Murder, She Wrote: The Ghost and Mrs. Fletcher

by Jessica Fletcher Donald Bain

“Who’s Tony?”

  “The handyman I told you about, Tony Tonelero.”

  “Tonelero? He must have a Spanish barrel maker in his family’s past.”

  “If you say so.”

  “I’d love to take a peek downstairs, Jessica. Do you think you can accommodate me one more time? I’d hate to miss out on another Hobart if it’s just sitting on a shelf waiting for me to discover it.”

  “I’m really tired, Arthur. Can’t it wait until tomorrow? Besides, it’s almost impossible to see down there—there’s so little light.”

  “Didn’t your letter to me ask if I would talk about book collecting at the library?”

  “Are you bribing me?”

  “Just offering you an incentive.”

  “All right, Arthur, but I’m only doing this to benefit the library.”

  “They will be thrilled with my lecture. I promise.”

  I went to the door leading down to the basement. “Strange,” I muttered to myself. “The key is missing.” I tried turning the knob, but the door was definitely locked. Now, why would he lock the basement door and take away the key?

  “Problem?” Arthur called from where he stood, paging through one of the Hobarts.

  “The skeleton key that used to be in the lock is gone.”

  “A skeleton key? Don’t see many of those anymore. They used to open all the doors in these old houses.” He walked over to where I stood, pulled a ring of keys from his pants pocket, and fingered through them. “See anything promising here?” he asked.

  I shook my head.

  “Is there a closet nearby with a key?”

  “The hall closet doesn’t have a key, and the front door has a more modern lock. I have to tell you, Arthur, I’m not about to go room to room upstairs looking for a key at this time of night.”

  He gave a great sigh.

  “However,” I said, “I do have the key to my back porch in my bag. I’ve been meaning to have the lock changed. It’s not very secure. I can’t promise it’ll open this door.”

  He perked up immediately. “Let’s give it a try. If it doesn’t work, I won’t complain, and we’ll leave our exploration of the nether regions for tomorrow.”

  “That’s a deal.”

  I went back to the kitchen table and groped around the bottom of my shoulder bag until I came up with the skeleton key. I handed it to Arthur.

  Just my luck, or maybe just Arthur’s luck, the key turned in the lock. “Voilà!” Arthur opened the door and the pitch-black basement loomed.

  “Let me go ahead of you,” I said. “I know where there’s a string attached to a light down there, but it’s a very dim bulb. And, Arthur, the stairs are not very sound. If you feel any of them beginning to give, please step back up. The last thing we need tonight is for one of us to get injured.”

  “I’ll be careful.”

  I gripped the wooden railing and began my second descent into Cliff Cooper’s basement. Arthur followed, his breathing audible. I stiffened at every creaking board, but thankfully the steps held. When I sensed I was near the bottom of the staircase, I put out my hand and waved my arm, hoping to connect with the pull chain that illuminated the night-light. My fingers connected with a cord, and I gave it a sharp tug.

  A brilliant light came on, its beam aimed at the wall of mostly empty bookcases.

  “My goodness,” I said.

  “That’s hardly dim light. I think I’ll be able to see very well if I can get out of my own way.”

  “How strange,” I murmured. “He said he would rig something so I could work down here, but then he packed up all the books for me. Why would he need such a bright light now?”

  “Don’t question good fortune, my dear.” Arthur walked past me, his bulk casting a large shadow over the bookcases. He stopped in front of the middle one and reached out to the side support. “Looks like he plans to disassemble these,” he said, making the empty bookcase rock.

  “Why on earth would he do that?” I tried to see past Arthur’s girth as he reached for a book.

  “Well, here’s one!” he said, grabbing up his prize. He turned toward the light, holding up the book so I could see its title, Wall of Blood, with an equally gory illustration on the front cover.

  “I found only one down here,” I said, frowning. “Arthur, do you remember any of other titles in the box upstairs?”

