Dawn spread over Cabot
Cove, a rosy haze on the
eastern horizon that gave way to the sun, which rose and cast a road of fire
across the Sea. The harbor town was just
beginning to stir. Lobster boats were
rigging to set out, and seagulls glided on the breeze against the morning sky
in search of the occasional discarded bit of bait.
Jessica Fletcher
was leaning against the fence that overlooked the harbor, her head on her hand,
watching the morning unfold around her.
"You're up
and about a little early, aren't you?" said a voice, and turning she saw
her friend Dr. Seth Hazlitt walking toward her.
"Morning,
Seth," she said, smiling. "I
might say the same about you."
"You
might," Seth said, "but I have an excuse. Mrs. O'Leary had her baby this morning. It seems that every baby in that family,
including Mrs. O'Leary herself, manages to be born between four and five in the
morning. As if it were genetics or
something."
Jessica smiled
again, and turned back to look at the harbor.
"You
know," he said after a brief pause, "it seems to me that anyone
looking as tired as you has no business being up at the crack of dawn ..."
She stifled a
yawn. "I'm not tired," she
said.
"Fine, have
it your way. Not tired, exhausted."
"Seth
..." Jessica began in protest, but then she stopped. "All right," she said, "so I
didn't sleep well last night."
"Again? That's the third night this week you haven't
slept well, Jessica."
She looked back
at the harbor, and said, "I just got back from
"Or
overwrought," said Seth.
Jessica held her
silence.
"Do you want
to talk about it?" he asked.
"Not
particularly," she said with forced lightness.
"Good. We'll make it dinner, then, and we can have a
nice private chat about it this evening.
I'll bake a pie - rhubarb all right with you? And you can make some of
your wonderful red codfish chowder. Is
six-thirty okay?"
Jessica stared at
him in amazement. "Seth!" she
exclaimed. "And you have the audacity to claim that I'm stubborn!"
"I'll be
over there tonight then. Be seein' you,
Jess."
And with that he
wandered off down the sidewalk, hands in the pockets of his tweed jacket. Jessica looked after him with an incredulous
expression on her face, then sighed, cast her eyes Heavenward, and shrugged, a
"what can I do?" gesture.
The midmorning
found Jessica outside in her yard tending to the flowers in her garden. As she was carrying a flat of bedding plants
a cheerful voice hailed her from the street.
"Good
morning, Jessica!" It was Loretta
Spiegel, Cabot Cove's best beautician and most notorious gossip. She was riding her bicycle, but hopped off
and leaned it against the fence. "I
was just on my way into work when I saw you outside."
"Good
morning, Loretta!" Jessica
returned. "I was just trying to
figure where the garden needs the most help.
I guess it had a rough winter."
Loretta
laughed. "We all had a rough winter, Jessica," she said. "It's a wonder that anything at all
blooms around here. Say - have you heard
the news about the development?"
Jessica pricked
her ears. "What development?"
"Why, the
one that's supposed to go up north of town.
Apparently some company bought Greeling's Bluff ..."
"The tract
owned by that out-of-town landlord?"
"That's the
one. Anyway, they want to put up a real
spread out there - condos, hotels, the works.
Not that I think it's such a hot idea myself; I happen to like
Greeling's Bluff just the way it is."
"I didn't
even know that the land had been sold," said Jessica.
"Neither did
anybody else! That's the really strange
part about all of this. No one seems to
know anything! I guess it was actually sold
around last September. A lot of us
wondered around that time how Eve Simpson had managed to buy herself such a big
fancy car, but Eve was ... well, uncharacteristically silent about that, and
eventually the rest of the girls and I forgot all about it."
"That's very
odd," said Jessica thoughtfully.
"I mean, why would Eve want to try to keep the sale of the land
quiet?"
"Probably
because the town is going to throw a royal fit when it finds out what the new
owners plan to do with it," Loretta said.
"Which will probably happen around five o'clock this afternoon, when
the town council holds a public meeting about it."
"A meeting?
This afternoon?"
"Yes. I just found out about it myself yesterday
when Sam's secretary Mabel came in for her weekly manicure. I guess it was called on pretty short notice,
so I'm trying to get the word out.
Something about getting the town's opinions, and final board approval,
and all of that."
"Sounds like
an event not to be missed," said Jessica.
"Oh, I
certainly hope so, Jess," said Loretta.
"There hasn't been anything really good to talk about down at the
beauty parlor for weeks. I'm getting dreadfully bored." She checked her watch. "Well, Ideal'll be down there by now,
waiting for me to open the place up. Are
we still on with that appointment to give you a trim next Monday?"
Jessica
smiled. "We're on," she
said.
"Good. Well, see you later, Jessica." Loretta said, hopping back on her bike and
heading off down the street.
The late
afternoon sun streamed red through the windows of the First Congregational
Church, where the townspeople were gathering to debate the proposed Greeling's
Bluff project. Jessica made sure to
attend, and was pleased to see that the news had drawn a good crowd - but then,
development issues usually did. Many
residents had already arrived, and more were coming in. On the makeshift stage set up in the front
were seated the mayor, members of the town council, Eve Simpson, her lawyer
Niles Horton, and the various members of the firm known as the Limited: Todd Maddox, Frances Decker, and Bruce Monroe. Mort came in through a side door just before
the meeting came to order, and sat down in a corner chair next to the
stage.
Sam Booth
approached the podium, and banged the gavel.
The murmuring of the audience died down into expectant quiet.
