Murder, She Wrote

by Jessica Fletcher

“Good man. He spent a couple of years in Windham, but he’s settled down now.”

  “What was he in for?” I asked.

  “Assault, I believe. They had him in some kind of woodshop program there. I’m trying to teach him auto mechanics now. These new cars are all computer controlled. He has trouble with those, but he’s learning. Of course, he’s better with the older cars, but there’s fewer and fewer of them these days. Always tried to put those boys on the straight and narrow. Some take to it—like Jeff; some don’t—like Darryl.” He laughed. “You’re looking into all the old gang members, huh?”

  “Any others?”

  “Brian Kinney and Hank Thompson work as guides. I guess you know that. Tough road for Kinney, all those years in prison, but he seems to have gotten over it. You know John Pelletier, owns the dealership downtown?”

  “Yes, Alice’s father.”

  “Right. He keeps me up to speed on Brian. John doesn’t like him, but he’s getting over it. His little granddaughter is a nice compensation.”

  “What about Cory?”

  “Caruthers? He started as a helper on the lobster boats. When his buddies were convicted, he quit and joined the army, but I hear he came home last week.”

  “Cory Caruthers?”

  “Yeah, that’s who you were asking about, right?”

  “Harvey, was he related to Wes Caruthers?”

  “His son, I believe, although they never got along. That’s why Cory went into the armed services, I’m sure. Wanted to get as far away from Cabot Cove and his father as he could.”

  I thanked Harvey for the information. After we hung up I added carrots to the pot roast, reset the timer, and checked my watch. I had a few hours before Mort would arrive, if he came at all, and I debated how best to use them.

  The FBI’s supposed interest notwithstanding, the Wes Caruthers murder case had taken a backseat to the search for Darryl Jepson, although Mort would likely say they were one and the same. It seemed to me that the timing was awfully close for Jepson to have escaped prison, made it down to Cabot Cove, known where to find Wes Caruthers in order to kill him, and run back up to the woods around Moon Lake to kidnap Maureen. But stranger things have happened. It would mean that earlier sightings of Jepson in Calais and elsewhere around the Canadian border were mistaken. It would also mean that Jepson had spent a lot of time planning his moves before the escape.

  I called Dimitri’s Taxi Service and arranged to meet the driver around the corner from my neighbor Tina Treyz’s house, in order to avoid the prying eyes of the press. I walked into Tina’s backyard, stealing a look over my shoulder at my front walkway, where a reporter and two of his colleagues were engaged in watching something on their phones.

  The cab pulled up on the side street and a minute later we were on our way into town with no one the wiser. I had intended my first stop to be Town Hall, where I knew a press conference was scheduled for later in the day. But when we passed a pair of television trucks with their antennas reaching into the sky, I changed my mind. With everyone crowded into Town Hall for the daily update, it would be easier to move about unnoticed.

  It was tempting to drop into Mara’s Luncheonette to hear the latest scuttlebutt, but if the last time Cabot Cove had been inundated with press was any indication, Mara’s would have become press central for visiting members of the fourth estate. Instead, I walked over to Charles Department Store, a less well known, if reliable, gathering place for information and news about goings-on in town. I was startled to see a placard in the window with Maureen’s photograph and the offer of a reward for her safe return.

  Several people looked up briefly when I came through the door, then went back to their shopping. I greeted Dave, one of the owners, who was behind the counter changing the paper roll used for printing the cash register receipts. He wore a yellow ribbon pinned to his shoulder. “Any news?” he whispered to me.

  “I was hoping you would have some,” I replied.

  His mouth was a grim line. “I heard they put a third team of dogs on the search. You know the region around Moon Lake is a pretty big area, and all the little rivulets and streams cutting through make it hard to get from one section of woods to the other. Easier if you’re in a boat than if you’re on land. One of the guides involved in the search was here this morning buying bug repellent. He said all the hatches are making it harder. No fun tromping through a cloud of insects. Kind of takes away your attention to the task when you get a mouthful of bugs.”

