Dying to Retire

by Jessica Fletcher

  We all watched as the various law enforcement officers led their charges from the room. Everyone seemed too stunned to speak; the only sound came from the chair next to mine, where Clarence Shelby wept softly.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  “If it weren’t for Seth finding those blue tablets in Portia’s pillbox,” I said, “we’d never have known she was murdered.”

  “And Wainscott would have gotten away with two murders then,” Mort said. “Rosner confessed to killing a construction worker in Key West. Plus he made an attempt on Mrs. F’s life, too. Says it was under Wainscott’s orders. Of course, Wainscott claims Rosner and Marina acted on their own, that he never told them to kill anyone. Might be tough to build a case against him.”

  “Even so,” I said, “he’s likely to be put away for a long time on the federal charges.”

  We were in Sam’s pink Cadillac on our way to Miami International Airport and a flight to Boston, the first leg of our trip back home to Cabot Cove. I wasn’t looking forward to the snowstorm that was forecast for the day after our arrival, but I was eager to spend some time at home before heading out on the promotion trip my agent, Matt Miller, was putting together for me.

  “What exactly did Wainscott do?” Sam asked.

  “Did you ever hear of a Ponzi scheme?” Mort replied. “He borrowed money from investors for construction, and when they demanded payments, he paid them off with funds he borrowed from other investors.”

  “He may have started out legitimately building developments like Foreverglades,” I said, “but when he ran out of money, he kept lining up investors for projects that never got built, like Wainscott Towers.”

  “Or projects that only got half built,” Mort added, “like Wainscott Manor in Key West.”

  “Every time an investor gave him money,” I said, “he kept a portion for himself, and used the rest to pay off other investors who were putting pressure on him.”

  “When it got too hot for him in one state,” Mort added, “he just went to another.”

  “Rosner must have known what Wainscott was doing,” I said. “He told me he didn’t think the towers would get built, and it looks like he was right. Anyway, Wainscott’s days of cheating investors, and quashing protests against his properties, are far behind him.”

  “Jessica, how did you know that Marina found the box and threw it in the water?” Maureen asked.

  I explained. “When I visited Clarence in jail, he said he brought the pills to Monica at the rec hall, but that he’d tried to stay out of sight because Wainscott’s people were having a meeting. Before the Residents’ Committee meeting started, I asked Monica what she had done with the box. She said it had been too bulky to fit in her bag, so she’d opened it right away and took the bottles home, leaving the box at the rec hall.”

  “And when Marina admitted she’d found the box in the garbage,” Mort added, “she pointed a finger at herself as the one who threw it in the water down at the beach.”

  “I thought it was a bit too convenient that the police found a box that had held diet pills near the beach where Portia died,” I said. “It struck me as an effort to plant evidence.”

  “Which it was,” Maureen said.

  “Actually, Marina tried to plant a lot of evidence,” I said. “She used Amelia to spread rumors that Clarence was having an affair with Monica, and that Clarence had threatened Portia’s life. She knew that anything she said to Amelia in confidence would soon be all over town.”

  “It saddens me that my old friend Truman provided the pills that killed Portia,” Seth said.

  “I know,” I said. “That would have been true no matter who used the pills to kill Portia, including Clarence. He’d found Healthy Stuff on the Internet, and had ordered many of Portia’s supplements from Truman.”

  Sam bounced up and down in his seat. “Tell me about Colombo. How did you know he was from the FBI?”

  “I didn’t,” I said, “but I suspected he wasn’t really a restaurateur, either.”

  “Why?”

  “When we went to the produce market, he wasn’t sure what to buy and kept consulting a shopping list.”

  “I use a shopping list whenever I go to the market,” Maureen said.

  “I do, too,” I said. “But Colombo’s list had ‘tomatoes for sauce’ on it, and he bought a bushel of beefsteak tomatoes. Any cook knows beefsteak tomatoes aren’t your usual cooking tomatoes. They’re too watery. Tomato sauce, especially Italian tomato sauce, is traditionally made with plum tomatoes.”

  “So he was here all along, working for the FBI?” Sam said.

  “Right you are, Sam,” Mort replied. “According to Detective Shippee, Agent Colombo has been in Florida for a long time, using his cousin’s restaurant as a front, just waiting until a solid enough case was built to arrest Wainscott before he decided to skip town again.”

  “He’s not going anywhere this time,” Sam said.

  “Except to jail,” I added.

  A few months later, signs of spring brightened the chilly Maine air. My lilacs were in bloom, and the azalea bush I’d planted the summer before was covered with fat peach-colored buds. I’d already traveled across the country and back to promote my last book, and Matt Miller had been right. The public relations push had been just enough to lift my book onto the New York Times best-seller list, still the gold standard for authors.

