Murder, She Wrote--A Date with Murder

by Jessica Fletcher

  “Divine inspiration strike you again, Jessica?”

  “Not exactly; I just remembered something about the party.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  We wouldn’t be able to act on what I told Mort until after the funeral. He wasn’t certain how early he’d be able to get to the church, so Seth Hazlitt picked me up instead. I was never sure what to wear to such things and opted for a plain black dress, content to lose myself in an endless shroud of darkness that enveloped such occasions.

  As expected, a big portion of the town showed up, packing the mass, where Father Donald Barnes presided over a majestic service, highlighted by his stirring sermon that was more of a eulogy, a fitting testimonial to Hal Wirth and all he had meant to Cabot Cove. I caught Babs weeping through much of it, Alyssa squeezing her mother’s hand, while Chad, looking awkward in a rumpled sport coat, held Alyssa’s.

  After the service concluded, and attendees were filing into the aisles to make their exit, I crossed paths with none other than Deacon Westhausen, Cabot Cove’s resident tycoon.

  “Nice to see a fellow author in attendance,” he greeted, managing a smile that looked painted onto his face.

  Fellow author? Westhausen had written a single motivational business book, which had shot up the bestseller list, number one for months. I remember Hal mentioning that they’d met at one of Westhausen’s book events and had hit it off to the point where Hal had taken credit for introducing the technology superstar to Cabot Cove.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “Hal mentioned he was trying his hand at writing a book,” Westhausen said, with an uneasy edge creeping into his voice. “He ever share that with you?”

  “Not personally. But I stumbled onto it while helping Babs sort through his things,” I said, having no desire to offer anything further.

  “Any good? As one writer to another.”

  “It needs some work,” I commented, wondering about the source of his interest.

  “Maybe I could give it a read.”

  “You’ll have to ask Babs, Mr. Westhausen.”

  “Please, Mrs. Fletcher, call me Deacon.”

  “Only if you call me Jessica.”

  He smiled brightly this time, displaying a glimpse of the charm that had won him such celebrity and fame while still in his mid-thirties. Wearing his trademark jeans and sneakers even to a funeral, though he’d opted for a sport coat as rumpled as Chad’s as a kind of compromise.

  “I’m not a mystery fan, Jessica. If I was . . .”

  “No reason to apologize,” I told him.

  “Anyway, it’s not like you’re at a loss for readers.”

  “I could always use another.”

  “I’d like to sit down with you sometime,” he said, continuing up the aisle alongside me. “See if there’s something I can do to aid the Cabot Cove Library’s Friends group that you’re a part of.”

  “We’d love the help, and the support. As one writer to another. And how’s your estate coming, Deacon?”

  He seemed surprised at my description of his home. “It’s just a house.”

  “But the biggest one Cabot Cove has ever seen.”

  “Everything’s relative, Jessica. I’ll put you on the guest list for the housewarming.”

  “I’ll be sure to bring a gift.”

  “How about some signed first editions? I’ve built quite a collection I’d love to show you.”

  “I thought you didn’t read mysteries.”

  “Maybe I should start.”

  I could have left things there, but I couldn’t help myself. “I’ve heard you’ve had some problems with the construction of your amphitheater.”

  “The Westhausen Garden?”

  I had to stop myself from shaking my head. “Is that what you’re going to call it?”

  “It’s one of the possibilities. Should prove a boon to the local economy, don’t you think, Jessica?”

  Again, I couldn’t help myself. “If you get past those problems. A shame some supplier sold you substandard lumber.”

  Westhausen stiffened, surprised I was privy to such information. “Replacing it did set us back a bit.”

  “I’m glad to hear the rumors that the choice was intentional are unfounded.”

  Westhausen grinned, an odd gesture under the circumstances. “You’ve been reading too much of Evelyn Phillips’s writing in the Cabot Cove Gazette.”

  “Well, she’s always been a much better gossip than a journalist,” I said, recalling my own unpleasant exchange with Evelyn from the other night. “When there’s nothing there, she has a tendency to—”

  “Make it up,” he completed for me. “Sounds like we’ve both been victims of her keyboard’s wrath. Something else we have in common.”

  I cringed at the very notion of that. Fortunately, Westhausen spotted someone else he knew in the crowd ahead and started to sift through the aisle toward him, after casting me a final smile. I didn’t know what to make of him. There was something unquestionably charming and disarming about Deacon Westhausen, but there was also something that felt, well, off. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it and had pushed the notion aside by the time we got to the cemetery. Maybe it had been his interest in Hal’s memoir, and I resolved to give the lot of those pages a more thorough read to see if I could find something I’d missed that might explain his curiosity.

  * * *

  • • •

  I saw Westhausen nowhere amid the crowd flowing toward the grave site. The church graveyard where Hal was being buried was the oldest in town, dating all the way back to the eighteenth century. Neither he nor Babs had much family they still talked to, so there weren’t a lot of new faces in the cortege. Listening to Father Barnes’s words over Hal’s coffin outside, I thought of how many mysteries featured the killer showing up at the funeral of his or her victim. Such things make great fodder for a novel, but in my experience, when they happen, it’s because a close relative or friend turns out to be the murderer. The general statistic is that ninety percent of all victims know their killers, and most of those crimes end up getting solved.

