Fletch and the Man Who

by Gregory Mcdonald

  Walsh said, “Fletch, come to my room with me while I change. I’ve got a stack of recent press clippings for you. Particularly from Wisconsin. Got to start learning the Wisconsin journalists.”

  “Yeah,” Fletch said to the room at large. “There is something else we’ve got to discuss.”

  Everyone resettled in his chair.

  “A chambermaid named Mary Cantor, widow of a Navy navigator, was murdered in the hotel we were in last night. A woman named Alice Elizabeth Shields, a store clerk, was murdered in the motel we were in two nights ago.”

  “Jeez,” said Walsh.

  “And a woman named Elaine Ramsey, wife of an obstetrician, was found murdered in a closet next to the press reception room at the Hotel Harris in Chicago while you were staying there.”

  “Do you think the New York Cosmos will win the cup this year?” Barry Hines asked.

  “I saw Newsbill,” Phil Nolting said. “I think you should have done whatever you had to do to contain this story through the election Tuesday.”

  “Okay,” said Fletch. “I never said I’m very good at this job.”

  “Your sympathies are still with the press,” Dobson said simply. “You don’t care what a story is. Instinctively, you want it reported. The sleazier, the better.”

  “Hang on,” the governor said. “There is a worrisome point here. There have been these murders. There is the possibility someone is doing this to sabotage the campaign.”

  “Like who?” asked Lee Allen Parke.

  “Bushwa,” said Walsh. “Simon Upton may have a fifth column in this campaign, but he isn’t murdering women to get himself to the White House.”

  “Of course not,” said the governor. “But given the axiom that someone is doing this, the first question is why?”

  “Someone’s a nut,” Lee Allen Parke said simply.

  “Any suspects, Fletch?” Barry asked.

  “Too many of them.”

  “Solov,” nodded Barry Hines. “You should see his phone bill.”

  “Why?” asked Fletch.

  “He almost doesn’t have one. He hardly ever calls anywhere. He must file with Pravda by carrier pigeon.”

  “Actually, that is significant,” Nolting said.

  “Floats his reports across the North Atlantic in vodka bottles,” Parke said.

  “What’s your point, Fletch?” Walsh asked.

  Fletch waited until all eyes were on him. “I think it would be helpful if every member of the staff sat down with me—soon—and established a perfect alibi for at least one of each of these murders.”

  “Hell,” said Walsh.

  “I won’t do it,” said Dobson.

  “It would give me some quiet ammunition,” Fletch said.

  The governor stood up. “I’ve got to get ready. It’s seven-twenty. Is my watch right?”

  “Yeah,” said Walsh.

  Phil Nolting said, “Fletch, in trying to develop defensive evidence for us, you’re going to give the impression we have some reason to defend ourselves.”

  “I think we do,” Fletch said.

  Everyone else was standing up.

  “Looks like you lost your audience, Fletch,” Walsh said.

  Then Fletch stood up. “What the hell else do you expect me to do?” he asked. “This is a time bomb, ticking away—”

  “So throw yourself on it,” Dobson said, leaving the room.

  “Wait a minute,” Fletch said.

  “Fletcher,” the governor said, “why don’t you stop playing boy detective?”

  “Come with me, Fletch.” Walsh stood at the door. “On the way to my room, I’ll buy you a copy of True Crime Tales.”

  “Guess I’d better drop that topic,” Fletch said.

  “Guess so.” In his own room, Walsh took off his shirt and grabbed a fresh one from his suitcase.

  “This is like trying to put out a fire at a three-ring circus.”

  “No,” said Walsh, “it’s more like trying to unclog a pipe in one of the bathrooms at a three-ring circus.”

  “Local police everywhere are too in awe of the candidate, too busy trying to protect him, to run any kind of an investigation as to what’s going on. The national political writers are too sophisticated to count the number of murders on their fingers, and say, ‘Hey, maybe there’s a story here.’”

