A Palette for Murder (2 page)

“You bet I won’t.”

“And be on the lookout for the next Agatha Chris-tie—or J. D. Fletcher.”

“I’ll do that. Thanks again, Vaughan, for understanding the late delivery of the manuscript. See you in the Hamptons in a few days.”

“Right you are, Jess. And don’t worry about your luggage. I’ll have it picked up at your hotel the last day of your stay. It’ll be at the inn when you arrive.”

 

My classroom cleared out. The last student to leave was Richard, who approached me as I was packing my briefcase. “If I decide to write a murder mystery, Mrs. Fletcher, can I send it to you to read?”

The gall, I thought. I smiled. “Of course, Richard. It was a pleasure having you in class.”

Lunch in the faculty dining room was low-calorie and pleasant. The dean, a bear of a man with white hair, thick, unruly black eyebrows, and a Santa Clause twinkle in his eye, said, “The feedback on your seminar every year, Jessica, is always top-notch. We’re truly grateful to have you share your experience and talent with us.”

“The pleasure is all mine, Dean Carlisle. My fondest wish is that one of my students will go on to write the Great American Novel, and win all sorts of awards for it.”

“And be paid handsomely as well.”

“Yes. That, too.”

“So you’re off to the Hamptons,” he said as he walked me from the building to the street.

“Yes. I’ve never been there.”

“I thought every writer ended up in the Hamptons—much to the chagrin of some.”

“Well, I don’t intend to rub elbows with other writers. I’ve had enough of writing to last me a few months. This is strictly relaxation, Dean Carlisle. A needed case of R and R.”

“Well, you enjoy it. Say hello to Vaughan Buckley for me. See you in six months?”

“You can count on it.”

Now alone—alone in the sense that no one was with
me,
the West Village was teeming with tourists, students, and other assorted New Yorkers—I looked across the street to the famed Washington Arch, which marks the beginning of Fifth Avenue, and stands as a landmark to Washington Square, the busy park surrounding it. I waited for a break in the traffic, then crossed and entered the square. Two statues of George Washington defined the east and west boundaries.
Washington
as President is on the west pier of the arch,
Washington as Commander-in-Chief
anchors the east pier.

I checked my watch. I had time to kill before catching the Hampton Jitney at Eighty-sixth Street,. on the Upper East Side, one of many stops it makes along Lexington Avenue. A short stroll through Washington Square was in order. It was a lovely day, spring warmth in the air, sun shining brightly, the blue sky a scrim for puffs of fast-moving white clouds. Because Vaughan had my luggage picked up at the hotel that morning, I only had to carry my shoulder bag, and a large black leather portfolio that didn’t weigh much.

I hadn’t gone very far when I was stopped by a scraggly young man. He pulled his hand from the pocket of his ragged jacket and held it out to me. In his palm were two small glassine packets. “The best stuff, lady. Top of the line.”

My first reaction was to yell for the police. He was obviously offering me illegal drugs. But I decided it would be fruitless. I turned and walked with purpose in another direction. Frankly, I was surprised at being offered drugs in Washington Square. New York City’s government had taken aggressive steps to clean up the park, and had been largely successful, as far as I knew. The last time I was there—six months ago when I taught a previous seminar at NYU—a friend had met me for lunch. As we walked through the square she had said, “It’s so nice to have the park reclaimed from the drug dealers. Sort of like going back to when Henry James was writing about it.”

“It can be done if people put their minds to it,” I said.

“This used to be a hanging gallows,” she said, pointing to a giant elm tree, the oldest in the city. “And this was the original potter’s field.”

“I almost wish you hadn’t mentioned it,” I said. “The contemplation of people hanging from that tree isn’t very pretty.”

“There are some people I wouldn’t mind seeing swinging from its branches,” she said. “I’m sure you have a few, too.”

“None I can think of at the moment,” I replied, and changed the subject.

The image of people being hanged in Washington Square has been with me ever since that conversation. But I dismissed it from my mind this day, hailed a passing cab, and headed uptown, instructing the driver to let me off at Second Avenue at Eighty-fourth Street. There’s a shop there, Oldies, Goldies, and Moldies, that I was told carried a wonderful variety of clocks. My friend back home in Cabot Cove, Dr. Seth Hazlitt, had mentioned to me before I left that he was looking for a certain type of clock. If this shop had it, I wanted to buy it for him.

