Confess, Fletch

by Gregory Mcdonald

  “I never do. But, like work itself, I never mind watching another man partake.” He turned to Mrs. Sawyer. “I don’t suppose you keep a camomile tea?”

  She said, “I think we’ve got Red Zinger.”

  “Any herb tea will do. Perhaps you’d bring a glass, some ice and water into the study as well, for Mister Fletcher here.”

  The thing seemed decided.

  Flynn stepped into the den.

  Fletch snapped on the lights and began to open the odd-shaped bottle.

  Flynn rummaged around inside his sweater, having driven his hand through the neck of it, and pulled two sheets of folded paper from his shirt pocket.

  “I was able to secure the complete passenger list for Flight 529 from Rome last Tuesday.” He handed it to Fletch, who put down the open bottle. “I wonder if you’d cast your eye along that and see if there are any names you know.”

  “You think Ruth Fryer’s murder might have something to do with something I was doing in Rome, eh?”

  “Mister Fletcher, you said yourself, people hate you all over the world. Surely, one might spend an airfare to wreak your undoing.”

  Most of the names on the list were Italian; most of the rest were Irish—modern-day pilgrims on a flight between Rome and America in search of spiritual consolation or material attainment.

  Flynn stood, hands in his pockets, chin back, the amiable grin still on his face.

  “Supposing we were friends, Mister Fletcher,” he said. “What would I call you? Surely not Irwin Maurice. Are you used to the name Peter, yet? Or are you down to calling yourself ‘Pete’?”

  “Fletch,” Fletch said. “People call me Fletch.”

  “Fletch, is it? Now that’s an impudent enough name. Couldn’t an Irish poet dance a Maypole playing with a name like that, though?”

  “I recognize no one’s name on the list.”

  Fletch handed it back to him.

  “I was afraid you’d say that.”

  “And I should call you Francis Xavier, right?”

  “People call me Frank,” said Flynn. “Except my wife, who calls me Frannie. She has a kindlier, softer view of me.”

  Mrs. Sawyer entered with a tray.

  “I had the hot water on, anyway,” she said.

  On the tray were an ice bucket, an empty glass, a water carafe, a teapot, cream, sugar, a cup, saucer, spoon.

  “Ah, that’s lovely.” Flynn rubbed his hands again. “Tell me, Mrs. Sawyer, when you left here after cleaning up Monday night, was there water in the carafe in the living room next to the whisky bottle?”

  “No, sir. Of course, there wasn’t. That had been washed out, dried out, and stoppered.”

  “I wouldn’t think so. Who’d leave water out to go stale, when it’s so easily replaceable? Was the whisky bottle there when you left?”

  “What whisky bottle? Which whisky bottle?”

  “There was more than one?”

  “There were a lot of bottles on that table. That was Mister Connors’ little bar. There were Scotch bottles, bourbon bottles, gin bottles, sherry and port decanters. Plenty of clean glasses.”

  “What happened to them?”

  “Mister Fletcher put them away. I found them all in a cupboard in the kitchen. I figured he couldn’t stand the sight of such things anymore than I can.”

  Flynn looked his question at Fletch.

  “No,” Fletch said. “I didn’t.”

  “And,” Flynn asked Mrs. Sawyer, “I suppose you’ve been rummaging around in that cupboard, touching the bottles and thus obliterating any fingerprints which might have been on them?”

  “Of course I’ve been touching the bottles. I’ve been shoving them back and forth. They’ve been in the way of the sugar, salt and pepper.”

  “‘The sugar, salt and pepper.’ A most active cupboard. No use,” said Flynn. “Thank you, Mrs. Sawyer.”

  “You want anything else, you just let me know,” she said.

  “I’m so far behind in my own work, I have no hope of finishing anyway.”

  “Salt of the earth,” said Flynn, pouring out his tea. “Salt of the earth.” Across the hall, the kitchen door swung shut. “Of course it’s always the salt of the earth that destroys the evidence.”

  They sat in the red leather chairs, two men in sweaters, one in a jacket as well, one with a cup of tea, the other with a Scotch and water.

