Brandy and Bullets (25 page)

I continued to read as I worked the cursor key to keep the text rolling.

I stared at the screen for what seemed an eternity before again reaching into my purse and removing the small leather bag given me by Meti. It didn’t feel as heavy as when I’d accepted it at Worrell.

It had a drawstring, which I undid. I slipped the small revolver from the pouch and weighed it in my palm. I was not a stranger to weapons. I’d seen enough of them in my career to understand how they work, and the destruction they are capable of delivering. I’ve never owned a weapon, and would never consider purchasing one.

But instead of being repelled by the weapon, I found the feel of it in my hand to be strangely pleasant. I returned my attention to the computer screen: “... And so many other ARTISTES ...”

I put the gun to my head, to my right temple. My fingers tightened on it, my index finger slowly squeezing the trigger.

It happened first with a “POW.” Then, a sizzling sound, and the acrid smell of something burning, something electrical. The screen was dark. All lights in the room were extinguished. The electricity had gone out.

I got up to check the circuit breakers in the kitchen, realized I had the gun in my hand, and fell heavily back into my chair. I felt clammy, light-headed. Disoriented.

A figure moved outside my window. I hurried to it, to see who it was, and to find fresh, cold air to breath. The storm window was down; I couldn’t budge it. I banged loudly on the window.

The man outside, whose back was toward me, jumped at the sound I made, and turned. “Mrs. Fletcher!” he shouted. It was Myron, a repairman for Maine Power & Light, who was kept busy in the winter months.

He shouted’in order to be heard through the glass. “Mrs. Fletcher, I didn’t know you were home. Jason told me you’d gone out of town. Sorry if I disturbed you.”

I said nothing. I was numb. I held both hands up to the window.

Myron’s face turned ashen. “Whoa, Mrs. Fletcher. What you got there?” His laugh was nervous. “I know I scared you, but you don’t need that with me.”

I looked at what he saw. I still held the gun in my right hand. I dropped it to the floor. The sharp report as it went off sent me into spasm. Then, the Chinese vase across the room shattered into a thousand pieces, spraying everything with colorful glass confetti.

“Mrs. Fletcher! You okay?”

I nodded. “Yes,” I said weakly, my words never leaving the room. I realized he couldn’t hear me, so I motioned for him to come around to the front.

“Mrs. Fletcher,” he said as we stood in my foyer, “I am really sorry to have frightened you. One of our new men was out on Friday to read your meter. He reported that your safety wire was severed. I figured he did it, but didn’t want to fess up. By accident, I mean. Anyway, I needed to come by tonight and check it out. To do that, I had to cut off your electricity for a couple of minutes. If I knew you were home, I’d have knocked to let you know what I was going to do. Jason told me this morning that you were out of town. I’m really sorry. I saw how scared you were and—”

“It’s all right, Myron,” I said. “Actually, you did a very good thing. You—you saved my life.”

“I did?”

“Yes. At least I
think
you did. Why don’t you go ahead and fix that broken wire. When you’re done, I’ll have a hot cup of tea, and some cookies, waiting for you. In the meantime, I have a very important phone call to make.”

“To your publisher?” he asked. He’d always been fascinated that I was a writer.

“No. To the sheriff. I think we have some new-comers in Cabot Cove who have a great deal to answer for.”

My call to Sheriff Morton Metzger brought him, two of his deputies, and Seth Hazlitt to my house. When they arrived, Myron, the Maine Power & Light repairman who’d kept me from doing something silly like shooting myself, was enjoying tea and cookies in the kitchen. I’d tried to sweep up what I could of the Chinese vase, but many tiny pieces remained in the carpeting and furniture.

Mort gave Myron a look that said, Time for you to leave, son.

“Great cookies, Mrs. Fletcher,” Myron said as he put on his coat. “Good as down at Sassi’s. Much obliged.”

Mort’s deputies examined my office, while I sat with my two friends in the kitchen.

“Let’s go over this again, Jessica,” Seth said.

“I’ll handle the questions, Doc,” Mort said.

Seth mumbled something and sat back as I recounted everything that had happened up until the time the gun went off.

