I took a taxi to the small, white building on the village green in which Mort Metzger’s sheriff’s office and the town jail were situated. It was a relatively new facility, erected six years ago to replace what had become a decrepit, and even unsafe structure. A bond issue was floated, and the new building took its proud place alongside other town government buildings.
Although I’d never conducted a poll, I could only assume that those unfortunate enough to have to spend time in a cell there were pleased that their accommodations were fresh and clean. Actually, for the most part, we have relatively little crime in Cabot Cove—traffic infractions, an occasional domestic dispute, and a citizen who now and then imbibes too much alcohol and becomes Mort’s guest to sleep it off. When murder does occur, however, like the one that took place on Spencer Durkee’s lobster boat, you can imagine the furor it creates in town.
FBI special agent Lazzara, Maine investigator Dailey, and a uniformed officer from the coast guard, whose name was Grissom, were in Mort’s office when I arrived. They apologized for putting me through a round of questioning, but I assured them I understood the necessity for it, and suggested they get started. They were terribly polite and solicitous, and took notes as they encouraged me to tell what had happened in my own words and at my own pace, with few interruptions for clarifications. The session lasted a half hour. When it was over, they thanked me for my cooperation, suggested they might contact me again, to which I readily agreed, and left.
“Nice men,” I said to Mort.
“Suppose they are, only it looks like we’re about to get into a turf war.” His expression was pained.
Jurisdictional disputes between law-enforcement agencies weren’t alien to me—I’d been in the middle of them on more than one occasion. While I knew that Mort would have preferred to handle the case alone without interference from other agencies—he’d successfully investigated murders before—I also knew he was a rational enough lawman to accept help when it was offered. He simply didn’t have the manpower to launch a thorough investigation while he was also preoccupied with arranging security and traffic control for the upcoming festival.
“Well, Mrs. F,” he said, taking the seat behind his desk and heaving a relieved sigh, “it was good of you to come in this morning. How are you today—you all right?”
“Aside from feeling as though I’ve been run over by an eighteen-wheeler, I’m fine. But tell me more about Barnaby Longshoot. How is he doing?”
“He looks like he went twelve rounds with George Foreman, but other than that, he’s okay.”
“I’m so glad he wasn’t seriously injured. You questioned him, I’m sure. What did he say?”
“Couldn’t tell me much. Says he was hanging around outside Mara’s and he heard a man calling his name. He followed the voice down the alley to the back, and pow!—someone got him with a couple of roundhouse punches. Too dark to see who it was.”
“So his assailant lured him to the back of Mara’s, where the attack wouldn’t be seen?”
“Sounds that way.”
“Did he recognize the voice?”
“Says he didn’t.”
“Whoever it was wanted him off the dock. But did that person know he was there to meet me, or not?”
“It’s a good question. You’re lucky you didn’t end up like him.”
“I might have been better off. At least he stayed on land.”
“Sorry, Mrs. F. Forgot for a second what happened to you. You look fine, though, apart from a little sunburn.”
“The injuries are all in here,” I said, pointing to my head. “It’s an experience I’m not likely to forget for some time.” I gave an involuntary shiver. “Mort, as long as I’m here, I’d like to talk to Spencer.”
“Are you sure, Mrs. F? You’ve been through a lot. We’ve already got a good handle on the case.”
“I’d like to hear what he has to say about what happened the night before last,” I replied.
“I can tell you that,” Mort said. “He claims he was down at the beach sucking on a bottle of liquor when somebody stole his boat. That part rings true to me. I’ve had a drunken Spencer Durkee as an overnight guest in our jail on more than one occasion. But I don’t believe he stayed down at the beach and slept there. From what I see and hear so far, I think he got himself boozed up, had a confrontation with Henry Pettie, killed him, and decided to get rid of the body at sea.”
“I just don’t think he’d sink his own boat,” I said, “not even if he was in a drunken stupor.”
