Book on Unsolved Killing Rattles Cape Cod Town

This sleepy seaside town springs to life each summer with the influx of more than 30,000 seasonal residents. But for many of Truro’s 1,800 year-round inhabitants, a new book about an unsolved slaying has created an additional stir.

“It just dredges things up,” said Sally Mack-Sears, chairwoman of Truro’s five-person board of selectmen. “It is like taking a scab and picking at it.”

Author Maria Flook -- herself a year-round resident of this “clam strip” at the tip of Cape Cod -- insists she had no plans to upset her hometown when she wrote “Invisible Eden.” Rather, Flook said, her seventh book was intended as a “literary investigation” of the death of fashion writer Christa Worthington, slain in her home here in January 2002.

Still, the book is the buzz of Truro this summer -- outselling the newest Harry Potter title at area bookstores -- even if many people will not admit to reading a book with the subtitle: “A Story of Love and Murder on Cape Cod.”

“It’s controversial, and a lot of people do not want to be seen buying it,” said Jane Kogan, manager of the nearest bookstore, Provincetown Books. “But a lot of people are buying it.”

Worthington’s fatal stabbing brought international attention to this haven of artists, writers and fishermen.

The village had not seen a killing for more than 30 years before the 46-year-old single mother was slain in such a savage attack that her door was ripped off the hinges and knife marks penetrated the floor beneath her body. Her 2-year-old daughter, Ava, may have clung to her mother’s lifeless body for as long as two days, according to police reports.

Soon the headlines were touting Worthington’s glamorous career in Paris, London and New York. She interviewed Yves St. Laurent. She partied with Gianni Versace. She dated European playboys. She wrote a series of “Chic Simple” books, including one describing shoes as “the libido of the wardrobe.”

But Flook’s book shears some of the glitter off Worthington’s life.

Cape and Islands Dist. Atty. Michael O’Keefe spoke graphically to Flook about Worthington’s sex life, labeling her “an equal opportunity employer” when it came to choosing male acquaintances. The district attorney in charge of prosecuting the Worthington slaying also characterized the victim as “a slob.”

The book reveals that Worthington had sex shortly before her death. But O’Keefe suggests in “Invisible Eden” that the lover and the killer were not necessarily the same person.

Five Worthington cousins -- several of them Truro residents -- were so incensed by O’Keefe’s comments that they issued a statement calling for him to be removed from the case. The cousins also said O’Keefe “compromised the integrity of the investigation.”

Jan Worthington, a television writer who lives on the same street where her cousin Christa lived, said in an interview that family members are withholding further comment as they ponder legal action against Flook and her publisher, Broadway Books.

David Drake, a spokesman for Broadway Books in New York, said the publisher stands by the content of the book.

A lawyer for the family caring for Ava Worthington said evidence in the case “now has a taint, because it has been released to a third party -- the author of this book -- to be used in what is clearly a commercial venture.” Boston attorney Brian D. Bixby also took exception to “more than 300 references, by name” to the little girl conceived when Worthington had an affair with Tony Jackett, the married fish warden here.

O’Keefe apologized to the Worthington family for his remarks but did not deny making them. O’Keefe was not available for comment, but his office in Barnstable said the investigation is continuing. No suspects have been named.

While Flook has made a flurry of local and national television and radio appearances since the book was published, editorials in several Cape Cod publications have faulted the district attorney’s decision to share information with her. The newspapers also have raised questions about her “literary nonfiction” technique.

But in an interview at her home -- about a mile from Christa Worthington’s -- Flook likened her literary form to the style used by Truman Capote or Sebastian Junger. Scenes are dramatized or re-created, she said, not represented as “a day-to-day itinerary” of a subject’s life.

Flook said she never met Christa Worthington. But as a onetime single mother herself, she came to feel a kinship with a writer two years her junior who also chose to settle in this remote community.

“Christa was a fashion anthropologist. I thought she was really an alchemist,” said Flook, 51. “She was too uncompromising to fit into the corporate mesh. She was a little bit of a nail that sticks up.”

Flook also dismissed the notions that her book might send Worthington’s killer deeper into hiding, or somehow thwart the investigation.

“When you have a book, it probably keeps law enforcement waking up every morning and saying, ‘Well, we have that case on the burner,’ ” Flook said.

Artist Susan Baker said “the book is something people are talking about this summer.”

Some full-time residents who agonized over Worthington’s killing are uncomfortable with the flap over the book, Baker added: “We love our town. We think we have a paradise here.”