Murder, She Wrote: A Slaying in Savannah

by Jessica Fletcher

  “As you say, a fine man. Where were you when the children discovered Mr. Jones’s body?” I asked.

  “Oh, that I remember like it was yesterday. I was in the kitchen cleaning up. I had me a staff for that night.”

  “Including your future husband?”

  “How’d you know about that?”

  Had I said something I shouldn’t? “I believe Melanie mentioned it to me.”

  “That one lets her mouth overload her tail, Mrs. Fletcher. But it’s true. Andrew, he was a skilled carpenter—he did a lot of the fine work in this house—but he wasn’t too big in his boots to turn me down when I needed extras to serve at the party. A good man, he was, loved to read. Melanie, she favors him. He was right there alongside me in the kitchen when the little ones started yelling and crying upstairs. Sends a chill up my spine just thinkin’ about it.”

  “It must have been a traumatic night for everyone involved.”

  “Yes, ma’am. It was that. But like I said, when Dr. Payne whisked Miss Tillie away to where they could be alone, things got better, at least for her. She come out of that room all calmed down and more like her usual self.”

  “We always need a calming influence when bad things happen to us,” I offered.

  “It was a bad night, all right. The police, they questioned Andrew for hours, the other help, too. Looked like they was trying to pin the killing on a black man. But they didn’t even know the man. I was the only one knew him.”

  “Did the police question you?”

  “Yes, ma’am, but they didn’t keep me long. There was a black officer and he wouldn’t let them put the pressure on. And Miss Tillie, she flew into a rage when they took me off. Must have had the judge call someone. They let me go pretty quick. I was real glad to get back to my kitchen. There was still a mess left from the party and the policemen had turned everythin’ upside down looking for the gun.”

  “But they never found it.”

  “Never did.”

  “Was Wanamaker Jones living here at the time?” I asked.

  “He was a guest that night, but mostly not. Miss Tillie, she was careful of her reputation in that regard.”

  “Did Tillie keep a gun in the house?”

  She shook her head. “I would have seen it if she had. The judge, he tried to give her one for protection,” she said with a chuckle, “but she said she might shoot him on purpose if she had a gun in her hand.”

  “Why would she say that?”

  “They was always arguing over Miss O’Neill. Miss Tillie, she thought he was keeping his sister down, not letting her get out in the world. ‘Overbearing,’ that’s what she used to call him,” she said as she took our cups to the sink. “Still the case,” I heard her mutter.

  “By the way, have you heard any news about Charmelle? Is she any better?”

  She gave a soft snort from where she rinsed the cups. “Hard to know,” she said. “Since Miss O’Neill fell and hit her head, she stays mostly to home. That brother of hers sees to that.”

  I walked over to the sink to ask, “Did you ever visit her after her accident?”

  “Wasn’t allowed to.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The judge, he’s a powerful big shot here in Savannah, goin’ to be grand marshal tomorrow for the parade.”

  “My goodness!” I said. “I’d forgotten about the Saint Patrick’s Day parade. I gather that the judge is very protective of his sister.”

  “Keeps her under his thumb like she was in some sorta prison.”

  “Why? I would think that having visitors could be therapeutic for her.”

  “Can’t say why he does a thing, Mrs. Fletcher. I just know enough not to cross the man.” Mrs. Goodall dried her hands on a towel and turned to face me.

  “The tea was delicious,” I said. “Just what I needed. And thank you for talking to me about the night of the murder. I hope I haven’t interrupted your plans for the evening.”

  “Mrs. Fletcher,” she said, then hesitated.

  “Is something wrong, Mrs. Goodall?”

  “Not exactly, but we been getting a coupla calls since that piece ’bout you was in the paper. Not nice calls.”

  “Ahh,” I said, understanding immediately. That article was starting to shake the nuts out of the trees, as Detective Buchwalter had predicted. “I’m sorry if you were inconvenienced.”

  “No trouble to me,” she said, “but there were some threats. ‘Yankee go home,’ that sort of thing. You need to be careful while you’re here. Some folks don’t take to someone from up north interferin’ in their business.”

