The Ghost and Mrs. Fletcher (21 page)

“Oh? What's back there?”

“It's where Cliff Cooper had his workshop, and where the man I think is his son, Jerry—masquerading as a handyman with a Spanish name—has been living.”

“Mind if I tag along?”

I hesitated.

“I gave you the big clue, didn't I?”

“Yes, you did.”

I'd have preferred that he didn't accompany me, but there was no reason for him not to. “Come along,” I said.

We left the house through the rear kitchen door, crossed the yard, and entered the barn. I switched on lights installed in the ceiling beams and went to the tack room where the handyman had been living. As I stood at the door, I couldn't help but wonder what had motivated him to return to Cabot Cove with his assumed identity, and to attempt to exhume the skeleton of his ex-wife. He'd been confident that no one would recognize him, and for good reason. His son, Elliot, had been just an infant when he'd left, and certainly couldn't remember what his father looked like. Even so, Tonelero had kept out of Elliot's way, telling Eve he was taking the day off when Elliot arrived, and lurking in the cemetery at his father's funeral, rather than take the chance that someone might remember him.

Jerry Cooper had lived his teenage years and young adult life as a quiet, introverted young man who rarely mingled in society. Few in town knew him well. Some twenty-five years later, he looked nothing like the young man whose face Tim Purdy had circled in the picture of the Explorers' Club at Cabot Cove High School. College had brought him his only social contact in the form of a perplexing relationship with a young woman whom he married but hid away from the community. Had having a child pulled them apart? What could have precipitated the blow that took Marina's life and sent Jerry into hiding?

And why had he returned?

I went to the bunk he used as a bed and surveyed the books on the makeshift nightstand. Then my eyes went to a far corner shrouded in shadow. One of the boxes I'd seen in the basement containing family papers and photos sat there, its top open, some of its contents spilled on the floor.

“Who lived here?” Arthur asked.

I gave him a capsule account of the family history and said I believed it was Jerry Cooper who'd returned to the home where he'd grown up.

“He was married to the woman in the basement?” Arthur asked.

“Yes.”

“So who killed his wife and buried her behind the wall, the father or the husband?”

“That's what I want to find out. The note says it was Cliff. But is that true?”

“How can you prove otherwise?”

“I'm not sure, but this box may help me.”

We dragged the box over to the bunk bed. I sat on the edge of the bed and randomly pulled out materials from the box. I quickly rifled through it, not looking for anything in particular. There were letters and notes written by Cliff Cooper, copies of handwritten estimates given to potential customers for his carpentry services, a school paper on the Amazon authored by a teenage Jerry Cooper, his name in an awkward scrawl at the top of the page. I was about to return the items to the box when I retrieved the letters that Cliff had written. This time I examined them more closely.

“What's captured your interest, Jessica?” Arthur asked.

“These,” I said. “If I'm not mistaken, I can—”

I was interrupted by a commotion from outside. There were multiple voices, and the slamming of car doors.

“Sounds like something's happening at the house,” Arthur said.

I picked out several of the papers and put the top back on the box. “I think I have what I need,” I said. “Let's go.”

I led us from the barn to the kitchen door and to the library where two officers wearing uniforms from another town flanked the handyman, his hands cuffed behind his back.

“I'll take custody of him,” Mort told the police. After an exchange of paperwork and Mort's expression of thanks, the two officers who'd delivered Tonelero left, replaced by two of Mort's deputies.

“I'd like to know what this is all about,” Tony said angrily. “Can't a man take a ride on his motorcycle without being hassled by the police? Release me now, right now, or get me a lawyer. What crime do you think I committed?”

His little speech contained more sentences than I'd heard the man put together since I'd first encountered him in the cellar of the Spencer Percy House.

“I think you know the answer to that,” Mort said. “It's about your murdered wife who was buried behind a wall in the basement.”

“I'm not married, and I don't know anything about anyone buried in the basement. Take these stupid cuffs off me.”

“Oh, come on, Mr. Tonelero—or should I say Mr. Cooper?”

“Call me whatever you want,” he said, his voice having taken on a tone of uncertainty, “but get these off me.”

“Not until we have a little talk. You say that you know nothing about your dead wife?” Mort asked again.

I could almost see the wheels turning in the head of the man I knew as Tony. He pursed his lips, gave me a nasty smile, and said, “I'll bet you think you have the whole thing figured out. I knew you were trouble from the first time I saw you.”

“Leave Mrs. Fletcher out of this,” Mort said. “Just tell us when you knew about the woman in the basement.”

“When? I knew about it from the beginning. Believe me, it was a shock when he did it.”