  Mort arrived for the tail end of the service, then joined Seth and me at the grave site for the burial. My eyes strayed about the crowd, as I made use of the very mythology I’d just denounced, wondering if a face my gaze passed might yield a revelation. All I saw, though, were the flat, somber expressions worn by all funeral goers. For some, the tears were real; for others, not so much, as if they felt obligated to show emotion, to make the most of what for them was just another social occasion.

  My eyes fell on Evelyn Phillips from the Cabot Cove Gazette, and I again recalled our terse conversation from the other night. She must’ve felt me looking and met my stare. Instead of jerking my gaze away, I exchanged a nod with her. The gossip about Hal and Babs was already flying, but so far, none of the scandalous rumors Evelyn had spouted at me had come to light.

  Is it true that Hal was acting strangely? Not as if he was sick—more like he was worried about something?

  She’d been referring to his behavior at the party, now explained by the financial hole he’d somehow dug for himself. But Evelyn, I now recalled, hadn’t stopped there.

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

  That’s how she described Hal before pulling me into the rumor.

  I was hoping you might shed some light on the details. For instance, how many women, how many of these affairs, were there?

  Hal was a successful, good-looking man who spent a lot of time away from home, a combination that made great fodder for gossipmongers even when there was nothing to back up their charges. But recalling my conversation with Evelyn made me think again of Nan, the mystery woman with whom Hal had connected on LOVEISYOURS. What was I to make of the fact that her profile had been wiped from the site as well, almost
surely by a “cyber ghost” like Chad? There had to be a connection there, but it had vanished into the ether of cyberspace.

  I had only one hunch left to act upon, the one I’d shared with Mort the previous night and that we intended to follow up on after the reception at Babs’s house. Cabot Cove Catering had taken that much off her hands, as the company was well versed in staffing such events thanks to the spate of deaths in the village I often found myself investigating. I’d heard once that a news commentator in Boston had referred to our village as Killer Cove or Murder Cove. Fortunately, the names hadn’t stuck.

  The reception was exactly what you’d expect it to be: people milling about, trying to appear casual as they balanced their plates of food with their silverware and drinks. For this kind of thing, the food was wonderful, highlighted by elegant dessert trays, and Cabot Cove Catering further relieved Babs’s burden by supplying all the plates, trays, coverings, and utensils. A truly full-service operation.

  As I said, they’ve had a lot of experience.

  “Ready, Jessica?” Mort asked, suddenly by my side.

  I laid the tea I’d been sipping from a paper cup down on the nearest table. “Let me just say good-bye to Babs.”

  * * *

  • • •

  “Eve Simpson?” Mort had said the night before, after I told him what I’d remembered. “You really think Eve Simpson can help us?”

  “Not her, actually—the footage she shot from all those interviews. She said something about a video chronicle of the party, like a yearbook or something. She spent the whole day going around with her camera, asking guests to say something about Babs and Hal for their anniversary.”

  “Sounds like a decent gesture.”

  “And I’m sure it came with an ulterior motive, since everything Eve does has an ulterior motive.”

  “So what do you expect to find in all this footage?”

  “Well, I doubt we’ll see somebody coming up and killing Hal Wirth on camera, but maybe there will be something to indicate whether he was murdered or not.”

  * * *

  • • •

  Eve Simpson had stayed at the reception only long enough to put in the proverbial appearance in a fashion befitting our town’s premier real estate agent. Others had moved in and put up their shingles since Cabot Cove became trendy, but locals still preferred using Eve, because her supercilious manner got results. She was just phony enough to make you think she wasn’t, and who could argue with the fact that she invariably reaped the full asking price? She was a whiz at creating majestic brochures that could make a seaside cottage look like a waterfront estate capable of impressing the likes of Deacon Westhausen, and she had in fact rented him one while he waited for his own estate to be completed.

  As soon as Mort parked his squad car, I spotted Eve through the plate glass window of Simpson Realty, on the phone as always. Her office was located diagonally across the street from Mara’s, which looked strangely empty now that the summer season had ended. I was about to climb out when Mort took a call and then looked across the seat at me apologetically.

  “There’s something I have to attend to back at the station, Jessica. I’m afraid you’re going to have to handle this alone.”

  I climbed out of the car but peeked back in, instead of closing the door. “Tell me the truth, Mort: Was that a real call or did you just do something to make the phone ring, so you wouldn’t have to deal with Eve?”

  He put the car into gear, even though the door was still open. “I’m going to take the Fifth on that.” He winked, then pulled away after I’d finally closed the door.

  * * *

  • • •

  “Now, this is a surprise,” Eve said, after she’d hung up the phone.

  “I need to ask you a favor, Eve.”

  She perked up. “Tell me, does it involve a mystery?”

  “It might.”

  “Murder?”

  “You never know.”

  She actually clapped her hands at the prospect. “What do you need? Just tell me.”

