Fletch and the Widow Bradley Read online

  The man’s rheumy eyes gazed through the plate glass window. “Century Street. Cold Water Road. We don’t have any address numbers that run that high, either. Forty-seven thousand something. We only got nineteen hundred households this whole town.”

  “You know a man named Crandall?”

  “You mean, your uncle?”

  “Yes.”

  “Nope. Man named Cranshaw, not your uncle.”

  Fletch smiled. “How do you know?”

  “ ’Cause I’m Cranshaw and my sister don’t lie.”

  “Okay,” Fletch said. “I give up. You’ve never heard of a man named Crandall in this town.”

  “Nope. And we’re the only town named Wramrud I ever heard of, too. You ever heard of another town named Wramrud?”

  “No.”

  The policeman’s eyes were inspecting Fletch’s neck and sweater. “You got sand all over you, boy. You want a shower?”

  “What?”

  “You want to take a shower? Shave?”

  “Where?”

  “Back in the lock-ups. I can give you a fresh razor.”

  “Mighty nice of you.”

  “Well, seems to me you have a long way to go to find your uncle.” The policeman lifted a section of the counter to let Fletch through. “Any boy whose mother tells whoppers like your’s—ain’t no tellin’ where you might end up.”

  Fletch followed the policeman toward the door to the jail cells.

  “Why do you suppose your mother would tell you a lie like that?” the old policeman asked. “Do you suppose you have an uncle at all? ’pect she told you he’s rich …”

  “Your hair is wet,” Moxie said. She was waiting by the car. “And you shaved.”

  “I got cleaned up.”

  “Where?”

  “In the jailhouse. Want a shower? Nice old policeman.”

  “How’d it smell?”

  “Terrible.”

  “No, thanks. I’d rather shower at your apartment.”

  Fletch started the car and took the road back toward the freeway. “There is no James St. E. Crandall in Wramrud. Never has been.”

  Moxie rubbed her back against the back of the car seat and then scratched her elbow. “I am itchy. We are going straight to your apartment, aren’t we?”

  “No.”

  “Oh, lord. Fletch, I can understand your natural reluctance to get back to the city—we can hear the general laughter from here—but I do want a proper meal and a proper shower.”

  “Thought we’d stop at Frank Jaffe’s house first.”

  “Who’s he? Does he exist, or did he die?”

  “He’s my managing editor. My ex-managing editor.”

  “You think you can find his house?”

  “I know where he lives. We go right by it.”

  “Boy, Fletch. Someone told me you’re a great reporter. Can’t even find a person in a little town like Wramrud, or wherever we just were.”

  “Who told you I’m a great reporter?”

  “You did.”

  Coming onto the freeway, Fletch stepped on the accelerator, hard. “Guess I was wrong.”

  7

  “M Y G O D.” M O X I E stood on the front walk looking at the lit facade of the house. It was an English tudor styled house with established shrubs. “This is where the managing editor of the News-Tribune lives?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’ll bet those wooden beams are fake.”

  Fletch was ringing the doorbell.

  “Moxie? Where are you going?”

  Clara Snow opened the door. She had a half-empty martini glass in her hand.

  “Fletch!”

  “Evening, Clara. Didn’t expect to find you here.”

  Clara did not smile. “Didn’t know you were expected, Fletcher.”

  “You know, when Frank gives an at-home party for his employees—”

  “This is not an at-home party.”

  “Well, Frank must be home, and you’re at home with him, and you are an employee …”

  “Come in, Fletch.”

  “Wait a minute. I have a friend.”

  Fletch looked along the side of the house, to the right, where Moxie was coming out of the established shrubbery.

  “How do you do?” she said, shaking hands with Clara. “So nice to meet you, Mrs. Jaffe.”

  “This isn’t Mrs. Jaffe,” said Fletch.

  Closing the door behind them, Clara said, “Fletch, you’ve got some balls.”

  “I’ve got Moxie,” Fletch said.

  Frank was in the livingroom, dressed in a ski sweater. He was putting another log on the fire. Fletch could feel the air-conditioning in the house was on.

