Confess, Fletch Page 8

  “Nonsense! Menti would never do that to me. Menti loved me. It was his great sadness that we had the paintings no more. He knew how I loved those paintings.”

  “I’m sure you did. So what makes you think the paintings are in Boston?”

  “Because you come here. The day after the funeral. You and Angela have your heads together. Angela wants those paintings. She’s going to rob me!”

  “Okay, Sylvia. I give up. Tell me about the paintings.”

  “The de Grassi Collection. Nineteen paintings. Some, Menti had from his parents, others he collected himself. Before World War Two.”

  “And I suspect during and after World War Two.”

  “Before, during, after World War Two.”

  “He was an Italian officer during the war?”

  “He did nothing about the war. The de Grassis turned their palace, Livorno, into a hospital.”

  “Palace? Big old house.”

  “They took care of Italian soldiers, citizens, German soldiers, American soldiers, British soldiers—everybody soldiers. Menti told me. He spent his fortune. He hired doctors, nurses.”

  “And picked up a few paintings.”

  “He had the paintings. Them he did not sell. Even years after the war. Angela was born. He sold his land, bit by bit, the de Grassi land, but never sold a painting. You know what the paintings are. You have the list.”

  “Yeah. From what I’ve been able to find out so far, they’ve never been recorded. Anywhere. No one knows they exist.”

  “Because they have always been in a private collection. The de Grassi Collection. See? You are looking for them!”

  Fletch said, “I made an inquiry.”

  “You son of a bitch! You are looking for them. You lie to me!”

  “Andy gave me the list. I said I would make an inquiry. I’ve asked one dealer about one painting. Please don’t call me a son of a bitch anymore. I’m sensitive.”

  “You and Angela are not going to rob me of my paintings!”

  “You’ve made that point pretty well, too. You’re accusing me of robbery. Go on with the story. When were the paintings stolen?”

  “Two years ago. Stolen overnight. Every one of them.”

  “From the house in Livorno?”

  “Yes.”

  “Weren’t the servants there?”

  “Ah, they’re no good. Very old, very sleepy. Deaf and blind. Ria and Pep. Menti had great loyalty for them. Last two de Grassi servants. I told him they stupid old fools. Never should he leave such a fortune in paintings to their charge.”

  “They heard nothing and saw nothing?”

  “Flesh, they didn’t even realize they were gone until we came back to the house and said, ‘Where are the paintings?’ They were so used to them. They had seen them all their lives. They didn’t even recognize when they were gone. All the time we were away, they never even went into the front of the house!”

  “And the paintings weren’t insured?”

  “Never. Stupid old Italian counts do not insure things they’ve always had, always been used to.”

  “Menti was a stupid old Italian count, eh?”

  “About insurance, he was as bad as the rest of them. As bad as the Catholic Church.”

  “He probably couldn’t afford the premiums.”

  “He couldn’t afford the premiums. Then, whoosh, one day they were gone. The police did not care so much. Just some paintings, they said. There was no big insurance company making them find the paintings and kill the people who stole them.”

  “You weren’t in Livorno when the paintings were stolen?”

  “Menti and I were on our honeymoon. In Austria.”

  “That’s not far.” Fletch tried one of the olives. “So where are the paintings, Sylvia?”

  “What you mean, ‘Where are the paintings, Sylvia?’”

  “I think you stole them yourself. Is that what you don’t want me to find out? Is that why you’re here?”

  “Stole them myself!”

  “Sure. In your mid-thirties, you marry a sixty-seven-year-old Italian count, with a palace in Livorno and an apartment in Rome. You’re his third wife. He’s your second husband. Your first husband was Brazilian?”

  “French.” Her face vacillated between studied amusement and murderous rage.

  “You have, let’s say, international connections. You marry the old boy. You go on your honeymoon. You discover he’s broke. Or, he has very little money. Nothing like the fortune you thought he had. You realize his whole fortune is in these paintings. He’s thirty years older than you. You think he might leave the paintings to his daughter, to a museum. After all, you told him you married him for love, right? So you arranged to have the paintings stolen. You stashed them away. Did you even arrange to have Menti kidnapped and murdered? Now you’re scared to death I’m going to catch you.”

