Murder, She Wrote--A Time for Murder

by Jessica Fletcher

  I nodded. “Keep us off the track for as long as possible.”

  Mort gave me a long stare. “You know what I’m thinking?”

  “Of course, because I’m thinking the same thing: The young woman’s murder and her interviewing me in the guise of a high school student must be connected.”

  “In which case, maybe this meeting was all about the victim telling the killer what she’d learned.”

  “Except she didn’t learn anything she couldn’t have found in a Google search. I didn’t answer any of her questions about Walter Reavis’s murder, but it sure seemed like she already had a clear notion of the level of my involvement in the investigation.”

  “You think that’s important?”

  “Only because very, very few people knew about it. So maybe, yes, because it seemed like our murder victim here knew more than she was saying about my part in bringing a killer to justice.”

  “Your first killer,” Mort said, sounding whimsical. “Is that like your first boyfriend, your first paycheck, your first—”

  “I get the idea, Mort,” I said, cutting him off.

  “Tell me again what she was most interested in. Make believe you haven’t told me anything yet.”

  “You really are good at this,” I told him.

  “I have had some experience with murder, Mrs. Fletcher—not nearly as much as you, of course.”

  “The young woman wanted to know about the first murder I ever solved.”

  “Walter Reavis’s?”

  I nodded, recalling where I’d left off the story while talking to Mort on the phone and making a mental note so I’d recall at what point to pick up the story for him.

  “But she didn’t say why she was interested?”

  “She didn’t even tell me who she really was. And she asked me just enough pointed questions to keep me from growing overly suspicious.”

  “You thought she was a high school kid. Who gets suspicious about walking hormones with acne and cell phones?” He cast me a long look. “You see any possible connection between the murder of your school principal twenty-five years ago and this one tonight?”

  “You mean this morning,” I corrected him.

  “Don’t change the subject. We were talking about Appleton.”

  My hands went to my face. “Oh my . . .”

  “Oh boy . . . I hate when you get that look.”

  “There was something I didn’t tell you in the office, Mort.”

  “I remember.”

  “It’s about that retirement party I’ve been invited to. I got the invitation only earlier today—yesterday, actually,” I told him, recalling what had dawned on me earlier.

  “So?”

  “So yesterday was Tuesday, and it’s Wednesday now. Who sends an invite with only a few days’ notice before the day of a party?”

  “Last-minute decision, you think?”

  “I need to call Wilma Tisdale.”

  Mort gazed dramatically toward the sky. “Might want to wait until the sun’s up, Mrs. F.”

  I rolled my eyes. “‘Mrs. F.’ again . . .”

  Mort was looking back inside the car at the young woman who had impersonated Kristi Powell. “I’ll lift her fingerprints, see if she’s in the system. Who knows? We might get lucky.”

  “It wouldn’t surprise me. I sincerely doubt this was the first time she stepped outside the lines.”

  “And in my experience people who get murdered during shady late-night rendezvous are no strangers to crime. At least there’s some good news, Mrs. F.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Even though it’s in my jurisdiction, this scenic overlook is technically located outside the Cabot Cove town limits. That means we don’t have to add it to the murder tally.”

  * * *

  * * *

  There have been very few times in my life when I experienced firsthand the old phrase about being too tired to sleep. This was one of those times.

  The sun was rising when Mort dropped me off back at Hill House. I drew all the blinds in the bedroom portion of my suite, making it as dark as I could, and climbed into bed, pretending it was closer to my normal turn-in hour. An hour later, with the sun sneaking through the cracks between the blinds, I gave up trying to sleep and turned on the television to one of the early-morning news shows.

  Normally, that was the perfect recipe to help me drift off, but this wasn’t a normal day or time. So much was racing through my mind, both from that day and the day before and from twenty-five years earlier, that I just couldn’t slow down my thoughts.

  I kept coming back to the young woman who’d impersonated a high school student to land an interview with me in the morning, only to be murdered that night. Given that I could no more easily control my imagination in real-life investigations than I can in fictional ones, I kept fixating on two questions: Who was this woman really, and what had she wanted to get out of me in the interview she’d conducted?

  It was difficult for me to speculate on the first question, but not on the second, since the only area we covered that seemed off in tone consisted of the young woman I believed was Kristi Powell pushing me to tell her about the murder of Walter Reavis. She hadn’t mentioned him by name or expressed any knowledge of the case’s ultimate resolution but, as I looked back, it was clear that was what our interview had been all about, regardless of the pretext.

  What if I had, in fact, unwittingly given up what she wanted? What if I’d considered whatever it was innocuous, but it was anything but that in the young woman’s mind? Somewhere around twelve hours later, she’d been murdered, and I could no more dismiss the potential connection between that and our meeting than I could stop breathing.

  I finally faded off to sleep, and woke up to different news anchors and a ringing cell phone.

  “Is this my wake-up call?” I greeted Mort, seeing his name light up on my caller ID.

  “You might call it that, Mrs. F. . . .”

  “Uh-oh . . .”