"Afternoon,
voters," said Sam with his usual cheerful grin on his round, cheerful
face. "Sorry to bring this up on
such short notice, but we figured that given the magnitude of the proposal at
stake, we'd better make this meeting of the town council open to the public. Now, I think I'll turn the proceedings over
to Mr. Todd Maddox, senior administrator of - what was it called again, Mabel?
Oh yes - the Limited. They're a
development firm. Mr. Maddox?"
A low rustle went
through the crowd at the mention of the word "development." The town had been troubled more than once by
that word "development."
Todd Maddox
stepped forward and took Sam's place at the microphone. He was in his forties, brown hair and
mustache beginning to be shot with grey, and carried himself with an air of
self-confidence. But to the Jessica’s
eye, he seemed just a little too slick, his smile just a little too shark-like,
to be trusted on appearances alone.
"Thank you,
Mayor," he said. "On behalf of
my colleagues, it is my great pleasure to introduce the dawn of a new age in
Cabot Cove."
"What was
wrong with the old one?" somebody behind Jessica whispered. She had to keep from laughing.
"As some of
you may know already, the Limited, with the help of your own Ms. Simpson, has
just bought the piece of land north of your town known as Greeling's
Bluff. Currently a desolate wilderness
with no redeeming value of its own, just look and see how we plan to transform
it."
A picture on a
stand was set next to him, and with a flourish he removed the sheet that
covered it.
"The
Greeling's Bluff Development Project!" Maddox said. "A two hundred unit condominium complex,
twenty story hotel and recreation center, twelve tennis courts, retail outlet
mall, and the latest in security fence technology. It will be the gem of the Down East
coast."
A collective gasp
went though the assembled residents as they took in the sight before them. The blight of the Down East coast was more
like it, Jessica thought. The thing was grotesque. The artist's rendition of the sprawling
buildings portrayed them as garish, making no attempts at all to blend into the
surrounding landscape aesthetically. The
towering hotel would probably be able to be seen many miles out to sea. And the high security fence had a decidedly
"us versus them" look to it.
"The
economic benefits to your community will be immense," Bruce Monroe said,
joining Maddox at the podium. He was a
younger man, with sandy blond hair.
"Several hundred jobs will be created from the construction of the
development alone. Then of course there
will be the benefits of the infrastructural changes needed to support
Greeling's Bluff, such as wider highways leading inland, expanded water and
sewage ... new industries will flock to take advantage of these improvements."
Maureen Galway, a
bank teller, raised her hand. "Will
the community be able to take advantage of the development's amenities, like
the mall and the health center?" she asked.
Bruce Monroe
looked at his feet. "As it stands
now," he said, "the facilities are reserved for the use of the
condominium residents and guests at the hotel.
However, I'm sure something could be worked out so that residents of the
town could obtain memberships for a nominal fee."
Nominal fee,
Jessica thought. By nominal fee he
probably means a hundred dollars a month, or something equally outrageous that
none of us could afford. Had living in
A man stood up in
the back; she recognized Rory Hunter, the manager of the local grocery store. "You mentioned more jobs from the
construction of this thing," he said.
"What about after it's finished?
Will you be hiring local people to help run it?"
A disapproving
murmur circulated through the hall.
"But these
new workers would be patrons at your own local businesses, of course,"
"The way I
see it, they'll be patrons of your own little retail center," someone else
said.
"Yeah - what
good will this do for us in the long term?" Wiley Stokes, a well-respected
lobsterman, said. "Seems to me that
as soon as the construction is finished, we're right back where we started from
- except that we have that ugly thing surrounded by its ugly fence to look at
where there was once a perfectly lovely bluff.
Great for picnics."
There was a
louder voicing of approval, and a few "You tell 'em, Wiley"s scattered
through the audience.
"And what
about the environmental impact?" asked David Marsh, an antique dealer who
was the usual advocate for such issues.
"Has a survey even been done?"
"Well, of -
of course there has," Monroe stammered.
"Good. Then I'm sure you wouldn't mind at all
releasing it to the public."
Maddox smiled and
held up his hands. "Folks, folks
... you bring up some excellent issues, but I guess that you really didn't
understand the point of this meeting.
We're not here to seek your approval; we're merely informing you of what
is already going to happen. The project
is a go; nothing you do here today is
going to halt it. We wanted to keep the
town appraised of what was happening, in the name of good public relations,
nothing more."
"WHAT?!?"
was the collective cry.
Mayor Booth
himself was back on his feet and spluttering.
"Mr. Maddox," he said, "that was not the implication given to me and the town board! I thought that nothing would be decided until
the council voted!"
"Well, I deeply
regret the miscommunication, Mayor Booth, but what's done is done. The land has already been bought, and that
area of the township is already zoned for development. I'm really very sorry."
"I'm not so
sure that whole area falls under that development zone." It was Jessica who had spoken up.
"Oh,
really? And what areas do you believe to
be exempt?" Frances Decker asked,
coming forward.
"Ironically,
the very place you intend to build, Greeling's Bluff." Jessica rose from her seat so that she could
be heard. "Perhaps 'exempt' isn't
quite the right word. It may be zoned
for development, as you say, but I seem to remember an older law on the books
that prohibits any actual building on the property. I think I ran across it once in my
research."
"Yes! From the time of old Harold Greeling's
death!" said Wiley. "He left a whole pile of money to the
town, but only if they'd pass an ordinance to keep his land forever wild. Is that law really still on the books,
Jessica?"
"I don't
know, Wiley," said Jessica, turning to him, "but it shouldn't be too
hard to find out."
