Murder, She Wrote--A Date with Murder

by Jessica Fletcher

  “I guess that’s a good idea,” I said. “I don’t see—”

  I stopped speaking abruptly when the reflection of halogen lights off the windowpane momentarily blinded me. I turned to see a car, a taxi, pull into the driveway behind Seth’s.

  To my relief, Babs climbed out of the backseat.

  She swiped at her eyes and ran over to give me a hug, forcing a smile when we finally broke the embrace.

  “I’m so sorry you arrived before me,” she continued. “I had to make some calls, and I found it easier to do it from the hospital, where there were people around. Dr. Waverly was a great comfort, too. He arranged for a taxi to bring me home,” she added as the car reversed out of the driveway and was gone. “I don’t know what I would have done if . . .”

  The breath poured out of her like air from a balloon, and she looked suddenly ready to collapse, her eyes welling with fresh tears.

  “Let’s go inside,” I suggested. “Seth and I brought dinner. As promised. Greek salad, your favorite.”

  She tried to smile again. “It was Hal’s favorite, too.”

  * * *

  • • •

  The house was dark and chilly, as September nights tend to be in Cabot Cove, when summer winds down.

  “My, it’s cold. I must have left the back door wide open before I left. Hang on—let me check.”

  She walked toward the other end of the house to shut the door.

  “Go into the kitchen and I’ll meet you there!” I heard her call out to us.

  We obliged, and eventually I found the switch to turn on the kitchen lights. Seth lifted the food onto the counter and began opening the various containers.

  “Don’t rush to help, Jessica. I’ve got it under control,” he chuckled.

  I barely recorded his sarcasm. This was where I’d found Hal collapsed on the floor earlier in the day. Now that it was quiet, the weight of the day’s tragedy began to sink in. How much Hal and Babs meant to this community and to the people who’d come to their party. How many laughs we’d shared over the years. They always seemed so happy, so perfect for each other. It was impossible to conceive of them having marital problems. And that brought me back to spotting Hal speaking with Seth alone earlier in the day in what was clearly a serious, pointed exchange.

  I noticed a folded piece of paper at the base of the counter beneath the sink, right where Hal had fallen. I picked it up, intending to place it on the counter, but couldn’t resist lifting back the edges to open it up. I tried to tell myself I was doing it for Babs’s own good; maybe it was a simple bill or something she didn’t otherwise need to see at the moment.

  It turned out to be a brief, hand-scrawled note, signed by someone named Eugene Labine.

  Hal, I’m writing to extend an undeserved courtesy by informing you that I’ll be taking legal action against you and—

  “What have you got there, Jessica?” Babs said, suddenly by my side.

  “Oh, it’s nothing,” I said, embarrassed, as if I’d been caught snooping.

  I set the note on the counter, trying to appear casual. I wanted to ask Babs who Eugene Labine was and what the basis of his legal action against Hal might be, but I managed to hold my tongue, just as Seth finished laying out the food.

  Babs forced a smile. “Then let’s sit down. How about some coffee?”

  “I’d love a cup of tea if you have it,” I said, my gaze lingering on the letter now resting upon the granite countertop.

  “Sure thing, let me get the water on the stove.”

  “And a coffee for me,” Seth added.

  I so wanted to read the rest of that handwritten letter, but wouldn’t, couldn’t, press the issue now; it would have to wait. My friend had been through enough for one day, and whatever the letter pertained to, it was none of my concern. Hal had done business all over New England since he and Barbara moved to Cabot Cove from Chicago with their daughter, Alyssa. He was a computer guru, and he’d founded a software company called Wirth Ventures Inc. in Granite Heights, a rapidly growing industrial area a little more than an hour’s drive from downtown Cabot Cove, at the virtual halfway point to Boston. The company became very lucrative, turning the Wirth family into minor celebrities as Cabot Cove’s local dot-com success story. And Hal and Babs had used that status to further causes important to them and had become true pillars of the community.

  In the years of Hal’s business dealings, of course, it was hardly unthinkable that he hadn’t made an enemy or two. A rival, a disgruntled employee, an associate bearing a grudge . . . any of those could have been behind the hand-scrawled note I’d found on the floor. Nonetheless, the tone, and the fact that it had been handwritten, which was unusual in its own right, lingered in my mind.

  A sprightly whistle sounded outside, and then a retort. I looked out the window to see if the song’s source was just beyond the windowpane.

  “It’s an eastern whip-poor-will,” Babs said, noticing my interest. “I’ve heard them less and less over the years, but this one’s been serenading us all summer. I wonder . . .”

  “What?” I prodded.

  “Nothing. Just that maybe the birds have some sense that . . .”

  “You must have trouble sleeping at night,” I said when her voice trailed off again. “I would need earplugs.”

  “Those birds comforted me when Hal was in Granite Heights, sometimes for days. His software company had been demanding a lot of his time, but the work excited him so much. I don’t think he’d ever been happier, although I wish the business hadn’t forced him to be away so often.” The expression seemed to slide off her face, her shoulders sagging with it. “Funny, I hadn’t even thought about the business yet. So much to handle, so much to do.”

