“Must not have been an impressive field.”
“Amos was the only applicant. But his replacement, Mort Metzger, came complete with twenty-five years’ experience with the NYPD. I’m working with Sheriff Metzger on Ginny Genaway’s murder, if you have anything you’d like to share with us.”
She finally turned all the way around, tucking her arms tight against herself to ward off the chill. “I should get back to my guests.”
I blocked her way to the French doors. “What is it you’re not telling me, Wilma?”
She tried to shrug my question off. “The only mystery here, you solved twenty-five years ago.”
“Until Walter Reavis’s daughter Ginny was murdered five days ago. And a detective I asked to look into the death of her older sister, Lisa Joy, the girl you used to tutor, found evidence that suggests she might have been murdered, too. No, Wilma, you invited me tonight after Ginny came to see you last week because you were scared. You invited me because you had something you wanted to tell me.”
Turning, I could see our darkened reflections in the French doors, making us look more like shadows than like people. An almost surreal view in contrast to the full-bodied people milling about the lounge, plenty more guests having arrived since we’d come outside to the cold.
“I’m going back inside,” Alma said.
This time I let her past me, in large part because I was freezing and wanted to get back inside myself, so I fell in step alongside her.
“Did Ginny share something with you about Alma Potts? Could she have been the one who murdered Ginny after being released from prison?”
Before Wilma could answer, she was swarmed by a group of guests who’d just arrived, bearing hugs and presents. I decided to back off and give her some space, let her enjoy her own retirement party until she was ready to share with me whatever had led her to mail me that invitation. I turned and found Jim Dirkson right in front of me, a bottle of beer in his hand.
“Jim,” I managed.
And he managed a smile in return. He’d lost weight, a lot of it, and the new bent of his big-boned frame didn’t seem to suit him. He still had a paunch, though it was smaller, like everything else about him seemed. He’d lost a great deal of hair and sported a comb-over that didn’t quite reach, the patches of clumped-together hair looking glued to his scalp.
“Catch any killers lately, Mrs. Fletcher?” He looked as if he regretted the question as quickly as he asked it. “Bad joke. I’m sorry. I didn’t expect to see you here.”
“Wilma didn’t mention she’d invited me?”
“I was surprised she invited me. You know, I retired seven years ago.”
“Actually, I didn’t.”
Dirkson nodded. “After eighteen years as principal of Appleton High, even though they left the interim label in place for three of them. Didn’t have to bump my salary up to what Walter was making that way.”
“That doesn’t seem fair, but then life seldom is, right, Mr. Dirkson? Like it wasn’t fair for Tyler Benjamin to be arrested for a murder he didn’t commit based on your false statement.”
The tension between us felt like a wool blanket, the years having done nothing to relieve the animus that had existed between us even before Amos Tupper and I had come close to accusing Dirkson of murder during our interview.
“For what it’s worth, Mrs. Fletcher, I’m sorry.”
“Sorry enough to apologize to Tyler Benjamin?”
“Would it matter if I told you I did?”
I shook my head, not able to simply smile and move on. In that moment, a tall woman with a spiky hairdo that would have made Loretta Speigel cringe sauntered up to the bar to order a drink. I was certain I’d never seen her before, but she looked vaguely familiar somehow.
“He transferred to a private school,” Dirkson continued. “The district paid his tuition. I told them to take it out of my salary, but they refused.” Dirkson shook his bottle. “I need another beer. Can I get you something, Mrs. Fletcher?”
“I’ll get it myself,” I told him, watching the tall woman with spiky hair leave the bar with a drink in her hand, “but I appreciate the offer.”
We went our separate ways, and I don’t think I’ve ever wanted to be out of someone’s company more. Whoever said that time heals all wounds was wrong. I suppose I could take some solace in the fact that Jim Dirkson was clearly a sad, miserable man. And for some reason, I felt certain that had I checked the overflowing gift table, there’d be nothing left upon it from him.
I’d like to say I made the best of the rest of the evening, but that would be a lie. At dinner, I was seated at a table with a few former colleagues I barely remembered and a few younger teachers newer to the building. I joined them in small talk and dreaded the moment the conversation would get around to me and my books, which it ultimately did. I normally don’t resist a conversation veering in that direction, but I was too distracted tonight to pay attention to their comments and answered their questions in a fashion so cursory, it clearly put them off. I tried to make up for it by engaging them in small talk of my own, but things had grown too strained. Coffee was served in the nick of time.
Speeches and some presentations followed, emceed by the younger principal who’d replaced Jim Dirkson after he retired. I forced a few laughs and made myself applaud at the proper times, then joined the crowd in a standing ovation when Wilma was introduced to make some remarks, as the lights were dimmed and a cake emblazoned with candles was rolled out on a cart.
The candles’ glow radiated color on Wilma’s pale visage, and she seemed genuinely overwhelmed as the new Appleton High principal led an improvised version of “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow,” modified to suit her. She was truly beaming as someone handed her a knife to cut the cake, whatever fears had been plaguing her forgotten in that moment.
