A Fatal Feast by Jessica Fletcher

got nowhere to go, nothing to do. Other than that, I suppose he’s all right. I just wish he’d find someplace else to hang out when it rains. Why do you ask?”
    “Oh, just that he seems to be spending a lot of time on the road across from my house.”
    “You think he’s stalking you?”
    “I wouldn’t go that far.”
    “Want me to warn him to stay away?”
    “No, that’s not necessary. I just thought I’d like to know more about him.”
    “He bothers you, just call and I’ll have one of my men talk sense to him.”
    I got up to leave and thanked Mort for taking care of the letters.
    “No problem.” He looked as if he wanted to say more.
    “Was there something else, Mort?”
    “Say, Mrs. F, just thought you’d want to know, Maureen has come up with a couple of new recipes for sweet potato casserole she’s been testing out on me. I’ve eaten sweet potatoes for dinner for two nights running while she experiments with ingredients. The kitchen looks like a bomb hit it. I’m not complaining—I like sweet potatoes as much as the next guy—but maybe if you two settled on what exactly it is she’s going to make—”
    “I’ll give her a call.”
    “Would appreciate it. You know how excited she gets when it comes to cooking.”
    I sighed. I knew only too well what he meant.
    Hubert Billups was not standing in front of my house when I returned home, thank goodness, but my relief was short-lived. When I tried to insert the house key in the lock, my front door slowly swung inward. I was certain I’d locked the door when I left. Hadn’t I?
    Slowly, I pressed the door open and peered into the hall and up the stairs before I entered the house.
    “Hello!” I called out, thinking perhaps a neighbor with the key had come in for some reason. “Anyone here?” There was no answer.
    With a shiver, I closed the door behind me and listened carefully to hear anything out of the ordinary. The house was silent. Shaking my head, I went straight to the kitchen. Perhaps Seth, who considered my carving knife a useless relic, had stopped by to drop off his special carving knife that he’d insisted I use for the holiday. Or maybe Maureen put one of her sweet potato dishes in the refrigerator, or possibly my neighbor Tina Treyz came in to borrow a Bundt pan for her poppy-seed lemon cake. But the kitchen appeared undisturbed.
    You’re being foolish, Jessica, I told myself. Hubert Billups has you spooked and now you’re imagining things. You’ve been so distracted, you must have forgotten to lock the door.
    Even though I was convinced I was alone, I tiptoed to the study and stood in the doorway observing the layout of the room. The face of the monitor was black. I walked to the computer and nudged the mouse. The screen sprang to life and the page I’d been working on before I left lit up. There was no new copy. The sentence I’d been struggling with was still there in all its stilted glory. Why had I thought there might have been something else on the page? Had I imagined that someone—Hubert Billups—had broken into the house to leave me a message?
    Everything seemed to be as I’d left it. I stared at the pile of mail, then gasped. Where were those anonymous messages with the cutout letters? They weren’t on top of the other correspondence. I rushed across the room, my heart pounding, and flung open the drawers on my desk, frantically riffling through the papers in search of them. Not in the drawers, not under the manuscript box, not in the wastebasket, not at the bottom of the pile of mail. Then I sank into my chair. Of course they weren’t here. I’d left them with Mort. I’d completely forgotten a visit I’d just returned from not ten minutes ago. I ran a hand through my hair, my fingers trembling.
    This whole business is playing havoc with your brain, I told myself. The next time Hubert Billups stations himself across the street from my house, I will find out exactly why he’s there and what he wants.
    With