“You know all the basic reasons for someone murderin’ somebody else, Jessica—passion, greed, money, family tensions. Could be somebody got real mad at Rory and flew off the handle.”
I shook my head. “I don’t think so, Seth, not the way Rory was killed. It was a deliberate act, well thought out in advance. Maybe not too far in advance, but it certainly wasn’t a sudden flare-up that resulted in physical harm to him. Somebody wanted to kill Rory Brent—and did.”
“I suppose you’re right. Did you get a chance to talk with Mort while you were over at headquarters?”
“No. I just stayed long enough to lend some moral support to Mary. Mort wanted them to stay a little longer to answer some questions. I left.”
“More tea, Jessica?”
“No thanks. I’d better be running along. I promised myself some time for Christmas shopping.”
“What will you be getting me this Christmas?”
I laughed. “I have a very special present in mind for you, Dr. Hazlitt, and wild horses could not pull it out of me. You’ll just have to wait until Christmas Eve.”
I’d be spending Christmas Eve, after festival activities had ended, with Seth at his home, along with twenty or so other guests.
“Got a special present picked out for you, too,” he said.
“Tell me.”
“Wild horses couldn’t pull it out of me,” he said.
I finished my tea and was about to leave when his doorbell rang. I accompanied him to the door. Standing on his wide, wraparound porch was a television crew, led by a middle-aged man. I looked beyond them and saw Mort Metzger getting out of his sheriff’s car and heading up the walk.
“And who might you be?” Seth asked the reporter.
“Gary Kraut, Portland TV,” the man said. “We just arrived in town to report on the Rory Brent murder. We understand you were his physician.”
Seth glared at them.
Mort joined us, and they immediately turned their attention to him.
“You’re the sheriff,” Kraut said. “What’s new in the Brent murder?”
“Excuse me,” Mort said and turned to Seth and me. “Got a minute?”
“Of course,” Seth said. The three of us returned inside and closed the door in the face of the television crew.
“I just left Joe Truco,” Mort said, removing his Stetson and placing it on a small table in the entrance hall.
“You did?” I said, thinking of my request that Turco research public real estate records in Town Hall.
“Thought it only right to run the news past him before acting on it,” Mort said.
“What news?” I asked.
“About Jake Walther.”
“Stop beatin’ around the bush, Mort,” Seth said. “Just tell us what the news is.”
“Well, seems the lab boys have gotten their act together. No doubt about it, they tell me. The footprint on Rory’s barn floor is a perfect match to that boot owned by Jake.”
I thought back to what Joe Turco had said, that unless that match was made, Jake would probably remain in the clear.
“Interesting development,” said Seth. “What happens now?”
“I’ve got a call into the D.A.. Hope to meet with her before the day is out,” Mort responded. “Seems to me there’s nothing else to do but go arrest Jake.”
“Again?” Seth and I said in unison.
“Afraid so, Mrs. F.,” Mort said.
“Think this time it’ll stick?” Seth asked. “Folks in this town are getting downright tired of Jake Walther goin’ in and out of jail.”
Mort looked at Seth with a hurt expression, as though his good friend was being critical of his police work.
“Didn’t mean anything by it, Mort,” Seth said. “But you get my drift. Seems to me if you arrest Jake Walther again, it had better be for good this time.”
“I wouldn’t argue with that,” Mort said. “Reason I came by was to ask you, Mrs. F., if Mary Walther, or that strange brother of hers had anything else to say when you were with them.”
“No,” I said. “The only thing of substance Mary said is what she told you at headquarters.”
“Just checkin’,” Mort said. “I’ll leave you two to whatever it was you were talkin’ about.”
“I was just leaving when you arrived,” I said.
“Got those media vultures outside,” Mort said.
“Tell ’em to go away,” Seth told our sheriff. “They’re on private property up on my porch.”
“I’ll do just that. Need a lift, Mrs. F.?”
“I think I’ll take you up on that, Mort, considering they’re outside. Drop me in town where I can do some shopping?”
“Certainly will. Christmas shopping?”
“Yes. I—”
“Got any ideas about what you’ll be gettin’ me for Christmas?”
Seth and I looked at each other.
“Jessica and I have just been talking about that, Mort. You’ll have to wait until Christmas Eve.”
“Just remember that if it’s clothing, I don’t like green. Always had a funny feeling about green clothes, like they were bad luck.”
I sighed, smiled, and said, “Mort, I promise the tie I buy you will not be green.”
“A tie? I’ve got a closet full of ties. I was thinking more along the line of—”
“Come on,” I said, picking up Mort’s Stetson from the table and handing it to him. “If I don’t get downtown, I’ll never get my shopping done.”
Chapter Twenty
I made a silent pledge to myself as I got out of Mort’s car in the middle of town that I would blot out everything having to do with murder for the rest of the afternoon.
Although I’m not especially fond of shopping in general, Christmas shopping is another matter. I take great pleasure in finding just the right gift for those I love, and was not about to allow a self-imposed pall to taint that activity.
“I’d appreciate it, Mrs. F., if you wouldn’t mention what I told you to anybody else,” Mort said, leaning across the seat and speaking to me through the open passenger window.
