Murder, She Wrote: Domestic Malice

by Jessica Fletcher

  I glanced at Seth, who said with a straight face, “Sounds delicious.”

  It turned out to be a lovely evening—the sauerbraten was different but not bad—just the tonic for what had been a stressful week. Seth offered to drive me home, but I declined. “I’ll stay and help Maureen and Mort with the cleanup,” I said. “Besides, I’m wide-awake.”

  Actually, I wanted to spend some time alone with Mort on the off chance that he might share some information about the Wolcott case. As it turned out, it was Maureen who offered an interesting tidbit. We were in the process of wrapping leftovers when she brought up Myriam Wolcott.

  “Poor Mort,” she said. “That murder case has him all worked up. I’ve never seen him so tense, so short-tempered.”

  “He’s under a lot of strain,” I said. “Did he have anything to say about the interview The Hour did with him?”

  Maureen laughed. “My handsome movie-star husband,” she said. “He told me that the fellow who interviewed him, Clay Dawkins, was really nice, made him feel right at home.”

  “Yes,” I said, “Clay is a true professional.”

  “Oh, that’s right, you knew him back in New York.”

  “I was also with him when he interviewed Edwina Wilkerson and when he met Richard Mauser.”

  Maureen put down the dishcloth she was using to dry a large pot and said, “I didn’t know that.” She glanced through the door to see whether Mort was coming up from the basement where he’d been putting away folding chairs. “Did you know, Jess, that Mrs. Wolcott received e-mails from a man encouraging her to kill her husband?” Maureen asked in a low voice.

  “I did hear something about that,” I said.

  “And . . .”

  “Maureen,” Mort said from where he stood in the kitchen door.

  “Hi, hon.”

  “I don’t think you ought to be telling Mrs. F. things like that.”

  I jumped in to defend her. “She wasn’t telling me anything I didn’t already know,” I said.

  “Still.”

  “You told Clay Dawkins about it,” I said. “Has the forensics lab traced those messages yet?”

  His silence told me that the topic was off-limits.

  “Hon, maybe Mrs. F. and I ought to have a little talk, in private,” Mort said.

  “What’s so important that I can’t hear it?” asked Maureen.

  “Just a few things Mrs. F. ought to know.” Mort kissed Maureen on the cheek and led me from the kitchen to a glassed-in porch at the rear of the house.

  “Don’t think poorly of Maureen,” I told him. “You like to keep the specifics of an investigation under wraps, but you know how things are in town. It’s hard to keep a secret no matter how hard you try.”

  “I’m not concerned about keeping secrets, Mrs. F. It’s just that when you poke your nose into the Wolcott matter, it makes my job tougher.”

  “Which I certainly never intended,” I said. “But I can’t help but feel that something is being overlooked.”

  “By me?”

  “By everyone involved.”

  “Know what happened this afternoon, Mrs. F.?”

  “You make it sound ominous.”

  “Dick Mauser called me after the crew from The Hour left. He says that you and that private eye, McGraw, went there with the producer.”

  “Yes, that’s true.”

  “He says that you and McGraw have been hounding him about what happened between him and Josh Wolcott.”

  “‘Hounding him’? That’s not true. Do I think that people who were ripped off financially by Josh should be investigated more closely as to a possible motive? I plead guilty to that.”

  “You’re entitled to your opinion, Mrs. F., but best that you keep it just that, your opinion. The Wolcott case is over as far as my investigation is concerned, case closed. I wish they were all that easy. Mrs. Wolcott has admitted that she shot her husband but claims it was in self-defense. Her attorney, Cy O’Connor, will do everything he can to get a jury to see it his way and find her not guilty. What the jury does is not my concern—or yours.”

  I started to respond, but he cut me off.

  “I don’t need people like Dick Mauser calling and complaining that you’re prying into his affairs. He’s on the town council, and the council funds my department. Don’t get me wrong, Mrs. F. I appreciate the help you’ve given me in the past, but this case is over, a slam dunk.”