“And you say O’Neill and his cronies set you up to shoot yourself through hypnosis?”

“Yes.”

“Mind if I interject a question?” Seth asked.

“If you have to,” said Mort.

“What I don’t understand, Jessica, is that if they were successful in getting you to actually put the gun to your head, how come havin’ the electric go off wiped away that posthypnotic suggestion?”

“If I knew the answer to that, Seth, I’d be glad to share it with you. I’d probably write an article on my findings for the
New England Journal of Medicine.
Maybe it was the shock of the screen going blank. Maybe it was the room suddenly becoming dark. All I know is that I held that weapon to my head, and was about to pull the trigger.”

“And it was because that word ‘artiste’ appeared on the screen,” Mort said.

“Exactly. I’d be happy to show it to you, except that the power failure blew something in Norman’s computer. You’ll see it later. But I remember distinctly that Dr. Meti told me that if that word was spoken, or appeared in print, I would want to kill the evil person inside, the ‘Jessica Fletcher’ who was keeping me from writing.”

“Damn shame,” Seth said.

“What is?” Mort asked.

“‘That none of this can be proven. According to Jess, everything she read on the screen was positive reinforcement. Common thing medical hypnotists use. All you’ve got is her word that the suggestion was planted about the word ‘artiste.’ ”

“We’ll see,” Mort said, without conviction.

The phone rang. “I don’t believe this,” I said loudly into the receiver. “Norman is there? Your husband, Norman?”

“Yes,” Jill Huffaker said. “Isn’t that wonderful?”.

“It’s better than that,” I said. “Where has he been?”

She hesitated before answering, “Washington, D.C. Just like you said, Jess.”

“Can I speak with him?”

He came on the line. “Hello, Jess. Had everybody worried for a while, huh?”

“A monumental understatement. What—?”

“All questions answered in person,” he said. “Jill and I are catching the red-eye tonight to Boston. Be in Cabot Cove in the morning.”

“Why? I mean—”

“No comment—until tomorrow. See you then, Jess.”

Mort and Seth stared at me as I hung up. “That was your friend, Huffaker?” Seth said.

“Yes. He’s alive.
He’s alive
!”

“No explanation?” said Mort.

“Tomorrow. He and Jill are flying in tonight.”

I got up to check on how Mort’s deputies were doing when a dreadful thought hit me. “Oh, my God,” I said.

“What’s the matter, Jessica?” Seth and Mort asked.

“Susan Dalton. She’s still at Worrell. I’ll bet anything that O’Neill and the others knew we’d been up in that storeroom looking at things in the safe. They’ll try to kill her, too.”

“Not if I have anything to say about it,” Mort announced. He instructed his deputies to go to the Worrell Mansion and remove Ms. Dalton, by force if necessary, from the premises.

“Bring her here,” I said. “She can stay with me.”

 

“I’m the mayor of Cabot Cove, and I shall make the opening comments.”

Sybil Stewart and Mort Metzger argued in a corner of the town council’s main meeting room. I could hear their conversation from where I sat with Seth Hazlitt and Jill Huffaker.

“Seems to me this is a criminal matter,” Mort said. “Seems to me the sheriff should run things.”

“Well, Sheriff Metzger, what seems to you doesn’t ‘seem’ to me. I’ll conduct the conference, and introduce you at the appropriate time. Understood?”

“Yes, ma’am.” He looked at me and winced. I turned away; I didn’t want to laugh.

Sybil took the podium and asked for silence. When it wasn’t forthcoming, her exasperation flared. “If you don’t want to hear what we have to say this morning, then I’ll call this off, and you all can go home and wonder what you’d missed.” A smug smile crossed her thin, tight face.

Seated behind Sybil were Mort, Jared Worrell, who’d flown in overnight, Norman Huffaker, who’d been in town but who’d kept a low profile until this morning, and a man I didn’t recognize. He was big and beefy, dressed in an overtly expensive suit, and with high color in his cheeks. His smile was pleasant and open.

“That’s better,” Sybil said when audience chatter lessened to an acceptable level. “As you all know, a shocking revelation has been made about the so-called Worrell Institute for Creativity. Shocking to most, but not to me. Those who know me are aware that I took a stand against the Worrell Mansion being used for such purposes from the moment it was announced.”

