Murder, She Wrote: Domestic Malice

by Jessica Fletcher

  Edwina rang the bell.

  We heard movement before the inside door was cracked open by Myriam, who peered questioningly at us through the screen door.

  “Hi, Myriam,” Edwina said.

  “Yes, hello,” Myriam said as she unlatched the door. Warm air enveloped us as we entered. It was dark inside; no lights were on and the drapes were tightly drawn.

  “I’m so sorry about Josh,” I said, giving her a brief hug.

  “Yes,” Edwina said. “This is a terribly difficult time for you.”

  “Thank you for coming,” Myriam said weakly. She wore tight-fitting jeans, a white blouse underneath an open brown cardigan, and running shoes.

  Myriam led us into the living room. “Please sit down.” She flipped a wall switch, and two table lamps came to life. “I don’t have much in the house, haven’t had a chance to go shopping, but I do have some tea I can make, and there’s cookies.” She smiled. “My neighbor brought over a plate just now. She said there should always be cookies around with kids in the house.”

  I was saddened to see how little support Myriam was getting from the community. Had Josh died of a disease or in an accident, the ladies of Cabot Cove would have dropped off more casseroles and cakes and other dishes for the grieving family than they could possibly consume. Thank goodness one neighbor had the compassion to bring something for the children.

  The lack of provisions spoke to how ill at ease Myriam’s neighbors must be, given the circumstances of her husband’s death. But I was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps the presence of a squad car was keeping them away, and when it disappeared (along with Teller’s vehicle) the neighborhood would rise to the occasion. At least I hoped so.

  “Nothing for me,” I said as Edwina and I took chairs on either side of a table on which books and magazines were piled high. Edwina also declined the offer of refreshments.

  “Is it cold out?” Myriam asked, pulling her sweater closed. “I haven’t been out of the house today.”

  “It’s pretty chilly,” I said, “but I tell myself I can smell a breath of spring in the air. Nice weather should be here soon.”

  Myriam gazed around the room as if she didn’t know how to start, her eyes resting briefly on a small dent in the wall that might have been made by an object being thrown. Edwina asked about the children. “How are they doing? Are they here with you now?”

  “They’re doing okay, I suppose,” she said, starting to pace. “I don’t think it’s really hit home with Ruth. She’s the youngest, just twelve. It’s hard to read Mark. He’s filled with anger. He’s over at his friend’s house. Thank goodness for that family; they’re so understanding.”

  “Ruth is such a sweet old-fashioned name,” Edwina commented. “Is she named in honor of someone?”

  Myriam chewed on the inside of her cheek. “She was named after Josh’s grandmother. I would have liked something a bit more modern, but Josh insisted, so Ruth it was. I call her Ruthie most of the time. She’s such a little girl for such a serious name.”

  “Where is Ruthie?” I asked.

  “She’s upstairs with my mother. She’ll be down in a moment.” She hesitated, then continued. “My mother arrived early this morning. She drove here from Bangor last night.”

  “It’s good that she wasn’t too far away,” I offered.

  Myriam didn’t respond.

  “And how about you, Myriam?” Edwina asked. “How are you doing?”

  Myriam plopped in a chair and exhaled loudly. “Me? What can I say? Josh is gone, shot dead by some crazy person.” She shook her head. “I don’t know how I’m doing. I don’t know what to feel. I still can’t believe it.”

  “Do the police have any leads?” I asked.

  “Not that I know of. Of course, there’s always me.” Her laugh was sardonic. “Our wonderful sheriff grilled me for hours. The kids were questioned, too. How unfair to subject them to such trauma. They’d just lost their father in a horrible way, but the sheriff didn’t seem concerned about that.”

  “I understand how you feel,” I said, “but Sheriff Metzger has his job to do.”

  “He’s an insensitive bully,” Myriam responded.

  Of all the words I might come up with to describe Mort, “bully” wouldn’t be on the list. I fought an urge to defend him; it wasn’t the appropriate time or place.

  “The shelter has a child advocate,” Edwina said. “We can arrange for the children to get some counseling, if you like. It would be helpful for them to talk with someone about their father, help them work through their feelings. Will you consider it?”

