Time passed quickly; I was surprised when that day’s lesson was almost over. Miki had used each of her breaks to go outside to smoke. Now, she settled in for her final pose of the morning. Carlton instructed her to lean forward, with her head down between her legs, her hair skimming the floor.
“I hate this pose,” she said.
“But it’s a classic,” Carlton said. “We’ll do ten minutes and call it a day.”
I’d loosened up as the morning progressed, my strokes with the pencil more free-flowing now, less constricted. My chubby colleague next to me had filled his paper with odd shapes, mostly boxes and circles, his vision of Miki. I preferred mine, as imperfect as it might have been.
“Time,” Carlton announced.
I started to pack away my materials. I looked up. Miki was still in her pose. Strange, I thought. Carlton noticed it, too. He tapped her shoulder, laughing as he did. “Hey, Miki, wake up.”
Instead of straightening, she slowly continued in the direction in which she’d been leaning. Over she went, face first.
“Good Lord!” I said, going to where she was sprawled on the cold, bare floor. I knelt and placed my fingertips on her neck. There was no pulse.
The others had formed a tight circle around us. I looked up. “She’s dead,” I said.
There were screams and muttered curses.
By the time I stood, Carlton had already called the local police. He asked for an ambulance, but I knew it was too late. I covered Miki’s bare body with her robe.
Minutes later, the door opened and two uniformed officers entered, followed closely by a man and woman from the town’s volunteer ambulance service.
“She’s dead,” the male medic said.
“I know,” I said.
One of the officers looked at me. “Who are you?”
“I’m ... I’m J. D. Fletcher. I’m a student here.”
“Fletcher?” Carlton said. “I thought you were Mrs. Fechter.”
“Well, you see, I—”
The older of the two policemen narrowed his eyes. “You that famous mystery writer?”
“I really—”
“It is,” one of my fellow students said loudly. “It’s Jessica Fletcher. I’ve read some of your books.”
I held up my hands and said, “I really think who I am is beside the point. Our lovely model is dead.”
An hour later, after Miki Dorsey’s body had been removed, and we’d all given statements to the police, I packed up my things, left the studio, and started walking back to the inn. I couldn’t shake the vision of the lifeless young woman sprawled on the platform, her future snuffed out, her dreams and aspirations never to be fulfilled.
Dying so young violated the natural order of things. There was no rationalizing it, whether it occurred because of war or disease, famine, acts of nature, or natural disasters. The young were to live until it was time for them to die.
My eyes filled up, and I wiped a tear from my cheek. I ached for the young model named Miki. And I felt a little sorry for myself. What was to have been a pleasant foray into the world of art had ended in death, right before my eyes.
Chapter Five
The first person I saw as I approached the inn was its owner, Mr. Scott. He stood on the sidewalk as though waiting for someone. It turned out to be me.
“Are you all right, Mrs. Fletcher?” he asked.
“Yes. Well, I’ve been through a difficult morning, but—”
“So I heard,” he said, slightly breathless. “They’re inside.”
“Who is inside?”
“Two reporters.”
“Reporters?”
“Waiting for you.”
“Oh, my.”
“They said you witnessed a murder.”
“No. Not a murder. A tragic death of a young woman.”
The front door opened and a sprightly young woman came bounding through it, followed by a young man carrying a camera. My instinct was to turn and run, but there was no time for that.
“Mrs. Fletcher,” the woman said, smiling and offering her hand. “Jo Ann Forbes, Dan’s Papers.”
We touched fingers.
“This is Jim Bellis, my photographer.”
“Hello,” I said. He replied by quickly raising the camera and squeezing off a shot of me.
“We got here as fast as we could, Mrs. Fletcher,” Forbes said. “As soon as we heard.”
I looked to Mr. Scott for support. All I received from him was a pained expression.
“You saw Miki Dorsey die,” Forbes said.
“Yes. It was tragic.”
The photographer kept shooting—me, Mr. Scott, the front of the inn. People now stopped to see what the commotion was. The crowd was growing.
“Maybe we’d better go inside,” I said.
“Okay,” said Forbes.
“All right, Mr. Scott?” I asked.
