Confess, Fletch

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 Councilwoman 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 defense 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 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 Councilwoman’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 Keno 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 defense?”

“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 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.”