Murder, She Wrote

by Jessica Fletcher

  “It’s a tragic story,” I said.

  She nodded sadly, dabbing her eyes with a tissue. Then she looked around warily. “Come inside. I don’t want to give the neighbors anything more to gossip about.”

  Too late, I thought. I could imagine Harriet Bliss embroidering whatever she’d heard, much as she had embroidered the cushion on her bench.

  Dee’s mobile home was painted inside with the same soft blue color that had been used on her outside walls. On one side of the main room she had a yellow linen sofa across from a faux fireplace with framed photos and knickknacks on the mantel. Those were the only feminine touches. Everywhere else sports equipment hung on or leaned against the walls: snowshoes, skis, fishing rods, nets. It looked to me as if she was hoping her nephew would return.

  After retrieving a box of stationery, she sat at her kitchen table, a round one rather than a booth like Harriet’s, and asked me what she should write. “You’re a famous writer,” she said. “I remember now seeing your picture and hearing stories about you.”

  “I don’t think you need my help to write a note to your nephew. Write whatever’s in your heart.”

  I listened as her pen scratched on the paper.

  When she was finished, she folded the sheet, tucked it in an envelope, and sealed it. “It’s private. Is that okay?”

  “I don’t have to know what’s in it, I just need something to prove to him that it’s from you.”

  She handed me the envelope, walked to the fireplace, and took something from the mantel. “This is his lucky rock.”

  She placed a piece of smoky quartz in my palm.

  “Please don’t lose it. It means a lot to him. He picked it up on the last good day he spent with his father.”

  “Do you mind telling me what happened to his parents?”

  “I’m ashamed to say his mother, my sister, left when Darryl was a baby. His father died from colon cancer when he was ten. That was before Darryl contracted that terrible smelly condition. My brother-in-law was a good guy, but a real macho type. I don’t know how he would have reacted to Darryl’s disease. I’m almost happy he died before Darryl was diagnosed. I did the best I could, but it was a lot to bear for a boy. Thank goodness he had his friends. I think they saved his life more than once, even if they deserted him in the end.”

  I zipped up Dee’s letter and Darryl’s rock in a side compartment of my bag, and thanked her. When I got outside, I realized my phone was vibrating. I’d forgotten to turn up the volume.

  Alice had called a half hour earlier, probably when I’d been sipping tea with Harriet Bliss. She hadn’t left a message. I returned the call.

  “Thank goodness, it’s you,” Helen said when she answered my call. “That child is driving me and herself crazy, and the baby has been whining all afternoon. You know children pick up on their parents’ moods, and Alice has been beside herself all day.”

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “You tell me. It’s another bit of craziness messing up my well-ordered routine. She left home when she got married; now she’s back, giving me orders, no regard for my schedule. I like taking care of the baby, but Alice, she can do for herself, pregnancy or no. I’m a housekeeper, not a lady’s maid.”

  “You said another bit of craziness. What was the first one?”

  “Thought we had a break-in here on Friday morning.”

  “What made you think that?”

  “I come home from shopping and I hear someone in the laundry room. I’m holding the phone to dial nine-one-one, and when I push open the laundry room door, there he is in his unmentionables, feeding his clothes into the washer.”

  “Who?”

  “Mr. Pelletier. I’ve been doing his laundry for twenty-two years. He never complained about my washing before. Now all of a sudden, he wants to do his own laundry.”

  “Did you ask why?”

  “Said he spilled something on himself and didn’t trust me to get it all out. Didn’t trust me! He never told me that before. I told him I’d been doing his laundry for twenty-two years and he never had cause to complain before. He told me to mind my own business. If he wanted to do his own laundry, he would, and I had nothing to say about that. I was this close to telling him if he wanted to do his own laundry, he could do his everything else, too, but I didn’t.”

  “That was probably wise,” I said. “It’s best not to make an important decision when you’re angry.”

  “Well, I’m not sure if I made the right decision or not. The next night Alice moves back home with the baby. I thought maybe she and Brian are having problems, but no, she says Brian wants me to keep an eye on her while she was so sick to her stomach and trying to take care of a three-year-old at the same time. So I guess I have some value, after all.”

  “Of course you do, Helen.”

  “Except, I can’t keep up with Alice’s moods. Today, she is carrying on hysterically. Who knows what to expect next?”

  “What is she upset about?”

  “Who knows? I like it nice and quiet. I swear I’m going to retire if this keeps up. Excuse me while I go distract that little girl. Now where did that blue-face doll get to?” She raised her voice. “Alice! Pick up the phone. It’s Mrs. Fletcher.”

  Alice came on the line. She was at the edge of hysteria. “Oh, Mrs. Fletcher. I can’t thank you enough for calling me back. I know I was rude to you the other day. I’m so sorry. So sorry.”

  “I didn’t think you were rude.”

  “And after you being so nice and bringing me the acupressure bands.”

  “Are they helping you?”

  “Oh, yes, but that’s not why I called. I really need your help. Brian needs your help. He’s in such trouble. I’m afraid he’s going to get shot.”

  “Shot! Why would he get shot?”

