Murder, She Wrote: Murder on Parade: Murder on Parade Read online

  There were those who felt that Chester’s presence on the town council had become detrimental. Others wondered why he’d been reelected the last time out. But Chester had his followers, too, who agreed with his view of things and liked having an irritant on the board. “No point in being a rubber stamp,” Chester had said on many occasions.

  “Oh, my goodness,” Kathy said in response to Chester’s rising voice.

  He was now yelling at the mayor and his fellow council members: “I’m telling you, there isn’t one of you with the backbone to tell Mr. Joseph Lennon and his accomplices to get lost, to butt the hell out of our business and let Cabot Cove be what it’s always been, a damned decent town that doesn’t need Lennon’s money or anything else from him.”

  “Calm down, Chester,” Jim Shevlin said, placing his hand on Chester’s back and trying to steer him out of the room. I looked to where the executive from Lennon-Diversified had finished packing up and now stood alone in a corner, his attention focused on the scene playing out in front of him.

  The mayor managed to get Chester halfway to the door, but the irate senior citizen spun away and approached the Lennon-Diversified man.

  “What’s your name?” Chester demanded.

  “Dante.”

  “Dante what?”

  “Why don’t you go home, sir, and take a nap?” Dante said.

  “Don’t tell me what to do,” Chester shouted. He was now only a few feet from the younger man, and his imposing physique caused Dante to take a few steps back. “And you tell that boss of yours, Mr. Joseph Lennon, that we don’t need his money or his business here in Cabot Cove.”

  “What did you do, forget to take your medicine this morning, old man?” Dante said, grabbing the overhead projector by its handle and moving in the direction of the door.

  Chester lunged at him, but two men who’d gotten close grabbed his arms and kept him from physically attacking. “The whole damn bunch of you ought to be shot,” Chester bellowed as he was led from the room.

  “Poor Mr. Carlisle,” said Wilimena. “I wonder if he is losing it.”

  “I don’t think so,” Kathy replied as the three of us left the delightfully air-conditioned building and stepped out into the baking sunshine. “He’s always been emotional about things. I like that in a man. That’s why I voted for him.”

  “He cares deeply,” I offered, “but it would be better if he could rein in his emotions. So little gets accomplished by shouting.”

  We walked slowly to the corner—Wilimena’s gimpy leg and the heat assured a leisurely pace.

  “Where are you off to next?” Kathy asked me.

  “Another meeting. I volunteered to work with the youngsters putting on the pageant.” I laughed. “They are so adorable, proudly dressed up to resemble our forefathers and speaking their historic words.”

  “Did you see the rock-and-roll band?” Willie asked.

  “No,” Kathy and I said. “Are they here already?”

  “They sure are,” Willie confirmed. “Lots of hair and strange clothes. I was down near the depot when their bus pulled in. They have enough electronic amplification to broadcast to the entire state of Maine.”

  “Where are they staying?” I asked.

  “The Holiday Inn, I think,” Wilimena said. “I’m heading home,” she continued, and said good-bye to us, limping off.

  “Can I drop you somewhere, Jessica?” Kathy asked.

  “You know, I think you might. I left my bike parked back at the town hall, and after this next meeting I’m picking up live lobsters from Ron Silver. Carrying them home on the bike in this heat is guaranteed to steam them before I even get there.”

  “Where’s your meeting?”

  “The middle school.”

  “And how long will it go?”

  “Should be over by four.”

  “I’ll pick you up,” Kathy said. “Don’t worry if it runs late. I’ll come in and watch.”

  None of our schools in Cabot Cove are air-conditioned. The middle school had been closed since the end of the school year in June, and the maintenance crews had gone to work to spruce things up for the upcoming year. Even with the windows wide open, it was stifling inside as I entered and went to the gymnasium. A rehearsal for the Independence Day pageant was under way, directed by Robin Stockdale, a drama teacher at the high school. She saw me arrive and came to where I’d taken a seat on the lower tier of the bleachers.

  “Hi, Robin.”

  She plopped down next to me. “Got some patience to lend me?” she asked. “I’m about tapped out.”

  “Oh? Some of your little thespians forgetting their lines?”

