Murder, She Wrote--A Time for Murder

by Jessica Fletcher

  Sackler nodded. “Exactly! The psychological trauma left by her father’s murder had rendered Ginny incapable of transferring emotion to more than one party at a time. It was the primary psychosis I was treating her for.”

  “In your work with Ginny,” I started in again, “did she ever discuss other incidents where she resorted to violence?”

  Sackler looked impressed by my question. “It was a tendency she fought continually. If you asked her mother, you’d find her to have been a little girl prone to temper tantrums and other means of lashing out in the wake of her father’s death. That part of her never really grew up. In fact . . .”

  “Yes, Doctor?” I prodded her.

  “We’re venturing a bit into the weeds here, and I’m hesitant to get into a topic we’d only begun to broach before Ginny ended her treatment.”

  “Which was . . .”

  “Ginny was convinced she’d murdered her father.”

  * * *

  * * *

  “In the sense that she was responsible for his death,” Dr. Sackler quickly elaborated.

  “What would account for that?” Seth asked her.

  “Guilt. It’s common with children who’ve lost a parent, a means of displacing their grief, however misconceived. Picture the mind as a pane of glass. When it breaks, it’s not a simple glue job so much as a patch followed by a new window pane to replace the broken one. In Ginny’s case, the patch kept falling off, allowing the wind to blow through. So she patched the hole with guilt. When she finally sought me out, it was to replace that entire broken pane.”

  “In other words,” I said, “she remained impetuous and impulsive long into adulthood.”

  “I often tell people, Mrs. Fletcher, that maintaining the heart of a child is a good thing, but maintaining the mind of a child is a recipe for psychological trauma.”

  “Did she ever mention her mother?” I asked Sackler, thinking of the slovenly woman I’d met at the Portland Head Lighthouse in Cape Elizabeth.

  Dr. Sackler shook her head. “Barely at all. They had no relationship. The divorce left Ginny entirely in her father’s camp, and things didn’t improve one iota after his murder.”

  “What about her sister?” Seth chimed in. “The one who dropped off the family map entirely after high school? Did your patient ever speak about her?” he asked, not bothering to mention that Ginny had voiced to Wilma Tisdale the opinion that Lisa Joy had murdered their father, literally instead of just figuratively.

  “Originally, there was a total disassociation in that regard. Out of sight, out of mind, would be the best way to put it—literally, in this case. But then something changed, and I mean out of nowhere.”

  “How so?”

  “Ginny seemed to develop an obsession with Lisa Joy, constructing what appeared to be an elaborate fantasy that they were going to become close again, like sisters. Displacement again, I thought at first, since Lisa Joy had pretty much left Ginny’s life at the same time her father did.”

  “Makes sense, ayuh,” Seth acknowledged with a nod. “She couldn’t have known about her older sister having perished in that car accident down Alabama way.”

  Sackler’s eyes widened in surprise. “How horrible. When did this happen?”

  “Fourteen years ago,” I told her.

  “And Ginny never knew?”

  “I don’t know how she could have. When did this obsession with Lisa Joy begin?” I continued.

  “I’d have to check my notes to be specific, but just before Ginny broke off her treatment. That would have made it, oh, a week or two short of six months ago.”

  I tried to reconcile that timeline with what I’d learned in the wake of Ginny’s murder. It jibed perfectly with the time she began reading the Cabot Cove Gazette, judging by the dates on the back issues Mort and I had found. Then last week she’d shown up in Appleton, asking questions about her sister before coming to Cabot Cove to pry information out of me about her father’s murder.

  “Is it possible Ginny suspected her older sister, Lisa Joy, of murdering their father?” I blurted out. “In the literal sense, I mean, not the figurative.”

  “That’s an interesting thought, Mrs. Fletcher,” Sackler noted. “Have you considered trying your hand at psychoanalysis?”

  “I write fiction, Doctor, so you might say I do it for a living, only with people I make up.”

