Murder, She Wrote: Murder on the QE2 Page 2

  “Bravo!” I said.

  “Thought you’d get a chuckle out ’a that, Mrs. F. Now, what’s this I hear about you takin’ a cruise on the Queen Elizabeth 2?”

  “It’s not a cruise, Mort. It’s a crossing. The North Atlantic, unless bad weather causes the captain to choose a more southerly route.” I remembered that from when Frank and I made the crossing.

  “Sure you want to do it?” he asked.

  “Why wouldn’t I, for heaven’s sake?”

  “Well, Seth told me about it, and he thinks—”

  Of course. Mort’s concern was really Seth Hazlitt talking.

  “Mort,” I said, “I am thrilled at the chance to sail on the QE2 again. I can’t wait. Did Seth tell you I’ll be writing an original murder mystery play, to be performed onboard?”

  “Ayuh, that he did.”

  “Isn’t that wonderful, Mort?”

  “Frankly, Mrs. F., that’s really the point of why I called.”

  “What is the point, Mort?”

  “Well, you know how I invented that murder mystery board game, and almost sold it to Parker Brothers?”

  “Yes.”

  “About a year ago I decided to write a play based on that same board game.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yup. I did. And I was wondering whether you might want to use it on your cruise.”

  “Crossing.”

  “Crossing. Seth said you’re writing a play for some director out in Hollywood.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Well, I figured you might show my play to him, suggest he buy it. With your fame and influence, Mrs. F., he should listen up to you.”

  I didn’t know what to say.

  “Mrs. F.?”

  “I’m here, Mort.”

  “How about it? We could share the money. Royalties, they call it. Right?”

  “Right. Mort, I’ll be happy to read your play.”

  “I’ll head over with it right now. Always keep a copy in the car, just in case.”

  “Just in case? Of course. I understand. I’ll be here. But Mort, I can’t promise to submit it to the director. They’re paying me to write the play.”

  “I know, I know, Mrs. F., but maybe—”

  “I look forward to seeing it,” I said.

  I’d no sooner hung up, and had gone to the kitchen to make myself a cup of tea, when the phone rang again.

  “Hello?” I said into my kitchen extension.

  “Jessica?”

  “Charlene?”

  “Yes. How are you?”

  “Just fine. You?”

  “Great.”

  Charlene Sassi owns Cabot Cove’s best bakery. She’s a world-class cook and a friend.

  “Jess, I just heard about your cruise on the QE2, and that you’re writing a play for it.”

  Amazing, I thought, how efficient the Cabot Cove grapevine was. It’s more effective than the Internet and World Wide Web combined.

  “It’s a crossing, Charlene. They call it a crossing.”

  “Of course they do,” she said, laughing loudly. “That’s because it’s a ... crossing ... not a cruise. I knew that.”

  “What can I do for you?”

  “Do you remember my brother’s oldest boy?”

  “No.”

  “His name is John. He goes to the U of Maine at Orono.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “He wants to be a writer. Plays.”

  “Oh?”

  “And he’s written an original murder mystery. I bet he was inspired by you.”

  “That’s very flattering, Charlene.”

  “Well, when I heard there was going to be a professional acting group from Hollywood on the cruise ... the crossing ... I immediately thought you might want to submit John’s play to the director. It’s so hard for a young person to reach big-time directors, as you well know.”

  “Yes, it is,” I said. I went on to explain that the director, Rip Nestor—was he a big-time director?—I doubted it—wanted me to write the play.

  There was a stony silence on the other end.

  “But I’d love to read John’s play,” I quickly added.

  “You would?”

  “Absolutely,” I said.

  After hanging up, I realized I’d committed to reading two plays, without even having begun writing my own. Not being able to say no is a curse I share with many writer friends. Reading other people’s work is time-consuming, especially if you take it seriously and want to offer constructive editing and advice.

  Oh, well. I’d find the time.

  I always do.

