Confess, Fletch Read online

  “He said he is looking for upwards of a million dollars for the painting.”

  “Hungry kids. I thought beef was cheaper in Texas,”

  “That’s the lay of the land. I don’t know if you want to go further with this negotiation, but I expect you’ll want to think about it.”

  “Would you? I mean, would you go further?”

  “I think I would. I think I’d make another offer for it. Of course, I have no idea how much of your resources you want to tie up in a single property.”

  “Will you make another offer, if I don’t?”

  “Mister Fletcher, I think I made a mistake there—one for which I apologize—in indicating to you I might be interested in purchasing this painting if you don’t. I’m your broker, in this case, and a client should never feel he would be in a position where he must bid against his own broker.”

  “I was wondering about that.”

  “I was greatly mistaken. What I meant was, if this negotiation between you and Cooney doesn’t work out, after a decent interval of time—and it would be a long, decent interval—I might reopen negotiations with Mister Cooney on my own, or even, conceivably, on behalf of another client.”

  “I see.”

  “As long as you leave your negotiation with Mister Cooney open, you will not be bidding against me, or any other client of mine, even potentially. I will continue to give you my best advice, to make your negotiation successful.”

  “And what’s your advice now?”

  “First, I think you should think about it. No reason for being too swift in these matters. After you consider your own resources, and the very real question of how much of those resources you want committed to a single property, I’d make a new offer, if I were so inclined.”

  “How much?”

  “The new offer? I think eight hundred thousand dollars.”

  “I’ll think about it.”

  “All right, Mister Fletcher. Call me any time.”

  “What about the other painting?”

  “What other painting?”

  “The Boccioni. ‘Red Space’.”

  “Oh. A complete blank.”

  “Really?”

  “I guess I was too subtle at first. He had no idea what I was talking about. I finally asked him, more directly. Mister Cooney clearly had never heard of Umberto Boccioni.”

  “That’s puzzling.”

  “I guess your source of information was dead wrong.”

  “That’s hard to believe.”

  “Nothing’s hard to believe in this business, Mister Fletcher. Whoever told you Mister Cooney owns a Boccioni was incorrect. Call me when you decide about the Picasso.”

  “I will.”

  Andy was clearing the dishes from the dining room table.

  “That was Horan,” Fletch said. “Our man in Texas never heard of Umberto Boccioni.”

  XXXV

  T R U S T I N G the two plainclothesmen would not be too puzzled by his not using the Ford Ghia, Fletch took a taxi to Flynn’s office on Craigie Lane.

  It was a greystone pile at the edge of Boston Harbour. Inside, everything was painted regulation green, except the sagging wood floors, which were soft underfoot.

  The policeman behind the counter sent him up a curved staircase with a heavy, carved wooden railing.

  Grover was making tea in a corridor alcove on the second floor.

  He led Fletch into Flynn’s office.

  Flynn was behind an old, wooden desk, and behind him three arched, almost cathedral-like windows overlooked the harbour. A few straight-backed, wooden chairs stood about the room in no particular order. Along the inside wall was a long, wooden refectory table.

  “Did you bring Mister Fletcher a cup of tea as well, Grover?” Flynn stood up to shake hands. “Pull up a pew, Mister Fletcher. Make yourself at home.”

  Grover placed the two tea cups at the edge of the desk and went out to get a third.

  “We’ll have a nice little tea party.”

  Fletch moved one of the wooden chairs to be at an angle to the desk so he would have solid wall behind Flynn, not the late afternoon light from the windows.

  “Homey,” said Fletch.

  “I know.” Behind his desk, Flynn’s elfin face looked like that of a schoolboy playing teacher. “I came to look at you in an off-moment, Saturday, and you came to look at me in an off-moment, Sunday. That was our weekend. I learned you’re a peeping torn, besides being a reporter and a murderer, either one of which is bad enough, but did we accomplish anything else?”

  After handing Fletch a cup of tea, without questions regarding cream and sugar (there was neither in the cup), Grover took his own cup, and dragged a chair over to the long table against the wall.

