Confess, Fletch

by Gregory Mcdonald

  “I know.”

  “It wasn’t until we were chatting over tea on Saturday and you allowed me to know why you were really in Boston—to see Mister Horan—that I considered we might try to match up the fingerprints we found in your apartment with those Mister Horan had on record. A perfect fit. He was a bit careless there. He thought he was so far removed from being a suspect for this particular crime, he never wiped up after himself. Even so, I suspect a more experienced policeman never would have suspected Mister Horan. Such a respectable man.”

  “Does he know you have his fingerprints?”

  “Oh, yes. He’s confessed.”

  “You finally have a confession. From someone.”

  “It’s much easier when there’s a confession. It cuts down on the department’s court time.”

  The moon had disappeared.

  Fletch said, “Lucy Connors didn’t kill Ruth Fryer.”

  “Indeed not. She’s as innocent as a guppy. You must get over your prejudices, lad.”

  “Did you know Horan was guilty this afternoon when I was talking to you? I mean, yesterday afternoon? In your office.”

  “Yes, lad. I’m sorry to say I deceived you something terrible. There I was, a wee lad again in Germany, asking you for your autograph while I took your picture to send on to London. By five o’clock yesterday we had matched up Horan’s prints with those in your apartment, and I had made an appointment to see him. The warrants were in process.”

  “Flynn. Have you ever felt stupid?”

  “Oh, yes. A cup of tea is a great help.”

  Flynn gave Grover money for another toll.

  “Good luck on the City Councilperson’s murder,” Fletch said.

  “Ach, that’s over, all this long time.”

  “Is it?”

  “Sure, I’m just letting the politicians exercise their bumps so they’ll accept the solution when I give it to them. They so want to think the crime is political. They’ve all demanded police protection, you know. It makes them look so much grander when they go through the streets with a cop at their heels.”

  “Who did it?”

  “Did you say, ‘Who did it’?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, you have your humour yourself, don’t you? Her husband did it. A poor, meek little man who’s been in the back seat of that marriage since they pulled away from the church.”

  “How do you know he did it?”

  “I found the man who sold him the ice pick. A conscientious Republican, to boot. An unimpeachable witness, with the evidence he has, in a case involving Democrats.”

  Outside 152 Beacon Street, before getting out of the car, Fletch put his hand out to Flynn.

  “I’ve met a great cop,” he said.

  They shook hands.

  “I’m coming along slowly,” said Flynn. “I’m learning. Bit by bit.”

  XXXIX

  T E N -T H I R T Y Tuesday morning the buzzer to the downstairs door sounded.

  Fletch gave his button a prolonged answering push to give his guest ample time to enter.

  He opened the front door to his apartment and went into the kitchen.

  Coming back across the hall with the coffee tray he heard the elevator creaking slowly to the sixth floor.

  He put the tray on the coffee table between the two divans.

  When he returned to the foyer, his guest, nearly seventy, in a dark overcoat, brown suit a little too big for him, grey bags under his eyes making him no less distinguished, was standing hesitantly in the hall.

  Fletch aid, “Hi, Menti.”

  As he shook hands, the man’s smile was dazzling, despite the lines of concern in his face.

  “I never knew you wear false teeth,” Fletch said.

  Taking his guest’s coat and putting it in a closet, Fletch said, “They found your body a few days ago in a pasture outside Turin.”

  Clasping his hands together, the guest entered the living room and allowed himself to be escorted to a divan. Count Clementi Arbogastes de Grassi was not accustomed to a cold climate.

  He sipped a cup of coffee and crossed his legs. “My friend,” he said.

  Fletch was comfortable with his coffee in the other divan.

  “Now I ask you the saddest question I have ever had to ask any man in my life.” The Count paused. “Who stole my paintings? My wife? Or my daughter?”

  Fletch sipped from his cup.

  “Your daughter. Andy. Angela.”

  Menti sat, cup and saucer in one hand in his lap, staring at the floor for several moments.

  “I’m sorry, Menti.”