For a minute it
looked as if Todd Maddox had lost his mask of cool composure, but just for a
minute; then it snapped back up as unreadable as before. "Well," he said, "that may be
so, but until it can be proven, this project goes forward. We break ground as soon as we accept a
minimum bid. In the meantime, I suggest
that you address your concerns to your town councilmembers, so that they can
discuss with us how to best maximize Cabot Cove's benefit from our
development. This will go much better
for everyone if all of us work together.
All of us." And as he said this he turned his cold stare
on Jessica. She remained unfazed, and returned it, fire for fire.
Maddox averted
his eyes first. "Well," he
said, "I guess that's all we have to say for today. Thank you for hearing us out."
There was no
applause; the crowd began to get to its feet amidst disquiet mutterings. Sam rushed up to the podium to get in a few
last words before the audience had completely dispersed, then practically
leaped off the stage and caught up with Jessica just as she was leaving the
hall.
"I don't
know about you, Jessica, but I'm not at all happy with the way things went with
that at all! They sound as if they're
coming in and taking over the place, and I don't like it!"
"I know,
Sam," said Jessica grimly. "I
don't like it either. I think that after
this is over you might want to go over those zoning laws and ask yourself if
they're a little too liberal."
"I'll do
that," said Sam. "I'm all for
a little development, but the voters won't stand for twenty story hotels! Jessica, you've got to find that law!"
Jessica looked at
him. "Me? Sam, you're
the mayor!"
"But I'm a
very busy man, Jessica. Besides, if I go
and dig for that law, people will say that I'm politically motivated."
"But Sam,
you are politically motivated."
The mayor paused
to consider this for a moment.
"Well, you're right there.
Nevertheless, Jessica, I'm appointing you as a committee of one to find
that ordinance so we can stop this before it gets started. People trust you; it'll look better coming
from you. ... That is, unless you
already have plans for tomorrow."
Jessica gave a
short laugh. "No plans that I know
of," she said. "I'm between
books. All right, Sam, I'll come by
tomorrow and try and find your obscure ordinance."
Sam looked
relieved. "I don't mind telling you
that's a load off of my mind. Well, I've
got to get home. Winston gets testy if I
don't take him out for his walk before supper.
Evening, Jessica."
Jessica watched
him go, then shook her head in disbelief, and headed for home herself.
That same evening
found Seth over at Jessica's house, carrying out the long tradition of using
her kitchen to cook a meal together.
"That was a
wonderful pie, Seth," Jessica said as she rose from the dining room table
to clear the dishes. The laser printer
and the stacks of papers which usually resided on it had been pushed aside for
the evening, since Jessica didn't get to use her dining room as a true dining
room very often.
"Ayuh, the
rhubarb came up well this spring, once we finally warmed up a bit. Help you with those dishes?"
"Oh, no, no,
I can manage it, thanks," she said.
She carried the last of them into the kitchen and began to fill the sink
with hot water and soap. Seth followed
her in, and sat down at the kitchen table with his cup of tea.
"So,"
he said presently. "You’re
suffering from stress.”
Jessica paused in
the middle of wiping a dinner plate and turned to face him. “What makes you say so?” she demanded.
“You’re showing
all the classic signs,” he said matter-of-factly. “Pallor to the skin, insomnia, and now, it
would seem, irritability.”
Jessica said
nothing, but began washing another plate.
“I could go on,”
Seth said.
"There’s no
need to,” Jessica said, wiping her hands on a dishrag and joining him at the
table. "You’ve made your
point."
“You need some
real rest.”
“I’d love to get
some real rest,” Jessica said with growing frustration. “But how can I when I wake up a dozen times
every night with nightmares?”
“Nightmares?”
Seth said, looking at her with growing concern.
“How long has this been going on?”
“The past few
months, I guess. They follow no particular pattern – except that they’re
getting worse.”
“What do you
think they mean?”
“I don’t know.”
"Well, if
it's any small comfort, neither do I. I
figured out a while ago, Jess, that none of the psychology they taught me in
medical school works with you. You can
take that any way you choose."
Jessica smiled to
herself.
"The point
is, I want to let you know that if you need to talk about these dreams - and I
think it's a good idea to talk about these sorts of things - well, then, you
know my number."
"Thanks,
Seth," said Jessica, taking his hand.
"I'll keep that in mind."
Seth looked at
his watch. "Well, I'd better be going," he said. "Got to get up to the medical
center. I promised Mrs. O'Leary I'd look
in on her one more time before going to bed.
As one of my better patients I suppose I owe her that much."
"Well, give
her and the baby my best," said Jessica.
"I'll do
that," said Seth, and he left by way of the back door.
Jessica watched
him go, then returned to cleaning up the kitchen.
The later evening
found Jessica curled up in a chair by the fire with a book, wrapped in her
robe. She looked up as the clock on the
mantle piece chimed ten o'clock, and decided that it was about time that she
went to bed, even though she wasn't looking forward to it. She closed the book, folded her glasses, and
went upstairs absently. She sat down on
the side of her bed, and scribbled a short entry into her diary. This done, she set down pencil and book on
the bedside table, turned out the light, and climbed into bed. For a long time she stared at the glowing
face of the clock at her bedside, but eventually weariness overcame her, and
she fell asleep.
She had been
tossing and turning for only about an hour when the phone rang and jerked her
back to consciousness. Jessica sat bolt
upright in bed, but for a minute she didn't understand where the sound was
coming from, still confused from the half-remembered nightmare she had been
having. Then she shook her head, and
picked up the phone on the third ring.