  “I can tell you one thing: Ginny didn’t believe the police ever caught her father’s real killer. So your theory is a sound one, but not appropriate in this case. No, Ginny concocted an entire fantasy scenario in which she might have a relationship with her sister—displacement again, since this coincided with the general time frame of her divorce from her husband, Vic, and his subsequent incarceration. As a matter of fact, I’d say those factors were the prime contributors to the new delusion she’d begun to foster. It represented a drastic setback in our therapy, and I expressed as much to her. I think that’s why she stopped showing up for appointments and broke off her treatment. I think she may have done that because we’d begun to make real progress.”

  “Shouldn’t that have been a positive thing?” I asked.

  “Not in Ginny’s case, Mrs. Fletcher. The condition she suffered from is the equivalent of digging a hole and filling it in. The vast majority of people fill in the holes that crop up in their lives when they first appear, while they’re still small. But someone like Ginny waits for the hole to become a crater before grabbing a shovel. She doesn’t really want to fill it in, because its existence defines her purpose in life. So her abandoning treatment at the time she did was the equivalent of preferring that the hole remain unfilled.”

  I leaned forward so Seth was positioned a bit behind me. “I’d like to get back to her obsession with her older sister, Lisa Joy, if we could. Are you certain it was a delusion?”

  “I’m certain Ginny broke off treatment when I effectively suggested it was. Perhaps a mistake on my part, but I thought we were at a precarious point of her therapy, given the setback I was witnessing right before my eyes. I only wish that she’d known her sister was dead, since it would have prevented the delusion from forming.”

  I nodded, my thoughts falling together in my mind to assemble a fresh picture or to add to the one I’d already formed. I now had a clear idea of the timeline. How something had triggered Ginny’s delusion about her late sister, Lisa Joy, around the very same time she began reading the Cabot Cove Gazette. Then just last week she showed up in Appleton to revisit the past ahead of interviewing me twelve hours before she was murdered. Those were the pieces I’d now managed to fit together, but the apparently completed puzzle revealed no discernible picture.

  Which meant there were still pieces missing.

  “In your final sessions with Ginny, Doctor,” I started, “did she express any concerns that she was in danger or under some threat?”

  “Not at all, Mrs. Fletcher. In fact, I don’t think I’d ever seen her happier. With the split from her husband and all, it was as if she was embarking on a new beginning.”

  “Which came to an abrupt end,” I couldn’t help myself from saying.

  * * *

  * * *

  “I’ll have a salad, and you can have the large clam pizza,” Seth said, regarding the Frank Pepe’s Pizzeria menu after we’d been seated in the restaurant located inside the Chestnut Hill Mall ten minutes from Dr. Sackler’s office.

  “I can’t eat a large pizza.”

  “Then I guess I’ll have to help you, won’t I? Be a shame to see good food go to waste. After we order, you can tell me the rest of the story.”

  “What story?”

  “How you and Amos Tupper solved the murder of Walter Reavis over in Appleton.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Twenty-five years ago . . .

  I glanced at Amos Tupper and then back at the boy. “I can find the
real killer.”

  “Mighty big pickle you got yourself into there, Mrs. Fletcher,” Amos Tupper told me after Patrolman Tom Jennings had come to take Tyler Benjamin back to his cell.

  “I wouldn’t have said it if I didn’t mean it, Detective. And we’re going to do it together.”

  Tupper frowned. “This coming from a substitute teacher.”

  “Well, now I guess I’m a substitute detective, too.”

  He seemed to take offense at that. “And who exactly would you be substituting for, Mrs. Fletcher?”

  “I didn’t mean it that way.”

  “It certainly sounded like you meant it that way.”

  I looked at him more closely. “Were you the one who arrested Tyler Benjamin?”

  “After Jim Dirkson reported seeing him enter the building, given the boy’s history with Principal Reavis, I had no choice.”

  “But Tyler’s history is more with Vice Principal Dirkson, Detective. And according to the boy, Dirkson was inside the office, not outside the building.”

