Murder, She Wrote--Murder in Red

by Jessica Fletcher

  “Could he ever! Big Al was a character, all right. Old-fashioned cop who knew how to keep a lid on things. He used to tell me, ‘Tommy, we’re here to look out for people, not bust their chops.’ Back when he was a patrolman, Big Al was known for putting kids suspected of DUI in the back of his squad car and putting the fear of God in them before driving them home. Wasn’t one of them who didn’t stumble through his or her front door in tears, but thanking their lucky stars it had been him who pulled them over. Yup, he was a legend in this town for sure. Hell, he might still be chief if not for . . .”

  “For what?” I coaxed, when Grimes’s voice tailed off.

  “He boxed Golden Gloves, won some trophies, and went pro for a time. But it took its toll and by fifty he was diagnosed with early dementia. Big Al’s still alive today—what’s left of him anyway—living at one of those memory-care centers for Alzheimer’s patients. I visit him whenever I can. Some days he knows me. Most days he doesn’t. But his memory of cases resurfaces from time to time with surprising clarity. Doesn’t recognize a single family member from one day to the next, including his kids and grandkids, but he can tell you all about some bar brawl he broke up or that riot act he read to some celebrity he caught snorting coke in the front seat of his car, like they happened yesterday. Go figure.”

  Grimes stopped there and scanned the intersection, as if he expected Alvin McCandless to emerge from his cruiser.

  “Anyway, as I recall,” he continued, “Big Al took charge of the scene himself and buttoned things up the way he always did when locals were involved. We could never get away with some such today, too many rules and regulations, too much paperwork to fill out. But back then Big Al’s word in this town was law. Nobody questioned him because he kept the riffraff out and knew how to have a resident’s back. Just about everyone in Marblehead was in his debt at one time or another, but he wasn’t the sort to call those debts in. He took me aside one day and said, ‘Tommy, you know how you can tell when you’re doing a good job? When folks smile at you and call you by your first name.’ Yup, Big Al was old-school, all right.”

  “Anything else you remember from the night of the accident, Chief?”

  He scratched at his scalp again, his uniform fitting a little too snugly, the pants looking like they were going to split at the seams. “Well, the chief had me drive the victim’s mother to Mass General, once we got word that’s where he was being taken. What was her name, Missy or something?”

  “Mimi,” I elaborated.

  “Anyway, she didn’t say much to me, nothing really. Rode in the back of my squad, talking on her cell phone much of the time. Couldn’t say to who, though it seemed strange under the circumstances.”

  “Could you hear what she was saying?”

  “It wasn’t my business to. The same storm that had soaked the roads was plenty loud, and what I could hear didn’t really register, except for the fact that she did an awful lot of talking and not much listening. I remember her hanging up just as we reached Mass General. Opened the door and disappeared inside without saying a word to me, even a thank-you. I guess she was in shock. I’ve heard it can manifest itself with just that kind of detachment. Go figure,” he said again.

  “Did Chief McCandless ever say anything else about that night?”

  “Not a word,” Grimes told us. “Like I said, he kept things buttoned up tight. Besides, it was pretty clear-cut. Accident on a rainy night with a single victim, nonfatal. Even the local paper didn’t have much to say beyond that. I included the article in that case file I copied for you. Not that there’s anything in it I haven’t told you already.”

  “Anyone else from back then still with the department?” I asked him.

  “Nope, just me. Everybody else has moved on to greener or more exciting pastures than what Marblehead has to offer. These days I got my share of officers like your sheriff here, looking for a second career after the first one nearly burned them out. They may not have Big Al’s chops, but they know there’s still a way we do things here likely different from where they came from.” Grimes shook his head, scratching at his scalp yet again. “I guess the Van Dorn boy went as far as he could with what the accident had left him. If it was me, I’m thinking it would’ve happened sooner. You think it was his mother’s death that spurred him to do it?”

  “That would be a logical assumption.”

  “What was it that got her?”

  “Seizure,” Mort said before I could chime in.

  “Well,” Grimes resumed, “at least you didn’t have to worry about murder, in her case.”

  * * *

  • • •

  “Anything?” Mort asked me as I continued scanning the contents of the case file encompassing the night of the accident.

  “Nothing that tells us anything more than the chief did.”

  “Seems like a thorough man.”

  “I thought you were going to ask him if he was hiring.”

  “It did cross my mind, Mrs. Fletcher. But I couldn’t bear the thought of subjecting my successor to Cabot Cove’s murder rate. Maybe we should advertise those numbers to deter more of the influx from moving in. Who wants to get murdered, after all?”

  “When it comes to beachfront property, that’s just another of the risks you take,” I told him.

  The contents of the file folder were all boilerplate, from the crime-scene reports and photos to the accident depictions, to the individual incident reports from all public safety personnel—fire, rescue, and police—who had responded to the scene. The rescuers had had to employ the Jaws of Life to get Tripp Van Dorn from the crushed car, only to learn he’d been crushed, too.

