Confess, Fletch Read online

  “The girl you were trying to take to Cagna with you.”

  “I don’t understand you, Mister Fletcher.”

  “Mister Connors, I think you had better think of coming back to Boston.”

  “What?”

  “A young woman was murdered in your apartment. Tuesday night. I found the body.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Her name was Ruth Fryer.”

  “I don’t know anyone named Ruth Prior.”

  “Fryer. She was hit over the head with a whisky bottle.”

  “Am I crazy, or am I just not understanding you?”

  “A girl named Ruth Fryer was killed in your apartment Tuesday night.”

  “Did you do it?”

  “Mister Connors, it appears you are a suspect in a murder case.”

  “I am not. I’m in Italy.”

  “You were in Boston at the time of the murder.”

  “I had nothing to do with it, and I’m going to have nothing to do with it. No one could have gotten into that apartment. You’re the only one who has a key.”

  “And Mrs. Sawyer.”

  “And Mrs. Sawyer. My key is here. Is this some kind of a joke?”

  “You were seen in Boston on Tuesday night, Mister Connors.”

  “I stayed at the Parker House Monday night. I had already moved out of the apartment and didn’t want to mess it up. Look, Fletcher, I don’t know what the hell you’re saying. Was there any damage to the apartment itself?”

  “No.”

  “I have nothing to do with this. I don’t know anyone named Ruth Fryer. And who the hell are you to question me, anyway?”

  “Another suspect in the same murder case.”

  “Well, don’t lay it off on me, pal. I’m sorry somebody’s dead, and I’m sorry somebody’s dead in my apartment, but I don’t know anything about it.”

  “You’re a kitten.”

  “What?”

  “Will you let me talk to Andy again?”

  “If I came running back, then I would be involved. The newspapers would question me. I’m a lawyer in Boston, Fletcher. I can’t afford that. Jesus Christ, did you kill somebody in my apartment?”

  “No. I didn’t.”

  “Whom have the police questioned so far?”

  “Me.”

  “Whom else?”

  “Me.”

  “Fletcher, why don’t you move out of my apartment?”

  “No, I’m not going to do that.”

  “I’ll call the law firm. Somebody’s got to protect my interest.”

  “I thought you didn’t have an interest.”

  “I don’t. Jesus. You’ve ruined dinner. Do you have another bottle of gin somewhere?”

  “Yeah. In the lower cupboard in the pantry. It’s Swiss.”

  “This is a terrible thing to happen. I’m staying away from it.”

  “Okay. Let me talk to Andy.”

  Connors exhaled into the mouthpiece.

  Then the line went dead.

  He had hung up.

  If Fletch had accomplished nothing else, he had ruined their evening together.

  “Pan American Airways. Miss Fletcher speaking.”

  “What?”

  “Pan American Airways. Miss Fletcher speaking.”

  “Your name is Fletcher?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “This is Ralph Locke.”

  “Yes, Mister Locke.”

  “Miss Fletcher, I’d like to fly from Montreal to Genoa, Italy, late Tuesday night. Is that possible?”

  “One moment, sir, I’ll check.” It was scarcely a moment. “TWA’s Flight 805 leaves Montreal at eleven p.m. Tuesday evening, with a connection in Paris for Genoa, Italy.”

  “What’s your first name?”

  “Linda, sir.”

  “Linda Fletcher? You weren’t ever married to someone named Irwin Maurice Fletcher, were you?”

  “No, sir.”

  “You didn’t sound familiar. How long does it take to fly to Montreal from Boston?”

  “About forty minutes, actual flying time, sir. Eastern has a flight at eight p.m., which would give you plenty of time.”

  “Is there a later flight?”

  “Delta flies to Montreal at nine-thirty p.m. That would still give you plenty of time.”

  Talking to her, as obviously she was pushing buttons on a computer console, was like talking to someone in space. A short delay preceded her every answer.

  “Should I make these reservations for you, Mister Locke?”

  “Perhaps later. I’ll call back. Where are you from, Miss Fletcher?”

  “Columbus, Ohio, sir.”

