Murder, She Wrote: A Slaying in Savannah

by Jessica Fletcher

  We all donned our earphones and stood back as he aimed the revolver into the tank. He pulled the trigger. The lab manager had been right. The report was painfully loud despite the protection for our ears and the sound-muffling thick foam on the walls. It seemed to linger in the room for a very long time, along with the acrid odor of gunpowder.

  Gollub retrieved the bullet from the tank, dried it, and placed it under the microscope. “The bullet I’m comparing this one to is the one that killed Mr. Jones forty years ago,” he said. “I’m looking to see if the grooves on the one I just fired match up with the grooves on the original.” I watched with fascination as the twin images of each bullet appeared on the screen, side by side. The grooves made on the bullets as they spiraled through the gun barrel came into focus, and he rotated one bullet, seeking to find similarities in the markings. A minute later, it was obvious even to my untrained eye that the marks matched perfectly.

  “Both bullets came from that same gun,” the specialist announced. “They’re identical.”

  “Now, the question is who fired that weapon and killed Wanamaker Jones,” I said, more to myself than to others in the room.

  “We couldn’t get any prints off the weapon, except those that probably belong to the plumber,” the forensics officer said.

  “That’s a shame,” I said.

  Captain Parker thanked Elison and Gollub, and we walked together from the building. “It seldom goes easily,” she said once we were outside. “At least we have the weapon that was used.”

  “One step at a time,” I said. “I want you to know, Captain, how much I appreciate being included like this.”

  A sound that passed for a laugh came from her. “To be honest, Mrs. Fletcher, I’d love to see you solve this murder. It would be nice to close the books on it. Besides, I’m getting a kick out of it. Miss Mortelaine was a true Southern eccentric to have done what she did in her will.” Her laugh was more full-fledged this time. “I wish you all the best,” she said. “Give a call anytime you think you’ve come up with something.”

  I watched her walk away and join the forensics officer at the car in which they’d arrived. Officer Lee and I got into our car and she drove me back to the house. As I was about to get out, she said, “So you’re the lady I read about in the paper.”

  “Unfortunately, yes,” I answered.

  “Everyone was talking about you at headquarters,” she said. “We even have a couple of side bets on your success—no money, just bragging rights.”

  “Which side did you bet on?”

  “I bet against you, but now that you found the murder weapon, I’m thinking I’ll go change my bet.”

  “I appreciate your confidence in me,” I said, wishing I felt the same way.

  She started to laugh and shook her head. “You have a nice day, Mrs. Fletcher,” she said as she put the car in gear and pulled away, still shaking her head.

  I certainly understood her amusement, and found myself also shaking my head as I went up the steps and entered the house.

  What’s my next step? I asked myself as I went up to my room, slid off my shoes, and sat by the window. The answer came to me. I found my cell phone in my handbag and dialed Seth Hazlitt’s number. I felt very far from home at that moment, and needed to hear a familiar voice, even via long distance.

  Seth, as always, was generous with his time, and our talk reassured me. I’d needed an objective ear, someone unacquainted with the people in Savannah, who presented a bewildering picture of their relationships to each other and to the victim. Wanamaker Jones had been as thoroughly rejected in death as he’d been welcomed into their homes and their hearts in life. Without doubt, he had considerable personal charm, which allowed him entry to areas that would have been denied to others who were less talented. Yet, the completeness with which they had locked arms and refused to permit the authorities a glimpse into the circumstances leading to his demise was, to me, baffling. It was almost as if they were embarrassed to have been taken in by a charlatan and were not about to let that weakness be made public.

  I used Seth as a sounding board for my theories and laid out for him the little I thought I knew.

  “I can’t help you, Jessica,” he said, “but seems to me you have a pretty good handle on the situation. Ought to be able to wrap it up in a week or two.”

  “I hope you’re right. I keep thinking that somehow I’m missing something.”