  “It’s perfectly irrelevant.” Walsh took a suit from the suitcase, frowned at it, slapped it with the flat of his hand, and proceeded to change into it. “The clippings you should go through are over there.” He nodded at the table where his briefcases were.

  “So you’re changing from a reasonably pressed suit into a wrinkled suit?”

  “Only have one tie that goes with that suit. Must have left it in a car. There are a couple of articles in that stack by Fenella Baker you’re not going to like. One hits us on defense spending; the other on our lack of clarity regarding Social Security. She’s right, of course.”

  Standing by the table, Fletch was scanning an article by Andrew Esty: Governor Caxton Wheeler terms abortion “essentially a moral issue.” Does he imply politics is amoral?

  “By the way,” Walsh said, knotting his tie. “Lansing Sayer. Don’t trust Lansing Sayer. Brightest, most sophisticated member of the press we have traveling with us. And I’m glad he’s with us. But as far as I’m concerned, he’s a straight pipeline to Senator Simon Upton. Capable of anything.”

  “He just knows how to play both sides of the street,” Fletch said.

  “Got to get going.” Walsh pulled on his dark suit coat. “Barry and I are going to check out the sound system at Public Auditorium ourselves. Don’t want a repeat of what happened this afternoon at the shopping plaza.”

  “That was a disaster,” Fletch said.

  “No need for you to come now.” Walsh opened the door. “Get some supper. Dad won’t be speaking until at least nine-thirty, quarter to ten.”

  33

  “I. M.? This is James.”

  Arriving back at his room, Fletch found a vase with twelve red carnations in it. The note accompanying the flowers read: Fletcher— Glad to have you with us—Doris Wheeler.

  Waiting for his sandwich from room service, he had returned phone calls, except those from Rondoll James.

  After his supper arrived, he took a shower and then sat naked on his bed, cross-legged, munching and going through the stack of newspaper articles Walsh had given him.

  He tried ignoring the phone while he ate, but it rang incessantly.

  “Sorry,” Fletch said. “My mouth is full.”

  “You’ve got to do something. Fast.”

  “I’ve got to fast?”

  “A reporter traveling with you called me this afternoon. Told me about the murders. Why didn’t you tell me about them? The three women who were murdered.”

  “Who called you?”

  “A woman named Arbuthnot.”

  “Figures. Are you still in Iowa?”

  “Yes.”

  “What did you say to her?”

  “Told her it was all news to me.”

  “Is it?”

  “I. M., I know who the murderer is. So, incidentally, does Caxton.”

  Fletch pushed his sandwich plate aside with his shin.

  “Have you talked with Caxton about this at all?” James asked.

  “Extensively.”

  “What has he said?”

  “Suppose you tell me what you know, James.”

  “I can’t understand the guy. Why hasn’t he done something?”

  “James—”

  “Edward Grasselli.”

  “ol’ Flash?”

  “No question about it.”

  “Why Flash?”

  “You don’t know who he is? Everybody forgets.”

  In Flash’s personnel folder had been just a photo and identification sheet. “So who’s Flash Grasselli?”

  “He’s a murderer. A convicted murderer, for God’s sake. He beat a guy to death. With his fists. A professional box
er. His hands are lethal weapons. He served time for it—almost fifteen years.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Late one night, this guy happened to be walking his dog. Big dog. Flash Grasselli was coming down the street. As the dog passed Flash, the dog nipped Flash in the leg. Bit him. Flash yelled at the guy, told him he was going to report the dog, demanded the guy give him his name. So the guy sicced the dog on Grasselli. Grasselli knocked the dog out somehow, I don’t know how, kicked the dog’s head against a wall or something. And then went after the man. He beat the guy to death. In front of a half dozen screaming witnesses.”

  “My God, James.”

  “The dog was out cold. No longer a threat. You don’t beat someone to death after an incident is over. It was not self-defense.”

  “ol’ Flash did that?”

  “Deliberate murder.”

  “Why did the governor pardon him?”

  “Big Italian family that kept up the campaign to let their man go. A boxing association kept up the campaign, got the state boxing commissioner into it. Grasselli served good time. He was never any problem in prison. Once maybe he saved the life of an old guy in prison who was choking to death on some food, but that sort of thing can always be arranged.”

