Fletch’s Fortune

Thirteen

9:30 A.M.

IS GOD DEAD, OR JUST DE-PRESSED?

Address by Rt. Rev. James Halford

Conservatory

10:00 A.M.

Is ANYONE OUT THERE?

Weekly Newspapers Group Discussion

Bobby-Joe Hendricks Cocktail Lounge

Fletch had breakfast in his room, listening to Virginia State Police Captain Andrew Neale questioning Lydia March and Walter March, Junior, in Suite 12.

There were the preliminary courtesies—Captain Neale saying, “I know this must be terribly difficult for you, Mrs. March”; Lydia saying, “I know it’s necessary”; his saying, “Thank you. You have my sympathy. I would avoid disturbing you at this point if it were at all possible”—while Fletch was spooning his half a grapefruit.

Junior had to be fetched from his bedroom.

“Junior’s a little slow this morning,” Lydia said. “Neither of us is getting any sleep, of course.”

“Hello, Mister Neale,” Junior said.

His voice was not as clear as Lydia’s or Neale’s.

“Good morning, Mister March. I’ve told your mother that you have my sympathy, and I hate to put you both through this.…”

“Right,” Junior said. “Hate to go through it. Hate to go through the whole shabby thing.”

“If you would just go over the circumstances of your husband’s.… You don’t mind my using a tape recorder, do you?”

Junior said, “Tape recorder?”

“Of course not, Captain Neale. Do anything you like.”

“As an aid to my memory, and hopefully, so I won’t have to disturb you again. It’s most important that we fix the timing of this … incident precisely.”

“Incident!” said Junior.

“Sorry,” said Neale. “All words are inadequate.…”

“Apparently,” said Junior.

“We’re particularly interested in.…”

“I’ll do my best, Captain,” Lydia said. “Only it’s so.…”

“Mrs. March, if you can just describe everything, every detail, from the moment you woke up yesterday morning?”

“Yes. Well, we, that is, Walter and I, were scheduled to have breakfast at eight o’clock yesterday morning with Helena and Jake Williams—Helena is the Executive Secretary of the Alliance—to go over everything a final time before the mobs arrived, you know, discuss any problems there might have been.…”

“Were there any you knew of?”

“Any what?”

“Any problems.”

“No. Not really. There was a small problem about the President.”

“The president of what?”

“… the United States.”

“Oh. What was that?”

“What was what?”

“The problem with the President of the United States.”

“Oh. Well, you see, he doesn’t play golf.”

“I know.”

“Well, you see, he was scheduled to arrive at three in the afternoon. By helicopter. The problem was what to do with him until dinner. Presidents of the United States have always played golf. Almost always. At these conventions, the President goes out and walks around the golf course with a few members of the press, and it makes good picture opportunities for the working press, and it makes it seem to the public that we’re doing something for him, helping him to relax, giving him a break from work, and that the press and the President can be friendly, you know.…”

“I see.”

“But the President, this President, doesn’t play golf. The night before, Jake—that’s Mister Williams—over drinks—well, we were talking about this and Jake was making silly suggestions, of what to do with the President of the United States for four hours. He suggested we fill up the swimming pool with catfish and give the President a net and let him wade in and catch them all. I shouldn’t be saying this. Oh, Junior, help!”

“What did you decide?”

“I think they were deciding to put up softball teams, the President and Secret Service and all that against some reporters. Only Hendricks Plantation doesn’t have a softball field, of course. Who has? And Jake was saying, what would happen if the President of the United States got beaned by the Associated Press?”

“Really, Mister Neale,” Junior said.

“Right,” Neale said. “Mrs. March.…”

“At least the Vice-President plays golf,” she said.

“At what time did you wake up, Mrs. March?”

“I’m not sure. Seven-fifteen? Seven-twenty? I heard the door to the suite close.”

“That was me, Mister Neale,” Junior said. “I went down to the lobby to get the newspapers.”

“Walter had left his bed. It’s always been a thing with him to be up a little earlier than I. A masculine thing. I heard him moving around the bathroom. I lay in bed a little while, a few minutes, really, waiting for him to be done.”

“The bathroom door was closed?”