“I’ve considered what you and the doc said last night. But anything’s possible when you’re under the influence and not thinking clearly, Mrs. F. All I know is a murder took place on his boat, and I don’t need to remind you, there was an attempted murder as well. Until I receive information to the contrary, I’m holding Spencer.”
“And maybe it’s just as well that you do,” I said. “But surely you haven’t closed your mind to other possibilities, such as someone else killing Henry and then stealing Spencer’s boat.”
“Got anything to offer on that score, Mrs. F? Any ideas who that other person might be?”
“Not at the moment. Frankly, Mort, I’m surprised that you’re holding Spencer on so little evidence.”
“Maybe you don’t know how much evidence I have,” he said.
“I’m sure I don’t,” I replied. “Care to share it with me?”
“I don’t mind,” he said, leaning his elbows on the desk and lowering his voice. “I’ve got an unimpeachable witness who put Spencer with Henry Pettie the night you disappeared. Of course, Spencer denies it, claims he never saw Pettie that night nor had any intention of meeting with him.”
“Who is this unimpeachable witness?”
“Linc Williams, the president of the lobstermen’s association. Got to him first thing this morning, before he cast off. He says Pettie told him that he was on his way to meet with Spencer.”
“You got an early start,” I said, smiling.
“Looking to catch the worm,” he said, sitting back, a satisfied expression on his face. “Not only that, the deputies and I combed the beach and never found that bottle where Spencer said he was drinking. So you see, Mrs. F, I’ve got pretty good reason to view Spencer as the primary suspect—at least till I hear something to change my mind.”
“I appreciate your sharing that information, Mort. I don’t mean to question your investigation. You haven’t wasted any time in interviewing people who might know something. And I know it certainly looks damning. But there’s something that bothers me. I can’t quite put a finger on it yet, but perhaps if I speak with Spencer, it’ll become clearer. May I speak with him? I won’t take long. I can’t see what harm it could do. Please. Just to satisfy my curiosity.”
Mort squinted as though it would help him make a prudent decision. “Sure, Mrs. F,” he said. “Maybe you can squeeze out of him who his accomplice was. But I gotta ask you to make it short.”
“I’ll be as quick as I can, and I appreciate your accommodating me.”
“It’s nothing. By the way, that new editor of the Gazette, Mrs. Phillips, called here this morning. Wants to run an item in the paper asking whether anybody was down to the beach and maybe saw Spencer there. She said you suggested it.”
“Yes, I did. But she also mentioned the idea of posting a reward for information. I told her to check with you first. I’m glad to see that she did.”
“She never mentioned any reward. I guess her boss, Mrs. Watson, wasn’t so keen on that idea. I told her it was okay by me to ask for information. Won’t amount to anything, and I don’t want to be somebody who’s accused of being against free speech and the First Amendment.” He got up and came around from behind the desk. I noticed he was in his stocking feet.
“New shoes still bothering you?” I asked.
He looked down and wiggled his toes. “You’d think if a shoe is a size eleven, it’ll fit a size-eleven foot. Ordered those on the Internet,” he said, poin
ting to the offending pair of shoes. “Don’t think I’ll do that again.”
“Why don’t you just send them back?” I said.
“Threw out the box and now I can’t remember which Web site it was where I bought them.” He scratched his head, looking embarrassed. “Come on,” he said. “I’ll have one of the deputies stay with you in case old Spencer gets rowdy.”
“I’m sure that won’t be necessary, Mort,” I said as I followed him down a hallway to the rear of the building, where a half dozen cells were located. Spencer was in one at the far end. The other five cells were vacant.
“Your occupancy rate is down,” I commented.
“Just the way I like it, Mrs. F. Just the way I like it.”
Spencer was sleeping. Mort rattled a set of keys against the bars, causing the crusty old lobsterman to bolt upright.
“Hello, Spencer,” I said. “Remember me? Jessica Fletcher?”
“Course I do,” he said in a strong, deep baritone. Aside from looking disheveled from having spent the night on a cot in his cell, he was clear-eyed and obviously sober. “This is no place for a lady like you,” he said.
