Koller jumped up. “Geoff!” He tripped on the edge of the cistern greeting McKensie. “This is great! I’ve been hoping we’d get some time together.”
“You mean before I shove off?”
“You were pushed off,” said Koller. “Something similar’s happened to me. More than once. Come on into the shade.”
Everyone greeted everyone else with kisses, except McKensie, who kissed no one. Gerry Littleford introduced Fletch.
Edith Howell acknowledged the introduction by saying, “I didn’t know what to do with my bags, dear.”
Fletch looked doubtfully at her breasts and she sat down on a wicker chair.
John Meade said, “Good afternoon. Are you our host?”
“I guess so.”
“Thank you for having us.”
Geoffrey McKensie said nothing. He did not shake hands. But looking at Fletch his eyes clicked like the shutter of a camera’s lens.
“The light you got in The Crow—fantastic!” Koller walked McKensie to two chairs at the back of the group. “Particularly in that last scene, the final scene with the old woman and the boy. How did you do it?” He laughed. “Do I have to go to Australia to get light like that?”
“What a dreadful drive,” Edith Howell said. “On that seven mile bridge I thought my heart would plop into the water.”
“Is that why you never stopped talkin’?” Meade asked with a grin.
“As long as one is talking,” Edith Howell said, “one must be alive. Is Freddy here?” she asked Fletch.
“He’s here somewhere. Guess he went for a walk.”
“My, how that man wanders,” said Edith.
In the fan-backed wicker chair instinctively Edith Howell seemed to take over the foreground. Gangly in a light iron chair, John Meade seemed to fill up the background. In his eager manners, in his absorbing everything around him, Gerry Littleford always looked ready to go on. The other nonprofessional among them, Stella Littleford, had a cute face but was small and white to the point of sallowness. The way she slumped in her chair put her very much offstage.
“What a magnificent house,” Edith Howell said. “Looks so cool and airy. You must tell us all about Key West,” she said to Fletch. “How long have you lived here?”
“About eighteen hours.”
“Oh.” She wrinkled her nose at the back of the house. “It’s called The Blue House…Maybe the front of it’s blue. I didn’t notice.”
“It isn’t,” said Fletch.
John Meade laughed. “You sure are a good of boy, aren’t you?”
Moxie popped out the back door wearing the new yellow bikini. There were more hugs and kisses. She kissed both Sy Koller and Geoffrey McKensie.
She sipped Fletch’s orange juice. “There’s no vodka in it.”
“There isn’t?”
“How can you make a Screw Driver without vodka?” she asked.
“You can’t,” he said.
John Meade laughed.
Moxie sat in the love seat beside Fletch. “Don’t tell me. You’re all talking shop.”
“Stella and I were talking about fishing,” Fletch said.
“Now that you bring it up,” John Meade drawled. “Sy? Are we going to finish the film?”
Sy looked at Moxie. “I wish I knew.”
And Moxie said: “That depends on the banks, doesn’t it? If the bankers say we finish, we finish. If the bankers say we don’t finish, we don’t finish. Jumping Cow Productions.”
“Yeah,” said Koller. “That’s the reality of this business. The only reality.”
Littleford said, “We needed a break from filming anyway.” He rubbed his left forearm. “I was gettin’ weary of gettin’ beat up. Give my bruises a chance to heal.”
The Lopezes appeared and began handing around trays of sandwiches.
Edith Howell put her hand on Moxie’s knee and said, quietly, “I hope it was all right for us to come, dear. I suppose we were all thinking the same thing…” Moxie’s eyes widened. “… At a time like this, you need people around you. Friends.”
Moxie stared at her, open-mouthed.
“Have a sandwich,” Fletch said. Lopez had placed the fancy beer-ice cooler in the shade. “Have a beer. Want me to get you a beer?”
Moxie didn’t answer.
Everyone but Moxie had a sandwich and drink in hand. The Lopezes had returned to the house.
