Murder, She Wrote: Domestic Malice

by Jessica Fletcher

  “I’ve been experimenting using cream cheese and avocado in my pie.”

  “Oh. That’s a—well, that’s an unusual combination, Maureen.” I didn’t know what else to say.

  “I saw some recipes online for blueberry and avocado smoothies, and I’m adapting them for the pie. I don’t have the ratio of ingredients right yet, but I’m working on it. My third try is in the oven as we speak.”

  “Maureen, maybe Mort would be a better choice as your taster.”

  She laughed. “Oh, him. He wouldn’t know a prizewinning pie from a hot dog. Besides, he’s been on another diet lately, said he gains too much weight when I begin baking for the contest. I think he’s just avoiding having to eat my mistakes.”

  I don’t doubt it, I thought.

  I finally agreed to taste her avocado–cream cheese–blueberry pie when she’d “perfected” the final version.

  Having decided to reenter the world, at least the Cabot Cove world, I called Edwina and offered to return to volunteering one night a week at the shelter.

  “How about tonight?” she said. “Barbara Hightower was scheduled but she’s come down with a stomach virus.”

  “I’ll be there,” I said.

  It felt good to be back in the swing of things. I’d missed my occasional evenings at the shelter and looked forward to becoming active again. During my hiatus, Edwina had told me that an increasing number of women had sought the shelter’s services and that two had been relocated with their children to escape a volatile situation at home.

  Edwina was already there when I arrived. As usual she’d brought cookies to serve anyone who might show up and had already made a pot of coffee and had a teakettle on the burner.

  “It’s good to be back,” I said.

  “And it’s great to have you back, Jessica.”

  “Anything new on the Dick Mauser front?” I asked.

  “Just what he wrote in the Gazette. I assume you read that.”

  “Yes, and your response.”

  “Why would a man as successful as Mauser make a cause célèbre out of this shelter?” she asked. “Doesn’t he have better things to do with his time?”

  I’d gotten up to pour myself another cup of tea when the doorbell sounded.

  “Looks like we have a client,” Edwina said as she went to unlock the door. She returned with a frail young blonde whose swollen lip said everything about why she was there. She’d given Edwina her name at the door, and Edwina introduced her as Carol Cogan.

  “I’m just making tea for myself,” I said. “Would you like some, or would you prefer coffee?”

  “Just water,” she replied. “Please.”

  I took her in as I drew a glass of water from the faucet. She reminded me of the time I’d rescued an abandoned puppy in a torrential rainstorm. Carol Cogan had the look of a lost dog. Her blond hair was stringy and needed a good shampooing. Her green eyes were vacant, the spark extinguished. She was thin; her gray sweatshirt and sweatpants hung loosely from her almost gaunt body. Despite the warm temperature outside, she had a wrinkled cotton scarf wound around her neck. And, of course, there was that swollen lip, which upon closer examination I saw was split in two places.

  “We’re glad you came,” Edwina said. “You’re safe here.”

  The young woman nodded and sipped her water.

  “Would you like to talk about what happened tonight?” Edwina asked.

  Carol started to answer but decided instead to sip again.

  “You don’t have to tell us why you’re here,” said Edwina. “That’s completely up to you. We’ll help you in whatever way we can.”

  The fingers that held her glass trembled, causing water to slosh over the side. Carol used two hands to place the glass on the table in front of her. After a false start in which she gulped in air, she cleared her throat and whispered, “I’m afraid.”

  “Of what?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “Not of what,” she said. “Of—of him.”

  “Who is it that you’re afraid of?”

  “My—my husband, Joe.”

  Edwina and I waited for her to continue. She coughed into her hand before saying, “He hit me something terrible tonight.”

  “Your lip,” I said.

  She ran her tongue over it. “He hit me so hard.”

  “May I take a look at it?” Edwina offered. She waited for Carol to agree before moving closer to her and examining her lip. “It’s nasty. I think you might need a stitch. We can escort you to a doctor or the hospital if you like.”