  “I feel as though I’m being scolded like a student in one of the classes I used to teach.”

  “Don’t mean to sound that way, and please don’t take this wrong,” he said. “My suggestion is that you get back to what you do best, writing about murders, and leave the real thing to me.”

  I didn’t argue, nor did I agree. I thanked him for being honest with me and returned to the kitchen, where Maureen was finishing up.

  “Have your talk?” she asked, obviously annoyed at being excluded.

  “Yes. I think I’ve intruded enough on Mort’s territory. He has a good point. My job is to write about murder. His is to deal with the real thing.”

  Mort offered to drive me home, and I took him up on it. There were no hard feelings. I’d been complaining about people who assumed that I was involved with his cases—the editorial staff of the Gazette, for instance—and it was time to butt out and do what I do best. Once secure in my house and in pajamas, robe, and slippers, I sat at my computer, opened a notebook in which I’d outlined my next novel, and typed “Chapter One.”

  Part Two

  Chapter Twenty-one

  It turned out to be a soggy spring in Cabot Cove. We had more rain than usual, and the river overflowed twice, closing a few roads. But as we edged into summer, the rain stopped, the no-see-ums, mosquitoes, and black flies multiplied—thanks to the wet spring—and the town became busy welcoming tourists, including the many fly fishermen who flock to the area’s fishing camps. We were also gearing up for the annual Blueberry Festival, which takes place over an August weekend.

  I’d been surprisingly successful in blotting out what had become an obsession with the Wolcott case despite regular e-mails from Harry McGraw asking for updates. Harry had hung around town for a few days, but once I’d decided to divorce myself from the case, he’d headed home to Boston, where he had new business to attend to. He’d repeated in each message, however, his willingness to return if I decided to pursue the investigation again.

  Notwithstanding Harry’s reminders and the temptations provided by Myriam’s release on bail, I had gotten a good start on my new novel. Since Sheriff Metzger had dressed me down in March, I’d focused on my writing and had become almost a hermit in my home office, declining many social invitations that I might otherwise have accepted, eating most of my meals at home, even curtailing the time I volunteered at the shelter’s office. Instead, I immersed myself in the plot that my imagination had conjured.

  After several months of virtual seclusion, I finally felt freed up enough to rejoin the world, which included taking part in plans for the festival as a member of its organizing committee.

  The Blueberry Festival was a highlight of Cabot Cove’s many yearly celebrations, and I loved being involved. While Maine is widely known for its lobsters (Cabot Cove’s annual lobster festival draws visitors from miles around), our blueberry crop—both wild and cultivated—is also synonymous with the state. In fact, ninety-eight percent of the country’s wild blueberries come from Maine. I had ordered a few pints of Blue Crop blueberries from my local market, intending to bake up an entry for the festival, and I was not alone. I could swear that the aroma of fresh-baked blueberry pies wafting around town drifted into my bedroom one hot, humid morning as I awoke to the sound of a dog barking and a low-flying plane coming in for a landing at our local airport.

  August had developed into a scorcher. The temperature had hovered near ninety for the last few days, and the humidity pressed down on the town like a moist blanket. I had to laugh because some old-timers still resisted install
ing an air conditioner, refusing to believe that Maine had hot summers despite the perspiration running down their cheeks. Old beliefs die hard. However, the meeting of the Blueberry Festival committee took place in the senior center, where recent renovations thankfully included the installation of central air-conditioning.

  The event was only weeks away, and according to the committee’s report, things were falling into place. There would be the usual parade following two foot races—a one-mile fun run and a five-mile course for the more physically fit. Live music would entertain the two nights of the festival, and the town’s theatrical troupe would put on an original play written by its director and featuring local thespian talent. A popular event was the blueberry quilt raffle, in which quilts featuring a blueberry theme would be auctioned. While the Blueberry Festival has never equaled our annual Lobster Fest in terms of drawing visitors, it’s gotten bigger each year and was poised to match the attendance of that other tribute, to Maine’s sumptuous crustaceans.

