Murder, She Wrote--A Date with Murder Read online

  “Soup’s on, as they say,” Babs announced.

  * * *

  • • •

  We ate at the smaller, more intimate table in the kitchen, forsaking the formality of the dining room. Babs had made a chicken dish I don’t recall her ever trying her hand at before, her apprehension at how we’d respond to the dish almost palpable.

  “It’s delicious, Babs,” I offered for the three of us.

  “She’s right, Mom,” Alyssa chimed in.

  Chad’s mouth was full, so he nodded his affirmation.

  Babs breathed a sigh of relief. “I got the recipe from Cabot Cove Catering at the affair they did at the library. Almost added it to the Labor Day menu, but I didn’t want to risk a riot by replacing the hot dogs, hamburgers, or lobster rolls.”

  I cut another slice of the chicken, grateful to have my appetite back. “Take away the lobster rolls and I would’ve led that riot.”

  Chad angled his gaze toward me. “So, Mrs. Fletcher, Alyssa tells me you’re the reason she wants to be a writer.”

  “She would do well to find a better role model—one whose books aren’t sold between the deodorant and the hosiery. And call me Jessica, please.”

  “That seems to have worked pretty well for you . . . Jessica.”

  “I’ve been lucky. That’s the nature of this business. Right place at the right time beats talent any day of the week.”

  “You’ve still sold an awful lot of books. Sixty million or something like.”

  “Some Internet site tell you that?”

  “Several of them, actually.”

  “That’s probably the number of copies I have in print. Sales, well, that’s something else altogether.”

  Alyssa grinned, as she worked some broccoli onto her fork. “I’d take those numbers. For my first novel anyway. We’ll do better on the second.”

  “When I was in junior high,” I offered, “you know what the bestselling book of all time was?”

  “Not the Bible?” Chad chimed in.

  “No, it’s too easy to steal them from hotel rooms. Valley of the Dolls,” I pronounced. “By Jacqueline Susann.”

  “Never heard of it,” said Chad.

  “Or her,” Alyssa added.

  I leaned closer to her. “That’s the point. You can be better than me or Jacqueline Susann. You can write something that matters, but I’m honored I influenced your dreams.”

  Something chirped inside a pocket of the vest Chad was wearing, and he pulled out the same giant phone Mort had.

  “I got it!” He beamed at Alyssa.

  “Got what?” Babs asked.

  “The new Star Wars movie,” Alyssa answered before Chad had the chance.

  Babs looked confused. “But that’s not coming out for weeks.”

  “Not in theaters,” Chad acknowledged. “But the studio sends advance copies out selectively. Everything’s digital these days, even much of what you see played in the multiplexes. No more prints—just digital files sent through secure networks.”

  “Apparently,” I noted, “not very secure at all.”

  “You give me the firewall and I’ll find a door,” Chad boasted, exuding confidence.

  “But that’s a crime,” Babs said, her tone difficult to decipher. “By downloading that movie, you’re a criminal.”

  “Well, we don’t actually download it—nobody does. The people the film is sent to are provided with a code that enables them to watch it on what the studio thinks is a secure server.”

  “So he’s not really stealing anything,” Alyssa piped in, smirking. “He’s too pretty to be a criminal.”

  “Hey, don’t call me pretty.”

  “Then cut your hair and get a tattoo.”

  “Good idea. I was thinking ‘Alyssa.’”

  “I,” Babs interjected, clearing her throat, “was thinking no.”

  I leaned closer to Chad, my interest in this hacking thing piqued. “So you hacked the studio’s secure server.”

  “I wrote code that allowed me to talk to it, machine to machine. So I didn’t really steal the film—the server gave me permission to watch it.”

  “Isn’t that still hacking?”

  “Hacking,” Chad told me, “is level one. What I do is level ten.”

  “Modest,” Babs joked to Alyssa, “isn’t he?”

  “If you ever want to write about hacking in one of your books, Jessica, I’m available to consult.”

  “I don’t think I’ll be able to afford you much longer.”

  “I take care of my friends,” Chad said, smiling across the table. “Just ask Alyssa.”

  “I’d rather not,” said Babs.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “Thanks for seeing us on such short notice, Mr. Booker,” Mort said to Sean Booker, president of LOVEISYOURS, after we were ushered into his office the following morning.

  “When you mentioned the murder of one of our clients, Sheriff,” Booker began, leaving it there.

  He was a nondescript man who looked very much like the sort who might need the services his own company provided. An administrator as opposed to the older version of Chad I was expecting. He wore a tie and shirt, his suit jacket draped over the back of his chair. The kind of man you forget as soon as you leave his company, the kind who prefers anonymity, shuns the spotlight, but runs a tight ship. Mort and I were facing him from matching chairs set before his desk that were stiff and uncomfortable, making me think meetings didn’t last very long at LOVEISYOURS.