“Count on it,” I said. “You will let me know if Jake is brought in again.”
“Yes, I will,” he said, resuming his place behind the wheel. I started to walk away, but he stopped me. “If I were you, I’d stay far away from the Walther farm. No telling how Jake will react if he gets wind I’ll be taking him in again.”
I nodded and said, “Thanks for the advice, Mort. Talk with you later.”
Actually, I’d already done some of my Christmas shopping. Seth Hazlitt loves miniature soldiers, particularly those from the Civil and Spanish-American wars. He has elaborate displays of them in his office, and I’d ordered a set from a shop in London whose card I’d taken the last time I was there. They would be arriving by mail any day.
I started at the far end of town, going from store to store, consulting my list of gifts to buy as I went, and thoroughly enjoying the process. The shopkeepers were in excellent spirits, and I found the perfect gifts for a number of people on my list.
Mort Metzger loves board games and had once invented a murder mystery game that he came close to selling to Parker Brothers. But the deal fell through at the last minute over certain changes requested by the company that Mort refused to make. One of our local gift shops had just received a brand-new game, a whodunnit set in Los Angeles. I bought that, as well as a fancy new cribbage board for Mort, making sure that none of the inlaid pieces on the board or the pegs themselves were green.
I would have continued shopping except that my load of gifts had gotten heavy. I decided to call it a day and head for home. I checked my watch. It was almost five. Night had fallen; it had become noticeably colder.
“Call Dimitri for you, Jessica?” the owner of the last shop asked when I mentioned I was going to my house.
“If you wouldn’t mind,” I said.
Dimitri’s cousin, Nick, arrived a few minutes later, helped me load the packages
into the back of his vehicle, and drove me home. The timers had turned on my outside lights, one of which cast an appealing glow over the large wreath on my front door.
I thanked Nick, signed the receipt, and got out of the cab.
“I will help you in with the packages,” he said.
“Thank you,” I said. “I didn’t realize I’d bought so much.”
“Because you have so many friends,” he said pleasantly, loading his arms with the bags and boxes and following me to the front door. I opened it for him. He carried the gifts into my living room and placed them on the couch.
“Thanks, Nick,” I said. “That was kind of you.”
“No problem, Mrs. Fletcher.” He is fond of saying “no problem” in response to most comments made to him by customers.
As I escorted him back to the front door, we were both brought up short by a sound emanating from the rear of my house. It sounded as though someone had tripped over something and fallen.
“What was that?” I said.
Nick didn’t answer. Instead, he returned to the living room and approached the door to my study. Another sound was heard, this time a door opening.
Someone was there!
Nick entered the study, with me bringing up the rear. I’d just reached the open doorway when I saw someone swing an object at Nick. It caught him on the side of his head and sent him sprawling to the floor.
“Who are you?” I shouted.
With that, the figure lurched across the room and ran through open French doors leading to a small patio at the back of the house. I didn’t see him clearly; it was too dark, too gloomy, for that. None of the lights in the room had been on. But as he ran out to the patio, one of the outside lights caught his face and torso for a fleeting second.
It was Robert Brent!
Or was it?
I fought the urge to take pursuit. Instead, I dropped to my knees next to Nick, who now sat up and massaged the back of his neck and side of his face, groaning as he did.
“Are you all right?” I asked.
“I think so,” he said weakly.
“My God, why would such a thing happen,” I asked myself aloud as I stood, went to the wall, and flipped on the overhead lights. Nick had been struck with a foot-tall metal cup, the largest of a set of four I’d purchased in Turkey many years ago. Fortunately, the set was not made of heavy metal, and the damage to Nick was minimal. He seemed more shocked than physically injured.
I helped him to his feet. He immediately went to the open French doors and peered out beyond the lighted patio into the darkness. His assailant was gone, presumably having jumped over hedges lining the perimeter of that end of the property.
“Close the doors,” I said. “He’s gone.”
Nick secured the doors, turned, and faced me. “Who would do such a thing?” he said. “In your own house.”
“I don’t know.”
Although I thought the person I’d seen was Robert Brent, I couldn’t be certain of it. It had all happened so fast. It looked like him, but if I were asked to attend a police lineup, I knew I would never be able to say beyond a doubt that he was the one who’d been in my house moments ago.
“You must call the police,” Nick said.
“Yes, you’re right. Please, sit down. Would you like some tea, coffee? A drink? Brandy?”
He shook his head. “No, Mrs. Fletcher, I am quite all right. Please, call the sheriff.”
Mort Metzger and a deputy were at my house within minutes. Mort ascertained that the intruder had entered through a window in a small bathroom just off my study. Obviously, using the French doors to escape was a lot quicker and easier than retracing his steps through the window.
“You didn’t get a look at him, Mrs. F.?” Mort asked.
“Well, I did, but only for a second. Not long enough to really know who it was.”
Mort fixed me with a skeptical stare. “Sounds like you’re fudging a bit. Sounds like you did see who it was, but don’t want to say because you can’t be a hundred percent sure.”
“It looked to me like ... I hate to say this, because you’re right. I can’t be sure. It looked to me like Robert Brent.”