I laughed. “I’ve been in worse places,” I said. “Sheriff Metzger is being good enough to let me sit with you for a few minutes and ask some questions.”
“Questions? Why would you want to ask me questions?”
“A writer’s habit, I suppose,” I responded. “Mind if I join you in there?”
Spencer looked at Mort, who nodded as he unlocked the cell door and opened it for me. I stepped inside. As I did, I heard the door close behind me, and the key locking it again. “I’ll send a deputy back here.”
“Please don’t,” I said. “I’ll be fine.”
Mort said to Spencer, “Don’t you go acting up, Spencer. You’re in enough trouble as it is.”
“I didn’t do nothin’,” Spencer said to Mort’s back as the sheriff walked away. My host, if that was what he might be called at the moment, got off the cot on unsteady legs, went to a small table against the wall, and held its chair out for me.
“Thank you,” I said, sitting.
He resumed his place on the cot. “Sorry I can’t be offerin’ you somethin’ to eat or drink. Don’t even have coffee in here.”
“That’s quite all right, Spencer. The sheriff has granted me only a few minutes. You know, of course, that Mr. Pettie was killed aboard the Done For, and that your boat was deliberately sabotaged and sunk.”
I wasn’t certain, but I thought I saw his eyes mist up. “Yup, I heard,” he said in a low voice. “Had that boat for more than forty years. Like losin’ a wife or something.”
“I can imagine. And you know that whoever killed Mr. Pettie and sank your boat also tried to kill me.”
He stiffened, his eyes open wide. “You? Somebody tried to kill you on my boat?”
“You didn’t know?” I said. “Well, it’s true. That’s why I’m here, Spencer. I want to know who’s responsible for this.”
“The sheriff says I am.”
“Are you?”
He slowly shook his head and looked me in the eye. “No, ma’am,” he said, “I most ’suredly are not.”
“And I believe you,” I said. “Look, Spencer, I’m told that Linc Williams maintains Pettie told him he was meeting you that night. Is that right?”
“No, ma’am, it’s not. Can’t imagine why he’d say such a thing about me. I never saw that twerp Pettie, and I’ll swear to it on a stack of Bibles—take one of those lie-detectin’ tests, too.”
“Perhaps Pettie intended to look for you and didn’t find you.”
“Mebbe so. I warn’t there.”
“So I’ve heard,” I said. “That’s your alibi. You say you were down on the beach with a . . .”
He grinned, exposing a jagged set of yellowed teeth. “It’s all right, ma’am, you can say it. Yup, I spent the night down to the beach with a bottle. Drank just about all of it and fell asleep. That’s where I was all night.”
“Why did you go to the beach to drink?” I asked.
“Not unusual for me,” he said, rubbing gray stubble on his chin and running gnarled fingers through his wiry gray hair. “I like it down on the beach at night. Real peaceful there with the stars and the breeze off the water. Didn’t plan on it night before last, but—”
“But what?”
“Well, I went down to the boat to do some fix-up early that evening. Might have stayed and done it, ’cept there was a brand-spankin’-new bottle of wine sitting there. Just what I like, too. I decided the fixing up could wait, and took the bottle down to the beach.”
“It wasn’t your bottle?” I asked.
“Nope. I figured some good soul dropped me off a present.”
“Has that ever happened before?”
He rubbed his chin again and frowned. “No, now that you mention it, can’t say that it ever did. Must have cost whoever bought it a pretty penny. Expensive stuff. At least, it looked that way. Real fancy label. Liked the bottle too, funny shape. But it’s all in the tastin’, and this tasted real fine, real fine wine.”
“And you don’t know who bought it for you?”
“No idea.”
I heard footsteps approaching in the hallway.
“Spencer,” I said, “it sounds like I’m going to have to leave in a minute. Do you have a lawyer?”
He shook his head.
