Fletch’s Fortune f-3

by Gregory Mcdonald

  EARLES, ELEANOR (MRS. OLIVER HENRY), journalist; b. Cadmus, Fla., Nov. 8, 1931; d. Joseph and Alma Wayne Molinaro; B.A. Barnard, 1952; m. Oliver Henry Earles, 1958 (d. 1959). Researcher, Life, 1952-54; reporter, N.Y. Post, 1954-58; with Nail. Radio, 1958-61, Eleanor Earles Interviews; Nat’l Television Net.: Eleanor Earles Interviews, 1961-65; with U.B.C., 1965-; Midday Dateline Washington, 1965-67; Gen. Ass’n. Evening News, 1967-74; Eleanor Earles Interviews, 1974-. Author: Eleanor Earles Interviews, 1966. Recipient Philpot Award, 1961. Dir. O.H.E. Interests, Inc., 1959-. Mem. American Journalism Alliance, Together (Wash., D.C.). Office: U.B.C., UN. Plz New York City NY 10017

  Fletch put Who’s Who back on the shelf and crossed the lobby to the post office, where he bought a large, insulated envelope.

  Then he went to Room 82 to borrow the cassette tape recorder from the newly laconic Robert McConnell.

  Much of the remainder of the morning he spent in his room, splicing tape.

  Finished, he placed all the reels of used tape in the envelope (except the one spliced reel he left ready to play in his marvelous machine) and addressed the envelope to Alston Chambers, an attorney he knew in California. Boldly, he marked the envelope: “HOLD FOR I. M. FLETCHER.”

  On the way to lunch, Fletch returned McConnell’s tape recorder and mailed the envelope.

  Thirty-two

  12:30 P.M. Lunch

  Main Dining Room

  Captain Andrew Neale was at the luncheon table for six, with Crystal Faoni and, of course, Fredericka Arbuthnot. No Robert McConnell. No Lewis Graham. No Eleanor Earles.

  “Has anyone noticed,” Fletch asked, “that anyone who shares a meal with the three of us never returns?”

  “It’s because you get along so well with everybody,” Freddie said.

  “Whom shall we have for lunch today?” Crystal asked. “Poor Captain Neale. Our next victim.”

  Sitting straight in his light, neat jacket, Captain Neale smiled distantly at what was clearly an in-joke.

  “You’re not thinking of keeping us all here beyond tomorrow morning, are you?” Crystal asked.

  “Tonight, you mean,” said Freddie. “I have to leave on the six-forty-five flight.”

  “You’re not keeping us beyond the end of the convention.” Crystal was only passably interested in her fruit salad.

  “I don’t see how I can,” Captain Neale said. “Almost everyone here has made a point of telling me how important he or she is. Such a lot of important people. The seas would rumble and nations would crumble if I kept any of you out of circulation for many more minutes than I had to.”

  Crystal said to Fletch, “I told you I’d like this guy.”

  “Have people been beastly to you?” Freddie, grinning, asked Neale.

  “I thought reporters were people who report the news,” Neale said. “The last couple of days, I’ve gotten the impression they are the news.”

  “Right,” Crystal said solemnly to her fruit salad. “News does not happen unless a reporter is there to report it.”

  “For example,” said Fletch, “if no one had known World War Two was happening.…”

  “Actually,” Crystal said, “Hitler without the use of the radio wouldn’t have been Hitler at all.”

  “And the Civil War,” said Freddie. “If it hadn’t been for the telegraph.…”

  “The geographic center of the American Revolution,” Fletch said, “was identical to the center of the new American printing industry.”

  “And then there was Caesar,” Crystal said. “Was he a military genius with pen in hand, or a literary genius with sword in hand? Did Rome conquer the world in reality, or just its communications systems?”

  “Weighty matters we discuss at these conventions,” Freddie said.

  “Listen,” Crystal said. “You know I take such comments personally. If I had two breakfasts, blame Fletch. Did you try those blueberry muffins this morning?”