  “I’ll think about it,” Myriam said.

  Footsteps were heard on the stairs, and we all turned to see Myriam’s daughter, a thin girl enveloped in a heavy sweater, followed by an older woman. Myriam got to her feet and held her arms out for her daughter. Ruth ran to her embrace, hugging her mother tightly. Myriam turned her around. “This is Ruth,” she said to us. “Say hello to the ladies, Ruthie.”

  Ruth murmured a greeting, never taking her eyes off the floor. She had a pale face with a pink nose, probably from crying. Her long brown hair had been fashioned into two tight braids, a hairstyle more suited to a younger child.

  Myriam’s mother reached the bottom of the stairs and stood, hands on her hips, her head cocked as though to ask who we were. Myriam was a tall woman, about five feet seven inches, but her mother was taller, at least five-ten. She was immaculately dressed in a pale green sheath. She wore heels, and her jewelry was plentiful and looked expensive. Her hair and makeup had obviously been professionally tended to.

  “This is my mother, Mrs. Warren Caldwell. Mother, this is Edwina Wilkerson and Jessica Fletcher. I told you about them.”

  “Yes, you did,” Mrs. Caldwell said. “I know of Jessica Fletcher. She writes.”

  My vocation had never been described quite so bluntly before. I smiled and nodded.

  Myriam asked whether her mother wanted something to drink.

  “Thank you, no,” Mrs. Caldwell said and took a seat on a small red-and-blue-flowered couch that showed wear; I envisioned the children jumping up and down on it.

  “Ruthie,” Myriam said, “Mommy needs to have a conversation with your grandmother and our visitors. Please go down to the playroom. You can watch TV. I’ll call you when we’re finished.”

  “She’s very sweet,” I said as the girl left the room.

  “More important, she’s very smart,” Mrs. Caldwell added.

  She perched on the edge of the couch as though to avoid contact with as much of the cushions as possible, her knees tightly pressed together, long, tapered, red-tipped fingers laced on her knees. “I understand that you had a conversation with my daughter a few nights ago,” she said, addressing both Edwina and me.

  Edwina and I glanced at Myriam to see whether she was distressed by the question. Her privacy was being breached.

  “It’s all right,” Myriam said. “I told her where I went.”

  “You mean when Myriam visited the women’s shelter office?” Edwina said.

  “Yes, that is what I’m referring to.”

  “Myriam was upset,” Edwina offered. “She’d . . .”

  “Let’s face facts. She came because of what her husband did to her,” Mrs. Caldwell said flatly.

  Edwina nodded slowly.

  “It was an ill-advised visit,” Myriam’s mother continued.

  Edwina looked to me before responding, “I was pleased that she sought us out. She needed someone to talk to, someone who would understand what she’d just experienced and who could provide nonjudgmental comfort.”

  Mrs. Caldwell smiled sweetly, although I suspected that it took effort to do so. “Comfort is what a family is for. She should have come to me,” she said.

  I sensed Edwina tensing. “But you weren’t here and she came to us,” she said, working at keeping pique from her voice. “Do you have a problem with that, Mrs. Caldwell?”

  “If I did, would it ma
ke any difference?” She turned to her daughter. “Would it, Myriam?”

  Myriam started to say something but swallowed her words.

  “I’m sure that you both are aware that Myriam’s marital history with Joshua is an embarrassment.”

  “There’s nothing to be embarrassed about,” Edwina said. “Myriam is hardly the first wife to have been abused by her husband. Domestic violence is the greatest source of personal injury to women, causing more than three times as many medical visits as car accidents, more injuries than rapes, auto accidents, and muggings combined. Ten women a day are killed each year by their male partners or ex-partners. As many as four million American women are battered each year by their husbands or partners. That’s one every seven or eight seconds. There’s no reason at all for Myriam to be embarrassed.”

  Mrs. Caldwell listened patiently as Edwina rattled off her data, a bemused smile on her face. When Edwina was finished, Mrs. Caldwell said, “That’s all well and good, but I’m not interested in seeing my daughter lumped into a bunch of statistics. The point is that both you and Mrs. Fletcher have been privy to what is a very private matter, and I insist that it remain just that, a private matter.”