  “You’ll find it. You always do. And make it quick, please. My cookie jar is almost empty.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Mr. Basker, the plumber, was scheduled to come back in two days to close up the open-ing that had exposed the cause of the leak. The extra time was allotted to enable the police to inspect the site where the murder weapon in the Wanamaker Jones case had been found. The Grogans were ecstatic, sure that Jones had turned on the water to make his presence known. And for all I knew, they might have been right. No one had come up with a reason for why a shower, buried in the wall for forty years, would come to life. What unseen hand could have twisted a rusted tap, allowing long-dry pipes to flood with water, spurt out the showerhead, and fill the basin until it spilled onto the dusty boards and flowed down to the ceiling of the study?

  The plumber, who was the most qualified to hazard a guess, remained mystified.

  Mrs. Goodall clucked over the mess in the hall and muttered to herself about people coming back when they should have stayed dead.

  I was inclined to be philosophical. While I couldn’t quite convince myself to credit the ghost of a dead man with helping me find the weapon used to murder him, I had no other explanation. I was willing simply to accept my good fortune in discovering what Detective Buchwalter had called “the smoking gun.”

  The Grogans, aglow with their success, took the open wall as an invitation to focus all their electronic detection devices on what they bragged was solid evidence of paranormal activity. As a consequence, my sleep was accompanied by clicks and whirs outside my closed bedroom door as Artie and Samantha attempted once more to commune with the spirit complement of Mortelaine House through a hole in the wall. To be perfectly honest, I found the noise and the knowledge of their presence less unsettling than the eerie sounds in the house when it was supposedly empty, and more palatable than the Grogans’ previously unannounced investigations in the middle of the night.

  The dining room was vacant when I went down to breakfast late the next morning. The Grogans had returned to the guesthouse to sleep off their all-night research, and General Pettigrew was nowhere in sight. I took a muffin from the buffet Mrs. Goodall had set up, picked up the local newspaper, and wandered down to the kitchen, where I found the housekeeper preparing crab cakes for supper. Melanie was sitting at the little wooden table, typing on her laptop computer. In typically chic fashion, she wore dark blue jeans and a black pullover with a squared collar, which framed the multiple strands of beads around her neck. At least six thin gold bangle bracelets adorned her wrist and I wondered how she typed with them. When I wear a bracelet, I usually have to remove it if I sit down at the computer.

  “Mama, did you know that when Miss Tillie put in the new bathrooms, she covered up the old ones?”

  Mrs. Goodall caught sight of me coming into the kitchen and nodded. “I really don’t remember, child. That was a long time ago.”

  “Good morning,” I said. “May I join you?”

  “Hi, Mrs. Fletcher,” Melanie said. “You can sit next to me. I was just asking my mama about the bathrooms.” She scooted her chair over to make room for me at the table.

  I put down the newspaper and the plate with my muffin and took the seat next to hers. “Are you still working on the report?” I asked.

  “Sure. There’s lot more to add now. Mama was here when the renovations took place. Mama? Wasn’t Daddy one of the carpenters working upstairs?”

  “I got too much to do today to worry about what happened all those years ago.”

  “But I need to know for my rep
ort.”

  “I best not hear that tone from you, girl. When you finish mashing on that machine, I got an errand you can run for me.”

  “Okay,” she said, drawing out the word with a dramatic pout.

  “I’m going to clear the sideboard. Be back directly.”

  “She hates talking to me about when she started here,” Melanie said after her mother had left the room. “And I was counting on her for the report, especially now with the gun found and all. I talked with my professor about the murder, and he said what you said, that it’s an important part of the history of the house. So now I need to know everything, and she won’t help.” Melanie frowned as she closed her computer, then brightened. “But Mama said there’s stuff in the newspaper today. An interview with the Kendalls. Did you see it?”

  “I haven’t read the paper yet,” I said, “but I’ll be sure to look for the article. I’ll save it for you.”

  Melanie took a faux fur jacket from the back of the chair and pushed one arm through a sleeve.

  “I wonder if could ask a favor of you, Melanie?” I said.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “While you’re out, may I use your computer for a few minutes?”