  “Evening, Frank,” he said.

  Frank looked over his glasses at Fletch. “You’re fired, Fletcher. If you weren’t before, you certainly are now.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it’s Friday night and this is my home and fired employees aren’t supposed to come to their boss’s home uninvited on Friday nights. Or ever. It just isn’t polite.”

  “Even if I’m in pursuit of a story?”

  “What story?”

  “That’s what you’re going to tell me.”

  Frank was staring at Moxie. “You’re a beautiful girl,” he said.

  “Thank you, sir,” Moxie said prettily.

  “Really beautiful.”

  Clara Snow moved around the coffee table and sat on the divan.

  “This is Moxie Mooney,” Fletch said. “She’s an actress. Starting rehearsals Monday for a play at the Colloquial Theater.”

  “As long as you’re here,” Frank said. “You might as well have a drink. Least I haven’t lost my manners.”

  “Thanks, Frank. Where’s Betty?”

  Standing over the bar table, pouring two more martinis and freshening his own glass, Frank said, “My wife is in San Francisco. For a weekend of shopping and seeing her brother’s family. Any other questions, Fletch?”

  “Sure.” Fletch looked at Clara Snow.

  Frank said, “Clara is here for dinner with me and to talk over some editorial matters.”

  “Talking over editorial matters with a state house reporter. I see.”

  Clara had been cooking editor until letters of complaint had become overwhelming. Her recipes were making people sick. The Clara Snow Flu was a city room joke. Reporters with heavy hangovers would call up to say they were too sick to work because they had eaten something Clara Snow had recommended. Everyone had been perplexed as to how and why Clara had been transferred from that job to the highly prestigious job of state house reporter.

  “Political matters,” Frank said. “Now, do you want a drink, Fletcher, or do you want me to kick your ass through the front door without opening it?”

  Fletch sat on the divan facing Clara. “Sure, Frank. I like martinis. Sorry to interrupt your meeting with Clara.”

  Frank handed Moxie a martini and put Fletch’s on the coffee table. “Sit down, sit down,” he said to Moxie. “Might as well make yourself at home. Fletch has.”

  Moxie sat beside Fletch, and Frank sat in a chair with his fresh drink.

  “What’s the name of the play you’re in?” Frank asked Moxie.

  “In Love, sort of a romantic comedy.”

  “Didn’t know they produced romantic comedies anymore,” Frank said. “I’d like to see one.”

  “You’re the ingenue?” Clara asked. At thirty, Clara had blossomed into full womanhood.

  “Yes,” Moxie answered. “It’s a comedy about rape.”

  “Hilarious,” Clara said, “I’m sure.”

  “Not rape, really,” said Moxie. “You see, it’s about this young girl who was very strictly brought up and every time her young husband touches her, she thinks she’s being raped. So every time he tries to make love to her, she has him arrested. You see?”

  “Could be amusing, I suppose,” Frank Jaffe said.

  “But husbands can rape wives,” Fletch said.

  �
�The funny thing is,” said Moxie, looking into her martini glass, “the young couple really do love each other. They’re just terribly confused, you know, regarding their rights to each other, and themselves.”

  “A lawyer in every bedroom,” Frank said. “That’s what we need.”

  “Wagnall-Phipps,” Fletch said.

  Frank looked at him. “What?”

  “Can’t say you’re not talking business tonight, Frank. We interrupted a business meeting between you and Clara.”

  “I’m willing to talk newspaper business anytime,” Frank said. “I’m just not sure how willing I am to talk over Wagnall-Phipps with you. A goof’s a goof, Fletch. Hard to take, but there you are.”

  “A story’s a story, Frank.”

  “Don’t get you.”

  “The Vice-president and treasurer of Wagnall-Phipps refers to the chairman of his company as Thomas Bradley, shows me memos from him—recent memos—and someone else tells you that Thomas Bradley is dead. I need some facts.”

  “You needed some facts before you wrote the story,” Clara said.

