Murder, She Wrote--Murder in Red

by Jessica Fletcher

“I had no idea about any of this, George, not even a hint. I didn’t even know she had a son.”

  “My deductive reasoning tells me you didn’t become acquainted with her until after the accident.”

  “Your deductive reasoning would be correct. I’ve known her for about nine years, so she must have moved to Cabot Cove just after the accident.”

  “And she never mentioned it to you, nothing at all about her son?”

  “No. Maybe she said something that I’m just not recalling.”

  “Since when do you forget anything?”

  “It was a lot of small talk between two friends over cards and tea, so it’s possible it didn’t even register. I can say for certain, though, that she never mentioned anything about Tripp’s condition. That’s something I’d never forget.”

  “A lot of gentlemanly, or gentlewomanly, types don’t like burdening their friends with such things. Suffer in silence, as they say.”

  “There’s another possibility, of course: that Mimi had written her son off after the accident to the point where, to all intents and purposes, he didn’t exist.”

  “Strange way of dealing with grief.”

  “I never got the impression she was grieving about anything. But what kind of mother does something like this to her child?”

  “I might pose the same question to you, dear lady, given your closeness to this woman.”

  I chose not to try to answer, hating the fact that I found myself thinking so much less of a woman I’d considered to be a close friend. I guess I hadn’t known her as well as I’d thought I had. Had we ever discussed my husband, Frank, how we’d raised our nephew Grady after an accident claimed the lives of his parents? So I guess maybe Mimi knew as little about my personal life as I did about hers. Maybe that’s what made us friends.

  “I won’t be able to join you, Jessica,” George said from behind the wheel.

  We were several miles down the road, and for the life of me, I couldn’t remember us getting there. “Join me where?”

  “Visiting Fred Cooper, Tripp Van Dorn’s lawyer.”

  “Not for very long, though, was he?”

  * * *

  • • •

  George dropped me off at the office of Fred S. Cooper, Esq., apologizing again for abandoning me.

  “You have more important things to do than follow along on one of my crusades.”

  “From my experience, your crusades prove almost inevitably fruitful. And I don’t just ‘follow along.’”

  “This is different, George. Who am I helping? Certainly not Mimi, certainly not her son. No friend or acquaintance of mine has been wrongly jailed, and my relationship with the victim herself was superficial at best. I can’t think of a single serious conversation we ever engaged in. We talked about the changing nature of our town, all the places we’d both visited, and other exotic places Mimi had gone but I only wrote about.”

  “You enjoyed her company.”

  “Very much.”

  “Then, Jessica, just leave things there.”

  I opened the door to his rental and started to climb out. “I can’t. That’s why I need to see this lawyer.”

  * * *

  • • •

  “The Jessica Fletcher?” Fred Cooper asked after I’d introduced myself. “As in J. B. Fletcher?”

  “Yes, Mr. Cooper.” I smiled, pulling my hand from his determined grip.

  “Well, it’s truly a pleasure to meet Cabot Cove’s most celebrated resident.”

  “You must not be keeping up with our rising population, all those famous people and celebrities relocating here from the Hamptons, Nantucket, or Martha’s Vineyard.”

  Cooper frowned. “Well, my landlord sure is.”

  Cooper’s practice was a solo one, though he shared the office and a receptionist with another lawyer, whose name didn’t appear on the plaque outside. I suspected he was in his early thirties but looked older, thanks to hair that had gone prematurely gray and a paunch that suggested the long hours it must’ve taken him to make a Main Street rent; even a third-floor office in a building that housed a boutique nail salon, a hairstylist, and our local bookstore on its ground-floor storefront level would be fetching an outrageous rent these days. I’d sat in a stiff chair alongside a matching couch in the reception area while waiting to see him, fiddling with a piece of tape I finally pried from the arm.

  “To what do I owe the pleasure?” Cooper asked, retaking the chair behind his desk only after I claimed the one before it.

  “You’ve heard the news about Mimi Van Dorn?”

  Cooper tried to look nonchalant. “I’ve heard the name around town, but I don’t believe I have.”

  “She passed away this morning.”

  “How?” he asked matter-of-factly.

  “Technically, respiratory failure after she lapsed into a coma.”

  “Why ‘technically’?”

  “Because the cord to her ventilator was unplugged.”

  “I don’t practice criminal law, Mrs. Fletcher, if you’re the one who pulled it.”

  I nodded, letting the levity settle between us to ease the tension of an initial meeting. “I visited Tripp Van Dorn earlier today, Mr. Cooper.”

  “That would be Mrs. Van Dorn’s son?”

  “You know he is, because he tried to hire you to file a lawsuit against his mother.”

  Cooper stiffened inside his jacket, which was wrinkled in more places than it wasn’t. “You know I can’t discuss such matters.”

  “I said tried to hire you. You never took the case, so there can be no attorney-client privilege.”

  “That might be true in your books, Mrs. Fletcher, but in my code of conduct, I prefer to keep anything discussed with even a potential client confidential. As a courtesy, you understand.”

  “Why didn’t you take the case, Mr. Cooper? I imagine you can tell me that much.”