  “Sure,” she said slowly. “Do you know how it works?” She looked at me skeptically.

  “I have one of my own at home, so I’m pretty confident I can find my way around yours. Are you able to access the Internet from here?”

  “Not from here,” she said, “but you can go next door to the hotel. They have wireless everywhere. It’s a hot spot.”

  “You wouldn’t mind if I took your computer over there?”

  “No, ma’am. You’re welcome to take it with you. I figure you’ll make sure to get it back to me.”

  “I certainly will.”

  Melanie showed me a few features on her computer and left, carrying her mother’s grocery list.

  I checked at the front desk of the hotel and the clerk told me I could access the Internet from anywhere in the building. I took Melanie’s laptop into the dining room, checking first to see if General Pettigrew was present. The breakfast crowd had dispersed and the restaurant staff was setting up for lunch. Only a few tables were occupied. A waiter guided me to one away from the windows where I wouldn’t get a reflection on the computer’s screen. I ordered a cup of tea and opened the newspaper, scanning the pages for the interview with Rocky and Rose Kendall. I knew I’d found it when on page two, I saw the headline SOLVE A MURDER OR STEAL A MILLION? beneath which was a photograph of the siblings standing in front of Mortelaine House.

  What’s the real motive behind mystery writer Jessica Fletcher’s trip to Savannah? That’s what Savannah residents Roy Richard Kendall and his sister, Rose Margaret Kendall, heirs to the estate of the late Ms. Tillie Mortelaine, are asking. Miss Mortelaine, one of Savannah’s grande dames, who passed on last month at age ninety-one, left a million dollars to the Yankee author with the proviso that she donate it to Savannah’s literacy program, one of the departed’s favorite charities. But first Mrs. Fletcher must solve a murder that took place at Mortelaine House forty years ago.

  “If she gets the million dollars, there’s no guarantee she’ll turn it over to the literacy foundation,” said Mr. Kendall, who goes by the nickname Rocky.

  Ms. Kendall agreed with her brother’s assessment, and added, “Aunt Tillie always wanted us to inherit her house. After all, we’re her only living relatives. And the will is being held up while we all sit around waiting for Mrs. Fletcher to play detective.”

  Meanwhile, the writer seems to be making headway in that direction. Sources at the Savannah-Chatham Metropolitan Police have told this reporter that the suspected murder weapon was discovered by Mrs. Fletcher and turned over to the police.

  Nevertheless, that doesn’t seem to soothe some concerns. Missy Anderson, executive director of the Savannah Literacy Foundation, expressed her fears about the bequest. “Ms. Mortelaine promised she would take care of us in her will. I’m not sure why she put conditions on the donation. After all, she and Miss Charmelle O’Neill were the original founders of this program. I only hope Mrs. Fletcher will live up to the provisions in the will and not take away our funding.”

  But Ms. Mortelaine’s niece is not so confident the author will come through. “Personally, I think she’s trying to raid the estate, and deprive us of our rightful inheritance.”

  As children, the Kendalls were the ones who discovered the body of Wanamaker Jones in the second-floor hall of Mortelaine House on New Year’s Eve 1967. The case was never solved and the brother and sister say that’s all right with them. They would just like the will of their aunt to be settled and for them to “get shed” of the visiting author.

  The waiter delivered a pot of tea and a slice of Lady Baltimore cake, “compliments of the baker.” “He’s experimenting with a new recipe,” he said, placing the white cake with fluffy icing on the table.

  “Please send my thanks to the baker,” I said, smiling but inwardly groaning. I had been hoping for a lower-calorie day. I pushed the cake aside, poured a cup of tea, lifted the top of Melanie’s computer, and connected to my e-mail account.