  “Ohio’s a nice place,” Fletch said. “I’ve never been there.”

  Fletch shaved, showered and put on a fresh shirt. It was almost six o’clock.

  At six-thirty the Countess was going to call the police on him if he didn’t meet her in the Ritz bar.

  Instead, the police called him.

  Necktie over his shoulders, he answered the bedroom phone.

  “How are you today, Mister Fletcher?”

  “Ah, Flynn. I wanted to talk to you.”

  “Did you want to confess, by any chance?”

  “No, that wasn’t what I was thinking.”

  “Sorry if I appear to be ignoring you, but a City Council-woman was murdered in her bath this morning and since it’s a politically sensitive case, I’ve been assigned to it. I’ve never held with taking baths in the morning, anyway, but when you’re in politics God knows how many baths a day you need.”

  “What was she killed with?”

  “The murder weapon? An ice pick, Mister Fletcher.”

  “Messy.”

  “Aye, it was that. She took the first thrust in the throat, which seems peculiarly appropriate. I mean, it makes it seem far more the political crime, doesn’t it?”

  “I wouldn’t like your job, Flynn.”

  “It has its downs. She was a chubby old thing.”

  “Inspector, I’ve discovered a few things which might be of interest to you.”

  “Have you, indeed?”

  “The woman in the next apartment, 6A, name Joan Winslow, says she saw Bart Connors in Boston Tuesday night, at about six o’clock, having a drink up the street at the Bullfinch Pub with an attractive young woman.”

  “Now, that’s interesting. We’ll talk with her.”

  “I suspect she’s not too reliable a witness. But I’ve talked with Bart Connors in Italy.”

  “Have you? And now that you’ve talked with him, will he stay in Italy?”

  “Apparently. He refuses to come back.”

  “Small wonder. It’s not his coming this direction I worry about. We have an extradition agreement with Italy, whereas we don’t with one or two other countries he might find attractive.”

  “He says he flew to Genoa through Montreal late Tuesday night.”

  “We know. The nine-thirty Delta Flight 770 to Montreal; the eleven o’clock Trans World Airlines Flight 805 to Paris.”

  “He had plenty of time to do murder here.”

  “Yes, he did.”

  “But the important thing is that he said the reason for his delay in departure, by two or three days, was that he was trying to talk a girl, a specific girl, into going to Italy with him.”

  “But Ruth Fryer wasn’t in Boston until Monday night.”

  “He may have been waiting for her.”

  “He may have been.”

  “Bought her a drink up the street, brought her back here for further persuasion, lost his temper, and bashed her.”

  “It sounds very reasonable.”

  “I would guess he’s been through a tough time emotionally lately.”

  “There’s no way of knowin’ that. Every time I’ve made guesses as to what goes on between a married couple, I’ve been wrong. Even when they’re divorcing.”

  “Anyway….”

  “At least your theories in defence of yourself are
becoming fuller. More cogent, if you know what I mean. I’m pleased to see, for example, you’re beginning to accept the idea that someone else hit Ruth Fryer over the head with a bottle—not that she bopped herself and put the bottle back carefully on the tray across the room before expiring.”

  “You’ll talk to the Winslow woman?”

  “We will. In the meantime, we have the autopsy report on the Fryer girl. She was killed between eight and nine o’clock Tuesday night.”

  “The airport is ten minutes away. Connors’ flight was at nine-thirty.”

  “It is ten minutes away. When the Boston police are succeeding at their traffic duty. She had had about three drinks of alcohol in the preceding three or four hours.”

  “At the Bullfinch Pub.”

  “That can’t be determined. Despite her naked condition, she had not had sexual relations with a male in the preceding twenty-four hours.”

  “Of course not. She refused him.”

  “Mister Fletcher, would a man of Mister Connors’ age and experience, in this advanced age, murder a girl because she refused his sexual advances?”

  “Certainly. As you said, if he’d had enough to drink.”

  “I would think, even with liquor he’d have to have a deep-seated psychological problem to do in a young lady who said ‘No’.”