  Seth and I were sitting in my kitchen, sharing a pot of green tea, an occasional break from our usual English Breakfast variety, when a FedEx deliveryman knocked on the door.

  “What can it be?” I said, taking the box and signing for it.

  “Open it and find out,” Seth said, leaning forward to examine the label when I put the box on the table. “The return address is Foreverglades, Florida.”

  I pulled on the cardboard tab that opened the box, removed frozen gel packs used to keep the contents cold, and lifted out a frozen key lime pie. “Look,” I said, laughing at the card taped to the box and reading it aloud: “ ‘Only Original, Authentic Key Lime Pie. Made by Minnie Lewis.’ ” I turned the card over. It read:

  Thought you’d like to know the news. With the

  help of an anonymous donor from Key

  West, the Residents’ Committee of Foreverglades

  raised enough money to purchase

  the land along the water. We fixed up the dock,

  expanded the beach, and we had a terrific

  celebration when we named the whole area

  Portia Shelby Park.

  Monica is still chasing Clarence, who has declared he wants to be a perennial bachelor. Amelia says he just wants more attention. Helen and Miles send you their best.

  Love, Minnie and Sam

  P.S. Detective Shippee gave Sam a plaque for his dedication to law enforcement and public safety. We have it proudly hanging in our living room.

  P.P.S. The animal control people finally trapped that big gator they’ve been after for years. Moved him to a remote swamp in the Everglades. Come back and visit real soon.

  Read on for a preview of

  A Vote for Murder

  The next Murder, She Wrote

  hardcover coming in October 2004

  from New American Library

  “The White House?”

  “Yes. A reception there.”

  I was enjoying breakfast at Mara’s waterfront luncheonette with my friends Dr. Seth Hazlitt, and Cabot Cove’s sheriff, Mort Metzger. It was a gloomy early August day, thick gray clouds hovering low over the dock, the humidity having risen overnight to an uncomfortable level.

  “When are you leaving?” Seth asked after taking the last bite of his blueberry pancakes, Mara’s signature breakfast dish at her popular eatery.

  “Day after tomorrow,” I said.

  “I don’t envy you, Mrs. F,” said Mort.

  “Why?”

  “August in Washington, D.C.? Maureen and I were there about this time last year. Never been so hot in my life.”

 
I laughed and sipped my tea. “I’m sure the air-conditioning will be working just fine,” I said.

  “Ayuh,” Seth said. “I don’t expect they let the president sweat a whole lot. Or U.S. senators for that matter.”

  Warren Nebel, Maine’s junior senator, had arranged for my trip to Washington. He’d invited me to join three other writers in our nation’s capital to help celebrate a national literacy program at the Library of Congress. I’d eagerly accepted, of course. And when Senator Nebel included a reception at the White House on our first evening there, my heart raced a little with anticipation.

  I don’t believe that anyone, no matter how sophisticated, worldly, well connected or wealthy, doesn’t feel at least a twinge of excitement when invited to the White House to meet the president of the United States. I am certainly no exception. It wouldn’t be my first time at the People’s House, although it had been a few years since my last visit. Adding to the excitement were the writers with whom I’d be spending the week, distinguished authors all, some of whom I’d been reading and enjoying for years, and I looked forward to actually shaking hands and chatting with them. Writers, with some notable exceptions, tend to be solitary creatures, not especially comfortable in social situations. I suppose it has a lot to do with the private nature of how we work, sitting alone for months sometimes years at a time, working on a book, with only spasmodic human interaction. Those who break out and become public personalities often end up so enamored of the experience that writing goes by the boards. I’ve always tried to balance my life between the necessary hibernation to get a book done and joining the rest of the world when between writing projects. That was my situation when I received the invitation from Senator Nebel—a book recently completed and off to the publisher, and free time on my hands. Perfect timing.

  Our little breakfast confab ended suddenly when both Seth and Mort received calls on their cell phones, prompting them to leave in a hurry, Seth to the hospital for an emergency admission, Mort to the scene of an auto accident on the highway outside of town. Seth tried to grab the bill from the table but I was quicker. “Please,” I said. “It’s my treat. Go on now. Emergencies can’t wait.”

  I wasn’t alone at the table very long because Mara, the luncheonette’s gregarious proprietor, joined me.

  “Hear you’re going to Washington to give the president some good advice,” she said, blowing away a wisp of hair from her forehead. She’d come from the kitchen; a sheen of perspiration covered her face.

  “I’m sure he doesn’t need any advice from me,” I said.

  “Not so sure about that,” she said. “Going alone?”

  “To Washington? Yes.”

  “Thought you might be taking Doc Hazlitt with you.”

  “I’d love to have him accompany me but—.”