  The messages had been piling up since last week. I answered the most urgent ones, then turned to Google, which had been my original intent. I typed in “James J. Pettigrew” and clicked on SEARCH. The only general that the search engine found was one with the same name dating from the Civil War. Pettigrew was older than I, but he wasn’t a hundred and fifty. There were a few articles about a James Pettigrew who was a real estate developer in the Bahamas, and who’d been charged with fraud in connection with a hotel deal. A brief profile included that he was a native of Virginia, but didn’t mention military service, which would seem to me to be an important part of the man’s background, especially if he’d achieved the rank of general.

  I checked the Web site for the local Savannah paper. When Detective Buchwalter had pointed out the story about me in a previous edition, there had been a photo above it. I hadn’t paid attention to it then, but I wanted to see it now. It was about real estate developers and expansion plans for the hotel in which I sat. Using the paper’s search feature together with the date it appeared, I found the photo, and looked up similar articles about the hotel and its expansion plans.

  A shadow fell over the table as someone blocked the light. I looked up to see General Pettigrew, or perhaps “Mr. Pettigrew” was a more appropriate form of address.

  “See anything interesting in there?” he said, joining me at the table without waiting for an invitation.

  “What I see is that you have been misrepresenting yourself on several levels,” I replied calmly, hoping to flush him out.

  “Do say? People are so gullible these days,” he said easily. “What did you find?”

  “You have no military experience despite your claims to the title of general.”

  “Military men are always impressive. You find people more willing to hang on your every word if they think you’ve led men into battle. It’s a small deception, but useful. Not unlike a writer of pulp fiction leading a murder investigation. Not exactly her official job, is it? Anything else?”

  “You presented yourself to this hotel as an expert in real estate negotiations when you’re no such thing. In fact, you were charged with fraud in a similar scheme in the Bahamas.”

  “Charged, but never convicted, Mrs. Fletcher. There is a very big difference, which you of all people should know, being a pretend detective, so to speak.” He pinched off a bite of the cake the waiter had brought and popped it in his mouth. “And actually, the incident in the Bahamas gave me quite a bit of real estate experience, which I’ve managed to apply in my work for the owners of this hotel. So you don’t really have much on me, do you?”

  “You courted an elderly woman, proposing to her in an attempt to gain access to her estate, specifically her house. Did you have any feelings for Tillie at all? Or was she just a means to your end?”

 
“Feelings?” he said, chuckling. “I loved her from the tip of her arrogant nose to the bottom of her little blue slippers. Don’t waste any tears for the innocent old lady hoodwinked by the big bad general. She was every bit the con artist I am. It was a challenge to match wits with her. Oh, yes, I had a lot of feelings for Tillie Mortelaine. And she kept a very fine Armagnac on hand for me.” He mimed holding up a glass to make a toast.

  “Do you really expect to gain the title to her house when the rest of her will is revealed?”

  “Me? No. She was too shrewd by half. But I’ve been working on the niece and nephew, not that they know I’m the one they’re negotiating with. I think we’re close to a deal.”

  “And what if the house isn’t left to them?”

  “Sorry to disappoint, Mrs. Fletcher, but the house is definitely going to the Kendalls.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “I have the inside track on that.”

  He took another swipe at the cake, licking the icing off his index finger, grinned at me, and left the table.

  I took a deep breath and tried to relax the tension that had crept into my shoulders. I closed the top of the computer and smiled to myself. The so-called general had intended to provoke me by digging his fingers into the cake. Little did he know I was actually grateful that he’d saved me from eating it. And there were a few other valuable nuggets that had emerged in our conversation.

  Artie and Samantha Grogan were in the kitchen of the guesthouse when I knocked on the door. “Hello, Jessica. Are you having computer problems?” Artie asked, noticing Melanie’s laptop. “We know all about computers.”

  “This isn’t mine,” I said. “I’m on my way to return it. I just stopped by to ask how last night’s research went.”

  “Not as productive as we’d hoped,” he said. “But we’ve got hours of material to review, so there may be more there than we realize at the moment.”

  Samantha looked at me skeptically. “I didn’t think you were interested in our research, Jessica. I thought you shared the general’s view that what we do is what he likes to call ‘fake science.’ ”