  “Okay.” Frank looked from one employee to the other. “I read the early edition here at my breakfast table per usual. I only scanned your story, wondering who in heck had assigned you to a business news story. You with your cut-off blue jeans and bare feet—”

  “Bare foot boy with cheek,” Clara said softly.

  “You’ve never struck me as a business news writer,” Frank said, smiling at Fletch.

  “Tom Jeffries got hurt hang-gliding.”

  “I know. So I go into the office and there’s a call waiting for me from an Enid Bradley. She says she’s the chairperson of Wagnall-Phipps and has been since her husband died. While I’m listening to her mild voice on the phone, I open the newspaper to your story, scan it again and see that you’ve quoted her husband, Thomas Bradley, throughout. Recent quotes.”

  “From memos,” Fletch said.

  “You have copies of any of those memos?” Frank asked.

  “No.”

  “So I called Jack Carradine, the business news editor, who had just returned from a trip to New York—”

  “I know Jack’s the business news editor,” Fletch said.

  “—and he doesn’t seem sure whether Bradley’s dead or alive. Apparently Wagnall-Phipps isn’t that important a company. He calls the president of Wagnall-Phipps and is told the same thing—Bradley’s dead. Didn’t I tell you all this on the phone?”

  “No. You didn’t tell me Mrs. Bradley herself called you, or that she is now chairperson of Wagnall-Phipps, and you said you had confirmation from ‘executive officers’ of Wagnall-Phipps, not just one guy—the president.”

  Clara sighed and looked sideways at Frank.

  Frank said, “Dead’s dead.”

  Moxie said, “It’s none of my business, of course, but I think this Wagnall-Phipps company played a trick on Fletch. The News-Tribune did an expose on Wagnall-Phipps a couple of years ago—”

  “People play tricks on reporters all the time,” Frank said. “No one ever tells the exact truth. People always say to a reporter what serves their own interest best. Good reporters know this and just don’t get caught.”

  “Fletch got caught,” said Clara. “And that’s the end of the story.”

  “Frank, will you keep me on salary until I get this thing figured out?”

  “What’s to figure?” asked Frank. “Mrs. Phipps—I mean, Mrs. Bradley said she didn’t want her children reading in the newspaper things her husband recently said. Can you blame her? She said they’re just getting over the death now.”

  Fletch shook his head. “There’s something wrong, Frank.”

  “Sure there is.” Clara walked to the bar to pour herself a newdrink. “Irwin Maurice Fletcher and his sloppy reporting. That’s what’s wrong.”

  Frank leaned forward, elbow on his knees. “Look, Fletch. Carradine called Mrs. Wagnall—I mean, Mrs Bradley back and made all smooth. He even went to the house last night and spent an hour talking to the Bradley kids, saying newspapers sometimes make mistakes. Nobody’s suing us. But the story that we quoted a dead man is all over the country now, and it hurts, Fletch. It hurts the paper. Our publisher picked it up out in Santa Fe and called me. I was going to wait until he got back.”

  “What’d he say?” asked Fletch.

  Frank settled back in his chair. “I asked for a suspension. Honest, I did, Fletch.”

  “And he said no?”

  “What do you think?”

  “He said no.” Fletch stood up.

  “You didn’t drink your drink,” Frank said.

  “I drank mine,” Moxie said.

  Frank smiled at her. “Anything as gorgeous as you are shouldn’t drink.”

  Clara turned slowly from the bar and stared at him.

  “Just one more question, Frank,” Fletch said.

  “What?”

  “Is Clara cooking dinner for you?”

  “Yes. Why?”

  “I’ll call the office,” Fletch said, “and tell Janey you won’t be in Monday.”

  8

  “Y O U S U P P O S E D T O be here?” The News-Tribune’s assistant librarian stood in the doorway glaring at Fletch.

  It was a quarter to eight Saturday morning.

  Looking up from the microfilm consol, Fletch said, “I can be.”

  “I heard this newspaper no longer requires your services.”

  “I heard that, too.”

  “So you should no longer have access to this newspaper’s excellent services. Such as our microfilm library.”

  Fletch turned the consol off and gathered up his note papers. “Come on, Jack. Gimme a break.”

