Fletch’s Fortune f-3

by Gregory Mcdonald

  “And you try to indicate that the man who might have stabbed your husband is—just at that point—still in the corridor, walking away?

  “You lied.

  “Why?

  “The third mistake you made in saying Oscar Perlman was in the corridor outside the suite is most serious.

  “But I’ll come back to that.”

  Again, Fletch settled himself on the divan.

  He said, “Unfortunately for you, the people who had the best motives and opportunity to kill your husband are all highly skilled at handling an interview. They’re all reporters. Rolly Wisham, for example, did nothing to divert suspicion from himself. Oscar Perlman didn’t even pretend he had an alibi. Lewis Graham didn’t hesitate to be open—almost indict himself. Even Crystal Faoni was quick to realize she was a possible suspect—and didn’t hesitate to admit it. Perhaps it was unconscious on their parts, but I think they all have enough experience to have realized instinctively they had all been set up as clay pigeons.

  “By you. By your choice of the time and the place of the murder.

  “I always look for the controlling intelligence behind anything and everything. In this case, it was yours.

  “Why? Why, why, why?”

  Lydia March continued sitting primly in her chair. Her head had raised slightly, and she was looking somewhat down her nose at him.

  “In October, 1928, you married Walter March, who was due to graduate from Princeton in June, 1929.

  “Odd. Especially in those days. Not to have waited for graduation.

  “Not so odd. Junior was born five months later, in March, 1929.

  “What was the expression for it in those days? A shotgun marriage?

  “Was Walter March the father of your child?

  “Or, being the heir to a newspaper fortune, was he just the best catch around?

  “Were you sure Walter was the father? Was he?

  “You’re a wily woman, Mrs. March.

  “You remained married to Walter March for fifty years. Never had another child.

  “There was an enormous newspaper fortune to be inherited.

  “But Walter was an old war-horse. He wouldn’t give up. Perfect health. He announced his retirement once, and then, when Junior goofed up, didn’t retire.

  “And all this time, as Junior was getting to be fifty years old, losing his wife, his family, drinking more and more, you saw him becoming weaker and weaker, wasting away.”

  Fletch stared a long moment at the floor.

  Finally, he said, “There is a time for fathers to move aside, to quit, to die, to leave room for their sons to grow.

  “Even if they are just the image of the father, rather than the blood-father.

  “Walter wasn’t moving aside.

  “Did he somehow know, instinctively, Walter, Junior, wasn’t his son?”

  Fletch jerked the marvelous machine’s wire from the wall socket.

  “You killed your husband to save your son.”

  He was wrapping up the wire. “Do you know your husband had another son? His name is Joseph Molinaro. Your husband had him with Eleanor Earles, I guess, while she was a student at Barnard.

  “And did you know that Joseph Molinaro is here?

  “He came here to see your husband.

  “Maybe another son on the horizon—if you knew it—made you even more desperate to protect your own son.”

  Fletch closed and latched the cover of the suitcase.

  “Of course, I’m going to have to talk with Captain Neale—if you don’t first.

  “By the way,” he said. “Thanks for the job offer.

  “Same way you Marches do everything. Either buy people off, or blackmail them into a corner.

  “After more than a century of this, you have a most uncanny instinct as to whom to buy off or blackmail.”

  He stood up and picked up the suitcase.

  “Oh,” he said. “The third, most terrible mistake you made in saying Oscar Perlman was in the corridor was that you said it in Junior’s presence.

  “The big idiot has blown the game again.

  “He’s gone and told Captain Neale that Perlman had an appointment to see your husband at eight o’clock Monday morning.”

  Lydia was looking up at Fletch from her chair.

  Her expression did not change at all.

  Fletch said, “You don’t understand the significance of that, do you?”

  Her expression still didn’t change.

  “Again, Junior was overdoing the clever bit Why would he lie to support you, unless he knows you were lying?

  “He knows you killed your husband.”

  Her eyes lowered, slowly.

  Her lips tightened, and turned down at their corners.

  Her eyes settled on her hands, in her lap.

  Slowly, her hands opened, and turned palms up.

  “Mrs. March,” Fletch said. “You’re killing your son.”

  Fletch was almost back to his room, carrying the marvelous machine, before he realized that during the time he had just spent with her, Lydia March had not said one word.

  Thirty-four

  3:00 P.M.

  ARRIVAL OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES

  (Cancelled)

  ARRIVAL OF THE VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES

  Fletch heard the helicopter banging away overhead as he crossed the lobby to the French doors.

  Most of the conventioneers were on the terrace behind Hendricks Plantation House to watch the helicopter land on the lawn. The sunlight brought out the bright colors of their clothes. Mostly they were still chattering about Leona Hatch’s insider’s report on her eight terms as a White House reporter.

  When Fletch came onto the terrace, the helicopter had retreated to the sky over the far ridge of trees.

  Leona Hatch pulled herself away from an admiring group of young people, and approached Fletch.

  “I’ll swear I know you,” she said “With my dying breath, I’ll swear.”

  He put her hand out to her.

  “Fletcher,” he said. “Irwin Fletcher.”

