“But she sold the principal his house. She’ll make the introduction anytime you’re ready.”
“Is this really happening?” I asked him.
“It’s like flying, Jessica. Sometimes you’ve got to aim for the stars.”
Our phone rang, and I snatched the receiver to my ear.
“Mrs. Fletcher!” the voice of Amos Tupper broke in before I’d completed my greeting.
“Detective?”
“You were right again, Mrs. Fletcher. Everything you said turned out to be right. I just arrested Walter Reavis’s murderer!”
Chapter Thirteen
The present
I’d spoken for so long, I’d drained my phone battery and had to stop to plug it in.
“How am I doing so far, Amos?” I asked the former detective and sheriff of Cabot Cove.
“Just fine, Mrs. Fletcher. Your recollection’s right as rain. You brought things to mind I haven’t thought about in a whole lot of time, but that’s exactly the way I remember it. I get a little fuzzy after that, though.”
“No problem, Amos. That’s all I need for now.”
“I didn’t use to get this fuzzy about things,” he said, unable to disguise the sadness, maybe mixed with fear, in his voice. “Talking to you has made me feel sharp as a tack again. Reminds me how much I miss Cabot Cove. My mind’s not fuzzy on that at all.”
“You were a great sheriff, Amos.”
“You really think so?”
“Yes, yes, I do.”
“We did have our times, didn’t we?”
“We sure did.”
“And how are things there now? What are you up to these days?”
“I’m investigating a murder.”
“So things haven’t changed, in other words.”
“Do they ever?”
“Not for me anymore. But I’ve been keeping up with your books. And I’ve found myself another writer who holds a decent candle to you.”
“Who’s that?”
“Shakespeare.”
“You’re reading Shakespeare, Amos? How wonderful.”
“Well, you did recommend him a while back, and I’ve finally got the time to give him a whirl. Can’t always make sense of what he’s saying, but I’m hooked, I tell you. My favorite so far is Richard the Third, because he’s short like me.”
“That’s one of my favorites, too,” I told him, meaning it.
“So, how is it you still have any time left to solve murders when you’re so busy writing?”
“It often seems like more the opposite is true, Amos.”
“Are you able to tell me why the murder of Walter Reavis has become so important again after so many years?”
“His daughter’s murder is the one I’m working on now.”
“No!”
“Yes, I’m afraid.”
“Which one, the older or the younger?”
“The younger.”
“I can’t remember meeting either one of them. That fuzzy head of mine, like I was telling you.”
“I may need to check in about any new developments that arise, Amos. Can I call you again to make sure I’ve got my facts from the past straight?”
“Of course, Mrs. Fletcher, anytime. Anything I can do to help put another murderer away—well, let’s just say it brings back happy memories.”
I stopped short of criticizing his unusual statement.
“That didn’t come out right, did it?”
“I understood what you meant,” I told him.
“It’s mostly true, because of how much I enjoyed those times the fates threw us together on a case. That time the man was murdered on the bus, did we ever make it to Portland for the conference?”
“No, it was too late. But I won the big television they were raffling off anyway. Remember that?”
“Sure, I do! I had my eye on that.”
“I remember. People miss you around here, Amos.”
“Really?”
“Mort isn’t a Mainer or a New Englander. He’ll never win people over the way you did.”
“That makes me feel good, Mrs. Fletcher. I wonder if I made a mistake by leaving when I did.”
I don’t think Amos Tupper would have fared very well in the “new” Cabot Cove. He was a small-town sheriff, not necessarily the right fit for a town that was not nearly as small as it used to be, especially during the summer months.
“Anyways, I still get the Gazette delivered by mail. Usually comes a week late, and that’s good enough for me, though I suppose it’s online now, too.”
Amos mentioning the Cabot Cove Gazette made me recall those copies of it Mort and I had found in Ginny Genaway’s New Hampshire apartment, the oldest issue going back just over five months. I still hadn’t figured out what had triggered her sudden interest in Cabot Cove around that time, but I had a sense that it was important—a sense that there was something in that timeline that might lead me straight to her killer.
It never ceases to amaze me how the rigors of investigating an actual murder hold so many similarities to the challenges of conjuring a fictional one. It’s uncanny how similar my thinking and my mind-set were in pursuit of either. I guess that the part of my brain that always comes up with the answers I need in my books is the same part that steers me in the right direction in reality.
“Nothing much changes, does it, Mrs. Fletcher?” Amos finished.
“Not the things that matter the most, no, but that doesn’t stop them from trying.”
* * *
* * *
“I had some visitors, Mort,” I said, negotiating the cord of my still-charging phone. “From Boston.”
“Friends of Vic Genaway, no doubt. Did they threaten or intimidate you in any way? Because if they did—”
“I signed a book for one of them—his wife, actually.”
“So what’d they want, besides a free copy?”
“To be kept informed of things.”