  “Did you get any names?”

  “People like that don’t leave their names. They just say something ugly and hang up.” She shuddered.

  “I’m so sorry you had to listen to that.”

  “No need to apologize. I’ve heard worse. Just worry about you, that’s all. Wanted to let you know to be on the watch. The world isn’t always a nice place.” She shook her head.

  “I appreciate your staying late to tell me,” I said. “I promise I’ll be careful.”

  She smiled.

  I had other questions to ask, but they would wait for another time.

  “Now, you be sure and lock up once I’m gone,” she said. “Check the front door, too.”

  “I will,” I said.

  “If you go in the study, watch out for those buckets we set for the drips. Hope that darn leak don’t get worse,” she muttered as she scooped up her oversized purse from where she’d left it on a battered church pew next to the door. “Can’t get the plumber to come back till all the Saint Patrick’s Day silliness is over. Hope it don’t get worse before he does. Good night, Mrs. Fletcher. You sleep tight.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  I wish I could have accommodated Mrs. Goodall, but I spent the night tossing and turning, more awake than asleep, my eyes constantly going to the bedside clock, which seemed to be operating in extreme slow motion. 12:35. After what seemed an hour, it read 12:40. And so it went for most of the night.

  There were more people at breakfast than on previous mornings. The usual group—the Grogans and General Pettigrew—had been augmented by Tillie’s niece and nephew, Rose Margaret Kendall and her brother, Roy Richard “Rocky” Kendall. I issued a pleasant good morning, but the only person to reply was Artie Grogan. Nevertheless, I was pleased that Rose and Rocky were present. I’d left messages for them and hoped they had come to talk with me.

  It was after I’d gotten a bowl of fruit and an English muffin from the sideboard and retaken my seat that I learned I’d been mistaken.

  “Making any progress in solving a forty-year-old murder?” Pettigrew said sarcastically.

  “Not yet,” I replied. “But perhaps I’ll get some help this morning.” I smiled in the direction of Rose and Rocky, but they were busy eating.

  The general guffawed. “Silliest damn thing I’ve ever heard,” he said. “Miss Tillie must have been out of her mind when she came up with that. It’s a shame you two have been made a victim of her whim.” He nodded at the sister and brother. “But I’m sure she’ll do right by you eventually. Are you planning to live here?”

  Rose looked around the dining room. “Oh, I don’t think so. This place is so—I don’t know—old-fashioned.”

  “What I don’t understand,” Rocky burst out, “is what that murder has to do with the disposition of this house. It should be a simple matter of passing it on to Aunt Tillie’s remaining relatives—namely us.” He looked to his sister, and they both glared at me.

  “What happens to this house is really no concern of mine,” I said. “I’m here because Tillie Mortelaine created a situation in her last will and testament that calls for my being here.”

  “Well, you allowed yourself to be drawn into this mess,” Rose said to me. “If you hadn’t agreed to going on this fool’s errand, we’d already know who she left the house to and none of us would have to sit around on pins and needles.”

 
I was surprised when Samantha came to my defense. “She’s trying to save the donation for the literacy center,” she said. “You’ve already received a lot of money from Miss Tillie, and you stand to get more. I’d be more patient if I were you. Attacking Mrs. Fletcher just makes you look greedy.”

  Rocky gave out with a hoot. “Do go on! Look who’s talking about greedy,” he said. “You must be thinking of yourself. What are you doing piddling around here? Miss Tillie didn’t leave one penny to you. And nothing Mrs. Fletcher comes up with will change that.”

  “We are here under legitimate circumstances,” Artie said sternly. “We are conducting a scientific research project, and Miss Tillie was our sponsor. In fact—”

  “Sponsor, my eye,” the general growled. “You were here for her amusement only.”

  “You want to talk about amusement?” Samantha said.

  “I never heard Miss Tillie refer to you as her fiancé as you claim to have been. Perhaps amusement is the function you provided.”

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” I said, “there really is no need for this type of unpleasantness.”