“Yes. In a moment I heard the television here in the living room go on, softly—one of those morning news and features network shows Walter always hated so much—so I got up and went into the bathroom.”

“Excuse me. How did your husband get from the bathroom to the living room without coming back through your bedroom?”

“He went through Junior’s bedroom, of course. He didn’t want to disturb me.”

“Mrs. March, are you saying that, in fact, you did not see your husband at all yesterday morning?”

“Oh, Captain Neale.”

“I’m sorry. I mean, alive?”

“No. I didn’t.”

“Then how do you know it was he in the bathroom yesterday morning?”

“Captain, we’ve been married fifty years. You get used to the different sounds of your family. You know them, even in a hotel suite.”

“Okay. You were in the bathroom. The television was playing softly in the living room.…”

“I heard the door to the suite close again, so I thought Walter had gone down for coffee.”

“Had the television gone off?”

“No.”

“So, actually, someone could have come into the suite at that point.”

“No. At first, I thought Junior might have come back, but he couldn’t have.”

“Why not?”

“I didn’t hear them talking.”

“Would they have been talking? Necessarily?”

“Of course. About the headlines. The newspapers. The bulletins on the television. My husband and son are newspapermen, Captain Neale. Every day there are new developments.…”

“Yes. Of course.”

“After getting the newspapers,” Junior said, “I went into the coffee shop and had breakfast.”

“So, Mrs. March, you think you heard the suite door close again, but your husband hadn’t left the suite, and you think no one entered the suite because you didn’t hear talking?”

“I guess that’s right. I could be mistaken, of course. I’m trying to reconstruct.”

“Pardon, but where were you physically in the bathroom when you heard the door close the second time?”

“I was getting into the tub. I don’t shower in the morning. I discovered years ago that if I take a shower in the morning, I can never get my hair organized again, for the whole day.”

“Yes. You had already run the tub?”

“Yes. While I was brushing my teeth. And all that.”

“So there must have been a period of time, while the tub was running, that you couldn’t have heard anything from the living room—not the front door, not the television, not talking?”

“I suppose not.”

“So the second time you heard the door close, when you were getting into the tub, you actually could have been hearing someone leave the suite.”

“Oh, my. That’s right. Of course.”

“It would explain your son’s not having returned, your husband’s not having left, and your not hearing talking.”

“How clever you are.”

“Then, what? You were sitting in the tub.…”

“I’m not sure. I think I heard the door open again. I believe I did. Because, later, when I went into the living room, when I… I… the door to the corridor was open.”

“All right, Mother.”

“I’m sorry, Captain Neale. This is difficult.”

“Would you like to take a break? Get some coffee? Something?”

“Would you like an eye-opener, Captain Neale?”

“An eye-opener?”

“I’m making myself a Bloody Mary,” Junior said.

“Oh, no, Junior,” Lydia March said.

“A little early, for me,” Neale said.

“Let’s get it over with,” Lydia said. “I heard Walter coughing. He never coughs. Not even in the morning. He’s never smoked.… Then I heard him choking. It got worse. I called out, ‘Walter! Are you all right? Walter!’”

“Take your time, Mrs. March.”

“Then the choking stopped, and I thought he was all right. The telephone began ringing. Walter always picked up the phone on the first ring. It rang twice, it rang three times. I became very alarmed. I screamed, ‘Walter!’ I got out of the tub as fast as I could, grabbed a towel, opened the door to the bedroom.…”

“Which bedroom?”

“Ours. Walter’s and mine.… Walter was sort of on the bed, the foot of the bed, his knees sort of on the floor, as if he hadn’t quite made it to the bed … he had come from the living room… the bedroom door was open … the scissors … I couldn’t do a thing … he slipped sideways off the bed … Walter’s a big man … I couldn’t have caught him even if I had been able to move! He rolled as he slipped. He fell on his back … the scissors … face so white … Captain Neale, a big blood bubble came up between his lips.…”

“Mister March, why don’t you give your mother some of that?”

“Come on, Mother.”

“No, no. I’ll be all right. Just give me a moment.”

“Just a sip.”

“No.”

“We can postpone the rest of this, if you like, Mrs. March.”