I’d no sooner paid the driver—a rough, grizzled sort of fellow—and stepped out of his cab when a car bumped into the back of it. It was the mildest of collisions; I didn’t see any damage. But both drivers leaped out and started screaming at each other. This led to a fistfight. And then, to my horror, my cabdriver pulled a lead pipe from beneath his seat and hit the other driver in the head with it.

I turned away just before the moment of bloody impact and walked quickly down the street. Two uniformed policemen who’d witnessed it ran past me in the direction of the confrontation. What senseless brutality over something so minor, I thought as I kept walking until reaching Third Avenue. The heck with looking for a clock. I wasn’t about to go back to the scene of the violence.

As I waited for the light to change, I noticed a folding table to my right on which books were displayed. I went to it and scanned the many titles for sale. Most were children’s books. But on one end was a pile of paperback books without their covers. I looked closer. On the pile were a few copies of one of my novels, published in paperback a year ago. The man was selling them for fifty cents.

Well, I’ll be, I thought as I picked up one of the books and thumbed through it. I’d heard of the illegal practice by some bookstores and distributors of tearing covers from paperback books, then sending the covers back to the publisher for a refund and selling the stripped books themselves. Book publishing is one of the last industries in America in which the product is sold on consignment. A bookstore - might order twenty paperback copies of a certain book. If it sells five, it need only tear off the fifteen covers of the remaining ones and send them back for full credit. The expectation, of course, is that the books themselves will be destroyed.

But there is an obvious black market in coverless paperbacks, and here was the first example I’d personally experienced.

“You want?” the man behind the table asked.

I dropped my book on the pile and shook my head. “No, no thank you. Have a nice day.”

By the time I settled in a window seat on the large, comfortable and modem touring bus—calling it a jitney is misleading—and had accepted the attendant’s offer of orange juice and a bag of peanuts, I was more than ready to leave what is affectionately called The Big Apple.

My pompous student, Richard, had annoyed me with his arrogant views on writing.

I’d been offered illicit drugs in Washington Square.

I’d seen a man attempt to beat another man’s brains out with a lead pipe, all because their respective automobiles touched.

And now copies of one of my books were being illegally sold on the streets of Manhattan.

I couldn’t wait to get to the idyllic Hamptons. I’d had enough crime to last me a good long time.

The Hampton Jitney was full, and I was glad I’d made my reservation well in advance. Because I had a window seat, I had to excuse myself to the young man seated on the aisle. He, too, had a large portfolio similar to mine.

“Hi,” he said after I’d settled in.

“Hi,” I said.

“I haven’t seen you before.”

Why would not seeing me before strike him as being unusual? I wondered. “Do you mean on this jitney?” I asked.

His grin broadened. “Yeah,” he said. “I take it all the time. Most people take it regularly.”

“I didn’t realize that,” I said. “This is my first trip.”

His smile faded and his brow knitted. “Do I know you from someplace?” he asked. “I mean, someplace other than the jitney.”

“I really wouldn’t know.”

“Are you a famous artist?”

I laughed. “Goodness, no. I can’t even draw the proverbial straight line.”

His eyes went to my portfolio. “I figured you were an artist because of that,” he said, pointing to it.

“Oh that,” I said. “Just to carry some oversize ...
things.”

My seat companion started talking to the person across the aisle, giving me the opportunity to open one of two books I’d brought with me to read on vacation. But I had trouble starting it. There was too much to see out my window.

The driver left Manhattan via the Queens Midtown Tunnel and headed east on the Long Island Express-way. Although it wasn’t rush hour, at least according to my definition, traffic was horrendous and stayed that way until we’d reached Suffolk County, where things opened up and we were able to make better time. Soon, we were on smaller local roads, rolling along through farmland and passing lovely older homes mingled with more modem structures featuring lots of glass and natural woods.

I enjoyed my solitude, shifting my attention between the book and the scenery. But eventually, my seat companion struck up another conversation with me. “I still think I know you from somewhere,” he said. “By the way, name’s Chris Turi.” He extended his hand.

