Manhattans & Murder

by Jessica Fletcher

  “I couldn’t do that,” I said. I knew what she was getting at. Books are sold to stores on a consignment basis, one of the few industries left that operates that way. A store can send back for full credit any book it doesn’t sell unless, of course, it’s been signed.

  The publicity director laughed. “It’s done all the time, Jessica.”

  “Yes, I’m sure it is, but not by me.”

  “Whatever you say.” Her tone was less bubbly than before.

  It all turned out nicely. They sold sixty books, and the people I met were friendly. I had one whimsical moment when I considered asking them to “say something New York,” but I resisted the temptation.

  Ruth escorted me to my lunch with the Newsday reporter, another lively young woman who obviously hadn’t read my book—any of my books—but who wasn’t deterred by that. I hadn’t had breakfast and was ready for lunch, especially good Italian food (somehow, Hick’s Leaning Tower of Pizza in Cabot Cove never satisfied my love of pasta and spicy veal dishes). We lunched at Antolotti’s, a lovely Italian restaurant on Forty-ninth Street and First Avenue where my picture was taken with the owner to join other celebrity photos on the walls.

  After salads had been served, I was bombarded with questions from the reporter about my work habits. By the time we got around to coffee, she told me she was working on a murder mystery and wondered if I would take a look at it, perhaps even collaborate with her.

  “It’s kind of you to ask,” I said, “but I don’t collaborate.”

  “Maybe you could read it and give me some advice.”

  I managed to sidestep that awkward situation by encouraging her to keep writing, giving her some general tips on submitting manuscripts for publication, and slipping her final questions about my personal life, my deceased husband, and whether I had any current romantic interests. I naturally thought about George Sutherland, the handsome and charming Scotland Yard Inspector I’d met in London the year before, but didn’t mention him. You couldn’t call our relationship “romantic,” although I did think of him often, and had received some letters over the past year. A nice man. A gentleman. “Say something funny in Scottish,” I thought, smiling to myself. “No,” I said to the interviewer as we stood outside the restaurant, “there are no romantic interests in my life at this time.”

  The minute she turned the comer, I jumped in a cab. “Fifth Avenue and Fiftieth Street, please,” I told the driver, whose only acknowledgment was to slap on the meter and jam his foot down on the accelerator pedal. Why he bothered to accelerate fast was beyond me. It was slow-going, the holiday season in Manhattan having brought thousands of extra cars into the city.

  Hopelessly mired in traffic at Forty-ninth and Madison, I paid the driver and walked the rest of the way to my rendezvous with Waldo. Frankly, I didn’t think he would be there, but I was wrong. There he was, ringing his little bell and tossing in an occasional “Ho, ho, ho.”

  I stood in front of the same Saks window and watched the parade on Fifth. There seemed to be even more people, if that were possible. A few passersby fought the flow and managed to drop change into the box at Waldo’s feet. I was certain Waldo hadn’t seen me arrive. At least he did nothing to indicate he had.

  I instinctively reached into my purse and pulled out a small point-and-shoot camera that I always carried with me. For a moment—and it lasted no more than that—I questioned the propriety of taking a picture of Waldo. But it wasn’t a decision I had to make. I simply raised the camera to my eye, waited for a break in the foot traffic, and took the photo. He still didn’t seem to notice me. I heard the film automatically advance in the tiny technological marvel in my hands and was about to take another frame when it happened. It was instantaneous; a flash point of time. Sound. Motion. Horror.

  I couldn’t see the face of the person who stepped up to Waldo, pressed a revolver into his stomach, and squeezed the trigger, nor did I think to keep my eye on him or her. The mind doesn’t always process information quickly enough to instantly do the right thing. At least mine doesn’t.

  Now, a scream from a woman who saw Waldo slump to the ground. The camera was still to my eye, and I took another picture. At this point, Waldo was lying on his side on the pavement, his fake beard pushed up and covering most of his face. Blood dripping from his mouth quickly turned the beard to pink. Other people stopped. I’d forgotten about the person who’d shot Waldo. Where had he gone? Was it a he? I’d only seen the back of a figure from a three-quarter angle. The person wore a stocking cap and scarf brought high up around his, or her, chin, masking features. The coat was black. A raincoat. And the killer was gone. Disappeared.