  Through the light curtains of the long windows was a dark sky. Every few moments a gust of wind from the Boston Gardens splattered a sheet of rain against the windows.

  From six storeys below they could hear the hiss of tyres going along Beacon Street.

  “A dark, gloomy day like this,” said Flynn, “reminds me of when I was a boy in Munich, growing up. Dark days, indeed.”

  “Munich?”

  “Let’s see. On a day like this, a rainy fall Saturday afternoon, I’d be obliged to be in the gymnasium—the real gymnasium, the sports place—doing push-ups, scrambling up ropes, wrestling until the blood was ready to burst our heads.”

  “You’re Irish.”

  “That I am. Or we’d be out running miles in the wet, around the countryside, looking out for the little red markers, sweat and rain mixed on our faces, the air heavy in our lungs, the ground just turning hard beneath our feet. What a splendid way to bring a boy up. No doubt I owe my current hardy constitution to it.”

  “To what?”

  “I was a member of the Hitler Youth.”

  “You what?”

  “Ah, yes, laddy. A man is many things, in his past.”

  “The Jugendfuehrer?”

  “You’ve got it just right, laddy.”

  “How is that possible?”

  “As you’ve said yourself: anything is possible. It this whisky all right?”

  “Very good,” said Fletch.

  “Not being a drinking man myself, I’m shy in making choices for others. I’m afraid it was the peculiar shape of the bottle that caught my eye.”

  “It’s fine.”

  “I don’t suppose one should buy the whisky for the bottle?”

  “One might as well.”

  “For all you drink, you mean. I see you’re not a guiper.”

  “Not in front of you, anyway. How could Francis Xavier Flynn be a member of the Jugendfuehrer!”

  “Now, haven’t I asked myself that same question a thousand times?”

  “I’ve just asked you again.”

  “The Republic of Ireland, of course, had little to do with the war. Relentlessly neutral, as they say, on the side of the Allies. My Da was the Republic’s consul to Munich. Is it getting clearer?”

  “No.”

  “In 1938, when I was about seven years old, it was decided, because of the unusual world circumstances, that I would stay on in Munich with my parents, instead of returning home to school by myself, as would have been normal. I spoke German as well as any boy my age, had had my first years in German schools, looked and dressed German. And, as my Da said, entrusting me with this great responsibility, I had reached the Age of Reason.

  “So my Da took up agreein’ with the Nazis in public, although he hated their ideas as any decent man would. We remained in Germany throughout the war. I remained in the German school, became a member of the Hitler Youth. The short pants, the neckerchief, the salute, the whole thing. Marched in the rallies. Was the young star at some of the gymnastic shows. People forgot I was Irish altogether.”

  “Flynn, really….”

  “Believe it, if you will. I was a perfect member of Jugendfuehrer.

  “But, you know, you’d be surprised what a wee boy in short pants and a Hitler Youth shirt and a bicycle and a camera can do. He can roam the countryside, sometimes with his friends. Tours of installations would be set up for us. You’d be amazed how soldiers and officers will show things to a wee boy they wouldn’t show their own mothers. Anything I didn’t understand, I’d take a picture of; anytime I came across what I suspected was a Nazi dignitary, I’d get his
autograph. You’d be surprised at the number of high Nazi officers who’d be moving about in great secrecy but would stop to sign their names on a slip of paper for a small boy. Ah, I was a wonder, I was.

  “And I had a couple of friends I corresponded with all during these years, in Dublin. One was Timmy O’Brien, Master Timothy O’Brien, and the other was Master William Cavanaugh. I used to write them excited letters about my life, where I’d been and what I’d seen. I was full of the old Nazi malarkey—a bragging schoolboy, I was, if you read the letters. Sometimes I’d get letters back, doubting my word. I’d send photographs and autographs, and every proof I had.

  “Of course, my Da was the ghostwriter of my side of the correspondence. And both Masters O’Brien and Cavanaugh had their actual address in London, at headquarters for British Intelligence.”

