“That’s a cliché. People who commit crimes of passion seldom do so again. The object of your rage was dead.”
“Couldn’t I have transferred my rage from my brother to Habeck?”
“Keep trying, Stuart. You’ll work it out.”
“Who says a person who commits a crime of passion, as you call it, isn’t capable of committing an entirely different, rational murder?”
“What’s rational about your murdering Habeck? The son of a bitch got you off!”
“Yes, he got me off!” Leaning forward on his desk, Childers spoke forcefully. “And the son of a bitch knew I was guilty! He obstructed justice!”
“In your behalf! You’re the one who is walking around free!”
Childers sat back. “I don’t know that much about the law, but I’d call Donald Habeck an accessory to murder, after the fact. Wouldn’t that be about right? Think about it.”
Fletch thought about it.
“How many times was Donald Habeck an accessory to a crime, after the fact?”
Fletch said, “Before the fact, too, I suspect.”
“What?”
Fletch remembered saying to Louise Habeck, about her son, Robert, “Shooting his father would accomplish two goals, wouldn’t it?” And her answering, “Spendidly!”
“Okay, Stuart. If you shot Habeck because you wanted to be punished so much, how come you didn’t stay there? How come you weren’t found standing over him with the gun?”
Childers smiled. “Would you believe I had to pee?”
“No.”
“Go shoot someone, and see what happens to your bladder.” Sitting behind his desk, Stuart Childers was then speaking as evenly as someone might discussing a homeowner’s fire-and-theft policy. “I did wait there. I had thought someone would hear the gun. I shot Habeck sort of far back in the lot, where he parked. I shot him as he was getting out of the car. No one was around. The guard at the gate was talking to someone entering the parking lot. I could see him. I waited. I had to pee in the worst way. I mean, really bad. I didn’t want to have to go through the whole arrest process, you know, having shit my pants. So I went into the lobby of the News-Tribune and asked the guard there if I could use the men’s room.”
“Why didn’t you come out again? There were police, reporters, photographers who would have been interested to actually see you at a scene of one of your crimes.”
“I felt sick. Jittery.”
“That would have been understood.”
Stuart Childers said something Fletch didn’t hear.
“What?”
“I wanted a drink. A few drinks before I gave myself up.”
“You wanted to get drunk before you confessed again, is that it? What did you supposedly want, Stuart?”
“I wanted to get control of myself. I went home, had a few drinks, a bath, a night’s sleep. In the morning, I had breakfast. Then I went to the police station to confess.” Childers shrugged. “A gentlemanly routine, I suppose. I was brought up that way.”
Fletch shook his head. Then he asked, “How did you know Habeck was going to be in the parking lot at the News-Tribune a few minutes before ten on Monday morning?”
“I didn’t. Murdering Habeck was something I decided over the weekend. So Monday morning, I drove to his house. Got there about seven-thirty. Waited for him. He drove out of his garage in a blue Cadillac Seville. I followed him. He drove to the News-Tribune. While he talked to the guard at the gate, I parked outside and walked in. It was the first stop he made. When he opened his car door, I shot him.”
“Then you had the irresistible need to pee.”
“I had been sitting in my car since before seven o’clock! Then, after I peed, I felt really sick in the stomach. My legs were shaking. I had a terrible neck ache.” Childers rubbed the back of his neck. “I wanted time! Isn’t that understandable?”
“I don’t know. You say you wanted to get caught, but you ran away. There is no evidence at all that you were at the scene of the crime. Everything you’ve told me so far, that Habeck drove a blue Cadillac Seville, that he was shot at the back of the lot getting out of his car, all that was reported in the press.”
“Sorry if my story conforms to the truth.”
“You didn’t confess until after you’d been able to read the details of the crime in the newspaper.”
Childers stared at the gun on his desk.
“Okay, Stuart. What did you do with the murder weapon?”
“You know what?”
“What?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know what you did with the gun?”
“I don’t know. When I got home, I didn’t have the gun. I’ve tried to remember. I was upset….”
