Brandy and Bullets (5 page)

“Yes. Creative people don’t follow the same clock as most others. We try to accommodate.”

Dr. O’Neill was waiting when Beth Anne delivered us back to the ballroom. “Enjoy your tour?” he asked me.

“Very much. The services you offer are remarkable.”

“Just following some old, wise advice, Mrs. Fletcher. Anything worth doing is worth doing right. Might I speak with you for a moment?”

“Of course.”

We went to a relatively quiet comer of the large room. “Mrs. Fletcher—”

“Please. Make it Jessica.”

His eyes sparkled. “And my name is Michael. Would you consider teaching a few seminars, maybe two a year, for our residents? You don’t need to answer now. But will you at least think about it? We’re honored that you live in Cabot Cove.”

“That’s a fascinating offer,” I said.

“We’ll compensate you handsomely”

“I will. Think about it, that is.”

“Splendid. That’s all I ask. Why not give me a call in a few days. We can discuss it further.”

“I will.”

“Ready for dinner?”

“Dinner?” I laughed. “There’s more food to come? I’m already overfed.”

“Always room for a little more good food, Jessica.”

Seth and Mort had already navigated the long tables overflowing with racks of lamb, prime rib, lobster, and dozens of other beautifully prepared and presented dishes. Using my five-mile walk of that morning as rationalization, I sampled a few items, then danced, more for the exercise than the lure of the music. Finally, Seth and I decided it was time to head home. We said our goodbyes, waited outside for the parking attendant to bring Seth’s car from where it had been parked, and we drove down the driveway toward the main gate where we were stopped by a uniformed guard who scrutinized us, wrote down the license plate number, and waved us through.

“Like visitin’ the CIA,” Seth muttered.

“Yes,” I said. “I was thinking the same thing. Enjoy yourself? Glad you came?”

“Sort of.”

“It’s an impressive operation, isn’t it?”

He grunted. “Something not quite right about it,” he said. “Not quite real.”

I laughed. “Certainly not real, as in Cabot Cove. Can’t wait to get home and take off these shoes.”

“And me, this damn tuxedo.”

“Nightcap?” I asked as we pulled up in front of my house.

“No, ma’am, but thank you. Look at that, Jessica.”

I looked at what he pointed to, the lights of the Worrell Mansion glimmering faintly from its hilltop perch on the outskirts of town.

“Pretty,” I said.

“Ayuh. And strange. But what can you expect from a bunch of crazy shrinks? Thanks for bringin’ me, Jessica. Always proud to be on your arm.”

“Hello?” I said. My voice was thick with sleep. As always happens when the phone rings at an odd hour, I expected the worst possible news.

“Suppose I woke you. Sorry about that.”

“It’s—it’s four-thirty in the morning.” The lamp on my night table was still on. The book that had kept me up until a few hours ago, and that had been resting on my chest when my eyes finally closed, had fallen off when I reached for the phone. I pulled my plaid flannel sheets and down comforter over my head, and pressed my ear against the earpiece.

“Who is this?”

“Mort.” He sounded offended that I didn’t know. “Sorry it’s so early.”

“You already said that. It’s all right. But why are you calling at this ungodly hour?”

“They found somebody dead up at Worrell.”

“What? Is this a bad dream?”

“It’s no bad dream you’re having, Jessica.” He laughed. “I said somebody’s been found dead at the Worrell Institute.” He sounded eerily jubilant considering the time of day, and the circumstances.

“Who?” I asked.

“A young woman. ’Bout twenty-nine, thirty. Name’s Maureen Beaumont. A classical musician. Played the flute, I think.”

“How did she die?”

“Gunshot to the head. Preliminary ruling is a suicide.”

“Is that your ruling?” I asked.

“Nothing certain yet, but looks that way to me. ’Course, I haven’t really dug into it. Have to go back up later today with some county lab boys. She had the gun in her hand. That’s for sure. Saw that with my own eyes. Powder burns on her temple, too. What was left of it.”

I shuddered and sank deeper into the safe, warm, secure world of flannel and goose-down feathers. “Poor girl. When did it happen?”

“Can’t hear you, Jess. You sound like you’re under water.”

