“Arbuthnot,” she said.
“Arbuthnot!” He extricated his hand. “Not Arbuthnot!”
“Arbuthnot,” she said.
“Arbuthnot?”
“Arbuthnot. Fredericka Arbuthnot.”
“Freddie Arbuthnot?”
“You’ve heard of me? Behind that Italian tan, I detect a sudden whiteness of pallor.”
“Heard of you? I made you up!”
The plane was on its landing run into Hendricks Airport
She truly looked puzzled.
“I don’t get it,” she said.
“Well, I do.”
Fletch unclasped his seat belt.
He said again, “I do.”
Four
Mrs. Jake Williams—Helena, she insisted people call her—the hostess at the American Journalism Alliance Convention—had a way of greeting people as if they were delighted to see her.
“Fletcher, darling! Aren’t you beautiful!”
She extended both hands beyond her bosom.
“Hi, Helena, how are you doing?”
He leaned over her and kissed her.
They were standing near the reception desk in the hotel lobby.
An airport limousine had been waiting for them when their airplane had touched down.
Ignoring his luggage, Fletch had gone directly to the limousine and sat in it.
In a few moments, a quiet Fredericka Arbuthnot opened the car door and slid in next to him.
After the luggage had been stowed on top of the car and most of the other passengers from the airplane had taken seats, they left the airport, went through a small village blighted by a shopping center and straight out a rolling road to the plantation.
Almost immediately outside the village were the plantation’s white rail fences, on both sides of the road.
Fletch lowered his head to look through the windshield as the car turned into the plantation driveway.
On both sides of the driveway was a golf course. A brightly dressed foursome was on a green down to the left. The car came to a full stop to let a pale blue golf cart cross the gravel driveway.
The plantation house was a mammoth red-brick structure behind a white, wooden colonnade, with matching red-brick additions at both sides and, Fletch supposed, to the rear. They were motel-type units, but well-designed, perfectly in keeping with the main house, the rolling green, the distant white fences.
On the last curve before the house, Fletch glimpsed through the side window a corner of a sparkling blue swimming pool.
No one had said a word during the ride.
The driver’s polite question, aimed at the passengers in general, “Did you all have a nice flight?” when he first got into the car received no answer whatsoever.
It was if they were going to a funeral, rather than a convention.
Well, they were going to a funeral.
Walter March was dead.
He had been murdered that morning at Hendricks Plantation.
Walter March had been in his seventies. Forever, it seemed, he had been publisher of a large string of powerful newspapers.
Probably everyone in the car, at one point or another in their careers, had had dealings with Walter March.
Probably almost everyone at the convention had.
These were journalists—some of the best in the business.
Smiling to himself, Fletch realized that if any one of them—including himself—had been alone in the car with the driver, the driver would have been pumped for every bit of information, speculation, and rumor regarding the murder at his imagination’s command.
Together, they asked no questions.
Unless in an open press conference, where there was no choice, no journalist wants to ask a question whose answer might benefit any other journalist.
Fletch waited until his luggage was handed to him from the top of the car, and then went directly into the lobby.
While Helena Williams was greeting Fletch, Fredericka Arbuthnot, with her luggage, came and stood beside him.
She was continuing to look at him quizzically.
“Hello, Mrs. Fletcher,” Helena said, shaking Freddie’s hand.
“This isn’t Mrs. Fletcher,” Fletch said.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Helena said. “We’re all so used to greeting anyone with Fletch as Mrs. Fletcher.”
“This is Freddie Arbuthnot.”
“Freddie? So many of your girls have had boys’ names,” Helena said. “That girl we met with you in Italy, Andy something or other.…”
“Barbara and Linda,” Fletch said. “Joan.…”
“There must be something odd about you I’ve never detected,” she said.
“There is,” said Freddie Arbuthnot.
“Furthermore, Helena,” Fletch said. “Ms. Arbuthnot and I just met on the plane.”
“That’s never been a major consideration before,” Helena sniffed. “I remember that time we were all having dinner together in New York, and I noticed you were looking at a girl at the next table, and she was looking at you, and next thing we knew, you were both gone! You hadn’t even excused yourself. Not a word! I remember you missed the
“I did not.”
“Well, anyway,” Helena said to Freddie, “just like everything else Fletch does, he is the most spectacular dues-payer. He’s coughed up every dime he’s owed the American Journalism Alliance lo these many years.…”
“She knows,” Fletch said.
“We were all staggered, Fletch darling.”
“I was a little surprised myself,” Fletch said. “Don’t let word get around, okay, Helena? Might ruin my reputation.”
“Fletch darling,” Helena said, with mock sincerity, hand on his forearm, “nothing could do that.”
Fletch said, “I’m sorry about Walter March, Helena.”
Helena Williams pushed the mental button for A Distraught Expression.
“The crime of the century,” she said. She had been married to Jake Williams, managing editor of a New York daily, for more years than anyone who knew Jake could believe. “The crime of the century, Fletch.”
