Confess, Fletch

Twenty-eight

The Countess was not at the apartment when Fletch returned.

She had left a note for him saying she had gone to mass.

When the downstairs door’s buzzer rang, Fletch shouted into the mouthpiece, “Who is it?”

“Robinson.”

It was certainly not the Countess’s voice.

“Who?”

“Clay Robinson. Let me in.”

Fletch had never heard of Clay Robinson.

He let him in.

Fletch stood in the opened front door, listening to the elevator.

A curly-haired man in his mid-twenties got off the elevator. His face was puffy, his eyes red-rimmed and bloodshot, the pupils glazed. His lips were cracked.

As soon as he let himself through the elevator doors, he returned his hands to the pockets of his raincoat.

“Fletcher?”

“Yeah?”

The man’s words slurred.

“I was engaged to marry Ruth Fryer.”

Fletch took a step forward with his left foot and swung with his right hand. His fist landed hard against Robinson’s jaw.

Going down, Robinson couldn’t get his hands out of his pockets.

He crashed against the small table under the mirror across from the elevator, rolled off it, and fell onto the floor, a flurry of raincoat.

Fletch put his right knee at the base of Robinson’s rib cage and knelt hard on it.

In the right-hand pocket of the raincoat, inside Robinson’s hand, Fletch felt the pistol, Robinson’s eyes rolled toward his brows.

Fletch grabbed the gun from the pocket and stood up. It was a .22 caliber target pistol.

Robinson sat on the rug, one arm straight to the floor, a knee up, his other hand gently touching his jaw. “Come in,” Fletch said.

He went into his. apartment and put the gun in a drawer of the desk in the den.

When he returned to the apartment’s foyer, Robinson was standing in the door, dazed, right hand in coat pocket, left hand rubbing his jaw.

“Come in,” Fletch said.

He closed the door behind Robinson.

“I’ll put some coffee on. You take a shower.”

He walked Robinson down the corridor to the master bedroom’s bathroom. Sylvia’s things were everywhere.

“Hot, then cold.”

Fletch left him in the bathroom.

He heard the shower running while he crossed the hall to the den with a coffee tray.

After a while Robinson appeared in the door of the den, hair wet, tie hanging from his opened collar, raincoat over his arm.

His eyes were less glazed.

“Have some coffee,” Fletch said.

Robinson dropped his coat on a side chair, and sat in a red leather chair.

“You’ve had a rough time.” Fletch, handed him cup of steaming, black coffee. “I’m sorry.”

Robinson, saucer held at chest level, sipped his coffee, blinking slowly.

Fletch said, “I didn’t kill Ruth Fryer. Nothing says you have to believe me, or even can believe me. I found her body. She was a beautiful girl. And she looked like a hell of a nice person. I didn’t kill her.”

Robinson said, “Shit.”

“Shooting me would have been a real mistake,” Fletch said. “But I dig the impulse.”

In his chair, Robinson choked. Then, breath out of control, he put his coffee on the side table, his face forward in his hands, and sobbed.

Fletch went into the living room and studied the Paul Klee.

The noise from the den was a full-chested, strangulated, broken-hearted sobbing. It stopped. Then it started again.

When the pauses became more frequent, and longer, Fletch went back to the bathroom and soaked a hand towel in cold water. He wrung it out.

Going back into the den, he tossed the wet towel at Robinson.

“Anything I can do for you?”

Robinson rubbed his face in the towel, then pushed it-back over his hair.

He sat, head over his knees, towel pressed against his forehead.

“Were you at the funeral?” Fletch asked.

“Yes. Yesterday. In Florida.”

“How are her parents?”

“There’s only her father.”

Fletch said, “I’m sorry for him. I’m sorry for you.”

Clay Robinson sat back in a slouch.

“I hadn’t broken down before this. I guess I’ve been holding myself pretty tight.” He grinned. “The thought of killing, you got me through it.”

“Do you want some food?”

“No.”

“And you don’t want anything to drink.”

“No.”

“Where are you from?”

“Washington. I work for the Justice Department.”

“Oh?”

“A clerk. A clerk with a college education.”

“How did you meet Ruth Fryer?”

“On an airplane. I was flying some papers in from Los Angeles. We spent the night together.”

“You picked her up.”

“We met,” said Clay Robinson. “Fell in love. We were getting married New Year’s.”

“I don’t remember her wearing an engagement ring.”

“I hadn’t bought one yet. Have you ever lived on clerk’s pay?”

“Yes.”

“I came up Tuesday,” Clay said.

“To Boston?”

“Yes. I was going to surprise her. I knew she had ground duty all this week. I took some time off. By the time I got to the hotel, she had gone.”

“Do you know with whom?”

“No. Her roommate just said Ruth’s uniform was there, so she must have changed and gone out. I didn’t know about it, about the murder, until next morning. When I went to the airport to find her.”

“What did you do?”

“I don’t know. I don’t remember. It was the next morning I called her father and began to make arrangements to fly the body down. The police had already one an autopsy. Arrogant bastards.”

“Where did you get the gun?”

“Pawn shop in the South End. Paid a hundred dollars for it.”

“This morning?”

“Last night.”

“Where did you stay last night?”

“Mostly in a bar. I got pretty drunk. I fell into some hotel at two, three this morning.”

“Want some more coffee?”

“I don’t know what I want.”

“There’s an unused guest room in there,” Fletch said. “If you want to hit the bed, it’s all right with me.”

“No.” A little more clear-eyed, Robinson looked at, Fletch wonderingly. “I was going to kill you.”

“Yeah.”

“You moved mighty fast”

Fletch said, “What, are you going to do now?”

“I’m going to find Ruthie’s murderer.”

“Good for you.”

“What do you know about it?” Robinson asked. “I mean, about the murder.”

“It’s being handled by Inspector Francis Xavier Flynn of the Boston Police Department.”

“Who does he think killed Ruthie?”

“Me.”

“Who do you think killed Ruthie?”

“I have a couple of ideas.”

“Are you going to tell me?”

“No.”

Robinson said, “You have the gun.”

“Yeah,” Fletch said, “But you might have another hundred dollars.”

Robinson’s white face moved as slowly as changes in the moon.

“Why don’t you to home?” Fletch said. “Go downstairs, get into a taxi, go to the airport, take the next plane to Washington, taxi to your apartment, have something warm to eat, go to bed, and tomorrow-morning go to work.”

Robinson said, “Sounds nice.”

“Thought it would if someone laid it out for you.”

Robinson said, “All right.”

He stood up stiffly and reached for his raincoat.

“What am I supposed to say to you?”

Fletch said, “Good-bye?”

“I guess if I ever find out you are the murderer, I will kill you.”

“Okay.”

“Even if they put you in jail for twenty, thirty years, however long, when they release you, I will kill you.”

“It’s a deal.”

At the door, Robinson said, “Good-bye.”

Fletch said, “Come again. When you’re feeling better.”

Before leaving the apartment himself, an hour or two later, Fletch wrote a note to the Countess saying he had gone to the airport to pick up Andy.