  But while all these events were important, no one denied that it was the blueberry pie bake-off and the pie-eating contest that whetted most people’s appetites, figuratively and literally. Tobé Wilson had filled out her judging roster, letting me off the hook, and I was mulling whether to enter one of the competitions. Last year’s festival featured forty-seven pies entered in the contest, as well as competition for the best blueberry cobblers, blueberry cheesecake, and blueberry muffins. The pie-eating contest had been won by a teenager who’d announced that he was defending his title this year. It was all good fun, and proceeds from entry fees, auction pledges, and purchases went to fund local charities, the women’s shelter now among them.

  As the meeting was breaking up, one of the organizers approached me. “We haven’t received your entry form yet, Jessica. Aren’t you going to enter a pie this year?”

  “I was thinking about it,” I said, “but I haven’t formally declared my intention.”

  “Better get your entry slip and fee in by tomorrow,” she said.

  “I’ll do it right now,” I said. She handed me an entry form, which I filled out, and I wrote her a check for fifteen dollars.

  “Good luck,” she said. “I loved your pie last year. There’s a good chance you can move up this time with Mabel Atkins retiring from the competition.”

  “I won’t count on it,” I said. “I enjoy baking, but I wouldn’t place it high on my list of accomplishments.”

  “You’re a better baker than you think, Jessica,” she said.

  As I left the building, Seth Hazlitt was coming out of Sassi’s Bakery carrying a bag.

  “Morning, Jessica.”

  “Good morning, Seth.”

  “Good to see you out and about at last.”

  “It’s good to be out and about after so much time spent with my computer. I see you have some goodies from Sassi’s. Something blueberry, I assume.”

  “Ayuh. Blueberry donuts.” He cocked his head and squinted at me. “Lookin’ forward to testifying at the Wolcott trial?”

  Edwina Wilkerson and I were scheduled to appear for the defense, speaking about Myriam’s visit to the shelter and bolstering her claim of having been abused.

  “I’m trying not to think about it,” I said. “Will you be there?”

  “I might stop in, offer you some moral support.”

  “Thank you. I’d appreciate that.”

  The truth was that I hadn’t been especially successful in not thinking about the trial and my upcoming testimony. I’d assiduously avoided conversations about the trial over the preceding months, pretty much confining myself to reading about it in the Gazette. Evelyn Phillips had called occasionally to discuss new developments, which weren’t many.

  Whenever I saw Mort, I refrained from asking any questions, and he never offered any comments.

  It was better that way.

  Myriam Wolcott hadn’t been seen by anyone I knew since her release on bail in March, and it was only from Evelyn’s reporting that I knew that Cy O’Connor was expressing confidence that his client would be acquitted based on her plea of self-defense. The murder weapon had never been found despite an assiduous search by the police along the river into which Myriam had supposedly thrown the gun. The Wolcott children, sixteen-year-old Mark and his younger sister, Ruth, had been pulled out of school following their father’s murder and spent the rest of the term with a tutor, according to those who knew something about the family. It must have been brutally traumatic not only to have lost a father to violence, but also to be living under the menace of losing their mother to a possible lifetime sentence in prison.

  When I reflected back on the night Myriam came to the shelter office, I never would have dreamed that her life and that of her family would take such a drastic and destructive turn, or that I would be drawn into it.

  While I’d been hibernating, Richard Mauser’s hostility toward the women’s shelter persisted unabated, as did Edwina’s obsession with fighting him. He had written an op-ed piece for the Gazette in which he reiterated his arguments against the shelter and the town’s funding of “fripperies.” Edwina responded with a rebuttal to his piece, which delighted Evelyn Phillips. “I’d love to persuade them to debate issues in the paper every week,” she’d said in one of her calls. “My circulation’s up and the advertising manager is tickled pink.”