“I suppose so,” he replied, not sure whether he meant it.
We settled in the parlor.
“It’s quite a story,” Jo Ann Forbes said.
“I don’t think—it’s a sad story, that’s all. And I don’t see why you want to talk to me. I was just another student in the class when she died.”
“Exactly,” Jo Ann said. “The famous Jessica Fletcher, writer of best-selling murder mysteries, taking an art class and sketching naked men and women.”
“Oh, my dear, I really think that—”
“The sketch was good.”
It took me a moment to process what she’d said. “What sketch?” I asked.
“The one you did of the naked male model.”
“Sketch I did? You must be mistaken.”
“It was delivered to the office right after we heard about the model’s death. We bought it.”
“Bought the sketch I did?”
“Yes. I have tremendous admiration for you, Mrs. Fletcher, taking up art at your age.”
“Excuse me,” I said, “but I really must get to my room. I have some phone calls to make.”
“lust a few more minutes,” Ms. Forbes said. ”Please. Give me some comments about what it was like for Jessica Fletcher to be sketching naked men.”
Mr. Scott’s eyes had widened to their fullest aperture.
“Good-bye, Ms. Forbes,” I said, heading up the stairs, with Scott right behind me. Once in my room, he said, “I’m terribly sorry about this, Mrs. Fletcher. I didn’t know what to tell them when they arrived.”
“No fault of yours,” I said. “I just need time alone to sort this out.”
“Of course. Would you like some tea?”
“That would be much appreciated.”
As he backed to the door, his eyes remained on my large black leather portfolio. I said nothing. Once he was gone, I opened the portfolio and pulled out my sketches. The one I’d done of the male model was missing. Someone had taken it in the confusion that followed Miki Dorsey’s death. Who would have done such a thing? How dare someone take what was mine?
The reporter had said the sketch had been delivered to the newspaper, and that they’d “bought it.”
Outrageous, I thought. Someone stole my sketch in order to sell it to a newspaper, capitalizing on someone’s death, and on my name. Did the paper intend to publish it? “I’ll sue,” I muttered to the empty room.
And then it struck me why I was so upset. It wasn’t that someone had done this to me. It was that my precious little secret was no longer a secret. My wanting to learn to be an artist was now public knowledge.
That was the most maddening aspect of all.
Mr. Scott delivered my tea and asked if I needed anything else.
“Thank you, no,” I said. “Are they still downstairs?”
“No, Mrs. Fletcher. They left immediately.”
“Good. Mr. Buckley hasn’t called, has he?”
“No.”
“Well, maybe this all will simply go away.” I managed a smile. “Thank you for everything, Mr. Scott.”
“My pleasure.”
He looked at my portfolio as he left.
The phone rang. It was Vaughan Buckley.
“Hello, Vaughan,” I said.
“What in the world is going on?” he asked.
“About what happened this morning? You’ve heard?”
“Yes. Well, I really don’t know the details but—I just got a call from the editor of Dan’s Papers.”
“What is Dan’s Papers?” I asked.
“The Hamptons’ leading newspaper. Been around for, must be, thirty years. Keeps tabs on all the celebrity comings-and-goings.”
“Why did he call you?”
“To see if I could persuade you to give them an interview. They know me pretty well, know I publish your books. What were you doing in an art class sketching nudes?”
“I started taking up art a few years ago and—it doesn’t matter. What did you tell them?”
“I said I couldn’t speak for you. He mentioned something about a sketch of yours they intend to run.”
“Good Lord.”
“A sketch of a naked man?”
“Yes. Vaughan, I think it might be best if I cut short my vacation and headed back to Cabot Cove.”
“Not on your life, Jess. Did you give them permission to publish the sketch?”
“Of course not. Someone in the class stole it from my portfolio and sold it to them. I think I’ll sue.”
“Was it good?”
“Was what good?”
“The sketch.”
“No. Vaughan, maybe we should get together. Now.”
“Sure. Olga took Sadie and Rose to be groomed. I can be there in—”
“Maybe we’d better meet somewhere else.”
“Yes, of course. I’d say the house, but there are workmen everywhere. The Grand Café. Ask Joe Scott to call you a cab. They all know where it is. A half hour?”