Moxie stood up. She said, slowly, distinctly, “Dear friends. I did not kill Steve Peterman. Anyone who isn’t sure of that fact is free to leave.”
In the heavy silence, Moxie walked back to the house. She let the back door slam behind her.
Stella Littleford muttered, “That would leave an empty house.”
“Shut up,” her husband said. He looked apologies at Fletch, and at Sy Koller.
Fletch cleared his throat. “Someone bumped the son of a bitch off.”
Stella said, “He probably deserved it. The bastard.”
“I have my own theory.” Sy Koller waited for everyone’s attention. “Dan Buckley.”
“That’s a good theory,” said Fletch.
“He was as close to him as Moxie was.”
“You’re just saying that,” Gerry said to Sy, “because he was the only one present not…” He waved his sandwich at the group under the banyan tree. “… not one of us. Not working with us.”
“No.” Sy Koller was munching his sandwich. “I know they knew each other. Before. How else do you think Steve Peterman got Buckley to tape his show on location? Buckley doesn’t cart himself around to every film location, you know.”
Fletch asked, “What else do you know?”
“Well, I know Peterman was to have dinner with Buckley. To discuss business. I’m pretty sure they had done business together. Buckley kept referring to some aluminum mine in Canada, throwing significant looks at Peterman, and Peterman kept smiling and changing the topic of conversation.”
“That would be nice.” Fletch looked at each of them. “If it were Dan Buckley.”
“Sure,” Sy Koller said. “Tell me this: who else could have rigged his own set? I speak as a director.” He looked at Geoffrey McKensie for confirmation. “A director is responsible for everything that happens on a set. He’s the only one who really understands everything on a set, what everything is for, how everything works. As a director I say—take a simple, open set like the one for The Dan Buckley Show and get a knife to fall accurately enough and with enough force to get into somebody’s back and kill him—that’s not easy. You can’t rig that in two minutes flat. It had to be Dan Buckley.”
“Or someone on his crew,” said Meade.
“Did the knife fall?” asked Fletch.
Koller said, “I don’t know. Obviously it came from somewhere with force. I was thinking about this all night. I’m sure I could rig that set to put a knife in somebody’s back.” Generously, he turned to McKensie. “I’m sure Geoff here could, too. But I couldn’t figure the best way to do it after thinking about it all night.” Summarily, he said: “I think Buckley’s the only one who could have had that set primed and working for him yesterday. To kill Peterman.”
In the digestive silence, the amplified voice of a tour guide wafted over the back wall. “… Mooneys, famous father and famous daughter, being questioned by police regarding the murder yesterday of somebody on the set of The Dan Buckley Show. The old man doesn’t seem too upset. Hour ago I saw him downtown crossin’ the street from Sloppy Joe’s to Captain Tony’s…
“Aw, turn it off,” McKensie said. “Makes me sick.”
Edith Howell again was pointing her nose at the back of The Blue House. “At least,” she said, “it’s nice to get away from hotel living for a few days.”
13
Fletch pushed open the door with his foot and carried the tray into his mid-day darkened bed-room. On the tray were a few cut sandwiches, a pitcher of orange juice and a glass. He placed the tray on the bedside table.
Moxie was an X on the bed. Sh
e had removed her bikini top.
“I didn’t kill Steve,” she said.
“We have to find who did, Moxie. You’re seriously implicated. Or, you’re going to be. Once the facts come out. I mean, about your funny financial dealings with Peterman.”
“‘Financial dealings’. I didn’t even understand them. I trusted the bastard, Fletch.” She groaned. “Millions of dollars in debt.”
“I know you didn’t understand them. I under-stand you had to trust someone. Either you had to be a creative person, or a business person. You had an opportunity to throw yourself one hundred percent into your creative life, and it was good for everybody that you did.”
“Don’t judges and people like the I.R.S. understand that sort of thing? It’s not hard to understand.”