  The company’s headquarters was situated in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts—anywhere from a few minutes to an hour from downtown Boston, depending on traffic. It was housed in a stately white building that still carried the dark window awnings of the law office that had previously occupied it, and overlooked Route 9 beyond. The three-story building also turned out to be just down the street from Frank Pepe Pizzeria, which for my money was the best anywhere. I found myself craving a slice, or two, or more, while seated across from Sean Booker.

  “Please tell me how I can help you, Sheriff Metzger and Mrs. . . .”

  “Fletcher,” I reminded him, glad Booker had never heard of me, “Jessica Fletcher.”

  “She consults with my department from time to time,” Mort offered, by way of explanation for my presence.

  “That would be up in Maine, Cabot Cove to be exact,” Booker noted. “Not a place you’d expect to be synonymous with murder.”

  You don’t know Cabot Cove, I almost said, before Mort responded.

  “We like to think so,” Mort told him. “This is a most unusual case and the actual murder victim wasn’t your client.”

  “Oh, no?”

  “But we believe the circumstances of your client’s death may have a direct bearing on our case. Isn’t that right, Jessica?” Mort said, passing the ball to me, as he often did.

  “Mr. Booker, your client became embroiled in unusual, and potentially criminal, circumstances in the immediate aftermath of a date he arranged after registering on LOVEISYOURS. His name was Hal Wirth, and we’ve come here in the hope of learning the name of the woman he arranged the date with.”

  Booker’s flat expression seemed to crack. “I’m afraid that information’s privileged. Legally, I’d need a warrant to produce to it. Nothing personal, just policy. Our clients expect confidentiality from us at every turn.”

  “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Mort suggested. “Right now, we’re not even sure there’s anything to seek a warrant about. We’re just talking here, having a friendly conversation. Isn’t that right, Mr. Booker?”

  “If you say so, Sheriff, I guess.”

  “And I do say so. I most certainly say so. You don’t need a warrant to bring up what you can on Hal Wirth, do you? His death should void the confidentiality agreement. That’s right, isn’t it?”

&nb
sp; “Well,” Booker said, clearly hedging.

  “I’ll get that warrant if you like, Mr. Booker. I’ll tell the judge I need a broad overview of your company’s workings. Who knows what I might find on top of what I’m looking for?”

  Booker swallowed hard.

  “So I’m going to ask you again. You don’t need a warrant to bring up what you can on Hal Wirth, do you?”

  “No, Sheriff, I don’t,” Booker relented.

  Mort leaned back again. “Well, there you go. Now we’ve got a place to start.”

  Booker started working the keys of one of three computers dominating his desk. I realized not a single scrap of paper was in evidence anywhere, nor could I see any pens. “Please spell the man’s last name.”

  “W-i-r-t-h. First name Hal, although it’s possible he registered under Harold. And he may have listed his location as Granite Heights, not Cabot Cove.”

  “That information is optional and not necessarily recommended,” Booker said, typing away and not looking up from his screen. “States or the nearest cities are normally all clients supply. Very seldom specific hometowns. Nobody wants to risk becoming a target.”

  “Does that happen?” I said, unable to help myself. “Do some of your clients find themselves targets?”

  “The more vulnerable ones are susceptible to a wide range of scams including identity theft and catfishing, so we take every precaution, both in the registration process and our own internal security measures, to keep our clients’ personal info secure. Generally, they reveal only what they wish to and never anything like Social Security numbers or passwords. Nothing like that. These are people who uniformly value their privacy above all else, because, after all, using our services very much falls under the auspices of their private lives. I can tell you that while we have our share of complaints we have to deal with and negative reporting on clients we have to address, our options are limited.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because if we kick someone off our site, that doesn’t stop them from registering on another, where they are likely to repeat the same behavior. Others have been known to reregister on LOVEISYOURS with a new username and password, so we have no way of recognizing them.” Booker’s eyes narrowed on the screen. “Could you spell that name for me again?”

  “W-i-r-t-h,” Mort answered this time.

  “Well, that’s a bit odd,” Booker followed.

  Mort and I leaned forward together, me speaking before he had a chance. “What?”

  “We have no one by that name in our database and never have.”

  Mort looked at me before responding. “But you just said clients didn’t necessarily have to use their own names when registering.”

  “Not when setting up their pages, but their accounts are different. We need a credit card to process our monthly fees, and for that, we do require their actual documented identities. Birth date, Social Security number—all that sort of thing.”

  “Social Security number?” I said, exchanging another gaze with Mort.

  “It’s the best way to protect our clients, Mrs. Fletcher. I’m sure you’ve heard at least some of the horror stories associated with dating sites, including, unfortunately, ours.”

  “Actually, I haven’t.”

  “I’ll spare you the details. Suffice it to say these incidents are rare, exceedingly rare, but when they occur, the burden falls upon us to do everything in our power to make sure that they’re documented and reported to the proper authorities. If you’d like me to be more specific . . .”

  “That won’t be necessary,” Mort told him.

  “Since Mr. Wirth’s online profile may have included an alias, would you happen to know the name as it appears on his credit card?”

  “You could try the name with the middle initial F.”