"Hello?"
she said, running a hand through her tousled hair.
"Sorry to
wake you, Mrs. F. It's Mort
Metzger."
"Mort!
What's the matter?" Mort never
called this late unless there was something very wrong, and she dreaded to hear
what it was this time.
"There's a
fire down at the town offices," the sheriff said. "We don't know how it got started."
"Oh, dear
Heaven," Jessica said in dismay.
"I'll be down as soon as I can."
By the time
Jessica arrived, the town offices were already well ablaze. Fire poured out of the front windows of the
building as the volunteer fire department struggled to contain the flames.
"Oh, this is
terrible, just terrible," Sam Booth wailed to her as she advanced as far
as she dared toward the building, her wide eyes reflecting the glare. "My best set of golf clubs were in
there!"
Looking at the
burning structure, Jessica suddenly felt overwhelmed by despair. Hot tears stung her eyes as she watched the
flames lick up the sides of the building.
Abruptly she turned away, and reached out unsteadily for a nearby
telephone pole. She leaned against it
with her arm, and wept bitter tears that she hoped no one would see.
Someone did
see. Seth, who was standing not far off,
was watching as she withdrew, and now approached her. "Jessica?" he asked gently as he
tentatively touched her sleeve.
Jessica raised
her head. Her cheeks were tear-stained,
and Seth was startled by the intensity that burned brighter even than the fire
in her eyes.
"The town
records - as far back as anyone can remember - they were all in there. Everything we needed. And now they're just so much ashes," she
said angrily. Fire exploded out of
another window on the ground floor.
Seth stared at
her. "You think this was
deliberately set?"
"I don't
think so. I know so," she
replied. "And if they think this
will stop us, or that they can get away with this … then they are very sadly
mistaken."
"Come on,
Jess, let me take you home," Seth said.
Jessica shook her
head. "No," she said. "I have to stay here and talk to Mort, to
find out how much was actually lost.
It’s important."
A couple of hours
later the sheriff found her sitting on the curb watching the firemen clean up
with half-seeing eyes. "Mrs.
F," he said.
At the sound of
his voice Jessica surfaced from her private thoughts and rose to face him.
"We just
finished checking over the town offices," Mort told her. "Two of the filing cabinets got away
with only minor fire damage. They
contained more recent stuff, about 1910 to the present."
"What about
the records from farther back?"
Mort sighed.
"Destroyed," he said.
"All of them."
Jessica sank back
down to the curb.
"I know what
you're thinking, Mrs. F," he said.
"We just lost our ace in the hole against Maddox and his
buddies. But we won't know until tomorrow
if this was arson or not."
"Well, would
you let me know when you do find out anything?"
"Sure. What are you going to do now?"
Jessica shook her
head. "I don't know, Mort. But I'll think of something."
The next morning
as Seth and Jessica were walking through town they passed by the charred town
office building. The damage was mostly
confined to the front of the building; fortunately some of the rooms toward the
back had been more or less spared, suffering mostly smoke and water
damage. Jessica paused to watch as the
fire investigators sifted through the ashes, looking for some clue that would
point toward the cause.
"Senseless,"
said Seth. "Who would do such a
thing?"
One of the
investigators caught sight of them, tossed aside the shovel he was using to dig
through the rubble, and hailed them.
"Doc ...
Miss Fletcher ... Quite a thing to happen here, isn't it?"
"Yes, Wally,
it is," said Jessica, the anger flaring up in her eyes again as she gazed
upon the building. "Any word yet on
the cause?"
"Oh,
yes," Wally said, wiping the soot off of his hands. "Me and the boys found traces of
gasoline around where we think the fire started. Not a lot, just enough to get things going.
'Course, with all that paper stored up in there, it wouldn't take a lot. I told that to the Sheriff just an hour ago
or so."
"Did you
pick up any other clues?" she asked.
Wally shook his
head. "Nah," he said, "it's been no good. Fire burned real hot, took most of the
evidence with it. Well, I'd better get
back at it. Still a lot of stuff to sift
through. You never know."
"Thanks,
Wally," Jessica said, and she and Seth walked on.
"So you were
right," Seth said in a low voice, so he wouldn't be overheard. "It was
arson!"
"Yes,"
said Jessica, "and you can bet that whoever started that fire was someone
with a lot to gain from the development of Greeling's Bluff. Someone who didn't want anybody to find a
reason buried in the town records why they couldn't go ahead with the
construction."
"But half
the people in town know that no one can build on that land!" said
Seth. "It's a local legend by
now!"
"Yes, but
without any proof on paper what good can a local legend do? It wouldn't stand
up in court for a minute. Unless
..."
"Jessica! Seth!"
Eve Simpson came forward to greet them, a big smile on her face.
"Speaking of
someone with a lot to gain," Seth murmured.
Jessica put on
the best face she could. "Hello,
Eve," she said. "How are
you?"
"Oh, I'm
perfectly fine. I wish I could say the
same thing about the mayor's office."
She gave them a conspiratory look.
"You know, down at Loretta's they're saying that they've already
proved that the fire was deliberately set."
"It seems
Loretta's has broken another gossip speed record then," Seth said.
"Oh,
Seth," said Eve. "You're just jealous because Norm the Barber never
tells you anything."
"Don't be so
sure about that," the doctor said dryly.