“Of course, so they’re in a position to exact their own brand of justice on the killer once we find him.”
“I actually think it’s more to make sure that justice is done.”
“What’s that mean exactly, Jessica?”
“That Joe and his friend will leave us alone and stay out of our way, unless we don’t have enough to arrest the killer.”
“‘Joe and his friend’?”
“I didn’t get the other guy’s name. Any updates on Lisa Joy Reavis, Mort?”
“My fingers are numb from typing in her name so often.”
“I suppose I should take that as a no. And maybe you should consider using cut and paste.”
I could hear keys clacking even now, and I pictured Mort listening to me on speakerphone while he hunted and pecked away. “I think maybe somebody cut Lisa Joy Reavis and pasted her somewhere else entirely.”
“That’s what we need to find out.”
* * *
* * *
And I wasn’t about to sit back and wait for Mort to get it done. He had an entire sheriff’s department to run, on top of trying to solve a murder. Besides, finding people who’ve made a concerted effort to disappear is an art form in itself, so I called one particular artist.
“This is Harry McGraw,” I heard a familiar, craggy voice greet me after I dialed a number long committed to memory. “I can’t come to the phone right now, so please leave a message on my answering machine at the beep. . . . Beep!”
“Stop it, Harry,” I said to the best private investigator, and one of the best investigators period, I’d ever encountered.
“Hey, can’t blame me for running to the hills every time your number comes up. What gave me away?”
“Well, first off, you made the ‘beep’ sound yourself. And nobody calls them answering machines anymore.”
&
nbsp; “I do.”
“You’re hardly in the majority.”
“I’m a majority of one, Jessica. And you’ll have to talk to my accountant before enlisting my services now.”
“And why’s that?”
“He seems to have a problem with what he calls ‘my shoddy paperwork.’”
“You don’t do any paperwork.”
“That’s what I told him, my dear, but then the discussion came around to billing.”
“Which you don’t do either.”
“He wanted to know my top clients, in terms of hours. I mentioned you and—wouldn’t you know it?—he asked to see invoices.”
“Which you don’t generate.”
“He fired me. I didn’t know an accountant could fire a client.”
“How many times have you tried to fire me, Harry?”
“But I’m a private detective. We’re allowed to do that. Says so in the handbook.”
“That would be the private detective’s handbook?”
“It didn’t say. Now, what do you need me to do that I won’t be sending you an invoice for?”
* * *
* * *
I laid it all out to him in as much detail as I thought proper, rehashing the timeline of Ginny Genaway’s last day alive, spent in Cabot Cove, as best I could.
“So Lisa Joy Reavis is her sister’s name.”
“Used to be. The fact that she’s dropped off the map can only mean she changed her identity and did so in a very sophisticated way.”
“I’m talking legal here. See, there’re all sorts of ways to change your identity, and all of them can keep somebody from seeing anything awry on the surface. Below the surface is something else entirely. When people change who they are, they tend to leave shadows of who they used to be. That’s how I find missing persons who don’t want to be found, by following those shadows.”
“Are we on the clock now?”
“My watch cost five bucks on the street, and the timer came broken.” Harry hesitated for a few moments. “You said Lisa Joy Reavis taught in Alabama for a time?”
“I have it on good authority, yes.”
“What about after?”
“There is no ‘after.’ That’s why I called you.”
“With a name that’s no longer active for a woman who hasn’t been seen in, what, maybe fifteen years?”
I tried to do the calculations quickly in my mind, but gave up. “Something like that.”
“Anything else you can tell me about her?”
“I’m afraid not, Harry.”
“Par for the course, then. I’ll try not to disappoint you, like I always do.”
“You never disappoint me,” I insisted.
“Right. That explains why you tip me so well.”
“I can’t tip on top of a bill I never get.”
“Always the formalities with you, Jess. Do you at least have a picture of Lisa Joy Reavis you can send me?”
I thought of the snapshot her mother had given me, in which Lisa Joy appeared as a miserable-looking teenager with her siblings, both of whom were now dead. Given all that, I wasn’t sure I’d ever heard a less appropriate name than “Lisa Joy.”
“I can scan and e-mail one to you, Harry,” I told him.
“Why don’t you just e-mail it?”
“I have to scan it first.”
“You could fax it.”
“What’s your fax number?”
“I don’t remember. I never use it.”
“Check your e-mail in ten minutes, Harry.”
I got the signal that another call was coming in and saw it was from Mort.
“I got your message. What’s up?”
“We need to pay a return visit to Vic Genaway, Mort. What’s your schedule look like tomorrow?”
* * *
* * *
Vic Genaway was waiting in the interview room when we arrived at New Hampshire State Prison for Men the next morning. No chains were attached to his wrists this time, and his hands were cupped casually behind his head. He was smirking at me, acting as if Mort wasn’t there at all.
“I heard you met the boys, Fletch.”