  “I’ll admit that inconsistency in their stories did cross my mind.”

  “One of them is lying. I think we can assume that much. And what about the fact that Tyler also claimed he saw the school secretary, Alma Potts, driving out of the parking lot before he entered the building?”

  “What about it?”

  “Alma Potts was home sick that day. It explains the blinds.”

  “The blinds?”

  I nodded. “Mr. Reavis liked having the sun at his back, which meant it was in the eyes of anyone he was meeting with, as they’d be seated in front of his desk. I experienced that firsthand at our meeting sixth period the day of the murder because Alma wasn’t around to close them as she did every afternoon, even when it was cloudy. Force of habit, I guess.”

  Amos Tupper shook his head, trying to make sense of all the case’s new wrinkles I’d brought up, motivated by my desire to help Tyler Benjamin, who I was convinced was not a murderer.

  “Know what I think?” he asked as if reading my mind. “That this boy might have you fooled, Mrs. Fletcher. He could be one of those psycho sociopaths.”

  I didn’t bother correcting his terminology.

  “He’s a student of yours, so the last thing you can picture is him taking a trophy to the skull of his principal.”

  “Except for one thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Did you notice Tyler wears his watch on his right wrist?”

  “He wasn’t wearing a watch, Mrs. Fletcher.”

  “But you could see the pale impression where he normally does. One of those sport watches, judging by the size of the face.”

  “You noticed that?” Tupper asked, scratching his head.

  “You didn’t? I thought it was obvious, along with something else.”

  The detective looked like he’d be happier if I didn’t continue, but I did anyway.

  “The gash that ran down Walter Reavis’s brow from where the trophy first impacted with his skull was angled to the left. That angle suggests he was struck by a right-handed person, while this boy is clearly left-handed.”

  Tupper thought for a moment. “Maybe he’s ambiguous.”

  “Ambiguous?”

  “You know, able to use either hand. He is quite an athlete, after all.”

  “You mean ‘ambidextrous.’”

  He nodded. “Sure, that’s what I said.”

  “Here’s what I say, Detective: We need to have a little talk with both Alma Potts and Jim Dirkson so we can determine who’s lying here and who’s telling the truth.”

  Detective Tupper looked at me differently from the way he had through the course of the long week, almost like I was suddenly a stranger. “Maybe I should talk to these folks on my own.”

  “Oh.”

  “I don’t mean anything by it, Mrs. Fletcher. It’s just that at this stage of the case, maybe it’s best to leave things to a trained professional.”

  “Well, that certainly does make sense.”

  “You don’t mind?”

  “Not at all. I was glad to be of service while I could, Detective.”

  “Given all we’ve been through, why don’t you call me Amos?”

  “Only if you call me Jessica . . . Amos.”

  He shook his head. “Sorry, ma’am. That wouldn’t be professional since you’re a civilian and all.” He eyed me more closely. “You really don’t think Tyler Benjamin is the killer?”

  “No, Amos, I don’t.”

  He frowned, regret spreading across his features. “Well, if you’re right, Mrs. Fletcher, that means I put a teenage boy in jail for nothing. Doesn’t say a lot for my detective skills, does it? If only life came with a redial button, right?”

  “Well, I can’t deny that.” I hesitated, just long enough. “Of course . . .”

  “What is it, Mrs. Fletcher?”

  “Oh, it’s probably nothing.”

  “What?”

  “There’s something we need to check out at the high school, Amos. First thing Monday morning.”

  * * *

  * * *

  Monday morning, the door to Walter Reavis’s private office inside the main office was locked, with yellow crime scene tape still strung across the jamb.

  “Now what are we supposed to do?” Amos Tupper said, shaking his head.

  “Amos, you’re the lead detective on the case. You have every right to enter the office where the victim was murdered.”

  “So I do.” He beamed, as if a lightbulb had gone off. “Except the door’s locked, and I don’t have a key.”