  Chapter Three

  It had snowed in New York the day before I flew there from Cabot Cove for two days of meetings. But the sun was shining brightly as Jed Richardson, owner, operator, and only pilot for Jed’s Flying Service, landed smoothly at La Guardia Airport in one of his three aircraft, a single-engine Cessna. Jed decided to stick around New York until it was time for me to fly back, so we shared a taxi into the city and checked into the hotel before going our separate ways.

  Rip Nestor insisted we have lunch at a Manhattan sushi restaurant. I am not particularly fond of raw fish, no matter how beautifully it’s presented. Unless, of course, it’s shellfish served as part of a classic New England clambake. But I didn’t protest Every sushi restaurant I’ve been to offers other choices for customers with a pedestrian palate, like me.

  Mr. Nestor was, I judged, in his early thirties. He was tall and slender, with reddish hair pulled tight from front to back across the top of his head, and down into a long ponytail. He wore tight jeans, laced-up ankle-high work boots, a green T-shirt with NESTOR PRODUCTIONS emblazoned in white across the chest, and a tan safari jacket. Multiple gold chains of varying lengths, large sunglasses, and an expensive leather shoulder bag completed the Hollywood picture.

  “Good trip?” I asked after we’d been seated.

  “The red-eye,” he said, yawning to make the point. “How do you get here from Maine?”

  “We actually have an airport in Cabot Cove,” I said.

  He smiled. “I didn’t mean—”

  “A good friend flew me here,” I said. “He runs a small air service out of Cabot Cove. A small, single-engine plane. But convenient. He was a top-rated airline pilot for years.”

  “How’s the script coming?” Nestor asked, picking up a menu and lifting his sunglasses in order to read it.

  “I told you I wouldn’t start on it until we had this opportunity to talk.”

  “Sushi? The combination platter?” he asked, returning menu and sunglasses to their previous positions.

  “I see they have tempura,” I said. “I’ll have that.”

  “Cholesterol city,” he said.

  I ignored the comment, and we ordered. I asked, “Do you specialize in producing and directing murder mystery plays, Mr. Nestor?”

  “Call me Rip, please.”

  I always have trouble calling people Chuck, or Buck, or Rock, and now Rip. But I did. “All right, Rip,” I said. “Do murder mysteries constitute the bulk of your work?”

  “No,” he said. “I do a lot of low-budget films. A couple of made-for-TV shows. But interactive mysteries are very popular these days. V-e-r-y popular. So I set up Malibu Mysteries. We do dinner theater up and down the state.”

  “Interesting,” I said. “Do you work ships very often?”

  “More and more. But this is my first on the QE2. You ever been on it?”

  “Yes. Years ago. I was with—” I felt a lump developing in my throat and changed the subject. “So, Rip, tell me what you want in this script I’m to write.”

  “I really prefer to leave that to you, Mrs. Fletcher.”

  “It’s Jessica.”

  “Right. It’s your call, Jessica. Actually, I have a dozen, maybe more, standard plays we use. Different styles, different approaches to match up with whatever audience books us. We do a lot of corporate work. Conventions.”

  “I see.”

 
; “But the entertainment director for Cunard decided

  since you were going to be on board anyway giving a lecture, it would be good marketing to have you write an original play. I assume they’ll advertise it a lot. Makes sense.”

  “I suppose it does. I still wish you could give me a better idea of the sort of play you’d like me to write.”

  He responded by pulling videotapes from his bag and handing them to me. “These are two of our most popular shows. I wasn’t going to give them to you because I didn’t want to influence what you write. But they’ll give you an idea of how I work.”

  “Thanks,” I said, putting the tapes in my bag.

  “Actually,” he said, “I do have an idea on how to make this show different. You know, special—aside from it being written by the world’s most famous mystery writer.”

  “I’m hardly that,” I said.

  “You’re too modest. Cunard’s entertainment director gave me the names of the other lecturers who’ll be on board. Quite a list. Troy Radcliff, the mountain climber. The TV chef, Di Giovanni, and that strange lady who talks to plants and flowers. Oh, and the judge from the K.C. James trial.”