  “My God.”

  “An unusual way to grow up. My father also was using the consulate to help sneak British and American fliers out of the country, home again. It was all very difficult on my mother.”

  “Is this true, Flynn?”

  “I was fourteen at the end of the war. Munich was rubble. There was no food to be had. I expect you’ve seen the pictures. It’s all true.

  “Before the Nazis withdrew, they shot my parents. Each of them. A single bullet between the eyes. In the kitchen of our apartment. I don’t think the Nazis had any evidence against them. I think it was one of those arbitrary murders. There were lots of such incidents, those days. I found them after standing an air raid watch.”

  “What did you do then?”

  “Oh, there were weeks and months to go yet. At first, I lived with the family of a friend. They didn’t have any food or heat, either. I was on the street, living under things that had already fallen down. Even after the surrender, there were weeks and weeks of wandering around. You see, I was afraid to go up to the British or American soldiers. An odd thing. I was afraid of them. Of course, I was half-crazy.

  “One night, sleeping in an alley, I got the toe of a boot in my ribs. Someone spoke to me in the lilt. A soldier was standing over me. You can believe he got an earful of Irish like he’d never had!

  “Then it was home for me, back to Dublin. I was put in a Jesuit seminary, if you’d believe it. I guess it was my choice. I’d seen hell, you see.

  “I learned another logic, got my health back. By the age of twenty I was tired of truth. Can you understand that?”

  “Of course.”

  “The celibacy had worn thin, too. So I wrote a friend of mine, Master William Cavanaugh, in London. I sent the letter direct this time. Asking for a job. I gather the letter caused a great laugh, among the old boys.

  “The rest of my life is a blank.”

  “I know you didn’t work in Chicago.”

  “I know you know that. You did work in Chicago. What were you doing at the newspaper the other day, if you weren’t enquiring about me?”

  “You became a spy again.”

  “Did I say that?”

  “But you married and had kids.”

  “I did that. An unusual thing for a lad who thought he’d be a priest to do.”

  “Odd for a spy, too.”

  “I wouldn’t say that, precisely.”

  “Are you Catholic now?”

  “Are the Catholics Catholic now, I’d want to know. My kids enjoy something or other, but what it is, I don’t know. They disappear on the Sundays with their guitars and violins and bang around in some church, shaking hands and kissing each other. They tell me it’s very exhilarating.”

  “Your wife is Irish? American? What?”

  “She’s from Palestine, a Jewish girl. I had a job of work to do out there in that area at one time. Would you believe we had to go to Fada to be married when she was pregnant? Neutral territory.”

  “Flynn, your being a Boston policeman is a cover. It’s your cover.”

  “Why don’t you pour yourself some fresh whisky, lad?”

  “That’s why you’ve said you have no experience as a policeman. You’ve never actually been a policeman.”

  “I have to bumble along,” said Flynn. “Bumble along.”

  “You became a Boston policeman just at the time the intelligence agencies were being investigated by Congress and everyone else throughout the world.”

  “Have I said too much?” Flynn’s face was a study in innocence. “It must be the tea talking.”

  “Can you still speak German?”

  “In a way, it’s my natural tongue.”

  “As a member of the Hitler Youth, did you ever actually have to pick up a gun and use it?”

  “I did, yes.”

  “What happened?”

  “In my confusion, I almost shot myself. I couldn’t shoot at the Allied troops advancing on Munich. I couldn’t shoot the lads I had been brought up with.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I cried. I lay down in a ditch of mud and I cried. I wasn’t fifteen yet, lad. I doubt I’d do anything different today.”

  A heavy gust blew a sheet of rain against the windows.

  “Now it’s your turn, Fletch.”

  XXIV

  F L E T C H mixed himself a second drink.

  He said, “I doubt I have anything to say.”

  Even through the thick walls of the building they could hear the wind.

  “I’ve done this much on you,” said Flynn, from his chair. “Born and raised in Seattle. You have Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from Northwestern. You didn’t complete your Ph.D.”

  “The money ran out.”