  Apparently their messages also sparked heated discussions within the community, although I wasn’t privy to them because of my self-imposed isolation.

  Aside from his onetime diatribe on the op-ed page, little else had been heard from Richard Mauser, although I was told by Sharon Bacon, who’d apparently made her own peace with young Cy’s ambitions, that O’Connor had successfully reached a deal with the EPA.

  “Cy negotiated the charges down, provided Mauser makes upgrades to his equipment,” she’d confided in me. “He got Mauser off with a minimal fine. Of course, Cy’s fee made up for it. Between that and the bills I keep sending to Myriam’s mother, the firm is doing very well. Cy even hired an assistant for me.”

  I did watch when The Hour aired its program in June. It was skillfully produced and presented a balanced look at the scope of domestic violence in America, and in Maine in particular. Josh Wolcott’s murder was highlighted as an example of how such abuse could, and often did, escalate with deadly results. Of course, it was on the air prior to Myriam’s trial, so it couldn’t provide an ending to that aspect of the story: “The trial of Myriam Wolcott is scheduled at a future date,” was Clay Dawkins’s final line to conclude his segment of the show. Before the next commercial break, the telephone number for the National Domestic Violence Hotline was flashed on the screen.

  I just wanted the trial and everything having to do with it to be over.

  I dug out blueberry pie recipes that I’d collected over the years and perused them. Some were appealing, but I knew that I’d have to come up with a special version of the classic favorite if I were to have an outside chance of winning a ribbon, not that I expected even to be in the running. Cabot Cove boasts a number of master bakers, mostly women but also a few men, who seemed to win every baking and cooking contest year after year. Mabel Atkins had been one of them, having won twice over the last five years. Even so, the blueberry-pie-baking contest was always great fun, although invariably there is an entrant or two who takes losing personally and becomes disgruntled, claiming that politics are behind some of the judges’ decisions. One gentleman whose wife failed to win a ribbon went so far as to claim that someone must have “spiked” her pie to alter the flavor. It was a silly charge, of course, but made for an amusing piece in the Cabot Cove Gazette.

  A call from my publisher, Vaughan Buckley, concerning a planned September promotional tour to coincide with my most recently published murder mystery made me forget about baking for the moment. I find that touring to promote my books is at once exhausting and exhilarating. I enjoy meeting my fans and signing books for them. Writing is a solitary endeavor, and I often wonder
who is buying my books once they come to market. Touring and doing book signings is the best way to answer that question.

  I was fingering through my recipe box and had just found a card with the ingredients for a pie made with “whortleberries,” a close cousin to our bushes or perhaps just an old-fashioned name for blueberries, when Maureen Metzger called.

  “I hear that you’re going to enter one of the blueberry contests. Are you making a pie?”

  The Cabot Cove grapevine in full flower.

  “I haven’t decided if it will be a pie or a tart,” I said. “I assume you’ll be entering.”

  “Sure. You know me, Jessica, I’m a real foodie, love contests. That’s why I’m calling. Can we talk woman to woman and keep what I say a secret?”

  “Oh my goodness. That sounds serious. I’ll do my best,” I said, tempted to add that if you want to keep a secret, don’t tell anyone. Anyone.

  “Great,” she said. “I’ve been going crazy trying to come up with a blueberry pie that’s really unusual, you know, something that will have everyone oohing and aahing.”

  “Have you? Come up with one?”

  “I have. The problem is I need someone, a trusted friend like you, to give me an honest evaluation.”

  “Me?”

  “Do you think it would be a conflict of interest?” she asked. “You know, with you and me entering the same division?”

  I laughed. “Well, do you think you can trust me to be honest?”

  “You’re always honest,” she said, making me regret all the times I’d given faint praise to some of her more disastrous culinary efforts.

  “I’m always willing to help out, Maureen, but—sure, go ahead,” I said, wondering at the same time whether I had a good supply of Tums in the house.