Heir to Murder she Wrote
Well, @shitty-conspiracies-i-invented , if you insist
It seemed surreal, Grady thought as little Frankie, to Grady he would always be little Frankie no matter that he was in his 30’s now, drove the car through the center of Cabot Cove. Through the closed window Grady could smell the docks with its combination of salt water and fish. It felt like nothing and everything had changed.
It had been a decade since Grady last came to Cabot Cove, since Seth Hazelett’s funeral. Though his Aunt Jess came to visit after that, it felt odd to visit the town itself. So much of the energy of the town seemed bound up in his Aunt Jess and her friendship with Seth. After his death, something felt like it was missing.
Frank pulled up to the house that had been his Aunt Jess’s for as long as Grady could remember. Grady got out of the car, but could not take another step, peering up at the house.
Donna settled against him, their hands clasped together. “It will be ok, I promise”
Grady gave a nod that felt shaky, “I know, I know. It’s just…”
“Aunt Jess” Donna finished softly.
“Aunt Jess. I suppose I just thought she would always be…here” he waved his hand to indicate both the house and his own life.
Donna sighed, “I know”
The sound of a car engine broke the moment. Frank drove off, to stay with his husband and the children until the funeral tomorrow. Frank had driven them up early, both so they could start to go through Aunt Jess’s things and because Frank’s car was not quite big enough for everyone to drive up at once. So Mike, Frank's husband, and their four kids got a hotel in Augusta while Frank drove Grady and Donna to Cabot Cove.
An inner ear problem that Grady had developed in his fifties caused dizzy spells that were just severe and frequent enough that he could not drive any longer. Donna let her license lapse after they bought a Condo in Manhattan, as there was no need to drive.
The couple walked up the path. Grady braced himself for the eerie silence of a house that should have been full with a single person.
But silence is not what he found. Instead there was a low level chatter coming from the kitchen.
Grady drifted through the living room to the entrance of the kitchen. At the table were several people, chief among them…
“Mort?” Grady asked, taking in the former shariff, now almost twenty years retired.
The man had grown even frailer than the last time Aunt Jess had shown them pictures of her friends in Cabot cove, which had been pictures of Eve Simpson’s final birthday party in 2018. But his eyes were still bright and his smile still infectious. His tone was still warm when he spoke, “Grady. Donna”
Mort made no effort to stand to greet them. Aunt Jess had said he had never quite regained the strength in his legs after a bout of COVID early on in the Pandemic that had left him comatose for almost six months.
Adele, however, nearly jumped to her seat to pull them both into a bone crushing hug. It did not matter that she was pushing ninety, she was still as strong as ever. “Oh you poor dears, I knew. I just knew we had to be here when you arrived. I hope you don’t mind that we let ourselves in. Victoria said she didn’t but… it was your aunt as well.”
Donna was already patting on Adele’s back. Grady could see the smitten look that Mort sent toward Adele and warmth pushed itself past the grief that Grady had been carrying since he got the news. It was a beautiful thing, to see Mort still so in love with his wife after all these years.
As Adele let them go, Grady turned to the other woman in the room, “Hi Vicky.”
Victoria was one of Grady's cousins by marriage. Grady was Frank Fletcher's nephew while Victoria was one of Jessica Fletcher's many nieces. Vicky looked like she had been crying, and also like she had not slept in some time. It was hard to tell how much of that was from Aunt Jess. Grady knew from the few reunions he had gone to that Vicky had never really recovered from her husband Howard’s death in 2011.
Vicky nodded but didn’t speak, she had grown very quiet after Howard’s death.
Donna began moving around the kitchen, tidying it in a nervous but familiar habit.
Grady turned back to Adele, “You and Mort are always welcome here,” he considered the words, “Well I suppose if we sell the house, or Frank decides to move in, you should check with owners, of course. Not that we are planning on selling it, or could sell it. We don’t know who Aunt Jess left it to after all. I mean…”
Mort chuckled, “We get what you mean. Thank you.”
Adele looked like she was resisting drawing them close again, “After the funeral tomorrow, we’ll come back and help go through Jessica’s papers. We got a notice saying that the Will will be read at the end of next week?”
Donna nodded even as she finally sat down on the far side of the table with a little huff of air, “Oh, yes. Aunt Jess’s lawyer is coming up from Boston as executor. She was a recommendation from a friend of Jessica’s.”
“Aunt Jess was worried that her death would bring out all kinds of crazies” Grady interjected, not wanting anyone to think Aunt Jess didn’t trust them, “so she wanted someone involved who would be a step removed as the executor”
XXX
The funeral was a sunny affair. More than one neighbor spoke of God celebrating as He welcomed an angel home. Grady knew many but not all of the faces surrounding Aunt Jess’s coffin, but he had no doubt that each had their lives touched by Aunt Jess; whether they wanted to or not.
One face stuck out but it took several long minutes for Grady to place why. It was familiar, but from the haze of childhood. In addition the man’s features were sharper and his eyes a touch colder.