  She shook hands, limply, her eyes searching his face, sharply.

  “I feel I know you very well,” she said.

  Fletch was looking for Captain Neale.

  Junior, sallow and slump-shouldered, was standing with Jake Williams, watching the helicopter.

  “I can’t get over this feeling, this certainty, that I know you well,” Leona Hatch said “But I can’t remember.…”

  Fletch saw Neale standing with some uniformed Virginia State policemen.

  “Excuse me,” he said to Leona Hatch.

  He touched Neale’s elbow.

  Neale looked at him.

  The slight expression of annoyance in Neale’s face was replaced by a gentle, respectful curiosity.

  Obviously, Neale was remembering from lunch that Fletch seemed to know more about the murder of Walter March than the others did, and, in addition, could make some very good guesses.

  Fletch said, quietly, “I think you should go talk with Lydia March.”

  Neale looked at Fletch a moment, probably considering questions to ask, but deciding not to ask any.

  Captain Neale nodded, and went through the crowd and into the lobby of the hotel.

  The helicopter was approaching the lawn below the terrace very slowly.

  Fletch had been aware that a group of five men, moving together, had come onto the terrace.

  It was not until they were standing at the front of the terrace, next to Junior and Jake Williams, that Fletch looked directly at the men.

  Hands in pockets, appearing totally relaxed, watching the helicopter land, was the Vice-President of the United States.

  Helena Williams spotted him the same time Fletch did.

  She began to rush toward him from the other side of the terrace.

  What she was saying was drowned out by the noise of the helicopter.

  Junior, remaining oblivious to the presence of the
Vice-President of the United States beside him, suddenly rocked back on his heels.

  He put his hand up to his face, as if he were about to sneeze.

  Fletch saw blood on Junior’s neck.

  Then a splotch of blood appeared on Junior’s white shirt, next to his necktie.

  Fletch started toward Junior.

  Junior lost his balance and fell against the Vice-President.

  Someone screamed.

  Jake Williams yelled, “Junior!”

  Junior rolled as he fell.

  Landing on his back on the flagstones, the two splotches of blood, on his neck and on his shirt, were clearly visible.

  Helena was kneeling over him.

  Even over the sound of the helicopter, Fletch could hear Jake Williams shout, “Someone is trying to kill the Vice-President!”

  One of the four men with the Vice-President spun him around, toward the hotel.

  The other three surrounded him closely.

  One held his hand out behind the Vice-President’s head, as if to shield him from the sun.

  They pushed him through the crowd into the hotel.

  Crystal Faoni had joined Helena Williams in kneeling over Junior.

  Crystal was trying to blow air into Junior’s mouth.

  The helicopter had settled on the lawn, and its door was opening.

  Fletch looked across the lawn, and ran his eyes as closely as he could along the line of trees.

  Men in Marine Corps uniform were getting off the helicopter.

  At first, Fletch moved very slowly, backing away from the crowd, turning, jumping off the terrace, ambling across the lawn.

  He did not break into a full run for the stables until he was well-concealed by the trees.

  Thirty-five

  Fletch had no plan.

  He could find no one at the stables, so he saddled the horse he had used twice before, fumbling, as he hadn’t saddled a horse himself in a long time, alarming the horse with his haste.

  Once clear of the paddock area, he laid the whip on her and she poured on speed, but only for a very few moments.

  She was a pleasant horse, but not too swift.

  Clearly, in all her days on Hendricks Plantation, she had never been asked to be in a sincere hurry.

  By the time they had climbed the ridge and were approaching the camper along the timber road she was winded and resentful.

  Fletch left her in the deep shade of the woods about twenty meters up the hillside from the camper.

  He still had no plan.

  The camper was open, but the keys weren’t in the ignition.

  He looked for the keys under the driver’s seat, over the visor, in the map compartment, then, hurrying, moved back into the camper, flipping over the mattress of the unmade bed, glancing in the cabinets, the oven, under the seat cushions of the two chairs.

  He went through the pockets of a dark suit hanging from a curtain rod.

  On a shelf was an old cigar box. Inside were screws, nails, a few sockets for a wrench, half a pouch of Bull Durham tobacco, and a set of keys, somewhat rusted.

  He tried the keys in the ignition.

  The third key on the chain fit.

  He left it in the ignition.

  Standing by the camper, he realized he still didn’t have a plan.

  From down the road, around the bend, he heard someone cough.

  Mentally, Fletch thanked his horse, up in the woods, for being quiet.

  Fletch flattened himself against the wall of the camper, next to the rear wheels.

  He stuck his head out for a look only once.

  Joseph Molinaro was walking toward the camper, ten meters away, a rifle under his right arm.

  It had not occurred to Fletch before this that, of course, Joseph Molinaro would be carrying a rifle.

  He had not thought to arm himself.

  There was no time to go back into the camper.

  The few branches and stones in the road at his feet were too small and light to make good weapons.

  He had no more time to think.

  Fletch had left the camper through the driver’s door.

  Molinaro was at the back of the camper, heading for the door near the right rear wheels.