“Sorry. I’m under the covers. When did it happen?”

“Couple of hours ago. I got the call about one-thirty. Someone found her lying on the floor in her room. Heard the gunshot, they said. I got there right away. Back in my office now. No sense goin’ home. The sun’ll be up soon.”

“Yes. I suppose it will. I’m exhausted. I need a few more hours sleep. How about meeting for breakfast at Mara’s?”

He chuckled. “It’ll be lunchtime for me,” he said.

“So order lunch. Mara will make a hamburger any hour of the day. Seven-thirty? I’d like to hear more about what happened, but I’d also like to be awake enough to fathom what you’re saying. Seven-thirty?”

“I’ll be there.”

 

 

By the time I was ready to leave to meet Mort at Cabot Cove’s breakfast version of
Cheers,
my phone had rung off the hook. So much for catching a few hours extra sleep.

Most of the calls were from “early-to-bed-early-to-rise” friends who’d caught the early edition of the news on radio. They all wanted to know what I thought of the girl’s suicide.

“I don’t know any more than you do” was my reply.

Did I think it
was
suicide?

“I don’t know.”

The conversations didn’t last long because I had little to offer. I suppose people assume that a writer of murder mysteries has a sixth sense about death. A secret pipeline to inside sources of information. I don’t, which disappoints a lot of people.

The one call that morning that
I
brought to a hasty conclusion was from our mayor, Sybil Stewart.

“You’ve heard, of course” was how she began.

“Heard what?” I wasn’t about to give her the satisfaction of not having to explain herself.

“The death at Worrell. Surely, you’ve—”

“I heard.”

“Shameless. But I suppose it was inevitable. Even I didn’t think it would happen so soon.”

“I have to run, Sybil.”

“I hate to say this, Jess, but I—”

“You told me so.”

“Exactly.”

“But I don’t recall you forecasting that an unfortunate young woman would take her life.”

“If she did.”

“The gun was in her hand. There were powder burns on her temple.”

“It was? There were? How did you—?”

“Have to run, Sybil. Late for a date. Thanks for calling.”

“Jessica, how did you—?”

I placed the phone in its cradle, checked my hair one more time in the hall mirror, and headed for Mara’s.

As I walked toward the harbor, I couldn’t help but reflect on how peaceful Cabot Cove has always been. Although it’s grown over the years as more people fall in love with its physical beauty and slower pace, and opt to move here, it remains a community relatively free of violence. We’ve had our murders. One, maybe two a year. Usually domestic violence, with alcohol involved. There are drugs, of course, but nothing like the big cities. As far as I know, there hasn’t been a drug-related murder in Cabot Cove, although that isn’t to say it won’t happen one day.

There haven’t been many suicides in Cabot Cove, either. An old woman who once lived next door to me, and who suffered from a painful terminal disease, took her own life one night. Only a few people were critical of her action. She’d found the peace she needed, and deserved.

The suicide of a teenager a few years ago was more shocking, as might be expected. The town still suffers a communal guilt; could anyone have seen the signs that led to it, and done something to intervene? Probably not, but you do wonder about such things.

In a sense, the death of this young musician at the Worrell Institute for Creativity was removed from Cabot Cove. It hadn’t been a townsperson, someone we’d gotten to know over the years. No different, really, than someone who’d checked in for a weekend stay at a local motel.

Or was it different?

By the time I walked through the door to Mara’s Luncheonette, I’d decided that this death might, indeed, be different. The institute had opened amidst considerable controversy. The people who would come as paying guests were “special” in the sense that they were creative artists, sensitive one would assume, perhaps high-strung, emotionally complex. And possibly tormented, as some artists are when they find it impossible to translate creative thoughts to paper, or to canvas, or to express their inner musical visions.

Maybe the fact that the death at Worrell might not be “just another suicide” was the reason Mort had sounded upbeat on the phone. Every law enforcement officer thrives on controversy and challenge. Like soldiers who need a war, as unfortunate as that reality might be.

