Loretta was standing behind the chair, her scissors dangling by her side. She hung on Seth’s every word and urged him on with her gaze.
“Something on your mind, Loretta?” he snapped at her.
“I was just thinking that maybe it’s time for you to consider a new hairstyle.”
“Glad to let you know when I’m ready for one. Something works for forty years, why change it? You mind giving Mrs. Fletcher and me some space?”
Loretta stepped back two feet, maybe three.
“More space than that, Loretta.”
She sneered and pranced off in a huff.
“Now,” Seth said, picking up our conversation, “where was I?”
“Telling me what you didn’t find on those digital copies of the Gazette.”
“How does anyone read a newspaper on a computer?” Seth wondered, seemingly flummoxed by the process. “How does anyone read anything on a computer or on a phone or on one of those readers?”
“They’re not my cup of tea either,” I told him, “but I’m glad I’m in the minority. I’d hate to see my book sales if I wasn’t.”
“Maybe they’d just buy books instead, the way they used to, ayuh.”
“You were saying, Seth,” I prodded him.
“Not much else to say, Jessica,” he said, pulling out a photocopy of that assembled headline fragment reading AMED PRIN F THE Y. “After I struck out with a manual review of the issues, I tried the site’s search engine. Got no hits when I put in the whole fragment and too many when I put in each part individually. It’s like the story up and disappeared.”
“I suppose it could’ve been deleted,” I told him.
“By who? And why? I never thought I’d speak the words, but where’s Evelyn Phillips when we need her?”
“You have Evelyn’s cell number?”
Seth nodded. “Been trying it every hour on the hour. I’m thinking I should ask Mort to check her house. Could be we’re up against some kind of conspiracy here.”
“A newspaper headline hardly makes much of a motive for murder.”
He frowned so deeply, it looked like his jowls had been pumped full of air. “Maybe you should read something other than mysteries, Jess. That kind of thing happens all the time in thrillers.”
“This isn’t a mystery or a thriller, Seth. It’s real life.”
He shook his head. “Since when can you tell the difference?”
* * *
* * *
I took a taxi over to the Cabot Cove Country Club and felt my heart thudding against my chest when I stepped out of the car and approached the entrance. I was used to book events and the myriad Cabot Cove functions connected to the library. I almost never had call to attend gatherings where I had no prescribed role or place. I knew in my heart I would have likely found an excuse not to attend Wilma’s party if not for its connection to Ginny Genaway’s murder.
That connection was Wilma Tisdale, and as soon as I spotted her across the lounge, where the cocktail reception was being held prior to dinner, I was struck by how little she had changed from my memory of her. I had seen her at that book signing she’d attended around ten years ago, but in my mind, Wilma was unchanged from when I’d last seen her at Appleton High. Of the remaining guests, I recognized very few, due to either how much they had changed or the fact that I’d never met many of them in the first place. By my count, Wilma had taught in Appleton for nearly fifty years. She was several years my senior and had been one of those who respected my efforts to make a difference as a sub, instead of just going through the motions, since she’d started out as one herself.
I could feel numerous eyes upon me, whispers being exchanged when the guests became aware of my presence. Unlike the vast majority of fiction writers, I’d enjoyed the good fortune to have appeared on numerous television talk shows discussing not just my books, but also the real-life investigations in which I’d often become embroiled. The end result was to make me far more recognizable than I would have preferred, and I was glad for a brief respite in the sitting area that held the gift table, where I deposited a colorful bag with a gift certificate to Cabot Cove’s local independent bookstore tucked inside.
“Jessica!” I heard a familiar voice call out, and there was Wilma Tisdale bounding across the room in her heels and wrapping me up in a big hug.
She was an inch taller than I, and I’d forgotten how strong she was; she’d once pushed her car from a snowdrift while I stayed behind the wheel working the gas pedal. She’d been an athlete of some repute in college, back in the days when female athletes garnered none of the respect they deserved and enjoyed today.
“Why, you haven’t changed a bit!” She beamed, holding me at arm’s distance after we finally separated.
“You either, Wilma.”
She waved me off, looking down at the one part of her that had changed over the years. “You mean, except for those twenty pounds I keep losing only to gain back. I have no idea why I even bother.” She gave me a closer look. “You, on the other hand, look like you haven’t gained a pound.”
“All that biking does wonders for the waistline, I guess.”
She nodded. “Maybe I wouldn’t have to keep losing that same stubborn twenty pounds if I’d never gotten my driver’s license either.”
I smiled. “I’m surprised you remember that.”
“Almost everybody drives, Jessica. It stands out.”
“Well, I can fly a plane, and not everybody does that.”
“Point taken.”
She shared my smile this time. “It’s a wonderful party, Wilma.”
She joined me in sweeping her gaze about the lounge, beyond which was the dining room, where we’d be having dinner a bit later in the evening. “How many of the guests do you recognize?”
“Not as many as I thought I would, actually. Maybe my memory’s gone bad.”
“Twenty-five years is a long time, Jessica. People come and go. A lot of these are the ones who stayed but most of them started after you deserted us for Cabot Cove. Wasn’t long after you solved Walter Reavis’s murder, was it?”