  The amusement in her face was agonized.

  She said, “I hate you.”

  “Because I’m right.”

  “I loved Menti. I would do nothing to harm him. I did not steal the paintings.”

  “But you, too, left Rome the day after the funeral.”

  “To catch you.”

  “It’s one thing for the prospective son-in-law of the deceased to leave town the day after the funeral. It’s something else for the grieving widow to skip.”

  “If I killed anyone, I would kill you.”

  “Which brings up another question, Sylvia. Did you come to my apartment Tuesday night? Was the door opened by a naked young lady who said she was waiting for Bart Connors? Not being able to make sense out of her, did you hit her with a bottle of whisky?”

  “I not make sense out of you.”

  “Of course not.”

  “You say your apartment is twenty miles away. That’s what you said.”

  “It’s just around the corner, Sylvia. And you know it.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. ‘Killing a girl.’ First you say I kill Menti, and then you say I kill some girl. You’re crazy in the head.”

  “I’ve already admitted that possibility today.”

  “Who is this man you talked to about the paintings?”

  “I have to have a few secrets of my own.”

  Fletch stood and neatly put his chair back under the table.

  “Thanks for the drink, Sylvia.”

  “You not paying?”

  “You invited me. It’s a whole new world, babe. You pay.”

  XVI

  “I G U E S S it’s a pretty good job,” Fletch said. “I can’t read the shit through the paint.”

  “It’s a nice job if you like hearses,” the manager said. “What will a black truck do for your plumbing business?”

  “I don’t know,” Fletch said. “Might improve it.”

  “Neighbours will think you’re carrying out a body.”

  Friday morning was cool and cloudy again.

  The manager said, “Did you get down to the Registry?”

  Fletch said, “I brought cash for you.”

  “I’ll get the bill.”

  Fletch paid him off and took the keys to his black panel truck.

  “Okay, fella,” the manager said. “You get stopped in that truck and the registration don’t match, don’t say where you got it painted.”

  “I’ll get to the Registry tomorrow,” Fletch said. “Saturday.”

  When he was getting into the truck, the manager said, “Don’t suppose you got a spare minute?”

  “Why? What’s the matter?”

  “Leak. In the men’s room.”

  “No, thanks,” said Fletch. “Don’t need to.”

  XVII

  “W I L L you tell Mister Saunders that Mister Ralph Locke is in the lobby waiting to see him?”

  The smile of the woman at the reception desk was a widow’s smile. In her fifties, she had learned to smile again, after a funeral, after someone had given her a job, a new but lesser life. Fletch guessed she was the widow of a jou
rnalist—perhaps one of those later names inscribed in a long plaque on the lobby wall, starting with 1898 and dribbling through years of war, collisions with fire trucks, and accidents with demon rum.

  “A copy boy will be right down to get you,” she smiled.

  In mid-afternoon, Fletch had gone down to the Ford Ghia parked at the curb.

  There were six parking tickets under the windshield wipers.

  Knowing the two men in the car across the street were plain-clothesmen assigned to watch him, he tore the six parking tickets up and dropped the pieces in the street.

  They did not arrest him for destruction of public records, contempt, or littering.

  So he led them to the Boston Daily Star building.

  It was a wet, greystone building in the bowels of the city. The narrow streets around it were clogged with Star delivery trucks.

  Fletch found two places to park.

  He drove the Ghia into one.

  And waved the policemen into the other.

  A copy boy led him through the huge, smelly old city room.

  Jack Saunders was waiting for him near the copy desk.

  Fletch said, “I see the publisher has paid off the mortgage.”

  Shaking hands, Jack looked around the large, yellow room. A hundred years of nicotine had attached itself to the walls, ceiling and floor.

  “I think he’s almost got it paid off. Another few payments.”

  In the morgue, Jack said to the young help behind the counter, “Randy, this is Ralph Locke, Chicago Post, here working on a story.”