  Fletch finished his coffee and put the cup and saucer on the table.

  “I knew it had to be one of them who arranged it,” Menti said. “For the paintings to have been stolen on our honeymoon. The theft at that time was too significant. The paintings had been there for decades. The house was usually empty, except for Ria and Pep. Few knew the paintings were there. But Sylvia was with me in Austria and Angela was here in school.”

  “I know.”

  Menti sat up and put his unfinished coffee on the table.

  “Thank you for being my friend, Fletch. Thank you for helping me to find out.”

  “Were you comfortable enough in captivity?”

  “You arranged everything splendidly. I rather enjoyed being a retired I talo-American on the Canary Islands. I made friends.”

  “Of course.”

  “Where are the ladies now? Sylvia and Angela?”

  “They flew the coop this morning. No note. No anything.”

  “What does ‘flew the coop’ mean?”

  “They left. Quickly.”

  “They were here?”

  “Yes.”

  “Both of them?”

  “Under the very same roof.”

  “Why did they leave, ‘flew the coop’?”

  “Either they both left together, or Andy left when she heard Horan was arrested, and Sylvia took off after her. It must have been quite a scene. Sorry I missed it.”

  The Count said, “Are they both well?”

  “Grieving, of course, but otherwise fine.” He poured warm coffee into the Count’s half-empty cup. “I have fifteen of the paintings. Two have been sold, you know. The police are keeping one, the big Picasso, ‘Vino, Viola, Mademoiselle’, as evidence. You’ll probably never get it back without spending three times the painting’s financial worth in legal fees, taxes, international wrangling and what have you. And we have the Degas horse.”

  Menti absently turned the cup in its saucer.

  “Everything is in a truck, downstairs,” Fletch said. “You and I can leave for New York as soon as you get warmed up.”

  Menti sat back, sad and tired.

  “Why did she do it?”

  “Love. Love for you. I don’t think Andy cared that much about the paintings. She doesn’t care about the money.

  “When her mother died,” Fletch continued, “Andy, as a little girl, thought she would take her mother’s place in your affection. You remarried. She has told me how heartbroken she was, and furious. She was fourteen. When your second wife left you, she was pleased. She thought you had learned your lesson. Because you had been married in France, you could divorce. Then, while Andy was in school here, you married Sylvia. Andy was no longer a little girl. She was old enough to express her rage. In her eyes, you had kept something from her all these years. She took something from you. The de Grassi Collection.”

  “She wasn’t afraid Sylvia might have inherited them?”

  “I’m not sure, but I have the impression Andy knew that under Italian law children of the deceased have to inherit at least a third of the estate. Have I got that right? I’m sure Sylvia had no idea of that. Knowledge of the law could have motivated either one of them to steal the paintings—from the other.”

  “Angela wanted the whole collection.”

  “I guess so. She doesn’t expect much sense of family from Sylvia. People like Ria and Pep are very impo
rtant to Andy.”

  “But how did she do it? A little girl, like that?”

  “It took me a while to make the connection. I knew Andy had been to school in this country. I hadn’t realized her school was here in Boston, or Cambridge, which is just across the river. I knew her school was Radcliffe. I didn’t realize that Radcliffe is joined with Harvard. Radcliffe women now receive Harvard degrees. Horan, the Boston art dealer, was Andy’s professor at Harvard.”

  “I see. But I think it would be difficult to get your professor to commit a grand, international robbery for you because you didn’t like your father marrying again, no?”

  “One would think so. However, Horan, who had gotten used to a very expensive way of life, was going broke.”

  “You know he was broke?”

  “Yes. Five years ago he sold his wife’s famous jewel, the Star of Hunan jade, to an Iranian. I knew that before I came here.”

  “Still … such a distinguished man.”

  “He’s also a handsome, sophisticated man, Menti. An older man. For years, Andy had been wanting a certain kind of attention from you….”

  Menti’s eyes were dull as they gazed at Fletch. “You believe their relationship was more intimate than is usual between a student and teacher?”