“When
who
did
what
?” Mort asked.

“When my old man—my father—told me what he'd done. It was devastating, that's for sure. I felt like my whole life was over.”

“Your father told you that he'd killed your wife?”

“That's right.”

“Why did he kill her?”

“He didn't like her, never did, from the minute I brought her home. Thought she was after his money. Said he caught her stealing from him and let her have it.”

“Who buried her behind the wall?”

“He did. Who else? He said he'd get rid of the body and told me to get out of town. That's when he came up with the story that Marina and I left for South America. I thought he was right, that I'd better go or be accused of the murder if anyone discovered it.”

As he wove his story, I sat quietly, clutching the written materials I'd brought from the barn. I was dying to ask questions of my own but managed to stifle the urge. This was Mort's show, and he would have been angry if I'd interfered.

“Didn't you read the note my father left?” Cooper asked.

“The note?” Mort said. “How do
you
know about the note?”

Cooper responded, “He showed it to me.”

“Oh, really?” Mort said. “He bashed your wife's head in, wrote the note to get you off the hook in case the body was discovered, and buried her in the basement.”

“Right, Sheriff. That's exactly right.”

“Mort, I—”

Mort turned to me. “What is it, Mrs. F?”

“I don't mean to interrupt, but I'd like to know why he returned to Cabot Cove and decided to exhume his wife's body.”

The man I now knew as Jerry guffawed. “Do I have to answer questions from a hack writer?”

Mort immediately came to my defense. “Watch who you're calling names. This woman knows a lot about this case.”

Buoyed by Mort's faith in me, I said, “I'm asking because I knew your father as a decent, caring man. I find it hard to believe he was a murderer. Why
did
you come back and start to dig your wife's remains out from behind the basement wall?”

Jerry looked to Mort, who said, “Answer her.”

“If you must know,” he said, “my father called me from the hospital. He said he was dying, was putting the house on the market, and giving the proceeds to my son.”

“Your father knew where you were?” I asked.

“I told him just before he went in the hospital.” He snorted. “Matter of fact, I thought that's what made him sick. Then I saw something in the local newspaper about the famous Spencer Percy House being up for sale, stupid stuff about it being haunted and all. And I thought, okay, they need help, and I need to get in there.”

“The Cabot Cove paper?” Mort said. “You've been living here all this time?”

“I live down the coast.”

“Local papers often pick up stories from neighboring towns,” I put in. “You said you needed to get in here. Eve never questioned that you knew there was a room in the barn where you could stay. But when you first got here, you moved into your old room upstairs instead—didn't you?—the one you shared with your wife. Her blue and green striped scarf is still in one of the dresser drawers.”

“How do you know what belonged to my wife?”

“Elliot found a photograph of the two of you. Marina was wearing that scarf.”

“That's not all we found upstairs,” Mort put in.

I rushed on before Mort could bring up the green scrubs. “The most important question is why did you feel it necessary to get rid of Marina's body if your father left a note confessing to having killed her?”

Jerry glared at me. “I didn't want a new owner to discover the body and start raising questions. I thought that if I got rid of the body, I'd be doing us all a favor—me, Elliot, my father, and whoever bought the place. It was wrong. I can see that now. But remember that my father was the killer. He did it. He left a note admitting it. You just said so. Did you hear that, Sheriff?”

“Your father didn't write that note,” I said firmly. “
You
did. And I'm willing to bet you were the one who walled up the body, not Cliff. You wanted another chance to hide your crime because you were afraid if Marina was found, no one would believe that Cliff was capable of such a brutal killing. And you were right. I don't believe it.”

Another guffaw. “Yeah, my father was a real good guy. That's what you think. He built those bookcases to cover up my ‘shabby workmanship.' That's all he knew. A hammer and nails. He read all those books and never got any smarter.”

“Here,” I said, handing Mort the papers I'd brought from the box in the barn.

“What's this, Mrs. F?”

“Examples of Cliff Cooper's handwriting. And examples of a young Jerry Cooper's handwriting. I'm not an expert in handwriting analysis, but I think if you consult a professional, you'll learn that the handwriting on Cliff's letters is vastly different from the handwriting on the note found with Marina's body. And since we have samples of Jerry Cooper's handwriting, too, I'm sure that an expert will be able to verify who really wrote that note.”

Mort redirected his attention to Jerry. “What about that?”

“You listen to her?”

“Most of the time,” Mort replied.

“Are we finished now? I want these cuffs off.”

“I have one more question,” I said.

“Go ahead, Mrs. F.”

