Murder, She Wrote Page 14

  I looked at Seth before saying in as soothing a voice as I could muster, “Not eating won’t solve anything. You need a good, hot meal, Mort. I know it’s a cliché but you have to keep up your strength.”

  “Thanks. I have to admit I am hungry.”

  “Then you’ve come to the right place,” I said, placing several slices of pot roast on a plate along with potatoes and carrots, and setting a small pitcher of gravy on the table next to the salad bowl. I filled two more plates for Seth and me, and the three of us sat down to dinner.

  “Would you like anything to drink?” I asked.

  “Just water,” Mort replied. “I don’t want to lose my edge.”

  “You’re edgy enough as it is,” Seth said. “At least let Jessica make you a cup of tea.”

  Without waiting for Mort’s reply, I put up water and we ate quietly until Seth asked, “Anything new come up at your press conference today?”

  Mort shrugged. “Nothing new on the search, just more of the same. Every time they don’t find something I heave a sigh of relief.” He took a bite of pot roast and waited to swallow before continuing. “The Caruthers funeral is tomorrow. That promises to be another media circus, and I have to find guys to cover it. My staff is getting spread real thin.”

  “Why does the funeral need police coverage?” Seth asked.

  “Traffic, if nothing else.”

  “Do you think there will be that many people at Wes Caruthers’s funeral?” I asked, pouring hot water over a tea bag and putting the mug next to Mort.

  “You never know. There’ll be lots of press, though. We’ll be needed to handle them, keep them from intruding on Caruthers’s family and others mourning his death. It’s like feeding the lions at the Central Park Zoo. If you don’t give them fresh meat, they howl. Murder is always newsworthy. These guys have nothing else new to write about, so they go wherever Mrs. Phillips goes—and I’m sure she’ll be there. A funeral makes great copy, huh? They sure won’t have much to see, just an empty hole in the ground.”

  “Empty?” Seth asked.

  “Caruthers has already been cremated,” Mort said. “Those were the instructions he left with his secretary. We had no reason to hold the body after the autopsy—no question about how he died—so we released it to the funeral home. They’ll be burying his ashes. The FBI will probably have an agent or two there checking the faces in the crowd for Jepson, probably a couple of guys from the state police, too.” He shook his head. “They’re wasting their time looking for him there.” He paused to take another bite of his food. “Jepson may be a foul ball, but he’s not stupid enough to come out of the woods to attend the funeral, not when his face has been plastered all over the media and the immediate world is looking for him.”

  “That would be stupid,” I said.

  Mort looked at his watch. “Maureen’s been missing more than twenty-four hours now. I don’t know which is worse, thinking that Jepson’s got her or that she’s lost somewhere in the woods with no food or shelter and maybe being attacked by wild animals. I have nightmares about both. At least if Jepson is holding her hostage, she won’t be starving. I figure he knows how to break into a cabin, but then again—” He trailed off and put down his fork.

  “I was at Nudd’s Bait and Tackle today,” I said brightly. “Tim Nudd was hanging all the pictures of the derby entrants. I think Maureen may have caught the biggest rainbow trout. Won’t she be pleased when she gets back?”

  “You think she’ll ever want to fish again?” Mort asked, irony in his voice.

  “I’m betting she will,” I said.

  “Absolutely the best thing,” Seth added. “Climb back on the horse after you’ve fallen off. Get her to teach you how, Mort. That’s what you should do. Be nice for you and Maureen to share a hobby like fishing.”

  I had to hand it to Seth. He’d been against me entering the derby and spending time alone in the cabin on Moon Lake, and had manipulated me into agreeing to have Maureen come along. I knew he felt guilty about that. But he was rising to the occasion and trying to put a positive spin on what was anything but a positive experience for our sheriff.