  “I think so. You have Betrayal and Masquerade. Never read those. I saw Taking My Revenge—great cover on that one. And . . . I’d have to go upstairs to take a look.”

  “That’s not necessary,” I said, turning to study the empty bookcase. “Just help me move this, if you would.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “I remember seeing that the wall behind this bookcase looked different. I thought it was the result of a water leak, but now I’m not so sure.”

  “Why would that matter at this moment?”

  “It may not, but I have a hunch that it does.”

  Arthur and I shifted the bookcase back and forth, the bottom rails shrieking as the wood scraped against the concrete floor. We pulled it partially free, and I squeezed into the space behind it, patting the cold wall. “I can’t see in here,” I said, peeking out at him. “Do you have your cell phone with you?”

  “Of course. Do you need to call someone?”

  “No, I need to borrow it. Mine is upstairs in my bag. I’m casting such a strong shadow with that light behind me, I can’t see the wall.”

  Arthur patted his pockets until he found his phone and passed it to me. “What are you looking for?”

  “I’m not sure.” His phone was the same as mine, and I quickly found his flashlight and turned it on.

  “Well, I’ll be darned,” he said, leaning around the side of the bookcase. “Never knew it could do that. You’ll have to show me which buttons you pushed.”

  I ran my fingers, as well as the light, over the wall, the surface of which was smooth in the center and rough on either side. I kneeled down. At the base of the wall, just above the floor, the plaster had been chipped away, leaving a ragged hole. Someone had started sawing upward from the hole, leaving plaster dust on the floor, but had only gotten as far as a foot and a half. I pushed my fingers inside the opening at the bottom, but the gap was too small for my whole hand.

  “I wouldn’t do that if I were you, Jessica. An animal may have made that hole. You don’t want to get bitten.”

  I shone the light on the hole again. “The edges don’t look like an animal ate away at them,” I said, pulling at the crumbling plaster. “And animals don’t know how to use a hammer or a saw. You don’t see one of those nearby, do you?”

  I heard him move out of the way of the spotlight. “No. No tools on the shelves. I would have no idea where else to look.”

  “That’s okay. Let’s see what I can do.”

  I stood up and kicked at the hole with the toe of my shoe.

  “Have you been feeling quite right, Jessica?” His voice held concern. “Are you sure you want to do this tonight? I’m happy to return in the morning and look for more books then.”

  “I’m fine. I just need to enlarge this a little.” I took off my shoe and pounded on the cracking plaster with my heel.

  “I’m sorry if I made you come out when you needed to rest, Jessica. Let me take you home.”

  “There!” I said, dropping to my knees again and ignoring the fragments of wallboard digging into my skin. I broke off more pieces, sweeping the shards away with the side of my hand. I leaned down, putting my face near the hole and trying not to breathe in the plaster dust I’d created. The light from Arthur’s cell phone illuminated only a small area inside the wall, but it was enough. “Oh, good heavens. I was afraid of this.” I sat back with a cough, brushing the dust from my hands.

  “What were you afraid of, my dear?” He wa
s humoring me now and must have thought I’d lost my mind.

  “I’m all right, Arthur; really I am.”

  “Let me help you up, then.” He extended his hand.

  “Not yet,” I said, reaching into the widened opening, my fingers gently patting the floor behind the wall.

  “I remembered the names of the other Hobarts, Arthur.”

  “Yes, Jessica. What were they?”

  I pulled my hand out of the hole and opened it, showing him what I held. “Those books were Buried Sins and Hidden Grave,” I said.

  “And what do you have there?”

  I looked down at my palm. “A bone, Arthur, a human bone.”

  Chapter Twenty-three

  The flashing red, white, and blue lights on police cars and an ambulance lit up the Spencer Percy House like bolts of lightning, eclipsing the starry sky Arthur and I had admired, and casting eerie shadows as they bounced off windows, trees, and the front of the barn. Emergency vehicles had raced to the scene after I’d called the sheriff’s office from Arthur’s cell phone, but they’d come silently—no need for sirens when the victim was already dead.

