Fletch

31

It was eight-thirty Thursday night.

Dressed in a full business suit, shirt and tie, Fletch opened the french windows to the library of the Stanwyk house and entered.

Alan Stanwyk, smoking a cigarette, was waiting in a leather chair the other side of the desk. He had bleached his hair blond.

“Good evening, Mr. Stanwyk. I.M. Fletcher, of the News-Tribune. May I use your phone?”

Stanwyk’s left knee jerked.

Fletch picked up the phone and dialed.

“This won’t take a minute.”

He took the folded copy of the letter from his inside suit jacket and handed it across to Stanwyk while listening for the phone to be answered.

“Here, you can read this while you’re waiting. Copies go to those people indicated at midnight, unless I make a coded phone call saying not to send them. Hello, Audrey? Fletcher. Is Alston there?”

Stanwyk had leaned forward across the desk and taken the letter.

Mr. John Collins,

Chairman of the Board,

Collins Aviation

# 1 Collins Plaza

Greenway, California

Dear Sir:

Alan Stanwyk murdered me tonight.

The charred remains are mine, regardless of the evidence of the Colgate ring and the gold cigarette lighter identified as belonging to Stanwyk.

Stanwyk boarded a plane chartered from Command Air Charter Service in my name for Rio de Janeiro, where he intends to establish residence under my name with the aid of my passport.

For the purpose, he has bleached his hair blond. He stole the bleach from the apartment of his mistress, Sandra Faulkner, 15641B Putnam Street, Monday night.

With Stanwyk in Rio de Janeiro are a Mrs. Sally Ann Cushing Cavanaugh, and son, William, of Nonheagan, Pennsylvania. Stanwyk has been visiting Mrs. Cavanaugh in Nonheagan on the average of every six weeks for at least four years. This can be confirmed by a pilot called “Bucky” in your employ. Mrs. Cavanaugh was recently divorced from her husband.

Also with Stanwyk in Rio are three million dollars in cash. This money is the result of sales of stock by broker William Carmichael, who believed the cash was required as down payment for a ranch in Nevada being bought through Swarthout Nevada Realty.

Sincerely, I.M. Fletcher cc: Joan Collins Stanwyk

William Carmichael

Burt Eberhart

Alston Chambers

***

“Hello, Alston? Fletch.”

“The world’s greatest journalist?”

“The very same. How did everything go?”

“Terrific. The affidavits are fine. That handwritten note from Cummings is beyond belief. We picked up your little birds, Witherspoon and Montgomery, and they’ve been singing all afternoon.”

“Are they all right?”

“We have them in protective custody under assumed names in a hospital far, far away from here.”

“That’s great.” Stanwyk was reading the letter a second or a third time. “You do nice work, Alston.”

“You made quite a splash in the afternoon paper, Irwin. This case is the biggest local sensation of the year.”

“Would you believe I never saw it?”

“You ought to read your own newspaper.”

“I can’t afford to buy it on a reporter’s salary.”

Beside the desk were neatly placed two matching attache cases.

“There is one thing more, Alston.”

“What’s that, old buddy?”

“You haven’t arrested the chief of police yet. It’s only a small matter, I know, a minor detail, but the son of a bitch just followed me in his car.”

“Where are you?”

“He followed me from The Beach to The Hills.”

“Is he still with you?”

“I guess so. It was his car all right. The private car that looks like a police car.”

“Fletch, there are federal narcotics agents waiting for him both at the police station and at his home. They’ve been there for hours.”

“Couldn’t they get up off their tails and go out into the streets and find the bastard?”

“They don’t know the area. You can’t outfox a police chief in his own town. If worse comes to worst, we’ll catch him at the border.”

“Terrific. What about me?”

“Just shout out the window at him. Tell him to go home.”

“Thanks.”

“Don’t worry about a thing, Fletch. They’ll get him. And I’ll see you in the marine commandant’s office at ten in the morning. Be sure to shine your shoes.”

“Pick the son of a bitch up.”

“We will, we will. Good night, Fletch.”

***

Stanwyk was sitting in the red leather chair with the copy of the letter in his hand. On the table beside him were his Colgate ring and the gold cigarette lighter.

He was staring calmly at Fletch.

“I guess you don’t get to do what you want to do,” Fletch said.

“I guess not.”

“The thing that tipped me off was something your wife said the other night when we were in bed together.”

Fletch sat at the desk.

“She said you and I have identical bone structures. We look nothing alike. You’re dark, I’m blond. You weigh ten or twelve pounds more than I do. But our bone structures are alike. That’s why you picked me from all the drifters on the beach.

“Your plan was to murder me somehow—probably, as you’ve boxed, with your hands—knock me unconscious, strangle me. Then fake a car accident. Only as a burned corpse could I pass for you. I would be wearing your clothes, your shoes and your ring and carrying your cigarette lighter, burned to death in your car. No one would question it.”

“Quite right.”

“Are there three million dollars in those attache cases?”

“Yes.”