  “Allow me, Detective.”

  I left him there and headed back to the front of the office, where Alma Potts manned the bridge from behind the school’s reception counter at her perpetually cluttered desk.

  “Do you have the key to Walter’s office handy, Alma?” I asked her.

  She started fishing through her top desk drawer, only to stop. “Terrible about Tyler Benjamin being arrested for the murder,” she said, dabbing her eyes with a tissue, due more likely to the cold she was still fighting than to lingering sadness.

  “Beyond terrible,” I said.

  “Do you believe he did it, Mrs. Fletcher?”

  “What do I know, Alma?”

  “Well, everyone’s talking about how you’re working with that Detective Topper.”

  “Tupper,” I corrected her. “And I’m acting as a sounding board more than anything. We just came from seeing Tyler, actually.”

  “How’s the boy doing?”

  “How do you think?”

  “I’m sorry,” Alma Potts said. “It was a stupid question.”

  “No, it’s me that’s sorry, Alma, for being short with you. I know you worked for Walter ever since the two of you were at the middle school.”

  “He hired me. Can I tell you something, between us?” she asked, lowering her voice to a near whisper as she cast a glance beyond me to see if anyone else was there.

  “Of course.”

  “I’m not looking forward to working for Jim Dirkson, Mrs. Fletcher. He may make a decent principal, but he’s no Walter Reavis.”

  “Well, there’s no guarantee he’ll be appointed on a permanent basis, as opposed to interim.”

  Alma forced a smile. “Well, a girl can sure hope.”

  I lowered my voice to match hers. “Can I confide something in you, too, Alma?”

  She perked up. “Of course, Mrs. Fletcher.”

  “Between you and me, Mr. Dirkson’s name came up in the conversation Detective Tupper and I had with the Benjamin boy.”

  “Really? How?”

  “Dirkson’s statement was vital to the police arresting Tyler. Dirkson claims he spotted Tyler lurking about the parking lot when he was leaving th
e building. But Tyler claims Dirkson was in the office when the boy came to plead his case to Walter.”

  Alma’s eyes widened, then practically bulged. “You don’t think . . .”

  “Of course not. I think Tyler’s clearly lying and for good reason,” I said, hoping Alma Potts bought into my lie.

  “What reason is that, Mrs. Fletcher?”

  “He claims he saw you driving out of the parking lot while he was waiting to enter the building. But you were out sick the day of the murder.”

  “Yes, with this nasty cold I can’t shake. It’s all over the building, you know.”

  “Indeed, I do. I’ve been downing vitamin C and washing my hands twenty times a day.”

  “That didn’t work for me.” Alma frowned.

  “Any idea how Tyler could have been mistaken?”

  “I drive a white sedan, and there’re probably ten of those out in the parking lot right now, for starters. Not much, if anything, to distinguish them. And it would’ve been dark, wouldn’t it, around the time of the murder? So I doubt very much he got a very good look.”

  “But I should inform Detective Tupper it definitely wasn’t you,” I said, casting myself as a third-party conduit to the police to increase my credibility.

  “Please, if you don’t mind.”

  “Not at all, Alma. He’ll want to know if there was anyone at home with you who can corroborate your story.”

  Her expression scrunched up as she considered this. “Of course, I’m not sure of the exact time you’re referring to. One of the twins might’ve been home,” Alma said, referring to her teenage boy and girl, who attended another high school since the family didn’t live in Appleton. “But I can’t be sure off the top of my head.”

  “Of course not. Why would you be?”

  “I wish I could be more specific, Mrs. Fletcher.”

  I started to back away from her desk. “I think what you mentioned about the number of white cars and the fact that it was dark more than explains what Tyler thinks he saw. But you’ve given me something else to follow up on: these white cars, specifically. If the boy did see a white car leaving the parking lot before he entered the building, perhaps we could put a list together of who owns the rest of them—you know, the other nine or so to go with yours.”