  Mort shook his head slowly. “I know what you guys are trying to do and I thank you,” he said, “but the longer Maureen is missing, the smaller our chances are of finding her alive and safe. That’s reality. You know they finally found that missing lady who was hiking the Appalachian Trail. Two years went by with no trace and hundreds of people searching for her. Hundreds! Her body was found only a half mile off the trail. She was an experienced hiker with knowledge and the appropriate equipment. Maureen is not experienced, and as far as we know, she’s only wearing shorts and a T-shirt and rubber clogs. Not much protection against the elements.”

  “Yes, but remember that it’s summertime, Mort,” I said. “It’s still warm at night. Besides, Maureen told us that she knows how to build a wickiup.”

  “A what?”

  “A wickiup, a rough shelter made from brush.”

  “Like the Indians used to build,” Seth put in.

  “Yeah, my wife, the scout,” Mort said grimly. Then he sighed. “Thanks for dinner, but I gotta go,” he said. “The mayor has been pressuring me to assign someone else to supervise the case and I don’t want to give him any reason to criticize me.”

  “Why would he do that?” Seth asked while I sliced a piece of pie and wrapped it in aluminum foil for Mort to take with him, along with some of the leftover pot roast in a plastic container.

  “‘Conflict of interest,’ he keeps throwing at me. I know the Feds are annoyed I’m still around, but what do they expect me to do, sit on my porch and twiddle my thumbs while the world is out looking for my wife and an escaped murderer? No way! I want to know everything as it happens, and the only way that will take place is if I keep my ear to the radio and monitor daily reports.”

  “Can’t you still do that if you’re not supervising the case?” I asked.

  “Don’t you start on me, Mrs. F.,” he said. “I gotta do what I gotta do.”

  “Of course,” I said, sorry that I’d questioned his decision.

  I tucked a napkin and a plastic knife and fork into the paper bag with the food. “Just make sure you take the time to get enough to eat,” I said, handing him the bag.

  “And if you think you need something to help you sleep, come see me,” Seth said.

  Mort’s eyes went from mine to Seth’s. “I appreciate all you’re doing for me. I know Maureen would thank you if she were here.”

  Seth cleared his throat. “You’ll have to get your wife to cook us up a special dinner when she gets back.”

  “Yeah, I’m sure she’d like that,” Mort said, grabbing his Stetson off the hook on my wall. “Thanks for the food—and the friendship.” His eyes clouded over with tears and he quickly left, shouting at the reporters to find something better to do as he got behind the wheel and sped away.

  “Delicious dinner, but I’m not sure he tasted any of his food,” Seth said as I cleared our plates.

  “The idea was to feed him, and we did. Would you like a piece of your pie for dessert?”

  “Don’t mind if I do.”

  I cut two more wedges of blueberry pie, took a quart of vanilla ice cream from the freezer, and put a dollop on each plate.

  “Ayuh, Mrs. Fletcher, you certainly know the right way to serve blueberry pie.”

  “Seth, I want to ask you something,” I said as I set his plate in front of him.

  “I’m listening.”

  “I’ve been looking into the group of boys who were Darryl Jepson’s friends at the time of the robbery and killing at the mini-mart.”

  “Humph. Didn’t think you’d be standing idly by.”

  “I don’t know if learning about them will help find Maureen, but it’s given me something to pursue. Like Mort, I don’t want to sit on my porch and tw
iddle my thumbs.”

  He scooped up a spoonful of pie and ice cream and looked me in the eye. “I suppose you’ll be wanting to attend the service for Wes Caruthers.”

  I feigned surprise. “Why would you think that?”

  “We’ve been friends for a very long time, Jessica. I know the way the mind of J. B. Fletcher works.”

  “Am I that transparent?” I asked.

  “Not a matter of transparency, Jessica. It’s just that I’ve never known you to sit back when there are questions to be answered. Now, I’m still waiting for you to tell me what it is you wanted to ask me.”

  “Nothing important,” I said. “I just wondered whether you’d give me a ride to the funeral tomorrow.”

  His smile was self-serving. “Happy to,” he said. “By the way, is that your phone ringing?”

  “My what? Oh, good heavens.”