  David’s assistant joined us at the counter. She wore a yellow ribbon as well. “I heard they’re doing a shoulder-to-shoulder search in the fields north of Moon Lake,” she said.

  “Shoulder-to-shoulder?” David said, his eyes wide. “Don’t they only do those when they’re searching for a body?”

  “They had the dive team out, too,” she said. “Maybe they think Mrs. Metzger drowned when she tried to escape from her kidnapper.”

  “I’m sure the authorities are being thorough and responsible,” I said, shivering at the possibilities raised. “But it makes much more sense for Jepson to keep Maureen safe. A live hostage is valuable; a dead one is not. She’s an important negotiating card for him. Besides, if the authorities really thought they were looking for a body, the dogs would be much more helpful.”

  “There have to be hundreds of camps up in those woods,” David said. “Jepson could be hopping from one cabin to the next going north. There would be nothing stopping him for miles.”

  Dave’s brother, Jim, slid a carton of yellow ribbons onto the counter. “Here you go, Dave, another two hundred. I’ll have to order more of the yellow grosgrain. I’m all out.” The ribbons were stapled into a loop like the pink ribbons used to commemorate breast cancer victims.

  “Did you find the safety pins, too?” Dave asked.

  “I did,” Jim replied, pulling out a plastic container. “Here you go, Jessica. You’re just in time. We ran out of the first batch. They’re going like Mara’s pancakes.” He handed me a yellow loop of ribbon and a safety pin. “They’re for Maureen Metzger, in hopes we get her back soon.”

  I pinned a yellow ribbon on my shoulder, feeling slightly sick to my stomach. Maureen’s disappearance was now part of the media event surrounding the search for escaped convict Darryl Jepson.

  “We’ve got flyers all over town, too,” Dave said.

  “Is that what’s in your front window?” I asked.

  “Yes. The local print shop stayed open all night to print them.”

  “Who’s offering the reward?”

  “The Cabot Cove Chamber of Commerce. We want our sheriff to know the community is standing behind him, so we canvassed the membership as soon as we learned his wife was taken. The reward is twenty-five hundred dollars for information leading to Maureen’s safe return.”

  “I’m sure the sheriff will appreciate the support.”

  My cell phone rang and I looked down at my screen to see Mort’s name. “Please excuse me,” I said, taking the phone to the front door and out onto the street. “Hello, Mort, is everything all right?”

  “Everything is about the same, Mrs. F. No news yet,” Mort replied.

  “Did you get the message I left for you at headquarters?”

  “I did, and thank you. I’ll try to get there by six but I don’t know how long I can stay.”

  “Seth is bringing a pie. He said he’d like to see you if you can wait around.”

  “I have to play that by ear. Right now I’ve got a press conference.”

  “We understand. Take whatever time you can spare.”

  I left Charles Department Store intending to slip into the press briefing at Town Hall, but when I saw our local editor pausing on the steps and surveying the crowd, I changed my mind. Evelyn Phillips would spot me in an instant and I would be bombarded by questions I’d rather not answer. This would be a good time to visit M
ara’s Luncheonette instead with all the reporters gone from there.

  Maureen’s face looked back at me from the flyer in the luncheonette window as well. Mara was carrying a stack of dirty dishes to the kitchen when I opened the door. “Don’t let the air-conditioning out,” she yelled over her shoulder.

  I slid onto a stool at the counter and accepted a glass of water from a college-student waitress Mara had hired for the summer. Barnaby Longshoot was two stools down, paging through the latest edition of the Cabot Cove Gazette.

  “Mrs. Phillips says here efforts to reach you ‘were unavailing,’” Barnaby said, pointing at the last line of an article. “What’s that mean?”

  “It means she wanted to ask me a question but I wasn’t available,” I said.

  “So unavailing means unavailable?”

  “Not exactly,” I said.

  “It means leave her alone, Barnaby,” Mara said. “That’s what it means. Want some iced tea, Jessica? I’m mixing up a new batch.”

  “Yes, thank you.”

  “I’ll have one, too,” Barnaby called after her.