“No, not long at all. Just a couple months, until we closed on the house.”
Her expression sombered. “I read about the fire, by the way. Terrible about all the damage. I can’t imagine losing so much I’d cherished for so long.”
I nodded. “I was lucky to get out with my life.”
“To think,” she said reflectively, “that it all started back in Appleton . . .”
“The writing didn’t really start until after Frank died. Something to fill the time and all the space, too, I guess.”
“Did you ever wonder how much writing mysteries may have sprung from solving one of your own?”
I recalled that girl from Bill Gower’s sophomore English class who thought, after reading my “anonymous” story that had been rejected by every magazine to which I’d submitted it, that it might be a mystery.
“Not at the time, of course, but over the years I did, yes,” I told her, failing to mention that I’d left that fact out of every interview I’d ever done. “I felt I owed it to Walter Reavis to do right by him, the way he had done for me.”
Wilma smiled. “You know, after your first book became a bestseller, you were quite the talk in the teachers’ room.”
“Was I?”
“One of our own making good.”
“I wish I could remember her name,” I reflected, hearing the wistfulness in my own voice.
“Whose name?”
“The girl in Bill Gower’s sophomore English class who told me I’d make a good mystery writer.” And then, just like that, it hit me. “Missy—her name was Missy!”
Wilma smiled again, wider, coming up just short of a laugh, at least a chuckle. “Could you have stayed in Appleton the way things ended? If you and Frank hadn’t bou
ght your house here in Cabot Cove, I mean.”
“I don’t know, Wilma. I’ve thought about that a lot over the years, and I’m not sure I could have just picked up where I left off. People weren’t looking at me the same anymore.”
“It would’ve passed.”
“Maybe. I think everything worked out best for all concerned.”
“Not all,” Wilma corrected me, turning her gaze to the lounge’s French doors, which overlooked the patio and the golf course beyond. “Step outside with me a moment, Jessica.”
“And take you away from all your guests?”
“This can be your gift to me, Jessica.”
“I already left it on the table with all the others.”
“I’m talking about another gift,” Wilma Tisdale said, squeezing my forearm in her bony fist. “One only you can give me. How it all ended twenty-five years ago, how you caught Walter Reavis’s killer. I need to hear the story.”
Chapter Twenty-one
Twenty-five years ago . . .
Hi, you’ve reached the Dirkson residence. Please leave your name, number, and—”
Amos Tupper reached down and hit the SPEAKER button to end the call. “Looks like we need to have a talk with Appleton High’s acting principal, Mrs. Fletcher.”
Alma Potts offered to buzz Jim Dirkson on his walkie-talkie to call him back to the office, but Amos Tupper told her we preferred to wait. That wait took all of twenty minutes, through the next break in class, the hallways emptying as quickly as they had filled. Jim Dirkson stepped through the door to the main office with his ever-present bullhorn in hand, which made me think of his annoying blares down the long school halls to get kids to move along from their lockers and friends. I’d heard a few years back that the seniors had stolen the bullhorn and filled it with powder as a prank, so the next time Mr. Dirkson had used it, he was showered in white. The offenders were never caught.
He was a handful of inches taller than my five feet eight, with a slight paunch protruding over his belt, which made his shirt sag out of his pants. He’d coached football for a time and played it for years prior to that, leaving him with a big chest and neck. But his hair was dry and thinning, crusted with white flakes.
Dirkson’s eyes froze on Amos Tupper, and he barely regarded me at all.
“What can I do for you, Detective?”
“Yes, Mr. Dirkson, well,” Amos stammered, “we just had a bit of follow-up we needed. You know, some follow-up questions.”
“‘We’?” Dirkson questioned.
Amos looked my way. “Mrs. Fletcher has been kind enough to assist me in the investigation.”
“‘Assist you’?” Dirkson said, now glaring straight at me. “On what basis?”
I thought Amos might fold like a cheap suit then and there. Instead, I saw his spine stiffen, and suddenly he was almost as tall as I.
“I’m the lead detective on the case, Mr. Dirkson. So the basis of Mrs. Fletcher’s assistance is my call and no one else’s. We have two options here: cover a few routine matters here in your office or down at the station in mine. I’m going to leave the choice of which to you.”
Amos shot me a wink at that point, which made me realize I’d been staring at him through his entire monologue. Jim Dirkson, meanwhile, stood before us like a statue, his grip tightening around the bullhorn in his hand. His breathing had picked up, and I could see his nostrils flaring every time he inhaled.
“My office, then,” he relented, striding past us down the short hall toward his office without inviting us to join him.
I shot Alma Potts a look, and she flashed me a thumbs-up sign. Then I followed Amos Tupper into Dirkson’s office, his west-facing window accounting for the lack of sunlight compared with Walter Reavis’s office farther down the main office hallway.
Gazing at Walter’s closed door brought to mind something about that sixth-period meeting I’d had with him, something I couldn’t quite grasp but sensed was important. I knew this would continue to plague me until I latched onto it, but for now I had to focus on the task at hand.
“Close the door, please,” Jim Dirkson said to me after I’d followed Amos Tupper into his office.