  I could see Booker enter the data four separate times, each to no avail, judging from his expression.

  “Nothing, I’m afraid.”

  “Try ‘Wirth Ventures,’ his company’s name,” I suggested. “Or ‘Wirth Ventures Inc.’”

  Booker obliged, trying any number of combinations again before shaking his head and looking across his desk at us once more. “I’m afraid we have nothing on record under any of those names.”

  “Is it possible he deleted his profile and canceled his registration after his first date didn’t go well?”

  “Of course, and I probably shouldn’t say this, but that’s not at all uncommon. However, I would still have access to both, since the profile and customer information remains archived in our system. And, by all indications, no one named Hal, or Harold, Wirth has ever had an account with us.”

  Mort and I looked at each other again, equally mystified. This was something we’d had no reason to anticipate, and it made no sense.

  “Is there any other means you have of checking?”

  “Well, we’ve added software that allows clients to tell us not only what they’re looking for in a match, but also what they’re not. The qualities, physical and otherwise, they want to avoid. So we’ve developed a very sophisticated facial-recognition program that goes hand in hand with that. If you could have a picture of Mr. Wirth forwarded to me . . .”

  “No need,” I said, reaching into my handbag and clawing past my so-called smartphone to pull out an envelope. “I brought one with me.”

  I’d asked Babs for a picture the night before, without explaining my intentions, in anticipation of just this eventuality. Mort looked flabbergasted that I’d thought of such a thing, as I slipped the picture of Hal from the envelope and handed it across the desk to Sean Booker.

  He ran the picture through a scanner perched on a ledge behind his desk chair, and then I watched him work some keystrokes to likely input it into the LOVEISYOURS database in search of a match. I settled back to wait, having no idea how long such a process would take.

  It didn’t take long.

  Wordlessly, he turned the computer on which he’d been working around so Mort and I could see the screen.

  NO MATCH FOUND

  “I don’t know what to say,” Booker offered apologetically. “Perhaps Mr. Wirth was using a different dating service instead of LOVEISYOURS.”

  “I suppose that’s possible.” I shrugged. “But all indications led us here.”

  “Have you checked his credit card and bank statements to confirm that?”

  “Not yet,” Mort told him, “but we will now.”

  “Could you check your database for the name ‘Naomi’?” I interjected.

  Booker got his fingers poised anew on the keyboard. “Any last name?”

  “No, but she went by ‘Nan’ and would have been somewhere close in terms of zip codes.”

  It didn’t take long for the results to come up on the monitor screen Booker had tilted back to face him. “We do have several Naomis, and even a few Nans, in our database, but none whose profile lists both names and none within several hundred miles of Granite Heights, Cabot Cove, or the city of Boston.”

  We’d been flummoxed again. Unless Hal had included something in his memoir either purposely or inadvertently false, none of this made any sense.

  Booker rose a beat ahead of us. “I’m sorry I couldn’t have been of more help. If you could tell me one thing . . .”

  Mort nodded.

  “Do you have any reason to believe Mr. Wirth’s death was connected in any way to his use of our services?”

  “It’s an ongoing investigation.”

  “How am I supposed to take that?”

  “As the only thing I’m at liberty to say at this time, Mr. Booker,” Mort said sternly. “The Cabot Cove Sheriff’s Department has their policies about such things, just as you do.”

  Booker handed us both a card. “Well, if there’s anything else I can do, please don’t hesitate to call.”

  Mor
t handed him his card. “And if you think of anything in the meantime . . .”

  He took Mort’s card and pocketed it absently. “Of course, Sheriff.”

  Mort started for the door, before turning to look back toward Booker. “One more thing, Mr. Booker. Am I the first law enforcement official who’s been in this office inquiring about a criminal matter?”

  “No, Sheriff,” Booker said without hesitation, “just the first when it comes to murder.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  We walked into Pizzeria Napoletana, more affectionately known just as Frank Pepe’s, shortly after the lunchtime rush had abated. It was located in a mall right next to Morano Gelato, and Mort and I managed to snare a table inside the restaurant proper instead of having to sit amid a tight cluster of establishments in the mall’s food court.

  “I’m sorry I wasted your time, Mort,” I said, after we’d ordered a large, half-plain (for me) and half-spinach-and-mushroom (for Mort).

  “How could you have known? Usually your hunches are spot-on. What do you make of what we learned in there, or didn’t learn?”

  “I have no idea what to make of any of it. It just makes no sense.”

  “Unless Hal Wirth used a different matching service. Maybe he lied about using LOVEISYOURS in his memoir.”

  “Why would he do that? The whole point of a memoir is to tell the truth. And if Hal wanted to lie, or omit, he could have just made up a name. No, Mort, it was LOVEISYOURS.”

  “Not according to Mr. Booker. You think he was holding something back, covering his ass?”

  “No. He didn’t find Hal in his system because Hal’s not in the system. At least, he no longer is.”

  “Nor is this Naomi.”

  “You have that giant phone of yours handy?”