  “How do we know he hasn’t?”

  “I’ll grant you, Mister Fletcher, there is some evidence against your landlord. And, under the circumstances, I don’t even perceive your trying to pin it on him as being particularly ignoble.”

  “I have the advantage, Flynn. I know I’m not the murderer. I’m trying to find out who is.”

  “However, the evidence against yourself is a great deal stronger. Ruth Fryer was the Ground Hostess for First Class passengers of Trans World Airlines Flight 529 from Rome Tuesday. Your Ground Hostess. Several hours later, after having been dressed for the evening, she’s found murdered in your apartment. Your fingerprints were on the murder weapon.”

  “Okay, Flynn. What can I say?”

  “You can confess, Mister Fletcher, and let me get on with the City Council woman’s murder.”

  “Person, Inspector.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Councilperson. City Councilperson.”

  “Fat lot of good the distinction will do her now she’s been slain in the tub. Will you confess, lad?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Do you still think the murder’s an accidental and impersonal coincidence? Is that still your lame stand?”

  “Yes.”

  “Grover’s of the fixed opinion we should arrest you and charge you with murder before you do harm to someone else.”

  “But you’re not going to.”

  “I’m inclining very much that way.”

  “Did you ever find that girl who gave me directions in that square Tuesday night? The square with the Citgo sign?”

  “Of course not. We haven’t even looked. We’d have to interview the entire female population at Boston University, and that still wouldn’t cover all the young women who might be in Ken-more Square at that time of night. There are night clubs there.”

  “Oh.”

  “It’s no good, lad. The evidence is piled up. I doubt we’ll ever get more.”

  “I hope not.”

  “It’s not precisely warm of me to ask you to confess by telephone, but there is this other murder.”

  “Will you stop giving the evidence you have to the newspapers? You’re convicting me.”

  “Ach, that. Well, that puts as much pressure on me as it does on you.”

  “Not quite, Inspector. Not quite.”

  “Well, I’ll leave it alone for a while. Give you time to think. Get a lawyer. I have a natural instinct to not do precisely what Grover tells me to do. You might even get a psychiatrist.”

  “Why a psychiatrist?”

  “It’s your seeming innocence that puzzles me. I sincerely believe you think you didn’t kill Ruth Fryer. The evidence says you did.”

  “You mean you think I blacked it out.”

  “It’s been known to happen. The human mind plays amazing tricks. Or am I doing the wrong thing in giving you a line of legal defence?”

  “I guess anything’s possible.”

  “The thing is, Mister Fletcher, what I’m saying is, you have to keep an open mind to the evidence. Even you. You might start to begin to believe the evidence. You see, we have to believe the evidence.”

  “There’s a lot of evidence.”

  “I shouldn’t be doing this on the phone. But there’s this other body.”

  “I understand.”

  “I suppose we could work a thing whereby the court appoints a psychiatrist for you….”

  “Not yet, Flynn.”

  “Do you agree this interpretation of the crime and its solution is a possibility?”

  “Yes. Of course.”

  “Good lad.”

  “But it didn’t happen.”

  “I’m sure you don’t think so.”

  “I know so.”

  “That, too. Well, that’s my best guess at the moment. Got to get back to my chubby City Councilperson.”

  “Inspector?”

  “Yes?”

  “I’m about to go to the Ritz-Carlton.”

  “Yes?”

  “Just warning you. You’d better have your men keep a pretty sharp eye on the side door this time.”

  “They will, Mister Fletcher. They will.”

  XV

  F L E T C H walked the “eighteen, twenty miles” to the Ritz-Carlton, which was around a corner and up a few blocks.

  He hung around the lobby, looking at the books on the newsstand, until his watch said six-thirty-five.

  Then he went into the bar.

  Countess Sylvia de Grassi was receiving considerable attention from the waiters. Her drink was finished, but one was dusting the clean table, another was bringing her a fresh plate of olive hors d’oeuvres, a third was standing by, admiring her with big eyes.

