Murder, She Wrote: Murder on Parade: Murder on Parade (6 page)

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Authors: Jessica Fletcher,Donald Bain

BOOK: Murder, She Wrote: Murder on Parade: Murder on Parade
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“Good morning, Jim. Jessica Fletcher.”
 
 
“Good morning, Jessica. Managing to stay cool?”
 
 
“No, and that’s why I’m calling. You don’t happen to have in stock a small air conditioner that will cool my bedroom, do you?”
 
 
“Oh, Jessica, I wish I did. We’re sold out. I do expect a shipment next week, but this heat wave will probably break by then.”
 
 
“Let’s hope so,” I said. “But put one aside for me anyway. I might as well be ready for the next one.”
 
 
“Shall do, Jessica. Have a great day.”
 
 
I’d no sooner hung up than the phone rang.
 
 
“Morning, Mrs. F,” Sheriff Metzger said. “Sleep well?”
 
 
“As a matter of fact, I didn’t, Mort.”
 
 
“Too hot, huh? I know just what you mean. Makes you sleepy in the day, and keeps you up all night.”
 
 
“Exactly.”
 
 
“You should get an AC for your bedroom. That’s the most important place for AC. Got to have a good night’s sleep.”
 
 
“You’ll get no argument from me. I just ordered one from Charles. What’s up?”
 
 
“I thought you might enjoy seeing how fireworks are done. Joe Lennon has arranged a demonstration by the fellas from Grucci out at the industrial park.”
 
 
“Sounds interesting. What time?”
 
 
“Eleven.”
 
 
“I’m free until one. I’ll be there.”
 
 
After turning the air-conditioning unit in my study up full blast, I called a local cab company to arrange to be picked up at ten forty-five, then went back to work on an outline for my next murder mystery that was due the following week. Coming up with compelling outlines is like pulling teeth for me. Writing the entire book is so much easier than sketching out a plot. I’d been working on this particular outline for two weeks, and knew I had at least another week’s work ahead of me. Maybe it was the blessed cool of the room, but this morning’s efforts seemed to go smoother than on previous days. I glanced up at my bird clock. A gift from a friend, it featured different, authentic birdcalls sounding on the hour. The big hand was almost on the white-breasted nuthatch; time to get ready to leave, but the thought of vacating the comfortable room wasn’t appealing. I mustered my courage and exited my house.
 
 
“Where to, Mrs. Fletcher?” Nick asked.
 
 
“The industrial park on the north.”
 
 
“Going for the fireworks display?” Nick had been driving a taxi in Cabot Cove for at least ten years and seemed to know everything that was going on in town. His cousin Dimitri, who owned the cab company, now served as dispatcher for his growing business, rarely taking the wheel of one of his vehicles himself.
 
 
“Yes.”
 
 
“I thought I might hang around myself and learn something,” he said, “although with this heat wave, lots of people who ordinarily wouldn’t be calling for a taxi are doing just that.”
 
 
“I can imagine.”
 
 
“I’ll be fine just as long as I don’t get caught up in a traffic jam and overheat,” he said.
 
 
Yes, Cabot Cove certainly had grown. The notion of traffic jams was a fairly recent phenomenon, caused in part by industrial parks like the one in which Lennon-Diversified was located. A number of such parks had also sprung up outside of town, and many Cabot Covers had found employment at them, meaning a commute that, at times, caused congestion during our version of rush hour—nothing like what New York or Los Angeles experienced, but something to which we’d not yet grown accustomed.
 
 
Nick pulled into the industrial complex, where a large stage had been set up in front of Lennon-Diversified’s impressive marble building. The stage was just as it had been depicted on Cynthia Welch’s PowerPoint audiovisual presentation the previous day. What hadn’t been on the screen was the beehive of activity going on around the stage. A bus had pulled up close to it, and young men were busy hauling out what appeared to be massive pieces of amplification equipment and toting them up onto the stage. It must be the band, I thought, as Nick maneuvered to where a group of perhaps thirty people stood.
 
 
“This is fine,” I said.
 
 
I signed the chit—I have an account with the taxi company and am billed monthly—and got out. Nick laughed. “Sure you don’t just want to go home, Mrs. Fletcher, and stay cool? Must be fifteen degrees hotter here in the park. It’s all the asphalt. It retains the heat.”
 
 
“No, as long as I’m here I might as well stay. Thanks, Nick.”
 
 
“Pick you up?”
 
 
“I’m sure I’ll get a lift from someone. Are you staying?”
 
 
If he was considering it, his ringing cell phone changed his mind. “Got to go,” he said. “Mrs. Kalisch needs a ride out here to Dr. Boyle’s office.”
 
 
Dr. Boyle
, I thought, and Seth Hazlitt immediately came to mind.
 
 
Agnes Kalisch had been a patient of Seth’s for as long as I’d known her. Had he sent her to Dr. Boyle for a second opinion or for some sort of specialized testing? As far as I knew, Boyle was a general practitioner like Seth—a primary-care physician, in today’s parlance. Was Seth’s practice about to go the way of small businesses in towns and cities across America, falling victim to large discount chain stores and fancy new approaches to doing business— or practicing medicine? I hoped not.
 
 
“Hey, Mrs. F,” Mort Metzger called. Kathy Copeland was with him, and they came to where Nick had dropped me off.
 
 
“Hot enough for you?” Mort asked, removing his Stetson and wiping his brow with a handkerchief.
 
 
“More than hot enough,” I replied. I asked Kathy where her sister, Willie, was.
 
 
“Smarter than I am,” she responded. “She says she’s staying in the condo for the duration of the heat wave.”
 