  “I’d like to see the footage you shot at the Wirths’ Labor Day party.”

  She came out of her chair and sat down on the edge of her desk, kitty-corner to where I was standing. “The interviews?”

  “Yes.”

  “All of them?”

  I nodded.

  Eve’s eyes gleamed. “Can you tell me what this is about?”

  “You already know.”

  “Murder?”

  “Maybe.”

  It was strange to see someone perk up at the mere mention of murder, but that’s what Eve did. “Something to do with Hal’s death?”

  “We’ll see. If there’s something to it, you’ll be the second to know—I promise.”

  “Second?”

  “Sheriff Metzger needs to be the first.”

  She frowned. “I don’t think he likes me.”

  “Whatever gave you that idea?”

  * * *

  • • •

  Eve Simpson set me up at the currently unoccupied desk of one of her associate agents, logged on to his or her computer, and inserted a thumb drive onto which she’d transferred all the footage she’d shot at the Wirths’ Labor Day party. I didn’t bother asking what her actual intention was in filming all those interviews, because I assumed it was nothing more than a device to make her stand out at the party amid all those potential clients gathered in one place. I also figured Eve, being such a gossipmonger, might have hoped to get at least a few juicy tidbits from Cabot Cove residents, especially as the day wore on and they ingested more alcohol.

  Eve wasn’t about to let her attention stray too far from my task, but she left me alone to sort through the footage. I even heard her cancel at least two appointments in a hushed voice to avoid having to either leave me here by myself or kick me out. In all, she’d conducted somewhere around sixty interviews, the average length of which was two or so minutes. Many of those interviews involved couples or were done as a group; more people speaking meant a few of the interviews went longer and the total number of people she actually spoke with might’ve been closer to a hundred.

  I kept the sound very low, since I wasn’t interested in the actual interviews as much as what was taking place in the background. I focused especially on the parts of those recordings that contained Hal as he stood various distances away from those being recorded. Amid all this, black-and-white-clad Cabot Cove Catering personnel bobbed and weaved through the throng, hand-passing tiny hot dogs tucked into miniature buns, pizza strips, bite-sized sliders, and those famous lobster rolls it took only two bites to wolf down. Comfort food that had proved perfect for the occasion, not to mention those luscious bite-sized desserts I never could resist.

  After an hour, I’d uncovered nothing of note, nothing to suggest anything nefarious had caused Hal Wirth’s death later on in the day. I didn’t actually know what I expected to find, and ninety minutes in, I began to see this whole idea as a fool’s errand that I was nonetheless committed to completing. This in spite of the fact that seeing Hal alive and entertaining his guests this way left me feeling like a voyeur, spying on a departed friend. I felt particularly guilty when I saw a quick shot that included Hal and Seth seated on the bench, engaged in the conversation during which Hal had confessed some of his financial plight. I did notice several places where Hal didn’t realize the camera was on him as he clenched his jaw and a worried expression settled over his features. He was clearly trying to put on a good show for Babs and their guests, but in the rare private moments the party afforded, his demeanor was strained with worry over the financial calamity hanging over his head.

  His worry was so palpable that, at one point, Eve Simpson pointed the camera at him and said, “You look like you ate something that disagreed with you, Hal. Any comment for the masses?”

  Hal had politely demurre
d and slipped away.

  I continued my scrutiny but still found nothing awry as the end of the footage, and the party, neared. Nothing that made me think twice about what I’d just seen. Nobody appeared to slip anything in one of Hal’s several drinks.

  “I’m going out for coffee,” a clearly bored Eve Simpson said, rising from behind her own desk. “Want anything?”

  I looked outside and saw dusk had fallen. I’d lost all track of time and my search had yielded nothing so far.

  “I’d love a tea,” I said gratefully. “Not the herbal kind. Something as close to Lipton as they’ve got.”

  “Are you okay on your own?” Eve asked me, her tone one of measured concern.

  “I promise not to steal or break anything.”

  She smiled and took her leave.

  I realized I’d gotten to the part of the footage that contained my own interview, after the completion of which the camera followed me joining Babs en route to the kitchen, where we’d found Hal on the floor. I slid the bar back a few minutes and tightened my gaze on the screen, focusing on the door leading into the kitchen that Hal must’ve passed through not long before us. And, sure enough, there he was, entering the kitchen maybe seven minutes before we discovered him on the floor. This was footage taken before Eve had even approached Seth and me to record our own congratulatory videos.

  I switched to slow motion then, to make sure I didn’t miss a single thing. At first, I thought there was nothing, nothing at all. But then I saw a shadow I hadn’t noticed before, and rewound the recording, freezing it in the spot where I thought I’d glimpsed the shadow.

  That shadow turned out to be a male shape wearing the black-and-white uniform of Cabot Cove Catering, slipping unnoticed into the kitchen. I brought the recording back another thirty seconds and let it run. Sure enough, Hal entered the kitchen, followed fifteen seconds later by the man I’d first taken for a shadow. The camera twisted in another direction, but resettled on the area of the French doors leading into the kitchen around fourteen seconds of real time later.