“I left a bag of my books with the guard at the entrance, Mr. Genaway. He wouldn’t let me give them to you personally.”
“No, they figure I might use the pages as weapons. You know,” he said, finally regarding Mort in a derisive fashion, “death by paper cut.”
“I did meet the men you sent to Cabot Cove,” I told him.
“Behaving themselves, are they?”
“Perfect gentlemen, from my perspective, although Joe did all the talking.”
Genaway nodded. “Yeah, Nails doesn’t talk much.”
“Nails, Mr. Genaway?”
His smirk returned. “You don’t want to know how he got that nickname, believe me. And why don’t you just call me Vic, since this is your second visit in two days?”
“I’ll stick with Mr. Genaway, if you don’t mind.”
“Hey, whatever floats your boat, Fletch.”
Mort leaned forward next to me, signaling he was taking the floor. “I thought we had good faith between us, Vic, this tragedy you suffered and all with your wife. But then you left some important things out the first time we came to see you.” He shook his head. “I thought you wanted to help us find your ex-wife’s killer.”
“I do. Why do you think I sent Joe and Nails to town?”
“Would you mind if I asked you another question about Ginny, Mr. Genaway?” I said, stepping in.
“Knock yourself out.”
“After she left you,” I resumed, getting to the point of this visit, “did you have men like Joe and Nails keep tabs on her?” I finished as politely as I could manage.
“From time to time, sure. For her own protection, you understand, Fletch, on account of I’ve made a few enemies over the years.”
“No,” Mort said curtly, “really?”
I leaned over the table a bit to put myself between him and Vic Genaway. “So whoever you had watching her from time to time would have been aware of her comings and goings. Where she went and whom she talked to when she got there.”
“More or less,” Genaway answered, eyeing me suspiciously. “Why?”
Mort let me keep the floor. “Because those comings and goings may provide a clue as to what brought her to Cabot Cove, who killed her, and why.”
He nodded, smiling tightly before that gesture dissolved into a smirk. “I can see why the flatfoot there brought you along for the ride.”
The remark had clearly been meant to get a rise out of Mort, but he smirked back at Vic Genaway.
“I gave the job of watching my ex-wife to Joe and Nails on account of I trust them. You want to know where Ginny’s been keeping herself since our little spat, especially since I’ve been inside, they’re the guys to talk to. You need Joe’s number?”
“He already gave it to me. One more thing, Mr. Genaway. Do you have any notion as to the source of Ginny’s interest in Cabot Cove?”
He shrugged. “The fact that she even had any is news to me.” His expression became as cold as I’d seen it yet. “You ever have a character like me in any of your books, Fletch?”
“Not exactly, no.”
“Then,” Vic Genaway told me, as if Mort wasn’t even in the room, “prepare to learn something.”
Chapter Fourteen
Joe and Nails were staying just outside of town at the Oceanview Motel, which was five miles from the coast and boasted no view of the ocean. It was the only establishment with its own coffee shop in the area, which I thought at least partially accounted for their choosing to stay there. And sure enough, I found them inside at a table in the back with mugs of coffee before, and an ashtray centered between, them. Each was smoking a cigarette, an
d the smell hung over the table like a cloud, even though smoking in restaurants had been illegal for years. Maybe the two of them were having a late lunch, since it was just after two in the afternoon.
“Hey, Mrs. Fletcher,” Joe said, rising from his chair when he saw me approaching.
Nails followed suit. Grudgingly. Then sat back down as fast as he had risen.
“Care to join us?” Joe continued.
“You know you’re breaking the law.”
Joe glanced down toward his belt, as if to look for a pistol. Then he noticed the Cabot Cove Sheriff’s Department SUV parked outside, with Mort behind the wheel working his cell phone. “We’re not carrying.”
“I was talking about the cigarettes.”
Joe held up the ashtray. “That’s why we carry our own with us. Comes in handy.”
Joe glanced out the window again, Nails following his gaze but letting his hold out the window when Joe turned back to me.
“That your friend the sheriff?”
“I asked him to let me talk to you alone.”
“Probably smart to keep yokel law enforcement at arm’s length.”
“Sheriff Metzger spent twenty-five years with the New York Police Department. He was a Marine and fought in Vietnam before that.”
Joe joined Nails in gazing out the window. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
“Good idea.”
“Such a polished investigator, and yet he’s waiting in the car.”
“I told him you’d be more helpful if I came in by myself.”
“You were right, Mrs. Fletcher,” Joe said. “You want to join us?”
“I don’t smoke.”
“I was talking about for a coffee.” He stamped out his cigarette in their traveling ashtray, Nails following suit again. “See, now we’re not breaking the law anymore.” Joe smirked, looking toward Mort’s SUV again.
“So you’re not,” I agreed, and sat down in the chair next to Nails, casting him a smile that must not have registered.
“Boss told us you’d be stopping by.”
“He has access to a phone in prison?”
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