Chapter Nine
We stopped at the state police barracks just outside Cabot Cove to drop off the shovel and rag. “Appreciate it if you fellas could dust this one and get them both to the lab as quick as possible to confirm there’s blood on them,” Mort told the officer on duty. “Presumptive test says there is, but could be some other chemical that reacts to luminol.”
“We’ll get right on it, Mort,” the officer said. Our sheriff had forged a good relationship with the state police over the years, a positive situation when they had to work together solving crimes.
Wendell Watson was at the front desk when we walked into the sheriff’s office.
“Anything new here, Wendell?” Mort asked as we headed down the hall.
Wendell followed. “That Tremaine guy is raisin’ hell in the back, Sheriff. He told me he was goin’ to put a curse on me if I didn’t let him out.”
“Did he now?” Mort said, laughing and tossing his tan Stetson on a couch in his cluttered office. “What sort of curse?”
“He didn’t say.”
“Maybe I’d better have a talk with him right now,” Mort said, “before I have to let him go.”
“Oh,” Wendell said, remembering something. “That lawyer, Joe Turco, was here. He says he’s representin’ Mr. Tremaine.”
“Turco’s got that madman as a client?” Mort said. “Thought he had better sense than that.”
“Mr. Turco says that if you don’t release his client this afternoon, he’ll sue you and everybody here.”
“Now that’s a real curse, Wendell, having a lawyer on the case. Go bring Mr. Tremaine to the interview room.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Maybe I’d better leave,” I said.
“Don’t see why, Mrs. F. Hang around. Maybe you’ve got some questions to ask our resident crazy.”
Tremaine was led into the small, spartan interview room at the rear of headquarters. He wore tight black jeans, a black T-shirt and leather sandals. His smug attitude of the night before had disappeared. His face was flushed with anger. When he saw me sitting at the table with Mort, I thought he might physically assault me. “Why’s she here?” he snapped at Mort.
“We haven’t been formally introduced,” I said. “I’m Jessica Fletcher.”
“Oh, so this is Jessica Fletcher, the world famous mystery writer,” Tremaine said. “Doing research?” He plopped in a chair, crossed his legs and glared at me.
“Mrs. Fletcher’s sort of a consultant to me and the department on this case, Mr. Tremaine.”
“Have you talked to my lawyer?” Tremaine asked.
“Heard he was in,” Mort said. “Nice young fella.”
“I’ll own this town if I am not released immediately,” Tremaine said. “You have no reason to hold me this way. I didn’t kill that crazy woman out at the Marshall estate, and I don’t know a damn thing about it. You’re persecuting me because of my beliefs.”
“Calm down, Mr. Tremaine,” Mort said. “If you hadn’t skipped out last night from Paul Marshall’s house, you wouldn’t be here now. You told me you crashed the party because you like parties. Where did you get the moose costume?”
“Boston.”
“Yeah, but how did you know the employees would be wearing that costume?”
“One of Marshall-Scott Clothing’s employees is a client of mine.”
“Client?”
“Comes to me for spiritual healing. She told me about the costumes and that they were being made in Boston. I ordered one.”
“Did you know the deceased?”
“The Swift woman? I knew all about her, knew she was evil.”
Mort glanced at me; I kept silent.
“She was evil, you say,” Mort said. “Is that why you killed her?”
Tremaine guffawed. “I didn’t kill anybody, and you know it.”
Wendell knocked at the door, then opened it and said, “Mr. Turco’s here, Sheriff.”
Joe Turco pushed past Wendell and entered the room. “Time to go,” he said to Tremaine, who stood.
“Hold on now, Mr. Turco,” Mort said. “Your client and I have been having a pleasant chat.”
Turco looked at me. “I didn’t expect to see you here, Jessica.”
“I’ve just been sitting listening, Joe.”