Mort hadn’t arrived yet; I hoped something hadn’t occurred to keep him from showing up. Mara poured me a cup of coffee, and smiled when I reached for a little plastic container of half-and-half that swam in melted ice cubes in an empty margarine container. I’d been trying to develop a taste for skim milk in my coffee, but that experiment had lasted only a week. I try to watch what I eat, but there are certain things that simply don’t work, no matter how healthy they might be. Like skim milk in coffee. “Don’t say a word, Mara,” I said, laughing.

Her smile widened. “I wondered how long you’d last with the skim milk routine. Like drinking gray dishwater, isn’t it?”

“Worse.”

“Meeting someone?”

“Mort.”

“Our fearless sheriff? Haven’t seen him. Suppose he’s up at Worrell investigating the murder.”

“Murder?”

“You didn’t hear?”

“No. I mean, I heard about the young musician dying last night, but it was a suicide. Wasn’t it?”

“Suicide? Hell, no.” The proclamation came from Josh Morgan, owner of Cabot Cove’s biggest hardware store, and a vocal foe of the institute since it was first announced. “Somebody shot her right in the head, way’s I hear it. Figures.”

I ordered blueberry pancakes, and was in the process of cutting them into small pieces in preparation for adding syrup when Mort walked through the door and took a stool next to me. “Still doin’ it that way?” he asked.

“Cutting my pancakes before the syrup? Of course. It creates lots of edges to soak up the syrup.”

The “art” of eating pancakes had generated considerable debate at Mara’s over the years. There was the contingent that considered cutting them first to violate some sacred culinary trust. I belonged to what I preferred to think was the more practical school.

“Hamburger, well-done,” Mort told Mara. “Fry up some onions, too.”

“Got a suspect yet?” Josh Morgan asked Mort.

“Suspect? No suspect in a suicide.”

Morgan guffawed. “Suicide? My rear end. Some doped-up crazy got himself mad at something and started shooting. That’s the way I hear it.”

“That so?” said Mort. His deep sigh eloquently expressed his annoyance.

“I heard it was a famous rock and roll musician,” the postmistress said loudly to a companion at a nearby table.

“No, it wasn’t,” Mort said, spinning on his stool. “It was a young woman who played classical music. On the flute.”

The luncheonette was now abuzz with talk of the death at Worrell. A flurry of questions were directed at Mort, who deflected them with noncommittal responses. Eventually, most of the other customers left; Mort was free to eat his burger in peace. “Sorry I was late,” he said between bites. “Got sandbagged on the phone by Dr. O’Neill, the director up at Worrell.”

“What does he have to say about what happened?” I asked, sliding my last piece of pancake around in a puddle of syrup.

“Kept talking about image. Reputation. Scandal. Said he hopes I’ll handle the investigation with discretion. What’s he think I’d do, call a press conference? Go on the Oprah Show?”

I shook my head. “I don’t think you’d do that. Anything new in your investigation?” I asked it in a whisper, leaning close to his ear.

He glanced right and left, said into my ear, “No.”

“Nothing?”

Another series of looks to ensure we weren’t being overheard. “We’re calling it a suicide—for now, Jess. But—”

“But what?”

“I got my doubts now after goin’ back up there.”

“Oh? Can you talk about your doubts?”

“Suppose I shouldn’t. But considering it’s you—”

I waited.

“Somethin’ wrong with the way the gun was in her hand.”

My arched eyebrows invited more.

“Too loose. Usually, when somebody shoots themselves, their hand tightens up real tight on the weapon. Can’t hardly pry it outta their hand. People who shoot somebody, then try to put the gun in their hand to make it look like suicide, never can get the hand to tighten up. Her hand wasn’t tight on the gun.”

“What kind of gun was it?” I asked.

“Twenty-two handgun.”

“You said there were powder burns on the skin.”

“Yup. On the outside. On the skin. Can’t tell if there’s burns between the skin and bone. Autopsy’ll determine that.”

“That’s important?”

“Sure is. If there’s no burn between skin and bone, could mean the gun was held close—but not so close like when somebody holds it to their own head.”

“Who’s doing the autopsy?”

“Doc Johansen, I assume.”

“Hmmmm. Do you know where the girl was from?” I asked.

“California. Los Angeles.”