“Would you be if I were your sister?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Some are”
“Everybody should be what he or she is.”
Lucy said, “Bart even suggested religion for me. Jesus.”
“How did you handle the marital situation?” Fletch asked.
“First, I went through a long period thinking I could have it both ways. Marsha and I were making it together. Sometimes here. Sometimes at my place. It was beautiful. Too good. It was the real thing. It wasn’t a passing phase on my part. It was me. We were getting careless. I mean, we were even doing it at my apartment while a servant was there. Oh, my god. I realized unconsciously, I wanted Bart to find out. He was too thick. I finally had to tell him.”
Fletch asked, “How did he take it?”
“I said, like a personal insult. He thought he had enough masculinity for both of us. He thought he could snap me out of it, if I just gave myself to him fully. He suggested more psychiatrists. He suggested religion. He even suggested we go to a marriage-of-convenience thing, both of us making love to girls on the side. That was about the last straw. By then Marsha had come to mean just too much to me. As a person, you know?”
Again they exchanged looks. Marsha’s band was squeezed.
“Bart set up the boutique for us. Financially. I mean, the one we now run. You can forget the name of it. We don’t need the publicity.”
“Does he still own it?”
“He’s still financing it. We’re not completely divorced yet.”
“You say he was hurt?”
“I guess so. I guess this revelation about me caused him to question his own masculinity. I man, he loved me, he married me, and I wasn’t there at all.”
“But at the same time, apparently he hadn’t found your sexual relations satisfactory.”
“He had put up with them. He hadn’t thrown me out. It might have been better if he had. Instead, he had tried to help.”
“Do you ever see each other?”
“We bump into each other. Boston’s a small city. Everybody’s always embarrassed. These days, you know, everybody knows everybody else’s sexual business.”
“Hey, Marsha?” Fletch said. “What do you think?”
Lucy looked at her expectantly.
Bright, dark eyes in Fletch’s, Marsha shook her head slightly and said nothing.
Fletch closed his notebook and put it in his pocket.
“Again, sorry about coming on a Sunday morning,” he said. “I tried several times to phone you Tuesday night. Weren’t you here?”
“Tuesday?” Lucy looked puzzled at Marsha. “Oh, Tuesday. I was in Chicago, buying for the boutique. I was supposed to fly back Tuesday afternoon, but the plane was late. I was here by nine o’clock. You were here, weren’t you, Marsha?”
She said, “Yeah.”
“I have to fly out to Chicago sometime soon,” Fletch said. “What did you fly, Pan American?”
“TWA,” Lucy said.
“That’s better, uh?”
“We were supposed to arrive at five, but it seven-thirty before we got to Boston. Fog.”
“Well, Lucy, I thank you very much. Will you keep the name of Connors?”
“I don’t think so. I guess I’ll use my maiden name. Hyslop. Get out of Bart’s hair. What’s left of it.”
Looking straight at Fletch, Marsha said, “You didn’t call here Tuesday night.”
“I tried.” Fletch stood up and put his pen in inside jacket pocket. “Phone must have been out order.”
Marsha’s eyes followed him as he went toward the door.
Lucy followed him.
Fletch said, “What’s this about a murder in your husband’s apartment?”
“That’s irrelevant,” said Lucy.
“I know. I’m just curious. I mean, murders are interesting.”
“Not for the story?”
“Of course not. What’s it got to do with you?”
“Some girl was murdered in our old apartment, After Bart left for Italy. He rented the apartment to some schnook who says he found the body.”
“You mean, your husband killed her?”
“Bart? You’re kidding. There’s not an ounce of violence in him. Believe me, I should know. If he were going to kill anybody, he would have killed me.”
“Have the police questioned you?”
“Why should they?”
From across the room, the harsh light from the window streaking between them, Marsha’s eyes were locked on Fletch’s face.
“You must still have a key to the apartment,” he said.
“I suppose I do,” she said. “Somewhere.”
“Interesting,” said Fletch.
“The police probably don’t know where to find me,” Lucy. said. “Everything here is under Marsha’s name. You wouldn’t have known where to find me, if Bart hadn’t given you the number.”
“That’s right.”
“I’m still surprised he did. Bart must be coming to the idea that this situation happens to other people, too.”
Fletch said, “Your husband’s a surprising fellow.”
“How did you happen to meet him?”
He’s doing some trust work for my editor. We all happened to be together in Montreal,“ Fletch said, ”Tuesday night.“
Marsha still had not moved. Her eyes, clear and unwavering, remained on Fletch’s face. A small amount of fear had entered those eyes.
“When will we see your story?” Lucy asked.
“Oh, a few weeks.” Fletch opened the door. “I’ll send it to you. If it works out.”
Twenty-eight
The Countess was not at the apartment when Fletch returned.
She had left a note for him saying she had gone to mass.
When the downstairs door’s buzzer rang, Fletch shouted into the mouthpiece, “Who is it?”
“Robinson.”
It was certainly not the Countess’s voice.
“Who?”
“Clay Robinson. Let me in.”
Fletch had never heard of Clay Robinson.
He let him in.
Fletch stood in the opened front door, listening to the elevator.
A curly-haired man in his mid-twenties got off the elevator. His face was puffy, his eyes red-rimmed and bloodshot, the pupils glazed. His lips were cracked.
As soon as he let himself through the elevator doors, he returned his hands to the pockets of his raincoat.
“Fletcher?”