Then I saw her expression change as she completed the initial cut to another round of applause. I followed her gaze to the part of the room it had been focused on, wondering if she’d seen something that had disturbed her. Her remarks were terse; she sounded suddenly like she wanted to be somewhere else, her eyes scanning the still-dimmed room for whatever had left her unsettled.
Already on my feet, I started to move through the crowd clustering toward her and the cake to fetch their pieces; I wasn’t even halfway there when Wilma burst out of the congestion of bodies and grabbed me by the arms. “She’s here!”
“Who? Wilma, what’s going on?”
Her eyes swam wildly about, ignoring the well-wishers who continued to offer their congratulations. “You’re right, Jessica. You were right all along! I should have told you earlier, but I lost my nerve. Never thought you’d believe me, especially after—”
Wilma’s eyes bulged at something she was gazing at across the room. “No . . . No!” She tightened her grasp on me, actually hurting my arms. “Call your sheriff! Call him now! She’s here. Tell him she’s here!”
Once more, I swept my gaze about, following her line of vision in search of whomever it was she’d spotted. But the dimness of the room kept me from gaining clear focus on anyone.
“Wilma . . .” I started.
And that was when the lights went out. Not just the lights, but all the power, because the music died, too. When the emergency lights failed to snap on, I knew something was terribly wrong even before a dark shape brushed past me, a flicker of motion set against the black backdrop. I heard a grunt, a gasp, and the start of a scream before something crashed into me and forced me to the floor.
I couldn’t move, with something heavy pinning me down. Moments later, a flashlight beam shone down on me, illuminating a limp body pinning me to the floor.
Wilma Tisdale.
With the knife she’d used to cut the cake protruding from her back.
* * *
* * *
I reacted reflexively, shoving her off m
e. I think I might have been screaming myself. Hands helped me back to my feet as more screams and cries rang out, cell phone lights illuminating Wilma’s body for all to see. The crowd, not surprisingly, erupted into an all-out panic. The surge spun me one way and then the other, the mass of guests flooding from the dining room in an unbroken tide diverted only by a handful of guests kneeling by Wilma’s side and trying to tend to her.
Except for a single, dark-clad figure moving in the opposite direction, toward the patio.
“Call nine-one-one. Somebody call nine-one-one!” a shrill voice called out.
I knew it was too late, knew Wilma’s wound had been fatal, as I fought against the crowd’s flow, shoving my way toward the patio and feeling the surge of chill air just before I reached the still-open French doors. The figure I’d glimpsed inside a few moments before was speeding across the golf course.
I jogged after the figure, putting all the hours of treadmill work in the Hill House gym to good use, and so relieved I’d worn flats to the party instead of heels. But the figure ahead of me widened the gap, and at that point I hadn’t exactly considered what I intended to do if I did manage to catch up with Wilma’s murderer.
It didn’t matter. Instinct had taken over, that and my misplaced obsessive curiosity over a mystery I was convinced went back twenty-five years. Was this one of the guests I was chasing? Or was it someone uninvited whom Wilma Tisdale had glimpsed in the crowd?
Call your sheriff! Call him now! She’s here. Tell him she’s here!
“She”? Was I chasing a woman? If so, it was one at least as big as I and in good enough shape to keep my pursuit from closing. She’d know I was coming, the thumps of my footsteps as discernible for her as hers were for me, the only sounds given up by the night in between bursts of wind.
The adrenaline surging through me kept me from grasping the folly of this pursuit—literally. I was chasing a killer alone around a golf course under cover of night. And even more to the point, what if the killer simply turned and held his or her ground, intent on making me the second victim of the evening?
Still, my deliberate pace already slowing, I pressed on, clinging to the hope I might grab some glimpse of the killer that would give away her, or his, identity. I tried to recapture the panicked flight of guests. Had Jim Dirkson been among them, or might he be considered a suspect in yet another Appleton-related murder? And what about Alma Potts, assuming she’d been released from prison and was free to harm those she’d held a grudge against for all that time?
The trouble was, Alma would be at least sixty now, potentially even older, as I couldn’t remember exactly how old she’d been when she’d confessed to and been arrested for the murder of Walter Reavis. The figure widening the gap between us with long, loping strides didn’t appear even close to that old, which, I supposed, likely ruled out Jim Dirkson as well.
I continued the chase, grinding to a halt after the killer had drifted out of sight. Was he or she hiding, intending to pounce when I drew closer? The absurdity of my actions, together with the danger in which I now found myself as a result of them, hit me headlong, and I realized in that moment the extent of my vulnerability. A killer who’d already struck twice in less than a week would make no bones about taking a third life.
I thought of Ginny Genaway and her similarly departed sister, Lisa Joy. I thought of their father, Walter Reavis, and how much I’d respected him. Three murders in a span of twenty-five years, dual generations that had each found a time for murder.
The wind blew through the golf course’s trees, howling in a way that sounded like a woman screaming. Back up the downward slope of my pursuit, sirens blared and lights flashed through the night, announcing the arrival of a bevy of squad cars. The extra light and looming law enforcement threat made me feel safer, though not safe enough to continue chasing the killer I’d somehow lost a few minutes back. I backpedaled in the direction of the Cabot Cove Country Club clubhouse, so as not to leave myself totally vulnerable to an attack. And by the time the patio on which I’d told Wilma the rest of the story about catching Walter Reavis’s murderer came within clear view, my feet felt swollen to twice their normal size, and agonizing bolts of pain shot up through the bottoms of both.
