Read Online Murder, She Wrote Domestic Malice by Donald Bain - Free Book Online

to snow and I was glad that I’d thought to wear a jacket with a hood. Hopefully it would be no more than a March snow shower, not enough to coat the roads and make driving treacherous.
    I ducked into Charles Department Store, where I hoped to find a replacement plastic card insert for my wallet; the old one was torn and my credit cards threatened to fall out at any moment. The department store had just what I was looking for—they always seem to have what I need—and I was paying when Tim Purdy, Cabot Cove’s historian and president of the historical society, came up to me. A tall, distinguished fellow, he was dressed as he often is in a tweed jacket, brown slacks, and a floppy red-and-yellow bow tie. A tan trench coat was casually draped over one arm.
    “Hello, Tim.”
    “Good morning, Jessica.” He glanced at a clock on the wall that read a few minutes past noon. “‘Good afternoon’ is more appropriate. How are you?”
    “Fine. I haven’t seen you in a while.”
    “I’ve been hibernating, putting the final touches on the revised history, and you’re just the person I wanted to see.”
    Tim is passionate about our town’s history and had written a wonderful book about it a few years ago, which he was in the process of updating.
    “You’ve found me,” I said pleasantly. “What can I do for you?”
    “Two things, Jessica. First, I’m thinking of expanding the section on the river and its meaning to Cabot Cove.”
    “Oh? You think that’s necessary?”
    “I wouldn’t have, but Dick Mauser’s plant and the controversy over whether he’s polluting the river change things.”
    “Do you have any new information about it?” I asked.
    “The EPA is sending a team.”
    “So I’ve heard.”
    “In that light, I fear that I shortchanged the river and its role in the town’s development in the first edition and want to beef it up.”
    “That seems like a good idea, Tim, whether the EPA comes up with anything or not.”
    “The library found some old photos of the river for me. They’re from the thirties. I’ll add them to the new edition.”
    “How nice, but what’s that have to do with me?”
    “Let’s go over there,” he said, motioning toward benches in the store’s shoe department. Once we were seated, he said in a low voice, “You heard about what happened to Josh Wolcott, of course.”
    “Yes.”
    “A terrible tragedy. But you know, Jessica, it started me thinking about the revision I’m working on. Updating the book to include more about the river’s impact on the town prompted my thinking about another update that should be considered.”
    “Which is?”
    “A chapter on murders that have taken place in Cabot Cove over the years.”
    “That again? I thought we discussed that when you were about to write the original book and decided not to include that sort of history.”
    “We did decide that at the time, yes, but it occurs to me that you can’t really do an honest history of a place without including its less savory aspects. New York had its Son of Sam, Boston the Boston Strangler, Los Angeles its Night Stalker and Hillside Strangler, and Chicago with all its Mafia killings, and—well, after all, Jessica, we have had murders here in Cabot Cove over the years.”
    “Still . . .”
    “And you were involved in them.”
    I was afraid that he was going to bring that up.
    “An unfortunate reality,” I said.
    “I did mention in the original version that we have a distinguished writer of murder mysteries living in town, namely, one Jessica Fletcher.”
    I sighed and responded, “Which is fine with me, provided it refers to me only as a writer of crime novels. My having played a role in solving a few cases doesn’t belong in a Cabot Cove history.”
    “You’re being modest,” said Tim, “but the history would benefit from some—how shall I say it?—from including some provocative material. To be honest, I was sort of hoping that you’d agree to write a chapter about