Then I realized it was a pair of powerful arms that had hoisted me, not some heavenly force. I felt jolted and jarred as feet pounded down the stairs, carrying me on through the building red heat of the downstairs that made me feel as if I’d pressed up against the side of a hot oven. But then there was the feeling of coolness and the blessed soak of rain pelting my superheated skin like a fire hose. I felt something soft, spongy, and wet and realized the same set of powerful arms had lowered me to the grass.
I was finally able make my eyelids flutter open, my vision blinded by the deluge that slackened just enough to reveal a blurred shape kneeling on the grass, then sharpening in clarity to reveal a figure not quite instantly recognizable in memory, but almost:
The bald man from the train.
Chapter Fifteen
“Sergeant Ben McCreedy,” he said, formally introducing himself while still kneeling over me. “Lieutenant Gelber sent me,” he said. “I’ve been watching you since you left New York.”
Good old Artie, I thought. He must’ve figured there was more to this than I was telling him and wanted to make sure it didn’t get me killed, as it almost had.
“Well, it paid off,” I said, my words ending in a deep, throaty cough that expelled smoke visibly from my lungs.
“Just don’t tell him you noticed me on the train,” McCreedy said, managing a tight smile.
“It’ll be our secret.”
He coughed some smoke from his lungs, too. He was an imposing figure even while kneeling, his big, V-shaped frame brightening in the expanding glow of the flames that were consuming my house. The scream of sirens was getting louder, and all three of Cabot Cove’s fire engines swung onto my street in single file, closely followed by a trio of Cabot Cove police vehicles.
“Let’s get you somewhere safer,” McCreedy said, positioning his hands to carry me again.
I tried to angle away from him. “I can walk. Just help me up.”
“You’re not hurt?”
I looked back toward my beloved home, more of it being consumed by flames every moment.
“Oh, I’m hurt all right,” I told him as he helped me up. “I’m plenty hurt. Just not physically.”
My knees nearly buckled under my own weight, but McCreedy stopped me from falling and held fast until my footing had stabilized. He continued to support me while I wobbled across the lawn closer to the street.
The fire department’s arrival and efforts to douse the flames seemed to happen in the very same moment. They had built a tremendous reputation within the community and prided themselves on having never lost an entire house to fire, since the move from volunteer to fully paid staff had happened on a different watch. The smoke thickened under the floods of water they unleashed upon it, the color changing from near black to gray and finally to white. I tried to breathe and realized it hurt my throat to draw in air. My whole mouth stung, including my tongue, and not from spicy food this time. I looked toward Ben McCreedy and figured my face must similarly be streaked with grime. The slowing rain had probably cleaned at least some of it off, picking up again just in time to aid the efforts of the firefighters in saving as much of my house as they could.
All the memories, the keepsakes and possessions . . . Everything I valued was contained within those walls, the sum total of so many years and experiences. Starting to catalogue the depth of that list brought tears to my eyes and bottlenecked the breath in my throat. I don’t think I ever realized what it meant to be “choked up” until that moment. As I watched stubborn flames spouting from my smoldering home, I could barely swallow, speak, or breathe. It literally felt more like a nightmare than reality, and I actually thought in that moment that I might wake up and find none if this was real.
Except for The Affair . . .
There seemed to be no way for any of the manuscript, even the final third I’d tucked under the couch, to have survived. But I couldn’t be sure until the firefighters and Mort’s people searched inside. I clung to the hope that at least some of it could yet be salvaged, given that this might well be the last copy of the manuscript in existence.
In my dazed state—I was clearly suffering from shock—the lag between sound and sight seemed especially pronounced. I watched Mort screech to a halt just free of the fire trucks, saw him climb out and jog my way, before I recorded the sound of his SUV door slamming.
McCreedy stepped forward to introduce himself. “Sergeant Ben McCreedy, Sheriff. NYPD.”
“NYPD,” Mort repeated, looking my way. “Artie Gelber?”
“Artie Gelber,” I acknowledged.
“See,” Mort started, addressing McCreedy again, “what your boss and I have in common is spending an inordinate portion of our time keeping Mrs. Fletcher here alive.” He gazed toward the house the fire department was still pouring water against to douse the flames. “I’m sorry, Jessica. Now, let’s get you into my car until the paramedics can check you out.”
* * *
• • •
Those paramedics were currently tending to Deputy Andy, who’d been found slumped unconscious, but thankfully alive, behind the wheel of his squad car. Maybe the men I’d battled upstairs had meant to kill him but failed. Maybe he’d just gotten lucky. I doubted killing a cop was a line they wouldn’t cross.
Mort always referred to his department-issue SUV as a car, too. He climbed into the back with me and closed the door, Sergeant McCreedy left searching the front yard and porch for any evidence the intruders might have left behind. Both the front and back doors were pretty much invincible; Cabot Cove might be peaceful and bucolic, but a single woman living alone can never be too careful. While the intruders had managed to jimmy the locks, McCreedy had had to break a window to gain entry. And he hadn’t realized anything was awry from his position outside until he saw the first of the flames sprout on the first floor, accounting for his entry after my attackers had already fled.