  Waldo wasn’t dead yet. His right hand clutched for something unseen. Life, perhaps. Now my mind caught up with the action. Someone had shot Waldo Morse, right there on Fifth Avenue, in New York City, at two o’clock in the afternoon at the height of the Christmas season.

  “Oh, my God!” I said, attempting to push through the crowd that had stopped to gawk at the fallen Kris Kringle. I fell to my knees and reached through legs that separated me from him. “Waldo, Waldo,” I said, my fingertips touching his beard. I couldn’t see him, but one of his hands gripped mine. I looked up into the faces of the men and women witnessing his death. “Please, do something,” I said. “Get help. Call the police. Call an ambulance.” But I knew it was too late. As I implored those surrounding me to act, his grasp loosened and his hand fell to the cold Manhattan pavement.

  I slowly stood and extended my hands in a gesture of utter helplessness and frustration. Then, I saw him, not the person who’d shot Waldo, but the priest I’d seen the previous day. He was short and stocky, and his complexion was swarthy.

  I started to say something to him, but as I did, his face turned sour. He had black eyes that bore into me. He turned and walked away.

  “Father,” I shouted, “Father ...” My words had no effect. He was gone, swallowed by the throng of humanity that was Fifth Avenue that December day.

  Chapter Four

  A police car arrived, and three men got out. Two wore uniforms; the other was a plainclothes detective. Fast, I thought. They must have been passing by. They moved the large crowd back, and one of them crouched and pressed fingertips against Waldo’s neck. He looked up at the detective and shook his head.

  “Anybody see what happened here?” the detective asked in a loud, surprisingly high voice. He was short and compact; dark, thin hair trailed upward in wispy curls.

  There were no responses. Most people who’d witnessed the murder had walked away.

  “Nobody saw nothing?” he asked, louder this time.

  “I did,” I said. The words came from me as though spoken by someone else. The detective turned in my direction and frowned. “You saw him get shot?”

  “Yes, I did.” I approached. “So did a lot of other people,” I said.

  The detective looked into other faces. Some of the people belonging to them shrugged and shook their heads. “I didn’t see anything,” a man said. “Nothing,” said a woman. “I just got here.”

  “This is outrageous,” I said, looking directly at those I knew had witnessed the murder. “Don’t any of you have a sense of civic responsibility?” I’d heard stories of New Yorkers’ penchant for looking the other way, but this was ridiculous.

  They looked at me as though I were demented. Most left. Heavy with guilt, I hoped. I said to the detective, “My name is Jessica Fletcher. I was here when this man was shot.”

  “You saw it happen? You saw everything?”

  “Well, not everything, but enough. I saw who shot him.”

  “You did?”

  “Not to the extent that I could identify the person, but I did catch a glance. It was ... I think, it was a man, although, I admit, it could have been a woman.”

  The detective’s pained expression mirrored his thoughts. Of course, his expression might have passed for sweetness if he knew that not only did I know the victim, I’d come to this street comer specific
ally to meet with him.

  I’d gone through an internal debate about telling the police what I knew about Waldo Morse but decided to wait. Not there, not with his body on a slab of cement in front of Saks. It wasn’t only a question of place and time, however. Waldo’s life since leaving Cabot Cove had been anything but routine. Because it involved elements of secrecy—and danger—I hadn’t wanted to place him in physical jeopardy. That’s why I’d been so circumspect in approaching him initially. But as I looked down at his lifeless body, I knew such concern was all academic now. Yes, I’d tell the police what I knew. But later. Time and place.

  I’d also made a snap decision about the photographs I’d taken. I would have the film developed. If the pictures showed anything that might be of help to authorities, I would turn them over. Not before.