  “I tried only one of them,” Freddie said.

  Crystal said, “The rest of them were good, too.”

  Captain Neale was chuckling at their foolishness.

  Fletch said to him, “People here have given you a pretty rough time, uh?”

  Captain Neale stared at his plate a moment before answering.

  “It’s been like trying to sing ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’ while your head’s stuck in a beehive.”

  “Literary fella,” Crystal told her salad.

  “Musical, too,” said Freddie.

  “Questioning them, they question me.”

  “Reporters ain’t got no humility,” Crystal said.

  “When they do answer a question,” Neale continued, “they know exactly how to answer it—for their own sakes. They know exactly how to present facts absolutely to their own benefit—what to reveal, and what to conceal.”

  “I suppose so,” said Freddie. “Never thought of it that way.”

  “I’d rather be questioning the full bench of the Supreme Court.”

  “There are only nine of them,” said Freddie.

  Crystal said, “I’d say from reading the press you’ve given away very little. There have been no news-breaks—except for Poynton’s—since the beginning.”

  “Poynton’s?” Neale asked.

  “Stuart Poynton. You didn’t read him this morning?”

  “No,” Neale said. “I didn’t.”

  “He said you want to question a man named Joseph Molinaro regarding the murder of Walter March.”

  “That was in the newspaper?” asked Neale.

  “Who is Joseph Molinaro?” Crystal asked.

  Neale smiled. “I suppose you’d like to know.”

  “Oh, no,” Crystal said airily. “I’ve just been through a list of those attending the convention, a list of all hotel employees, the voting list in the town of Hendricks, the membership list of the American Journalism Alliance, Who’s Who, and, by telephone, the morgue of People magazine.…”

  “You must be curious,” commented Neale.

  Freddie said, “Who is Joseph Molinaro?”

  Captain Neale said, “This is the perfect day for a fruit salad. Don’t you think?”

  “In a way,” Fletch said, quietly, “everyone here is a bastard of Walter March. Or has been treated like one.”

  Neale dropped his fork, but caught it before it went into his lap.

  Crystal said brightly, as if introducing a new topic, “Say, who is this Joseph Molinaro, anyway?”

  Neale, applying himself to his lunch, seemingly unperturbed, said, “There is no way I can keep any of you beyond tomorrow morning, or tonight, or whenever.”

  “I understand I’m on the six-forty-five flight out of here.” Fletch looked at Freddie. “Me and my shadow. I’m catching a nine o’clock from Washington to London.”

  She did not look at him.

  Fletch said to Neale, “I don’t see how you could have accomplished very much, in just a couple of days. Under the circumstances.”

  “We’ve accomplished more than you think,” Neale said.

  “What have you accomplished?” Crystal asked like a sledgehammer.

  To Neale’s silence, Fletch said, “Captain Neale has narrowed it down to two or three people. Or he wouldn’t be letting the rest of us go.”

  Neale was paying more attention to the remainder of his salad than Crystal would do after trekking across a full golf course.

  Fletch hitched himself forward in the chair and addressed himself to Crystal, speaking slowly. “The key,” he said, “is that Walter March was murdered—stabbed in the back with a pair of scissors—shortly before eight o’clock Monday morning, in the sitting room of his suite.”

  Crystal stared at him dumbly.

  “People lose sight of the simplicities,” Fletch said.

  Under the table, Freddie kicked him hard, on the shin.

  Fletch said, “Ow.”

  “I just felt like doing that,” she said.

  “Damnit” He rubbed his shin. “Are you trying to
tell me I don’t get along well with everybody?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Well, you’re wrong,” Fletch said. “I do.”

  The waiter was bringing chocolate cake for dessert.

  “Oh, yum!” said Crystal. “Who cares about death and perdition as long as there’s chocolate cake?”

  “Captain Neale does,” said Fletch.

  “No,” said Neale. “I care about chocolate cake.”

