Free Murder, She Wrote Domestic Malice by Donald Bain

I have a sudden need to get lost in my kitchen and cook something to help get my mind off things like March snow squalls—and murder.”

Chapter Eight
     
    W e’re still here for you if you need to vent. All of us have walked in your shoes. Come back whenever you want. We’re here to help. —Elaine in Tucson
    * * *
     
    Two days after I’d visited Myriam’s house and been introduced to her overbearing mother, Evelyn Phillips called me and imparted the following information: The Wolcott family computer had been taken from the house by Sheriff Metzger and his deputies, its contents to be analyzed by a forensic computer expert from the state’s crime lab. I knew from an Authors Guild seminar I’d once attended how even files that have been deleted by the user can be resurrected. In this day and age, one’s private life is anything but private, and I hoped that Myriam hadn’t written anything on her computer that would prove embarrassing—or in this case injurious.
    “The word about town is that Sheriff Metzger is getting closer to charging her with Josh’s murder.”
    “Until he actually does, I’d prefer to think that he won’t,” I said.
    “Well,” Evelyn said, “she is retaining Cy O’Connor as her attorney.”
    “Retaining a lawyer is probably a wise move,” I said. “I’ve seen it too many times. Someone says the wrong thing and ends up being falsely accused. An attorney can head that off. But why Cy O’Connor? As far as I know, he doesn’t do criminal law.”
    “I thought you might know of a reason.”
    “I haven’t any idea, Evelyn. That’s a matter for Myriam to deal with.”
    I’d no sooner hung up when Mort Metzger called.
    “Morning, Mrs. F.”
    “Good morning, Mort. Good hearing from you.”
    “I’ve been all drove up lately, to use one of your Maine expressions, with the Josh Wolcott murder. Busy as a tire changer in the left lane of the West Side Highway.”
    “Yes, I imagine you are, Mort. How is your investigation proceeding?”
    “Making progress. I need to talk to you, Mrs. F.”
    “That’s never been difficult.”
    “I’d prefer not to talk on the phone. Think you can swing by headquarters later today?”
    “That shouldn’t be a problem.”
    “Say right after lunch?”
    “I’ll be there at one.”
    I hung up and pondered the reason for his call. Not that it was unusual to hear from our sheriff. I’d become good friends with Mort and his wife, Maureen, and circumstances had led me to help him out on occasion. That he wanted me to come to his office indicated that it was something serious, and I couldn’t help but wonder whether it had to do with the murder of Josh Wolcott. I hoped not. I’d had my fill of becoming involved in real murders over the years, and each experience left me with a bad taste in my mouth, not to mention physically and emotionally drained.
    Writing about murder is different. I’m able to sit at my computer, play out my fantasies, and give my imagination full rein. At the end I bring the bad guy to justice, ensure that good triumphs over evil, and establish a sense of order that we don’t always find in real life.
    Until my conversation with Tim Purdy about including a chapter in the Cabot Cove history chronicling the town’s murderers, those nasty episodes had receded into my past, stashed away in a separate and secure compartment of my brain. But I’d been thinking about some of them ever since bumping into Tim at Charles Department Store, and as hard as I tried to stow them away again in my memory trunk, I couldn’t quite close the lid. The ones that coincided with holidays or special occasions were most vivid in my memory.
    There was the Christmas when a popular citizen, Rory Brent, a jovial 250-pound man with flowing white hair and beard—he played Santa Claus every year at the town party—was shot to death, presumably by a neighbor known for his nasty temper. I ended up digging into the two families’ lives and staving off a