Confess, Fletch

by Gregory Mcdonald

  “Were there many of the girl’s?”

  “A few. Enough to establish she was murdered here. They were the fingerprints of a live person.”

  Fletch considered his wisdom in saying nothing. At the moment he doubted he could say anything, anyway.

  “The disconcerting thing is, Mister Fletcher,” continued Flynn with a nerve-shattering gentleness, “that if you remember your laws of physics, the whisky bottle would be a far more reliable, satisfactory, workable murder weapon when it is full and sealed than after it has been uncapped and a quantity has been poured out.”

  “Oh, my God.”

  “By opening the whisky bottle and pouring a quantity out, you meant to remove the whisky bottle from suspicion, as the murder weapon.”

  “It didn’t work,” said Fletch.

  “Ah, that’s where my inexperience comes in. A more experienced police officer might have discounted the whisky bottle completely. I remember having to persuade Grover to send it along. It took a few words, didn’t it, Grover? Not having come up through the ranks myself, and never having had the benefits of a proper education, I insisted. The boyos in the police laboratory were very surprised the murder weapon was an unbroken, open bottle.”

  “How do they know it was?”

  “Minute traces of hair, skin and blood that match the girl’s.”

  Flynn allowed a long silence. He sat quietly, watching Fletch.

  Either he was waiting for Fletch to adjust to this new trauma or he was waiting for Fletch to be indiscreet.

  Fletch exercised his right to remain silent.

  “Now, Mister Fletcher, would you like to call in a lawyer?”

  “No.”

  “If you think by not calling in a lawyer you’re convincing us of your innocence, you’re quite wrong.”

  Grover said, “You’re convincing us of your stupidity.”

  “Now, Grover. Mister Fletcher is not stupid. And now he knows we’re not stupid. Maybe he wants to skip the formalities of a lawyer altogether and go ahead with his confession, get the dastardly thing off his chest.”

  Fletch said, “I know you’re not stupid. But I don’t know why I’m feeling stupid.”

  “You look angry.”

  “I am angry.”

  “At what?”

  “I don’t know. I suppose I should have been doing something about this the last twenty-four hours. This murder.”

  “You haven’t been?”

  “No.”

  “Your trust in us has been the most perplexing element in this whole affair,” Flynn said. “You’re not a naive man.”

  “You read the record.”

  “I take it you’re not confessing to murder at this point?”

  “Of course not.”

  “He’s still not confessing, Grover. Take that down. The man’s resistance to self-incrimination is absolutely metallic. Let’s go on, then.” Flynn sat forward on the divan, elbows on knees, hands folded before him. “You said that night you had never seen Ruth Fryer before in your life.”

  “Never to my knowledge,” answered Fletch.

  “With the key number you provided us we went to her hotel, which, by the way, is at the airport. We went through her belongings. We interviewed her room-mate. Then we interviewed her supervisor. Never having seen her before, can you guess what she did for a living?”

  “You’re not going to say airline stewardess, are you?”

  “I am.”

  “Dandy.”

  “Trans World Airlines, Mister Fletcher. Temporarily assigned to the job of First Class Ground Hostess at Boston’s Logan Airport. On duty to receive passengers aboard Flight 529 from Rome, Tuesday.”

  “I never saw her! I would remember! She was beautiful!”

  Flynn moved back on the divan, possibly in alarm, when Fletch jumped up.

  Fletch went up the living room to the piano.

  Grover had stood up.

  Fletch banged the middle-G major chord.

  Then he said, “This has something to do with me.”

  Flynn said, “What?”

  Fletch walked back towards Flynn.

  “This murder has something to do with me.”

  “That’s your reaction, is it? Sit down, Grover. Clever man, this Mister Fletcher. It’s only taken him twenty-four hours to catch on.”

  “You’ve done some wonderful work,” said Fletch.

  Flynn said, “Oh, my God. Now it’s innocent flattery.”

  “What am I going to do?”

  “You might try confessing, you blithering idiot!”

