A middle-aged woman with handsomely waved brown hair came through the door marked INVESTIGATIONS. Fletch had never seen a police shirt so well filled. Her badge lay comfortably on her left breast. She had typewritten sheets in her hand. She was about to say something to the secretary.
“I’m next,” Fletch informed her.
She, too, looked at Fletch as if he had just arrived from the moon.
“Fletcher,” he said.
She looked down her list, turned a page, looked down the list, turned another page, looked down the list. “Honey,” she said, “you’re last.”
Fletch grinned. “I bet you’ve been wanting to come to the end of that list.”
She grinned back at him, waved the typewritten sheets at him, and said, “Come on in.”
Going behind her desk, she said, “I’m Chief of Detectives Roz Nachman.”
Fletch closed the door behind him.
Sitting down at her desk she peered into the window of her audio-recorder to see how much tape was left.
“Sit down, sit down,” she said.
He did.
“Why don’t I just give you a statement,” he said. “Save time. Save you the bother of asking a lot of questions.”
She shrugged. “Go ahead.” She pushed the Record button on her tape machine.
“Name’s I. M. Fletcher.”
Sitting behind her desk, hands folded in her lap, Chief of Detectives Roz Nachman looked at Fletch’s moccasins, his legs, his shorts, his tennis shirt, his arms, his neck, his face. Her smile was tolerant: that of someone about to hear a tale about fairies and witches.
“I arrived at the shooting location of the film
“I went directly to the pavillion. Only one other person was present in the pavillion all the time I was there, a woman who later identified herself to me as the wife of the deceased. Marge Peterman. She was watching, on a television monitor, the taping of the show. I could see, at a distance and not clearly, the actual set of
“I looked across at the set and saw that Peterman was sitting in an odd position. I stood behind Mrs Peterman to get a better view of the monitor. On the monitor I saw blood dribbling from Peterman’s mouth. This was at three twenty-three.
“I helped Mrs Peterman away from the pavillion, sat her in a chair at the side of the parking lot, got her some coffee, and sat with her alone until three fifty-three when some other people, Dan Buckley among them, came along, broke the news to her, and took charge of her.
“End of statement.”
“You are a reporter,” Roz Nachman mused. “Concise. To the point. What you could see, what you did see. Exact times by your watch. You didn’t mention the ghost you saw pass through the talk-show set and drive a knife into Peterman’s back.”
“What?”
“Now, Mister Fletcher, despite your very complete and, I’m sure, very accurate statement, will you permit some questions?”
“Sure.”
“Good of you. You’re sure of the exact time?”
“I’m a reporter. Something happens, I look at my watch.”
“Why were you on location of this filming?”
“To see Moxie Mooney.”
“On assignment?”
“These days I get to make up my own assignments.”
“From your appearance I would have taken you for something less than a managing editor.”
“Didn’t you know?” Fletch said. “Everyone is something less than a managing editor—star athletes, heads of state, reporters, chiefs of detectives—”
“You said no one else was in the pavillion except you and Mrs Peterman. Not even a bartender?”
“No. We were alone.”
“Did Mrs Peterman know you were there?”
“I don’t think so. I wasn’t wearing shoes. I had been told to be quiet during the taping. She was engrossed in watching the monitor…”
“If she didn’t know you were there, to whom was she speaking when she said, ‘What happened to Steve?’ or whatever it was she said?”
“She said, ‘What happened to Steve?’,” Fletch said, firmly.
“Sorry. I’m used to dealing with less, uh, professional witnesses.”
“I think Mrs Peterman was talking to herself. From her tone of voice I would say she was frightened, alarmed. Which is why I moved over behind her, to see what she was seeing.”
“Had you ever seen Marjory Peterman before?”
“No.”
“During the time you took her away from the pavillion, got her coffee, sat with her, what did she say?”
“Nothing, really. Just little things, like ‘What’s taking so long?’, ‘Why doesn’t someone come and tell me what happened?’ Oh, yeah, she said she wanted to go in the ambulance with Steve.”
“So she knew her husband had been wounded, shall we say?”
Fletch hesitated. “She may have known in her heart her husband was dead. He certainly looked dead on the monitor.”
“Did she say anything to indicate she knew her husband had been dealt with violently? Murdered?”
Fletch thought. “No. I don’t think she said anything more than I’ve told you.”
“‘Don’t think’?”
“I know. I know she didn’t say anything more.” On the foot of the leg crossed over his knee, the moccasin was half off. “Except to identify herself to me as Marge Peterman.”
“In response to a question?”
“I had asked her if she was Peterman’s wife.”
“You saw roughly the same thing Marjory Peterman saw, Mister Fletcher. What did you think had happened to Peterman?”
“I was trying to think what could have happened to him. I guess I was thinking he had suffered some kind of an internal hemorrhage. To account for the blood on his lips.”
“You did not consider the possibility of murder?”
“No way. The son of a bitch was on television. I hadn’t heard a gunshot. Who’d think of anyone sticking a knife into someone else on an open, daylit stage, with three cameras running?”
“That, Mister Fletcher,” said Nachman looking down at her blotter, “is why I’ve called this meeting. So.” She swiveled her chair sideways to the desk. “You had never seen Marjory Peterman before. But you did know Steven Peterman?”
“Ah.” Fletch felt color come to his cheeks. “You say that because I called the son of a bitch a son of a bitch.”
“Yes,” Nachman nodded. “I could characterize that as a clue of your having a previous, personal opinion of the deceased.”
“I knew him slightly.”
“How’s that?” She turned her head and smiled at him. “I think it’s time for another one of your concise