“You had to pee.”
“… Tried to reconstruct.”
“I bet.”
“I couldn’t have had the gun in my hand when I walked into the lobby of the News-Tribune. I must have thrown it into the bushes.”
Fletch watched him carefully. “You threw it into the bushes in front of the building?”
“I must have.”
“What kind of a gun was it?”
“A twenty-two-caliber target pistol.”
“Stuart, your twenty-two-caliber target pistol is on your desk in front of you.”
“I bought that last night. The one I used on Habeck I’ve had for years. My father gave it to me on my sixteenth birthday.” Childers grinned. “He never gave Richard a gun.”
“Oh, my God!”
“What?”
Fletch stood up.
Childers said, “Why didn’t the police find the gun?”
Fletch said, “Why didn’t you find the gun?”
“I tried to. I went back to look for it. It wasn’t there.”
Fletch nodded to the gun on the desk. “May I take that?”
Childers put his hand over it. “Not unless you want to get shot trying.”
“Oh, no,” said Fletch. “That would just put you to the bother of confessing again!’
“Hello, hello?” Fletch heard his car phone buzzing while he was unlocking the door.
“This is the News-Tribune resource desk. Name and code, please.”
“Oh, hi, Mary.”
“This is Pilar. Code, please.”
“Seventeen ninety dash nine.”
“Mr. Fletcher, you’re wanted at a meeting in Frank Jaffe’s office with Biff Wilson at three o’clock.”
“Oh. That’s what’s happening.”
“That’s what’s happening.”
The dashboard clock said two-twenty. “Doubt I can make it.”
Pilar said, “The rest of the message from Mr. Jaffe is, ‘Either be in my office at three o’clock for this meeting, or don’t bother coming back to the News-Tribune, period.’ ”
“Life does offer its choices.”
“So does the News-Tribune. Any last words?”
“Yeah,” Fletch said. “ ‘And that was all he wrote.’ ”
Glancing time and again at the clock on his dashboard, Fletch sat in the parked car and thought, for as much time as he had.
When it became too late to make the News-Tribune reasonably by three o’clock, he started the car.
Slowly, he pulled into traffic and headed toward his apartment.
“Alston? I know you haven’t had the time…”
“Sure, I’ve had the time, ol’ buddy.” Fletch’s car was slouching down the boulevard’s slow lane toward home. “As soon as I announced my resignation from Habeck, Harrison and Haller this morning, a woman came by and took all the folders from my desk. Even the case I was working on! What do you think of that?”
“Oh, yeah. You resigned. Tell me about that.”
“I didn’t become a lawyer to become a crook. I don’t think they’d mind right now if I went home and only came in Friday to pick up my final paycheck. Maybe I will. Want to meet at Manolo’s for a beer?”
“Alston, I don’t think there’s go
ing to be anyone at my wedding on Saturday who is employed.”
“Don’t tell the caterer. By the way, ol’ buddy, wedding present from your best man will be forthcoming, never fear, but, obviously, a bit late.”
“Aren’t I supposed to give you a present, for being best man, or something?”
“Are you?”
“That will be late, too.”
“As long as the wedding comes off on time, and it’s a rollicking affair.”
“Yeah.” Fletch stopped the car to let a pigeon investigate a cigar butt in the road. “Rollicking.”
“So, for the last hour or so, using the considerable resources of Habeck, Harrison and Haller, I’ve been working for you. Don’t worry: you can’t afford it.”
“That’s the truth.”
“About those companies you asked me to look into… Are you ready?”
“Yeah.”
“Lingman Toys and Cungwell Screw seem to exist for the sole purpose of each owning half of Wood Nymph, Incorporated. In turn, Lingman Toys and Cungwell Screw are owned by one corporate body called Paraska Steamship Company. All this is a typical structuring of corporations designed to discourage curiosity and conceal interests. The purpose of all these corporations seems to be none other than owning a single business called the Ben Franklyn Friend Service, essentially a whorehouse, situated at…”A woman in chartreuse shorts, halter, and high-heeled shoes was walking a poodle on a leash along the sidewalk. The gray of the woman’s hair matched the poodle’s. The woman’s shorts were cut halfway up her ass cheeks. Alston was reciting the names of the officers of the various corporations. Names kept being repeated, Jay Demarest, Yvonne Heller, Marta Holsome, Marietta Ramsin. The woman and the dog turned into a passport-photo shop.