  Arthur and I had met them at the front door, and we talked in the hall. I introduced my guest to Mort.

  “What were you doing here so late, Mrs. F? It’s Sunday night. Not exactly your usual working hours.”

  “I may be able to explain, Sheriff Metzger,” Arthur said. “I convinced Mrs. Fletcher to allow me an advance look at the books that are going into the sale next weekend.”

  “And you happened to find a body?”

  “Well, no. I mean, I asked to see if there were any more Hobarts in the basement.”

  “Hobarts?”

  “A soon-to-be-in-demand author.” Arthur paused. “I’m not sure how to explain this.” He looked at me helplessly.

  “We went downstairs to see if there were any more Hobarts in the basement,” I said. “Tony—that’s the handyman Eve hired—had boxed up all the books that were on the shelves and taken them up to the kitchen for me.”

  “So you went downstairs looking for books even though you knew all the books had been brought upstairs?” Mort gave me a skeptical look.

  “In a way. But I also knew a few boxes with personal papers hadn’t been brought up, so I thought maybe a book or two might be in among them.”

  “And did you find what you were looking for?”

  “Actually, yes,” Arthur said, holding up Wall of Blood for Mort to see.

  Mort grimaced when he saw the cover. “That’s disgusting. Why do you want to read stuff like that, Mrs. F?”

  “I don’t read them,” I said.

  “They’re not my cup of tea either,” Arthur put in.

  “Yet you went into the basement looking for books by this author?”

  “They’re very scarce,” Arthur said.

  “For good reason,” Mort grunted.

  “Mort, let him explain.”

  “I believe some collectors will pay well for them,” Arthur said. “We already have six of the author’s titles. He only wrote seven.”

  “But they’re irrelevant to what we found,” I said.

  “What you found,” Arthur said, still clutching Wall of Blood.

  “Okay,” Mort said, pulling a notepad and pen from his uniform pocket, “you and your friend here were looking for books. When you called, you told the dispatcher that you might have found a dead body in the house. What body?”

  I handed him the bone and explained where and how I’d discovered it. He rolled his eyes as he had me drop the bone into a plastic bag.

  “I don’t know, Mrs. F. You’ve been involved in some weird events before, but this one tops the list. If this turns out to be a bone from some squirrel or raccoon that got stuck in the wall and died, I’m not going to be a happy camper.”

  “I understand,” I said, “but it looks to me like a human bone.”

  “All of a sudden you’re an expert on bones?” he said.

  “I’m not an expert on anything, Mort, but it would have been irresponsible for me not to have called.”

  “Yeah, you’re right, Mrs. F.,” he said. “Sorry. I’m a little on edge tonight.”

  He directed several of his men to fan out and search the property.

  “There’s something else you should know,” I told our sheriff. “As we were coming upstairs from the basement, we heard the roar of a motorcycle engine outside. It sounded like it raced down the driveway and away from the house.” I then told him about Eve’s handyman who lived, at least temporarily, in the barn.

  “Do you think this Tonelero character’s midnight ride could be connected to what you found, Mrs. F?”

  “I couldn’t say, Mort. I didn’t hear anyone walking around upstairs when Arthur and I were in the basement, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t here. Then again, his departure may just be a coincidence. He might be visiting someone and have plans to return later.”

  “At twelve o’clock at night? That’s pretty late to be paying a social call, don’t you think?”

  “It would be for me, but younger people go out late at night all the time.”

  “Maybe, maybe not, but I’m considering him a person of interest. When we find him, we’ll ask about his social life.”

  Mort issued an all-points bulletin to be on the lookout for the handyman and his motorcycle, and decided that Arthur and I had little more to offer. “This house is a potential crime scene,” he said. “You’ll have to leave.”