Joseph Turco had moved to Cabot Cove from New York City, where he’d been a criminal and civil attorney. Tired of the big city’s frenetic pace, he’d sought a more leisurely life; Cabot Cove seemed the perfect solution. He is a handsome young man with coal black hair and probing dark eyes, and he is an excellent attorney, I’d been told by those who’d employed him. His office is above Olde Tyme Floral, owned by close friends of mine, Beth and Peter Mullin, and I often find myself chatting with him when visiting the shop.
Turco turned to Mort. “Are you charging my client with a crime, Mort—Sheriff?”
“Nope.”
“Then this friendly little chat is over.”
“Doesn’t mean your client’s off the hook,” Mort said. “I’ll be wanting to interview him again.”
“Just as long as I’m with him. Come on, Mr. Tremaine. Nice seeing you, Jessica.”
“Sign ’em out, Wendell,” Mort shouted down the hall.
When they were gone, Mort shook his head. “The way I see it, Mrs. F., every day is Halloween when you’re around that fruitcake.”
“He certainly works hard to be different.”
“I’d like to know more about Mr. Tremaine, but I don’t figure I’m going to get much from him.”
“I think you’re right,” I said, silently wondering how I might help. “Are we going to the bank?”
He responded by asking his dispatcher, Marie Poutre, for the keys from the evidence room. She brought them in and laid them on the table.
I picked up the small one. “Looks like a safe-deposit key to me,” I said.
“That it does. Well, let’s head over and see if Doris will cooperate without a court order.”
The Cabot Cove Savings Bank is situated in an old building just off the town square. The previous manager had retired after thirty years, his place taken by the assistant manager, Doris Sitar, a pretty, vivacious young woman who’d initiated a number of innovations, including free coffee and doughnuts. Charlene Sassi, owner of the town’s prime bakery, objected, claiming that serving free doughnuts constituted unfair competition. Ms. Sitar solved the dilemma by serving only doughnuts purchased from Charlene’s establishment. Most disputes in Cabot Cove are resolved through compromise and old-fashioned New England common sense.
“Howdy, Doris,” Mort said when we entered the bank and went to her desk.
“Hello, Sheriff, Jessica,” she said. “To what do I owe this pleasure?”
“Here to ask you a favor,” Mort said. “You heard about the murder last night at Paul Marshall’s place?”
“I certainly did, heard it on the radio this morning. That’s all people are talking about.”
“We understand Ms. Swift was a customer of the bank,” I said.
“Yes. She was in yesterday.” Doris shuddered. “It’s scary to think of her being here alive in the afternoon, and dead that night.”
“What sort of business did she transact yesterday?” I asked.
Doris frowned. “As I remember, she visited her safe-deposit box.”
“Which gets us to the reason we’re here,” Mort said. He handed her the key found on Matilda Swift. “Look like a key to one of your safe-deposit boxes?”
“Yes,” she said.
“This key was found on Ms. Swift’s body last night, only we didn’t realize what it was until today. I’d like to have a look inside that box.”
“It’s been sealed,” Doris said. “Automatic when there’s been a death. The IRS.”
“Can’t ever escape them, can we?” Mort said. “Look, Doris, I’m not intending to take anything from the box. Just want to get a look at what she might have had in there. Of course, I can go to Judge Kaplan and get a court order,
but I just figured you could save me the trouble.”
“I suppose there wouldn’t be any harm in letting you see what’s in it, Sheriff.”
“Now you know I like to be called Mort.”
Doris smiled. “All right, Mort.” She summoned her assistant manager and asked him to accompany Mort to the safe-deposit vault, adding, “The sheriff isn’t taking anything from the box, just perusing what’s in it.”
“Much obliged, Doris,” Mort said, following the assistant manager.
“You said Ms. Swift visited her safe-deposit box, Doris,” I said. “Did you accompany her?”
“Yes. Did you know her, Jessica?”
“No, I didn’t. I’d seen her a few times in town, but never had a conversation with her. Did she put something in the box?”
“I don’t know. We give customers complete privacy. They take their box into a booth and close the door.”
“Of course.”
“I assume she removed something from it.”
“Oh?”
“When she handed the box back to me, I noticed that she held a plastic bag with some papers in it—you know, one of those Baggies from the kitchen. I didn’t see that when she went into the booth.”
