Fletch and the Widow Bradley

7

“M Y G O D.” M O X I E stood on the front walk looking at the lit facade of the house. It was an English tudor styled house with established shrubs. “This is where the managing editor of the News-Tribune lives?”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll bet those wooden beams are fake.”

Fletch was ringing the doorbell.

“Moxie? Where are you going?”

Clara Snow opened the door. She had a half-empty martini glass in her hand.

“Fletch!”

“Evening, Clara. Didn’t expect to find you here.”

Clara did not smile. “Didn’t know you were expected, Fletcher.”

“You know, when Frank gives an at-home party for his employees—”

“This is not an at-home party.”

“Well, Frank must be home, and you’re at home with him, and you are an employee …”

“Come in, Fletch.”

“Wait a minute. I have a friend.”

Fletch looked along the side of the house, to the right, where Moxie was coming out of the established shrubbery.

“How do you do?” she said, shaking hands with Clara. “So nice to meet you, Mrs. Jaffe.”

“This isn’t Mrs. Jaffe,” said Fletch.

Closing the door behind them, Clara said, “Fletch, you’ve got some balls.”

“I’ve got Moxie,” Fletch said.

Frank was in the livingroom, dressed in a ski sweater. He was putting another log on the fire. Fletch could feel the air-conditioning in the house was on.

“Evening, Frank,” he said.

Frank looked over his glasses at Fletch. “You’re fired, Fletcher. If you weren’t before, you certainly are now.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s Friday night and this is my home and fired employees aren’t supposed to come to their boss’s home uninvited on Friday nights. Or ever. It just isn’t polite.”

“Even if I’m in pursuit of a story?”

“What story?”

“That’s what you’re going to tell me.”

Frank was staring at Moxie. “You’re a beautiful girl,” he said.

“Thank you, sir,” Moxie said prettily.

“Really beautiful.”

Clara Snow moved around the coffee table and sat on the divan.

“This is Moxie Mooney,” Fletch said. “She’s an actress. Starting rehearsals Monday for a play at the Colloquial Theater.”

“As long as you’re here,” Frank said. “You might as well have a drink. Least I haven’t lost my manners.”

“Thanks, Frank. Where’s Betty?”

Standing over the bar table, pouring two more martinis and freshening his own glass, Frank said, “My wife is in San Francisco. For a weekend of shopping and seeing her brother’s family. Any other questions, Fletch?”

“Sure.” Fletch looked at Clara Snow.

Frank said, “Clara is here for dinner with me and to talk over some editorial matters.”

“Talking over editorial matters with a state house reporter. I see.”

Clara had been cooking editor until letters of complaint had become overwhelming. Her recipes were making people sick. The Clara Snow Flu was a city room joke. Reporters with heavy hangovers would call up to say they were too sick to work because they had eaten something Clara Snow had recommended. Everyone had been perplexed as to how and why Clara had been transferred from that job to the highly prestigious job of state house reporter.

“Political matters,” Frank said. “Now, do you want a drink, Fletcher, or do you want me to kick your ass through the front door without opening it?”

Fletch sat on the divan facing Clara. “Sure, Frank. I like martinis. Sorry to interrupt your meeting with Clara.”

Frank handed Moxie a martini and put Fletch’s on the coffee table. “Sit down, sit down,” he said to Moxie. “Might as well make yourself at home. Fletch has.”

Moxie sat beside Fletch, and Frank sat in a chair with his fresh drink.

“What’s the name of the play you’re in?” Frank asked Moxie.

“In Love, sort of a romantic comedy.”

“Didn’t know they produced romantic comedies anymore,” Frank said. “I’d like to see one.”

“You’re the ingenue?” Clara asked. At thirty, Clara had blossomed into full womanhood.

“Yes,” Moxie answered. “It’s a comedy about rape.”

“Hilarious,” Clara said, “I’m sure.”

“Not rape, really,” said Moxie. “You see, it’s about this young girl who was very strictly brought up and every time her young husband touches her, she thinks she’s being raped. So every time he tries to make love to her, she has him arrested. You see?”

“Could be amusing, I suppose,” Frank Jaffe said.

“But husbands can rape wives,” Fletch said.

“The funny thing is,” said Moxie, looking into her martini glass, “the young couple really do love each other. They’re just terribly confused, you know, regarding their rights to each other, and themselves.”