“I’m sure one will be provided to you. In the meantime, can you think of someone—anyone—who might have seen you down on the beach last night? Was anyone else there?”
“Mighta heard some kids messin’ around. Can’t be sure. But I didn’t see a soul. Then again, I warn’t looking past the bottle.”
“What did you do with the bottle?”
“Haven’t the foggiest. Probably threw it away. I allus do. I got a question for you now.”
“Yes?”
“If somebody killed Pettie and sunk my boat out in the ocean, how’d he get back to shore?”
“How do you think?”
“Well, somebody must’ve had to come out and collect ’im.”
“That’s right.”
“Means two of ’em were involved in killing Pettie and tryin’ to kill you.”
“Right again.”
He grunted.
Mort appeared, unlocked the cell, and motioned with his head that I should leave. I stepped into the hallway and looked back at Spencer, who sat on the cot, his head in his hands.
“I sure loved that boat,” he said to himself. “She were a beauty.”
“Drop you someplace?” Mort asked when we’d returned to his office. “On my way out anyway.”
“Thank you, no, Mort. I have some stops to make, including a Friends of the Library meeting I almost forgot.”
The phone rang and Mort picked it up. “Yeah? No, I didn’t see them.” He hung up. “Afraid you got some press camped out out front. You want to sneak out the back door?”
I sighed. “No,” I said. “They’ll just find me somewhere else. Let’s get it over with.”
He walked me outside. As we came through the door, a half dozen people, including a two-person TV news crew from a Bangor station, who’d been corralled by one of Mort’s officers, started yelling questions at me. A microphone was shoved under my nose.
“Mrs. Fletcher, was the murdered man a close friend of yours?”
“Not at all. I met him for the first time only recently.”
“Mrs. Fletcher, is your next mystery going to be Murder on the Done For?”
“No. Of course not.”
“How did it feel when the boat sank? Were you afraid?”
“Well, naturally—”
“Jessica, over here. Tell the people what it was like to be stranded with a dead body.”
“Sheriff, is Mrs. Fletcher a suspect?”
“Mrs. Fletcher, we understand you’re single. Have you dated younger men before?”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake.”
�
�Mrs. Fletcher has nothing more to say,” Mort barked, opening the door to his marked car parked at the curb. They followed and continued questioning me through the open window on the front passenger side. Mort started the car, waved away two reporters standing in front of it, and pulled away.
“Bunch of vultures,” he muttered.
“I know they’re just doing their job,” I said, “but what awful questions. I didn’t think what happened to me would draw such media interest. I should have known better.”
“Combination of a celebrity and a murder,” he said. “Gets ’em every time. Where to?”
“Mary Carver’s house. That’s where the library meeting is taking place.”
When we pulled up at the house, Mort turned and said, “Word of advice, Mrs. F?”
“Have I ever turned down good advice from you, Mort?”
“I seem to remember a time or two. What I’m getting at is that you shouldn’t put too much stake in what Spencer says. Between all the wine he’s consumed over the years, and a brain not as sharp as it once was, he doesn’t always make a lot of sense.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” I said. “Thanks for the lift. Thanks for everything, Mort.”
Chapter Seventeen
Mary Carver was arranging stacks of pictures on her black granite kitchen counter when I knocked at her back door. I was early for the Friends of the Library’s committee meeting, but I thought it would give me a chance to be alone with Mary and ask her a few questions. One thing I wanted to find out was what the lobstermen planned to do now that they didn’t have a broker.
“Oh, Jessica, how wonderful. Come on in. I didn’t expect to see you out and about so soon. How’re you feelin’?”
“I’m fine, thanks.”
“It must’ve been awful, all alone like that. I would’ve died of fright.”
“Not something I’d care to relive, or even talk about, if you don’t mind.”
“But you’re really all right?”
“A few aches and pains and bad memories, but otherwise I seem to be okay.”
“Well, you look well enough. Got some sun, I see. I would’ve thought you’d be takin’ to your bed for a few days to recover.”
The Maine Mutiny Page 16