“You needed a chartered plane to avoid an airlines baggage check. Carrying three million dollars in cash on a commercial airliner would be noticed.”

Stanwyk said, “Remarkable. At no point during this last week have I had the slightest sensation of being investigated.”

“You thoroughly expected to murder me tonight.”

“Yes.”

“After investigating you off and on all week, I must say that puzzles me. Generally speaking, you’re a decent man. How did you intend to justify murder to yourself?”

“You mean, morally justify it?”

“Yes.”

“I have the right to kill anyone who has agreed to murder me, under any circumstances. Don’t you agree?”

“I see.”

“Putting it most simply, Mr. Fletcher, I wanted out.”

“Many people do.”

***

“And now, Mr. Fletcher, what do we do?”

“Do?”

Stanwyk was standing, hands behind his back, facing the french windows. He could not see through the transparent curtain from the lighted room into the dark outdoors. The man was thinking furiously.

He said, “I see I’ve put myself into a rather difficult position.”

“Oh?”

“I can see you are probably going to do precisely as I asked: you are going to murder me.”

Fletch said nothing.

“I have arranged the perfect crime against myself. We are alone. No wife, no servants. There is nothing to connect you and me. And I imagine that in your investigating me this week, you were very careful not to connect you and me.”

“I was.”

“I have guaranteed your escape. Only you take the charter flight rather than the TWA flight.”

“Right.”

“The difference is that there are three million dollars at your feet, rather than fifty thousand. Surely that’s enough to make any man commit murder.”

In the air-conditioned room, Stanwyk’s face was gleaming with perspiration.

“The only thing you don’t know is that the gun in the desk drawer is empty.”

“I do know that. I checked it early this morning. You’re right. The servants always do leave the french windows unlocked.”

“Therefore, I would guess you have brought your own implement of death, your own gun, and you do mean to kill me. Am I right?”

Fletch opened the top right-hand drawer of the desk.

“No. I just brought a full clip for this gun.”

While Stanwyk watched-from the windows, Fletch picked up the gun in one hand; with the other hand he took a full .38 caliber clip from his pocket.

“You pointed out to me the benefit of using your gun.”

He removed the blank clip from the gun and inserted the full clip.

Stanwyk said, “You’re not wearing gloves.”

“Nothing a quick dust with a handkerchief can’t fix.”

“Christ.”

“You’ve not only arranged your own murder perfectly, you’ve even given me a moral justification for it. You say you have the right to kill anyone who has planned to murder you. Isn’t that what you said?”

“Yes.”

“So why shouldn’t I murder you, Stanwyk?”

“I don’t know.”

“For three million dollars rather than fifty grand. Alone with you in your house, as you nicely arranged. Using your gun. Nothing to connect us to each other. With a prearranged, guaranteed escape. And a moral justification, provided by yourself. I’m sure I can make it look exactly like the usual burglary-murder you originally described.”

“You’re playing with me, Fletcher.”

“Yes, I am.”

“I repeat my original request: if you’re going to murder me, do it quickly and painlessly.”

“Either the head or the heart. Is that what you said?”

“Have some decency.”

“I’m not going to murder you.”

Fletch put the gun in his pocket.

“I’m not going to murder you, rob you, blackmail you or expose you. I can’t think of a single reason why I should do any of those things. You’ll just have to find another way to establish life with Sally Ann Cushing Cavanaugh.

“Good night, Mr. Stanwyk.”

“Fletcher.”

Fletch turned at the door to the front hall.

“If you’re not going to do any of those things, why did you go to all this effort?”

Fletch said, “Beats tennis.”

***

The room shattered.

The light curtains over the french windows billowed forward as if caught by a sudden puff of wind. There were two explosive cracks. Glass tinkled.

The front of Stanwyk’s chest blew open. His arms and chin jerked up. Without his having stepped, his body raised so that the toes of his black shoes pointed downward.

From that position, he fell to the floor, his knees thudding against the rug. Stanwyk rolled to his right shoulder and landed on his back.

“Christ.”

Fletch knelt beside him.

“You’ve been shot.”

“Who? Who shot me?”

“Would you believe the chief of police?”

“Why?”

“He thought you were me. We have the same bone structure, and you bleached your hair blond.”

“He was trying to kill you?”

“Stanwyk, you’ve killed yourself.”

“Am I dying?”

“I don’t know how you’re breathing now.”

“Fletcher. Nail the bastard. Use the money. Nail the bastard.”

“I already have.”

“Nail the bastard.”

“Okay.”

***

With his handkerchief, Fletch removed his fingerprints from the gun and the gun clip. He exchanged clips and returned the gun to the drawer. He dusted the handle to the desk drawer, the telephone, the desk itself, and the outside handle to the french window.

Stanwyk was dead on the rug.

The copy of the letter he had addressed to John Collins was on the table beside the leather chair. Fletch folded it and put it back in his pocket.

Then, taking the two attache‘ cases, Fletch carefully let himself out of the house.

His MG was parked in front.