  Sylvia, near forty, had brightly tousled bleached hair, magnificent facial features, smooth skin, and apparently the deepest cleavage ever spotted in Boston. Her dress was cut not to cover her breasts but to suggest the considerable structural support needed. Clearly there was nothing holding them down. They preceded her like an offering.

  “Ah, Sylvia. Nice trip?”

  He kissed her cheek as a socially acceptable alternative.

  “Sorry to be a little late.” All three waiters held his chair.

  “Mrs. Sawyer got her eyelashes caught in the freezer door.”

  “What’s this, Mrs. Sawyer—freezer door?”

  Sylvia’s big brown eyes were puckered with impatient suspicion.

  “Just the best excuse I’ve heard all day.”

  “Now, Flesh, I am not going to have any of your double-talk in English. I want the truth.”

  “Absolutely. What are you drinking?”

  “Campari in soda.”

  “Still watching your figure, uh? Might as well. Everyone else is.” He said to all the waiters—as he could get the eye of none of them—“A Campari and soda and a Bath Towel. You don’t have a Bath Towel? Then I’ll just have a Chivas and water. Now, Sylvia, you were saying you were about to tell the truth. Why are you in Boston?”

  “I come to Boston to stop you. You and Angela. I know you conspire against me. You plan to rob my paintings.”

  “Nonsense, dear lady. What makes you think a thing like that?”

  “Because. In Angela’s room I found your notes. Your address, 152 Beacon Street, Boston. Your telephone number. Also a list of the paintings.”

  “I see. From that you reasonably concluded I came to Boston to find the paintings.”

  “I know you did.”

  “And you followed me.”

  “I come ahead of you. I fly Rome, New York, then Boston. I wanted to be waiting when you got off the airplane in Boston. I wanted you to run right i
nto me.”

  “What fun. What held you up?”

  “I missed the connection in New York.”

  “You mean, you were here in Boston on Tuesday?”

  “I was. Five o’clock I arrived Boston.”

  “My, my. And all that time I thought I knew no one in Boston. What did you do then?”

  “I came here to the hotel. I call you. No answer.”

  “I went out to dinner.”

  “I call you next day, yesterday, leave a message. You never called back.”

  “Okay, so you killed Ruth Fryer.”

  “What you say? I kill no one.”

  She retracted her supercarriage while the waiter served her drink.

  “What’s this talk of kill?”

  Fletch ignored the drink in front of him.

  “Sylvia, I don’t have the paintings. I’ve never seen the paintings. I don’t know where the paintings are. I’m not even sure I’ve got the story about the paintings straight.”

  “Then why are you in Boston with a list of the paintings? Tell me that.”

  “I’m in Boston to do research on a book about an American painter named Edgar Arthur Tharp, Junior. I brought a list of the mythical de Grassi paintings with me, just in case I ran across any reference to them. Boston’s a centre of culture.”

  “How do the Americans say it? Bullshit, Flesh! You’re engaged to marry my daughter, Angela. The day after her father’s funeral, you jump on a plane with the list of the missing paintings in your pocket, and come to Boston, U.S. America. What else to think?”

  “Stepdaughter. Angela is your stepdaughter.”

  “I know. She is not mine. She plans to rob me.”

  “Has Menu’s will been read?”

  “No. Bullshit lawyers will not read it. They say, too much confusion. Police say, this matter settled, go away, Countess, cry. Bullshit lawyers say this matter not settled. So Countess go away and cry some more. All this time, Angela, you rob, rob, rob me.”

  “Angela’s mentioned the paintings. Menti mentioned the paintings. You talk about the paintings. I’ve never seen the paintings. I don’t even know they ever existed.”

  “They exist! I’ve seen them! They are my paintings, now that Menti is dead. Poor Menti. They are what I have in the world. He left them to me.”

  “You don’t know that. The will hasn’t been read. They’re the de Grassi paintings. He might have left them to his daughter, who is a de Grassi. He might have left them to both of you. Do you know what Italian estate laws are concerning such matters? They might not even be mentioned in the will. They’ve been gone a long time. He might have left them all to a museum in Livorno, or Rome.”