  “I know your by-line, Mister Locke,” the kid said.

  “Ah, shit,” said Fletch.

  Jack laughed. “Show him around, will you, Randy?”

  Fletch knew the alphabet. He also knew left from right.

  Very shortly he got rid of the young hyprocrite.

  First the regional Who’s Who.

  An item on page 208 read:

  Connors, Bartholomew, lawyer; b. Cambridge, Mass. Feb. 7, 1936; s. Ralph and Lilliam (Day) C; B.A. Dartmouth, 1958; Harvard Law, 1961; m. Lucy Aureal Hyslop, June 6, 1963; Tullin, O’Brien and Corbett, 1962-; partner, 1971. Harvard Club, Boston; Harvard Club, New York. Boylston Club; Trustee, Inst. Modern Art; Director Childes Hospital, Control Systems, Inc., Wardor-Rand, Inc., Medical Implements, Inc. Home: 152 Beacon St., Boston. Office: 32 State St., Boston.

  An item on page 506 read:

  Horan, Ronald Risom, educator, author, art dealer; b. April 10, 1919, Burlington, Vt.; s. Charles N. and Beatrice (Lamson) H.; B.A. Yale, 1940, U.S. Navy, 1940-45 (Commander); M.A. Cambridge, 1947; Ph.D Harvard, 1949; m. Grace Gulkis, Oct. 12, 1948 (d. 1953). Harvard fac. 1948-; ass’t. prof., dept Fine Arts, 1954-. Cont. ed., Objects, 1961-65; cont. ed., Art Standards International, 1955-. Author, Themes and Images, September Press, 1952; Techniques in Object Authentication, September Press, 1959. Director, Horan Gallery, 1953-. Lecturer, Cambridge, 1966. Athenaeum, St. Paul’s Society, Bosely Club; Advisor, Karkos Museum, 1968-. Home: 60 Newbury St., Boston. Office: Horan Gallery, 60 Newbury St., Boston.

  There was no item in Who’s Who for Inspector Francis Xavier Flynn.

  There was little in the newspaper clipping files directly concerning either Connors or Horan.

  Connors was represented by a single clipping. Once he had issued to the press and public the recent tax statements of a then-gubernatorial candidate, a client and Harvard Law School classmate, who did not win.

  The story referred to Connors as “senior partner of the State Street law firm, Tullin, O’Brien and Corbett and son of former U.S. Ambassador to Australia, Ralph Connors”.

  Connors’ photograph showed a fair-sized, athletic-looking man.

  The file on Ambassador Ralph Connors apparently had been cleaned out, except for the obituary. Until becoming Ambassador, he had been Chairman of the Board of Wardor-Rand, Inc. He died in 1951.

  There was no photograph of Ronald Risom Horan.

  The only news item concerning Horan reported an attempted burglary of the Horan Gallery in 1975. From the way the item was written, Fletch guessed it had been taken straight from a police spokesperson. There was no actual confirmation. There was no follow-up story.

  The obituary of Grace Gulkis Horan preceded her husband’s folder in the file. A graduate of Wellesley College and heiress to the Gulkis fortune (Gulkis Rubber), she was mostly noted for being owner of the Star of Hunan jade. She was a victim of leukaemia.

  There were perhaps forty-five clippings under Francis Xavier Flynn’s name—all dating within the last eighteen months.

  Fletch did not read through all the reports, but he noticed they followed a pattern.

  A crime would be reported. A follow-up story would report Flynn had been assigned to it. After a few days of absolutely static news stories, in which there would be no news, there would be the “public outcry” story: Why has this crime not been solved? Impatient city editors who believed they were getting a runaround from the police were quick to report to the public its indignation. Immediately thereafter a police spokesperson would announce an imminent arrest. Not immediately thereafter, Flynn would be quoted, in response to questioning, as saying, “Nonsense. We’re not arresting anybody”. At first, this announcement would be followed by another “public outcry” story or one which regretfully questioned the competence of the Boston police.