  Fletch sat down again in his chair.

  “You concentrated in journalism and fine arts. You wrote on the arts for a newspaper in Seattle. Broke a story there regarding the illicit importing of pre-Columbian Canadian objects. You joined the Marine Corps, were sent to the Far East, and won the Bronze Star, which you have never accepted. You then worked as an investigative reporter for the Chicago Post. You broke several big stories there, as you did later for a newspaper in California. As an investigative reporter—not as a critic.”

  “There’s a difference?”

  “About eighteen months ago, you disappeared from southern California.”

  “It’s hard to get full co-operation from a newspaper these days,” said Fletch. “One doesn’t get to be a newspaper executive without political savvy—which is utterly destructive to the newspaper.”

  “You’ve been married and divorced twice, and there has been a continuous flap in the courts about your refusal to pay alimony. Charges against you, from fraud to contempt—all, I suspect, incurred in your line of duty—were all dropped. Incidentally, after enquiring about you through several California police agencies, I received a personal phone call from the district attorney, or assistant district attorney, somewhere out there, a Mister Chambers, I think he said his name was, giving you high marks for past co-operation in one or two criminal cases.”

  “Alston Chambers. We were in the Marines together.”

  “Where have you been the last eighteen months?”

  “Travelling. I was in Brazil for a while. The British West Indies. London. I’ve been living in Italy.”

  “You returned to this country once, to Seattle, for your father’s funeral. Did you say you inherited your money from him?”

  “No. I didn’t say that.”

  “He was a compulsive gambler,” Flynn said.

  Fletch said, “I know.”

  “You didn’t answer the question as to where your money came from.”

  “An old uncle,” Fletch lied. “Died while I was in California.”

  “I see.” Flynn accepted the lie as a lie.

  “He couldn’t leave his money to my father, could he?”

  “So there are a good many people in your past who’d like to do you harm,” Flynn said. “That’s the trouble with crime in a mobile society. People wander all over the face of the earth, dragging their pasts with them. A good investigation these days is almost complet
ely beyond a local police department, no matter how good.”

  “Your tea must be getting cold,” Fletch said.

  “Just as good cold as hot.” Flynn poured himself some more. “We Europeans aren’t as sensitive to temperature as you Americans are.”

  Fletch said, “You’re thinking my past may have caught up with me in some way. Someone has followed me here and purposely put me in this pickle.”

  “Well, I’d hate to have to fill up the other side of the page that contains the list of your enemies. Isn’t it said that a good journalist has no friends?”

  “I think you’re wrong, Inspector. As Peter Fletcher I was the victim of an accidental frame-up. Someone committed murder in this apartment and arranged things to hang the blame on the next person coming through the front door.”

  “Take this Rome situation, for example,” said Flynn. “Can you explain it to me?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, now, I not only observe what a man does do, but what he doesn’t do, if you take my meaning. You told me the other night that you’re here to do research into the life of the painter Edgar Arthur Tharp, Junior, the pinto painter, for a biography.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Yet, since Wednesday morning, mind you, until last night, you had not been in touch with either the Tharp Family Foundation, or the proper curator at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.”

  Fletch said, “I’ve been busy.”

  “In fact, you haven’t been. Our boyos watching you say you lead the life of a proper Boston old lady. Lunch at Locke-Ober’s, then drinks at the Ritz. You spent a couple of hours in the offices of the Boston Star. Otherwise, you’ve been at home here, in someone else’s apartment.”

  “I guess that’s true, too.”

  “Do you sleep a lot, Mister Fletcher?”

  “I’ve been putting together my notes.”

  “Surely you would have done that in the sunny climate of Italy before you came here.”

  “Well, I didn’t.”

  “Except for Wednesday, of course. We don’t know what you did on Wednesday. That was the day you slipped in one door and out the other at the Ritz-Carlton. Innocent as a honeybee, of course. That was before we knew we were on to a retired investigative reporter who has an innocent instinct for losing his tail. All we know is that you did not go to either the Museum or the Tharp Foundation Wednesday.”