The Maine Mutiny (19 page)

“Another passenger,” I said. “Jed can tell you about him.”

“I’ll take care of it, Mrs. F. And I’ll come see you as soon as we clear out this crowd. We’re all happy you’re back.”

“So am I. Thank you so much.”

As Seth pushed the wheelchair up the dock, wellwishers pressed in to greet me.

Matilda Watson patted my shoulder. “Oh, Jessica, thank goodness we found you.” There were tears in her eyes. She surveyed the gathered crowd. “Where is Evelyn with the camera?”

I looked around. It seemed everyone I knew in town had heard I’d been found and came out to greet me. Familiar faces surrounded me. Mara was there, and Charlene Sassi from the bakery. Loretta Spiegel and Mort’s wife, Maureen. All the Friends of the Library, and David and Jim from Charles Department Store. Elsie Fricket in her plastic collar. And Gwen Anissina with the young ladies in the pageant, among many others.

“Nice to have you back, Jessica.”

“Oh, Mrs. Fletcher, thank God you’re all right.”

“Three cheers for Jessica Fletcher. Hip, hip, hooray. Hip, hip, hooray.”

“All right, folks, let’s break it up,” Seth called out. “She’s safe. Make room, please. We need room to get this chair through.”

Mort’s deputy Harold stationed himself in front of the wheelchair and waved his arms to encourage people to move aside. Our progress was protracted, but eventually we reached the parking lot, where Seth assisted me into the ambulance.

“You know, this really isn’t necessary,” I said.

“Now don’t be your usual stubborn, hardheaded self. Humor me, Jess. I’ll feel a lot better once you’re in the emergency room and the staff can examine you. You’ve been through an ordeal, whether you acknowledge it or not. I want them to give you a clean bill of health before we let you go.”

“All right, but I’m telling you, the best place for me right now is in my own house, in my own bed.”

“Later, if everything checks out, I’ll drive you home personally.”

“I’ll hold you to it.”

After examinations, blood work, X-rays, and a CAT scan of my head that revealed only a minor concussion, I was discharged. The hours lying on an uncomfortable hospital bed did more to discomfort me than the time I’d spent dangling in the icy water, fending off giant fish and the danger of despair. After being given painkillers to take with me in the event I needed them at home that night, Seth pushed me in my wheelchair to the main lobby. “You sit tight,” he said, “while I get the car.”

He’d no sooner exited the hospital when Mort Metzger came through another set of doors, accompanied by two men in suits. “Mrs. F,” Mort said. “Glad we caught you before you left.”

“Seth’s gone to get the car,” I said.

“Mrs. F,” Mort said, “this is Special Agent Frank Lazzara, FBI, and Bob Dailey, Maine Special Investigation Unit.”

“Hello,” I said.

“We’ve got some questions for you, Mrs. Fletcher,” Agent Lazzara said.

“Questions? About what happened?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Now?” I asked.

“Best to get it over with,” said Mort. “Recollections are better the closer to the event.”

Seth came through the door; I could see his car running outside. “What’s going on?” he asked Mort.

Mort introduced Seth to the men, and said they were there to take a statement from me.

“Can’t it wait?” Seth asked. “You can see that Mrs. Fletcher has been through a terrible ordeal.”

“Yes, sir, we realize that,” said Investigator Dailey, “but two serious crimes have been committed; a murder, and the deliberate sinking of a boat to cover up the murder.”

“I’m sorry,” Seth said, “but as Mrs. Fletcher’s physician, I’m afraid I have to insist that any questioning of her wait until she’s had sufficient time to recover.”

“I really don’t mind,” I said.

“Excuse us, gentlemen,” Seth said, grabbing the handles of the wheelchair and turning me in the direction of the doors.

“Tomorrow?” Lazzara asked.

“That will be fine,” I said. “I’m sure I’ll be feeling up to it by then.”

“How about at my office?” Mort said. “Say, ten o’clock?”

I agreed, and Seth took me to the car.