  As the detective jotted in a small notebook, an Emergency Medical Services ambulance parted the heavy traffic with its piercing siren and joined the patrol car at the curb. A young man and woman in white uniforms jumped from the vehicle. The detective raised his hand. “Take it easy,” he said. “He’s a stiff.”

  His words assailed me. I didn’t like the way he’d referred to the body. Waldo deserved more dignity than that. I didn’t say anything, however. I didn’t need a detective berating me.

  I watched with a mixture of horror and relief as the medical personnel wrapped Waldo’s body in a soiled sheet, placed it on a stretcher, and slid it into the back of the ambulance.

  “All right, all right, everybody move on. The show is over,” the detective said. Then, to my amazement, they climbed back into their patrol car.

  I ran up to it. “Officer! Don’t you want to question me as a witness?”

  He looked at me with that same sour expression. “Lady, it’s not like the mayor got killed here.”

  “I don’t believe this,” I said. “A man has been murdered. I was a witness. You can’t just drive away.”

  One of the officers in the front seat laughed. I said in a louder voice, “I insist upon giving a statement.” I wasn’t sure I should be insisting upon anything, but didn’t know what else to do. The police do not just walk away from a witness to a murder.

  Do they?

  The driver had started the engine. The detective told him to shut it off, opened the door, and invited me to join him in the back. I looked around. Dozens of people, most of them newcomers to what had happened, watched. I managed a weak smile and joined him in the car.

  “Name?” the detective said, a notebook in his left hand, a pen in his right.

  “Jessica Fletcher.”

  “What accent is that?”

  “Accent? I’m from Maine. Cabot Cove, Maine.”

  “What are you doing in New York?”

  “The same thing many people are doing, visiting friends and doing Christmas shopping.” He wrote the words “Maine” and “Christmas shopping” on his pad.

  “What did you see?” he asked.

  “I saw ... I was standing on the comer when a man ... or, as I said, possibly a woman ... stepped up to the Santa Claus, put a gun in his stomach, and pulled the trigger.”

  “Description of alleged assailant?”

  “Medium height, wore a stocking cap and a scarf brought up high around the chin.” I demonstrated with my hands. “He, or she, wore a black raincoat.”

  “You see the color of the hair? Eyes? Skin?”

  I ruefully shook my head.

  “Where did the alleged assailant go after he—or she—pulled the trigger?”

  “I don’t know. It happened so fast. The person was there, and then he or she wasn’t.”

  “No idea?”

  “No. No idea.”

  The detective closed the notebook and put it in his pocket. “Well, thank you, Mrs. Fletcher, for coming forward. You’ve been very helpful.” His sarcasm was not lost on me.

  “Don’t you want to know how to reach me?” I asked.

  “Maine. What town did you say it was?”

  “Cabot Cove, but I’m staying in New York through the new year.”

  “Well, have a nice day Welcome to the Big Apple.”

  “May I have your name and badge number, please?” I took out my own notebook and pen.

  He stared at me.

  “I’d like to be able to contact you to see how things are progressing with this case. After all, I did witness the murder. I think I’m entitled to that courtesy.”

  His sigh was deep. “Rizzi,” he said. “Alphonse Rizzi. Badge number one-three-nine-zero, Detective. Narcotics.”

  I wrote it down and thanked him. “I’m sure you won’t mind my calling to check on your progress.”

  “I’ll really look forward to it, Mrs. Fletcher.”

  I was expected to leave the car, and did. I stood at the curb and watched it pull away, my mind still bewildered by what I considered to be an appalling lack of professional interest on the part of the police. It was beyond me that they could take so cavalier a position where not only had a murder taken place in their city, the victim had been a sidewalk Santa Claus collecting money for the needy. I’ve always understood the need for police to assume a detached, perhaps even callous attitude toward death—like doctors and nurses—but this man had carried it to extremes.

  As I watched the patrol car wind its way through the heavy traffic, someone tapped my shoulder. I turned and looked into the eyes of a young man wearing a red-and-black plaid jacket and yellow earmuffs. He hadn’t shaved in days; he had the Don Johnson look, which I thought had gone out with the Eighties.

