Her thumbs were working up his spinal column.
He gave in to the back rub. He had little choice.
Finally, when she was done, he sat on the edge of the table. His head swayed.
She was washing the oil off her hands.
“Was Walter March nervous?” he asked. “Did he seem upset, in any way, afraid of anything? Anxious?”
“No.” She was drying her hands on a towel. “But he should have been.”
“Obviously.”
“That’s not what I mean. I had a reporter in here earlier today. I think he could have killed Walter March.”
“What do you mean?”
“He kept swearing at him. Calling him dirty names. Instead of asking about Mister March, the way the rest of you did, he kept calling him that so-and-so. Only he didn’t say so-and-so.”
“What was his name?”
“I don’t know. I suppose I could look up the charge slip. He was a big man, fortyish, heavy, sideburns and mustache. A Northerner. A real angry person. You know, one of those people who are always angry. Big sense of injustice.”
“Oh.”
“And then there was the man in the parking lot yesterday.”
She put her towel neatly on the rack over the wash basin.
“When I drove in yesterday morning, he was walking across the parking lot. He came over to me. He asked if I worked here. I thought he was someone looking for a job, you know? He was dressed that way, blue jeans jacket. Tight, curly gray hair although he wasn’t old, skinny body—like the guys who work down at the stables, you know? A horse person. He asked if Walter March had arrived yet. First I’d ever heard of Walter March. His eyes were bloodshot. His jaw muscles were the tightest muscles I’d ever seen.”
“What did you do?”
“I got away from him.”
Fletch looked at the big, muscular blond woman.
“You mean he frightened you?”
She said, “Yes.”
“Did you tell the other reporters about him?”
“No.” She said, “I guess it takes nine times being asked the same questions, for me to have remembered him.”
Eight
AMERICAN JOURNALISM ALLIANCE
Walter March, President
SCHEDULE OF EVENTS
Monday
6:30 P.M. Welcoming Cocktail Party
“Hi,” Fletch said cheerfully. He had stuck his head around the corner of the hotel’s switchboard.
Behind him, across the lobby, people were gathering in the Amanda Hendricks Room.
The telephone operator nearer him said, “You’re not supposed to be in here, sir.”
Both operators looked as startled as rabbits caught in a flashlight beam.
“I’m just here to pick up the sheet,” he said.
“What sheet?”
He popped his eyes.
“The survey sheet. You’re supposed to have it for me.”
The further operator had gone back to working the switchboard.
“The sheet for us to take the surveys.”
“Helen, do you know anything about a survey sheet?”
The other operator said, “Hendricks Plantation. Good evening.”
“You know,” Fletch said. “From Information. The sheet that says who’s in which room. Names and room numbers. For us to take the surveys.”
“Oh,” the girl said.
She looked worriedly at the sheet clipped onto the board in front of her.
“Yeah,” Fletch squinted at it. “That’s the one.”
“But that’s mine,” she said.
“But you’re supposed to have one for me,” he said.
She said, “Helen, do we have another one of these sheets?”
Helen said, “I’m sorry, sir. That room does not answer.”
Fletch said, “She has another one.”
“But I need mine,” the girl said.
“You can Xerox hers.”
“We can’t leave the switchboard. It’s much too busy.”
She connected with a flashing light. “Hendricks Plantation. Good evening.”
“Give me yours,” Fletch said. Helpfully, he slipped it out of its clip. “I’ll Xerox it.”
“I think the office is locked,” she whispered. “I’ll ring, sir.”
“All you have to do is move Helen’s.” He reached over and put Helen’s information sheet between them. “And you can both see it.”
The operator said, “I’m sorry, sir, but a cocktail reception is going on here, and I don’t think many people are in their rooms.”
Helen scowled angrily at him, as she said, “The dining room is open for breakfast at seven o’clock, sir.”
“Tell me.” Fletch was looking at the sheet in his hands. “Lydia March and Walter March, Junior, aren’t still in the suite Walter March died in this morning, are they?”
“No,” the operator said. “They’ve been moved to Suite 12.”
“Thanks.” Fletch waved the telephone information sheet at them. “ ’Preciate it.”
Nine
