought gave Candy a chill. Suddenly spooked, she put the note back on the shelf, right where she had found it, and climbed back down the ladder. She started off through the trees toward the house, all the while looking around her, expecting at any moment to be ambushed by the real killer. But if there really was such a person, he or she wasn’t hiding in these woods.
Half walking, half running, she passed through the field, circled the house, and climbed into the Jeep. She panicked for a moment when she thought she had lost her keys but found them in her back pocket. “Candy, stop trying to scare yourself,” she muttered as she started up the engine. But as a precaution she made sure all the doors were locked. Then, tires spinning and shooting up clouds of dust and gravel, she whipped the Jeep around and sped back to Blueberry Acres.
She was grateful to see Doc’s truck parked in the driveway. He was out behind the house on the lawn tractor, mowing the yard. Candy waved to him and he waved back, thinking she was just saying hello. When she waved more frantically, he shut down the mower. “What’s wrong?”
“I found Ray’s fort!” she called to him. “And his hammer. I’m calling the police.”
That brought Doc running. He followed her inside and paced impatiently around the kitchen as she called the police station. She talked directly to Daryl Durr, Cape Willington ’s chief of police, and told him what she had found. She agreed to meet him back at Ray’s place in ten minutes.
“Come on,” she said to Doc. Candy was too nervous to drive, so they climbed into Doc’s truck and off they went, down to River Road and across to the Loop at the opposite end of the Cape, then out of town to Ray’s place.
It took the better part of an hour for the police to search the tree house, since they had to conduct a thorough investigation. The hammer, Sapphire’s note, and other items they deemed important went into paper evidence bags. After that, they searched the surrounding woods as well as the inside of Ray’s house again and questioned Candy at length. Chief Durr frowned when he heard her story. “What were you doing out here in the first place?” he asked in a gruff tone. She had thought about how she was going to answer that, knowing she would be asked, and decided it was best just to tell the truth-that she heard that Ray had mentioned something about a fort, and she set out to find it.
“Well, it seems we have some loose lips around the station,” the chief said angrily. “You’re aware that this is an official police investigation, Miss Holliday? And that what you’ve done is completely out of line? Not to mention dangerous?”
“Yes, I realize that,” Candy said contritely, “but I just wanted to help. Ray’s our friend. I knew he couldn’t have killed Sapphire Vine.”
“Well, you did the right thing in calling us right away. This does shed some new light on the situation.” The chief looked over as one of his sergeants walked past with the evidence bags. Then his gaze shot back to Candy.
“We’ll take a look at what we’ve got and reassess the case.” He leveled a finger at her. “But I’ll have no more interference from you, ya hear? Your investigating days are over, right?”
“Um, yes, Chief Durr.”
He held her gaze for a few moments, trying to intimidate her with his stare, then turned away. “Well, all right then. I’ll let you off the hook this time. Besides, I’ve got more important things to do than lecture you. Seems like all hell is breaking loose in this town.” He shook his head and frowned. “We’ve got your statement, so you can head back home. We’ll call you if I need anything else.”
“What about Ray?” Doc asked. “He can go free now, right?”
Chief Durr shook his head. “That’s up to a judge to decide. He’ll hear the evidence in the morning, or maybe this afternoon if we can hook up with him. Can’t make any promises, though.”
“But you have the evidence right there that he didn’t do it,” Candy persisted. “It was Ned Winetrop’s hammer that killed Sapphire-not Ray’s. He deserves to be let go.”
“Well, now, we have to go by the book on this one. Got a lot of people watching how we handle this thing. We’re not a bunch of hicks, you know. We’ve got procedures to follow.”
“You gonna pick up Ned Winetrop?” Doc asked.
Chief Durr scratched the back of his head and scowled. “You know I can’t comment on that officially, Doc… but unofficially, sure, we’ll pick him up and bring him down to the station for questioning. That’s all you’ll get out of me today, though. You folks head back home now. There’s nothing else to do, and I’m in no mood to be quizzed anymore on our procedures.”
Candy hesitated. She wanted to say more, to know more. But Doc, sensing Chief Durr’s building annoyance and his daughter’s exasperating stubbornness, put his arm around her shoulder. “Come on, Sherlock,” he said, steering her away from the police chief. “You’ve done all you can do here. Let’s go home.”