“Not in this country, anyway. In this country, everything is a business. Being creative is a business. Except you don’t have any executive staff, board of directors, business training or experience to fall back on. That’s all your fault, you see, because being creative here is really being nothing. In America, a creative person is only as good as his income. When you sign something, it signifies you understand what you’re signing. And you’re solely responsible for what you’ve signed.”
“But Goddamn it, it happens all the time. You read about it—”
“So you have to protect yourself.”
“So Steve Peterman was supposed to protect me.”
“So maybe he screwed you.”
“And that’s what happens all the time. Jeez, Fletch.”
“Ignorance is no defense in the law, they say. More to the point, it’s almost impossible to prove you didn’t know what you didn’t know. Playing dumb is a courtroom cliche.”
“Courtroom! O-oh. You had to use that word, didn’t you?”
“Sorry.” He sat on the bed. “Trouble is, you see, you did understand something. You arrived in Steve Peterman’s office, during his absence, and went through his books. Two weeks later, sitting next to you, he gets stabbed to death.”
There was a long silence in the darkened room. Her eyes roamed the ceiling. She sighed. “Looks bad.”
“Moxie, I have a friend in New York, a good friend, who is both a lawyer and a Certified Public Accountant. I believe in this person. He’ll need your written permission, but I’d like him to review your books in Steve Peterman’s office. So we’ll know how much financial trouble you’re really in.”
“What does it matter? They’re going to try me for murder.”
“There’s a chance—a small chance—you read the books all wrong. That Steve represented you well. That you have no complaints. That you had no motive to murder him.”
“Fat chance.”
“It’s worth a shot. And if the news is bad, it’s proven you did have a motive to murder him—”
“Don’t tell me. Just lead me to the execution chamber.”
“—then at least we’ll know that. We have to move fast on this. I expect the authorities will want a look at those books, too. We want to beat them to it.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Sign this piece of paper.” He took a paper from the pocket of his shorts and unfolded it. “Giving my friend, Marty Satterlee, permission to review your financial accounts.” He took a pen from another pocket.
“Okay.” She sat up and signed the paper on his knee.
“I’ll call him immediately and send a messenger up to New York with your written permission.”
“Send a messenger to New York?”
“There must be someone in Key West who wouldn’t mind a free ride to the big city and back.”
“Wow. Sounds like you’re in the movie business.”
“No,” Fletch said. “This is serious business.”
She lay back on the bed. The back of her hand was on her brow. “Bunch of savages downstairs,” she said.
“You seemed glad enough to see them.”
“I never thought—until Edith gave me those pastoral eyes—they’d all think I murdered Steve. If they think I murdered someone, why are they so eager to come stay in the same house with me?”
“I don’t know,” Fletch said. “Maybe because they’re friends.” Moxie snorted. “Well, their being here is a gesture of support.”
“When I want support,” Moxie said, “I’ll buy a girdle.”
“No need for that yet, old thing.” His hand passed over her breasts and stomach and hips. “But you might work on it.” He picked up the plate of sandwiches. “Cream cheese and olive?”
“No. I just want a nap.”
He put down the plate. “Orange juice?”
“No.”
“Want company?”
“Just want to sleep. Stop thinkin’. Stop painin’.”
“Okay. Hey, Moxie, that Roz Nachman—re-member who she is?”
“Yeah. The Chief of Detectives.”
“She’s one smart, tough woman, I think. I expect we can have some faith in her.”
“Okay,” Moxie said. “If you say so.”
Before Fletch opened the door, Moxie said, “Fletch?”
“Yeah?”
“What do I do about the funeral? I should go to Steve’s funeral.”
“I don’t know.”
“I can’t stand the thought of it.”
“Send flowers. Poison ivy. That will look good in court.”
“I’m thinking of Marge.”
“Moxie, darlin’, in case you haven’t got the point of all my fancy-dancin’ the last twenty-four hours, right now you have to think about yourself.”