  “I wish that’s all it was,” she said, directing a stream of air at a wayward lock of hair that had limply fallen down over her forehead. “It’s her.”

  I followed her gaze to where a young woman was talking with some of the young actors and actresses.

  “Who is she?” I asked.

  “Josie Lennon.”

  “The Lennon family.”

  “Yup. Joe Lennon’s daughter. Twenty-four years old and a legend in her own mind.”

  I laughed. “Hard to achieve legendary status at twenty-four. ”

  “Not if you have a daddy who tells you you’re the best actress in the world.”

  “She’s an actress? Professional?”

  “So she says. Her father insisted that she codirect the pageant with me.”

  “When did that happen?”

  “A few days ago. She showed up here, introduced herself, handed me a printed bio and a bunch of headshots, and said she had some way-out ideas about how to spice up the performance.”

  “And?”

  “She doesn’t have any ideas that make any sense, at least not as far as I’m concerned. She wants to have recorded rock music accompany the play. You know how Elsie Fricket usually accompanies the pageant on the piano. Well, Ms. Lennon decided that ‘old-timey’ music wasn’t appropriate for Independence Day. Rock is what was called for. Needless to say, Elsie left in a huff.”

  “That’s—that’s—”

  “That’s lots of things, Jessica, none of them making me happy. Heavy metal accompanying the words of Jefferson, Hancock, and Davis. Oh, boy! Come on, I’ll introduce you. I told her you’d volunteered to help out and would be coming this afternoon.”

  “Nice meeting you,” I said after Robin had made the introductions.

  “Me, too,” Josie said.

  Her looks were unusual, not beautiful but attractive in the way women with unusual features are often attractive. “Exotic” might be a better word to describe her. I’d not met her mother, who was spending the summer at one of the Lennons’ multiple homes, this one in British Columbia. But I had met her father on more than one occasion, and he looked nothing like her. She was no taller than five feet, two inches, and had a slender body, a dancer’s body. She was blond, but my height advantage allowed me to see black roots testifying that it wasn’t natural. Her facial features had a hint of what might have been Asian, or Arabic, ancestry, although I knew that her father was neither of those.

  “I hear that you’re helping Robin out with the production, ” I said.

  “Trying to,” she said, her tone indicating she wasn’t especially pleased at the way it was going.

  “Robin says you’re an actress.”

  “That’s right. In New York. I came home for the summer.”

  “Theater?”

  “Uh-huh. I was in an Off-Broadway play last season.”

  “That’s wonderful,” I said. “Some of the best theater these days is being staged Off-Broadway. Do I know the play?”

  “Probably not. I’m doing a one-woman show in New York next season.”

  “Oh? That’s impressive.”

  She returned her attention to a young man who’d been reciting something when I arrived. “Let’s try it again, Adam,” Josie said. “And this time say it like you mean it.”

  The youngster cleared his throat. Sweat
trickled down his cheek. I wasn’t sure if it was the heat or his fear of Josie Lennon that caused him to perspire. He straightened his shoulders and said in his pre-puberty voice, “Thus may the Fourth of July, that glorious and ever memorable day, be celebrated through America, by the sons and daughters of freedom, from age to age till the time shall be no more.”

  “That was wonderful,” Robin said.

  “It’s too flat,” Josie countered. “That’s why I want music playing behind him.”

  Robin’s face tightened.

  “Who wrote that?” I asked, more to change the subject than out of real curiosity.

  “It was in a newspaper, the Virginia Gazette,” Robin answered. “July 1777. We adapted it for our play.”

  “Let’s try it again, this time with music,” Josie Lennon said. A large boom box sat on a chair near her. She turned it on and adjusted the volume. It was the sort of music about which I know absolutely nothing, with whining guitars and a heavy backbeat from the drums. “Okay,” she said to the young man, “try it again but with more feeling this time.”

  I stifled a smile and walked away with Robin.

  “Can you believe it?” Robin said.

  “Ah—well, it is different,” I said.

  “She’s come in here and taken over, Jessica. I mean, really taken over. That one-woman show she mentioned? Her rich daddy is bankrolling it. At least that’s what I hear. Paying for the theater, everything.”