  We drove past the former Van Dorn home on Goldthwait Road on our way out of town. Marblehead offered a distinctly different atmosphere from Cabot Cove, more upscale, lacking the layers of hardscrabble fishermen who still populated our docks, given our heritage as a working-class village as opposed to a tony Boston suburb. We clung to our roots, holding on with our fingernails against the determined efforts of progress to move us in a different direction. That’s what made the invasion of chain stores and trendy shops replacing the old staples of Main Street so disconcerting. There wasn’t much left besides the bookstore, the pharmacy, and the hardware store, and I knew locals made a conscious effort to give those as much business as possible to avoid their suffering the same fate as their former neighbors. I think that’s what I enjoyed so much about the Friends of the Library, our role not just to support the old-fashioned wonder of books but also to uphold the traditions of our town.

  “Who do you suppose Mimi was talking to in that drive to Mass General with Tom Grimes driving his squad car?” I asked, when we were finally on our way back home.

  “Haven’t got a clue,” Mort told me. “Seems strange, though, doesn’t it?”

  I tried to reconcile that with a woman I’d considered a close friend yet knew so little about.

  “As a matter of fact,” he continued, “maybe you should think about making Marblehead your second home. I’m sure Chief Grimes would love to have you.”

  I was about to comment on Mort’s suggestion when something struck me like a lightning bolt, something I seemed to recall about the lawyer Fred Cooper’s online profile. I traded the case file from Tripp Van Dorn’s car accident for my phone and pressed the Internet icon, googling Cooper again to find what I was looking for.

  “Mort, turn the car around!” I said, once I was looking at his profile again.

  “Huh?”

  “We need to go back to Marblehead. I’ve got some more questions for Chief Grimes.”

  * * *

  • • •

  We found him in his office, seeming a bit perturbed by our sudden return when he greeted us.

  “Hope this won’t take so long,” he said, offering us the two chairs set before his desk. “I need to be somewhere else in an hour.”r />
  “It shouldn’t,” I said. “I just have a few questions.”

  “You have a few questions?”

  Grimes looked toward Mort, who could only shrug. “Welcome to my world, Chief.”

  The Marblehead Police Department was headquartered on Gerry Street in one of the best-looking buildings of its kind I’d ever seen: both modern and functional in design, featuring plenty of windows, and dominated by a curved entrance with checkerboard glass panes running above and alongside the entry doors. The chief’s office offered a view of the American flag flapping in the stiff breeze beyond.

  “Proceed, Mrs. Fletcher,” Grimes said, frowning.

  “Did I mention a lawyer named Fred Cooper when we spoke earlier?”

  “I don’t believe so, no.”

  “Mr. Cooper was representing Mimi Van Dorn’s interests when he was approached by Tripp Van Dorn about possible representation in a complaint against his mother.”

  Grimes leaned forward. “I don’t believe you mentioned that either,” he said, turning toward Mort. “Either of you.”

  “We didn’t want to take up any more of your time than was necessary. The point is, according to an online profile I found, Fred Cooper comes from here—Marblehead.”

  “I don’t think I’ve heard the name. . . .”

  “No families named Cooper?”

  “None of the ones I know have anyone named Fred in them.”

  “Would it be possible to check?”

  At first it looked like he might decline my request, but then he settled in behind his computer, tapping away for a few moments, then eyeing the screen before looking across the desk back at me.

  “No Fred Cooper anywhere in any town database, and I have access to them all.”

  “Even going back a few years?”

  “How many?”

  “I’m not sure. Cooper’s profile listed him as thirty-three.”

  Grimes’s eyes widened. “You want me to go back thirty-three years?”

  “I was thinking just birth records.”

  “They’re not included in my database.”

  “School records, then. Are you able to access school records?”

  Grimes went back to his keyboard. It took longer to get a result this time.

  “Sorry, Mrs. Fletcher, no one by the name of Fred Cooper was enrolled at any of Marblehead’s schools for the past twenty-five years.”

  I looked toward Mort, the apparent inconsistency not seeming to matter as much to him.

  “What is it you’re after here, Mrs. Fletcher?” Grimes asked me.

  “I don’t believe in coincidence, Chief.”

  “Neither did Sherlock Holmes, as I recall. Do you fancy yourself an amateur Sherlock Holmes?”

  “More like Arthur Conan Doyle, but that’s a bit of a stretch.” I leaned forward in my wooden armchair. “Mimi and Tripp Van Dorn, mother and son, died within forty-eight hours of each other, and Fred Cooper was connected to both of them. The fact that his hometown is listed as Marblehead suggests that connection may go back longer than Cooper’s tenure in Cabot Cove.”

  At which point I swung toward Mort. “When did Cooper open his office?”

  “Can’t say for sure. Let’s see. . . . When I took over from Amos as sheriff, there was an accountant upstairs there. Leo Grunwald was his name. I don’t remember who came after Grunwald, but Cooper came after them, at least five years ago.”

  “Maybe more?”

  “Maybe, one or two anyway.”

  “Are we finished here?” Grimes said, rising impatiently behind his desk.

  “I’m sorry, Chief,” I told him. “I tend to go off on tangents sometimes.”

  “Really? I hadn’t noticed.”

  I extended my hand across the desk. “Sorry for the intrusion. Thank you for your time.”