“Rory and Patricia’s boy?”
“Yes. Again, Mort, it happened so quickly that—”
“Saw his face?”
“Yes. Well, not so much his face. It was his hat and jacket.”
“Hat and jacket?”
“He wore a blue baseball cap backward, and a black-and-red wool mackinaw.”
“Did he now? Seems to me Robert Brent wore that the day he came into town with us.”
“Exactly.”
Mort scribbled something on a pad he carried, looked at me, and said, “I think I’ll head out to the Brent farm and have a talk with young Mr. Brent.”
“I suppose that’s what you have to do.”
“Have you checked for anything being stolen?” he asked.
“No. I haven’t even thought about that. But as you can see, whoever it was was looking for something in my desk.” Drawers had been opened, and papers tossed on the floor.
“Well, Mrs. F., I suggest you do a quick inventory, see if anything’s missing. You can let me know about that later. Right now, I’d like to hightail it out to the Brent farm. Want Tom to stay with you?” He indicated his deputy.
I shook my head. “No, I’m fine, just fine.”
“You okay, young fella?” Mort asked Nick.
“Yes, sir, I am all right. I was glad I was with Mrs. Fletcher and could scare him away.”
“Probably was a good thing you weren’t alone, Mrs. F. Well, make sure you lock the doors behind me.”
They all departed, leaving me alone in the house. I felt an intense chill, which had nothing to do with air temperature. More a reaction to the reality that someone had violated me and my home.
As I walked around the house, looking for signs that something had been taken, I kept hearing noises. I knew they were in my mind, irrational responses to what had just happened, but I couldn’t help it.
I settled down and made myself a cup of tea before tackling the task of picking up the papers that had been strewn about my study, and checking to see whether any documents were missing. It seemed to me nothing was gone, although it was hard to make that judgment.
I kept seeing the face I’d seen in the light of the patio. It was Robert Brent—or maybe it wasn’t. The only thing I was sure of was that the intruder wore a blue baseball cap backward on his head and a black-and-red wool mackinaw. Hardly enough to accuse him of having been the one to break into my home. From what I’d been able to observe, wearing a baseball cap backward had become almost a uniform for teenagers. That the cap was blue wasn’t helpful. Most baseball caps are blue, aren’t they? A red-and-black mackinaw? Hardly a unique item of clothing in Maine in winter.
If only there had been a second more for me to observe him. The last thing I wanted was to falsely accuse someone.
Seth called a half hour later. He’d heard from Mort about what had happened and wanted to check on me.
“I’m fine,” I said. “When did Mort tell you? Had he already gone out to the Brent farm?”
“I don’t know, Jessica,” Seth replied. “He called me from his car, said I should ring you up to make sure everything was all right. That’s what I’m doin’.”
“And I appreciate it, Seth.”
“How about some dinner?”
“I don’t know. I’m kind of beat from shopping today.”
“And all shook up by what just happened to you.”
“That, too. I’d love dinner with you.”
“Fine. Pick you up in forty-five minutes. We’ll go to Simone’s. That all right with you? I’ve had a yearning all afternoon for their special veal chop.”
“Fine with me,” I said. “I’ll be ready when you arrive.”
Forty-five minutes later, I had my hat and coat on and was ready for Seth’s arrival. But as I stood in the foyer, I remembered I’
d left my house keys on my desk in the study. I went there and surveyed the desk. They weren’t there. I circled the desk to see whether I’d knocked them off. I had; they were resting on the carpet just enough under the desk to have escaped my initial attention.
When I bent down to pick them up I saw the sheet of paper jutting out from behind my wicker wastebasket. Assuming it was something that had been removed from my desk by the intruder, or was a piece of paper I’d tossed at the basket and missed, I picked it up and was about to wad it into a ball for disposition when I realized it was nothing I’d seen before.
I stood up straight and examined it in the light. It was a note made from cut-out letters from magazines and newspapers, the sort you see in kidnap ransom notes in the movies. The letters were crudely pasted on the paper, forming a jumble of letters, large and small.
But what they spelled out was unmistakable:
Butt out, if you know what’s good for you.
Chapter Twenty-one
Seth and I had just finished a shrimp appetizer and were considering what to have as a main course when Phillipo Simone, the gregarious owner of the restaurant, came to the table.
“You have a telephone call, Mrs. Fletcher,” he said.
“Really? Who knew I was coming here?”
“Must be Mort,” Seth said. “I left a message for him that we’d be here this evening.”
I followed Phillipo to the bar, where he handed me the receiver.
“Hello?”
“Sorry to interrupt your dinner, Mrs. F.,” said our sheriff, “but thought you’d want to know that it was Robert Brent who broke into your house.”
“It was? Are you certain?”
“Certain as I am that Christmas is coming,” he said. “The boy admitted it the minute I confronted him.”
Mort didn’t know about the note I’d found in my study just before leaving for dinner. I’d shoved it into my handbag and taken it with me, and had shown it to Seth shortly after arriving at Simone’s.
“Have you arrested him?” I asked.
A Little Yuletide Murder Page 16