“Alston, okay, stop. Who the hell owns Paraska Steamship, or whatever it is?”
“Four women.” Alston then began to repeat, recite a mishmash of names.
Fletch stopped at an orange traffic light. The car behind him honked. “Say what? Say again?” A police car drew alongside Fletch. The cop studied Fletch’s features carefully.
Alston repeated the names.
“’Bye, Alston!” He dropped the phone in his lap.
Fletch stomped on the accelerator.
He went through the red light, made a U-turn in the middle of the intersection, and went through the red light again.
The police car pursuing him did the same thing.
“Lieutenant Francisco Gomez, please. Emergency!”
It certainly was an emergency. There were now two police cars pursuing him through city streets. His trying to outdrive them while talking on the car telephone clearly was a traffic hazard.
“Who’s calling?”
Fletch hesitated not at all: “Biff Wilson.”
He put on his left directional signal and turned right from the left lane. Not a good enough trick to throw off his pursuers, but it did cause noisy confusion at that intersection.
“Yeah?” Gomez sounded as if he were in the middle of a conversation instead of beginning one.
“Gomez, Biff Wilson’s in trouble.”
“Who is this?”
“Fletcher, a.k.a. Alexander Liddicoat. Remember us?”
“Shit! Where are you?”
“Hell, don’t you know?” Fletch spun his wheel mid-block and scurried down an alley. “I thought the police were the eyes and the ears of the city.”
“What are you talking about? What’s all that noise I hear? Sireens? Screeching tires?”
“Yeah, thanks for the police escort. I am in a hurry. Have you got the forensics report on that gun yet?”
“What gun?”
“The gun I gave you. The gun I told you about.”
“Who cares about that? Kid tryin’ to make a name for himself…”
“You haven’t even looked into it?”
“You’re as bad as Charles, what’s his name, Childers, Stuart Childers. Want to play cops and robbers. You want to be the cop, he wants to be the robber.”
“The ballistics report ought to be ready by now, too.” Fletch had a moment of comparative peace as he went wrong-way up a one-way street.
“I’ve got a warrant out for you, Fletcher. Possession of a seller’s quantity of angel dust. I’ve got the evidence right here on my desk.”
“I look forward to seeing it.” Three police cars spotted Fletch at the corner. They accelerated after him. “Aren’t you hearing me, Gomez? Your pal Biff is in trouble.”
“Yeah?”
“At the newspaper. He’s in Frank Jaffe’s office. On the carpet, you might say. In danger of losing his job.”
“No way.”
“You know it’s possible.”
Gomez said nothing.
Fletch turned on his lights and pulled into the middle of a funeral cortege. Demonstrating little respect, the three police cars screamed by the cortege.
“He needs your help,” Fletch said. “He needs the ballistics and forensics reports on that gun. Immediately.”
“Yeah?”
“Would I lie to you?”
“What is this?”
Fletch turned off his lights and ducked down a side street. “As soon as you’ve got the reports, call the News-Tribune. Ask for Frank Jaffe’s office. Biff’s in Frank’s office.”
Two blocks up from the next corner, a police car hesitated in the middle of the intersection. As soon as the police saw Fletch’s car, they turned and came after him, lights flashing, sirens screaming.
“Gomez, you want to see Biff out on his rear?”
The line went dead.
Fletch dropped the phone in his lap again. He could see the roof of the News-Tribune building. The three police cars were back in V formation pursuing him.
There were only two more corners to skitter around….
“Hey! You can’t leave your car there!”