  I hadn’t said anything up to this point, but now I felt compelled to respond. “Mrs. Caldwell, as a volunteer, my only role is to lend an understanding and sensitive ear to a victim of domestic abuse,” I said. “Edwina has received considerable professional training in dealing with abused spouses, and in our volunteer classes she has stressed to all of us the importance of discretion and privacy. In fact, it’s only because Myriam has given approval that we’re discussing this with you. I assure you that all of us who work at the shelter, staff and volunteers alike, never discuss what goes on inside with anyone who isn’t specifically involved in the case.”

  “My daughter is not a ‘case,’ Mrs. Fletcher,” Mrs. Caldwell said coldly.

  Edwina jumped in with, “Jessica didn’t mean to offend you, Mrs. Caldwell, but her point is valid. What happens at the shelter stays there. I suggested to your daughter that she leave the house that night to avoid any further physical violence, advice she declined to follow—which I fully understood. Frankly, I’m surprised that you even feel the need to raise the privacy issue.”

  Mrs. Caldwell straightened and lifted her chin as she retorted, “I’m protecting my daughter, who has the misfortune of being considered a suspect in her husband’s murder.”

  There was silence in the room.

  I broke it by asking, “Have the authorities used the term ‘suspect’ in regard to your daughter?”

  “They questioned me as though I was,” Myriam said.

  Her mother chimed in, “Of course she’s a suspect. They always consider a family member first.” She looked at me. “You must know that, Mrs. Fletcher. After all, you do write murder mysteries.”

  I turned to Myriam. “You aren’t saying that Sheriff Metzger actually accused you of having killed your husband, are you?”

  “Not in so many words, but he might as well have.”

  “Did you ask for a lawyer?” I said.

  Myriam turned pale. “No! Do . . . do I need one?”

  “We’ll take care of that when the time comes,” Mrs. Caldwell said.

  I was tempted to put in a good word for Mort, who was usually pretty sensitive when it came to interviewing recently bereaved family members. But I hadn’t been there, and defending him would serve no purpose at this time. Instead I said, “I understand that your brother and his wife were here, Myriam.”

  Her expression said that she was surprised that I knew. “It was mentioned in the newspaper article,” I explained. “Have they left?”

  “Yes,” Myriam muttered.

  “Her brother, Robert, is a very responsible person,” Myriam’s mother said. “He had business obligations to get back to.”

  I thought it was a shame that Myriam’s brother’s business responsibilities trumped his responsibilities as far as his sister was concerned. Given that she had just suffered such a shocking loss, I would have hoped that either he or his wife would have stayed behind to help. But perhaps Mrs. Caldwell had shooed them out, or, just as likely, they had left to escape her domineering rule.

  “The press has no right to interfere or report on family matters,” Mrs. Caldwell said through a pronounced sneer. “I suppose they’ve asked for your expert opinion, Mrs. Fletcher.”

  Although James Teller had called me for a comment, I didn’t mention it.

  “There’s a reporter parked outside the house right now,” she said. “Those ghouls!”

  “It’s not surprising,” I said. “There’s been a murder, and they have a job to do, too.”

  She dismissed me with a pointed shake of her carefully coiffed head and addressed her next comment to Edwina. “Let me get to the point of why Myriam has asked you here today. She’s still in shock, as you might expect, and can’t be depended upon to think clearly.”

  Myriam’s pained expression made me wince.

  Her mother continued. “My daughter made a very big mistake going to this shelter that you run, airing her dirty family laundry, and contributing, I’m sure, to your town’s gossip mill.

  “I . . .”

  “Please stop right there,” Edwina said sternly, holding up her hand. “Your daughter came because she’d been physically abused by her husband, because she needed a refuge from him, and I’m very proud that Mrs. Fletcher and I were there to provide it. As for this so-called gossip mill, nothing that was said that night ends up in any mill. I apologize if I appear to be argumentative, Mrs. Caldwell, but it’s clear to me that you don’t understand how a women’s shelter operates and why it’s important to a community—especially to those who are being abused.”