  “She’s fortunate to have a father with the wherewithal to help her launch an acting career. I know so many struggling actors and actresses in Manhattan who’ll never have that sort of support.”

  “I’ll say this, Jessica—I am fed up with Joseph Lennon and his taking over of our celebration. I wish he’d never come here.”

  “Too late,” I said. “What’s done is done. Maybe next year the council will make a different decision based upon what it learns from this experience. Now, what do you want me to do?”

  I spent the better part of the next hour mopping my brow and working with a female student who was to act as the narrator for the pageant. She was a charming, energetic youngster who took her role very seriously. The problem was I kept looking over my shoulder to see if Josie Lennon would decide to inject herself into what we were doing. Fortunately she didn’t, although the music from her CD player was consistently annoying. I considered asking her to turn it off, or at least to lower the volume. But I resisted the temptation and concentrated on my task of the moment. Before I knew it, it was a few minutes past four, and I saw Kathy Copeland sitting in the bleachers.

  “Ready?” she asked after I’d complimented the young narrator on her performance and wished her well on the Fourth.

  “Yes,” I said. “Tell me your car is air-conditioned.”

  Kathy laughed.

  Ron Silver’s lobster pound was on the dock from which Cabot Cove’s active fishing fleet, including a number of lobster fishermen, operated. Ron, a delightfully funny man, smiled as Kathy and I entered his facility. “Lobster on the menu tonight,” he said in an approving voice. “How come I wasn’t invited?”

  “Well,” I said, “you are now.”

  “Just kidding, Mrs. Fletcher,” he said. “I’ve got them ready to go for you.” He handed me the sack containing my lobsters and said, as he always did, “The thanks is in the bag.”

  I paid, and Kathy and I got in her car, then swung by the city hall to pick up my bicycle, which fit nicely in her trunk, and drove to my house.

  “I’d invite you in for tea,” I said, “but I’m afraid I’m running late. I’ve got to get these lobsters steamed and cut up. I’m serving lobster salad tonight.”

  “Sounds yummy. I’m sorry Willie and I couldn’t make it.”

  “Me, too, but I’ll invite you again.”

  “Who’s coming?”

  “Seth Hazlitt, Jim and Susan Shevlin, and Tim and Ellen Purdy.” Tim was Cabot Cove’s resident historian, and his wife, Ellen, won the annual quilting bee prize every year, or so it seemed.

  “Say hello for me,” Kathy said as she helped me remove my bike from the trunk.

  “I sure will. And thanks for the ride. I didn’t look forward to pedaling home in this heat.”

  “Wonderful dinner, Jess,” Ellen Purdy said as we left the table and moved to a screened porch at the rear of my house. Ordinarily, we would have had dessert in the living room, but it was too warm there. I’d hoped that with the AC units in the kitchen and study blowing full blast, enough cool air would make its way to the rest of the house, but it hadn’t happened. As it turned out, a breeze had come up, sending somewhat refreshing air onto the porch, aided by a large floor fan I’d set up in a corner. I brought out the pecan pie I’d purchased at Charlene Sassi’s bakery, along with plates, mugs, silverware, and a carafe filled with iced black coffee. There were no tea drinkers that night.

  “Too bad you missed the dinner at Joe Lennon’s house,” Tim Purdy said to me.

  “I was sorry to have missed it, too,” I said. “I was in New York to see my agent and my publisher. You had a good time?”

  “Very nice,” Susan Shevlin replied. “He knows how to entertain.”

  “Quite a house he has,” Ellen said, “although I could have done without his hunting trophies hanging on the wall.”

  “He goes to Africa every year big-game hunting,” Tim filled in.

  “Big-game slaughter,” Ellen said.

  There were nods all around.

  “His wife was away?” I asked.

  “She’s always away somewhere,” Tim said. “He had his vice president, Cynthia, there as the hostess in her absence, and her assistant, Dante. Impressive guy. Told me he was in the military—ordnance, I think—before he came to work for Lennon.”

  “What’s ordnance?” Ellen asked.

  “Arms, ammunition, artillery,” her husband replied.

  “Was his daughter, Josie, there, too?” I asked them.

  “Yes,” said Tim. “You know her?”

  “I met her today. She’s helping Robin Stockdale with the pageant.”