  “There is evidence,” Fletch said, the pain in his shin having abated, “that Walter March was expecting someone—someone he knew. He was expecting someone to call upon him in his suite at eight o’clock or shortly before.” Fletch had a forkful of the cake. “Someone to whom he would have opened the door.”

  Freddie was continuing to look disgusted, but she was listening carefully.

  Neale appeared to be paying no attention whatsoever.

  Fletch asked him, mildly, “Who was it?”

  “Good cake,” Neale said.

  Fletch said, “Was it Oscar Perlman?”

  Neale didn’t need to answer.

  He looked at Fletch, both alarm and despair in his eyes.

  “And who was it who told you Walter March was expecting Oscar Perlman?” Fletch asked. “Junior?”

  Neale’s throat was dry from the cake. “Junior?”

  “Walter March, Junior,” Fletch said.

  “Jesus!” Neale’s eyes went from one to the other of them, desperately. “Don’t you print this. None of you. I didn’t say a word. If one of you prints.…”

  “Don’t worry.” Fletch put his napkin on the table, and stood up. “Crystal and I are unemployed. And Freddie Arbuthnot,” he said, “doesn’t work for Newsworld magazine.”

  Thirty-three

  1:30 P.M.

  MY EIGHT TERMS IN THE WHITE HOUSE

  Address by Leona Hatch

  Main Dining Room

  Fletch said, “Mrs. March, I’ve been trying to understand why you murdered your husband.”

  Sitting in a chair across the coffee table from him in Suite 12, her expression changed little. Perhaps her eyes grew a little wider.

  “And,” Fletch said, “I think I do understand.”

  He had appeared at her door, carrying the marvelous machine.

  She had answered the door, still dressed in black, having returned from the memorial service shortly before. Near the door was a luncheon tray waiting to be taken away.

  At first, she looked at him in surprise, as it was an unseemly time to call. Then she obviously remembered he had promised they would talk again about his working for March Newspapers. And the suitcase in his hand suggested he was about to leave.

  He said nothing.

  Sitting on the divan, he placed the marvelous machine flat on the coffee table.

  Now he was opening it.

  “Statistically, of course,” he said, “in the case of a domestic murder—and this is a domestic murder—when a husband or wife is murdered, chances of the spouse being the murderer are something over seventy percent.”

  Perhaps her eyes widened again when she saw that what was in the suitcase was a tape recorder.

  “Which is why,” Fletch said, “you chose to murder your husband here at the convention, where you knew your husband would be surrounded by people who had reason to hate him to the point of murder.”

  Her back was straight Her hands were folded in her lap.

  “Listen to this.”

  Fletch started the tape recorder.

  It was the tape of Lydia March being questioned by Captain Neale, edited:

  “At what time did you wake up, Mrs. March?”

  “I’m not sure. Seven-fifteen? Seven-twenty? I heard the door to the suite close.”

  “That was me, Mister Neale,” Junior said. “I went down to the lobby to get the newspapers.”

  “Walter had left his bed. It’s always been a thing with him to be up a little earlier than I. A masculine thing. I heard him moving around the bathroom. I lay in bed a little while, a few minutes, really, waiting for him to be done.”

  “The bathroom door was closed?”

  “Yes. In a moment I heard the television here in the living room go on, softly—one of those morning news and features network shows Walter always hated so much—so I got up and went into the bathroom.”

  “Excuse me. How did your husband get from the bathroom to the living room without coming back through your bedroom?”

  “He went through Junior’s bedroom, of course. He didn’t want to disturb me?.”

  “… Okay. You were in the bathroom. The television was playing softly in the living room.…”

  “I heard the door to the suite close again, so I thought Walter had gone down for coffee.”

  “Had the television gone off?”

  “No.”

  “So, actually, someone could have come into the suite at that point.”

  “No. At first, I thought Junior might have come back, but he couldn’t have.”

  “Why not?”

  “I didn’t hear them talking.”

  “Would they have been talking? Necessarily?”

  “Of course.…”

  “So, Mrs. March, you think you heard the suite door close again, but your husband hadn’t left the suite, and you think no one entered the suite because you didn’t hear talking?”