  “The police are after him. He got that ridiculous ankle bracelet off. I don’t know what he was thinking. He’s going to get himself killed.”

  “Slow down,” I said. “Let’s take this one step at a time. Mort is not going to shoot Brian when he finds him.”

  “But he’ll arrest him.”

  “Probably, but we can deal with that.”

  “Oh, no. They’re already convinced he was guilty the first time, and they’ll send him back to prison. And what will happen to Emma and our infant son with their father in prison? I don’t want to be a widow. What will happen to me?”

  “No one wants to be a widow, Alice, but you’re exaggerating how things will turn out.”

  “I can’t live with my father forever. Do you know what a horrible man he is?”

  “Alice! Calm down.”

  “I’m trying. I’m trying. I’m okay now, I think.”

  “Good. This is what I want you to do.”

  Chapter Twenty-one

  I remembered from Brian’s story about the day of the mini-mart robbery that the trailer park known as Ocean View Mobile Homes—where he lived with his father—was not too far from the neighborhood where Alice grew up and where she was staying once again with her father. I hadn’t realized there was still a difficult relationship between John Pelletier and his daughter, but it shouldn’t have surprised me. He had tried to come between Alice and Brian before, and still didn’t approve of their marriage, notwithstanding the beautiful granddaughter he’d gained and the soon-to-be-born grandson. If Alice was resentful, I could only imagine how irritated Brian was with a man who not only never trusted him but still lobbied against him.

  After I assured myself that Alice was composed enough to drive, I gave her instructions on where to pick me up and called the taxi company informing them I wouldn’t need a ride home. I made my way downhill to the bus stop by the empty lot and waited only a few minutes before Alice arrived.

  “Helen promised to take care of Emma. I think she was relieved to get me out of the house,” A
lice said when I climbed into the front seat next to her. “I’m sorry I was so hysterical when you called. It’s just that—”

  “I understand, but let’s not go over that again.” I didn’t want her to work herself into another frenzy.

  “When I spoke with Brian yesterday, I should have known that something was up. He was so guilty about Mrs. Metzger, blamed himself for her sunburn, took responsibility for her capture.”

  I snapped on my seat belt. “So he’s convinced that Jepson has Maureen?”

  “He said, if you were able to smell him, he had to have been there, and if he was there, that’s probably how Mrs. Metzger disappeared. There was no point in simply stealing food. Darryl knows how to hunt and fish. They’ve been doing it since they were kids. But if he needed security, a way to ensure that they’d let him escape, having her as a hostage was going to be his bargaining chip. Brian was afraid Darryl wouldn’t have enough patience with her, might have picked up some bad habits in prison. Brian was frustrated not being able to help. He kept saying, ‘They’re locking up their best searcher.’”

  “If we want to find Brian before Mort or any of the other authorities do,” I said, “we need to figure out where he might have gone.”

  “And you think he might have left a message for me at the house?”

  “For you or for someone else.”

  “Someone else? Who else would he leave a message for?”

  “I don’t have the answer to that, but I suggest that we look around. Maybe you’ll recognize something different or find some indication of where he intended to search. I can’t go to your house by myself. I have no legitimate reason to be there. But you do.”

  The small home that Alice and Brian shared with their daughter, Emma, was a typical two-story backwoods camp with wood siding and a metal roof, not far from the district office of the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife. When Alice pulled up, there was still yellow crime scene tape strung across their driveway, but she drove right through it, her lips pressed together in anger.

  I put my hand on her arm before she could release her seat belt. “You have to control your emotions if we’re to get anything accomplished. No storming around the house, no shock at whatever condition the police may have left it in. Are we clear?”

  Alice took in a deep breath and nodded.

  “I wouldn’t be surprised if there were remnants of fingerprinting powder left on doorways and cabinet doors,” I said. “They may have left drawers open or emptied closets. I don’t know. Just don’t be angry at anything you find. Beds can be remade. Everything can be cleaned up. What’s important today is that you think like Brian. You know him better than anyone, so put yourself in his place. That’s what you need to do.”

  Alice dashed away a tear from under her eye and said, “I’ll be okay. I promise.”

  The house was not as bad as I’d anticipated. If Mort and his deputies had looked for Jepson’s prints, it wasn’t obvious. There were closet doors ajar, but again I didn’t know if they’d been left open by Brian or by an investigating officer.

  Alice skipped through the house, quickly checking each bedroom and the bathroom upstairs before joining me in the living room, her eyes roaming over the bookcase.

  “It all looks all right,” she said. “If they were looking for something, I don’t know what it might be.”

  “Take a look in the kitchen cabinets,” I suggested. “Have things been moved around?”

  She did as instructed and clucked her tongue at the disarray on some of her shelves. “This could just as easily be Brian as someone else,” she said. “He’s not exactly the neatest when he’s cooking.” She rejoined me on the brown corduroy couch, which sat across from a small television perched on a table. “I don’t know what I’m looking for, do you?”

  “Not yet,” I said, “but if Brian were to take off searching for Darryl Jepson, what would he be likely to take?”