“You say that your father called you from the hospital, Mr. Cooper.”

Jerry sneered at me. “Mr. Cooper is my father. That's not my name anymore.”

I ignored his comment. “What prompted you to visit Cliff at the hospital?” When he didn't respond, I added, “An aide saw someone carrying a motorcycle helmet enter his room. Your father was suffocated to death by someone who visited him. Was that person you?”

“Now wait a minute. I didn't kill him. I didn't kill anybody. Tell her to shut up.” He glared at Mort.

There were so many other questions I wanted answered, especially why Cliff Cooper, knowing that his son had killed his wife, had allowed Jerry to bury Marina behind the wall and then had lived with that knowledge for so many years, all while he was bringing up Elliott. While I'd never considered Cliff capable of violence, his love for his son made him a criminal anyway; it made him an accessory to murder.

But I didn't get to ask that question, at least on that day, because Mort said, “Mr. Cooper, Tonelero, whatever name you want, I'm instructing my deputies to take you to headquarters where you'll be charged not only with the bludgeoning death of your wife years ago, but with the murder of your own father as well.”

Cliff's son struggled to get free, but the deputies maintained their grip on him and led him from the house. I handed Mort the written materials from the barn and slumped in a chair. Arthur Bannister applauded. “You not only write murder mysteries,” he said gleefully, “but you also solve them.”

“Not all the time,” I said. I turned to Mort. “We need to go see the Conrad twins and Elliot. As painful as this will be, I know he'll want to learn the outcome of your investigation, Mort.”

“You're right, Mrs. F.”

“Poor guy,” Arthur put in.

“Yes,” I said. “He gets his father back, only to lose him again.”

M
ort, Arthur, and I stepped through the front door of the Spencer Percy House and were confronted by not only Evelyn Phillips and her photographer, but also Arianna Olynski and Boris, who filmed the crowd, which had now grown to at least forty onlookers. Behind the yellow tape, Boris swiveled and aimed his camera toward us as I scanned the faces in the crowd in search of the Conrad sisters, their great-niece, Beth, and Elliot. They weren't there.

The medium waved her gold-topped cane, trying to attract my attention. “Jessica, over here.”

Instead, I turned to Arthur.

He took my hand. “I'll excuse myself now,” he said. “I don't expect to be included with you and the sheriff in your further investigations. And don't worry. I won't reveal what I know. But I do hope you'll satisfy my curiosity later on.”

“Thank you, Arthur. I appreciate your discretion. I promise I'll call you when this is over.”

As Mort and I started across the street, Evelyn rushed to block our path. “Sheriff, you never mentioned an arrest earlier.”

“We didn't make one earlier.”

“I saw your deputies take Eve Simpson's handyman away in handcuffs. What is going on?”

“I'll be happy to fill you in, Ms. Phillips,” Mort said, “once I've wrapped things up.”

“Wrapped
what
things up?” She turned to me. “Jessica, you're holding back on me, too. You can't deny the public access to the news.”

“Excuse us,” Mort said, stepping away in the direction of the Conrad house. “There'll be a press conference,” he said to Evelyn over his shoulder.

“When? What time? Jessica! I want a statement from you, too,” Evelyn snapped.

“The sheriff is in charge,” I said, following him. “I have nothing to say right now.”

“What about later?”

I nodded as I hurried to keep up with Mort's long stride. “Later,” I said.

I understood Evelyn's annoyance. Despite her occasional bouts of brashness and aggressiveness, she was a good person, a professional who worked hard to give Cabot Cove a responsible, accurate newspaper. I would have been happy to fill her in on what had transpired in the house but knew I couldn't, at least not yet. But I would have to keep my promise of “later.”

There was no crime scene tape around the Conrad sisters' house, nothing to keep the curious from following us up their front path. But Mort waved over one of his deputies, and the young man discouraged anyone from getting close to us.

Lettie had already opened the door. “I can see something's going on. Was that the handyman I saw taken away? We never met him.”

“He probably was trying to avoid you,” I said. “Did you recognize him?”

She didn't answer my question, instead saying, “Beth called this morning to ask what I knew.”

“And what did you tell her?” I asked as we stepped over the threshold.

“I said that I knew nothing.”

Lucy sat on a chair with her quilt wrapped around her knees. Looking up briefly when we entered, she smiled sweetly and said, “I knew you'd be coming.”

Lettie waved us into the living room. “Elliot's still sleeping. Or at least he's pretending to be. I looked in on him, but he turned his back to me. Are you going to let us in on the secret, Sheriff?”

“We need to have a talk,” Mort said.