Although I’d said I wouldn’t mind being questioned, I was glad Seth had insisted on delaying the interview. I was feeling exhausted, and crankier than Seth had ever been, which was saying a lot. But once I was sitting in my favorite armchair in the familiar and dear confines of my own living room, with a cozy fire in the hearth even though it was August, I began to feel myself again. Seth refused to leave, trotting back and forth to the kitchen, making tea and attempting to cook dinner, although all he had to do was heat up the casserole my neighbor, Tina Treyz, had left on the doorstep. A succession of dishes had arrived, and my refrigerator and freezer were full to bursting. I wouldn’t have to cook for a month, maybe more.

We’d just finished the lobster pie left by Tina when Mort arrived bearing Maureen’s specialty, blueberry apple pie. He happily accepted a slice, and the three of us sat down at the kitchen table. My two friends looked at me, heads cocked, eyebrows raised in question marks. I hadn’t offered anything about my tribulations, how I’d ended up on Spencer Durkee’s boat, the blow to the head, discovering Henry Pettie’s body, the sinking of the boat, and my Rube Gold-berg attempt to stay afloat until help arrived. The doctors at the hospital had asked how I’d injured my head, but I said only that someone had hit me, and offered no further details, explaining that it really was a police matter.

Now, in the security of my kitchen, hunger satisfied, my body again warm, I knew it was time to lay it all out, which I did in as much detail as I could muster. It took me twenty minutes to unfold the entire tale. Mort’s and Seth’s interruptions were few. Mort took notes; Seth was content to nod, grunt, and utter expressions of dismay or shock at appropriate times.

“Well, that’s about it,” I said. “That’s the whole story as best I can remember it.”

“Horrific,” Seth said.

“You’re one lucky lady to be alive,” said Mort.

“I’m well aware of that,” I said. “I’m curious. How did you learn I was missing?”

“Evelyn Phillips turned up at the hospital last night, around one in the morning, said she knew Barnaby Longshoot had regained consciousness,” Mort said.

“I’d like to find out who in the hospital tipped her off,” Seth said. “They’re supposed to protect patient confidentiality, not call the press.”

“Anyway, I wouldn’t let her talk to him,” Mort said.

“How
is
Barnaby?” I asked. “Is he all right?”

“Ayuh. He’s a tough bird,” Seth said. “No internal injuries, luckily, but he’s pretty bruised up. The hospital discharged him today. He’ll be in fine fettle soon enough.”

“Thank goodness for that.”

Mort cleared his throat.

“Oh, I’m sorry, Mort,” I said. “I interrupted your story. You were talking about Evelyn Phillips.”

“So she asked to interview Barnaby, and I said no. And then I asked her where
you
were, and she said she didn’t know. ‘How can you not know?’ I said. ‘You were together when I left.’ And she said she’d left you at Mara’s and assumed you were going home. And the doc, here, said—”

“I can tell this part,” Seth put in. “I asked her, Didn’t she know you don’t drive? And she said, How was she supposed to know that? And I said, ‘Everyone knows that.’ And she said she didn’t, and didn’t I know she was new to Cabot Cove?”

“So Doc and I hopped in the patrol car and raced around town—”

“With the siren on and the light goin’ ’round. Must’ve woken up half of Cabot Cove.”

“Anyway, we came here first, expecting you might have walked home. But we didn’t catch sight of you along the way.”

“And you didn’t answer your door.”

“And I said you were probably waiting for someone to come to their senses and realize you’d been stranded down at the harbor without a ride,” Mort said. “So we drove over there and looked for you around Mara’s and went up and down the dock till we found your purse.”

“Very clever of you to leave it there for us to find,” Seth said, “or we’d’ve had no idea where to begin to look for you.”

“We figured you’d left us a clue,” Mort added. “And when we saw that the
Done For
was gone, that was another clue.”

“I wish I could take credit for anticipating that I would be assaulted and kidnapped,” I said, “but the truth of it is that I needed both hands to climb down onto the
Done For
’s deck. I simply put my shoulder bag down on the dock so it wouldn’t get in the way.”

“Whatever,” Mort said. “That’s what launched the search.”

“And not a moment too soon,” Seth said. “According to Jed, when he found you you were near to driftin’ out to sea. The current where you were flows due east.”

“I forgot to ask Jed how he found me,” I said. “When I first saw his plane on the horizon, he wasn’t close enough to signal.”

“He told me he was about to fly back to the harbor when he took one more look around and noticed smoke in the air,” Mort said, “and thought he’d better check it out.”

“He’s thorough, Jed is,” Seth added.