 
“She’ll miss the fireworks and the concert,” Mort said.
 
 
“I don’t think she meant it,” said Kathy. “You know Willie, always overstating things.”
 
 
We joined the rest of the crowd that had gathered in front of the stage. Mort had assigned uniformed officers to various positions for crowd control, although the heat had obviously dampened the spirits of many who would otherwise have shown up. There wasn’t much of a crowd to control.
 
 
“When is it going to start?” Kathy asked. “I’m wilting.”
 
 
“Seems it’s about to,” Mort said. “Excuse me. Looks like somebody passed out over there.”
 
 
He was right. A woman was prone on the ground, surrounded by concerned onlookers. Someone had had the foresight to arrange for an ambulance to be on hand, and its EMTs immediately went to work reviving the woman. Kathy and I watched as Mort took charge of the situation, but our attention was soon drawn back to the stage. Joseph Lennon had just come out of his building and now stood at a microphone. He was dressed immaculately in a tan suit, blue shirt, and green tie. What I especially noticed was that he seemed as cool as though it were an early fall day. There didn’t seem to be a drop of perspiration on him, and I thought of the character, played by E. G. Marshall in that wonderful film
Twelve Angry Men
, who never perspired in a sweltering jury room, even when tempers heated up.
 
 
“It looks like we’ve got a bunch of brave souls here this morning,” he said, adding a laugh. “Never say that Cabot Covers are weak.” Another well-placed laugh, just long enough to make its point. “Actually, this demonstration was a last-minute decision I made. I thought that as long as the famous Gruccis were going to be here showing off their spectacular fireworks, you might enjoy seeing how they do it—although I’m sure they won’t share
all
their secrets.”
 
 
Two young men in jeans and T-shirts carrying a variety of items joined Lennon on the stage. Immediately following them was a middle-aged man wearing a shirt on which GRUCCI was emblazoned.
 
 
“It’s hot,” Lennon said, “so I won’t take any more of your time. “My son, Paul, whom many of you know, will take over from here. Let me finish by saying that this Fourth of July in Cabot Cove will make the nation sit up and take notice.” He turned as a young man in a three-piece suit whom I assumed was his son came out of the building and walked to the microphone. His father never looked at him; he simply left the stage and disappeared.
 
 
Paul Lennon spoke into the microphone. “You heard what Joe said, so we’ll get right to it.” He beckoned the oldest of the three men from Grucci to join him, and played the role of a talk show host, asking questions he read from a clipboard. He started by asking about the history of fireworks.
 
 
“Well, actually they go back to the second century BC, in China,” the man replied. “They were originally used in religious celebrations, but were eventually adopted by the military for warfare in the Middle Ages. They called them ‘flaming arrows.’ Around the tenth century, the Arabs came up with gunpowder, which spawned the invention of cannons and guns. But rockets were also used to deliver explosive charges against enemies. Every time we sing ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ and the famous line ‘and the rockets’ red glare,’ we’re singing about rocket warfare.”
 
 
“How do fireworks work?” Paul Lennon read from the paper on the clipboard and wiped his brow with a white handkerchief.
 
 
“It’s pretty complicated,” the Grucci representative said. “I’ll be taking you over to our launch area to show you how things are constructed and carried out. Let me just say that the shells have more than one chamber, each one separated from the others by cardboard disks and ignited by timed fuses. Packed into each chamber are the effects we want to achieve from each rocket—stars, streamers, special effects like whistles and loud explosions. Each shell has to burst open with a lot of force once it reaches its desired altitude. The longer the cardboard shells resist the explosion, the bigger the display will be.”
 
 
He went on in response to Paul’s questions. Much of what he said was highly technical and, frankly, uninteresting. Someone from the audience shouted a question: “How high do fireworks go?”
 
 
“Good question,” said the Grucci rep. “Ten-inch and twelve-inch shells can go up to as high as thirteen hundred feet. They’re the ones whose displays are pretty much symmetrical. Eight-inch shells are really popular because they produce patterns in the sky, like butterflies, five-pointed stars, and the like. Five- and six-inch shells get up to about six hundred feet. Those displays in the finale that are loud and colorful are generally made from three- and four-inch shells. Adding some titanium to the mix produces those brilliant white flashes that bring about all the ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs.’”
 
 
After a few more questions from people in the audience— the number had thinned considerably, and only sheer determination kept me from bolting—we were led to where the experts from Grucci would launch their fireworks display as the culmination of Saturday’s celebration. Ms. Welch’s assistant, Dante, was there, talking to one of the crew. Paul had disappeared, probably desperate to get out of the heat.
 
 
I’d had no idea that it took so many people to put on such an event. There must have been a dozen people from Grucci working steadily to get things ready, including large trays filled with sand into which steel pipes were sunk.
 
 
“This is where it all happens,” our guide said. “The shells are placed in these steel casings and are attached to wires that provide electrical connections to fire a lift charge that sends the shells up into the air. That charge also lights a time fuse at the base of the shells that controls when during its flight it will explode.”
 
 
He ended his talk with, “I want you all to know that our most important priority is safety, for our own people and for the residents of wherever it is we’re putting on shows. We’ve worked closely with every government agency in Cabot Cove and the state of Maine to make sure that everything goes off without a hitch. I see Sheriff Metzger is here, and I want to personally thank him for his cooperation and that of his fine police force. And let me not forget Cabot Cove’s excellent fire department. It’s been a joy to work with them, and everything is right on schedule for a great show Saturday night. Our thanks to Joseph Lennon of Lennon-Diversified, and his very knowledgeable staff. Now, go home and cool off.”

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