“I don’t even remember going through the living room. I went through the open door to the corridor. I was just thinking, Helena, Helena, Jake… I knew they were in 7 … we had met for drinks there the night before … there was the back of a man … there was a man in the corridor walking away, lighting a cigar as he walked … I didn’t know who he was, from behind … I ran toward him … then I realized who he was … I ran to Helena’s door and began banging on it with my fist… Helena finally opened the door. She was in her bathrobe. Jake wasn’t there.…”

“Mrs. March, did you go back into that suite?”

“My mother has not been back in that suite since.”

“I was on Helena’s bed. They left me alone. For a long time. I could hear people talking loudly, everywhere. Eleanor Earles came in. I asked her to find Junior.…”

“Did you know, at that point, your husband was dead?”

“I don’t know what I knew. I knew he had landed on the scissors. I asked for someone to get Junior.”

“And, Mister March?”

“I was in the coffee shop. I heard myself being paged in the lobby. Eleanor Earles was on a house phone. I came right up.”

“What did Ms. Earles say to you, Mister March?”

“She said something had happened. My mother wanted me. She was in the Williams’ suite—Number 7.”

“She said, ‘Something has happened’?”

“She said, ‘Something has happened. Come up right away. This is Eleanor Earles. Your mother’s in Jake Williams’ suite—Number 7.’”

“What did all that mean to you?”

“I couldn’t imagine why Eleanor Earles was calling me about anything. In the elevator I was thinking, maybe there had been an accident. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

“Mrs. March, are you all right?”

“Yes.”

“Mrs. March. Who was the man in the corridor?”

“Perlman. Oscar Perlman.”

“The humorist?”

“If you say so.”

“Why didn’t you speak to him?”

“Oh.”

“I’m sorry? You said you ran toward him, and then you didn’t speak to him.”

She said, “Oscar Perlman has been very unkind to my husband. For years and years. Very unfair.”

“Mother … realize what you’re saying.”

“I’m sorry, Mrs. March. You’ll have to explain that.”

“Well, years ago, Oscar used to work on one of the March family newspapers, and he thought he could write a humor column. He always was lazy. I’ve never thought him funny. Anyway, Walter encouraged him. He really developed the column for Oscar. Then, well, as soon as the column was established in one March newspaper, Oscar went off and sold it—and himself—to this syndicate.… Very unfair. Walter was terribly hurt. Even last year, when Walter was nominated for the presidency of the Alliance, Oscar was saying bad things about him. Or, so we heard.”

“What sort of bad things?”

“Oh, foolish things. Like he tried to pass a bylaw saying only journalists could vote in the Alliance election, no private detectives.”

“‘Private detectives’? What was that supposed to mean?”

“Oh, who knows? Oscar Perlman’s a fool.”

“Mister March, do you know what ‘no private detectives’ means?”

“It doesn’t mean anything,” Walter March said. “Oscar Perlman has a coterie of followers—mostly Washington reporters—poker players all—and he keeps them entertained with these sophomoric gags. I don’t know. March Newspapers is pretty well-known for its investigative reporting. Maybe he was trying to make some gag on that. I really don’t know what it means. No one did.”

“Utter hateful foolishness,” Lydia March said.

“Mrs. March, your husband was a powerful man. He had been all his life.…”

“I know what you’re about to ask, Captain Neale. I’ve been lying awake, thinking about it myself. Walter was a powerful man. Sometimes powerful men make enemies. Not Walter. He was loved and respected. Why, look, he was elected President of the American Journalism Alliance. That’s quite a tribute to a man—from his colleagues, people he had worked with all his life—now that Walter was, well, about to retire.”

“Speaking of that, I’m a little uncertain. Who takes over, who runs March Newspapers, now that your husband.…”

“Why, Junior, of course. Junior’s president of the company. Walter was chairman.”

“I see.”

“And Walter was retiring as soon as he had served out his term, here at the Alliance.”

“I see.”

“No one in this world, Captain, had reason to murder my husband. Why, you can see for yourself. In this morning’s newspapers. Even on the television. Hy Litwack’s nice eulogy last night. The reporters are terribly upset by this. Every one of them, Captain Neale, loved my husband.”