The guard in the lobby of the News-Tribune was known to get red-faced easily. Fletch had left his car half on the sidewalk at the front door of the News-Tribune.
Fletch was on the rising escalator to the city room.
“What?” he asked.
At the bottom of the escalator, the guard looked toward the front door. “What are all those sireens?”
“I can’t hear you,” Fletch said. “Too many sireens.”
He passed Morton Rickmers, the book editor, in the city room.
“Did you see Tom Farliegh?” Morton asked. “Is he worth an interview?”
“Naw,” Fletch answered. “He’s a little, blued-haired old lady in green tennis shoes.”
Morton wrinkled his eyebrows. “Okay.”
Through the glass door of Frank’s office, Fletch saw Frank, behind the desk, and Biff Wilson, in a side chair. The color of their faces was compatible with the color of the face of the guard downstairs, now doubtlessly talking to six policemen.
Frank’s secretary said, “You’re late.”
“It’s all relative.” He breezed by her.
Fletch closed Frank’s office door behind him. “Good afternoon, Frank. Good of you to ask me to stop by.” Frank’s watery eyes took in Fletch’s T-shirt, jeans, and holey sneakers. “Good afternoon, Biff.” Biff’s jaw tightened. He looked away. His right ear was swollen and red. Fletch commiserated. “That looks like a real ouch.” Biff’s face was splotched with little cuts from having glass thrown in it. “Lucky for you none of the glass from that beer bottle got in your eyes.” Biff looked at Fletch wondrously. Fletch said to Frank, “That’s nothing. You should see the News-Tribune car Biff drives. Big dents. Rear window smashed. Doubt you’ll be able to get much for it on the used-car market.”
“How the hell do you know about it?” Biff demanded.
“I’m a reporter.” Fletch sat in a chair. “Well, Frank. I’m glad to report that Mrs. Donald Habeck does not slip vodka into her tea. In fact, the poor thing doesn’t get to have any tea at all. I’ve learned my lesson in humility. Never go out on a story with preconceptions. Right, Bi
ff?”
Frank said to him, “I’m surprised you showed up.”
“Frank,” Fletch said. “In a moment your phone is going to ring. It will be police lieutenant Francisco Gomez calling Biff. He knows Biff is in your office. I would like you to take the message for Biff, please.”
“Jeez!” In his chair, Biff threw one leg over the knee of his other leg. “Now the wise ass is telling you what to do!”
Through the windows of Frank’s office, Fletch saw six uniformed policemen milling around the city room.
“What’s going on between you two guys?” Although high in color, Frank was trying to sound reasonable. “Fletch, Biff tells me you’re screwing up in ways even I can’t believe. Everywhere he goes on this Habeck story, you’ve already been there, screwing up, swimming bare-assed in the Habecks’ pool, so upsetting Habeck’s son, a monk, he refuses to see Biff, angering another suspect so much that when Biff shows up this thug throws a beer bottle in his face. Twice.” Fletch was grinning. “It isn’t funny. You know you weren’t assigned to the Habeck story. Ann McGarrahan and I made that perfectly clear to you. There are easier ways to get fired.”
“No rookie should ever come anywhere near me,” Biff said. “Especially no wise-guy punk screw-up.”
Frank smiled to himself. “I thought you’d burn off your excess energy over the whorehouse story. Instead, last night I think I heard you say you can’t do that story.”
“I can do it.”
“You said you needed more time on it. Maybe if you spent your time on the story assigned to you instead of bird-dogging Biff…”
Through the window, Fletch saw Morton Rickmers talking to one of the policemen. Morton pointed toward Frank’s office.
“Screw it.” Biff made a move to get up. “This is a waste of time. Just can the son of a bitch and let me go back to work.”
“Do you like bullies, Frank?” Fletch asked. “I don’t like bullies.”
Frank forced a laugh. “Biff’s been with the News-Tribune all his adult life. You’ve been with us what? Three months? He’s the best crime reporter around. He’s got a right to do his work without being bird-dogged by a screw-up kid.”
Fletch Won Page 21