“Pleased to meet you,” I said.

“And you are?”

“J. D. Fletcher,” I mumbled.

“Fletcher. Fletcher. The mystery writer?”

I leaned close to him. “Yes, but I would just as soon not broadcast it. I’m coming to the Hamptons for what I hope is a very quiet ten days away from anything having to do with writing.”

He smiled. “Sure. I understand.”

“You thought I was an artist because of this portfolio I’m carrying,” I said. “I see you’re carrying one, too. Are you an artist?”

He nodded enthusiastically. “A struggling one,” he said. “Maybe someday my name will be as famous as yours.”

“I certainly hope so,” I said, not sure whether that indicated a certain pomposity on my part. “What sort of art do you do?”

“Hard to categorize,” he replied. “Modem, I guess, although I’ve been trying to incorporate a more traditional approach to some of my works.”

“Combining the old masters with modem design?” I asked, hoping my question didn’t sound stupid.

“Something like that,” he said.

We didn’t have time to discuss it further because minutes later, our driver pulled to the curb in the center of the charming Hamptons village that would be my home for the next ten days. Mr. Turi and I shook hands: “I’ll probably see you around,” he said. “Not a very big place.”

“Well, if we do bump into each other, I’d enjoy seeing some of your work.”

“Sure. Be my pleasure. Want to see some now?”

I saw Vaughan and Olga Buckley waiting for me on the sidewalk, their two little dogs, Sadie and Rose, on leashes. “Sorry, but there’s no time,” I said. “Maybe I’ll see you in a restaurant or café.”

“Yeah. That would be good. Nice meeting you, Mrs. Fletcher.”

“Same here.”

“Jessica, how wonderful to see you,” Olga Buckley said, handing the leashes to Vaughan and giving me a hug.

“And good to see you again, Olga. You look stunning as usual.” Olga Buckley had once been a top fashion model in Manhattan. When she married the dashing young publisher, Vaughan Buckley, news of their permanent liaison was big news on the society pages. Although her modeling career ended a number of years ago, she looked as good today as when her cameo face and slender figure graced the covers of some of America’s leading fashion magazines.

Vaughan, who loved clothes and was always impeccably dressed, was no exception this day. He wore gray slacks with a razor crease, a double-breasted blue blazer with gold buttons, and a red-and-white checkered button-down shirt open at the collar. A red handkerchief jauntily protruded from his breast pocket. He kissed me on the cheek. Sadie and Rose yapped at my feet; I crouched and gave them each a scratch behind the ears.

“Well,” I said, straightening up, “here I am. What a charming village.”

“That it is,” Vaughan said. “Of course, it’ll get too crowded now that the season is upon us. But that adds a certain vitality to it.”

As we slowly walked along the street in the direction of the inn they’d chosen for me, Vaughan said, “Olga and I are still considering buying some property up in Cabot Cove.”

Olga laughed. “Ever since Vaughan came back from visiting you there, all he’s talked about is how beautiful Cabot Cove is, and how much we’d enjoy having a getaway there. He says a friend of yours makes the best blueberry pancakes he’s ever tasted.”

“That would be Mara. Everything she cooks is good.”

The inn was located on the main street, set back from the sidewalk. It was lovely in a gingerbread way, gray shingles and immaculately painted white trim cut into a series of circles that bordered the top and sides of the door. A pair of white wicker rockers stood on a small front porch. A bicycle rack holding a half-dozen bikes was to the right of the porch.

“It looks lovely,” I said.

“We think you’ll enjoy staying here, Jessica,” Olga said. “Dreadful timing, having our house renovated just when you come to visit. But this inn is really very comfortable. It only has a few rooms, but one is a suite in the back, overlooking a lovely garden. That’s your room.”

“Sounds yummy,” I said.

The Buckleys were greeted warmly by the inn’s owner, an older, cherubic gentleman with a baldpate, and a fringe of white hair that looked like cotton pasted to his temples. His name was Joseph Scott, and he seemed genuinely enthusiastic about my being a guest. He ushered us into a small sitting room with floor-to-ceiling bookcases on one wall. With great pride, he pointed to a section that con tained, at least it looked to me, every book I’d ever written. “My personal J. D. Fletcher library,” he announced.