Fletch Won

Fletch rang several times and waited several minutes but no one answered the door at 12339 Palmiera Drive. The sun was lowering. It was getting cooler. There were no cars in the driveway, no wreath on the front door. Louise Habeck was in a home for the mentally unwell. Robert Habeck was fretting in a monastery. Nancy Habeck was living in squalor with a husband who was a fraud. And Donald Habeck was dead, murdered.

And Jasmine?

Fletch backed up from the front door and looked up at the curtain that had moved as he was leaving that morning.

It moved again.

He smiled, waved at the curtain, turned, and walked to his car at the curb.

As he was getting into his car, the front door of 12339 Palmiera Drive opened. The silhouette in the door was as the gardener had drawn it in the dirt.

Fletch closed his car door and started back up the flagstone path.

She came down the steps to the walk. Behind her, the door closed.

“Oh, damn,” she said. “I just locked myself out.”

“Are you Jasmine?”

She nodded. She was older than she looked at a distance. Older, heavier, face more scarred by cosmetics, eyebrows more plucked, hair more dyed.

“My name is Fletcher. I work for the News-Tribune.”

“How am I going to get back into the house?”

“Cook’s not here?”

“I couldn’t pay her. She went.”

“Why did you come out?”

“I was curious.” Jasmine was wearing an unmournful, low-cut, yellow sweater blouse, lime-green slacks, spike-heeled shoes. “That bundle of clothes you dropped off this morning. They were Donald’s clothes.”

“Sorry I couldn’t have them cleaned before I dropped them off.”

“Are they part of the investigation?”

“No.”

“I mean, I know they weren’t the clothes he was, uh, dead in.”

“No. They were just his clothes. I was returning them.”

“Oh.” That seemed to satisfy her. She looked worriedly at the house.

“Jasmine, I’m puzzled.”

“Aren’t we all. I mean, really!”

“Did Donald discuss giving five million dollars to the museum with you?”

“No.”

“Not at all? He never mentioned it to you?”

“Not a peep. To the museum? I read in the paper he was planning to give money away to somebody.”

“Did he ever mention religious art to you? Show you any?”

“I don’t even know what it is. Religious art? I thought only people could be religious.”

“Did he ever talk about religion to you?”

“No. Lately he’s been reading big books instead of sleeping. Big novels.”

“Did he ever mention to you his visiting the monastery in Tomasito?”

“Where his son is? No. I’ve never been there.”

“Did he ever suggest to you that he might like to enter a monastery?”

Her eyes widened. “No!”

Fletch too looked at the house. “So. We’re all puzzled.”

“He lived like a monk,” she said. “Up all night, reading. War and Peace. The Brothers Karaminski.”

Fletch’s eyes narrowed. “Harm no more?” he said. “Something like that. Go away and do no more harm?”

“Yeah,” she said. “He said something like that. Two or three times.” She shrugged. “I never knew what he was talking about. When he talked.”

“He never mentioned going away with you?”

“No. Why should he?”

Fletch shook his head. “I get less puzzled for a second, and then more puzzled. You are Jasmine Habeck, aren’t you?”

“No. The newspaper was wrong about that.”

“Your name is Jasmine?”

“Only sort of. We never married. Donald never divorced his first wife. Louise. Have you met her?”

Fletch heard himself saying, “Yuss.”

“Sort of weird lady. Sort of nice, really. She’d sit and say nothing for the longest while, and then she’d ask, ‘Jasmine, what do you think of the word blue?’ and I’d say, ‘I don’t think about the word blue all that much,’ and then she’d say something really weird like, ‘Blue Donald blew away in a blue suit.’ Really! Very strange.”

“I’m becoming less puzzled.”

“That’s good.”

“You were just living here as his friend?”

“Well, sort of I had to, you see.” She shifted on her heels. “Maybe you can tell me what to do.”

“Try me.”

She took a step closer to him. “I’m in the Federal Witness Program, you see.”

“Oh.”

“I testified in a trial in Miami against some bad guys, for the government. They really weren’t bad guys, I didn’t think so, they had lots of money, and didn’t care whether it was day or night. But they were in trouble, and the government said I should help them out, testify against them, or I could go to prison, too, and I hadn’t done anything bad, taken a few jewels from Pete” —she pointed to a turquoise ring on her finger— “my favorite fur, so I said, ‘Sure,’ hung around a long, long time, went to court and answered all sorts of dumb questions about seeing the naked women working in the coke-cutting factory, things like that, you know? So I was to be protected by the federal government. You think I should call someone in Washington?”

“What did all that have to do with Donald Habeck?”

“Nothing. I was in this lawyer’s office in Miami, and Donald came in to see a friend. At that time they were going to send me to St. Louis when I was done, and my girl friend, this Hispanic chanteuse, said that’s where the Bibles are printed and it’s awfully muggy there, and that didn’t sound like me. Donald invited me for a drink. Two days later I came back here with him. We was never married.” She concluded with, “My real name isn’t Jasmine, of course.”

“Of course.”

“No one’s is, I think.”

“I suspect not.”

“I mean, have you ever actually met anyone named Jasmine?”

“Never before. Not even now, I guess.”

“That’s why I chose it. If I had to go be anoniminous, at least I wanted an outstanding name. Wouldn’t you?”

“I suppose so.”

“So what should I do now Donald’s dead? Call someone in Washington, or what?”

“What federal officer did you deal with in Miami?”

“That’s the trouble. I can’t think of his name. It was either John or Tom.”

“What about Habeck’s partners? Do they know you are in the Federal Witness Program?”

“I don’t think so. I think they thought I was Mrs. Habeck Part Two. The few times we were together they never spoke to me. I mean, except for, ‘Get me a drink, will you, Jasmine?’ Pete and those guys were much nicer. At least they knew I was a woman, you know what I mean? They didn’t treat me as no equal, for God’s sake. I’m glad I came out here with Donald before I finished testifyin’ against them.”

“I see.” Fletch looked at a few of his toes through the tops of his sneakers. “So you’re sitting here without any money, any friends….”

“Yeah. I want a friend.”

“You’re not Donald Habeck’s widow, you’re not even Jasmine….”

“I’d be little Miss Nobody, ’cept I was married twice once.”

“Do you have any idea of Donald’s plans for you, if he went away, if he went into a monastery?”

“I had no idea he was going into a monastery. It must have come over him sudden like. I had a girl friend like that. Suddenly it overcame her to be a WAC.”

“I guess we’d better get you in touch with some federal officer here in town.”

“I thought of talking to the mailman about it. Well, I mean… really.”

“Someone will call you.”

“Plus, I’m locked out of the house.” She turned around and looked at the quiet brick house floating on rhododendrons. “My fur is in there.”

He started toward the house with her. “Is there a burglar alarm? I didn’t notice.”

“No. Isn’t that stupid? Think of a big criminal lawyer like that, and his house don’t even have a burglar alarm. He should have known some of the guys I knew!”

“I think he did, Jasmine. I think he knew all of them.”