  “The basement is a potential crime scene,” I said, hoping he wouldn’t take offense at my interjection. “Can’t Arthur and I remain in the library, or maybe the kitchen, while you conduct your investigation?”

  “I suppose so,” he said. “Just stay out of everyone’s hair.”

  He instructed two deputies to check out the basement and report back. As they left, Seth Hazlitt walked into the kitchen. “Why did I know I’d find you here?” he said.

  “Why are you here?” I asked.

  “I’m here because every time you find a possible murder victim, the medical examiner is out of town. I’m ‘it’ again. Do you know who it is downstairs that you discovered?”

  Mort turned to me. “Yeah, Mrs. F. I didn’t ask you that. Who did you find—if it’s a person?”

  “No idea,” I said, which wasn’t entirely true. While I couldn’t swear whom the bone belonged to, I knew that there was a body behind the wall.

  The deputies Mort had sent downstairs reported back that they saw the hole, and that there seemed to be some bones, but they couldn’t tell whether they belonged to a human being.

  “Want to take a look, Doc?” Mort asked. “I figure you know human bones when you see ’em.” He handed Seth the plastic bag with the bone in it.

  Seth held it up to the light and gave it back to him. “It appears to be a navicular bone, but I’d like to see more.”

  “Navicular, huh? What kind of bone is that?”

  “The navicular is a bone of the foot.”

  “Not from a raccoon, huh?”

  “Not unless it was a five-foot-tall raccoon with human feet.”

  Mort cocked his head at me. “Well, let’s go see where you found it, Mrs. F.”

  I led our little troop of Mort, Seth, and the deputies downstairs to the basement wall that still entombed a body. The deputy who’d been there earlier had moved the bookcase out of the way, and the brilliant light Tony had set up now fully illuminated the wall, making it easier to see the section that had once been breached and sealed up again.

  Seth pulled on a pair of latex gloves and squatted next to the opening that I’d enlarged. He put his hand inside and withdrew another bone, turning it over in his palm. “You may want to get your techs down here,” he said to Mort.

  Mort used his walkie-talkie to call for crime
scene specialists. “Bring an ax,” he added to his instructions.

  We returned to the kitchen to wait for the technicians to arrive and disinter the body. I was wide-awake now, the morning’s funeral a distant memory.

  Arthur wandered in from the library, holding a book. “Look what I found, Jessica.”

  “What do you have there?” Mort asked.

  “It’s a 1952 edition of Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea. Even has a dust jacket, although it’s a little ragged. This will sell well in an auction.”

  “Yeah?” Mort said. “How much is it worth?”

  “A couple of hundred at least,” Arthur replied. “Depends on the day of the auction. These things vary. But if there are more goodies like this in those boxes, I may be able to give the Cabot Cove Library a sizable donation on top of what you make from the general sale.”

  “I’m glad to hear it,” I said.

  I’d been thinking about the upcoming book sale and wondering what the discovery of the body would do to our need to complete the task of getting the books out of the house and ready to sell. The Spencer Percy House would become an active crime scene; Mort and his people wouldn’t appreciate our getting in their way. Would I have to postpone the sale yet again?

  Three technicians arrived a half hour later and clumped down the basement steps. They carried a suitcase full of the usual crime scene equipment, plus a body bag, hatchet, and an electric tool they called a Sawzall. Mort gave me permission to join them, and we watched while they set up additional lights, aimed at the wall from different angles than the spotlight Tony had installed. The crossing and bounced beams of additional lighting effectively canceled out the shadows thrown by people working the scene.

  “If you’re going to stay here, you’d better wear one of these,” a tech said, handing Mort and me paper masks. “Taking apart a wall can get pretty dusty.”

  A photographer dropped a ruler next to the hole I made and took a series of pictures, while his colleague began a sketch of the basement, measuring the walls and floor, and noting every object in sight, including the bookcases, Tony’s light, and the decrepit dehumidifier, source of the supposedly ghostly noise that had scared off some people hired to fix up the house.