  She shook her head vehemently; a lock of hair caught on the corner of her mouth and she brushed it away, wincing as she did.

  I glanced at Edwina before asking, “Has your husband, Joe, hit you before?”

  Carol swallowed hard and began coughing. “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “There’s nothing to be sorry about,” Edwina said. “When you’re ready, try to tell us what happened tonight.”

  It took her a minute to pull herself together. We waited patiently until she whispered, “I wouldn’t—I just wouldn’t.”

  “Wouldn’t what?”

  “I refused to go to bed with him. He was drunk. I wanted him to sleep on the couch. He swore at me—he always swears at me—I hate that language—he swore at me and threw me on the floor. I yelled at him to leave me alone. He wouldn’t. He kept pawing at me, so I took my pillow and went to sleep on the couch.”

  I winced at her description of the abuse she’d suffered.

  “He wanted me to come back to bed with him, but I said no.”

  “Which you have a right to do,” said Edwina. “You have the right to say ‘no.’ ‘No’ is a complete sentence.”

  Carol began coughing again and reached for her water glass. I picked it up and cradled her hands while she drew the glass to her lips. She nodded when she had taken a sip, and I returned the glass to the table. It was then I noticed that her scarf had slipped a little, showing red and blue bruises on her neck.

  “I haven’t seen you around town,” I said gently. “Are you and your husband new to Cabot Cove?”

  She nodded. “Eight months. We came from Chester. That’s near Bangor.”

  “A small town?” I asked.

  “Very small, not even a thousand people, I think.”

  “Is it your hometown?” Edwina asked.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Did you and your husband work there?”

  A nod. “I helped out in a fishing camp, waited tables. Joe worked at the paper mill, and he did some guiding.”

  “Guiding?”

  “Hunting and fishing. He guided sports in the summer.”

  “Sports?” Edwina asked.

  “The rich ones,” she explained. “Fishermen and hunters. Joe called them ‘sports.’”

  She asked for a refill on her water and I got it for her.

  “Children?” Edwina asked.

  “No.”

  That’s one good thing, I thought, but didn’t say.

  “Why did you move to Cabot Cove?” I asked.

  “Joe got a job here. Said he’d make more money than in Chester.”

  “Where does he work?” I asked.

  “At the Mauser factory.”

  Edwina and I looked at each other but said nothing.

  “And what does he do?” I asked.

  “I’m not sure, probably moving heavy stuff. Joe was a football player at school, always lifting weights, showing off his muscles. He’s not tall, but he’s real strong.”

  The thought of this muscular young man beating up this fragile young woman was wrenching. My mind wandered back to the town council meeting, where a man whose appearance was similar to Carol’s description of her husband stood up and defended Mauser’s view of the shelter. He’d also been eyeing Harry McGraw’s car that same night, the night that Harry’s tires were slashed. We’d seen him again standing on the loading dock of Mauser’s factory. I had a powerful hunch that he was Carol’s husband.


  “It must be difficult to leave your hometown to move somewhere unfamiliar,” I said. “It must have been lonely for you at first.”

  Carol nodded sadly.

  “Did your husband hit you before you moved to Cabot Cove, or is this new behavior?” Edwina asked.

  “It’s nothing new,” she said.

  “How long has he been hitting you?”

  Carol sighed. “I didn’t pay attention the first time. I thought it wouldn’t happen again. He promised it wouldn’t happen again.”

  “But it has. What happened tonight after you declined to return to bed with him?”

  “Like I said, he was drunk.”

  “Alcohol is no excuse for hitting someone or pressuring them to do something they don’t want to do,” Edwina said.

  “He followed me into the living room. I told him no. I don’t feel good. I have a bug or something. That’s when he grabbed my neck and hit me and threw me back on the couch. I told him I wasn’t going to take it anymore, that I was leaving. He laughed and said I had nowhere to go. I told him I was going to the women’s shelter. I’d read about you in the paper. I’m sorry. Maybe I shouldn’t have come, but I didn’t know where else to go. I don’t know anybody here.”

