“You know any other big words?”
“That’s it.”
“Thanks for what you did for me in there.” Moxie smiled. “Pulling the teeth of the other reporters—and all those to come.”
“Thought there was a need for one or two clear, simple statements on the incident from you.”
“Didn’t I do well?”
“You did. Of course.”
“‘Steve Peterman was my friend’.” Moxie sort-of quoted, with a sort-of choke in her throat. “The bastard. I could have killed him.”
“Someone agreed with you, apparently.” Outside the window nearest Fletch stood a heavy woman in a gaily printed dress. “Moxie, they have to have this murder solved in a matter of hours.”
“Why?” Her face was as free of wrinkles as if she had never read a book. Moxie had read books. “Why do you say that?”
“Steve wasn’t shot. Like from a distance. He was stabbed. In public.”
“Steve was just dying to get on
“There were cameras all over the place. There were cameras working the talk show. Local press were everywhere taking pictures of everything and everybody that had paint on it, whether it moved or not.”
“Rather daring of whoever did it.”
“And security was so tight on location they have the names and reason for being there of everyone within yodeling distance.”
“Good,” Moxie said. “Let’s consider the damned thing solved.”
“Are you sure this isn’t one of Peterman’s grand publicity schemes gone awry? Like the knife was just supposed to land on the stage, or something?”
“You’re kidding. Steve wouldn’t risk getting a spot on his slacks if he saw an orphanage on fire.”
“Hey,” Fletch said.
“What?”
“Stop acting tough.”
She read his face. “What am I doing, protecting myself?”
“I would say so,” he answered. “It’s not every day the guy sitting next to you gets stabbed. A person you know, someone important to you.”
“I guess so.” She sighed. “I was having real problems with Steve, Fletch. Which is why I asked you to come down. I wanted to talk it out with somebody. I was finding it very difficult to be nice to him.”
“Not being nice is not the same as being murderous.”
“What?”
“Forget it. You’re fighting shock, Moxie. Makin’ like a heartless vamp.”
“Yeah.”
“You know it?”
“I guess so. Sure.”
“You and Steve were close at one time.”
“Steve was just using me,” she said quietly. “Where’s Marge? Is she okay?”
Fletch shrugged. “I expect she’s being taken care of.”
“They questioned her first,” Moxie said. “In a car. At the beach.”
“I see. Were Steve and Marge close?”
“I wouldn’t say Steve was close to anybody but his banker.”
“I was thinking of Marge,” Fletch said.
“Good,” Moxie said. “Steve never thought of her.”
Her head was down and she was speaking softly. Beneath her tan, her skin had whitened. The enormity of what had happened was finally sinking into her. “Phew,” she said. “I guess I am confused. I’m so used to people dying on stage and on camera with me. You know? Of acting out my reaction.”
“I know.”
“Steve is really dead?” She had turned her face from him. “Steve is really dead.”
He flicked his tongue against the side of her neck. “Hang in there, Moxie.” He opened the car door to get out. “I’ll pick you up for dinner. Eight o’clock okay?”
“At La Playa,” she said.
He had one foot on the pavement.
She cork-screwed around on the front seat. “Fletch?”
“Yeah?” He put his head back inside the car. Her cheeks were wet with tears.
“Find Freddy for me, will you?”
“Freddy? Is he here?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Oh, God.”
“He’s playing the attentive father these days to me, or retired on me, or something.”
“Let me guess which.”
“He shouldn’t be loose in public, with all this goin’ on. The murder.”
“Is he boozin’?”
“You need to ask?”
There was sand on the rear rug of the Lincoln.
Moxie said, “I suspect all those little squiggles in his brain have finally turned their toes up in the booze. Can’t blame ’em. They’ve been drownin’ in booze for years.”
Over the car’s blue rug, perfect images flashed for Fletch: Frederick Mooney on stage as Willy Loman, Richard III, and Lear. On film as Falstaff, as Disraeli, as Captain Bligh, as a baggy-pants comic, as a decent Montana rancher turned decent politician, as Scanlon on Death Row, as…
“He was the best,” Fletch said, “even when he was stinko.”
“History,” Moxie said.
“Where should I look?”
“One of the joints on Bonita Beach. He drove up with us this morning. Freddy never wanders far, when there’s a handy bar.”
Fletch chuckled. “The thought of Freddy makes poets of us all.”
“See you at eight,” she said. “Thanks, Fletch.”
“Okay.”
Walking back toward the police station, Fletch noticed big, blowsy, wet clouds blowing in from the northwest.
5
“Okay,” Fletch said to the secretary sitting at the desk between the doors marked INVESTIGATIONS and CHIEF OF POLICE, “I’ll see whoever’s in charge now.”
The woman in the light yellow blouse looked at him as if he had just fallen from the moon. The lobby was still full of people.
“Have you been called?” asked the woman who had been doing the calling.
“No,” Fletch said, “but I’m willing to serve.”
The Investigations door opened and Dan Buckley came out looking as if he had been tumble-dried. The reporters rose to him like a puff of soot. Even without smiling, there was still amiable assurance on Buckley’s face.
The short reporter glared at Fletch and made a point of stepping into the space between him and Buckley.
“No, no,” Buckley answered. “I’m turning every centimeter of tape over to the police. The police will have our complete cooperation. Such a tragedy.”