  “Turns out, our murder victim was indeed in the system. Her name is Ginny Genaway, age thirty-three, from neighboring New Hampshire.”

  I couldn’t believe what I’d just heard. “Thirty-three? And I took her for a high school student? I need to have my eyes checked.”

  “It’s her name you should be paying attention to, not her age.”

  “Why, Mort?”

  “Because Genaway was her married name. Her birth name was Reavis. That principal murdered in Appleton twenty-five years ago was her father.”

  Chapter Seven

  For a second, I thought I was still dreaming. In dreams, after all, time is skewed, lacking all sense of meaning. That was what this felt like: the past and the present, separated by twenty-five years, colliding.

  “You fall back asleep, Mrs. F.?”

  “I’m trying to pretend I never woke up.”

  “I thought you’d be excited.”

  “‘Baffled’ would be a better way to put it. How old did you say she was, Mort?”

  “Er, let’s see. I had it written down right . . . Here it is—thirty-three.”

  Meaning Ginny Reavis had been eight years old when her father was murdered. Come to think of it, I seemed to recall her being in Grady’s class at Appleton Elementary. Now she’d been murdered, too. Like father, like daughter. She had done her absolute best to look like a high school student when we’d met the day before, but the fact that she wore her hair in that bun should have been a dead giveaway that something was awry.

  “You ever cross paths with her while you were working in Appleton?” I heard Mort ask me.

  “Not even once. Walter Reavis was divorced and had pretty much moved on, though I seem to recall his kids much preferring him to their mother.”

  “How many kids did he have?”

  “Three. An older
daughter named Lisa Joy, who attended Appleton High, and a son I met very briefly at the funeral in his full-dress uniform. He was a Marine, just like you and Adele. But he wasn’t as fortunate. As I recall, he was killed on his first deployment to the Middle East. A roadside bomb.”

  “Ouch,” Mort said. “That’s the one thing we didn’t have in Vietnam.”

  “Good thing tours there and with the NYPD prepared you for life in Cabot Cove.”

  He started to chuckle but it ended as a snort. “And I thought I was moving here for the quiet life. The first year I was sheriff, there were five murders in town—remember?”

  “I’m too busy pondering the one from last night.”

  “Care to guess my next question, Jessica?”

  “You’d like to know why the daughter of my former principal would bother impersonating someone to get me to talk to her.”

  “You must be psychic.”

  I switched the phone from my left hand to my right. “There are police departments that make regular use of psychics, Mort.”

  “The last thing we need in Cabot Cove when I can predict the future as well as any of them.”

  “Really, Mort? Why don’t you tell me what’s showing in your crystal ball?”

  “Murder. What else? Up for a field trip to New Hampshire, Mrs. Fletcher?”

  “New Hampshire?”

  “Manchester, specifically. Home of Ginny Genaway, born Ginny Reavis.”

  * * *

  * * *

  Mort said he had some loose ends to tie up regarding the young woman’s murder before we could head south. Considering he was dealing with the coroner, waiting on the ballistics report in addition to the report from the state police crime scene unit, and trying to track down and inform the victim’s next of kin of the murder, those loose ends amounted to an entire rope. Meanwhile, I called Doris Ann at the Cabot Cove Library to tell her she could break off her research into what became of the Cabot Cove High coeds who resembled my interviewer from the day before, since the interviewer’s true identity had now been revealed. Sadly.

  I’d already been driving myself crazy working out how all this tied together and how Ginny Reavis’s murder might have been connected to her father’s a generation before. She’d been too young to have figured into the investigation, bringing me back to the other mystery here—that being how it was I’d received the invitation to Wilma Tisdale’s retirement party here in Cabot Cove yesterday, just four days before it was scheduled for, this coming Saturday. As near as I could figure, that book signing where I’d last seen her must’ve been about ten years ago. That meant it was likely for either Murder in White or The Killer Called Collect.

  It’s funny how I’ve come to measure time not so much in years as in books. I’m sure I’m not alone among writers as far as that proclivity is concerned, and it’s one of the reasons so many of us are described as “ageless,” and that I don’t think I’ve ever met one who ever uttered the word “retirement.”

  The invitation included the number at which to RSVP. I didn’t need to read it off the invite, because I’d studied the fancy lettering so much, I’d memorized it. I lifted my cell phone and pressed out the numbers before I could change my mind.

  “Hello,” a happy-sounding voice greeted me.

  “I’m calling for Wilma Tisdale.”

  “This is Wilma Tisdale,” I heard in a singsongy voice I didn’t recognize at all.

  “Wilma, this is Jessica Fletcher.”

  “Why, Mrs. Fletcher, what a pleasant surprise!”

  “Jessica, please.”

  She chuckled. “Well, I’ve never been on a first-name basis with a celebrity before.”

  “You still haven’t. It’s just me, your former teaching colleague, and I’ve called to RSVP for your party on Saturday.”

  Wilma cleared her throat once and then again. “Jessica, how lovely that you’re able to come!”