  Not in response, absolutely on his own time schedule, Flynn would announce an arrest. Frequently the arrest report appeared as a small item, on a back page.

  Halfway through the file, references began to appear to Inspector Francis “Reluctant” Flynn. The “public outcry” and “police incompetence” stories became less frequent and then stopped altogether. The press had discovered they couldn’t push Flynn. They had also discovered he was pretty good.

  One of the earliest reports referred to Flynn as “formerly Chicago precinct chief of detectives”.

  “Do you need anything, Mister Locke?”

  The young hypocrite ambled up the row between the file cabinets.

  “No, thanks, Randy.” Fletch shut the drawer. “I guess I’m done.”

  “What’s the story you’re working on, Mister Locke?”

  “Nothing very interesting. Feature on the history of New England celebrations of the American Revolution.”

  “Oh.”

  The kid appeared to agree it wasn’t very interesting. If Ralph Locke was working on such a nothing story, he wasn’t very interesting, either.

  “I expect you’ll read it,” Fletch said. “It will be under my by-line.”

  XVIII

  F L E T C H found Jack Saunders in the city room.

  Someone had handed him a wire photo, which he showed to Fletch.

  It was a picture of the President of the United States trying to put on a sweater without first removing his vizored cap and sunglasses.

  “That’s news, uh?”

  “Actually, it is,” said Fletch. “I always thought he stepped into his sweaters.”

  Jack dropped the picture on the copy desk.

  “Send it over to the Sunday feature section. Maybe they’ll run it under ‘Trends’.”

  “Jack, I’d like to see your art critic.”

  “So would I,” said Jack. “I’m not sure I ever have. We get a lot of phone calls for him. Mostly angry. His name’s Charles Wainwright.”

  They walked down a long, dark corridor to the back of the building.

  Fletch said, “Do you remember Inspector Flynn in Chicago?”

  “What Flynn? ‘Reluctant’ Flynn?”

  “Yeah. Your copy said he was a precinct Chief of Detectives in Chicago before coming here.”

  “The Star said that?”

  “Your very own newspaper.”

  “Frank Flynn was never in Chicago. Not two years ago. And not with that rank. I would have had to know him.”

  “I don’t remember him, either.”

  “That’s a mystery,” said Jack.

  “That
’s a mystery.”

  Charles Wainwright was the filthiest man Fletch had ever seen indoors.

  His face was only relatively shaved, as if beard had been pulled out in tufts. In his fifties, particularly his nose and chin gave sustenance to many black-headed pimples. His shirt collars were turning up in decay. And on the shirt front, where the protruding stomach had stopped their fall, were evidences of at least a dozen meals. Tomato sauce had dribbled on to egg yolk.

  “This is our great art critic, Charles Wainwright, Ralph,” Jack said. “Charles, Ralph Locke is from Chicago, here working on a story.”

  Fletch braced himself to shake hands, but the slob didn’t require it.

  “Do what you can for him, eh?”

  “Why should I?”

  It took Jack a second to realize the question was serious.

  “Because I ask you too.”

  “I don’t see why I should do this man’s work for him. I have work of my own to do.”

  Fletch said, “Actually, I’m not working on a story, Mister Wainwright. There’s a rumour around Chicago that one of your Boston dealers might donate a painting to the museum there, and the publisher just asked me to stop by and have you fill me in on him.”

  “What do you mean? You want me to do a story on him?”

  “If the guy actually donates the painting, I’d think you’d be the first person we’d call.”

  “Who is it?”

  “Horan.”

  “Ronnie?”

  “Is that what he’s called?”

  Not concealing his disgust, Jack said to Fletch, “Good luck”, and left.

  In the small office newspapers and books were piled everywhere, other newspapers and books thrown on top of them. And on top of that was mildew and then dust.

  Wainwright sat at his desk. He rather sank among the piles.

  “I’ve known Ronnie for years.”

  There was no other place in the room to sit. Although apparently permanent, none of the piles looked stable enough to bear weight.

  Wainwright said, “We went to Yale together.”