  “You came to exactly the right place,” Edwina said, putting her hand on Carol’s.

  “But,” Carol said, her eyes even more woebegone than earlier, “but Joe said he’d—I can’t use the words he used—I hate those words—he said he’d burn the shelter down and kill everybody in it, kill me, too.”

  Her comment was sobering. I had read of a women’s shelter being firebombed somewhere out west by an angry husband who’d accused the shelter of having broken up his marriage.

  “Do you believe he would do that?” Edwina asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Does Joe keep any weapons in the house?” Edwina asked.

  “Just hunting rifles. That’s all.”

  “Do you have someplace else to stay if you didn’t want to go home tonight?” Edwina asked.

  “I have to go home.”

  “Why?”

  “If I don’t go home, he’ll be even madder at me.”

  “But he’s threatened to kill you,” I said. “He’s threatened to burn the shelter office and anyone in it. He’s a volatile man, Carol. You won’t be safe. You’ll be in danger of more beatings, or worse.”

  “What type of car does he drive?” Edwina asked.

  Carol swallowed hard, setting off another coughing fit. I wondered whether there was an injury to her larynx. She leaned forward, her head in her hands, trying to get her breathing under control. “I don’t know what to do,” she said over and over.

  “Please listen to me,” Edwina said to Carol. “We’re going to have to call the police. We take threats to the center and our clients very seriously,” she said.

  “You’ll only make him more angry.”

  “I understand if I call the police, it will put you at greater risk at home, but I can’t trust that he won’t follow through on his threats. We can offer you shelter. We can relocate you to another town. We can make sure you’re safe. Please, think about it.”

  Edwina had picked up the phone when the sound of breaking glass in the front of the building caused us to stiffen. She dialed 911 as I cracked open the door in the foyer that would afford me a view of the building’s entrance. The man I thought could be Carol’s husband stood on the sidewalk holding a tire iron in one hand, a plastic container in the other. I gasped as he tossed the liquid contents of the container through the broken front door and threw a lighted match after it. A sheet of flames flashed up from the floor. Edwina had come to my side and still had the 911 operator on the line. “That’s right,” she said into the phone, “he’s smashed the window, and now he’s setting fire to the building. Please hurry.”

  Cogan bellowed, “Carol,” the way Stanley Kowalski yelled for Stella in A Streetcar Named Desire.

  Edwina grabbed a fire extinguisher off the wall and I opened the door slightly. The fire was already abating. We couldn’t see Cogan, and I fervently hoped he was gone. Edwina sprayed the lingering flames. Fortunately whatever accelerant Joe had used had burned up quickly, and while the floor and ceiling were charred, it didn’t look as if the whole building would go up in blazes. We heard a siren and watched as a marked patrol car screeched to a halt in front of the building and two uniformed deputies piled out. They yelled through the broken glass. “Is there a rear door?”

  “Yes,” Edwina shouted back.

  “Please leave by the rear exit,” one deputy said. “And make sure everyone inside gets out.”

  As we backed away from the damage, a fire truck arrived, manned by four members of the Cabot Cove Fire Department.

  Edwina and I walked through to the room where Carol Cogan sat cowering in a corner, her eyes wide with fright.

  “It’s okay,” I said, kneeling in front of her.

  “Was it Joe?” she asked in a feeble voice.

  “I think so,” I replied. “But it’s okay now. The police and firemen are here.”

  Edwina and I escorted Carol outside, where an EMT offered to examine her. She sat on a bench behind the building, head bowed.

  To my surprise, Mort Metzger, wearing civilian clothes, joined us. “What happened?” he asked. “I got the call at home and figured I’d better come myself, seeing as it’s the women’s shelter office.”

  “Carol, may I explain to the sheriff what happened?” I asked.

  She nodded, and I gave Mort a rundown of the evening’s events.

  “It’s her husband, huh?”

  “She didn’t see who was there.”

  “Know what kind of car he’s driving?” he asked.

  “No,” I said, “but our client will know.”