  “You do want me to take notes, Inspector?”

  “For what they’re worth. I think Mister Fletcher has something important to say, and I want a witness.”

  Fletch asked, “How’s the other murder going? The chubby City Councilperson’s murder?”

  “Slowly,” said Reluctant Flynn. “Very time-consuming, to be sure.”

  “Was the axe murder solved?”

  “Oh, of course. Such things are usually family matters. I don’t know why we bother with them at all.”

  “Look, regarding the Ruth Fryer business….”

  “It’s called murder.”

  “Yes. I want off the hook.”

  “You want to go to Texas.”

  “Probably.”

  “We’ll be pleased to let you off the hook as soon as we find a more attractive candidate for charging than yourself.”

  Fletch said, “I would guess not too much has been accomplished in recent days.”

  “Will you listen to that, Grover? The candidate for hanging is getting impatient. And he had such a great lot of faith in the institution of the Boston Police to begin with.”

  At the side of the room, Grover sat hunched over his table, writing slowly.

  “I quite understand you’ve got other things to do,” Fletch said.

  “One or two. One or two.”

  “And undoubtedly there’s a lot of political and press pressure on you regarding the City Councilperson’s murder.”

  “I thank you for making my excuses.”

  “But I’m being sort of a victim here. I didn’t kill Ruth Fryer.”

  “You say you didn’t.”

  “And the investigation has been dragging on almost a week now.”

  “Mister Fletcher, the Complaint Department is downstairs. It’s a small room, with see-through walls.”

  “Another person in my position might have hired private detectives this last week….”

  “However, being a great ex-investigative reporter yourself, you’ve done a little investigating on your own. Is that it?”

  “Yes.”

  “And have you come to a conclusion?”

  “I think I have.”

  “Do you want time to sharpen your pencil, Grover? Oh, it’s a pen. I don’t want you to miss a word.”

  “Okay,” said Fletch. “First of all, it is most likely the murderer must have had a key to the apartment. Not absolutely necessary. Thinking Bart Connors was in Italy and the apartment was empty, Ruth Fryer could have gone to the apartment alone or with some other person to use the apartment for sexual purposes. Or, not knowing Connors was in Italy, to surprise him. She could have had a key, which the murderer then took. Or Joan Winslow, in a state of advanced intoxication, could have let her in.”

  “All highly unlikely,” said Flynn. “The Winslow woman supposedly was at the Bullfinch Pub. Ruth Fryer would have seen your suitcases in the hall, noted the airline’s tags in the name of Peter Fletcher and been scared off from whichever course of action she intended. For the last time, Mister Fletcher, I reject the idea that Ruth Fryer killed herself.”

  “Narrow of you,” said Fletch, “but I accept it. So,” he continued, “the basic question is, who had a key to that apartment? Me,” he counted himself off
on his little finger, “Mrs. Sawyer, whom you’ve investigated….”

  “As pure as Little Eva.”

  “… Joan Winslow….”

  “Ach, she’s incapable of anything.”

  “… Bart Connors….”

  “Now he’s a real possibility. How come we haven’t thought of him, Grover?”

  “… and Lucy Connors.”

  “Lucy Connors?”

  “Let’s consider Bart Connors first.”

  “You’ve been considering Bart Connors from the very beginning. You’ve been after him so, the man has my sympathy.”

  “Apparently.” Fletch was hanging on to his index finger. “Six months ago, Bart Connors had a sexual-psychological shock. His wife left him, for a woman, Mrs. Sawyer said he then became sexually very active. He is known to have brought girls to his apartment. We thought he had gone to Italy on Sunday. He did not leave Boston until nine-thirty Tuesday night, and then he flew through Montreal, a sort of unusual thing to do. Just prior to the murder, Joan Winslow said she saw him in a pub two blocks away with a girl she has identified as Ruth Fryer.”

  “She’s an unreliable witness. Any defence attorney would make hash of her in minutes.”

  “Flynn, why isn’t Bart Connors the murderer?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “We know he delayed his departure from Boston because he was trying to talk a girl into going to Italy with him—a girl who ultimately refused.”