Eve laughed. "Anyhow," she said, "the
reason I caught up with you is that I'm having a little dinner party tonight for
some of the people involved with the Greeling's Bluff project, and I'd like you
both to come. Say, seven, my
place?"
"Well, I
don't ..." Seth began, but Jessica cut him off.
"We'd be
delighted, Eve," she said, silencing Seth with a look. "Seven o'clock sounds perfect."
Eve beamed. "Wonderful," she said. "I have to run now. So much to do before tonight! See you there!" And with that, she was
off down the street.
Seth gripped
Jessica's arm. "Woman ..." he
said by way of protest.
"Seth,"
she said urgently, "I want you to go to that party, poke around, see what
you can learn about the people behind this project - and see who in town shows
up that might be sympathetic to their cause."
"Me?"
Seth exclaimed. "Where are you
going to be?"
"At the library,"
she said. "There may be one more
little treasure trove that we can still use to save Cabot Cove."
Jean O'Neil came
over to the table where Jessica was sitting surrounded by old books, and
touched her shoulder. She jumped
slightly, as she was suddenly brought back to the present after being lost for
so long in what she was reading.
"Sorry to
startle you, Jess," the wheel-chair bound librarian said, "but it's
five o'clock and we're closing. I just
thought you'd like to know."
Jessica blinked,
shook her head, and looked at her watch.
"Oh. So it is; how did it
get that late? I don't suppose, Jean,
that if I promised to lock up real tight, I could stay here a little longer,
could I?"
Jean smiled; she
was well used to this. "Sure you
can, Jess. You know where the key
is." She looked at the stack of
books that she had assembled. "What
are you working on, anyway?"
"Well,"
said Jessica, taking off her glasses and stretching, "these are copies of
the town records for as far back as I could find. I figure that if I can find some reference to
Harold Greeling's property trust in one of these books, we might not need those
records from the town hall after all to stop the development. At least, that's
what I hope."
Jean sighed.
"If you can do that, Jess, we'll all breathe a little easier for awhile.
And you'll be the town hero."
"Well, I
don't know about that," said Jessica, blushing a little. "I just want
to do what I can."
"I wish you
luck, then. Good night, Jess. See you
tomorrow."
"See you tomorrow,
Jean."
A few minutes
later she heard the library doors shut, and Jessica was alone in the
library. There was no sound except the
rustling of pages as she continued her feverish search by the light of her lone
desk lamp.
The evening wore
on. Seth reluctantly attended Eve
Simpson's party alone, a social burden that he had agreed to undertake only
because Jessica had been so insistent about putting him up to it. If there was one thing he had learned, it was
to not argue with her when she was in that frame of mind. She had warned him that her search in the
library might carry through dinner, but he couldn't help but keep glancing at
the front door in hopes of seeing her walk in.
Anything to relieve the tedium of making small talk with Eve's guests
and to keep from exploding out with his own feelings about the proposed
Greeling's Bluff project. Jessica had
warned him to hold his tongue about that - "the better for you to
listen," was what she had said.
Easy for her to say; she had the easy part, snooping around the old
files in the library. Books didn't
thrust platters of butterfly shrimp in front of your face at every
turning. Though he did have to admit
that these were quite good ...
"Doctor
Hazlitt!" a voice exclaimed just as he plucked another from a passing
caterer. It was Eve Simpson, wearing a
dazzling smile that would blind the unaided eye. "Where's Jessica? I thought she was
coming."
"In the
middle of research, I expect," Seth replied. "She probably lost track of the
time. You know how she gets when she has
a plot by the tail."
"Oh, yes,
wild horses couldn't drag her away from that library," Eve agreed with
enthusiasm. "Well, hopefully she'll
come to her senses before the soup's on."
She spotted Todd Maddox a few paces off, and excused herself from
Seth. "Todd! There you are! I was
afraid you weren't coming. Where is
Bruce?"
Maddox looked
slightly distracted. "I - I don't
know, really," he said, looking around the room nervously. "A meeting with the lawyers, I think. Will you excuse me? There's something I have to attend
to."
"Of
course," said Eve demurely, and Maddox brushed past her and left the house
without a second glance.
In the library,
Jessica was beginning to weary of her task.
She had been through book after book of records, and had not found
anything so far but a line recording the birth of Harold Greeling. A lack of indices was her problem, she
decided as she started to scan through another book, a small one with a leather
cover, her head propped up on her hand.
And then her
finger stopped moving down the page. Her
eyes went from half-mast to wide and bright as she lifted her head and reread
what she thought she had half-seen.
"That's
it," she whispered.
The book was an
old ledger of zoning board proceedings.
"October 24, 1890: The Board
does hereby deny Mr. Nathan Quimby permission to build a feed store on his lot
off of the Old Thoroughfare Road; for though he is the Holder of the deed, the
ordinance of Mr. Harold Greeling does state that the said lot remain in a State
of Perpetual Nature, binding all Descendants and Future Deedholders to this
same Principle ..."
Jessica was so
caught up in reading this and rereading it that the quiet sound of the library
door handle turning went unnoticed.