  “I suspect so. For one purpose or another.”

  “I see.” Menti sipped his coffee. “It happens. So, Fletcher, it was Horan who actually arranged for the paintings to be stolen.”

  “Yes. You showed me the catalogues from the Horan Gallery. Two of the de Grassi paintings were being sold, or, in fact, had been sold. We made our plan. We left copies of the catalogues for each of the ladies to find.

  “Andy was enraged,” Fletch said. “She knew Horan had the paintings, of course. She was enraged that he was selling them without her. Did Sylvia react at all?”

  Menti said, “She never looked in the catalogues. I couldn’t get her to.” Menti chuckled lightly and shook his head. “When you called from Cagna saying you were driving down with an upset Angela, it was too late. I could wait no longer for Sylvia to notice. I had to go forward with our plan and get kidnapped.”

  “I don’t know what Andy was really thinking on that drive to Livorno. She was certainly going to you, maybe to confess. More likely, she didn’t know what she was doing.”

  “My disappearance helped clarify things,” Menti said.

  “Yes. Essentially, Andy sent me here to find the paintings so she could steal them back from Horan. She probably wouldn’t have played her own hand out, unless she thought you were dead.” Fletch swallowed coffee. “This morning Horan was arrested. Exit Andy. Exit Sylvia.”

  “Enter Menti.”

  The buzzer to the downstairs door sounded.

  “We’re taking the paintings to a dealer in New York. A man I trust implicitly.” Fletch stood up to answer the door. “His name is Kasner. On East 66th Street.”

  In the foyer, he shouted into the mouthpiece, “Who is it?”

  The answering voice was so soft it took Fletch a moment to assimilate what it said.

  “Francis Flynn, Mister Fletcher.”

  “Oh! Inspector?”

  “The same.”

  Fletch pressed the button that would release the lock on the door downstairs.

  Quickly, he grabbed Menti’s coat from the closet.

  Then he went into the den and took the truck keys from a drawer of the desk.

  In the living room, he handed the coat and keys to Menti.

  “Hurry up,” he said. “Put on your coat. The man who is coming up is a policeman.”

  Moving gracefully, with speed, Menti stood up and put on the coat Fletch held for him.

  “I won’t be able to drive to New York with you, Menti. Can you make the trip alone?”

  “Of course.”

  “Here are the keys. It’s a black caravan truck, a Chevrolet, parked at the curb outside the apartment house, I think, to the right as you leave the building. The licence plate on it is R99420. Have you got it?”

  “In general, yes.”

  “Kasner’s address is 20 East 66th Street, New York.”

  “I can remember.”

  “He’s expecting you this afternoon. Come into the foyer with me, as if you were leaving, anyway.”

  The doorbell rang.

  “Good morning, Inspector.”

  “Good morning, Mister Fletcher.”

  The little face on top of the huge body was bright and shining from a recent close shave. The green eyes were beaming like a cat’s.

  Fletch brought Menti forward by the elbow.

  “I’d like you to meet a friend, from Italy, who just stopped by. Inspector Flynn, this is Giuseppe Grochola.”

  Flynn’s eyes went to Menti. He put out his hand.

  “Count Clementi Arbogastes de Grassi, is it?”

  Menti hesitated not at all before shaking hands.

  “Pleased to meet you, Inspector.”

  Flynn said to Fletch, “I never forget a thing I’ve heard. Isn’t it marvellous?”

  “It’s marvellous, Flynn.”

  “And such a great cop I am, too. Didn’t I hear someone say that?”

  “You did, Inspector.”

  “Now why do you suppose this man who’s supposed to be dead, this Count Clementi Arbogastes de Grassi, is standing here in your front hall?”

  “I’m on my way to the airport, Inspector.”

  Fletch said, “He’s been found, Flynn. Isn’t that great?”

  “It’s a wonder he was lost at all.”

  “A narrow escape,” said Fletch.