  “Well, I have a prejudice against him. He’s a Boston lawyer, you know, an important firm….”

  “All of which just means he’s smart enough to lay the crime off on someone else.”

  “I don’t know why he’d need to. I don’t know why he wouldn’t have taken the body and dumped it in some alley.”

  “He had a plane to catch. He was well-known in the neighbourhood. It was still early evening. He knew I’d be arriving.”

  “All good reasons. But Ruth Fryer had not had sexual intercourse.”

  “That’s it, Flynn. Her rejecting him, after his experience with his wife, may have sent him up the wall.”

  “May have.”

  “Frankly, Flynn, I don’t think you’ve paid enough attention to Bart Connors as a suspect.”

  “Grover, pay more attention to Bart Connors as a suspect.”

  “Incidentally, something else you don’t know is that Ruth Fryer’s boyfriend, whose name is Clay Robinson, flew up from Washington Tuesday afternoon to spend a few days with her.”

  “Did he? Grover, our incompetence is becoming marked.”

  “Presuming Ruth Fryer knew Bart Connors, and thought he was in Italy, why wouldn’t she have taken Clay Robinson to use Bart’s apartment?”

  “Why would she, when there are hotels?”

  “It’s a nice place.”

  “Wouldn’t she have had to explain to her boyfriend how it was she had access to such an apartment?”

  “I suppose so.”

  “She had no key we know of, Mister Fletcher. Your tagged luggage was in the hall….”

  “Okay. Now we come to Joan Winslow.”

  “My God, Grover, it’s like listening to one of those Harvard-Radcliffe professors—such a pompous lecture we’re getting.”

  “Flynn, I’m tired of being a murder suspect.”

  “I’d say you’ve got pretty good evidence those paintings are in Texas,” Flynn’s voice was barely audible across the desk. “You want to get out of here.”

  “Inspector, I didn’t catch that,” Grover said.

  “You weren’t meant to. Go on, Mister Fletcher.”

  “Joan Winslow has a key to the apartment. She was in love with Bart Connors. Passionately. He had rejected her quite thoroughly. She hated, absolutely hated, the young girls he had been bringing to his apartment.”

  “So how would that work in time and space?”

  “I don’t know. Joan Winslow heard someone in Bart’s apartment, knew he was in Italy, went over to investigate, found Ruth Fryer naked, thinking she was waiting for Bart; Joan went into a drunken rage and slugged her with the bottle.”

  “Who put the other whisky bottles away? I mean, cleaned off the whole liquor bar?”

  “Joan Winslow did. She knew the apartment. I guess she knew I was coming in. Or, she saw the suitcases and knew I was going to return. Or, she simply wanted to frame Bart Connors.”

  “That’s a possibility.”

  “Joan Winslow has made an even greater effort than I have to blame Bart Connors. She identified Ruth Fryer as being the girl she saw in the pub with him.”

  “When do we get to consider all the evidence against you? Grover’s getting anxious over there.”

  “I think you’ve done enough of that. You’ve considered me such a prime suspect, you’ve done little else.”

  “Now, what haven’t we done?”

  “I’ll tell you what you haven’t done. You didn’t find Ruth Fryer’s motel key.”

  “By the way, you never gave it to me.”

  “You didn’t need it. You didn’t know Joan Winslow has a key to Bart Connors’ apartment.”

  “That was thick of us. Sheer inexperience on. my part.”

  “You didn’t know Ruth Fryer’s boyfriend, Clay Robinson, was in Boston Tuesday afternoon.”

  “How were we to know that?”

  “You haven’t talked with Bart Connors.”

  “Oh. Him again. You sound like a Christmas phonograph—reindeer and snowflakes and bright shining stars over and over again.”

  “And the most significant thing of all I don’t even think you’ve thought of doing.”

  “We’ve had the City Councilperson’s murder….”

  “You’re not going to send me to prison, Flynn, because you’re distracted.”

  “Such a scolding I’m getting. You sound like Grover. A more experienced policeman might resent it.”

  “Sorry, Flynn, but I want to get moving.”