  She lapsed into silence, as if waiting for the bird to resume its singing, but the kitchen remained bathed in quiet.

  “Well, be sure to tell Tim Purdy about your whip-poor-wills!” Seth said, trying to break the tension that had settled in the room. “He’d love to document their return to Cabot Cove. You said you haven’t heard them in a long time, until recently?”

  “Yes, they migrate south during the winters and return north for the summer to reproduce. The Maine populations have been dwindling, so their making a comeback is welcome news indeed.”

  The three of us stood in the kitchen, gazing out the window into the darkness beyond.

  The kettle whistled on the stove and Babs lifted it from the burner, flapping away the steam that dampened her face.

  “Let me help you,” I offered.

  “It’s all right, Jessica,” she said, laying out the mugs and tea bags for us.

  She made Seth a “pour-over” coffee, which entailed placing a portable filter filled with coffee grinds over the cup and pouring hot water directly into it. It was a form of brewing gaining prevalence with the rising popularity of café culture and organic coffees spreading among the millennial generation. It seemed to me a bit too much bother for a single cup and made me glad I was a low-maintenance tea drinker. But the look on Seth’s face, after he took a sip, told me it must’ve been worth it.

  “Any milk or sugar?” Babs asked him.

  “Typically, yes, but this is perfect as is.”

  Babs handed me my tea, and took a cup of her own, blowing the steam off the surface to cool it down.

  “Babs,” I said to her, “I’m sure there will be a lot to do at the house now, and I’d be happy to help with any preparations, paperwork, housework, etc. This will be easier if you don’t have a million logistical nightmares hanging over your head.”

  I had an ulterior motive, of course, for offering my assistance, my curiosity having been piqued by a combination of that odd feeling that had struck me at the hospital, now coupled with that strange handwritten letter from someone named Eugene Labine threatening legal action. I’d based some books, and become embroiled in some
very real-life investigations, on less than that.

  Babs’s voice was shaky when she answered. “I’d like that—I’d like that very much. For the company alone. Alyssa will be home tomorrow, but I don’t want to depend on her or burden her. I don’t even want to think about her voice when I called her from the hospital.”

  Babs looked like she had more to say, but just sighed and shook her head.

  Seth was left shaking his head, too. “I’ve had to facilitate too many of those conversations in my time.”

  “So Hal’s computer business was going like gangbusters,” I said, trying not to sound like I was prying.

  Babs smiled reflectively. “He always hated when people called his business that.”

  “What?”

  “Computer. His work was actually centered on technology itself, particularly software, writing it to satisfy the needs of individual companies. Getting their platforms set up, that sort of thing.”

  “That’s way beyond me.”

  “Me, too,” she conceded. “But the company was doing so well from its base in Granite Heights, bringing in so much revenue, that Hal had brought on a whole bunch of new hires. Kids straight out of college, if you can believe that. But they needed supervision, and that’s what took him away for so many days at a time.”

  I noticed Seth bristle when Babs mentioned how well Wirth Ventures was doing, and kept an eye peeled for his further reaction as I responded.

  “I thought all those kids were going out to Palo Alto for that kind of work.”

  “You’d be surprised. Granite Heights has really grown since we relocated Wirth Ventures from Chicago. It’s become an attractive place for young people to settle down for tech work, especially those who don’t want to join the rat race out west.”

  “I guess that influx helps explain the rising popularity of Cabot Cove, especially in summer.”

  “Not a great trend,” Seth groused, “given the effects rising real estate prices have already started to have. I always liked our town better when it was quaint, instead of fashionable, ayuh.”

  “Well,” I said, “I guess we have to learn to live with the fact that now it’s both.”

  “Yes,” Babs mused, clearly glad for the distraction. “I always liked how resistant Cabot Cove was to change, but it seems that the world finally caught up to our little New England town. I remember when we first moved here, Alyssa was so enamored with the ocean. She’d never seen it before, and you’d walk on the beach with her, Jessica, when Hal and I were at work. You helped guide her through those first couple years in so many ways, even sharing some of your writing with her. She wants to be a mystery writer herself now.”

  That took me by surprise. “What happened to studying criminal justice and becoming a lawyer?”

  “She’s still studying criminal justice. But she’s having trouble with the notion of three more years of school after college.”

  “Maybe it’s just a phase,” I said, catching Seth fidget again.

  “Like it was for you?”

  “I was still an English teacher when I got started. Well, at least by studying criminal justice, she’ll be starting off writing what she knows.”

  “Just like you’ve put what you know to practical use plenty of times outside of your books.”

  I shrugged her comment off, even as I checked Seth for a reaction again. “Right place, right time. That’s all. Fate more than skill.”

  “You’re selling yourself short, Jessica. Wasn’t it Sherlock Holmes who said, ‘The world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever observes’?”

  My eyes widened. “Indeed, he did. In The Hound of the Baskervilles. I didn’t know you were such a dedicated mystery reader.”

  “You mean besides your books?” she quipped. “You bet I am. Nothing better than a good mystery to take your mind off everything else.”

  “I couldn’t agree more,” I told her.

  Chapter Four

  “Don’t ask,” Seth said once he’d reversed out of Babs’s driveway and commenced the short drive to my home.