  Mort squatted in front of Carol and used his softest voice to question her. She told him the make and year of the car. Pulling a two-way radio from his belt, he put out an APB. “You and Ms. Wilkerson will have to come down to headquarters and file a complaint,” Mort said to me. “I hope you can get her to file one, too.”

  “We’ll try.”

  “Okay,” Mort said, “we’ll roust a carpenter out of bed to put some plywood over that broken door. Looks like the fire’s out, so no problem there. See you down at headquarters.”

  I joined Edwina, who sat with Carol Cogan. Edwina had explained Carol’s right to make a statement, to file charges, and to ask for a protective order.

  “I’m so ashamed,” Carol said, “that he’d do something like this.”

  “You have nothing to feel ashamed about. It was his behavior, not yours.”

  “Has he ever been in trouble with the law before?” I asked.

  She affirmed that he had. “He got into some fights back in Chester. I don’t know what they were about. Someone dissed him and he knocked them out.”

  Edwina asked for and received permission from the firemen to reenter the rear of the building to collect some items. She brought out a bag containing donated clothing and toiletries for Carol, and the three of us climbed in her car for the drive to the shelter itself, making certain we weren’t followed. Carol agreed to spend the night there until the situation could be sorted out. She thanked us profusely, and we left to go to the sheriff’s office.

  By the time we arrived, Joe Cogan was handcuffed and in custody.

  “Wrapped his car around a tree,” Mort said. “High as a kite, on alcohol and maybe something more.”

  Edwina and I gave our report, including that we’d both seen Cogan at the scene of the crime and that I’d witnessed him providing the flammable liquid and igniting it.

  “Looks like Mr. Cogan has got himself a slew of charges to face,” Mort said.

  “You might ask him about slashing Harry McGraw’s tires,” I said.

  “You know that he did it?” Mort asked.

  “Just a guess,” I said.

  Edwina dropped me home and I locked the door, checking it at least t
wice. Later, in pajamas, robe, and slippers, I curled up in a comfortable chair downstairs, contemplating the events of the evening while sipping a glass of red wine. Not my usual routine, but it had been that sort of night and I was keyed up. Even with the wine, when I finally retired it took me until almost two in the morning to fall asleep. I was bombarded with weird dreams, one of which woke me with a start at six a.m.: I’d been sitting with Edwina at the women’s shelter office, only I wasn’t there as a volunteer. I was a battered wife, my yellow-and-purple face swollen, my lip split, and tears running down my cheeks. It was, I knew, just a nightmare. My late husband, Frank, was a loving, gentle man who captured insects in the house with a paper cup and delivered them safely outside.

  I couldn’t conceive of any husband striking a wife.

  But some did. I’d seen it up close and personal, and my appreciation of the value of the Cabot Cove women’s shelter was never higher.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Edwina had left headquarters after we’d given the sheriff our statements about what had transpired that night, leaving Mort and me alone. As he reread my description of what occurred, Mort was receptive to my questions about the attack itself, and any wider meaning it may have had—namely, whether Richard Mauser was in any way involved.

  “I’m just raising it,” I said, “because it’s a natural question to have. Cogan worked for Mauser. It’s possible that Cogan slashed Harry McGraw’s tires after Harry confronted Mauser at the council meeting. And if that’s true—that Mauser at least knew about Cogan slashing the tires—it’s also possible that he encouraged him, either overtly or through insinuation, to do damage to the shelter office.”

  “That doesn’t hold water for me, Mrs. F. Cogan got himself a snoot full of booze and beat up on his wife. She came to the shelter and her husband came after her. How could Dick Mauser have arranged for that to happen?”

  “I’m not saying that he did, Mort, at least not directly. But Mauser’s ongoing animosity toward the shelter is very public. It could have inspired a similar hatred in Cogan. He knew his new boss wanted the shelter shut down, put out of business, and when Cogan’s wife threatened to seek help at the shelter, his need for control and penchant for violence, fueled by alcohol, kicked in.”