One of Sutherland’s uniformed staff drove us in an unmarked black police vehicle. As we were getting out in front of Joe Allen, and the uniformed officer held open the door for me, we all became aware of a commotion at the comer. “Grab him, somebody grab him. He stole my purse,” a lady’s voice cried.

We watched as a young man burst through a sizable crowd and ran in our direction.

“Oh my God, it’s him,” I said.

“Who?” Seth asked.

“Him, the one who mugged me.”

The young man with pink hair, black jacket, and silver earrings headed straight for us.

“I’ll get ’im,” Mort Metzger said. As the young man was about to race by us, Mort threw a body block, sending the thief sprawling to the concrete. Within seconds, Mort was on top of him, twisting his arms behind his back.

“What in hell do you think you’re doing?” the young punk rocker screamed.

“Sheriff Metzger, Cabot Cove, Maine, United States of America. You’re under arrest for the mugging of one Jessica Fletcher. You have the right to remain silent…”

“I never even bin in the bloody States.”

By now we’d all formed a circle around Mort and his prey.

“Are you sure this is the one who mugged you?” Sutherland asked me.

“Yes, positive. How could I miss anyone who looks like that?”

“What’s the old bag yappin’ about?” the mugger asked as Mort, now aided by the bobby who’d driven us, jerked him to his feet and flattened him against the wall.

“You mind your manners and mouth, son,” Mort said. The bobby put the cuffs on him.

Sutherland looked at me and grinned. “If you press charges, Jessica, you’ll have to return to testify at his trial.”

“I will?”

“Afraid so.”

“It would be a great inconvenience, George, and I know my schedule won’t allow it, but there is my civic duty to consider, isn’t there?”

“Yes, most definitely,” he said.

I looked at the young man, looked up into George Sutherland’s green eyes, and said, “Well then, book the bloody bloke!”

Read on for an exciting excerpt

from Murder, She Wrote:

Trick or Treachery

available from Signet.

Dr. Seth Hazlitt and I sat having breakfast, in Mara’s Luncheonette on Cabot Cove’s town dock, and discussing an article that had caught our attention in that morning’s Bangor Times. An organization called the Society for Paranormal Investigation, or S.P.I., had opened an office in a dilapidated building on the old quarry road and was offering to help people contact their dearly departed. Among those its founder, Lucas Tremaine, claimed to have reached was “The Legend of Cabot Cove.” The Legend was an early settler, Hepzibah Cabot, whose dramatic suicidal plunge into the sea after learning of her husband’s infidelity naturally made her the star in local ghost stories, particularly when Halloween rolled around each year.

Our discussion had become somewhat heated. I argued that allowing Lucas Tremaine to bilk our neighbors out of their hard-earned dollars was reprehensible, and that the law should step in to stop him. Seth, less incensed, insisted that you couldn’t keep people from parting foolishly with their money, and that those so inclined would soon realize their folly and stop going to him.

“All set for Halloween?” I asked when we left Mara’s and stood on the dock, breathing in the pristine October Maine air.

“The party, you mean?”

“Yes. Have you decided on a costume?”

“Thought I wouldn’t wear one,” Seth said.

“Everyone wears a costume to Paul Marshall’s annual Halloween party,” I said. “It’s one of the rules.”

“Seems like a foolish rule to me.”

“Silly or not, you don’t want to be a spoilsport. Would you like me to find a costume for you?”

“If I have to wear one, you might as well pick it out for me. Just don’t be gettin’ me any silly kind’a costume, Jess. Keep it simple. Maybe somethin’ in the military vein.”

“I’ll be happy to do that.”

“Sure you want to go as The Legend, Jessica? Lucas Tremaine might decide to hunt you down.”

“I don’t think I have to worry about that,” I said, smiling. “I’ll just scare him off.”

It took me almost an hour to re-create what The Legend of Cabot Cove was reputed to have looked like, according to local history. I wore a floor-length gauzy white dress, and applied greenish-white makeup that gave me the distinct look of a cadaver. I pulled on a long gray wig, and attached strands of green crepe paper to achieve the effect of seaweed. The resulting image was, as an admirer at the party later told me, “Absolutely scary,” and I was startled when I saw my reflection in the mirror. My blue eyes deepened in intensity when contrasted with my now bleached skin, and the pale billowy dress floated around my legs with each step I took, creating the impression of an ethereal figure not subject to gravity.

An eerie feeling crept over me, and I shivered. It must be the Halloween atmosphere, I decided, and patted the pocket into which I’d tucked my talismans-comb and lipstick-reminders of what I really looked like.

My mood of gloom-and-doom had disappeared by the time Seth and I arrived at Paul Marshall’s palatial estate. His household staff had turned the huge first-floor rooms of the main house into a replica of a vast dungeon, replete with catacombs and realistic spider webs, boiling cauldrons and faux stone walls, all accompanied by the sounds of rattling chains and eerie moans and cackles piped through the stereo system. His guests were arrayed in costumes that ranged from the inventive to mundane, outrageous to subdued. The most prevalent were identical moose outfits made especially for the event. They were worn by more than a dozen invited employees of Marshall-Scott Clothing, Inc., our host’s sportswear factory. There was no way to know who was under the giant moose heads, so complete was their disguise.

Late in the evening, a group of friends gravitated from the main room to one of several patios overlooking the sprawling grounds of the Marshall estate.

“You’d never know Paul Marshall was in financial difficulty, judging from this place,” my dentist Doug Treyz said absently.

“Is he?” asked Jack Decker, publisher of our Cabot Cove magazine.

“That’s the scuttlebutt from my treatment chair,” Doug said. “The way I hear it, his partner, Tony Scott, never did come up with a solution for BarrierCloth’s flammability problem, and paid the price with his life in last year’s fire. Without that, the company can’t compete with L.L. Bean and Lands’ End.”

“One of my patients told me that the two partners had taken out hefty ‘key man’ insurance policies not long before the accident,” Seth said. “Paul should have collected on the policy-millions, I understand.”

“Yes, but I heard the company hasn’t paid yet because of the suspicious nature of the fire,” Tina, Doug’s wife, added.

“Looks like if you want to know anyone’s financial condition around here, go for a root canal or a routine physical,” Marylou Decker said, raising her eyebrows.

“Maybe he did perfect the formula,” Decker offered. “I heard he might have.”

A pair of large white doves, or maybe they were swans, joined us on the patio. They turned out to be Peter and Roberta Walters, owners of the area’s only radio station.

“Maybe you know, Pete,” Decker said, turning to them. “You keep up with the news. Did Tony Scott solve the flammability problem with BarrierCloth before he died?”

“Can’t prove it by me,” Pete Walters said.

My attention wandered from the conversation to the property beyond the patio. We had a clear view of a small cemetery adjacent to Paul Marshall’s estate where, among others, The Legend was buried with her unfaithful spouse. Beyond it, I knew, were two outbuildings, one of them known as “The Rose Cottage,” named for the magnificent flowers surrounding it. It had been rented some months back to a newcomer to Cabot Cove, Matilda Swift, an enigmatic, mysterious figure with a penchant for flowing gowns, whose hair was snow white, and eyes a piercing blue that bore right through you. She had arrived not much before Lucas Tremaine, and ever since odd things had been happening in town, including an almost constant static on everyone’s phones that the phone company couldn’t explain or fix.