“A plastic bag? Why would she use a plastic bag? Was it full of papers?”
“Didn’t seem to be, just a few documents. It was very flat and thin.”
“Uh-huh. How did she seem to you? Was she upset when she came in, worried, behave in any peculiar way?”
Doris smiled. “I know this isn’t very gracious, Jessica, but Ms. Swift was . . . well, she was an unusual lady.”
“Oh, I agree with that.”
“It was like there was a force surrounding her. Does that sound silly?”
“Not at all.”
“She had the strangest eyes.”
“Yes, I know.”
“She wasn’t unpleasant, but I wouldn’t call her friendly, either. Serious, very serious, and matter-of-fact.”
“Did she say anything to you? I mean, aside from asking to be taken to her safe-deposit box?”
“No. Oh, she did say something about Mr. Marshall’s party.”
“What did she say about it?”
Doris screwed up her pretty face in thought. “It was something about it being a bad night to have a party. No, what she said was, ‘Halloween is an evil night to have a party.’ ”
“Evil night?”
“Yes, evil night.”
Mort returned with the assistant manager.
“Nothing, Mrs. F. Empty.”
“I’m not surprised.”
“You’re not?”
“No. Thanks, Doris.”
“Yes, ma’am, thank you,” Mort said.
“My pleasure.” As she walked us through the bank lobby, Mort stopped at the refreshment table and plucked a powdered doughnut from a large tray. “Charlene Sassi makes the best powdered doughnuts in Maine,” he said.
“No argument there,” Doris said. “Any leads in the murder?”
“Afraid not,” Mort said.
“Well, at least the phones are finally fixed,” Doris said.
“You noticed that, too?” I asked.
“It’s wonderful. It’s the first day in weeks there hasn’t been static on the line. I guess the repairmen found the problem.”
Mort and I looked at each other. “I suppose so,” I said.
Mort tipped his Stetson. “Thanks again, Doris.”
“My pleasure, Mort.”
We walked back to police headquarters a block away.
“Coming in?” Mort asked.
“No. You have Paul Marshall visiting this afternoon.”
“Wouldn’t exactly call it a visit. I want to keep on the state boys about that shovel and rag. Have to call Doc Gillo, too, and see how his autopsy’s coming along, check on Ms. Swift’s blood type. If it is blood on that shovel and rag, and the type matches hers, we’ll have something to work with.”
“Matching blood types won’t prove it’s her blood,” I said, “just narrow the odds.”
“Right now,” he said, “I’ll take any lowering of the odds I can get. It’ll help if the lab can pick up prints from that shovel.”
“If there are prints, Mort, they’ll undoubtedly belong to Artie Sack. He’s the one who uses the tools from that barn. I wore a pair of gardening gloves from there.”
“I’m sure you’re right about that. Where are you headed, Mrs. F.?”
“Home for a bit. I thought I might drop by Paul Marshall’s house later this afternoon, and I—”
“What?”
“I was thinking I’d like to get to know Lucas Tremaine a little better.”
“Can’t imagine why.”
“For the same reason you said you’d like to know him better, to see whether he’s capable of having killed Matilda Swift.”
“You leave that to me, Mrs. F.”
“Of course. Just thinking out loud. I’ll call you later in the day.”
Chapter Ten
I took a detour on my way home for a late lunch at Mara’s. Friends asked me to join them at their tables, but I opted to eat alone in a corner booth, stopping on my way to grab a copy of that day’s Bangor Times, a pile of which was always available for the luncheonette’s patrons. The story of Matilda Swift’s murder was on page three. As I read, I realized it would not have received as much attention as it did were it not for the scene of the crime, the palatial estate of Paul Marshall. Marshall had never run for public office, but he was known as a force in Maine politics, a hefty contributor to candidates of his choice. The article mentioned, of course, that the murder had taken place during Marshall’s annual Halloween bash, pointed out that all guests at the party were being questioned, and ended with a quote from Sheriff Mort Metzger:We’re in the preliminary phase of our investigation. My office and the state police are working closely together, and I’m confident we’ll bring whoever committed this murder to justice in short order.