  Mrs. Caldwell stood, ran her hands over the front of her dress, and after a prolonged sigh said, “I can see you aren’t accustomed to being challenged, Mrs. Wilkerson. Let me leave it at this. If any mention of my daughter’s misguided visit to your shelter is made to anyone—and I stress anyone—you’ll hear from my lawyer.” She aimed a tight smile at us. “It was a pleasure meeting you both.”

  Edwina and I watched her stride across the room and disappear down the stairs to join her granddaughter. Myriam continued to sit on the couch, legs tightly crossed, hands hugging her elbows, head bowed. She looked up and said, “My mother is, well, she’s a very intelligent and, I guess you could say, determined woman. Please don’t take offense at her way of speaking. It’s just that she loves me and the children and wants to protect our name. Reputation is very important to her. Try to understand.”

  Myriam uncoiled her body and showed us out. She thanked us for coming and closed the door behind us, engaging the lock. I saw that Teller’s car was gone; the patrol car remained in place.

  “Can you believe it?” Edwina said as her tires screeched away from the curb.

  “Take it easy,” I said. “Slow down.”

  “Sorry. Protect the family name and reputation, my foot. By the way, Jessica, mind a bit of advice?”

  “Oh dear. Did I talk out of turn?”

  “No. Of course not. I’m just steamed at that—that terrible woman.” She pulled the car to the curb, turned off the engine, and looked at me. “You referred to Myriam as a victim of domestic abuse.”

  “Wrong word?”

  “It’s accurate, of course, but women in that position dislike the term. Survivor of abuse is more acceptable, although they aren’t crazy about that either.”

  “Lesson learned.”

  “Thank you.”

  Edwina started up the car. After admonishing her to ease up on the accelerator, I commented, “I believe there’s more to it than worrying about the family’s name and reputation.”

  She shot a glance at me. “Like what?”

  “Like not wanting the authorities to know that her husband was a batterer. If the police hear that, they’ll have the perfect motive to assign to Myriam: abused wife who’d taken enough and killed h
er attacker.”

  “Won’t they find out anyway? The children might already have said something.”

  “They might have,” I said. “And the family that Mark always sought solace with may have spoken with the police, too. And it probably wasn’t wise of Mrs. Caldwell to tell Myriam to invite you and me to the house together, given our connection with the shelter. She may have inadvertently informed the police and the press of exactly what she was trying to keep secret.”

  Edwina stopped at a light. “Myriam’s mother is clearly an abusive personality,” she mused aloud. “Maybe that’s why Myriam chose Josh. It’s not an unusual pattern.”

  The light turned green.

  “Do you really think that Myriam might have shot Josh?” she asked.

  “I have no idea what happened,” I replied, “but the police always first look for a motive, and then for proximity to the murder. Unfortunately, Myriam Wolcott provides both.”

  Chapter Seven

  After years of abuse I left my husband and went to a women’s shelter in our hometown. It wasn’t an easy decision but it had to be done, otherwise I really think he would have killed me. The people at the shelter were terrific, put me up until they found a nice apartment for me, new phone number, driver’s license, everything to hide me from my husband. Do you have a shelter in your town in Maine? If so, check it out. It could save your life. —S.S. in Florida

  * * *

  Edwina and I had errands to run, so we parked in town and agreed to meet back at the car in an hour. It had started to snow and I was glad that I’d thought to wear a jacket with a hood. Hopefully it would be no more than a March snow shower, not enough to coat the roads and make driving treacherous.

  I ducked into Charles Department Store, where I hoped to find a replacement plastic card insert for my wallet; the old one was torn and my credit cards threatened to fall out at any moment. The department store had just what I was looking for—they always seem to have what I need—and I was paying when Tim Purdy, Cabot Cove’s historian and president of the historical society, came up to me. A tall, distinguished fellow, he was dressed as he often is in a tweed jacket, brown slacks, and a floppy red-and-yellow bow tie. A tan trench coat was casually draped over one arm.