  “Had the governor known him before?”

  “No. After he was pardoned, Grasselli and his mother went to the mansion to thank the governor. Caxton offered him the job.”

  “It’s a different kind of murder, James. Beatin’ up a guy in the street in bad temper is different from beating women to death.”

  “Beating a human being to death is beating a human being to death. Very few people are capable of it. Are you?” James continued in a rush: “Let me ask you something. When you have forty, fifty people together and people keep gettin’ beaten to death, and we know one member of the group has already done this extraordinary, vicious thing before, has found it possible in himself to beat a human being to death—what are the chances of his being the guilty party?”

  “Pretty good.”

  “It’s Flash, all right.”

  “I believe the governor has talked to me frankly enough about other matters. Why wouldn’t he have mentioned this to me?”

  “Because he knows Flash is guilty. Tell me this: has Caxton vigorously been trying to find the murderer?”

  “That doesn’t make sense. Covering up for Flash would make the governor a party to the crime. I can’t believe he’d do that.”

  “Think again, my boy. Think of all that Flash has on Caxton.”

  “Like what?”

  “God! Everything! Flash is Caxton’s driver, valet, bodyguard. He’s always with him. Flash accompanies Caxton on all those damned secret vacations, disappearances, that Caxton’s been taking all these years. The booze. The broads. God knows what else.”

  “You believe about the booze, the broads?”

  “Listen, I’ve known Caxton more than twenty years. And I’ve never known a plaster saint. Caxton’s a man. All that energy. Think about it. Screwing Doris must be like screwing a Buick.”

  “Flash told me about those trips.”

  “Sure he did. I suppose he said they go to the mountains to pray.”

  “Almost.”

  “If the trips are innocent, why the secret? Why are they a mystery, hanging out there tantalizing every journalist in the state, now the country?”

  “Okay. So the governor knows it’s Flash, and he’s afraid if he blows the whistle on Flash, Flash will spill beans about the governor.”

  “Yes.”

  “Maybe Flash wouldn’t talk.”

  “All right. Even if that were so, which I doubt, think what it means about the governor’s judgment. He picks as a bodyguard-valet a guy who beats women to death every night after dessert. What would the public think of that? Who would he pick for secretary of state? they’d ask. Himmler?”

  “James, I don’t know what to do. Everyone’s over at the Public Auditorium.”

  “Pin Grasselli. However you can. I don’t know. Do something.”

  “James, I don’t see myself going ten rounds with Flash Grasselli. He’s old and he’s slow but he’s practiced.”

  “Find him. Don’t take your eyes off him. Buy him a one-way ticket to Tashkent. Get him committed. Quietly. Do something. Jeez, I wish I were there. If I were there, all this would have been settled yesterday, if not sooner. That bitch, Doris Wheeler. If it weren’t for her—”

  “Okay, James.”

  “Yeah. Get movin’.”

  It was while Fletch hurriedly was getting dressed that he noticed some of the articles in the stack Walsh had given him were separate from the loose pile. Five had been pinned together. They were at the foot of the bed.

  He leaned over and looked closely at the one on top.

  The first was from the Chicago Sun-Times.

  Chicago—The body of a woman was found by hotel employees this morning in a service closet off a reception room at the Hotel Harris. Police say the woman apparently had been strangled.

  The night before, the reception room had been used by the press covering the presidential campaign of Governor Caxton Wheeler.

  Chicago police report the woman, about thirty, wearing a green cocktail dress and high-heeled shoes, was carrying no identification.

  The second was from the Cleveland Plain-Dealer.

  Cleveland—A woman known on the street as Helen Troy, with a Cleveland police record of more than forty arrests for open solicitation over a ten-year period, was found beaten to death early this morning in a doorway on Cassel Street.

  Police speculate Troy was drawn to the area by the crowds who had gathered the previous night to see presidential candidate Caxton Wheeler, who was staying at the nearby Hotel Stearn.

