“I know that. I’m the editor, remember? Daphne and all those ugly kids of mine to feed.”
“Rolly Wisham hated Walter March with a passion. He has reason, I guess, but I think his hatred borders on the uncontrollable.”
“‘Rolly Wisham, with love’?”
“The same. He says he was so upset at seeing March in the elevator Sunday night, he didn’t sleep all night.”
“What’s his beef?”
“Wisham says that March, again using his p.i.’s, took the family newspaper away from Rolly’s dad, and drove him to suicide.”
“True?”
“How do I know? If it is true, it happened at a dangerous age for Rolly—fifteen or sixteen—I forget which. Loves and hatreds run deep in people that age.”
“I remember. Did Wisham have the opportunity? You said he was there Sunday night.”
“Yeah, and he has no working alibi for Monday morning. He says he was driving around Virginia, in sunglasses, in a rented car. Didn’t even stop at a gas station.”
“Funny. ‘This is Rolly Wisham, with love, and a scissors in Walter March’s back.’ ”
“You know March was planning a coast-to-coast campaign to get Wisham thrown off the air?”
“Oh, yeah. I read that editorial. It was right. Wisham’s a fuckin’ idiot. The world’s greatest practitioner of the sufferin’-Jesus school of journalism.”
“Keep your conservative sentiments to yourself, Saunders. You’ve been off the street too long.”
“Two good suspects. We’ll start doing background on them both right away. Anyone else?”
“Remember Crystal Faoni?”
“Crystal? Petite Crystal? The sweetheart of every ice cream store? She used to work with us in Chicago.”
“She tells me that once when she was pregnant without benefit of ceremony, March fired her on moral grounds. Crystal had no choice but to abort.”
“That bastard. That prude. Walter March was the most self-righteous.…”
“Yes and no,” Fletch said.
“Well, I’ll tell you, Fletch. Crystal has the intelligence and imagination to do murder, and get away with it.”
“I know.”
“I’d hate to have her as an enemy.”
“Me too.”
“I shiver at the thought. I’d rather have a boa constrictor in bed with me. This Captain Andrew Neale, who’s running this investigation, what do you think of him?”
“He’s no Inspector Francis Xavier Flynn.”
“Sometimes I think Inspector Francis Xavier Flynn isn’t, either.”
Flynn was the only person working for the Boston Police Department with the rank of Inspector.
“I think Neale’s all right,” Fletch said. “He’s working under enormous pressure here—the press all over the place—trying to interview professional interviewers. He’s under time pressure. He can keep us here only another twenty-four hours or so.”
“Is there anyone else, Fletch, with motive and opportunity?”
“Probably dozens. Robert McConnell is here.”
“McConnell. Oh, yeah. He was what’s-his-face’s press aide. Wanted to go with him to the White House.”
“Yeah. And Daddy March endorsed the other candidate, coast-to-coast, which may have made the difference, gave Bob his job back, and sat him in a corner, where he remains to this day.”
“Bob could do it.”
“Murder?”
“Very sullen kind of guy anyway. Big sense of injustice. Always too quick to shove back, even when nobody’s shoved him.”
“I noticed.”
“We’ll do some b.g. on him, too. Who’s this guy Stuart Poynton mentions in tomorrow’s column?”
“Poynton mentions someone? The desk clerk?”
“I’ve got the wire copy here. He mentions someone named Joseph Molinaro.”
“Never heard of him. I wonder what his name really is.”
“I’ll read it to you. ‘In the investigation of the Walter March murder, local police will issue a national advisory Thursday that they wish to question Joseph Molinaro, twenty-eight, a Caucasian. It is not known that Molinaro was at the scene of the crime at the time the crime was committed. Andrew Neale, in charge of the investigation, would give no reason for the advisory.’ Mean anything to you, Fletch?”
“Yeah. It means Poynton conned some poor slob into doing some legwork for him.”
“Fletch, sitting back here in the ivory tower of the
“If that’s an ivory tower, I’m a lollipop.”
“I can lick you anytime.”
“Ho, ho.”
“My vast brain keeps turning to Junior.”
“As the murderer?”
“Walter March, Junior.”
“I doubt it.”
“Living under Daddy’s thumb all his life.…”
“I’ve talked with him.”
“That was a very heavy thumb.”
“I don’t think Junior’s that eager to step into the batter’s box, if you get me. Mostly he seems scared.”
“Scared he might get caught?”
“He’s drinking heavily.”
“He’s been a self-indulgent drinker for years, now.”
“I doubt he could organize himself enough.”
“How much organization does it take to put a scissors in your daddy’s back?”
Fletch remembered the stabbing motion Junior made, sitting next to him in the bar, and the insane look in his eyes as he did it.
Fletch said, “Maybe. Now, would you like to know who the murderer is?”
Jack Saunders chuckled. “No, thanks.”
“No?”
“That night, during the Charlestown fires, you had it figured out the arsonist was a young gas station attendant who worked in a garage at the corner of Breed and Acorn streets and got off work at six o’clock.”
“It was a good guess. Well worked-out.”
“Only the arsonist was a forty-three-year-old baker deputized by Christ.”
“We all goof up once in a while.”
“I think I can stand the suspense on this one a little longer.”
“Anyway, Christ hadn’t told me.”
“If you get a story, you’ll call me?”
“Sure, Jack, sure. Anything for ‘old times’ sake.’ “
Twenty-eight