  Rocky dabbed at his mouth with his napkin and stood. “Excuse us. Rose and I have an appointment with a reporter from the newspaper.”

  “Mrs. Fletcher isn’t the only person with a stake in this circus,” Rose said, also rising. “The reporter who wrote about her wants to interview Rocky and me to get our views.”

  “Why would anyone be interested in your views?” Samantha asked, looking pleased with herself that she’d gotten in a jab.

  “Because they represent common sense and decency,” Rocky snapped, and led his sister from the room.

  “Please wait!” I called after them. I could see my own interview of the pair disappearing and got up to go after Rose and Rocky. But Samantha grabbed my arm. “They’re irrelevant,” she said. “Arthur and I have something extremely important to report.”

  “This better be good,” Pettigrew said.

  I sat down again, and the general and I waited for her announcement.

  Samantha held up her hand until she heard the front door close behind Tillie’s niece and nephew. “We saw Wanamaker Jones last night,” she whispered.

  There was silence at the table. I broke it. “I’m not sure I understand,” I said.

  “We saw Wanamaker Jones,” Artie Grogan said, sounding gleeful. “He was here in the house, upstairs, right where he was shot.”

  “Yeah, right! One of your fantasies, I’m sure,” Pettigrew said.

  “I’d like to hear more,” I said.

  Artie gave Pettigrew a satisfied look.

  “It happened at precisely midnight,” Samantha said. “Artie and I had sensed a powerful aura in the house for the past two days and felt we might be able to identify and document it.”

  “I was in my bedroom at midnight,” I said, “right off the second floor landing. I didn’t hear anything. And I was wide-awake.” I left out that I was having difficulty sleeping. I didn’t want to give the general any more fodder for his nasty comments.

  “Of course you didn’t hear anything, Mrs. Fletcher,” Artie said smugly, taking a small notebook from his pocket. “When confronting a ghostly presence like Mr. Jones, one must tread softly so as to not alert the spirit to our presence.”

  “Go on,” I said, wishing Pettigrew would stop grimacing and rolling his eyes. I might not have bought into their claim, but I wanted to hear what they had to say, every bit of it.

  “We positioned ourselves at the end of the hallway with our portable EMF meter—that’s the smaller one—and our custom infrared digital camera,” Artie said.

  “What time was that?” I asked.

  Artie flipped through several pages in his notebook. “We arrived at eleven thirty-one—we always keep precise notes as to time and place—and waited.”

  His wife picked up the narrative. “Everything was calm and normal,” she said, “until a few minutes before midnight. That was when cold air suddenly came rushing down the hallway, absolutely frigid. And then there was this faint orb of light, glowing and growing brighter.”

  “And?” I said.

  “And there he was, all bloodied and obviously very unhappy.”

  “Angry is a more apt description,” her husband chimed in. “His face was set in this vengeful expression, as though he was ready to attack.”

  “Attack us,” Samantha added.

  “What happened next?” I asked.

  “He looked to me as though he was searching for something,” Samantha said. “He seemed desperate. Then, he was gone as quickly as he’d appeared. Vanished. Of course, that’s not unusual. Spirits, especially those who met their death in a particularly brutal way, seldom stay for more than a few seconds.”

  “But,” Artie said proudly and loudly, “he remained long enough for me to grab this.” He reached down into a backpack resting next to him on the floor and came up with a camera.

  Now Pettigrew’s blatant dismissal of their tale changed to interest. He leaned forward and said, “You have his picture?”

  The general and I left our places and came around behind Artie. He turned on the camera, and the screen on the camera’s back came to life. Pettigrew and I leaned in as close as possible to see what the image contained.

  “It’s all a bunch of shadows,” Pettigrew said.

  “No, it’s not,” Artie said. “Look closer. See that streak of light running vertically down the center of the screen?”

  “I see it,” I said. “What is it?”

  “Wanamaker Jones,” Samantha proclaimed.

  “Looks like nothing but some kind of light to me,” Pettigrew grunted.