  “You’ve mentioned it.”

  “Lucy Connors,” said Fletch.

  “Ah, yes. Lucy Connors.”

  “She has a key to the apartment.”

  “Has she? Have you talked with her?”

  “Yes.”

  “Very enterprising of you. When could that have been? Does she live in Brookline?”

  “Yes.”

  “Ah. You went there Sunday morning, before paying your visit to me.”

  “Flynn, Lucy Connors flew into Boston from Chicago Tuesday afternoon on Trans World Airlines.”

  “My God.”

  “Furthermore, she made an excuse to her room-mate for being late. She was late by two or three hours.”

  “Very enterprising of you, Mister Fletcher. Very enterprising, indeed.”

  “She has a history of violence, which she admits. She used to beat up her husband—send him to the office with welts. She and her girlfriend still play with sexual violence.”

  “You must have been a very good investigative reporter, Mister Fletcher, to know what two people do in bed.”

  “Lucy Connors flies into Boston. Her eye is taken by Ground Hostess Ruth Fryer. She picks her up, maybe with some story about her boutique. Ruth is young and innocent, and never dreams this older woman has sexual designs on her. They go to Ruth’s hotel, where she changes into a pretty dress, because, after all, this older woman, her new friend, has been in Chicago buying for her boutique. She doesn’t wait for Clay Robinson, because she doesn’t know he’s coming. Ruth is an airline stewardess, bored in a city she doesn’t know, about to get married in a month or two; another girl asks her to join her for drinks, a dinner, the evening. Why shouldn’t she go? She feels perfectly safe.”

  “We have to think in these terms, don’t we?” said Flynn.

  “A man and a woman can check into a hotel together, but eyebrows still rise at two women doing so.”

  “I expect so.”

  “Lucy can’t take Ruth Fryer home with her, because Marsha is at the apartment, waiting.”r />
  “So,” said Flynn, “knowing Bart’s in Italy—either not knowing about your arrival, or not caring as she has a perfect right to use the Connors apartment, they not being divorced yet—she brings Ruth Fryer to what is technically your apartment at that point.”

  “Yeah. And at the apartment, Ruth discovers she, in fact, is being seduced. She’s a young girl, she’s about to be married, she’s not that way. She’s straight. She resists. Her dress gets torn from her. She runs down the hall. Lucy, who enjoys violent play, chases her down the hall. Also, Lucy is not very experienced at seducing girls. She loses her head. Maybe she’s hurt at being rejected. Maybe she goes into a blind rage.”

  “And she cracks little Ms. Fryer over the head with a whisky bottle.”

  “Dusts the bottle and puts it back. She puts all the other bottles in the salt-and-pepper cabinet, knowing Mrs. Sawyer will have to move them around. Her own fingerprints wouldn’t make any difference, anyway.”

  “And she puts out a carafe of water, knowing that when you return to the apartment and find the body after dinner, it would be any man’s normal instinct to pour himself a stiff one at the sideboard. Thus she got your fingerprints on the murder weapon.”

  “Right.”

  “Damned clever. How did you get to interview Lucy Connors?”

  “I said I was from a magazine.”

  “I see. It seems you’ve done better than we have, Fletcher.”

  “The thing that has been puzzling since the beginning,” said Fletch, “is that this murder appeared to be a crime of sexual passion. The victim was naked. She was beautiful. And yet the autopsy turned up no evidence of sexual intercourse.”

  “That was surprising,” said Flynn.

  “There would be no such evidence, if the sexual affair was lesbian.”

  “My God, it’s been in front of our eyes all the time.”

  “Lucy has a key. She and Ruth were at the airport at the same time. She would be attracted to Ruth. Anyone would be. She and Ruth could not go to a hotel, easily or safely. Lucy is known to be violence-prone. Ruth would have resisted her.

  “An arrest,” said Flynn, standing up from his desk, “is imminent.”

  “58 Fenton Street, Brookline,” said Fletch, also standing. “Apartment 42. Under the name of Marsha Hauptmann.”

  “Have you got that, Grover?”