“Harry Pierce?” Grady asked, voice pitched low so as not to make a scene.
The man turned to look, giving a wide shark's grin at the sight of Grady. “Grady.” Harry made an aborted movement as if to give Grady a hug, but stopped when Grady jerked back just a bit. “It has been too long, ya hear. Sad that this is the occasion, though.”
“Harry? I thought…Well Aunt Jess said had been…”
Harry shrugged with a short laugh “Sent to jail, yeah. I was released about ten years ago, paroled. It was only a few days ago that I was allowed to come back to Cabot Cove, you see.”
Grady felt his face twist, “So you came for Aunt Jess’s funeral?”
Harry’s face dropped into a glare, “She was my friend.”
Grady’s confusion deepened, “Who sent you to prison.”
Harry waved his hand as if to brush off the words, “I did kill two people and tried to kill Jessica, I can’t blame her for that. I was out of control. It was good to see you again, Grady.”
Grady watched as Harry wandered off into the crowd.
“Jessica always did know the strangest people.” A voice to Grady’s right made him jump. The man who spoke was older with a shock of white hair and a British accent.
Grady was saved from thinking up a reply by Donna stepping next to him and holding her hand out to the man. “I’m Donna, Grady’s wife. And you are?”
The man was staring at the coffin that would shortly be lowered into Aunt Jess’s grave. “Michael is as good a name as any. Certainly what Jessica knew me as.” When Michael looked up at Grady, there was something melancholy in his eyes, something tired. “You’re aunt was one of a kind. I owe her more than a few. You ever need anything, use this information to reach out.” Michael gave Grady a pure white business card with only a phone number and an email.
XXX
The memorial after the burial was held in the community center. Dixon’s diner offered to cater for free, in memory of Grady’s Aunt Jess. It was set up and run by members of the local congregation, lead by Bonnie Hastings, so that Aunt Jess’s variety of family did not have to think about the guests.
Grady drifted through the room with Donna at his side. Frank, Mike, and the kids had spread in a different direction. Everywhere he could hear snippets of stories, all about his Aunt Jess. The times where she helped solve a mystery. The times where she stuck her nose in, and somehow fixed everything. Even a few times where her need to know and impressive memory caused the problems that she would then solve.
Grady heard Debbie Dixon, Bo Dixon’s granddaughter and the current owner of Dixon’s diner, say that she was going to grab more plastic cups. Then mere moments later she screamed loud enough to rattle the windows.
Grady was close enough that he was one of the first to reach her, in spite of the mild persistent ache to his hips from all those years sitting at a desk. The door to a walk-in storage closet was halfway open, an older woman toppled into an uncomfortable looking slump half way through the door, her arm caught on the handle of the door. Her face was barely visible, but there was a long scar that wound across her scalp. It was clear from where Grady was standing that the woman was dead.
Someone from behind Grady gasped and a female voice said “That’s Wanda Andrews.”
The name meant nothing to Grady, but a murmur went through the crowd behind him. As he stared at the body the only thing that he could say was “Who brought a corpse to my Aunt Jess’s funeral.”
Mort, who had been pushed in his wheelchair through the crowds by Adele, shrugged “Seems sort of appropriate, though.”
XXX
The newest Sheriff of Cabot Cove, third of that title since Mort Metzger retired, was a woman by the name of Marigold Feeney, former deputy to Amos Tupper. The six months she had spent as part of Cabot Cove Sheriff’s department had, if the rumors Aunt Jess had heard, prepared her for every possible scenario in every other police department she had ever worked. Sheriff Feeney’s return just over a year before had been a homecoming and a welcome one. The citizens of Cabot Cove could get very twitchy if their Sheriff was too much of an ‘outsider’.
It was always obvious who understood Cabot Cove in the way that only a resident could. Grady could even see it in little Frankie, who had never lived in the town, and his family. Donna got it better than most, had always understood the part of Grady that also belonged to Cabot Cove; but even with her, there had even been a few instances where Donna had not understood, though she had never been judgemental.
Sheriff Feeney understood Cabot Cove. This was clear in how she stopped carefully to speak to Bonnie Hastings, who then began to direct people toward the deputies with all the efficiency of a general at war, before making her way over to where the body was still slumped over. Grady would bet that the Sheriff would have checked in with Mort as well, had he been anywhere but next to the body, talking to Debbie Dixon.
“Mr. Fletcher” Grady looked up at the Sheriff, “I’m Sheriff Marigold Feeny. My condolences on the death of your aunt.” She shook his hand with a short professional motion.
“Good afternoon, Sheriff. Thank you”
The niceties complete, the Sheriff stepped up next to Mort to take Debbie’s statement.
The residents of Cabot Cove fell into the same pattern they always did when another body dropped. Statements were taken with the efficiency that only comes from experience. Those from out of town, with the exception of extended Fletcher/McGill family, stared between the body and the nonchalant residents with no small amount of horror.
