The Ghost and Mrs. Fletcher by Jessica Fletcher Read Free Book Online Page A

was the box marked “Mystery: Hard-boiled and Noir,” which held a dozen paperbacks, among them the two by Hobart that Eve and I had picked up from the floor.
    â€œI’m making a cup of tea for myself,” Lettie said when I brought her a new marker. “Would you like one?”
    â€œThat’s a wonderful idea. Let me ask Beth if she’d like to take a break, too.”
    Beth joined us at the vintage table, which had a chipped enameled metal top and a drawer on one side. Lettie had put a kettle on the gas stove to heat. She pulled three spoons from the table’s drawer and gave us each a paper towel. “Don’t remember the last time Cliff bought napkins, if he ever did. Luckily he kept the tea and the sugar in tin canisters. They’re fairly fresh.” She opened a cabinet and took out three mugs, rinsing them with the boiling water before dropping in a tea bag and adding more water.
    I helped her carry the mugs to the table and settled in my seat to wait for the tea to cool.
    â€œIt’s too bad we didn’t get more people to help with the sale,” Beth said. “I can ask around at the office if you like. Most of my coworkers live south of here, so they probably don’t read the
Gazette
and wouldn’t be spooked by the idea of ghosts.”
    â€œOught to be some other locals who can lend a hand,” Lettie said. “Lot of foolish nonsense about this house being haunted. Cliff never complained, and I’d’ve known if he had. I’ll have my sister call up her quilting cronies at the senior citizen center and see who she can scare up. ‘Scare up’! Ha! I picked the right word, didn’t I?” She chuckled.
    The Conrad twins, Lettie and Lucy, were part of an old Cabot Cove family. I hadn’t met their great-niece, Beth, before, but I knew that the young woman’s father was a captain on a freighter and spent many months at sea. Lettie had told me that Beth had become a frequent visitor to the sisters’ home after her father’s new wife gave birth to twin boys, and she still was. She was a sweet young woman with the kind of fresh, youthful good looks that could be pegged at anywhere from eighteen to thirty-five, but I knew that she must be in her mid- to late twenties. It was nice that she’d come home to Cabot Cove after college. So many of our young people didn’t.
    Beth produced an unopened package of ginger cookies and held it up. “I figured you wouldn’t find anything edible in Grandpa Cliff’s kitchen, so I threw this in the car this morning,” she said, tearing it open.
    â€œClever girl,” Lettie said, plucking out a gingersnap. “I’ll have Lucy bring over a pitcher of milk tomorrow morning. Miss Simpson said she was keeping the ’lectric on as long as we’re here, so the fridge should work. Hope you can manage tea without milk today, Jessica.”
    â€œI’m just grateful for anything to soothe my parched throat.”
    â€œIt’s the dust does it to you. My hands are as dry as parchment. Don’t know how Cliff lived comfortably in this atmosphere.”
    â€œWait a moment,” I said, backtracking to a point earlier in our conversation and addressing Beth. “You called him ‘Grandpa Cliff.’ Was he a relative?”
    She smiled at Lettie before answering me. “He might’ve liked to be, but no, it’s just an honorary term. That’s what Elliot called him, and so I called him the same thing. I think Grandpa Cliff liked it. I know he liked having us around. We used to play all over the house. We found closets full of old clothing in the unused bedrooms, and we’d put on shows for him, parading around in feather boas and silver high heels. He would laugh.” She smiled at the memory.
    â€œSo you know the house pretty well,” I said.
    â€œShe practically grew up here until Cliff sent Elliot off to boarding school,”