  “I can: because there was no case to take.”

  “A mother breaking the trust her son desperately needed for his long-term care? There would seem to be a case there to me.”

  Cooper leaned back, nodding. He ran his hands through his prematurely gray hair, and they came off shiny from whatever product he’d used to slick it back.

  “Is that what Mr. Van Dorn told you?” he asked me.

  “It’s not true?”

  “The truth is, Mrs. Fletcher, that Tripp Van Dorn willingly executed papers that allowed his mother to do exactly what she ended up doing. We might have prevailed eventually, but I’m a one-man shop here and couldn’t afford the time and expense involved, not with the rent I’m paying for the privilege of having an office on Main Street in Cabot Cove.”

  “Then I’m a bit confused, Mr. Cooper.”

  “About what?”

  “All of those facts you just recited would have been plain when you gave Tripp Van Dorn the impression you were going to take his case. What changed?”

  “Nothing, because Mr. Van Dorn got the wrong impression.”

  “So you didn’t provide any false hope for a young man about to be kicked out of his long-term care facility because he can no longer pay the bills.”

  “I may have laid out some options for him, Mrs. Fletcher, but I’m afraid none of those options panned out.”

  “But you pursued them.”

  “Well . . .”

  “Yes or no, Mr. Cooper.”

  “I performed some due diligence, nothing beyond that.” I watched his expression change, from grudging placation to barely restrained obstinance. “Your reputation appears to be well earned.”

  “What reputation would that be?”

  “As someone who revels in inserting herself in other people’s business.”

  “True enough, I suppose,” I conceded, “but only when that business involves murder.”

/>   “My business doesn’t involve murder, Mrs. Fletcher.”

  “Of course, with you not being a criminal lawyer and all. Could you describe this due diligence you performed, what it yielded, or failed to yield, that made you change your mind about representing Tripp Van Dorn?”

  “I told you—”

  “I know what you said, but performing such due diligence suggests the case originally intrigued you.”

  “The contingency fee, a third of a million dollars, intrigued me.”

  “I appreciate your honesty, Mr. Cooper,” I told him, leaning forward so I was closer to his desk. “But that’s all the more reason for not abandoning the case so quickly. I’m sure you can see my point.”

  “Actually,” he said, “I don’t.”

  “Then let me put it a different way. Did the due diligence you performed on Mr. Van Dorn’s case involve the Clifton Clinic in any way?”

  “I’m not at liberty to say.”

  “Well then, are you at liberty to discuss the new office furniture you recently purchased?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I peeled some tape off the chair in the waiting area that must’ve held the price tag until recently. And the dark blue color hasn’t faded at all, even though that area gets direct sunlight for most of the day. Oh, and that Oriental rug that matches the color scheme? It’s still showing folds in the nap, meaning you couldn’t have rolled it out more than a few days ago.”

  “Are you implying something, Mrs. Fletcher?”

  “No, just commenting.”

  “You would’ve made a good lawyer.”

  “I prefer writing about them at times, Mr. Cooper.”

  “But you’re not just a writer, are you? You also fancy yourself a detective of sorts.”

  “I don’t fancy myself that at all.”

  Cooper didn’t seem even remotely convinced by that. His amicable tone and demeanor had vanished behind a mask like that donned by a kid caught sneaking a peek at an exam paper atop someone else’s desk.

  “I’m still curious as to why you didn’t take Tripp Van Dorn’s case.”

  “I explained that to you already.”

  “I thought you may have left something out. Mr. Van Dorn said you never got back to him, save for a single terse e-mail.”

  “There was no point in rehashing the matter beyond that.”

  “Did your due diligence turn up what Mimi Van Dorn did with the money she took from her son’s trust?”

  “I’m not at liberty to say.”

  “Attorney-client privilege again?”

  “I’m not at liberty to comment on that either.”

  Cooper rose from behind his desk, blocking out a measure of the sunlight that had yet to fade the upholstery on his brand-new furniture, and checked his watch dramatically.

  “I have another client coming in.”

  I stood up, too, and ran a finger along the sill of his desk. “Another office upgrade?”

  Cooper grinned, nodding. “The real estate boon in Cabot Cove has been good for business.” He extended a hand across his dark wood desk, mahogany or cherry, I surmised. “It was a pleasure finally meeting you, Mrs. Fletcher. You’re exactly as advertised.”

  I took his hand, managing a smile. “So glad I didn’t disappoint you, Mr. Cooper.”

  Chapter Ten

  I could have Ubered home, but it was a beautiful day for a walk, the summer heat tempered by the luscious breeze coming off the ocean. I needed the exercise and I always did my best thinking when walking or riding a bicycle.

  I was worried about George Sutherland, looked forward to getting back to my Hill House suite to research everything I could about this adrenal disease afflicting him. Age is the one thing even the cleverest mind can’t solve. It catches up to everyone, despite the determined attempts of those like Mimi Van Dorn to defeat or deny it. There is no doing either, and learning of a good friend’s battle with mortality inevitably conjures thoughts of our own. Maybe that was why I couldn’t resist investigating murder as much as writing about it: because it took my mind off such things, including the fact that I was alone. But I never felt alone when I was losing myself in the pages of my latest book, inevitably surprised at what came next, as if I wasn’t really in control. First on the old Royal typewriters I’d used to write my early books, including The Corpse Danced at Midnight, then later on an old Windows computer before settling on Macs. I took to writing because I could control in fiction what I couldn’t in fact.