  “His cell phone? His compass. A few days’ rations and water. An emergency kit. Maps.”

  “Can you look and see if any of those things are missing?”

  Alice went to sit in the rolling chair next to the pine desk adjacent to the bookcase. She opened the drawers, one by one. Swiveling in the chair, her eyes went to the series of pegs by the back door, which held several light jackets. “His backpack is gone.”

  “Where does he keep the records for his business?” I asked.

  “Right here,” she replied, patting the top of the desk.

  “Is everything where it should be?”

  “I guess.”

  “Where would Brian keep maps?”

  “Most of them are in the car, and there are two hanging in the baby’s room.”

  “In Emma’s room? That’s unusual.”

  “We spent all our money on baby furniture and didn’t have any left over for cute pictures, so Brian suggested we hang the maps. He loves the woods and he wanted Emma to love them, too. He points out all the roads and where the lakes are to her before she falls asleep. She’s getting to be a good little map reader.”

  “May I see them?”

  “Sure.”

  The bedrooms upstairs were small, but cheerful. In Alice and Brian’s room there was just a bed with a colorful comforter, dresser, and empty cradle awaiting its next occupant. Emma’s space, however, was filled with toys and books, and her own crayon drawings were tacked up on a bulletin board. On the wall over her dresser, which had been converted from a baby’s changing table, was a colorful tourist map of Cabot Cove and the wilderness area surrounding our town.

  I walked over to admire the map, tracing my finger over Moon Lake and Martha’s Pond, where Maureen and I had fished with Brian’s guidance. I skimmed my fingers over the map again, feeling a bump. “There’s something tucked behind here,” I said.

  “What are you doing?” Alice asked as I pulled out a corner pushpin that affixed the map to the wall. “It took me forever to get that hanging straight.”

  “It will still hang straight,” I said, sliding my hand behind the map and slowly pulling out a folded topographical map similar to the one I’d seen Mort and the wardens poring over when we began the search for Maureen. “Has this always been here?” I asked.

  “I—I don’t believe so.”

  “Let’s go downstairs and take a look at it.”

  Alice and I unfolded the large map and spread it out over the coffee table in front of the sofa. Brian or someone else had circled areas several miles north of Mayor Shevlin’s cabins. The circles made a crooked path going deeper and deeper into the wilderness areas.

  “This could be where Brian is planning to search,” I said, refolding the map.

  “Maybe, but how would he get up there? Those places are more than ten miles from here and I have the car. We only have one.”

  “Could Brian have called someone to pick him up?”

  “I guess, but I don’t know who.”

  “Of course you do,” I said, feeling myself begin to lose patience. “Brian is not without friends. This is not a time to cover up, Alice. If you truly believe Brian’s life is in danger—and I do believe that Maureen’s is, too—we need to act quickly. Please give me the names of everyone Brian might conceivably have called for assistance.”

  “I know you think I’m hiding information, but really, we live a very quiet life.”

  “You never share dinner with another couple? You don’t know anyone with children Emma’s age? I’m finding this hard to believe, Alice. You grew up here. Are you telling me you don’t have any friends?”

  She shook her head. “Not really. My father was always overprotective. Still is.”

  “You’ve never met Brian’s colleagues in the guide business?”

  Alice hung her head. “Well, I guess there’s Hank. He’s another one of the guides.”

  “Hank Thompso
n?”

  She nodded; her expression was unhappy.

  “What about Jeff Grusen? Is Brian ever in touch with him?”

  She looked up, surprised. “Only when he goes to put gas in the car.”

  “Uh-huh. What about Cory Caruthers?”

  Alice’s voice was very soft when she said, “I thought he was away in the army.” She began to chew on her lip.

  I knew I was pressing her about the five musketeers, but she had denied knowing any of Brian’s old friends and yet recognized each name as I raised it.

  “Unless Brian plans to hitchhike north to the places on this map,” I said, holding it up, “he was expecting someone to take him there or meet him along the way. There are dozens of wardens and troopers all over the woods searching for the same people we are, and now I’m sure that Sheriff Metzger has added Brian’s name to the list of fugitives. Brian can’t elude them for very long, Alice. We have to find Jepson before he does and gets himself in more trouble.”

  Part Three

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Alice offered to drive me home, an invitation I accepted. But as we drove downtown past all the media trucks and posters in store windows, and people wearing yellow ribbons on their shoulders, I said, “On second thought, would you mind dropping me at police headquarters?”

  Her expression was quizzical.

  “I think we’d better give this map we’ve found to Sheriff Metzger right away,” I said.

  “Why?” Alice asked. “Won’t it get Brian in trouble?”

  “Sheriff Metzger’s priority is his wife and Darryl Jepson, in that order. If there’s any chance that the locations Brian circled will help Mort and the other officers find wherever Jepson is hiding out, we need to make certain they have every bit of information available at their fingertips.”

  I didn’t know where Mort Metzger was. Would he be at headquarters, or was he back at Moon Lake with the other searchers? I couldn’t ask Alice to drive me to the search area. She had to get back to her father’s house and take care of her child.