Then I spotted a figure charging toward me from around the side of the building. I lost a breath and then a heartbeat before I recognized the flapping holster, the department-issue jacket, and the hat that the man held pinned to his head as he surged my way.
“Two murders in one week, Mrs. F.,” Mort Metzger said, eyeing me derisively. “Looks like you and I have a lot to talk about.”
Chapter Twenty-three
The fast arrival of the Cabot Cove Sheriff’s Department on the scene had prevented all but a few of the guests from screeching out of the parking lot in their cars. The vast majority of them were still gathered in the parking lot, mingling about in search of updates on Wilma Tisdale’s murder and the investigation already under way.
Meanwhile, Mort and I stood back a bit from Wilma’s body while Seth Hazlitt crouched over to perform a preliminary examination of the corpse.
“Wilma told me to call you, Mort,” I said, gazing down at her body. “It was the last thing she said.”
“Well, you should have. Earlier.”
“And what would you have told me?”
“That your overactive imagination was acting up again and to just enjoy the party.”
“That’s why I didn’t bother calling. Earlier.”
“Why’d she tell you to call me, Jessica?”
“She’d spotted someone in the crowd I think she believed killed Ginny Genaway.”
“Another uninvited guest?”
“Hey, I was invited.”
“Right,” Mort groused. “Better late than never, I suppose. What exactly was it that Mrs. Tisdale said when she asked you to call me?”
“She was in an all-out panic,” I told him, “utterly terrified. ‘Call your sheriff,’ she said. ‘Call him now! She’s here. Tell him she’s here!’”
“But who could she have been?”
“I have no idea. The only obvious name that comes to mind is Alma Potts.”
Mort’s expression tightened. “That name rings a bell.”
“The product of my first murder investigation over in Appleton twenty-five years ago.”
He nodded. “That explains it.”
Seth Hazlitt looked up from the body to us. “Well, looks to me like the knife slid through a pair of ribs and punctured her heart. Death doesn’t get much more instant than that.”
I shivered, recalling the feeling of Wilma’s literal deadweight pinning me to the floor, the coppery scent of her spilled blood filling my nostrils.
“Why Wilma Tisdale?” Mort wondered.
“You asking me?” Seth said, pointing to himself.
“No, our sleuth in residence here.”
“Wilma obviously knew more than she shared with me, likely connected to that visit she received from Ginny Genaway last week. I think she knew, perhaps without realizing it, the identity of Ginny’s killer. Someone’s covering their tracks here, Mort. I think that’s what these murders were about.”
“Tracks going back twenty-five years?”
“Walter Reavis’s murder was the start of all this, the catalyst.”
“But Alma Potts would be a hundred years old now.”
“Mid- to late sixties,” I corrected Mort.
“And guilty of a crime of passion a quarter century ago, not first-degree murder with a gun and then another with a knife. Who does that leave us with exactly?”
“No one comes to mind.”
Mort took off his hat and ran his hand through his still-thick hair. “We’re bringing the guests we’ve been able to round up all back inside the club to take their statements and figure out the names of those who left so we can track them down to
get their statements, too.”
“Somebody must’ve seen something, maybe several somebodies. Put their stories together, and we might have at least a general description of the killer.”
“The woman, you mean, at least according to Wilma Tisdale. Did anything you saw out on that golf course tell you anything else about her?”
“Not a thing, including the fact that it was definitively a ‘her.’”
“What about in the moments before Mrs. Tisdale was murdered?”
I shook my head. “Nothing. I was facing the wrong direction, and the lights went off just as I turned to follow Wilma’s gaze.”
“And this was the first time you believed her to be scared?”
“‘Terrified’ would be a better way of describing what I saw in her eyes. She was scared when we talked on the patio earlier. She was scared when she invited me here in the first place.”
“You think she knew a killer was going to crash the party?”
“No, but I think she knew, or at least suspected, who the killer is and was struggling with whether or not to share her suspicions.”
“And that’s why she invited you?”
I shrugged. “Maybe she changed her mind. Could be she’d come to doubt whatever conclusions she came to in the wake of Ginny’s visit. Now that I think about it . . .”
“What?”
“She mailed the invitation days before Ginny Genaway’s murder, so it couldn’t have been that that spooked her so much. It had to be something Ginny had told her, and whatever it was explains what lured Ginny back to Appleton and then brought her to Cabot Cove.” I looked down at Seth finishing up his examination of Wilma’s corpse. “Seth drew a blank on that headline.”
“So he told me. Which leaves us back five or six months ago again, with whatever Ginny had uncovered that ultimately led to her being murdered.”
“Alma Potts, Mort. We need to check her out.”
“But you just said—”
“I know what I said, but she spent twenty-five years stewing over her past and her future. Who knows what came out through those gates?”
Murder, She Wrote--A Time for Murder Page 21