  Crouching, looking under the camper, Fletch watched Molinaro’s feet.

  As soon as Molinaro was on the other side of the camper, Fletch moved around to its rear and along its wall.

  Just as Molinaro was beginning to climb the three steps into the camper, beginning to bend to go through the door, Fletch hit him on the back of his head, hard, with the side of his hand.

  The force of the blow knocked Molinaro’s head against the solid door frame.

  Instinctively tightening his arm over the rifle, Molinaro fell up the steps, half-in and half-out of the camper.

  He rolled over.

  His eyes remained open only a second or two.

  He appeared to recognize Fletch.

  Having already been unconscious once that morning, Molinaro’s head settled back on the camper’s floor, and he went deeply unconscious.

  Fletch took the rifle from under his arm and slid it along the floor of the camper, toward the front.

  Picking up Molinaro’s legs, Fletch slid his back along the linoleum floor until Molinaro was entirely aboard the camper and the door could be closed.

  Fletch climbed the steps to the camper and stepped over Molinaro.

  He tore two strips from the bed sheet and tied Molinaro’s ankles together.

  Then he tied his wrists together, in front of him.

  He slammed the back door of the camper, climbed into the driver’s seat, and turned the key in the ignition.

  The battery was dead.

  Incredulous, Fletch senselessly tried the key three or four times.

  He groaned.

  Molinaro couldn’t do anything right.

  He had come to Virginia to meet his father.

  Never did meet him.

  That morning he had gotten up, flicked a cigarette into a stranger’s face, and instantly was knocked unconscious.

  Then he had let two people know who he was and why he was there.

  If the suit hanging from the curtain rod was any indication, Joseph Molinaro actually had gone to Walter March’s Memorial Service.

  Next, using that rifle on the floor with telescopic sights, he had murdered his half brother.

  He had ambled back to his camper, not even having thrown the murder weapon away, never thinking someone who had figured out what he had done might be waiting for him.

  And the battery of his getaway vehicle was dead.

  Looking at the man, with the tight, curly gray hair, dressed in the blue jeans jacket, unconscious and bound on the floor of the camper, Fletch shook his head.

  Then he climbed the hillside and got his horse.

  “I see you figured it out just a little faster than I did.”

  Before leaving the timber road, Fletch met Frank Gillis heading for the camper.

  Gillis’ horse looked exhausted.

  Gillis nodded at Molinaro slung over the saddle of Fletch’s horse.

  “Is he dead, or just unconscious?”

  “Unconscious.”

  Gillis said, “He seems to spend a lot of time in that condition.”

  “Poor son of a bitch.”

  Walking the horse, Fletch held the reins in his right hand, the rifle in his left.

  He asked, “Junior dead?”

  “Yeah.”

  Fletch left the road and started through the woods, down the hillside.

  Gillis said, “You sure that’s the murder weapon?”

  “As sure as I can be, without a ballistics test. It’s the weapon he was carrying when he returned to the camper.”

  Remaining on his horse, Gillis followed Fletch through the woods to the pasture and then rode along beside him.

  Fletch said, “I wonder if you’d mind putting Molinaro on your horse?”

  “Why?”

  �
�I feel silly. I feel like I’m walking into Dodge City.”

  “So why should I feel silly?”

  Frank Gillis chuckled.

  “One of us has to feel silly, and you’re the one who caught him,” Gillis said.

  “Thanks.”

  “Why didn’t you use the camper?”

  “Dead battery.”

  Gillis shook his head, just as Fletch had.

  “I don’t know,” Gillis said. “This guy… did he murder old man March, or did he think Junior murdered him? Or was he just plain jealous of Junior, now that Molinaro’s dream of being recognized by his father was over?”

  Fletch walked along quietly a moment, before saying, “You’ll have to ask Captain Neale, I guess.”

  “You know,” Gillis said, “everyone thought an attempt was being made on the Vice-President’s life.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I did, too, at first, until I realized this was another March who was dead. Who’d ever want to kill the Vice-President of the United States? One could have a greater effect upon national policy by killing the White House cook.”

  “Who was in the helicopter?” Fletch asked.

  “Oh, that.” Gillis’ chins were quivering with mirth. “Some Marine Corps General. He was here for some ceremony or other, a presentation of some kind, pin a medal on someone. And while the General was making this big entrance, landing in a helicopter on the back lawn, the Vice-President of the United States was arriving at the front of the hotel in an economy-size car—completely ignored.”

  They were both laughing, and Molinaro was still unconscious.

  “As soon as everyone realized what had happened, that Junior had been shot, the Secret Service hustled the Vice-President back into his car, and back to Washington, and the General climbed aboard his helicopter and took off. The only thing the Vice-President was heard to say, during his stay at Hendricks Plantation, was, ‘My! The military live well!’ ”

  They came onto the back lawns of Hendricks Plantation.

  Indeed, the helicopter was gone.

  People were playing golf on the rolling greens the other side of the plantation house.

  “You want to carry the rifle?” Fletch asked.

  “No, no. I wouldn’t take from your moment of glory.”

  Fletch said, “This isn’t glory.”