As Grady waited to give his statement, he found his eyes following one out of towner in particular. A thin woman around his age with dark curly gray hair and dark eyes. Grady couldn’t figure out why this woman was sticking out to him, she was not behaving oddly for what was going on.
Grady moved over to her. Determined to figure out what about her had caught his attention, of all the people here. “That was quite a surprise.”
The woman glanced at him, “It certainly was.” Her voice was high and soft.
Grady held out his hand to shake, “I’m Grady Fletcher, Jessica’s nephew. Well, one of them.”
The woman clasped his hand for a moment, “I’m Amy Wainright, I moved to Cabot Cove about six years after you moved to New York, but have been away for some time. When I heard that Jessica Fletcher had, well…I couldn’t believe it.”
Grady nodded along, “Yeah, I think most of us thought she would be around forever.”
They chatted for a few more minutes, before Amy was pulled away to give her statement. It would not be until Grady was getting ready for bed that night that it occurred to him why she drew his attention. Her eyes were too calm; the wrong kind of calm. It was not the nonchalance of the residents of Cabot Cove, there were only so many dead bodies that could drop in a year before they became just a part of the routine and Cabot Cove tended to pass that point in February every year. The high death rate, with an unusually high murder rate actually helped the tourist trade of the town, as morbid as it sounds. Researchers also tended to come in droves to try and figure out Cabot Cove, but almost always left after a few months, defeated; or became a permanent resident and put their research aside.
Grady always figured they were asking the wrong questions.
XXX
Four days after the funeral Grady got a call from Beatrice Malloy, Ideal Malloy's great niece, and a desk clerk at the Sheriff station.
“Sorry for bothering you, Mr. Fletcher. But Harry Pierce asked me to call you.”
Grady, Donna, Mort, and Adele had been going through Aunt Jess’s papers in preparation for the Will reading. “Harry Pierce?”
Beatrice clicked her tongue, sounding apologetic, “Yes, he was arrested early this morning. Charged with Wanda Andrews murder. He called for a lawyer, but asked to talk to you as well.”
Grady bit his lips and thought if he was really up to dealing with whatever this was. Except he was much more like his Aunt Jess than he thought, because he had a burning curiosity to find out what was going on.
Adele was kind enough to drive him to the Sheriff station while Mort and Donna continued to sort through paperwork and items. She decided she would remain in the car, as being in the station without Mort was strange to her.
Beatrice looked up with a smile as he entered, “Mr. Fletcher. Thank you for coming.”
Grady shrugged, “I was curious.”
He let himself be led to the cells that were still mostly used as a drunk tank, no matter the murder statistics and near perfect solve rate, to where Harry Pierce was being held. The man was still all long, thin limbs near knotted together with anxious energy.
Harry’s head shot up as soon as Grady came through the doors and the look of relief on his face was uncomfortable for Grady to look at, “Grady. Thank goodness.”
“Harry, why did you call for me?” Grady asked.
“I didn’t kill that woman, I swear. You’ve got to help me.”
Grady found himself shaking his head a bit, “Help you, Harry? How would I…?”
Harry surged toward the bars of the cell, “Please. You’ve got your aunt’s smarts, right? Surely you can solve this.”
“I’d be willing to let you give it a look” a voice from the door rang out. It was Sheriff Feeny. “It just don’t feel right, solving this without a Fletcher present.”
Grady frowned at her, “Are you sure?”
The sheriff shrugged with a good natured smile, “Pierce is right, we all know you picked up your aunt's talent. Folks around here will get mighty antsy if I don't get at least a second opinion from you. And I like to get a jump on things”
“I suppose I could take a look.” Grady said slowly.
Harry cheered in the background.
XXX
“It was the notes Aunt Jess kept from her research for ‘The Killer Called Collect’ that reminded me. One of her early revisions cut out fingerprints as a false clue, the killer using someone else's fingerprints to cover up their own.”
Amy Wainwright was snarling from where she was being read her rights. No one was paying attention since she had admitted to the crime, then promptly realized her mistake.
Grady shrugged a little bashfully, “After we realized that Harry’s hair had been planted, I remembered I had seen Ms. Wainwright around Harry before the funeral. I just didn’t realize who either of them were.”
Mort shook his head, “There had to be more than that, there were tons of people around. It could have been any of them.”
Grady smiled as he pulled Donna closer, “Once you remembered the Andrews case and I looked at the reports, it just clicked. Remember the two tone cord around Wanda’s neck? Red and Green, referencing Wanda’s color blindness and the mistake that made the case Aunt Jess’s problem the first time around. Once I had made the connection, suddenly Amy’s behavior once we found the body made sense. It all fits.”
Mort was looking at him strangely, his eyes shiny. “You have no idea how much you seem like your aunt right now.” He said softly.
The words stole Grady’s breath. All at once it did not matter that he was a nephew by marriage. His connection to the woman who had been a second mother never felt stronger.
It seemed as if everything would be ok.