  “I would, Inspector, I would.” Fletch paced the room. “I still don’t think it’s personal.”

  “Now what do you mean by that?”

  “I don’t think the person who killed Ruth Fryer knows me personally.”

  “If you’re saying you were framed, Mister Fletcher, you’ve already told us you know no one in town.”

  “I didn’t say I don’t know anybody in the world. Lots of people hate me.”

  “More every minute,” said Flynn. “Take Grover there, for example.”

  “Everybody in Italy knew my plans. Everyone in Cagna, everyone in Rome, everyone in Livorno. The Homeswap people in London. I began making these plans three weeks ago. I wrote old buddies in California saying I would try to get out there while I was in the country. I wrote people in Seattle, Washington.”

  “All right, Mister Fletcher, we’ll put the rest of the world in prison and leave you free.”

  “But that’s not what I’m saying, Inspector. I don’t think this is a personal frame. Some sort of an accident happened. I happened to be the next guy in this room after a murder.”

  “Oh, boyoboyoboy. Like a French philosopher thirty years after he’s born he decides he might be involved with the world.”

  Fletch said, “You guys want to join me for dinner?”

  “Dinner! The man’s crazy, Grover. As a matter of fact, Mister Fletcher, we were both thinking of asking you to join us.”

  “I don’t care,” Fletch said. “Either way. You know the city.”

  “Well, the truth is,” Flynn said to the air, “to this minute the man hasn’t acted involved in this case. He’s acted as innocent as a reliable witness. He still does. That’s the biggest puzzle of all. What are we going to do with him, Grover?”

  “Lock him up.”

  “A very succinct man, this Grover.”

  “Charge him.”

  “You know the man can afford to hire fancy lawyers, detectives, make bail, protest all over the press, get postponements, appeal, and appeal all the way to the Supreme Court.”

  “Lock him up, Frank.”

  “No.” Flynn stood up. “The man didn’t leave town yesterday. He didn’t leave town today. One may presume he won’t leave town tomorrow.”

  “He’ll leave town tomorrow, Inspector.”

  “Life is simpler this way. We haven’t got this man far enough in a corner yet. Although I thought we did.”

  “What more evidence do we need?”

  “I’m not sure. We have pounds of it. I had a hat when I came in. Oh, there it is. It’s not polite to talk in front of a man as if he were dead, Grover.”

  In the hall, Flynn settled the hat on his small head.

  “I’m going to get another scolding, Mister Fletcher, I’m sure, all the way home. Maybe Grover can convince me you’re guilty. So far you haven’t. Good night.”

  X

  A S I T was late (and as Fletch had just discovered he was apparently invisible in a restaurant, anyway) he did not go out to dinner. Tiredly, he searched the kitchen cupboards and came up with a can of hash.

  The telephone rang three times while he fed himself.

  The first, while he was working the can opener, was a cable from Cagna.

  “Connors nice hurt man. Nothing new on father. Much love—Andy.”

  So Connors was in Italy. Nice, hurt at this moment were irrelevant. He was definitely in Italy.

 
The second call came before Fletch put the frying pan on to the burner.

  “Is this really the hot-shot journalistic wizard, co-agent writer non pareil, the great I.M., the one and only, now-you-see-him, now-you-don’t Irwin Maurice Fletcher?”

  “Jack!” The voice of his old boss, his city editor when he worked in Chicago, Jack Saunders, was too familiar to Fletch ever to confuse with any other voice in the world. For more than a year he had had to listen to that voice, on and off the telephone, for hours at a time. “Where are you?”

  “So you’ve been passing yourself off as Peter Fletcher, eh? I just found an identity-correction advisory from the Boston Police Department on my desk.”

  “In Chicago?”

  “No, sir. Right here in Beantown. You are talking to the night city editor of the Boston Star.”

  “You left the Post?”

  “If I had realized that murder story involved the great I. M. Fletcher I never would have put it on page seven.”

  “Page five.”