  Like the sudden illness that claimed my husband, Frank’s, life. When we met I was interning at the old Appleton Theater and substitute teaching as a way to pass the time before my career as a journalist took off, which it never did. I happened to be volunteering at the theater on a show that Frank designed sets for—a hobby of his, I’d later learn. I’d never been a romantic, never believed in anything as sentimental as love at first sight, but that’s what it was like for us. Today I can’t even tell you the name of the play; my memories are so consumed by those first days spent with Frank.

  I believe to this day that losing him was so painful that I avoided anything close to romance afterward. As close as I was to George Sutherland, and as pleasant as our occasional relationship was, we were separated by an ocean, and both of us were wise enough to know we’d never be able to recapture whatever it was our younger days had granted us. We enjoyed each other’s company enough to want to maintain it without the weight of a traditional relationship holding us down, because Marjorie Ainsworth had forged a bond between us based on something we could share with no one else:

  Murder.

  Death had brought us close and now, I feared, might be about to drive us apart forever.

  Strolling past Mara’s Luncheonette, I caught a glimpse of Seth Hazlitt sipping an iced tea at his usual table and decided to join him, needing to see a friendly face after such difficult ruminations in the wake of my meeting with Fred Cooper.

  “You’re just in time, Jess,” he greeted, his hooded eyes looking up from the condensation that had formed over his glass from the humidity that had trailed me through the door. “I’m waiting for Mort to review the latest findings about Mimi Van Dorn’s passing.”

  “Passing or murder?”

  “I leave such questions to the professionals.”

  “Since when, Seth?”

  “Since your friend became the latest patient to leave me for the Clifton Clinic.”

  I checked my watch. “Which explains what you’re doing here in the middle of the afternoon.”

  “Ayuh, I could use a hobby all right. Maybe I’ll try my hand at writing.”

  “Writing’s not a hobby.”

  “Was for you when you first got started.”

  Seth Hazlitt was right, of course. Following Frank’s death, I’d written my first mystery just to take my mind off things. I’d done other writing before, short stories mostly, but had never had an inkling I’d ever publish a book.

  “Maybe I’ll take up golf,” Seth groused.

  “You hate golf. You always say it’s only for people who can’t find anything better to do with their time.”

  “Which kind of describes me these days, doesn’t it?” Seth said disconsolately.

  “Seth—”

  “Couldn’t afford the new dues at the country club, anyway. If I retire, promise me you won’t take your business to the Clifton Clinic.”

  “I’m not sure I could afford it,” I said, thinking again of Mimi Van Dorn breaking her son’s trust to put the money to her own use. “Can I ask you a question?”

  “Since when did you need to ask, Jess?”

  “You spoke with George Sutherland.”

  Seth nodded. “I did.”

  “And did he mention anything about . . .”

  I started to choke up, spared the need to continue when
Seth completed the thought for me.

  “His illness? Matter of fact, he did.”

  “And?” I managed.

  “Well, I’m hardly an expert on the subject.”

  “The subject of pheochromocytomas.”

  “First time I’ve heard anybody pronounce that properly. Tumors of the nervous system, specifically the adrenal gland. Almost always benign.”

  “That’s what George told me. He wasn’t specific about the prognosis.”

  “What did I just say?” Seth asked me, using his sterner voice.

  “That you’re no expert.”

  “That’s the problem, Jess—nobody is. You know the term ‘orphan drug’?”

  I nodded. “Drugs used to treat rare diseases, often so rare it’s not worth it for a pharmaceutical company to manufacture them.”

  “Pheochromocytomic tumors are one of those rare diseases, a cancer for which no established protocol has proven effective and no dedicated protocol exists, since the clinical study required to produce one would hardly be worth the expense.”

  “Tell that to somebody suffering from the disease.”

  “You mean George,” Seth said, sounding again like the old country doctor he’d probably been since graduating medical school. “He says he came to the Clifton Clinic because they’re running a trial of a drug that so far has shown great promise in treating tumors much like pheochromocytomas.”

  “But not exactly like them.”

  “Chief Inspector Sutherland didn’t tell you this himself?”

  “I didn’t ask.”

  Seth reached across the table and squeezed my hand. “My feelings about Charles Clifton aside, the chief inspector is in the best hands possible.”

  “He’s not a former patient,” I reminded him, “like Mimi was.”

  That thought, thankfully, veered me back on course.

  “In a word, Dr. Hazlitt, how would you describe Mimi Van Dorn?”

  He pulled his hand from mine and settled back in his chair. “So it’s Dr. Hazlitt now. . . .”

  “It’s your professional opinion I’m after.”

  “Then my answer, in a word, is ‘vain.’ I don’t think I’m violating any doctor-patient privilege by saying that much.”