  “Shame you won’t have a companion to share it with you, Jess.”

  “Oh, I really won’t be alone. I—.”

  Mara’s cocked head and her narrowed eyes said she expected more from me. Besides being a wonderful cook and hostess at her establishment, she’s Cabot Cove’s primary conduit of gossipy information. She not only knows everyone in town, she seems to be privy to their most private thoughts and activities.

  “I’ll be meeting George,” I said casually, making a point of picking up the bill and scrutinizing it.

  “George?”

  “Yes,” I said, pulling cash from my purse. “George Sutherland.”

  “That Scotland Yard fella you met in London years ago?”

  “That’s right,” I replied, standing and brushing crumbs from my skirt. “He’ll be there attending an international conference on terrorism. Just a coincidence. Breakfast was great, Mara. Bye-bye.”

  The last words I heard from Mara as I pushed open the door—and she headed back to the kitchen—were, “You are a sly one, Jessica Fletcher.”

  I chided myself on my walk home for having mentioned George Sutherland. Knowing Mara, half the town would have heard about it by noon, the other half by dinnertime. Mara didn’t mean any harm with her penchant for gossip, nor was she the only one. Charlene Sassi’s bakery is another source of juicy scuttlebutt (what is it about places with food that seem to spawn hearsay?). Small towns like my beloved Cabot Cove thrive on rumors, and in almost every case they’re utterly harmless. As far as George Sutherland was concerned, there had been plenty of speculation that he and I had become romantically involved since meeting during a murder investigation in England. There was no basis to those rumors, although he’d expressed interest in advancing our relationship to another level, and I’d not found the contemplation unpleasant. But after some serious talks during those times when we managed to be together, we decided that neither this handsome Scottish widower, nor this Cabot Cove widow were ready for a more intimate involvement, and contented ourselves with frequent letters, occasional long-distance phone calls, and chance meetings when our schedules brought us together.

  The rain started just as I reached my house. I picked up the local newspaper that had been delivered while I was gone, ducked inside, closed some windows, made myself a cup of tea and reviewed the package of information Senator Nebel’s office had sent, accompanied by a letter from the senator.

  It promised to be a whirlwind week in Washington, and I added to my packing list an extra pair of comfortable walking shoes. The reception at the White House was scheduled for five o’clock the day I arrived. Following it, Senator Nebel would host a dinner at his home. The ensuing days were chockablock with meetings and seminars at the Library of Congress, luncheons and dinners with notables from government and the publishing industry, and other assorted official and social affairs. Why event planners think they must fill every waking moment has always escaped me; everyone appreciates a little downtime in the midst of a hectic week. My concern, however, was that I wouldn’t find time to enjoy again being in George Sutherland’s company. It had been a long while since we’d last seen each other, our schedules making it difficult for him to come to the States from London where he was a senior Scotland Yard inspector, or for me to cross the Atlantic in the opposite direction. It had been too long, and I didn’t want to squander the opportunity of being in the same city at the same time.

  When I picked up the newspaper, a headline on the front page caught my eye: NEBEL’S VOTE ON

  POWER PLANT STILL UNCERTAIN.

  The battle within the Senate over the establishment of a new, massive nuclear power plant in Maine, only twenty miles outside Cabot Cove, had been in the news for weeks. From what I’d read, the Senate was almost equally split between those in favor of the plant, and those opposed. Its proponents claimed it was vitally necessary to avoid the sort of widespread blackouts the East Coast had experienced since the late 50s, five of them since 1959 including the biggest of them all in 2003. Senator Nebel, who’d pledged to fight the plant during his most recent campaign, had pointed to the enormous cost, not to mention the ecological threat the plant posed to our scenic state, and further condemned the lobbyists behind the project and their clients, large multi-state electric power companies that would benefit handsomely from the plant’s construction. Some members of President David Dimond’s cabinet had enjoyed strong ties to those companies that would benefit handsomely from the plant’s construction.

  But the article claimed that Nebel’s opposition to the plant could no longer be taken for granted, according to unnamed Washington insiders. The piece ended with: “Reports that Senator Nebel has recently received death threats are unconfirmed, although unnamed sources close to the senator say that security has been beefed up for him, both on Capitol Hill and at his home.”

  Death threats! Usually, they came from demented people who have no intention of carrying through on them. But you can never take that for granted, and every such threat must be taken seriously. I knew one thing; our junior senator had chosen a contentious time to be hosting a literacy program at the Library of Congress. Was there ever a time when something important, something
potentially earth shattering, wasn’t going on somewhere in the world, and by extension in Washington, D.C.? I doubted it.

  I replaced that weighty thought with a more pleasant one, visiting the White House and meeting the president, spending time with some of my fellow writers, and, of course, touching base in person with George Sutherland.