If the party had
been tedious in its early stages, it grew to be positively unbearable later
on. Seth wandered from group to group
with a cocktail in his hand, trying to glean what he could from the
conversations going on around him. From
what it seemed, there were a lot of contract bidders in attendance, all hoping
to take away a sizable piece of the real estate pie that Todd Maddox and his
associates had promised them. Besides
himself, a few other prominent Cabot Covers had been invited, but they were largely
limited to Sam Booth and some members of the town council, all of whom were
looking a little uncomfortable with the position they now found themselves
in. Even Sam was looking uneasy, despite
the fact that he had his political charm turned up to the max. Clearly, the board was finding it difficult
to make casual conversation with a bunch of outsiders that they didn't know and
weren't sure they trusted. There were
Howard and Ebenezer, questioning Frances Decker about some of the Limited's
past development projects elsewhere along the coast. There was Sam, pumping as many hands as he
could reach, as though by constantly introducing himself he could avoid
engaging in any real conversation with any one person. And then there was Ben Devlin, gliding from
group to group and tucking away everything that he heard. His presence here was obvious; but if Eve
Simpson thought she could wine and dine the press into a favorable editorial,
she would probably have to look elsewhere for someone more impressionable. At least he hoped so. Sometimes it was hard to tell with Ben.
Seth sighed; the
present conversation he was listening to seemed to be mainly lawyer shop talk,
so he excused himself and moved on. He
was just about to take another shrimp hors d'oeurve when a strange feeling came
over him. It was as if the memory of
some old fear had been stirred, and the ticks of the grandfather clock seemed
to be spaced farther and farther apart, like a faltering heartbeat.
A thump and the
rattle of ice stirred him, and looking down he realized that he had dropped his
drink.
Eve was across
the room in a second with a napkin to wipe up the spilled liquor from her
hardwood floor. "Seth, are you all
right?" she asked.
"Um, ah,
perfectly fine, Eve," Seth stammered.
"I just wasn't paying attention and the glass slipped right out of
my hand. All this dry weather, you
know."
"How can you
say that with the rain we've been having this spring?" Eve said as she
picked up the ice cubes and plunked them back in the glass for a waitress to
take away. "A few more weeks of
this weather and I just know that my garden will be all drowned out for the
season. Dry? I wish.
Here, let me get you another drink, Seth."
"Ah, no,
Eve, I think I'll pass on that if it's all right by you," Seth said
hastily. He had felt this same sense of
urgency before, but never this intense, and it worried him. "Look, there's something important that
I think I forgot to do at the office.
I'm afraid I'm going to have to leave."
Eve straightened
up. "So early? But we haven't even
sat down for dinner. Can't it wait
awhile?"
"No, I'm
afraid it can't. It may be an
emergency. I'm sorry, Eve. I'll make it up to you sometime. Wonderful hors d'oeurves. Good evening."
Eve's mouth was
open, but before she could say anything Seth had snatched his coat and hat from
the hall closet and was out the door.
Back at the
library, Jessica was busy returning the books that she had been searching
through back to their places in the stacks.
The one that really mattered was the small book with the old zoning
board notes; she'd just take that one away with her and leave a note for Jean
saying she had borrowed it. She returned
to the table one last time and scooped it up with the last three volumes that
needed to be put away.
Across the
library, a book was knocked over on its shelf by accident. The sound of its fall seemed magnified
tenfold in the silence.
Jessica froze in
the glow of the desk lamp, wide eyes scanning the space. A cold chill ran down her spine. It was probably just a book that had been
shelved improperly, and had picked now to fall over on its side. And yet she was still filled with a fear that
this simple explanation could not dispel.
For many long moments she stood perfectly still, listening as hard as
she could, reluctant to venture out into the darkness. But finally she fought down her rising
terror, stepped out of the circle of light …
… and came face
to face with a crossbow aimed at her at point blank range.
Half way across
town, Seth was driving as he had never driven before, and luckily the sedate
station wagon was up to the challenge.
He ran a stop sign, he took a turn at an unthinkable speed. As he tore down Maine Street, he passed Mort
Metzger, who was stopped at a cross-street intersection. Upon seeing the doctor's car flash past, he
picked up his radio and called back to the Sheriff's Station.
"Yeah, Andy?
I just saw Doc fly past me like a bat outta hell. I'm going to go see if he needs any
help. Maybe tell Floyd to come give me
some backup, will ya?"
"Sure,
Sheriff. Andy out."
Mort replaced the
receiver, turned on his flashing lights, and pulled out into Maine Street after
Seth.
Seth screeched to
a halt at the curb, ran up the front steps of the library, and flung open the
front door.
"Jessica?"
he called. "Jess, where are
you?"
There was no
answer.
Leaving the
library door open, Seth advanced slowly inside, not sure of what he would
find. He could see the light of a desk
lamp, and headed toward it. Then he
rounded the corner of the stacks, and put a hand to his mouth in horror. He was too late.
"Jess! Oh my
God, Jessica!"
She was lying
unconscious and motionless on the floor, the black shaft of an arrow sticking
out of her chest. Blood was already
trickling down from the wound and beginning to form a small pool of crimson on
the floor. Seth knelt beside her,
gathered her up in his arms and touched her cheek, but it was pale and cold,
and she did not wake up. Then he looked
down to where she had been lying, and noticed a book, which he reached over and
picked up. By fate or by design, Jessica
had fallen on top of the all-important zoning board book, and shielded it.
Moments later
there was the sound of sirens and Mort pulled up. He ran up to the library and called to
Seth. "Doc? What is it?"
Seth heard him,
but could not answer him. Mort came
around the stacks and looked down at them; wordlessly, the sheriff removed his
hat and stood there for a moment holding it in his hands.
"I'll send
for an ambulance," he said when he found his voice.
Seth nodded, and
said one word in a choked voice: "Hurry."