“Sure.”
The Grand Café was bustling when I arrived. Vaughan, dressed in jeans, loafers sans socks, and a white lightweight V-neck tennis sweater, was waiting for me on the sidewalk. “I got us an outside table,” he said. “More privacy.”
We walked through the silver and plum art deco interior to the outside dining area, which was as crowded as inside had been. Once seated, Vaughan ordered coffee and orange juice for us: “Hungry?” he asked.
“No,” I replied abruptly.
“I am.” He ordered a frittata omelet for himself.
“I changed my mind,” I said. “One of the muffins would be nice.”
“Blueberry?”
“That will be fine.”
“So, Jessica, tell me all about it.”
“About the young model’s death? All I know is that one minute she was alive and posing for us, the next minute she was dead.”
“No idea how it happened?”
I shrugged, and offered my hands palms up. “Heart attack? Stroke?”
“At that age?”
“I know. Unlikely. But what else could it be?”
Vaughan leaned closer. “Jess, tell me about you taking up art.”
“Not much to tell. I decided that—”
“Research for your next book? Stolen art? International art theft ring? It’s a hot topic these days.”
“No, Vaughan, nothing like that. I simply wanted to learn how to paint. To sketch. To create something beautiful on paper.”
“You do that with your books.”
“This is different.”
“I know. I’m not being difficult, Jess. It’s just that you’ve kept this secret passion under wraps for so long. Why? I think it’s wonderful that you decided to pursue another creative outlet.”
“Silly, I suppose, but that’s the way I wanted it to be. Until I had something worthwhile to show people.”
“I understand. Are you serious about suing Dan’s Papers if they run your sketch?”
“Probably not. I’m not the litigious type.”
‘“They’ll play it up big.”
“Not bigger than the death of the young woman, I hope. Did you or Olga know her? Her name is—was—Miki Dorsey.”
“No.”
“I just thought you might have run across her through your connections here in the art world.”
“Afraid not.”
“I’d like to learn more about her.”
“I thought you wanted to go home.”
“I do. But I don’t think I’ll rest if I didn’t have, at least, some inkling of who she was and why she died. I felt as though I knew her. She was a smoker, and I thought that if I were her mother, I’d get her to give up the habit.”
His smile was warm and genuine. He placed his hand on my arm and said, “So typical of you, Jessica. So caring.”
“Maybe curious is more accurate.”
“Whatever. Want me to make some inquiries about her?”
“Sure. I suppose the newspaper will have some details of her life.”
“Undoubtedly. Unless she was one of thousands of young people who congregate out here in the summer, sharing group houses, taking odd jobs to pay the rent. A nude model? I suppose it pays well.”
“I certainly hope so.”
The muffin was delicious. Vaughan drove me back to Scott’s Inn in his Mercedes. The reporter, Jo Ann Forbes, and her photographer, Jim Bellis, were waiting on the front porch. “I’ll handle it,” Vaughan said, walking in front of me.
“Hi, Mrs. Fletcher,” Jo Ann said to me over his shoulder.
I didn’t return the greeting.
“Please leave Mrs. Fletcher alone,” Vaughan said. To Bellis: “And stop taking pictures!”
“Just a brief interview?” Ms. Forbes said.
“Maybe another time,” said Vaughan, leading me up to the porch and through the front door.
“They stole your nude sketch,” Forbes said from behind us.
I stopped and turned. “I am well aware of that,” I said.
“No, not from you,” she said, closing the gap between us. “From the newspaper office.”
“Who stole it?”
“I don’t know, Mrs. Fletcher, but it’s disappeared. The publisher, my boss, Dan, who owns the paper, blew his stack at the editor who bought the sketch. Said it belonged to you, and that he wasn’t about to violate your rights by publishing it.”
I drew a breath and smiled. “Please thank your boss for his sensitivity and ethics. You say it’s now missing.”
“Yes. We had a reception this morning for a gallery owner who’s opening up a branch of his Manhattan gallery in town. Fifty, sixty people milling around. I don’t know where the sketch was, but it’s gone. Vanished.”