  “Barnaby, do you mind if I ask you a question?” I said.

  “Me?” he said, closing the newspaper and straightening on his stool. “Sure. What would you like to know?”

  “Do you know Cory Caruthers?”

  Barnaby thought about it a minute. “Big guy? Army fatigues? Works lobsterin’, sometimes? Doesn’t talk much? That the one?”

  “I don’t know; I haven’t met him. Who does he work for, do you know?”

  “Last I heard he was on Levi Carver’s boat or maybe it was Linc Williams.” He shrugged. “One of them anyway. Why d’ya want to know?”

  “That’s not your business, Barnaby. Here’s your tea, Jessica,” Mara said, placing a tall plastic glass in front of me with a straw sticking out of the cover. She crossed her arms on the counter and lowered her voice. “Are you working on Mrs. Metzger’s case?”

  “Trying to,” I said. “Any chance you would happen to know a lady named Darcy? I don’t know her last name but she used to live up in the trailer park. I don’t know if she’s still there.”

  Mara shook her head. “Name’s not familiar. Want me to ask in the kitchen? Cook has a double-wide up there.”

  “If you wouldn’t mind,” I said, realizing that I could have asked David and Jim at Charles Department Store the same question, but I didn’t want to set off a round of rumor, and I hoped I wasn’t doing it now.

  “I don’t know any ladies named Darcy,” Barnaby chimed in, “but give me another name. Maybe I’ll know someone else.”

  “Okay. How about Jeff Grusen or Hank Thompson? Do you know them?”

  Barnaby frowned. “Are they lobstermen, too?”

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “I don’t think they are,” he said. “I would know their names if they’re lobstermen.”

  “That’s helpful, Barnaby. Thank you.”

  “Sure. Any time, Mrs. Fletcher. I like to help.”

  Mara came back from the kitchen with a piece of paper that she handed me. “Cook says he doesn’t know any Darcy, but there’s a Mrs. Luce has the last trailer up the hill. She’s been there a long time. She might know who you’re looking for.”

  I pulled out my wallet, but Mara waved my money away. “On the house.”

  “How did you know I’d want it in a take-out container?”

  “Just figured Nudd’s was your next stop,” she said, winking.

  “Do I get one on the house, too?” Barnaby asked.

  “Do I ask you to vacate that stool that you occupy all day, keeping paying customers from having a seat?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “Then there’s your answer,” Mara said.

  I thanked Barnaby for the information and Mara for the tea and walked along the docks until I reached Nudd’s Bait & Tackle, a gathering place for lobstermen, although they were more likely to be there at four in the morning than two in the afternoon. The flyer for Maureen had been tacked up on the front door. Inside, Tim Nudd was stapling pictures of fish to one of the wooden posts in his shop.

  “You got a good-size rainbow there, Mrs. Fletcher,” he said, tapping the picture of my catch that I’d e-mailed in.

  I smiled. “You should have seen the one that got away. It was even bigger.”

  “The ones that get away are always bigger,” he said with a grunt. “But you need the proof to win a prize.”

  “Are all the derby entries in now?” I asked.

  “I’ll give ’em another day or two to e-mail in the pictures. With all the hoo-ha in town, some of ’em probably forgot to send ’em.”

  I scanned all the photos of rainbows, brown trout, brook trout, and lake trout, looking for Maureen’s fish, and there it was. I remembered how proud she was to catch that trout and what a terrible price she paid with a bad sunburn that led to her skipping the second morning of the contest and getting lost or kidnapped in the bargain. It was frustrating not to be among the searchers in the fields around Moon Lake, and I imagined it must be a lot worse for Mort, who had to juggle the visiting press while coordinating his responsibilities with the various law enforcement agencies on the scene.

  “Do you know Cory Caruthers?” I asked Tim Nudd.

  “What do you want with that miserable lumper? I gotta watch my register every time he steps in here.”

  “Does he step in here often?”