“A lawyer in every bedroom,” Frank said. “That’s what we need.”

“Wagnall-Phipps,” Fletch said.

Frank looked at him. “What?”

“Can’t say you’re not talking business tonight, Frank. We interrupted a business meeting between you and Clara.”

“I’m willing to talk newspaper business anytime,” Frank said. “I’m just not sure how willing I am to talk over Wagnall-Phipps with you. A goof’s a goof, Fletch. Hard to take, but there you are.”

“A story’s a story, Frank.”

“Don’t get you.”

“The Vice-president and treasurer of Wagnall-Phipps refers to the chairman of his company as Thomas Bradley, shows me memos from him—recent memos—and someone else tells you that Thomas Bradley is dead. I need some facts.”

“You needed some facts before you wrote the story,” Clara said.

“Okay.” Frank looked from one employee to the other. “I read the early edition here at my breakfast table per usual. I only scanned your story, wondering who in heck had assigned you to a business news story. You with your cut-off blue jeans and bare feet—”

“Bare foot boy with cheek,” Clara said softly.

“You’ve never struck me as a business news writer,” Frank said, smiling at Fletch.

“Tom Jeffries got hurt hang-gliding.”

“I know. So I go into the office and there’s a call waiting for me from an Enid Bradley. She says she’s the chairperson of Wagnall-Phipps and has been since her husband died. While I’m listening to her mild voice on the phone, I open the newspaper to your story, scan it again and see that you’ve quoted her husband, Thomas Bradley, throughout. Recent quotes.”

“From memos,” Fletch said.

“You have copies of any of those memos?” Frank asked.

“No.”

“So I called Jack Carradine, the business news editor, who had just returned from a trip to New York—”

“I know Jack’s the business news editor,” Fletch said.

“—and he doesn’t seem sure whether Bradley’s dead or alive. Apparently Wagnall-Phipps isn’t that important a company. He calls the president of Wagnall-Phipps and is told the same thing—Bradley’s dead. Didn’t I tell you all this on the phone?”

“No. You didn’t tell me Mrs. Bradley herself called you, or that she is now chairperson of Wagnall-Phipps, and you said you had confirmation from ‘executive officers’ of Wagnall-Phipps, not just one guy—the president.”

Clara sighed and looked sideways at Frank.

Frank said, “Dead’s dead.”

Moxie said, “It’s none of my business, of course, but I think this Wagnall-Phipps company played a trick on Fletch. The News-Tribune did an expose on Wagnall-Phipps a couple of years ago—”

“People play tricks on reporters all the time,” Frank said. “No one ever tells the exact truth. People always say to a reporter what serves their own interest best. Good reporters know this and just don’t get caught.”

“Fletch got caught,” said Clara. “And that’s the end of the story.”

“Frank, will you keep me on salary until I get this thing figured out?”

“What’s to figure?” asked Frank. “Mrs. Phipps—I mean, Mrs. Bradley said she didn’t want her children reading in the newspaper things her husband recently said. Can you blame her? She said they’re just getting over the death now.”

Fletch shook his head. “There’s something wrong, Frank.”

“Sure there is.” Clara walked to the bar to pour herself a newdrink. “Irwin Maurice Fletcher and his sloppy reporting. That’s what’s wrong.”

Frank leaned forward, elbow on his knees. “Look, Fletch. Carradine called Mrs. Wagnall—I mean, Mrs Bradley back and made all smooth. He even went to the house last night and spent an hour talking to the Bradley kids, saying newspapers sometimes make mistakes. Nobody’s suing us. But the story that we quoted a dead man is all over the country now, and it hurts, Fletch. It hurts the paper. Our publisher picked it up out in Santa Fe and called me. I was going to wait until he got back.”

“What’d he say?” asked Fletch.

Frank settled back in his chair. “I asked for a suspension. Honest, I did, Fletch.”

“And he said no?”

“What do you think?”

“He said no.” Fletch stood up.

“You didn’t drink your drink,” Frank said.

“I drank mine,” Moxie said.

Frank smiled at her. “Anything as gorgeous as you are shouldn’t drink.”

Clara turned slowly from the bar and stared at him.

“Just one more question, Frank,” Fletch said.

“What?”

“Is Clara cooking dinner for you?”

“Yes. Why?”

“I’ll call the office,” Fletch said, “and tell Janey you won’t be in Monday.”