“Well then, sit down.” She turned to her sister. “Lucy, get them some of your cookies.”

“That's not necessary,” I said before Lucy had time to put aside her quilt. “This is not a social call.”

Lucy nodded and sat down again.

“Elliot asked us to talk with you this morning,” Mort said. “I wish he'd come down now.”

“I'm letting him sleep. I'll tell him whatever you need him to know later,” Lettie said.

“Don't you think he should hear this for himself?” Lucy asked.

“No!”

Lettie took the high-back chair while Mort and I settled on the sofa.

“Last night,” Mort began, “Mrs. Fletcher found a suspicious hole in the basement wall of the Spencer Percy House and called in the police to investigate.”

“You were always so clever, Jessica,” Lucy said. “I was telling Lettie that just the other day. Wasn't I, Lettie?”

“Be quiet, Lucy, and let the sheriff speak,” her sister said.

“We called in a forensic team to take down the wall and found the body of a woman behind it. There was a note identifying her as Marina Cooper.”

“Elliot's mama,” Lucy whispered as she picked at the stitches in the fabric on her lap.

Lettie sat rigidly in her chair, her eyes looking out the window at the big house across the street. “I've heard some of the rumors,” she said. “What else did the note say?”

“How did you know the note said anything more?” I asked.

Lettie shrugged.

“It was signed by Cliff Cooper, who confessed that he'd killed her,” Mort said.

“Oh, but he didn't, of course,” Lucy said.

“Lucy!” Lettie looked angrily at her sister.

“Well, it's true, Lettie. Cliff wouldn't hurt a fly.”

“You both knew about that body, didn't you?” I said, the truth dawning on me.

“No!” Lettie said. At the same time, her sister said, “Yes.”

“Lucy! Go get cookies. Do it now.”

“All right, Lettie. No need to yell.” She smiled at Mort and me. “I'll only be a few minutes. I'll make some tea, too.” She tossed her quilt on the seat of her chair. It slid to the floor, and I leaned over to pick it up. It was a traditional pattern of repeated Christmas trees.

Lettie snatched it away from me, folded it, and placed it back on Lucy's chair. She frowned at us. “She's losing it. She doesn't know what she's saying.”

“But is it true that you both knew that Marina Cooper's body was in the house all these years?” Mort asked.

Lettie's nostrils flared, and she struggled to get the next words out. “Marina was a thief. Jerry found out and killed her. Cliff swore us to secrecy, and we've kept his secret all these years. I guess since he's dead, it doesn't matter anymore, does it?”

Mort pulled a notepad from his pocket. “I wouldn't say that.”

I sat forward. I saw Elliot sitting on the stairs eavesdropping, but I asked the question anyway. “Is that why Lucy didn't want to move into Cliff's house if they got married—not because it was messy, but because she knew there was a body buried in the basement?”

Lettie shrugged. “It didn't matter. She wasn't going to marry him anyway.”

“Because you didn't want her to,” I said. “You told her that.”

“This is my house, too, my home. Didn't I have a say in it?”

“You certainly had a right to raise an objection. When you voiced your concern, how did Lucy respond?” I asked.

“She said I had my own room and asked what I was complaining about. But there's only one bathroom. I like my privacy. My whole world would have been turned topsy-turvy.”

“It certainly would have changed your relationship with your sister. You couldn't allow that, could you?”

Lettie chewed her lip and looked at me earnestly. “I'm glad you understand, Jessica. Lucy's always thought that whatever she said would go, but this time I wasn't going to let her get away with it.” She looked down at her rough hands, hands that chopped the wood for the fireplace, hands that fixed the torn screen door and changed the batteries in the smoke alarms. She was a strong, capable woman.

“When Cliff was in the hospital, did you try to convince him not to marry her?”

Lettie's eyes widened. She glanced at the sheriff. “Didn't I already tell you I
never
visited Cliff in the hospital?”

“Yes, you did tell us that, but I don't believe that's the truth.”

“Are you accusing me of lying? That makes me very unhappy, Jessica,” she said, shrugging her shoulders and raising her chin. “I've
always
prided myself on being a truthful person.”

“You may usually be a truthful person, Lettie, but right now your body language is giving you away. I would have expected you to get angry when I accused you of lying.”

“Well, I am angry. I'm just trying to be polite.”

“Politeness is not the usual response of someone accused of being dishonest. Even if that were not the case, I have two witnesses who saw you at the hospital. Witnesses, Lettie. That's how I know you're lying when you claim that you never visited Cliff there.”

Lettie said nothing.

“Do you want to tell us about it?” Mort asked.