Mort went over to
the county hospital as soon as his part in the investigation at the library was
over for the night. He paced around the
waiting room, waiting for Seth, and absently rejected a cup of coffee offered
to him by one of the nurses. The clock
paced slowly through another hour and a half before Seth finally appeared, and
right away Mort knew something was wrong just by looking at him. His friend's head drooped, and he looked
tired and defeated.
"Doc? What happened?"
Seth sighed
heavily, and looked around to see if the nurses were listening. "She didn't make it," he said at
last. "The wound was too deep;
there was nothing I could do."
Mort didn't know
what to say. He rubbed his forehead with
his hand, looked at the floor. "I'm
so sorry, Seth," he said at last.
Seth nodded. "So am I," he said. "So am I."
For a long moment
the two friends stood in silence, each lost in their own private grief. Staff and others in the waiting room watched
them with pity in their eyes. Everything
fell quiet.
"Well,"
said Mort finally, a new sense of determination and purpose rising in the wake
of his sadness, "if Jessica couldn't solve this murder, then Cabot Cove
will."
Seth nodded. "She would want that."
Mort sighed. "I'd like to see her," he said.
"I think
that would be a good idea," said Seth, and he led him down the corridor.
Sam Booth rushed
into the Sheriff Station first thing in the morning. The mayor looked to be in a panic and
distraught, which ordinarily wasn't all that unusual. But his appearance spoke of how much more
serious the situation was this time: Sam
looked positively disheveled, and that was
unusual. His shirt was open at the
collar with no tie, his hair looked like it hadn't seen a comb yet that
morning, and he wore a battered overcoat that looked like he had thrown on
because it was the first item of outerwear that had presented itself.
"Sheriff,"
he said, "is it true what I heard?
That Jessica Fletcher is dead?"
Mort didn't look
much better. He had had a very long
night, and it was doubtful whether he had slept at all. He had been at the station since at least
five that morning, and was now nursing a big mug of hot coffee that was serving
as his first meal of the day.
"Yes, Mr.
Mayor, it's true," he said.
"She was murdered."
Sam paled and
looked stricken. He eased himself into a
chair and passed a hand over his eyes.
"I can't
believe it," he said, "I just can't believe it! Sheriff, this is all my fault!"
Mort put down the
coffee and looked at Sam in amazement.
To hear Sam Booth take personal blame for anything was nothing short of
unique.
"What do you
mean, Mr. Mayor?" he asked.
Sam sat up in the
chair, a rare intensity about him.
"It was over that Limited firm, that Todd Maddox and his
friends," he said. "After the
town meeting the other day, I asked Jessica to search through the town files to
find the law that would prevent that godawful development from going up on
Greeling's Bluff."
"Then an
arsonist torched the town offices," Mort said.
"To stop
her, yes!" said Sam. "Only
that wasn't good enough, I suppose, and they killed her!"
"Well, that
would fit," said Mort. "You
see, we found Mrs. F in the library last night.
It seems she was going through the old archives there."
Sam groaned. "Looking for the law in one of the
library's copies of the archival books," he said. "It figures she would. Now do you see what I mean, Sheriff? If I hadn't ordered her to go looking for
that ordinance, she would still be alive this very day!"
"Calm down,
Mr. Mayor," Mort said. "First
of all, have you ever known anybody able to order Mrs. F to do anything she
didn't want to do?"
"Well, no
..."
"So take it
easy on yourself."
"But Sheriff ..."
"You know
what I think this town needs most, Mayor Booth?" said Mort. "Strong leadership. I mean, we have to all pull together, ya
know? First there was this whole big
stink with the Greeling's Bluff development, and that was bad enough. But now someone's killed Mrs. F, probably
someone with some connection to the project, and that makes it personal. Personal for all of us, Mayor, everyone who knew
her. But we can't just all take off in
different directions at a time like this."
"Oh,
no," Sam agreed.
"So what we
need is someone level-headed at the top, someone with direction, so that we can
lick this thing together. You'd be
surprised how inspiring strong leadership can be in a crisis, Mr. Mayor."
"Really?"
"Yeah, sure. Why, just the other day I was telling Deputy
Andy here how inspiring your leadership is from the Mayor's office."
Andy, who at that
moment was passing by behind the Mayor's chair with a stack of reports, rolled
his eyes.
"And that's
just where that leadership should stay, Mr. Mayor. In the Mayor's office," Mort said,
getting up from behind his desk, and coming around to Sam. He helped him up and walked him to the door. "So if I were you, I'd go to your office
and stay there, and if you hear anything more from anyone in the Limited, or
anyone even remotely connected with that development, you just give me a
call."
"But Sheriff
..." Sam protested.
"Not now,
Mayor," said Mort. "No time
for it. The sooner you start leading,
the sooner we'll have this all wrapped up."
"Well, all
right," said Sam, with what sounded like new resolve. "I'll let you know if I learn
anything. And Sheriff," he said, turning as he reached the door,
"if you need any personal leadership, don't hesitate to pick up the phone."
Mort smiled. "I'll remember that," he said, and
shut the door behind Sam.
"Whew," he said, shaking his head, and he headed back to his
desk to go back to work.
At the Hill
House, the members of the Limited had also heard the reports. Todd Maddox broke the news over breakfast
with his partners.
"I just
heard it from the front desk clerk," he said. "That meddling writer was killed last
night. Guess we won't have to deal with
any more interference from that direction."
"News
travels fast in this town," Bruce Monroe commented idly, taking a sip of
his orange juice.
"Todd, what
an awful thing to say!" Frances Decker said.