  “Oh, God,” Fletch said aloud.

  The third was from the Wichita Eagle and Beacon.

  Wichita—A resident of California, Susan Stratford, 26, was found beaten to death in a room at Cason’s Hotel early yesterday afternoon. The medical examiner reports she had been dead some hours.

  The hotel employee, Jane Poltrow, who discovered the body, said she was later than usual cleaning that room because of the extra work caused by the campaign staff and press traveling with presidential candidate Caxton Wheeler, who had stayed in the hotel the night before.

  Ms Straford, a computer engineer, was in Wichita on business. Police say apparently she was traveling alone.

  “God, God.” Fletch looked at the remains of his sandwich on the bed and felt nauseous.

  The fourth article reported the death of Alice Elizabeth Shields, “believed to have been pushed or thrown from the hotel’s roof, a few floors above the suite of presidential candidate Caxton Wheeler.”

  The fifth article was from the Farmingdale Views.

  Farmingdale—Mary Cantor, 34, who has worked as a chambermaid since shortly after the death of her husband, a Navy navigator, three years ago, was found strangled in a service elevator of the Farmingdale Hotel early yesterday morning …

  Turning, Fletch steadied himself with his fingertips on the bureau. “God.” He saw himself start to sway in the mirror and closed his eyes. “And there are five….”

  Numbly, Fletch answered the phone.

  “Fletcher …?”

  “Can’t talk now,” Fletch said. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have answered.”

  “Fletcher…” The voice was horrible. Low. Slow. It almost didn’t sound human. “This is Bill Dieckmann.”

  Fletch shook his head to clear it. “Yes, Bill?”

  “Help me.”

  “What’s the matter, Bill?”

  “You said … you’d help me.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Fletch, my head. My head. It’s happening again. Worse. I’m scared. I don’t know what …”

  “Bill, where are you?”

  “Public …”

  “Where in the auditorium, Bill?”

  “Phones. At the back. By the ph
ones.”

  “Bill, look around you. Do you see anyone you know? Bill, is there a cop there?”

  “Can’t see. It’s awful. What …?”

  “Bill, stay there. I’ll be right there.”

  “I’m about to … I don’t know …”

  “I’ll be right there, Bill. Don’t do anything. Just stand there. I’ll be there as quick as I can.”

  34

  Fletch revolved through the hotel’s front door, saw the street in front of the hotel was empty, and revolved back into the lobby. He hurried across to the desk clerk.

  “How do I get a taxi around here?”

  “Just have to wait for one, I guess,” was the solution of the young man behind the desk. “They come by.”

  “I’m in a big hurry,” Fletch said.

  The young man shrugged. “There’s no one to call. This is a regular big city. Have to take your chances.”

  “Where’s Public Auditorium?”

  “Up eight blocks.” The young man waved north. “Over three blocks.” He waved east. “You need a taxi.”

  “Thanks.”

  Fletch hit the revolving door so hard it spun him into the street. The area was as devoid of taxis as a cemetery at midnight. He looked at his watch. With the side of his hand he chopped himself in the stomach. His muscles were tight. “I’ll race you,” he said to himself.

  He began running north on the sidewalk. Jacob, make the horse go faster and faster If it ever stops, we won’t be able to sell it. Within three blocks of this “regular big city,” accumulations of snow caused him to run in the street. The surface of the street was wet and there were icy patches. It was a raw night. He was sweating. He was glad he didn’t have an overcoat. Five murders, not three … There were no taxis anywhere in the streets. An old car clanking tire chains came down the street behind him. Waving as he ran backward, Fletch tried to get the car to stop, pick him up. The driver swung wide of Fletch.

  At the end of the eighth block, Fletch turned east. Ahead of him he could see a block brightly lit. “There is the possibility someone is doing this to sabotage the campaign,” the governor had said. At the corner, Fletch jumped over a mound of snow. His left foot slipped landing on the ice. His ankle twinged with pain. “Someone’s a nut,” Lee Allen Parke had said.