The fire department had already gotten the fire under control to the point where barely any flames remained in view. Just smoke that made my home look as if it were shrouded in thick fog. The air, even in Mort’s SUV, smelled of char and ash, something bitter and sharp, laced lightly with the scent of chemicals from burned wires, fabric, and carpets.
He handed me a handkerchief. Not until I dabbed my eyes with it did I realize I was still sobbing. Or maybe I’d stopped and started again.
“I don’t know what to say, Jessica,” Mort said, trying to soothe me. “I know how much the old place meant to you. I can’t imagine how I’d feel in your place.”
“Houses can be rebuilt, Mort,” I said, trying to sound a lot braver than I felt.
“You get a look at who did this?”
“They wore masks.”
Mort looked toward my smoldering house again. “The book?”
I managed to shrug, the life fluttering back into me, and then shook my head. I’d just lost the house I’d lived in more than any other, but I found myself thinking of The Affair, which I’d never get to finish.
Mort stole a glance at McCreedy, who continued to walk the property with his gaze angled downward. “I’m guessing you never said a word to Artie about this book.”
“I didn’t know then what I know now. But he must’ve suspected I was up to something.”
“Of course, since he knows you as well as I do. You’ve got your share of tells, Jessica. It’s not hard to figure when you’re holding something back.”
I shrugged again. “Good thing in this case, since it’s what led him to put McCreedy on my tail.”
“So Artie Gelber knows nothing about these murders,” Mort said.
“He knows about Thomas Rudd and Lane Barfield, but not A. J. Falcone and Alicia Bond. And before I left New York, Rudd’s death was only deemed suspicious and Lane’s was considered a suicide.”
“Not anymore.”
“Not by connectio
n with the others, no,” I acknowledged.
“How much of that book did you get through before . . .”
“I had about a third to go,” I said when Mort’s voice tailed off.
“Enough to give you any notion what its part in all this might be?”
I didn’t want to tell him I was so enraptured by the story that I might’ve missed the clues I was supposed to be looking for. “All I can think of is that it’s some kind of roman à clef.”
“A made-up story that’s not so made-up?”
“Very good, Mort. I’m impressed.”
“I did go to college, you know.”
“I didn’t know they taught literature at cop school,” I said, trying to sound lighter than I was feeling inside.
Living on my own for so long has left me loath to become a burden to anyone. I wanted to put on as brave a face as I could so Mort, and eventually Seth Hazlitt, wouldn’t worry and dote on me out of obligation. The quick response and miracle work by our fire department left me thinking my beloved home might yet be saved, albeit with an extensive rebuild. In the meantime, I could check into Cabot Cove’s five-star hotel, Hill House; since it was the off-season, they might even have one of the suites available for an extended stay. Not the worst place to live for a time, and, I have to admit, I’ve always been a sucker for room service.
A knock on Mort’s window almost made me jump out of my soaked clothes. I turned with him and saw a familiar face pressed against the glass:
Seth.
* * *
• • •
He’d brought his doctor’s bag and insisted on giving me a quick once-over right there in the back seat, freeing Mort to go back to supervising the investigation of all that had transpired. Fortunately, Cabot Cove’s fire chief, Dick Mann, was a retired arson investigator, and I was sure he’d be entering the smoldering, sodden interior to do a thorough inspection that might yield some indication of who my attackers might’ve been.
“Tell him to look for the book,” I said to Mort before he closed the door behind him, adding exactly where I’d hidden the rest of it when I heard the intruders’ footsteps.
“The book you told me about?” Seth asked as my eyes tracked his penlight from side to side.
I nodded.
“Don’t move your head while I’m examining you.”
“Then don’t ask me any questions while you’re examining me.”
“Consider it a cognitive exam,” he said, trading the penlight for a stethoscope. “Take a deep breath, please.”
I did.
“Another,” Seth ordered, moving the stethoscope to another part of my chest. “Good. Now turn toward the window and breathe normally.”
I did and felt him press the stethoscope tight against my slowly drying sweater.
“Well?” I asked, when he seemed to be finished with his examination.
“You’ll live, at least long enough to come see me for a more thorough checkup tomorrow.”
“Do I get a lollipop?”
“I save those for my patients who aren’t almost burned to death. Your heart’s strong and your lungs seem clear. But smoke inhalation can wreak some pretty significant havoc with the nervous system, so we’ll want to run some tests tomorrow to be on the safe side.”
“I hate when doctors say that.”
“What?”
“To be on the safe side. Translation: I’m afraid there might be something seriously wrong with you and I want to find out how long you have to live.”
His expression grew stern as he packed up his bag. “There is something seriously wrong with you, Mrs. Fletcher, that being your penchant for living out your fiction in reality, ayuh.”
“Well, Dr. Hazlitt, in this case the reality is my publisher bought a book his company seems to have no record of, written by an author who doesn’t seem to exist.”