  “Judge Solon.”

  “Right. And that bitch, Marla Tralaine.”

  “Oh?”

  He shrugged. “Pardon my French. Anyway, I was thinking that maybe you could write them into the script. Just walk-on parts, a line or two. Could be fun weaving their areas of expertise into the show.”

  “An interesting idea,” I said. “Of course, it will depend upon whether they’re willing to take part.”

  “I’m sure you could persuade them.”

  “Me? Maybe the entertainment director should be the one.”

  “Whatever works,” he said. “Enjoy your tempura?”

  “Yes. It was excellent.”

  “Hate to eat and run, Jessica, but I have another appointment.”

  “And so do I.”

  Since he didn’t reach for the check, I did, paid it, and we said good-bye on the sidewalk.

  “You’ll have it to me in a month?” he said, referring to the promise I’d made during lunch to deliver the script in thirty days.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Just one last thing,” he said.

  “Which is?”

  “Keep the cast small. There’s a budget.”

  “I’m glad you mentioned it, although having all the other lecturers take part hardly accomplishes that.”

  “I mean the professional cast, the actors and actresses, the ones I have to pay. I figure the lecturers will do it for fun.”

  I wasn’t sure he was right, but didn’t wish to debate it.

  “Ciao, Mrs. Fletcher,” he said. “Thanks for lunch.”

  Chapter Four

  Having the script to write helped pass what turned out to be an especially cold and snowy late February and early March. It took me a number of false starts before I could really get into the story. One of the problems was working in a format that was alien to me.

  The last time I’d attempted to write a script was for a television adaptation of one of my novels. I was pleased with the result; the producer said he was, too.

  I knew that television shows and motion pictures were collaborative efforts, with the original writer’s work subject to rewrite by committee. But what appeared on the screen bore virtually no resemblance to what I’d written. It was demoralizing, of course, but I quickly got over it and went on to other things.

  The two videos given me by Rip Nestor proved helpful, but off-putting. If they were indicative of what he expected from me, I knew I was in for a month-long struggle. The scripts and performances were broad to the point of farce, the interaction with the audiences spirited and loud. After watching them, I knew I could never write that way. Mr. Nestor would have to be content with Jessica Fletcher’s style.

  Although I’d agreed to contact personally the other lecturers scheduled to sail with me in May to see whether they’d be willing to take parts in the play, I decided not to. I wrote the play in such a way that if any one of them, or more, declined to participate, it was easy to adapt the script on the spot to cover their absence.

  But I did watch their TV shows. I found it interesting that they all appeared on the same cable network, the Teller Network, a new addition to Cabot Cove’s cable service’s array of programs. The network’s owner, Sam Teller, was a controversial person in broadcasting. His reputation, at least what I’d read in the papers, was that of a rich, ruthless businessman whose list of enemies was long and distinguished. He was married to a young actress named Lila Sims; their names appeared in the gossip columns and on tabloid TV with regularity.

  I also stayed up late one night to watch Marla Tralaine in one of her earlier films, Dangerous Woman. She was stunningly beautiful, although I had to agree with critics that her acting range was limited and one-dimensional. But who was I to judge? I’m a writer, not an actress. In the film she played a classic femme fatale, the proverbial “other woman” who gets it in the end.

  Prompted by seeing Marla Tralaine on-screen, I went to my local library and pulled up a few old newspaper articles about her husband’s murder, and her being charged with the crime. It made for interesting reading. At least I knew something about this woman who would be one of my companions on the QE2 for five days.

  I proudly typed THE END on the script and sent it by Federal Express to Rip Nestor in Los Angeles. Feeling refreshingly liberated, at least until I got back to the book I’d shelved, I ventured out from my self-imposed hibernation to touch base again with Cabot Cove friends.

