"Murder, She Caused"

By Blair and David Learn

Part 1, Murder She Wrote

For years now, the people of Cabot Cove have been dropping dead, left and right. All except for a certain Jessica Fletcher and her friends. (Some of whom are members of the local constabulary!)

The phenomenon isn't limited to Cabot Cove though. Everywhere Ms. Fletcher goes, there always seems to be a suspicious death of some sort. In fact, on a few occasions, it's even seemed likely that Ms. Fletcher herself was responsible for the deaths and suspicion has only been diverted from her at the last moment.

Quite an interesting string of coincidences, huh? Most interesting of all, nobody has ever conducted an investigation into this string of happenstance -- remember up above where I mentioned that some of Ms. Fletcher's friends were members of the local police force?

Recently, a young FBI agent noticed the string of murders following Ms. Fletcher around the world. He came into Cabot Cove a few days ago investigating the possibility that Jessica Fletcher was in fact a major East Coast crime boss.

His theory was that Ms. Fletcher created elaborate scenarios for her murder mystery books and then, in order to test how believable the stories were, would hire two-bit out of town hoods to do the actual dirty work. If she were ever implicated, one of Ms. Fletcher's lieutenants would step in and allow his- or her-self to be "caught" in some incriminating circumstance. Ms. Fletcher would then hire a team of hot-shot lawyers and said lieutenant would be back on the streets within six months.

This morning, the FBI agent was found floating dead in the harbor....

Part 2, The Investigation

Sherrif Metzger was preparing to leave the station for the evening when he noticed a young woman pacing distractedly by the front desk. He walked over to her and asked "May I help you ma'am?"

She asked, "Don't you have a hardware store in Milwaukee?"

"No, but my cousin, Howard Cunningham, used to have one. People say we look an awful lot alike."

"Oh, sorry to bother you. I just need to get some fuses."

Metzger was again preparing to leave, when another distraught young woman came into the station. Hoping that this wasn't another request for fuses, he greeted her and asked "May I help you ma'am?"

As she introduced herself, she handed Metzger a wallet of credentials, "I'm Dana Scully, F.B.I. That man you found in your harbor this morning was my partner, Fox Mulder."

Naturally Scully stops by the morgue to identify the body and later comes back to do an autopsy (She suspects Mulder was already dead when he was dumped in the harbor).

In the course of investigating her partner's death, Scully discovers the evidence that proves Ms. Fletcher was responsible for hundreds of murders worldwide and so the "Fletcher Gang" is rounded up and Cabot Cove is once again a decent place to live.

Part 3, Who was that corpse I saw you with?

Dana is sitting in a local coffeeshop, brooding over how her partner was killed just so some mystery writer could put yet another book on the best-seller list when Fox Mulder walks in - quite definitely alive. He's just flown up from Washington to congratulate Dana on single-handedly bringing down one of the largest crime rings in the country.

Not only does Mulder have no memory of a previous visit to Cabot Cove, much less being murdered, he claims he's never even heard of Jessica Fletcher before! On top of that, the dead body is missing from the morgue and no-one except Scully has any recollection of there ever being one.