  I’d left my cell phone in my shoulder bag across the room, but by the time I found it my caller had hung up.

  “Anyone important?” Seth asked.

  “It was Mort, but I took too long to answer and his call went to voice mail.”

  “You’re going to listen to his message, aren’t you?”

  “Of course,” I said. “I hope it’s good news.”

  I pressed the button for voice mail and turned on my phone’s speaker so we could both hear Mort’s message.

  “Mrs. F., don’t say I didn’t tell you, but your buddy has taken off.”

  There was a lot of noise in the background and I tried to raise the volume even higher.

  “What’s he mean?” Seth asked.

  “I’m not sure,” I whispered.

  “Did you hear that, Mrs. F.? Your buddy Brian Kinney has flown the coop. He agreed to house arrest. Just in case, I had an ankle bracelet on him with a GPS. I thought he was a late sleeper. The GPS indicated that he hadn’t moved for hours. But he must’ve figured out how to get the bracelet off. I’m on my way there to pick it up. He’s probably gone to meet up with his old buddy Jepson. Another one out in the woods. Wish I’d locked him up.” Click.

  “Oh, dear,” I said, looking at Seth. “This is getting worse and worse.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Mort’s prediction about attendance at the graveside service for Wes Caruthers proved accurate, but he wasn’t there. In addition to two of Mort’s deputies, I spotted Evelyn Phillips, editor of the Cabot Cove Gazette, and a gaggle of other reporters who followed her around like goslings.

  We gathered with the other mourners around a newly excavated square grave, in the center of which sat a marble box with an engraved pewter plaque affixed to its side. In the crowd of about thirty people was a young man dressed in army camouflage whom I presumed was Cory Caruthers, son of the man whose passing we were marking and who Harvey Richardson said had arrived in town days before his father’s murder. I’d never met Cory Caruthers, but how many young men in uniform would be attending the funeral? Besides, he looked like his father, a younger version of course, but with Wes’s prominent jaw and high cheekbones.

  While the face of the young man in camouflage was familiar only because of his genes, the face of the man standing next to him was one I’d recently come in contact with. It was Hank Thompson, our second-day guide in the fishing derby.

  So some of the “five musketeers” Jeff Grusen had spoken of did still keep in touch with each other, was my thought.

  “Is that Sharon Bacon over there?” I asked Seth, pointing to the opposite side of the gravesite.

  “Believe it is. Didn’t she work for the attorney Cyrus O’Connor Sr.?”

  “She did, at least until he died. She then worked for Cy’s son until he left for greener legal pastures in New York.”

  “Caruthers had a secretary, didn’t he?”

  “Several, I believe, although he was known as a loner. The scuttlebutt around town is that he was impossible to work with, irascible, inconsistent—”

  “Might as well say it,” Seth said. “The man had a reputation in legal circles as a heavy drinker.”

  “Where did you hear that?”

  “Jessica Fletcher is not the only one in town who asks questions.”

  I raised one brow at my friend and gave him my best skeptical look.

  “All right, I’ll tell you, but keep it to yourself.”

  “Of course.”

  “Judge Jacob Borden is a patient of mine—never mind what for. Anyway, Judge Borden said Caruthers gave the legal profession a black eye with his poor performance, showing up in court unprepared and on too many occasions less than sober.”

  “That kind of behavior must have lost him a lot of secretaries,” I said, “not to mention clients.”

  “Might’ve made him some enemies, too,” Seth said.

  “Maybe Sharon would know,” I said, keeping an eye on my old acquaintance. But before I could abandon Seth to make my way to her, the minister opened his Bible and began the service. While he said a prayer for the deceased, I scanned the crowd looking for other faces I might know. Standing on the other side of Cory was a middle-aged woman dressed in a black suit and wearing a hat with a veil covering half her face. I didn’t know her, but I did recognize a number of people I’d seen about town but whom I hadn’t had occasion to meet formally. Then my eyes settled on a man I could name: John Pelletier, father of Brian Kinney’s wife, Alice.