  “Not really. Levi Carver’s the only one’ll give him work. Soft-hearted, Levi is. But only when Caruthers is off the juice; otherwise, he’d tumble overboard hauling in the first lobster pots. Takes after his father. As they say, ‘The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.’”

  “Has he been in here lately?”

  “Let me think on it. He weren’t here this mornin’, nor this weekend past. Now I remember he said he was fishin’ in the derby. Bragged he was gonna win the big money prize.” Nudd stepped back and looked up and down at all the fish pictures he’d hung up. “But he ain’t sent in one picture. Not gonna win that way.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  I’d stationed myself just inside my front door and peered out though a small window in anticipation of Mort Metzger and Seth Hazlitt arriving. I’d stopped answering my doorbell because a small contingent of press camped across the street regularly sent one of its flock to ring my bell or knock despite the note I’d posted on the door informing them that I had no comment.

  Mort was the first to arrive. He pulled his cruiser up to the curb in front of my house at five thirty, exciting the reporters and prompting them into action, surrounding him as he exited his vehicle and flinging questions at him.

  Mort waved them away. “I already gave you everything I know at the press conference,” he shouted loud enough for me to hear through my closed door. “This is private property. Make sure you stay off the lawn.”

  He was joined a minute later by Seth Hazlitt, who parked behind the police car. He carried a white box, which became the subject of more questions from the reporters.

  “What are you bringing to Mrs. Fletcher’s house?” a woman asked.

  “Will she be giving us a statement?” asked another.

  “Any progress in finding your wife, Sheriff?” queried another.

  I waited until Mort and Seth had reached my door before opening it.

  “Maybe we should have come in through the back porch,” Seth said.

  “No, this is fine,” I said, quickly closing the door behind them.

  “Vultures,” Seth muttered.

  “They’re just doing their job,” I said.

  “They won’t leave me alone,” Mort said. “I’m tired of having to avoid them.”

  The tension of the past day’s events was written all over our sheriff’s broad face. His usually bright eyes were lifeless, h
is complexion gray, and deep lines bracketed his mouth, adding to his sad expression. My heart went out to him, and I renewed my pledge to myself that I would do what I could to lift his spirits over a decent meal and lighter conversation. Was that possible? Probably not, but it seemed the right thing to aim for.

  I had already set the kitchen table for three, guessing that Mort would prefer to eat and run than sit down to a more formal meal in the dining room.

  “Smells good in here,” Seth said, setting the box on the kitchen counter and cutting the red-and-white twine with a pocketknife.

  “What do you have there?” Mort asked, hanging his Stetson on a hook and peering over Seth’s shoulder.

  “Low bush blueberry pie. Charlene Sassi said her brother dropped off a sack this morning. Right out of the oven. Can’t get berries any fresher than these.”

  “They’re kind of small, aren’t they?” Mort said.

  “Wild blueberries are usually small,” I said, taking down a plate to put the pie on.

  “Highly concentrated antioxidants,” Seth said. “It’s healthier, and by the looks of you right now, Sheriff, I’d say you need all the antioxidants you can get.”

  “You’re prescribing blueberry pie for me, Doc?”

  “Yes! After Jessica’s pot roast. You need some nutrition if you’re going to keep the hours you’ve been working. We don’t want Maureen coming home to find you a shadow of your former self.”

  “I don’t need any antioxidants,” Mort said. “What I need is for Maureen to come home.” He swallowed a lump in his throat and sighed. “I still can’t believe this is happening. I see her face all over town everywhere I look. I know they’re only trying to help, but it feels like I’m in a bad movie. I keep trying to leave the theater but I’m always pulled back into my seat. I just can’t accept it.”

  “You’re in denial,” Seth said, “which is natural. Any promising news?”

  Mort shook his head and sat at the table, his head bowed. “I’m in constant touch with the wardens and with the state police liaison up at Moon Lake. The dive team came up negative, thank God. They’ve had three teams searching with dogs. They’re doing the best they can, but there’s still no trace of Maureen—or that rat Jepson. If he’s harmed her—” He brought his large fist down on the table, causing the utensils to bounce.