“Martin.”
“Does this have anything to do with the murder?”
“What murder?”
“There was a murder in my husband’s apartment the other night. I wouldn’t want to comment on it. It’s perfectly irrelevant.”
“I didn’t know about that.” Fletch’s eyes wandered around Lucy and Bart Connote old bedroom. “If it’s irrelevant, why should it be mentioned?”
“I don’t think so, Martin. This has been bad enough, without publicity.”
“Lucy, think how bad it is for other women in the circumstances you were in. I daresay you felt pretty alone, going through it.”
“Certainly did.”
“It sometimes helps to be able to read that someone else has been through it. You’ve resolved your problems, fairly successfully, I gather…”
“You’re a very convincing fella, Martin.”
“Furthermore, I guarantee you, there will be no personal publicity. You’ll be referred to as ‘Ms. C,’ period. Nice, tasteful drawings, probably abstracts, will be made up as illustrations.”
“And what if you don’t?”
“You can sue us. We know we’re trespassing here on personal, intimate affairs. We’re doing a story on your feelings, rather than the facts. We’re not out to expose anybody, or anything.”
“I see. Would you let me read the story and okay it before it’s published?”
“We don’t like to do that. The editors sort of feel that’s their job.”
“I won’t talk to you unless I see the story before it’s published.”
Fletch forced himself to hesitate. “Okay, Lucy. I agree. It will have to be between us, but I’ll let you see the story before I hand it in. When can I see you?”
“Marsha and I are going shopping this afternoon if this rain ever lets up. And we’re seeing friends tonight.”
“May I come tomorrow morning?”
“Okay. About ten?”
“Ten-thirty. 58 Fenton Street?”
“Apartment 42.”
“Will Ms. Hauptmann be there?”
“You bet. You goof up one little bit, Babe, and we’ll both stomp you.”
Twenty-three
After steak and eggs, provided and prepared by Mrs. Sawyer, Fletch got into his freshly made bed with yesterday’s edition of the
The murder of Ruth Fryer received little space compared to the space devoted to the City Councilperson’s murder. Obviously there was no new news concerning Ruth Fryer’s murder. The City Councilperson’s murder was reported in the greatest detail, together with her full biography, with pictures of her throughout her career, a personal recollection piece by the paper’s chief local reporter, a sidebar of quotes from notables, political and nonpolitical, friends and enemies, all conspicuously generous. She was a jowly, mean-eyed woman. Indeed she must have been an unpleasant sight, bloody in her bath.
After more than an hour, Fletch saw an advertisement for an Alec Guinness matinee double bill,
While he was dressing in slacks, loafers, open shirt, sweater, and tweed jacket, he heard the door buzzers ring and presumed it was some enterprise of Mrs. Sawyer. She was trying to restock the kitchen shelves.
Coming down the corridor, then, he was surprised to see Inspector Flynn in the hall. His Irish knit sweater made his chest and shoulders look even more huge, his head even more minute.
“Ah!” Flynn grinned amiably. “I was hoping you’d be at home.”
He was carrying a package which was clearly a bottle of something.
“Where’s Grover?” Fletch asked, coming into the ball.
He took Flynn’s outstretched hand.
“I have some time of my own, you know,” Flynn said. “The department lets me off the leash sometimes on, the weekend. Had to come nearby—wanted to pick up a Schonberg score the store doesn’t have in yet—and happened to consider the City of Boston owes you a bottle of whiskey.”
He presented his package with the full joy of giving.
“That’s damned nice of you.”
It was twelve-year-old Pinch.
“Hope I’m not disturbing anything?”
“Oh, no. I was just going to see a couple of Alec Guinness pictures at the Exeter Street Theater. That’s nearby, isn’t it?”
“What a darling man! He’s Irish, you know. Most English people you think of with talent are.” He rubbed his hands together. “I thought it being a rainy Saturday afternoon, you might like to sit with me over a taste…?”
“I thought you never touch the stuff?”
“I never do. But, like work itself, I never mind watching another man partake.” He turned to Mrs. Sawyer. “I don’t suppose you keep a camomile tea?”
She said, “I think we’ve got Red Zinger.”
“Any herb tea will do. Perhaps you’d bring a glass, some ice and water into the study as well, for Mister Fletcher here.”
The thing seemed decided.
Flynn stepped into the den.
Fletch snapped on the lights and began to open the odd-shaped bottle.
Flynn rummaged around inside his sweater, having driven his hand through the neck of it, and pulled two sheets of folded paper from his shirt pocket.
“I was able to secure the complete passenger list for Flight 529 from Rome last Tuesday.” He handed It to Fletch, who put down the open bottle. “I wonder if you’d cast your eye along that and see if there are any names you know.”
“You think Ruth Fryer’s murder might have something to do with something I was doing in Rome, eh?”
“Mister Fletcher, you said yourself, people hate you all over the world. Surely one might spend an airfare to wreak your undoing.”
Most of the names on the list were Italian; most of the rest were Irish—modern-day pilgrims on a between Rome and America in search of spiritual solation or material attainment.
Flynn stood, hands in his pockets, chin back, the amiable grin still on his face.
“Supposing we were friends, Mister Fletcher,” he said. “What would I call you? Surely not Irwin Maurice. Are you used to the name Peter, yet? Or you down to calling yourself ‘Pete’?”
“Fletch,” Fletch said. “People call me Fletch.”
“Fletch, is it? Now that’s an impudent enough name. Couldn’t an Irish poet dance a Maypole playing with a name like that, though?”
“I recognize no one’s name on the list.”
Fletch handed it back to him. “I was afraid you’d say that.”
“And I should call you Francis Xavier, right?”
“People call me Frank,” said Flynn. “Except my wife, who calls me Frannie. She has a kindlier, softer view of me.”
Mrs. Sawyer entered with a tray.
“I had the hot water on, anyway,” she said.
On the tray were an ice bucket, an empty glass, a water carafe, a teapot, cream, sugar, a cup, saucer,