“I think we’ll add a mental exam to the regimen of tests tomorrow.”
“Look at what’s left of my house and tell me if you think I’ll pass. Earlier today Mort and I found the body of another author in Acadia National Park who’d been given the manuscript. She’d been shot, along with a park ranger.”
“And then they try to barbecue America’s favorite mystery writer.”
“I’m hardly America’s favorite mystery writer.”
“I was trying to boost your spirits, and it certainly sounds like whoever’s behind all this is escalating.”
“The question being,” I added, “who are they?”
“I think you should go on a long vacation somewhere far away.”
“Exactly my plan, only I don’t think Hill House is as far away as you had in mind.”
“I was thinking more like Mars.”
“Too cold this time of year.”
“But at least you’d have little green men for company.” Seth’s expression tightened. “You’re not going anywhere, are you?”
“I told you, Hill House.”
“You know what I meant, Jessica Fletcher.”
“Just like you know I can’t let this go.”
“I think you were a pit bull in a past life,” Seth told me.
“A dog? Really?”
He frowned. “A mother brought her son to my office once who’d been bitten by a pit bull.”
“That’s not unusual.”
“Maybe not, but this time the dog’s teeth were still sunk in. The boy’s mother had killed the dog when she couldn’t get it to release him, and its jaws had locked in place. I separated it from the poor kid in the back of her minivan.”
I looked at him across the seat. “Is there a point to this story somewhere?”
“Ayuh. Sometimes you pay a price for not letting go.”
Chapter Sixteen
Mort conferred with Chief Mann, whose initial assessment was that my beloved home remained structurally sound and had suffered primarily smoke and water damage. The fire had been contained almost entirely in the living room area on the first floor, the fast response of the fire department having prevented the total loss that likely would have been the case had they arrived only five minutes later.
House fires spread that fast.
Mort questioned me again about the masked figures. Though my mind had cleared since we’d first spoken, I couldn’t remember anything else about them that might be helpful, although there was something lurking at the edge of my consciousness, something about the hand I’d bitten, but my mind was still too frazzled to recall what that was.
“What about the manuscript?” I asked, practically holding my breath.
“I was saving the best for last,” Mort told me. “The good news is that the couch you hid it under was pretty much burned up, but the frame withstood the worst of the flames and did a decent job of shielding the pages from the flames.”
“Decent?”
“That’s the not-so-good news. The pages are virtually intact, but both charred with ash and waterlogged, as well as clumped together like salt in the summer. I’m going to let them dry out as best they can in the sheriff’s department conference room, and then we’ll have a better idea of how salvageable they might be.” Mort coughed out some of the smoke that still filled the air like a thick cloud, dissipating much too slowly to suit me. “So, like your house, things could’ve been a lot worse.”
I followed his gaze to my smoldering home, still spitting embers, and felt a pang of both sadness and loss.
“Look at the bright side,” Mort continued, trying to make me smile. “You said you needed some new clothes.”
“I wasn’t counting on an entire wardrobe, Mort.”
* * *
• • •
A suite, as it turned out, was indeed available at Hill House of Cabot Cove, our own quaint hotel. Hill House was several steps above the local bed-and-breakfasts, blessed wi
th a rustic demeanor and charm all its own. No two rooms were alike, and entering the premises was like stepping back in time. The big wooden door opened into a spacious, airy Victorian lobby that featured ornate furniture spread atop elegant carpeting, along with a genuine oriental rug. In anticipation of my arrival, a uniformed officer stood vigil just inside the door not far from the front desk, which was actually a counter, currently staffed by an anxious-looking clerk whose name I couldn’t recall.
Seth Hazlitt had accompanied me and I was grateful for the company, though I didn’t need any help carrying my luggage—given that the only clothes available to me were currently on my back and a sodden mess. At this hour, there was nothing open to begin the process of rebuilding my wardrobe, and I was thinking I’d have to make do by wrapping myself in towels for a time, until the desk clerk graciously offered me whatever I could use from the lost and found. I salvaged a pair of fashionable athletic pants and a fleece sweatshirt from the pile, along with assorted sundries that would get me through tomorrow at the very least.
Carrying an armful of garments and toilet articles the front desk clerk had supplied, I followed Seth through the comfortable sprawl of the spacious lobby, passing a sitting area and built-in bookshelves, toward a lavish stairway featuring a hand-carved railing that spiraled toward Hill House’s upper levels. The guest rooms I recalled retained a measure of the original charm, along with some furnishings, from the hotel’s origins as the family home of a wealthy sea captain who’d run an entire fleet of merchant ships.
Much of the Hill House staff, of course, knew me all too well from a number of murders that had occurred there over the years that I always seemed to end up investigating. Of course, since it was the off-season and the hotel had only a few other guests staying the night, if anyone joined that number tonight it would almost surely be me.
That set my thinking back to consideration of where I could take this particular investigation. Beyond the hope that private investigator Harry McGraw could somehow learn the true identity of Benjamin Tally, the man who’d written The Affair, I didn’t have much, other than the content of the manuscript.
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