  “I guess that’s right I could be mistaken, of course. I’m trying to reconstruct.”

  “Pardon, but where were you physically in the bathroom when you heard the door close the second time?”

  “I was getting into the tub.…”

  “… You had already run the tub?”

  “Yes. While I was brushing my teeth. And all that.”

  “So there must have been a period of time, while the tub was running, that you couldn’t have heard anything from the living room—not the front door, not the television, not talking?”

  “I suppose not.”

  “So the second time you heard the door close, when you were getting into the tub, you actually could have been hearing someone leave the suite.”

  “Oh, my. That’s right Of course.”

  “It would explain your son’s not having returned, your husband’s not having left, and your not hearing talking.”

  “How clever you are….”

  Fletch switched off the marvelous machine.

  Listening, Lydia March’s eyes had gone back and forth from the slowly revolving tape reel to Fletch’s face.

  Fletch said, “When I first arrived at Hendricks Plantation, and Helena Williams was telling me about the murder, I noticed she particularly mentioned what you had heard from the bathroom. I think she said something about your hearing gurgling and thinking it was the tub drain. Not precisely what you said here. But Helena could have reported what you heard from the bathroom only if you had made a point of telling her.”

  Fletch rested his back against a divan pillow.

  “Captain Neale wasn’t a bit clever,” he said. “He never went into the bathroom to discover what could be heard from there.

  “I did.”

  “Last night, when I came to visit you, you and Jake Williams were talking here in the living room. I went into the bathroom. The doors of both bedrooms to the living room were open—which gave me a much better chance to hear than you supposedly had. I closed both bathroom doors. I did not run water. I did not flush the toilet. I listened.

  “Mrs. March, I could not hear you and Jake talking. You could not have heard the television, especially on low.

  “I did not hear Jake leave the suite. You could not have heard the door closing—as you said you did.

  “Perhaps your hearing is better than mine, but my hearing is forty years younger than yours.

  “As Oscar Perlman might say, I have twenty-twenty hearing.

  “Mrs. March, the closets to both bedrooms are between the bathroom and the living room. Architects do this on purpose, so you cannot hear.

  �
��You made too much of an issue of the front door of the suite being open. You gave evidence you couldn’t have had. It was important for you to convince everyone that you heard the door close when Junior left the suite, but that it was open when you came into the living room.

  “You lied.

  “Why?

  “Despite everything we know about your husband, how badly he treated people, his private detectives, his sense of security, you had to convince people he had opened the door to someone else, who stabbed him in the back.

  “Simplicity. The simple truth is that there were two of you in a suite, with the door to the corridor closed and locked, and one of you was stabbed.

  “Who did it?”

  He leaned forward again, and again pressed the PLAY button on the tape recorder.

  Lydia March’s voice came from the speakers:

  “… There was a man in the corridor, walking away, lighting a cigar as he walked… I didn’t know who he was, from behind… I ran toward him… then I realized who he was.…”

  “Mrs. March. Who was the man in the corridor?”

  “Perlman. Oscar Perlman.”

  “The humorist?”

  “If you say so.…”

  Fletch switched off the machine again.

  He said, “Mrs. March, you made three mistakes in laying down potential evidence that Oscar Perlman is your husband’s murderer.

  “The first isn’t very serious. Perlman says he was playing poker until five-thirty in the morning and then slept late. That he was playing poker until five-thirty in the morning can be confirmed, and I suppose Neale has done so. He could have gotten up, murdered your husband, and gone back to bed, or whatever, but it doesn’t seem likely.

  “A much more serious mistake you made is in the timing of it all.

  “According to your story, someone stabbed your husband in the living room. Sitting in the bathtub, you heard choking, whatever, called out, got out of the tub, grabbed a towel, went into the bedroom, saw your husband stagger in from the living room, roll off the bed, drive the scissors deeper into his back, arch up, et cetera, and die. Then you ran through the bedroom, the living room, and into the corridor.