For not arresting you, you understand. He’s convinced we have enough evidence to make a case.”
“You’re not?” Fletch asked.
“We have evidence,” Flynn said, “which is getting thicker by the minute. I explained to Grover I’d rather leave a man his own head and follow him. It’s easier to get to know a man when he’s free and following his own nature than it is when he’s all scrunched up and defensive with his lawyers in a jail cell. A terrible scolding I had. And then this morning you slip our tail, all quite innocently, of course, and fritter away the day doing we know not what.”
Fletch did not accept the invitation to report his day.
“In the meantime,” he said, “aren’t you afraid I might murder someone else?”
“Exactly!” blurted Grover from the side of the room.
Flynn’s look told Grover he was a necessary evil.
Softly, Flynn said, “It’s my argument that Irwin Maurice Fletcher, even alias Peter Fletcher, would not murder a gorgeous girl in a closed apartment—at lest not sober—and then routinely, almost professionally, call the police on himself. He could have wiped things clean, repacked his suitcases, gone back to the airport and been out of the country in the twitch of a rabbit’s nose.”
“Thank you,” said Fletch.
“Even better,” Flynn continued his argument with the side of the room, “he could have dressed the body, taken her down the back stairs in the dark of the night;, and left her anywhere in the City of Boston. It wouldn’t have disturbed his plans at all.”
Fletch had thought about that.
“Instead, what does our boyo do? He calls the police. He doesn’t precisely turn himself in, but he does call the police. He deserves some credit, Grover, for his remarkable and demonstrated faith in the institution of the public police.”
Grover’s ears were red. For a single, impetuous word in argument with his superior he was receiving a considerable chewing out.
“However,” said Flynn in a more relaxed manner, “evidence developed today adds considerable weight to Grover’s argument. Are you interested in it at all, Mister Fletcher?”
“Of course.”
“First of all, what’s your understanding as to when Mister Bart Connors went to Italy?”
“I don’t know,” Fletch answered. “He had occupancy of the villa as of last Sunday.”
“And this is Wednesday,” Flynn said. “Mrs. Sawyer confirms that Connors was here with her on Saturday, and that he asked her to come in Monday night for a few hours and do a special clean-up because of your arrival Tuesday, yesterday. She did so. Therefore, wouldn’t it be natural to assume Connors left for Italy sometime between Saturday night and Monday night?”
Fletch said, “I guess so.”
“To this point, we have not been able to establish that he actually did so,” Flynn said. “A check of the airlines turned up no transatlantic reservations in the name of Bartholomew Connors.”
“He could have flown from New York.”
“He didn’t,” Flynn said. “And as Mister Connors is a partner in an important Boston law firm, I can’t believe he would travel under a false passport, unless there is something extraordinary going on here at which we can’t even guess.”
Fletch said, “I suppose I could call the villa in Italy and see if he’s there.”
“We may come to that,” said Flynn, “But let’s not roust the quail until its feathers are wet.”
“What?”
“Next we come to Mrs. Sawyer. A widow lady with two grown daughters. One teaches school in Mattapan. She does not live with her mother. The other is in medical school in Oregon. Mrs. Sawyer confirms she has a key to this apartment, but that no one had access to it other than herself. She spent Sunday with a gentleman friend, who is a sixty-year-old divorced accountant, visiting his grandchildren in New Bedford.”
Fletch said, “Would you believe I never did suspect Mrs. Sawyer?”
“She had a key,” Flynn answered. “Never can tell what bad man might have been taking advantage of her, for reasons of his own. She says that six months ago Connors suffered a particularly—I might even say, peculiarly— painful separation from his wife. There will be a divorce, she says, and I don’t doubt it. She says there have been one or more women in this apartment since the separation. She finds their belongings around when she comes to clean. As clothes have never been left, in closets and drawers, she believes she can say no woman has actually lived here since the separation. It substantiates her belief that there has been ‘a parade of women through here.’ It also substantiates her belief that none of them was ever given, or had, a key.”
Grover sneezed.
“As there appear to be paintings in this apartment of great value—is that not right, Mister Fletcher?—we may suppose even further towards certainty that Mistier Connors did not dispense keys to this apartment like jelly beans.”
“Great value,” said Fletch. “Very great value.”
He had not toured the paintings to his own satisfaction yet, but he had seen enough to be impressed. Besides the Brown in the den, there was a Matisse in the bedroom, a Klee in the living room (on the wall behind Grover), and a Warhol in the dining room.
“The last thing to say about access to the apartment is that there is a back door, in the kitchen. The rubbish goes out that way. There is no key to it. It is twice a bolted from the inside. Mrs. Sawyer tells us she is most faithful about bolting it. In fact, when we arrived last night, both bolts were in place. No one could have gone out that way.”
“But someone could have come in that way,” said Fletch, “bolted the door behind him and gone out the front way.”
“Absolutely right,” said Flynn. “But how would they, without having known the back door was unbolted?”
“By chance,” said Fletch.
“Aye. By chance.” Clearly Flynn did not think much of chance.
“Now we come to you,” said Flynn.
Grover sat up and clicked his ballpoint pen.
“Washington was good enough to send us both your photograph and your fingerprints.” Flynn smiled kindly at Fletch. “Ach, a man has no privacy, anymore.”
The kindly smile increased Fletch’s discomfort.
“A man is many things,” said Flynn. “A bad check charge. Two contempt of court charges. Non-payment-of- alimony charges longer than most people’s family trees…”
“Get off it, Flynn.”
“…All charges dropped. I do not mean to act as your lawyer,” said Flynn, “although I seem to be doing a lot of that. May I recommend that as all these charges were mysteriously dropped, you do something to get them off your record? They’re not supposed to be there. And you never know when an official, such as myself, might come along and view them with extreme prejudice. On the principle, you know, that where there’s a hatrack there’s a hat.”
“Thanks for your advice.”
“I see you also won the Bronze Star. What the notation ‘not delivered’ means after the item, I can’t guess.”
Grover looked around at Fletch with a drill sergeant’s disdain.
Flynn said, “You’re a pretty dodgy fellow, Irwin Maurice Fletcher.”
Fletch said, “I bet you wouldn’t even want your daughter to marry me.”
“I would resist it,” Flynn said, “under the prevailing circumstances.”
“You guys don’t even like my cologne.”
“None of the gentlemen who drive the taxis in from the airport have identified you so far.”
“Why do you care about that?”
“We’d like to know if you came in from the airport alone, or with a young lady.”
“I see.”