“Lucky for me he is,” I said. “The fire didn’t last long.”

I shivered, thinking how close I’d come to losing my life, how, if Jed Richardson weren’t thorough—how, if he hadn’t looked around one last time—I might still be suspended from a life ring in the bitterly cold water holding on to a dead man tied to a cushion.

“What’s happened to Henry Pettie’s body?” I asked.

“Down at the medical examiner’s office,” Mort replied. “We should have a preliminary report on the cause of death by tomorrow.”

“I didn’t examine him carefully, but I thought he might have taken a hit on the head, just like me,” I said.

“So you’re assuming the same person who hit you killed Pettie.”

“Makes sense,” Seth said.

“It’s possible,” I said, “but I have no proof.”

“Then you didn’t see who hit you, Mrs. F?”

“There was someone on the deck, but I never saw his face. My back was to him when I climbed down onto the boat, and when I looked around he’d disappeared.”

“But you thought it was Spencer?”

“I did, but only because it was his boat. When I peered into the cabin, I saw someone lying on the berth. At the time I’d assumed it was Spencer. It was only when I woke up out on the ocean that I discovered it was Henry Pettie.”

“Hmm,” Mort said, closing his notepad. “I’d say Mr. Spencer Durkee has got some serious explaining to do.”

“That was my first reaction, too,” I said, “but on reflection, I can’t imagine he had anything to do with it.”

“The way I see it, Mrs. F, old Spencer might have made his mind up that Mr. Henry Pettie was responsible for what’s been happening recently, decided to get rid of him, and drove his boat out into the ocean to dump the body. You were a witness, so you had to go, too.”

“Doesn’t hold up for me, Mort,” Seth said. “Spencer would never sink his own boat. The
Done For
’s been his livelihood all his life.”

“Not much of a living for him lately,” Mort offered. “He’s getting old. From what I hear, he’s not catching much these days, could barely afford to replace the traps those delinquents cut free.”

I chimed in. “Let’s say you’re right, Mort. Let’s say it was Spencer who killed Henry and decided to send him down with the boat. There had to be someone else involved, an accomplice who followed him out and took him back to shore.”

“I know that, Mrs. F,” Mort said, “and I’m hoping Spencer will tell us who that was.”

“Have you spoken with him?” I asked.

“I have. Got him under protective custody, but he’s not talking.”

“You arrested him?” Seth asked.

“Not the same thing, but I’ve got him. Came busting into my office this morning claiming somebody stole his boat. Acted like a crazy man, ranting and raving that he’d get even with whoever did it. I won’t repeat some of the words he used, not in front of you, Mrs. F. I told him you were missing along with the boat, and that if he had an alibi, he’d better come out with it right away. Said he was drinking down at the beach, and he didn’t see anyone and no one saw him. I told him that wasn’t good enough.”

“So you locked him up,” I said.

“Yep. And this afternoon, when I told him we’d found you and Pettie and that he’d better say who he was in cahoots with, he wouldn’t talk. Clammed up right away.”

“So he knows Pettie is dead?” I asked.

“He does.” Mort stood and stretched. “I’d best be going. Afraid you’re going to have to repeat your story tomorrow morning for the others. Coast guard will have an investigator present, too.”

“I’ll be happy to help in any way I can,” I said.

Seth was reluctant to leave—“You gonna be all right by yourself tonight?”—but I shooed him out the door, promising to call if I needed a comforting voice in the wee hours, if I suffered from nightmares or an attack of nerves should what I’d just been through revisit me in the middle of the night. They left together, but not until Seth gave me final instructions: “You get yourself to bed right away, Jessica.”

He didn’t have to tell me that. Within minutes of their departure, I was in pajamas, under the covers, and out like a light.

It was wonderful to wake up in my own bed, in my own room, in my own house.

I’d slept soundly, although I was vaguely aware of distressing dreams that floated just below the surface of my slumber. Too soon, I awakened as the sun’s rays squeezed through the slim gap between my shades and the window’s frame, painting two broken stripes of light on my bedroom wall. I stretched, appreciating the smooth mattress and sheets, and fresh-smelling air. My excursion on the
Done For
had tapped muscles long unused, but even my sore shoulders, back, and legs were a reason to celebrate. All the aches and pains simply confirmed the joyous fact that I was alive.