  “I would have run it front page with photos linking you and the murdered girl indelibly in the public mind.”

  “Thanks a lot. So I do know someone in Boston.”

  “What?”

  “How come you left the Post?”

  “Boston offered more money. Of course, they didn’t tell me it costs a lot more to live here in Boston, Taxachusetts. And after you left the Post, Fletch, the old place wasn’t the same. All the fun went out of it.”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “You made me look real good. Hey, you want a job?”

  “Not at the moment. How are Daphne and the kids?”

  “Still Daphne and the kids—face powder and peanut butter. Why do you think I work nights?”

  Fletch had never known why Jack had remained married. He didn’t even like to look at his wife. He considered his kids a big noise.

  “Hey, Fletch, they going to indict you?”

  “Probably. Who’s this Flynn character?”

  “You got Frank Flynn? You’re in luck. That’s why you’re not in the slammer already.”

  “I know.”

  “They call him Reluctant Flynn. He’s very slow to make an arrest. But he’s never made a mistake. If he arrests you, boy, you know you’ve had it.”

  “What’s some b.g. on him?”

  “Don’t have much. He showed up here in Boston about a year and a half ago, which is very unusual. Cops hardly ever change cities, as you know. I don’t even know where he came from. He has the rank of Inspector. Family man. Musical. He plays the violin or something.”

  “He’s good, uh?”

  “Cracked about a dozen major cases since he’s been here. He’s even reopened cases people never expected solved. If you’re guilty, he’ll get you. By the way, are you guilty?”

  “Thanks for asking.”

  “Free for lunch?”

  “When?”

  “I was thinking I better get you tomorrow. Visiting people in prisons depresses the hell out of me.”

  “Working nights you probably want a late lunch, right?”

  “About two o’clock. Can you make it?”

  “Sure.”

  “If you have necktie, we can go to Locke-Ober’s.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “You’ll never find it. It’s in an alley. Just ask the taxi driver for Locke-Ober’s. Want me to spell it?”

  “I’ve got it.”

  “There are two dining rooms, Fletch. Upstairs and downstairs. I’ll meet you downstairs.”

  “Okay.”

  “Stay loose, kid. Please don’t knock anyone else off without calling the Star first. We’ve got the best photographers in town.”

  “Bye, Jack.”

  The third call came while he was eating the hash.

  “Fletcher. Darling.”

  It was Countess de Grassi. The Brazilian Bombshell. Sylvia. Andy’s stepmother.

  “Hello, Sylvia.”

  “You didn’t return my call, Fletcher.”

  “What call? Where are you?”

  “In Boston, darling. I called earlier and left a message.”

  “Oh, that Mrs. Sawyer,” Fletch said.

  He took the message off the desk, crumpled the paper, and threw it hard against a drape.

  “I’m at the Ritz-Carlton.”

  “You can’t afford the Ritz-Carlton, Sylvia.”

  “I’m the Countess de Grassi. You can’t expect the Countess de Grassi to stay in, what do you call it, fleabag.”

  “However, the Ritz-Carlton will expect the Countess de Grassi to pay her bill.”

  “You’re being very unkind, Fletcher. This is none of your business.”

  “What are you doing here, anyway, Sylvia?”

  “What did Angela tell me? You came to Boston to visit your family in Seattle? Even I have a map, Fletcher. I came to visit your family in Seattle, too.”

  “Sylvia, what I’m doing here doesn’t concern you even a little.”

  “I think yes, Fletcher. You and Angela are, how do you say, pulling some game on me.”

  “What?”

  “You aim to deprive me of what is rightfully mine.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “First that terrible thing happens to Menti darling, and then you two conspire about me.”

  “As the grieving widow, aren’t you supposed to be in Rome? Or Livorno?”

  “You and Angela plan to rob me. Cheat me. Menti would be so mad.”

  “Nonsense.”

  “You come over to the hotel right now, Fletcher. Tell me it’s not true.”

  “I can’t, Sylvia. I’m miles from the hotel.”