  “You let me know how it all turns out,” he said, gaze rotating between Mort and me.

  Then it settled just on me, as Grimes shook his head. “I think I’ll take Cabot Cove off my vacation list, Sheriff.”

  “Good idea, Chief.”

  * * *

  • • •

  Mort had parked his SUV in the sun, so it was scorching hot when we climbed back inside.

  “I can’t make sense of any of this,” he said, firing up the air-conditioning. “Why would someone bother murdering a quadriplegic?”

  “He might’ve been bound to a wheelchair,” I said, “but he could still talk.”

  “Too bad he didn’t live long enough to tell you what had him so spooked.”

  “Whatever it was almost certainly explains why someone would bother murdering him,” I said as my cell phone rang, HARRY lighting up on my screen.

  “Where are you?” he greeted me.

  “Not New York.”

  “And not Cabot Cove either, which is where I am. When do you plan on getting back? Because I’ve got some information I want to deliver in person.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Harry McGraw was waiting when Mort and I stepped through the door of Mara’s Luncheonette four hours later. He rose, looking more rumpled than usual and flashing a deeper scowl.

  “Two of you took your sweet time getting back here. You’d think I had nothing better to do.”

  “Do you?” I asked him.

  “No, but that’s not the point. And, by the way, this place needs a better variety of pies.”

  “Did you try the daily special?”

  “They were out. Had some of yesterday’s special left, but seemed peeved when I asked for tomorrow’s instead. Nice to see you again, Mort,” Harry said, retaking his chair as Mort took the one across from him, leaving me in the middle.

  “You, too, Harry.”

  “Who’s she got you chasing today?”

  “Ghosts, in more ways than one.”

  “Just another day at the office, then.”

  “Harry,” I started, “Mimi Van Dorn’s son was murdered last night.”

  “You think he was murdered, or he was murdered? Never mind—they’re the same thing, aren’t they? And that’s kind of what brought me here, the kid’s mother anyway.”

  “You found something?”

  “My friend at the FDA did, after I asked him about the drug that may have killed her.”

  “Benzipan,” I elaborated, having forgotten I’d even asked Harry to see if he could look into it with Arthur Noble. “The cancer drug.”

  “Well, turns out it’s not just a cancer drug, my dear Jessica. According to Noble, Benzipan has also demonstrated—anecdotally, he said—some pretty remarkable antiaging effects.”

  “How so?”

  Harry fished through his jacket pocket and came up with a clump of papers he proceeded to separate and page through in search of the one he was looking for.

  “Nope, that’s not it.”

  Another.

  “That’s not it either.”

  A few joined the growing pile.

  “Where is it? . . . Ah, yup, here we go.” He cleared his throat. “According to Noble, Benzipan is something called a TORC1 inhibitor, which is known to affect a crucial cellular pathway that plays a role in the immune system and other biological functions. Well, also according to Noble, it turns out some of the cancer patients taking it exhibited some dramatic reversals of what he called the normal effects of aging. He didn’t get specific beyond that, but did mention laboratory studies with mice, rats, geese, or something had showed real promise, as demonstrated in the process that predates the clinical research stage.”

  “So did the manufacturer apply for a clinical trial?”

  There was that scowl again. “You think I’d drive all this way to tell you something obvious? No, I drove all this way because the manufacturer never filed a request to have Benzipan formally tested for its poten
tial antiaging properties. I drove all this way because you told me the autopsy on your friend Missy—”

  “Mimi.”

  “—showed concentrations of the drug in her system, even though she didn’t have cancer. Which got me thinking what else might she have been taking it for.” He settled back in his chair and interlaced his fingers behind his head. “You can thank me by getting your friends here to get me a piece of tomorrow’s special.”

  “I think you’ll have to wait until tomorrow, Harry.”

  I heard myself say that as if someone else had spoken the words. Seth Hazlitt and I had discussed the likelihood of Mimi Van Dorn suffering from body dysmorphic disorder, explaining her obsession with looking, and acting, younger than her years. Certainly, an antiaging drug with the potential shown by Benzipan would’ve excited her no end, and it seemed equally certain that she would’ve done anything, under the circumstances, to get it, including break the financial trust her son, Tripp, had been relying on for the care he’d be receiving for the rest of his life.

  I could feel the pieces falling together, but still couldn’t grasp the entirety of the picture they revealed. Why would someone murder Tripp Van Dorn? I was still missing something here, missing plenty, which made me think back to those bare walls in Tripp’s Good Shepherd Manor room, having no idea why my mind kept showing me that image.

  “You know they got this place in Texas, a town called Marble Falls,” I heard Harry saying, “where they have Pie Happy Hour every day, two slices for the price of one. Why can’t they do that here?”

  “What’s the difference if they’ve already run out?” I said, breaking off my train of thought.

  “Wishful thinking, I guess,” he groused, laying his hands back on the table.

  “What’s the name of the company that makes Benzipan?”

  “LGX Pharmaceuticals,” Harry answered.

  * * *

  • • •

  The same company that made Torimlisib, the drug to be administered to George Sutherland at the Clifton Clinic!