I obliged him, and without being invited Amos took one of the matching chairs set before Dirkson’s desk. I took the other one, followed by Dirkson’s glare the whole way.
“This shouldn’t take long,” Amos said, flipping through his memo pad and having trouble finding a blank page.
“It had better not, Detective. It’s just me and my assistant running the building now, and we were already shorthanded from an administrative standpoint.”
“We just have a few matters to clear up. We can have you back on the job in a few minutes, no more.”
“So?” Dirkson said when Amos stopped there.
“‘So,’” Amos repeated.
“These matters you needed to clear up.”
“Of course, yes. Mrs. Fletcher and I have just come from an interview with our suspect, Tyler Benjamin. You identified him entering the building—is that correct?”
Dirkson frowned. “You took my statement, Detective.”
“Apologies, sir. I don’t have it in front of me.”
“The answer’s yes, then. I identified the young man entering the building when I was in my car preparing to drive off.”
“Would you mind if I asked you a question, Jim?” I chimed in, much to Amos Tupper’s visible relief.
“Since you’re here in an official capacity assisting the investigation, perhaps you should call me Mr. Dirkson, Mrs. Fletcher.”
“Very well then . . . Mr. Dirkson. My question is this: You knew the suspect, Tyler Benjamin, had been expelled for classroom outbursts. In other words, you had every reason to believe he was dangerous, yet you did nothing to approach him or follow him into the building when you saw him enter it. Would that be correct?”
“I suppose, but the fact that he had come here with violent intentions never occurred to me. I thought he’d returned to the building with permission to clean out his locker, given it had been barely a week since his expulsion. I never imagined he’d come to confront Walter and do him harm.”
“Even though you championed his expulsion for those so-called threats of violence?”
“I wouldn’t put it that way exactly.”
“What way would you put it . . . Mr. Dirkson?”
“I believed that Tyler was a troubled kid and that he needed the kind of help we were not equipped to provide him.”
“You were a football coach.”
“Yes.”
“But you never actually coached Tyler.”
“No.”
“Ever encounter any other violent football players?” I asked him.
Dirkson looked at Detective Tupper, as if hoping he’d intervene, but Amos left the floor to me.
“No others that committed murder, Mrs. Fletcher,” he managed finally. “And Tyler had certainly shown a tendency toward violence off the field, not just on it.”
“And yet, again, you say you drove off instead of following him into the building. So as violent as you believe he had the potential to be, you still left teachers and others still in the building vulnerable, not to mention Walter Reavis, whom the young man blamed for his expulsion when he should have been blaming you. Tell me, do I have that right?”
“No, you don’t. Do I feel guilty over what happened, over Tyler killing Walter Reavis? Of course, I do. Would I have done things differently if given it to do all over again? Of course, I would. But that doesn’t change the material facts here one bit.”
“Oh, I believe it does, because I don’t believe Tyler Benjamin killed anyone, Mr. Dirkson.”
“No? Well, fortunately, you’re in the minority.”
“Only because of your claim.”
Dirkson’s forehead had becom
e shiny with sweat. “Claim?”
“That you saw Tyler entering the building after hours, just minutes before the man you’ve now effectively replaced as principal was murdered. But Tyler says it was you who opened Walter’s office door when he knocked. That you sent him away and he never even laid eyes on Walter Reavis that afternoon. Tell me, Mr. Dirkson, what do you think would happen if the boy agreed to take a lie detector test?”
The sweat on Dirkson’s brow had begun to bead up, glowing in the light when he turned his gaze on Amos Tupper. “Is this how your department typically conducts an investigation?” he demanded, his tone more pleading than accusatory. “Are you in the habit of involving civilians in your murder investigations?”
“Mr. Dirkson,” Amos said, giving no ground, “the last murder here in Appleton was a dozen years ago. A woman named Thea Dunwoody hammered her husband over the head with the same frying pan she’d used to cook the dinner he’d dumped in the trash. I was a patrolman back then, first on the scene, first to see the body. You asked me if I’m in the habit of involving civilians in my murder investigations. Well, sir, I’m in the habit of doing whatever it takes. And it just so happens Mrs. Fletcher’s assistance has been invaluable so far. She’s got a keen eye for killers, and right now she’s looking straight at you.”
Dirkson rose, slowly and stiffly, lifting his phone receiver from its hook. “This conversation is over. I’m calling the chief of police right now.”
“Perhaps you should tell him about that argument you had with Walter Reavis I overheard from outside his office,” I suggested curtly.
He stopped short of dialing, his grasp tightening on the receiver in a way that made me picture him holding the trophy that had been used to kill Walter Reavis.
“Would you like to deny it was you on the other end of the line, Mr. Dirkson?” Amos asked him.
“We had a professional disagreement,” Dirkson said, plopping back down in his chair, the receiver returned to its cradle. “That’s all.”
“He phoned you at home,” I jumped in. “That means you drove back to the school after the call ended. Tyler Benjamin putting you in the office around the time of the murder makes you as strong a suspect as the boy.”
Murder, She Wrote--A Time for Murder Page 19