  “How far? How many miles?”

  “Eighteen, twenty miles, Sylvia. Boston’s a big city.”

  “Come in the morning.”

  “I can’t. I’m tied up.

  “What does that mean, you’re tie-up?”

  “I have appointments.”

  “Lunch, then.”

  “I have a lunch date.”

  “Fletcher, I come here to catch you. I’ll call the police. They’ll listen to the Countess de Grassi at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel.”

  “I’m sure they would. Sylvia, did Menti ever tell you you’re a bitch?”

  “You’re a son of a bitch, Fletcher.”

  “That’s no way for a Countess to talk.”

  “I can say worse things in Portuguese and French.”

  “I’ve heard them. All right. I’ll come to the hotel.”

  “When?”

  “Tomorrow. Late afternoon. Six o’clock.”

  “Come to my room.”

  “I will not. I’ll meet you in the bar. Six o’clock.”

  “Six-thirty I call the police if you’re not here.”

  “Don’t use their business phone. It upsets them.”

  “What?”

  “Shut up.”

  The rest of the hash he flushed down the toilet.

  XI

  “L O O K what some son of a bitch did to my truck!”

  Fletch, dressed in jeans, sweater and boots, led the manager of the auto body repair shop through the door.

  Now that he knew he was to be followed, Fletch had unbolted the kitchen door and used the back stairs. Actually, the back alley had been a shortcut to the garage on River Street.

  He drove the smeared van to the auto body shop feeling as conspicuous as a transvestite at a policemen’s ball.

  The manager’s eyes read “FEED THE PEOPLE”. He shook his head slowly.

  “Kids.”

  Hands in his back pockets he walked slowly around to the “ADJUST!” side.

  The sun appeared between clouds.

  “There’s more on the top, too,” Fletch said.

  Coming back, the manager stood on tiptoes and stretched his neck to see the top.

  “Have to paint the whole thing.”

  “Shit,” Fletch said.

  “Little jerks,” the manager said. “‘Feed
the people’, but screw whoever owns this truck.”

  “Yeah,” Fletch said. “Me.”

  “You got insurance?”

  “Sure.”

  “Want to check your coverage?”

  “Got to have the truck,” Fletch said, “whether insurance covers it or not. Can’t use it this way.”

  “What do you do?”

  “I’m a plumber,” Fletch said.

  “Yeah. I guess not too many people would like that truck in their driveways. You might lose a few customers.”

  “Lose ’em all. Paint it. I’ll pay you and knock the insurance company up later myself.”

  “Same blue?”

  “Wouldn’t work, would it?”

  “Naw. You’d be able to read the black right through it.”

  “Better paint it black, then.”

  “Sons of bitches. Even dark red wouldn’t work. Even dark green. Ought to have their asses whipped.”

  “Paint it black.”

  “You want it black?”

  “No, I don’t want it black. If I wanted a black truck I would have bought a black truck.”

  “You’ll look like a hearse.”

  “Friggin’ hearse.”

  “You got the registration?”

  “What for?”

  “Got to take it into the Registry. Report the change in vehicle colour.”

  “Screw ’em.”

  “What?”

  “Look.” Fletch laid on anger. “I’m the victim of a crime. If the fuzz were doin’ what they’re supposed to be doin’, instead of makin’ us fill out papers all the time, my truck wouldn’t have been vandalized.”

  “Sounds reasonable.”

  “Let ’em go screw. I’ll notify ’em when I’m good and ready.”

  “You want it black, uh?”

  “No. But it’s gonna be black.”

  “When do you need it?”

  “Right now. I’m late for work right now.”

  “You can’t have the truck today. No way. Tomorrow morning.”

  “Okay. If that’s the best you can do.”

  “You goin’ to go into the Registry?”

  “I’m goin’ to work. I’ll go into the Registry when I get damned good and ready.”

  “Okay. I understand. We’ll paint the truck. You go into the Registry.”

  “Damned kids,” Fletch said. “Weirdos.”