  “Spirits emit an aura of light, never their whole being,” Artie said by way of explanation. “It’s very rare to see features or details in a camera image. It has happened, of course—there’s a picture of the ghost of a monk standing in a church balcony, and others—but it’s very rare. However, you can make out the shape of his head, here.” He pointed to a blob of gray. “And here are his legs.”

  Samantha sat back with a sigh. “We think now that he’s let us photograph him once, we may be able to capture more the next time.”

  “Rubbish, pure rubbish,” said Pettigrew, walking out of the room.

  “I detest that man,” Samantha said.

  “This is going to save us a lot of time,” Artie said, patting his wife’s hand.

  “Why’s that?” I asked.

  “With this one, and if we get another good image in the next day or so, we may be able to do our report on Mortelaine House without having to study all the other photos we’ve made.”

  “We must have hundreds of hours documented,” Samantha said. “We expected to spend all spring and summer analyzing the film.”

  Artie started to return the camera to his backpack.

  “May I see it again?” I asked.

  He handed the camera to me, and I examined the image more closely. I saw what I’d thought I’d seen on the first pass. A unique piece of Victorian furniture in the upstairs hallway was discernible in the picture. There was no doubt that Artie had taken the photograph where he said he had. What had caused the streak of light to appear at that moment? I wondered. It obviously hadn’t originated from any lighting fixture in the hallway. Had they artificially created it? If so, I was at a loss as to how. It wasn’t light as we know it. It was a gray light, fuzzy and ethereal.

  “Thank you,” I said, handing back the camera.

  “At least you’re open-minded,” Artie said.

  “I try to be,” I said. “Thank you for showing it to me. It’s interesting.” I thought of Dr. Payne’s comment about terming something “interesting,” and had to smile as I excused myself and headed for my room.

  I paused on the second-floor landing near the piece of furniture seen in the Grogans’ photo and looked around the area, paying special attention to lighting fixtures. As far as I could see, none of them—wall sconces and two table lamps—would have
cast the quality of light seen in the photo.

  Amazing that I didn’t hear them, I thought. Age had certainly affected my eyesight; I’ve needed reading glasses for several years. But my hearing has always been acute. That Artie and Samantha could enter the house, creep up the stairs, and take photographs without my sensing their presence or detecting any sound to indicate that someone was in the hallway outside my room—well, that was more disturbing to me than the idea of a ghost haunting Mortelaine House.

  Perhaps it was disappointment in my failing senses that made me listen harder, but my ears picked up a noise I hadn’t heard before. It came from behind the wall between my bedroom and the next one. I pressed my ear to the striped wallpaper. Running water? I hadn’t noticed that previously. I opened the door of the other room and peeked in. There wasn’t a bathroom or even a closet. Could it be that someone had turned on a sink or flushed a toilet downstairs, and I was hearing the echo of it upstairs? I waited to hear if the water stopped. But it didn’t. And it didn’t sound as if it were coming from far away. It was quite close. Obviously, something was wrong behind the wall. Perhaps a pipe had developed a pinhole leak. Or maybe the solder where two pipes were joined together had cracked. Could this be the cause of the wetness downstairs beneath where I stood? It was a good possibility. I hoped it wouldn’t get any worse before the plumber could return on Monday morning and find and repair the problem. I vowed to alert Mrs. Goodall to this new symptom when I saw her next.

  I stepped outside and looked up. The parade sponsors were fortunate; the sky was cobalt blue, with only a few streaks of white to mar its beauty. It was cool and breezy. I breathed deeply and set off at a brisk pace. I needed a good walk to dissipate the cobwebs in my brain from a fitful night’s sleep.

  I didn’t get very far. I stopped in front of the hotel that had been erected next door to Tillie’s mansion and admired the lovely gardens decorating its facade. The hotel appeared to be a series of ocher-colored stucco Savannah houses, no more than four stories high, joined together to form one long building. All the classic details were there—tall, multipaned windows with sunburst pediments and dark green shutters, wrought-iron balconies painted to match, and at the entrance, a broad concrete staircase with huge pots of flowers—all green and white for the occasion—set on either side of the landing and flanking double doors with leaded-glass inserts.