  “Wait a minute.” The barrel-chested man stepped in front of Fletch and held out his hand. “Let me see what you’re takin’ out of here.”

  “Just some notes.”

  “On what? Come on, I want to see.”

  Fletch handed Jack his notes and waited while he scanned them.

  “James Saint Edward Crandall. Address Newtowne. Who’s he?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Jack’s eyes flickered high-beam at Fletch.

  “Charles Blaine. Address Bel Monte. You quoted him in that marvelous story of yours Wednesday. Everyone around here has given that story another real close read—as you might expect.”

  “I expect.”

  “Thomas Bradley. Chairman of the Board, Wagnall-Phipps. Married Enid Riordan. Two children. Address Southworth. You quoted him in that story too, didn’t you?” He grinned at Fletch. “You don’t give up easy, do you?”

  “Should I?”

  Jack handed Fletch back his notes. “I guess everyone has a right to try to save his own ass—even when his ass has already been whipped.”

  “May I use your phone, Jack?”

  “Get out of here now and I won’t have you arrested for trespassing.”

  “Okay, okay.” At the door, Fletch turned and said, “Jack?”

  “I’m still seeing you. Trespasser.”

  “Want to know something interesting?”

  “Yeah. Who’s going to win the third race at Hialeah this afternoon? Tell me so I can make points with Osborne. Knowing you you’ll probably say Trigger.”

  “No obit.”

  “Trigger had a nice obit. Just before Roy Rogers had him stuffed.”

  “Yeah.” Fletch pointed to the consol. “But there is no obit for Tom Bradley in there.”

  “Lots of people die we don’t print the obit. We’re not properly notified. Bradley was no captain of American industry.”

  “I just find it interesting.”

  “Write a nice story about how they stuffed Tom Bradley. Only get the competition to print it this time, willya, Fletch?”

  Standing over his own desk in the city room, Fletch dialed his own home number. The phone rang seven times.

  Nearby, drinking coffee, sat four reporters and one photographer. They were gathered around Al’s desk.
Leaning back in his chair, Al had his feet on his desk. Al was a middle-aged reporter who complained of feet trouble and back problems and always managed to be the last one sent out on assignment. Mostly he held court, passed rumor and gossip in the city room.

  They had grinned broadly at each other when Fletch had entered the city room from the library.

  “Mornin’, Irwin,” Al sang to Fletch. “Don’t remember ever seeing you here this early on a Saturday morning before. What happened? You get thrown out of bed, too?”

  “Telephone,” Moxie said. “I mean, hello?”

  “Good morning, sunshine,” Fletch turned his back on the reporters.

  “Fletch? Why are you always waking me up in the morning?”

  “Because that’s the time of day people get up. Bounce out of bed. Do their breathing exercises.”

  “I didn’t sleep well last night.”

  “You were asleep when I left.”

  Moxie yawned into the phone. “I lay awake a long time after you went to sleep. Thinking about the play. Watching you sleep. Thinking about how much trouble you’re in. I mean, Fletch, you’re ruined.”

  “Down but not out, old thing.”

  “Those people last night, your managing editor, Frank, and that dreadful woman, what’s her name—”

  “Clara Snow.”

  “They wouldn’t have let you into the house, if I hadn’t been there. Frank would have thrown you through the door and that Clara person would have stomped on your head with a high-heeled shoe.”

  “If that’s a question, the answer is: yes—I was using you. Do you object?”

  “ ’Course not.”

  “Frank has an eye for beauty. His left one, I think.”

  “By the way, I was right.”

  “ ’Bout what?”

  “You know those wooden beams on the outside of his house? They’re plastic.”

  “No! And here he’s supposed to be some kind of a tastemaker. Stylesetter. Trendspotter. Managing editor.”

  “Some kind of synthetic. A hollow synthetic at that. I knocked against them.”

  “You have the makings of a reporter, Moxie. Wish I had.”

  “Courage, Fletch.”

  “Listen, I have to do a lot of driving around today. Want to come?”

  “Where?”

  “No place interesting. The suburbs. Got to see people.”