  “Well, what do you think, Mrs. F.?” Sheriff Mort Metzger asked me as we had breakfast with Seth Hazlitt in Mara’s luncheonette. An unusually early spring thaw had set in; sunlight streamed through the window into our booth and onto plates piled high with blueberry pancakes.

  “About what?” I asked.

  “My play.”

  “Oh, Mort, I meant to mention that. I didn’t want to start reading it until I finished writing my own because I was afraid it would... influence me.”

  Mort looked dejected.

  “But it’s the first thing on my agenda today,” I said brightly.

  “I was hopin’ you’d send it to your director friend in Hollywood,” Mort said, “instead of having to write one yourself.”

  “And I still may,” I said. “Mr. Nestor has a catalogue of mystery plays he uses, depending upon which audience is involved. Maybe he’ll add your play to his repertoire.”

  “You think he will?” Mort asked.

  “We’ll keep our fingers crossed.”

  We all looked up as Charlene Sassi entered the luncheonette and came to our booth.

  “Morning, Charlene,” Seth said, his corpulent midsection wedged against the table, keeping him from standing.

  “Good morning everyone,” she said, sliding in next to Mort.

  “Morning rush over?” Seth asked our favorite baker.

  “Yes,” Charlene said, exhaling with gusto. “Ran out of donuts. That hasn’t happened in a long time. Must be the break in the weather.” She looked at me. “So, Jess, will my nephew be the next Neil Simon?”

  “To be honest with you, Charlene, I haven’t had a chance to read John’s play. I’ve been so busy writing my own that—”

  “What play?” Mort asked.

  Charlene explained.

  Mort’s expression was one of abject despair.

  “Mort,” I said, “I’m perfectly capable of reading two plays.” I placed my hand on his.

  “But Charlene’s nephew goes to college,” Mort said. “He’s educated in writing. You’ll like his a lot better than mine.”

  “Well, we’ll just see,” I said. “These pancakes are delicious.”

  As always happens, reading the two scripts given me by my friends took much longer than I’d anticipated. I made pages of notes suggesting editorial changes, although I constantly acknowledged that I was not a playwright, and so my re
actions should be judged with that in mind.

  I delivered the scripts back to them, then settled in to finish my novel. It was difficult because my thoughts kept wandering to the contemplation of May twenty-eighth when I would board the QE2 for the second time in my life. But I played all sorts of mind games to keep my thoughts and energies channeled, and managed to finish the book on May twenty-second.

  It took a long time for Rip Nestor to react to the script I’d sent him. He called in late April to tell me he loved it, and that he was in the process of putting together a cast for the May twenty-eighth crossing. His call boosted my spirits, which had been flagging. Writers work alone, in a vacuum, with a lack of frequent and ongoing feedback to their creative efforts. I’ve always felt that every publisher should have someone on staff whose only job is to call writers under contract, ask how things are going, and give them a feeling that someone else cares about their work. It will never happen, but it would be nice if it did.

  Susan Shevlin, my travel agent, gave me all sorts of promotional material about Cunard and the QE2, and a handsome portfolio arrived in the mail. It contained everything I needed to know about life aboard the massive ocean-going vessel. The middle three nights of the five nights at sea would be formal. There was a three-dimensional cutaway map of the ship; it was like a small city. A “dictionary” of nautical terms briefed me on the difference between port and starboard. I was told how I could receive and send telephone and fax messages from the ship, using satellite communications. And every shipboard amenity, including the beauty shop and spa, the casino, bars and cocktail lounges (there were nine), dining rooms, computer learning center, library, bookstore, entertainment, gift shops (including a branch of London’s famed Harrods), florist, hospital and medical staff, valet and laundry services, was explained. There was a kennel for pets and a day-care center for little children.

  As I said, the QE2 is a floating city.

  The portfolio also contained my boarding pass and cabin assignment. I would be staying in Cabin Number 1037, which meant I would take my meals in the Queens Grill, one of five restaurants. I had a spark of déjà vu; Frank and I had enjoyed the ambiance of the Queens Grill level of accommodations when we sailed twenty years ago.