  “Don’t ask what?”

  “What Hal Wirth and I were discussing at the party. I know you were about to again.”

  “Well . . .”

  “I don’t want you barking up trees where there’s no cat.”

  “What’s that mean? And how do we know there’s no cat?”

  Seth offered no further comment and I stopped pressing him. He dropped me home and I immediately made myself another cup of tea and sat down on the couch in my living room, where I did much of my best thinking. I was glad to have something to focus on other than the memories of my own grief in the wake of Frank’s passing; anything was preferable to that, including whatever Seth was hiding about Hal Wirth. Rumors had been floating around town about his long absences from home for some time now, and romantic flings he was purported to have engaged in during those periods. I had dismissed them, because I was so close with Babs and trusted her judgment over gossip.

  My eyelids drooped, and it was to thoughts of Babs’s vulnerability and Hal’s indiscretions that I began to drift. . . .

  * * *

  • • •

  I awoke on the couch at 10:37 p.m., to the sound of the phone ringing. My tea was still warm, and I took a sip as I pressed TALK on my cordless phone.

  “Hello?”

  “Mrs. Fletcher?”

  “Yes?” I answered back, even though I already knew who was calling.

  “It’s Evelyn Phillips of the Cabot Cove Gazette.”

  “Yes, hi, Evelyn. I thought I recognized your voice.”

  “I’m so glad to have caught you awake! I know it’s late, but as long as you’re not asleep, I hope I’m not disturbing you.”

  “Well, as a matter of fact . . .”

  “I’ve just heard the news that Hal Wirth suddenly passed away of a massive coronary.”

  I remained silent, letting Evelyn continue.

  “And I also heard you were there,” she added, sounding almost gleeful, as if she smelled a scoop in this somewhere. “Can you tell me the circumstances surrounding his death? I heard it happened during the Wirths’ annual Labor Day party.”

  Evelyn was the last person in the world I wanted to talk to right now. Hal, for one, had frequently mentioned that he did not particularly care for her, nor the Cabot Cove Gazette, which he considered to be a rag of a local paper, just a notch above a tabloid.

  “Circumstances? He suffered a heart attack.”

  “That’s all?”

  “Isn’t it enough?”

  “I understand you were at the party,” she persisted. “Is it true that Hal was acting strangely? Not as if he was sick—more like he was worried about something?”

  I immediately recognized Evelyn’s usual trick to make me assume she knew something she didn’t, like about Hal’s terse conversation with Seth Hazlitt.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Evelyn,” I said, to halt her in her tracks. “I stopped by the party with Seth for an hour to say hello and—”

  “Seth Hazlitt was there?”

  “Well . . .”

  I continued to stammer, regretting my misstep. Lingering fatigue and the stress of such a difficult day had conspired to make me fall right into Evelyn’s trap. Now she would contact Seth, who knew more about Hal than most people in Cabot Cove.

  “I have nothing more to say, Evelyn. I have to go now, and frankly, you snooping into a deceased man’s life hours after his passing is disrespectful at best. Excuse me for saying this, but you should be ashamed of yourself.”

  I could feel Evelyn bristle, even over the line. “I have readers, Jessica. My responsibility is to them and I can’t help that they want the truth. You should know that as a fellow writer.”

  “Our styles have nothing in common, besides
the fact we both, apparently, write fiction.”

  “That doesn’t change the fact that Hal was an important man in this town. My readers want to know the real story of the man they so revered.”

  “Real story, Evelyn?”

  “My sources tell me he was known to have engaged in affairs with several women.”

  “Affairs? And how would your ‘sources’ know this exactly?”

  “I didn’t ask them. I was hoping you might shed some light on the details. For instance, how many women, how many of these affairs, were there?”

  “As far as I know, one, and her name was Barbara, his wife. Beyond that, I’m afraid I can’t help you.”

  “Jessica, I understand you want to protect Hal’s reputation. I just don’t want to run a story that might damage his standing in this community before first getting all my facts straight, and that’s where you come in. You know the Wirths as well as anybody, but if you have nothing to clarify, I’ll have to make do with what I’ve got.”

  “Which is what?” I asked, suspecting this entire line of conversation to be yet another of Evelyn’s journalistic wiles.

  “Oh, come on, Jessica. You know Hal Wirth was less than scrupulous in his business dealings.”

  “I know no such thing, and neither do you.”

  “Don’t be so sure about that. Tomorrow morning you can read all about it in the Gazette. I’m thinking front page, unless you have something to dissuade me.”

  “You know, Evelyn, the Wirths’ daughter, Alyssa, is due home from college tomorrow to attend her father’s funeral, and many of your readers will be stopping by to express their sympathies. You’re right, Hal Wirth was a well-liked man in this town, and I sincerely doubt these readers of yours will take kindly to you disparaging his name with unsubstantiated rumors. I suspect there may be a rush by those same readers to cancel their subscriptions.”

  “It’s not like they have other options to get their news in Cabot Cove.”

  “No news is better than poorly reported news. You go ahead and print this gossip piece on such a beloved man’s life while his family grieves, and I just might see to it the Gazette has some competition at long last.”