Maddox poured
cream into his morning coffee. "Oh,
come on, Frances, you've got to realize that this is the biggest break we've
had with this project since we bought that land."
"He's
right," said Monroe. "You know
as well as I do that after that disaster with the town meeting, she was the
biggest obstacle standing in our way.
The only obstacle, in
fact. And Frances, if this project goes
down, we all go down with it. Then it's
good-bye to that house of yours on Fire Island.
Think about that." He took a
bite out of a cranberry muffin.
"Still,"
said Frances, "it seems terrible to talk about it that way. I mean, someone has died! And all you guys can think about is how good
it'll be for business! Is this how you
deal with all your little 'obstacles'?"
Monroe's face
clouded with sudden annoyance.
"Frances, I don't think I like what you're suggesting," he
said.
Maddox held up
his hands and so got between them in the blossoming argument. "Guys, guys, please," he said. "Nobody is suggesting anything about
anybody. Some of us are just a little
more pragmatic about windfalls from unexpected sources, that's all. Yes, it's a terrible thing that Jessica
Fletcher got herself killed. But there's
nothing to be gained by sitting around wringing our hands about the
tragedy. Besides, it was none of our affair."
"None of our
affair? Todd, you just said that she was
the only thing standing in the way of the development!"
"Yes, but
who's to say that the two things were connected? Look how many enemies she must have made over
the years. Something was bound to happen
some time."
"It was just
bad luck that it happened while we were here," Bruce said, spreading
butter on half of an English muffin.
"Yeah? Well, the way I see it, we're the most recent
enemies she made. Are you sure that
someone didn't just decide to help our cause along by doing us a favor? I don't mean one of us," she added
hastily. "I mean, someone in the
town. Like that real estate agent, Eve
What's-Her-Name."
"Simpson,"
said Maddox.
"Simpson,
right. Or her lawyer, Niles
Horton."
"Niles
Horton couldn't kill a horsefly."
"Oh, I don't
know," said Bruce, stabbing a forkful of egg. "I'll bet that beneath that tweedy
exterior lies the heart of a desperate, unpredictable animal."
His remark met
with general laughter from his partners.
They were interrupted when one of the waiters approached their table,
carrying a cordless phone.
"Excuse me,
Mr. Monroe?" he said.
"Telephone for you."
Monroe took the
phone and waved the young man off.
"Monroe here ... yes ... How soon? ... Terrific. We'll count on it, then. Thanks."
He pushed down the phone's antenna and turned to Todd and Frances with a
big smile on his face. "That was
the contractor," he announced.
"He says they'll be ready to break ground on Greeling's Bluff on
Monday. We're back in business
again."
The mood at
Loretta's was subdued, if not positively somber.
"I just
can't believe she's dead," Ideal Malloy said, as she dabbed her eyes with
a tissue while sitting under a hair dryer.
"I wonder what happened."
"Oh, Ideal,
don't be so grotesque!" Phyllis Grant, Cabot Cove's travel agent,
chided. "Really, to ask such a
thing!"
"It's a
valid enough question, I suppose," Loretta sighed from where she stood
working on Eve Simpson's hair. "I
mean, you can't deny that you're all dying to know."
"We
all? What about you?" Phyllis said.
"I already
know," Loretta said simply.
Ideal's eyes
widened in amazement. "Loretta, you
mean you know who did it?"
"No, no, I
never said that. All I meant was that
Lynette Mason was in here this morning to get her nails done. She was working the night nursing shift over
at the hospital, and she told me that she overheard the sheriff say that
Jessica had been shot, and he was going right back over to the library to
investigate."
"Shot!"
Ideal repeated. "Oh, how awful!"
"Jessica
always hated guns," Phyllis said wistfully. "It would just figure that one would ...
Ideal, give me one of your spare tissues, would you?"
"Anyhow,
that's what happened," Loretta concluded.
"You wanted to know."
"What's
Sheriff Metzger going to do? Without
Jessica, I mean?" Eve said. "She
can't very well help him solve her own murder."
Loretta shrugged,
put down her scissors, and picked up a comb.
"Well, this mystery won't be that difficult to solve, I'd
expect. I mean, you figure that it just
has to be one of those people from away connected with that big development
they want to put north of town - what're they called again, Eve?"
"The
Limited," said Eve.
"Right. The
Limited. Those folks."
"What makes
you say that, Loretta?" Ideal asked.
"Think about
it, Ideal. First the town offices are
set on fire. Then Jessica gets herself
killed. And what's the only
connection? That ordinance that they
brought up at the town meeting! I
overheard Mayor Booth ask Jessica to go digging to find that law and save Cabot
Cove."
"Then this
is all Sam Booth's fault," said Phyllis, not in a mood to be
reasonable. "Wouldn't that just
figure. Now she's dead, and the town's
doomed anyhow."
Eve was very
quiet.
"Poor
Jessica," said Ideal.
Phyllis blew her
nose noisily. "Cabot Cove just
won't be the same without her."
"Sheriff, I
really must protest!" Ben Devlin
was stalking around his office like a caged animal, waving an
unobtrusive-looking piece of paper around in his hand.
"I'm sorry,
Mr. Devlin," Mort said, "but an order is an order, and this one comes
straight from the county seat. No news
story concerning Mrs. Fletcher's death, not so much as a listing in the
obituaries, is to appear in the Gazette
until my investigation is complete."
"Sheriff,
haven't you ever heard of freedom of the press?
Or the the First Amendment?"
Mort leaned on the desk. "Look, Ben," he said, dropping the formali