GREGORY MCDONALD
Fletch Reflected
Gregory Mcdonald is the author of twenty-six books, including eleven Fletch novels and four Flynn mysteries. He has twice won the Mystery Writers of America’s prestigious Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Mystery Novel, and was the first author to win for both a novel and its sequel. He lives in Tennessee. His Web site is www.gregorymcdonald.com.
Books by Gregory Mcdonald
1
“What happened to Steve?” The woman in the canvas chair leaned forward. She had not looked around from the television screen since Fletch entered the pavillion. No one else was there. She was speaking to herself, or to the air. “For God’s sake, what’s wrong?” she said in a tight, low voice.
Even under the canopy on a sunless day, the screen of the television monitor was blanched by daylight from the beach.
From where Fletch was standing, he could see the pale images flickering on the screen. Across a few meters of beach, between the cameras, standing lights, reflectors, and sound booms, he could see the reality of what was on the screen, the set of
In the middle chair sat Dan Buckley wearing white trousers, loafers, and a light blue Palm Beach shirt. Even at a distance, amiability seemed stuck on his face like a decal. To his left, in a long, white bulky dressing gown sat Moxie Mooney—the gorgeous, perky, healthy, fresh-faced young film star called away from her make-up table to oblige an on location talk show. To Buckley’s right sat Moxie’s agent, manager, and executive producer, Steve Peterman in three-piece, pearl-gray suit, black shoes, and cravat.
Only Steve Peterman wasn’t sitting properly in his chair. He was slumped sideways. His head was on his right shoulder.
Fletch looked at his watch.
At the back of the talk-show set a heavy, brightly colored, split curtain moved slightly in the breeze. Behind the set, down the beach the Gulf of Mexico was gray-blue in that light. On all sides of the set was the paraphernalia of a much bigger set, the location of the film-in-progress,