There was a moment’s silence from the bed. Then she said. “Just now I’d like to stop thinkin’.”
“Oh, and Moxie, hate to hit you when you’re down, but, one more thing…” There was complete silence from the bed. “… You just signed a piece of paper in a dark room. You didn’t even try to read it.” The silence from the bed continued. “You ought to stop doing things like that, Marilyn. Sleep well.”
14
“Marty? Fletch. I’m in Key West with Moxie Mooney.”
Marty Satterlee said nothing. The conversational was not Marty’s style. He received information. He waited until the information he had seemed complete. Then he processed the information. Then he acted upon it. Then he dispensed information.
“In a few hours,” Fletch continued, “the actor, John Meade, will be in your office with a piece of paper signed by Moxie giving you authority to examine her financial records in Steve Peterman’s office.” Fletch explained the rest: that Steve Peterman had been stabbed to death while sitting next to Moxie, and that Moxie worried that her financial affairs, which Peterman had been man-aging, might be in such disarray as to provide her, in the eyes of the law, with a motive for murdering him. “Will you do it, Marty? As you can see, it’s a matter of death or a life’s sentence, to coin a phrase.” Fletch paused, wondering if he had provided enough information for Marty to go seek more. “Oh, yeah,” Fletch added. “There’s an element of haste here. John Meade very kindly has offered to fly up to New York with the paper giving you authority to act. He’s leaving presently. I expect the police will want a look at these same records. They’re probably in court getting permission now.”
There was another pause. Fletch believed the information he had given was up to the instant. “How long does it take to discover someone’s been playing fast and loose with financial records, Marty?”
“Sometimes hours. Sometimes months.”
“Never minutes?”
“Never minutes.”
Fletch looked through the door into the billiard room. “Will you do this, Marty? Please?”
Marty Satterlee said, “I’ll get some people to help me.”
“Thank you, Marty. Please call the instant you have anything.”
Fletch gave Marty the telephone number of The Blue House.
Fletch was just standing up from the desk in the small library of The Blue House when the telephone rang.
“Buena” he said into the phone. “Casa Azul.”
“Fletch!”
“No ’sta ’qui.”
“I know it’s you, you bastard. You hang up and I’ll twist your head off.”
“Ted?” Fletch said. “Ted Sills? Nice of you to call home.”
“I want—”
“I know. Like the good landlord you are, you want to know if we found everything in the house to our satisfaction—towels in the bathrooms, clean sheets on the beds, coffee in the cupboards—”
“Screw that.”
“The Lopezes are marvelous people. We couldn’t have felt more welcome.”
“I want you—”
“I bet you want to tell me another of my expensive four-legged sacks of glue won another important horse race.”
“Fletcher!”
“How much did I win this time? Two dollars and thirty-five cents?”
“Fletcher, I want you out of that house and I mean right now.”
“Ted, you sound serious.”
“I am serious! I want you out within the hour!”
“Gee, did I do something wrong, Ted? Use too much hot water? Didn’t know you had a problem.”
“None of your bull, Fletcher. I saw on TBS you’re running a circus in The Blue House. In my house! Frizzlewhit said he heard something about it on the morning news. I couldn’t believe it. You said you wanted to get away for a few days.”
“I am away. Trying to relax from the strain of being a race horse owner.”
“Moxie Mooney! Jeez!”
“Sleeping in your bed at the moment. Doesn’t that just make your old loins jump though?”
“Frederick Mooney!”
“You’ll need a new placard for the front door: Mooneys, pere et—”
“Get them out of my house!”
“Why, Ted, their staying here increases the resale value of your property by at least, I’d say, another twelve thousand dollars.”
“Fletcher.” Sills spoke with the deliberation of a poker player playing his ace. “You’ve drawn a murder investigation to my house.”
“Oh, that.”
“That.”
“That will all come out in the wash.”
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