I silently hoped Mort was right, and read the rest of the paper while enjoying a filet of sole sandwich and cup of tea. Before leaving, I contemplated how to spend my afternoon. I’d told Mort I considered dropping by the Marshall house, although I didn’t have a specific reason for doing so. It was just a hunch, but somehow I kept feeling that the key to this puzzle was still there on the estate—in the main house, cottages, the barn, perhaps even on the grounds.
As I pedaled along a country road, I tried to construct a mental list of those who might be considered primary suspects, assuming, of course, that the murderer wasn’t a passer-by or someone from town with a grudge against Matilda.
Lucas Tremaine was my first candidate, but only because he was such a strange man. He had labeled Matilda “evil,” which indicated to me that he possibly knew something about her, maybe even had some sort of a personal relationship with her.
She lived on the Marshall estate. That meant she’d probably come into contact with those living there more frequently than others in Cabot Cove, but they all seemed to deny knowing her. Paul Marshall? He’d said he was about to evict her. Jeremy Scott? No motive as far as I knew, which applied to Erica Marshall, too. Warren Wilson wasn’t a resident of the estate, but was always around as Marshall’s proverbial righthand man. But again, no motive, unless he shared his boss’s dislike of the victim.
Artie Sack? He was hard to fathom because of his mental impairment, but a sweeter-natured man I’d never met. Had Matilda Swift angered him to such an extent that he would strike her with . . . ? I was now convinced the weapon was the shovel I’d found in the barn that morning.
And what about Robert Wandowski? His anger at Matilda the day of his daughter’s late arrival from school was palpable, the temper he was capable of demonstrating unmistakable.
Such thoughts occupied me all the way to the Marshall property, and I was surprised when I found myself already pedaling up the main driveway to the front of the house.
I leaned my bike against a t
ree and had started for the front door when angry voices stopped me. A leaded glass window to the right of the door was open; the sounds emanated from the room on the other side of it.
I stepped closer and cocked my head in the window’s direction.
“We should have gone with him,” I heard a man say. He sounded like Warren Wilson, although I couldn’t be sure.
“Paul didn’t want us to.” I knew that was Jeremy Scott, no question about it.
Wilson: “Damn it, we’ve got to be together in this. You’re so pathetic, Jeremy. You do anything he says and—”
“Will the two of you shut up!” Erica Marshall speaking.
“Maybe if your father had come up with a formula that worked, we wouldn’t be in this mess,” said Wilson.
“Don’t you start about my father,” Jeremy growled. “One more bad word about him and I’ll—”
“You’ll what, Jeremy, kill me, too?”
“You bastard!”
“Stop it!” Erica shouted; I sensed she’d had to step between them to head off a fight.
I debated whether to knock on the door. This obviously wasn’t the right time to be visiting. As I pondered what to do, the sound of a car coming up the drive diverted my attention. It was Mort Metzger in his marked sheriff’s car. With him was deputy Wendell Watson.
“Howdy, Mrs. F.,” Mort said as he exited the vehicle. “Coming or going?”
“I was, uh, just leaving.”
Those inside the house had evidently heard the car, too, because the door opened and Erica Marshall stepped out onto the front brick patio. Behind her was Mrs. Sack, Artie’s sister-in-law and the Marshalls housekeeper. Mort tipped his Stetson and approached them. “Mrs. Sack, might Artie be inside with you?”
“No, he’s not here. I think he’s down working on one of the cottages, or in the barn.”
“Much obliged,” Mort said. He turned to Wendell: “Let’s go on down and find him.”
“Is Artie in some sort of trouble?” Mrs. Sack asked, her quivering voice mirroring her fear.
“Just got to ask him a few questions, ma’am,” Mort said over his shoulder as he and Wendell walked in the direction of the cemetery, Rose Cottage and the barn.
“Why does he want to talk to Artie?” Mrs. Sack asked me.
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