  “I have to admit that holding it right here in my backyard had something to do with it. I’m on deadline for my next book and I can hardly spare the time to breathe. But it will be great to see some old friends. And you couldn’t have chosen a better venue than the Cabot Cove Country Club.”

  “Of course,” Wilma said, as if her mind was somewhere else. “That’s what I’ve heard.”

  “How many people are you expecting?”

  “Oh, you know, around sixty or seventy, I should think. You’ll probably know about half of them.”

  “My, I hope I’ll be able to remember them all.”

  “They’ll certainly remember you, Jessica.”

  I thought she was referring to the success I’d managed as a writer after moving to Cabot Cove. But her tone suggested something else, bringing me back to the murder of Walter Reavis.

  “I wonder if I might ask you something related to Walter Reavis, Wilma.”

  “Of course. Be warned, though, my memory isn’t what it used to be.”

  “Is anyone’s? Anyway, do you recall ever meeting Walter’s daughter Ginny? She would’ve been around eight at the time of his murder.”

  “No, not her. But I did know the other two a bit, since his elder daughter was still at the high school and his son had graduated a few years before. Then he went off to the Middle East and . . .”

  “Yes, how terrible.”

  “Some families are cursed, Jessica, don’t you think?”

  First, Mort mentioning psychics and now Wilma Tisdale raising curses—maybe I really was still sleeping. . . .

  “Why’d you ask me about Walter Reavis’s daughter, by the way?”

  I wasn’t about to lie to Wilma, but it wasn’t the right time to tell her the truth either. “It’s a long story. Why don’t I share it with you on Saturday? I’ll make sure to get to the party early.”

  “And is there a plus one in the life of America’s favorite mystery writer?”

  “Just my imagination, which does tend to take on a life of its own.”

  “You have that to thank for your career, I suppose. You know, my memory may not be what it once was, but I still remember you clacking away on that typewriter whenever you had a free period.”

  “I published barely anything I wrote on that old thing. The ribbon must’ve been cursed.”

  “See, I told you, Jessica.”

  * * *

  * * *

  The moment I hung up, I realized that something had seemed off about our conversation, but I couldn’t put my finger on what. My husband, Frank, used to say, “Sometimes you have to look closer at what you are hearing.” My talk with Wilma Tisdale made me realize for the first time what he’d meant by that confusing sentiment. There was definitely something unspoken in her words, but I couldn’t “see” what for the life of me.

  As soon as the call ended, I felt guilty about not sharing the news about Ginny Genaway, born Ginny Reavis, having been murdered the previous night. Wilma might turn on the television and learn about it; she’d know instantly that I had held the information back from her. I’d go from being the only celebrity with whom she was on a first-name basis to a snob and a liar. I wondered if I might even end up disinvited from her retirement party.

  I would’ve actually been looking forward to seeing so many of those from another phase of my life, if the circumstances had been different—both now and twenty-five years ago. My biggest reservation was that such reunions have the effect of making us feel just as we were when all of us were last together. In my case, that meant with Frank still alive at one of the happiest and most exciting times of my life, when anything seemed possible. I thought about the night Frank drove Grady and me to Cabot Cove, when I’d laid eyes on 698 Candlewood Lane for the last time before we made it ours.

  I’m not saying I was happier then, but in the battle of the past versus the present, the past will win out every time. We exaggerate the things we think made
us ever so happy, blowing them wildly out of proportion. It was doubly difficult for me because my memories of that time were particularly intense, given that there hadn’t been a lot of years left when the three of us would be together. Grady had already left our household to go back to his mother before Frank’s death, and I was afraid Saturday night’s festivities would remind me of what it had been like to come home to find someone else always there.

  Then again, maybe “festivities” was the wrong word to refer to Wilma Tisdale’s upcoming retirement party. If my suspicions, my instincts, were correct, and Ginny Reavis’s murder last night was somehow connected to her father’s twenty-five years ago, then some of the guests just might have information that could help me. Maybe I should dispense with the formalities, risk the gossip, and make Sheriff Mort Metzger my plus one. And I might have if I wasn’t afraid he’d lapse into calling me “Mrs. F.” again at the party.

  While I waited for his call to finalize our plans to head to New Hampshire, I was struck again by something that felt amiss in my phone call with Wilma Tisdale. It wasn’t anything specific, so much as a feeling that she was holding something back, something she stopped short of telling me. Another reason, I suppose, why I should be looking forward to Saturday night.

  * * *

  * * *

  “You forgot to tell me what Ginny Genaway was fingerprinted for,” I said to Mort as soon as he picked me up just past noon.

  “No, I didn’t. I just wanted to have all the details before I did, so I could answer all your questions.”

  “How are those details coming?”

  “Slowly. Ginny Genaway was arrested for assault, but never stood trial after the victim dropped all charges.”

  I tried to reconcile that with the girl I’d mistaken for a high school student the day before. “Who was the victim, Mort? Who’d she assault?”

  Mort didn’t answer me right away, seeming to enjoy having answers that I lacked. “We’re headed to meet him now, Jessica. It’s better you see for yourself.”