  “You photographed the murder,” he said.

  “Pardon?”

  “Somebody told me you took pictures while it was happening.”

  “Whether I did or not is none of your business.”

  He smiled. “Maybe it should be. Look, I’m with the Post. This could be a big story, especially if we’ve got a dynamite photo for Page One.”

  “Well, that may be true, but you won’t get any ‘dynamite photo’ from me.”

  I started to move past him, but he blocked my way. “Don’t I know you from some place?” he asked.

  “I’m sure you don’t,” I said, attempting once again to leave but finding my progress impeded.

  “Yeah, I know who you are. Jessica Fletcher. I saw you on the Larry King Show last night.”

  “That has nothing to do with whether I took pictures or not.”

  “Are you kidding, Mrs. Fletcher? If the famous Jessica Fletcher, big-time murder mystery writer, actually took pictures of a Santa Claus getting iced on Fifth Avenue in front of Saks, that is a very big story.” He strung out the final words.

  “What is your name?” I asked.

  “Johnson. Bobby Johnson.”

  “Well, Mr. Johnson, I admire your tenacity as a journalist, but I’m afraid we have nothing to talk about.”

  I walked as quickly as I could, which wasn’t easy with the holiday crowds, and stopped occasionally to glance over my shoulder. Sure enough, Mr. Johnson was following. After I’d gone a few blocks, I paused at a corner, waited for him to catch up and said as sternly as possible, “Mr. Johnson, I did not take any photographs. But if I did, I would not share them with you to create a lurid front page for your newspaper. Understood?”

  “Give me a break, Mrs. Fletcher. I’ve been dry for too long. I need a piece like this. The paper pays good for pictures. If we could get an exclusive, firsthand account from you of the murder, they’ll really put up bucks. Besides, you’re here promoting your new book. You could do worse than the front page of the Post.”

  “You’re right,” I said pleasantly, “but I’d rather never sell another book than use the murder of a ...” I’d almost said old friend and was relieved I hadn’t. “Good-bye, Mr. Johnson.”

  A taxi pulled up and a couple got out. I quickly got in, slammed the door, and told the driver to take me to the Dakota. Johnson stood on the curb, a big smile on his face, which said many things, including that he would find out where I was
staying while in New York, which is not difficult for a good journalist with connections. I dwelled on that probability for a block or two until thoughts of Waldo Morse took over, and the grimy backseat of a New York taxi, driven by a madman with a lead foot, was filled with memories.

  Chapter Five

  By the time I reached the apartment and had received my customary warm wet welcome from Sadie and Rose, the impact of the afternoon finally hit me. There hadn’t been time to have a proper emotional reaction at the scene. My mind had been occupied by the arrival of the police, the conversation with Detective Rizzi, and my experience with Bobby Johnson, the Post reporter.

  Now, in the welcome quiet of the living room, I began to tremble; my nerve ends were like exposed, sputtering electric wires. I went to the liquor cabinet and poured myself a larger snifter of Vaughan’s favorite Blanton’s Bourbon than I would have under ordinary circumstances. I took the drink to my bedroom, stripped off my clothes, put on a powder blue sweat suit I’d packed in case I had the energy and urge to walk laps in Manhattan (I hadn’t), covered it with my robe, and returned to the living room where I sat in a chair that had unofficially become mine since arriving.

  Waldo Morse had been born and raised in Cabot Cove. His family owned a small motel on the outskirts of town, which gave Waldo exposure to a wider variety of people than most other youngsters his age. Not that Morse’s Blueberry Motel attracted a sophisticated group of world travelers. But interesting people had stayed there: some to fish the trout- and salmon-laden streams, many to enjoy the spectacular fall foliage, others just passing through on their way to other places.

  Waldo was, as I recalled, a “good boy.” He worked hard at the motel when he was old enough to shoulder some of the responsibility, and was an average student at Cabot Cove High School. He was best known for his exploits on the football field, an outstanding running back who’d been voted to the first-string all-Maine team his senior year.