  “It’s a confusion,” said Menti. “I came here to see my wife and daughter. They, hearing I was found alive, rushed off to Rome, not knowing I was coming here.”

  “I see,” said Flynn. “And how was it, to be dead?”

  Menti said, “I’m trying to catch them at the airport, Inspector.”

  Flynn stood away from the door.

  “I’d never come between a man and his family,” he said. “Have a joyful reunion.”

  Fletch opened the door.

  “There’s some coffee in the living room, Inspector.”

  He opened the elevator door for Menti.

  Flynn had wandered into the living room.

  Fletch whispered, “Send me back the licence plates. By mail.”

  From inside the elevator, Menti whispered, “What do I do with the truck?”

  “Leave it anywhere. It will get stolen.”

  Still in his overcoat, Flynn stood over the coffee table.

  “There’s not an unused cup,” he said, “on this brisk morning.”

  “I’ll get one.”

  “Never mind. I had my tea.”

  “I wasn’t expecting you,” Fletch said.

  “I suspected as much. I’m only here for the moment. I thought I’d ask you this morning if you’ve had any ideas at all as to where the de Grassi paintings might be?”

  “I’ve just been through that, Inspector.”

  “Have you?”

  “I told Menti everything.”

  “You must have been mighty surprised to see him.”

  “Mighty.”

  “The ladies have gone already, have they?”

  “They were gone when I got back. They must have gotten the news during the night, while I was with you.”

  “And they didn’t wait for you? Your girlfriend and the Countess.”

  “Menu’s discovery was big news, Inspector.”

  “I daresay it was. And how was he found?”

  “Wandering near the steps of Saint Sebastian.”

  “In a daze, was he?”

  “No. He’d been let out of a car.”

  “Remarkable they’d feed a captive that long. Italian kidnappers must have hearts of honey. A month or more, wasn’t it?”

  “About that.”

  “Well, anything is possible under the sun.” Flynn turned on his heel at the end of the room. “Now, where do you suppose t
he paintings are this morning?”

  “Well, Inspector, you might believe Horan hid them last night.”

  “I might believe that, yes. The man doesn’t say so himself.”

  “You asked him?”

  “I did, yes.”

  “But, Inspector, who can believe a murderer?”

  “Ach, now there’s a point worthy of my own Jesuit training.”

  “What did Horan say, precisely?”

  “The man says he never heard of the paintings.”

  “Didn’t he say a man named Cooney in Texas has them?”

  “He says he never heard of a man named Cooney.”

  “It’s a great puzzle, Inspector.”

  “It is that. The man must have had the paintings, or he never would have gone to the extent of murder to frame and thus dispose of you.”

  “Perhaps he just doesn’t like people named Peter.”

  “I’ll ask him that.” Flynn, hands behind back, walked back down the room. “I’d almost think you took them yourself, Fletch. There was a burglary at the man’s house last night. If the man hadn’t gone out there immediately afterwards and told the police nothing was missing.”

  “I suppose I could make some tea,” Fletch said. “The water’s still hot.”

  “No, I must be going.” Flynn headed towards the front door. “Of course, a man may be reluctant to admit something he isn’t supposed to have is stolen from him. I mean, how would a man say something I stole was stolen from me?”

  Fletch said, “I understand reluctance, Inspector.”

  “Ach,” said Flynn. “A man has no privacy at all.”

  Before he opened the front door, Flynn turned to Fletch, and said, “Which reminds me, Mister Fletcher. Finally we discovered what else you did on that Wednesday you went in one door of the Ritz and out of the other.”

  “Oh?”

  “You bought a truck. The marvellous bureaucracy dropped the registration into my hands just this morning.”

  Flynn began to rummage in all his pockets at once.

  “Now, why would you buy a truck and rent a car the same day?”

  “I was going to use it for skiing, Inspector.”

  “Ach! That’s a perfectly good answer. What do you mean, you were going to use it for skiing?”

  “It was stolen. I’ve been meaning to report it.”

  “Ah, Mister Fletcher. You should report such things. And when was it stolen?”