  I found it interesting that Pelletier would attend the funeral of the man who’d done such a poor job defending Brian from a murder charge, and I wondered if Alice had objected to her father’s presence, or even known about it. His stern face reflected his reputation as a my-way-or-the-highway sort of man. I wanted to speak with him, too, but that would have to wait for the service to end.

  The minister read through several pages of The Book of Common Prayer, after which the young man I was sure was Cory Caruthers stepped forward, scowled, and threw a rose on the marble box as if trying to knock it over. Without saying a word, he turned his back on the grave and walked away. The woman wearing the hat with the veil touched his shoulder as he pushed through the crowd. She murmured something to him. He shook his head, stormed off without responding, vaulted onto a motorcycle, and was gone.

  The minister waited until the growl of the engine faded, then scooped up a shovelful of dirt, tossed it on the casket, and invited others in the crowd to do the same. “Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust . . .”

  As some mourners came forward, Seth and I stepped back. He glanced down at his watch. “I’ve got patients coming in less than an hour, Jessica. If you want a ride back with me, we’ll have to leave soon.”

  “Can you give me ten minutes?” I asked.

  Seth tapped the face of his watch. “Ten minutes it is.”

  I threaded my way through the mourners and waved down Sharon Bacon.

  “My goodness, Jessica Fletcher,” she said, giving me a fast hug, “I haven’t seen you since Hector was a pup, as my mother used to say. What brings you to this event? Don’t tell me Wes ever did any legal work for you. If he did, you have my condolences.”

  “I never had occasion to use Wes Caruthers as a lawyer, Sharon, but I am interested in how he died.”

  “Of course. Silly me. Fodder for the next book, huh?”

  “Not really,” I replied, although I’d learned early in my writing career that everything I experienced in real life ended up, one way or the other, in my novels. “Do you have some time to talk with me?” I asked.

  “Not at the moment. I’m helping Peggy Abelin set up the postfuneral luncheon. We didn’t think we’d get a crowd—there was barely anyone at the wake. If all these people show up, it’ll put a dent in the budget.”

  “Peggy Abelin was Wes Caruthers’s secretary, wasn’t she?”

  “Yes, one of many, as it happens. The ones before her didn’t last long. Wes was—how
can I put it delicately?”

  “No need to explain,” I said, “but why are you involved with Peggy and the funeral?”

  “When Wes was found dead, Peggy called and asked me to come out of retirement to help her make sense out of his office.”

  “It was that bad?”

  She raised her eyebrows. “It was a mess, Jessica. The man was such a slob. When I saw his office, I thought it would take years to bring some order to it, but we needn’t have worried. The police arrived shortly after and cleaned the place out in no time. After they photographed everything, they walked off with all Wes’s files, plus his and Peggy’s computers. There was nothing left to sort out except the furniture. The authorities really worked fast, which is to be expected I suppose. After all, they’re saying now that Wes Caruthers didn’t just drown; he was a murder victim.”

  “Did the police find anything that might indicate who or what killed him?”

  “If they have, I’m not aware of it. All his papers are being stored at the district attorney’s office, and I assume that what’s on the computers is being examined by the state police’s tech experts.” She shook her head. “How the DA will get through all of those files without Peggy’s help I can’t imagine. Anyway, Peggy asked if I’d mind helping out with the postfuneral plans.”

  “Did Wes leave a will?”

  “He should have. He was a lawyer. Not that that means he did anything, right? Do you want me to give you a lift to the luncheon? I have to get there to see how many people walk through the door.”

  “Thanks. I’d appreciate that.”

  I saw Seth scowling in my direction. I waved good-bye, pointed at Sharon who waved at him, too, and made a motion as though I were steering a car. Seth nodded that he understood and walked toward where he’d parked. I followed Sharon to her car.

  “I thought I was having fun being retired,” Sharon said, snapping her seat belt over her ample stomach. “My garden has never looked so good.”