“I was only there a few minutes. You must believe me.”

“We believe you,” he said. “Go on. What happened?”

“I saw that nurse go into his room, carrying a pile of laundry. I waited until she'd left. I didn't want to see her. I'd only get into an argument with her.”

“Why would you argue with
her
?” I asked.

“Because I knew she was trying to take Cliff away from Lucy.”

“But if you didn't want Cliff to marry Lucy, why would you care if he was attracted to another woman?”

“I didn't want him to hurt her. It's all right if she's mad at me. I'm used to that. But he's not allowed to hurt her. I wouldn't put up with that.”

And maybe you didn't want him to be comforted by Carolyn either,
I thought, but didn't express it. Instead, I said, “All right. The nurse left his room. What did you do then?”

“He was lying in bed. I asked him where he thought he'd go when he got out of the hospital. And he says, ‘Lucy wants me to move in with you.' And I say, ‘Over my dead body.' And he laughs and says, ‘That can be arranged.'”

“
If
Cliff said that, he was just baiting you, Lettie.”

“Well, it worked. I got angry.” She sat nervously wringing her hands. “I didn't go there intending to kill him. That's what you thought, right, Jessica?”

Mort took a deep breath next to me, but I kept my eyes on Lettie.

“I'm sure you didn't intend to kill him. What happened when you got angry?”

“I told him that I wouldn't tolerate sharing my house with a stranger. And he said, ‘It's only Lucy's name on the deed, not yours.' And it's true, Jessica. She must have told him.”

“Told him what?”

“My mother always said I knew how to take care of myself, but Lucy didn't. So she left everything to her, the house, the furniture, everything, to her alone. She could throw me out at any time.”

“Lucy would never throw you out, Lettie. You know that.”

“But she could. She could.”

“Is that when you took the green uniform and held it over Cliff's face?” Mort asked.

“Yes! That's right. Carolyn had left the pile of folded laundry on a table. I just grabbed what was on top and pounced on him. I was just trying to scare him at first, but then I don't know what happened to me. It was all those years of being the ‘other' one, not the pretty one, not the nice one. I just pushed and pushed until he stopped fighting me.”

“And then what did you do?”

“I got scared. I stuffed the clothing in my bag and left his room. I saw Carolyn down the hall. I don't think she saw me. Then out of the corner of my eye I noticed another nurse pushing a cart. I saw my chance to escape and banged into it like it was an accident, and flipped it over. Everyone started to scream. People were running from everywhere, picking up the pills and papers. I was able to sneak out the door.”

“And went home?”

“Not at first. I went to Cliff's house. I had the key.”

“What did you do there?”

“I just walked around, talking to him in my head, trying to explain that I didn't really mean it, asking him to forgive me.”

“Is that when you put the scrubs in the upstairs drawer?” Mort asked.

She gave a soft laugh. “Cliff had so much junk in the house. I knew that Miss Simpson was going to get rid of everything, so I thought no one would ever find them.”

“But I did,” Mort said, pocketing his pad.

“I know what it was about, you know,” she said softly, “Lucy and Cliff.”

“What was it about, Lettie?” I asked.

“She wanted to be able to say that she was a married woman while I was still a spinster.” She shook her head slowly. “Lucy has always tried to one-up me ever since we were little. My mother favored her. Mama was so obvious in her preference for Lucy that my father tried to balance things out. But he died young, and I grew up with Lucy always getting everything she wanted, and I was left with—well, with the leftovers. She kept insisting she would marry him. I had to put a stop to it.”

Lettie seemed to brush away tears, but I didn't see any moisture on her fingertips. She put out her hands to Mort. “You can arrest me now.”

I put my hand on Mort's arm. “Not just yet,” I said.

Lucy walked in carrying a tray, her face set in a placid smile. “Here are the cookies. Did you finish telling them, Lettie?”

“Yes, Lucy. You don't have to protect me anymore. I told them I was at the hospital.”

“Of course you were. We both were.”

“No, Lucy. It was only me. Don't you remember? I told you all about it. That's why you think you were there. I'm going to go into town with Jessica and the sheriff, now. You stay here.”

“Doesn't anyone want any tea?”

“No!” Lettie yelled. “Let's go, Sheriff.”

“I'll have a cup of tea, Lucy.”

“Oh, thank you, Jessica.” She set down the tray on the coffee table and pulled her chair closer, laying the quilt over her knees. “How do you take it, Jessica?”

“I can pour for myself, Lucy,” I said, picking up a cup. “Tell me, how did Cliff look when you saw him in the hospital?”