A few of her more overt supporters clapped.

“Thank you. As it turned out—and despite the efforts of certain people in this community to thwart an investigation into what was
really
going on at the mansion, the truth has finally emerged.” She paused for more applause. An elderly man obliged.

Sybil went on to credit her administration with uncovering the mischief at Worrell, ending her written speech with, “Unfortunately, the life of a talented and promising young woman was snuffed out in the prime of her life because of the irresponsible, criminal actions of those who held themselves out as men of science and medicine. Their misdeeds might have claimed more lives, were it not for the insistence of my office that our law enforcement officials keep the case open. Which they did, and for which we can all sleep easier.”

I looked at Mort, whose expression spoke eloquently of his inner discomfort.

“Let me now introduce our sheriff, Chief Metzger, who will add his own, very brief, comments to what I have already said.”

After clearing his throat a few times, Mort said into the microphone, “Based upon what we’ve gathered so far, the Worrell Institute for Creativity wasn’t what it pretended to be. Seems it was established here in Cabot Cove to carry out some experiments by the Central Intelligence Agency. Seems the folks at the CIA had a theory that people who do creative things, like write and paint and write music, might make better hypnotic subjects, who could be used by our intelligence agencies to do their courier and spy work. The way they figured it, those artistes who were the best subjects wouldn’t even know what they were doin’. Worse, one of them, Ms. Maureen Beaumont, was taught to kill herself. Which she did. You all know about that.”

“Then it was a suicide,” a reporter shouted.

“Yup,” Mort said. “But not one that involved free will. Everything points to Ms. Beaumont having been programmed to shoot herself. Just like—” He looked at me. I shook my head.

He went on to another topic, to my relief. “I know all of you, especially the media folks in the audience, want to know whether indictments have been brought against the doctors at Worrell. Well, they haven’t been. But that doesn’t mean they won’t be. The three main doctors up on the hill, Michael O’Neill, Tomar Meti, and Donald Fechter, have all left, all gone down to Washington, D.C. Because the federal government is involved, we got ourselves a classic jurisdictional dispute goin’ on. But I’ve been meeting with officials from the state, and the Feds, and we’ll get this sorted out lickety-split. I assure you of that. That’s about all I have to say this morning. But I’ll keep everybody posted.”

He turned the podium over to Sybil. She introduced Jared Worrell, who’d sold the mansion to the Boston developers, the Corcoran Group. They, in turn, had leased it to Michael O’Neill and his people.

“I am well aware of the pain I’ve caused this wonderful community, Worrell said. ”When I made the decision on behalf of my family to sell the mansion to the Corcoran Group, it was because I had absolute faith that it would be put to good and worthwhile use. The people from Corcoran are highly regarded. I know you’ll enjoy hearing from a representative who is here today, Matt O‘Brien.” He pointed to the heavyset man in the nice suit. “All I can say is that the Corcoran Group was as convinced as I was that Dr. O’Neill and his people, whose credentials are—were—pristine, intended for my family’s home to be put to a use that would benefit mankind, as well as this community.

“Discussions are now underway for a better future use of the property. For now, thank you for understanding that the motives of all concerned, with the exception of those who created the institute, were good and proper. Thank you.”

Matt O’Brien, a gregarious and confident public speaker, basically echoed what Worrell had said. He assured everyone in the room that the next tenant of the Worrell Mansion would be a credit to Cabot Cove. His comments were enthusiastically received.

“And now,” Sybil Stewart said, “it is with great pleasure and pride that I introduce a former neighbor, who went on to achieve fame and fortune in Hollywood, and who joins us here today. I might add that the reports of his demise were greatly exaggerated.” She expected more laughter than she got. “Please welcome Cabot Cove’s own, Norman Huffaker.”

Norman stood at the podium, looked down over the crowd, and basked in its welcome. When the applause died down, he said, a boyish grin on his face, “I have a lot to explain to you, especially to my dear friend, Jessica Fletcher. It’s a long story. A very long story. I’ll try to give you the
Cliff Notes
version.