Fletch and the Widow Bradley

29

T H E D O O R M A N O F the expensive, tall East Side New York apartment house put his hand over the mouthpiece of his telephone and said, with mild surprise and perfect respect, “Ms. Bradley says she doesn’t know you, Mister Fletcher.”

Fletch held out his hand for the phone. “May I speak to her myself, please?”

“Of course, sir.”

He handed the phone to Fletch and stepped back half a pace. He was young and lean and had steady eyes and the gold braid on his uniform looked as ridiculous as a spinnaker on an aircraft carrier.

“Ms. Bradley?” Fletch said into the phone.

The woman’s voice was throaty. “Yes?”

“Ms. Bradley, my name is Fletcher. I need to speak to you regarding the management of your late brother’s company, Wagnall-Phipps. I have come all the way from California just to do so.”

After a pause, Francine Bradley asked, “Who are you, Mister Fletcher?”

“I’m a reporter—an ex-reporter—who did a story for the financial pages of the News-Tribune on Wagnall-Phipps. I guess I made some sort of a mistake in writing the story. Yet I still don’t know what the truth is.”

“How could I help you?”

“I don’t know. But I’ve talked with your sister-in-law, Enid Bradley, your niece, Roberta, your nephew, Tom—”

“The person you should speak to is Alex Corcoran. He’s the president.”

“I have spoken with him. I’ve also spoken again—a few days ago—with Charles Blaine.”

There was a long pause. “You’ve spoken within the last few days with Charles Blaine?”

“I went to Mexico to do so.”

“Well, you certainly have gone far out of your way. Weren’t Corcoran and Blaine able to help you?”

“Not much.”

“I don’t see how I can help you. But come up. Anyone who’s gone to as much expense and trouble as you have shouldn’t be turned away at the door.”

“Okay,” Fletch said. “I’ll give you back to the doorman.”

“Really, Mister Fletcher—do I have the name right?”

“Yes.”

“You could have saved yourself an awful lot of expense and bother if you’d simply called me from California. I probably could have told you on the phone whether I could help you …”

Francine Bradley had opened the door of Apartment 21M, flickered her eyes at him in some surprise, and immediately began

talking as if she were continuing the conversation they had had on the apartment house’s telephone.

Her hair was blonde and well set. Her face looked as if she had had expensive skin care. Her necklace was of heavy gold braid; her earrings matched. Her dress was a well-made, comfortably formal green satin, cut low in front. She was noticeably slim for a lady in her mid-forties.

“… I doubt I know as much about Tom’s company as you think.” She led the way into a livingroom furnished well but sparsely. Glare filled the room from the large window overlooking the city. “I know none of the personel out there, personally. I am acquainted with the figures, of course. Since Tom’s death, well, Enid has had to lean on me more than somewhat. Enid, as you probably know, had no experience in business.”

Her back to the window, Francine faced Fletch, hesitated as if wondering if she had already answered all his questions. Only at his silence did she gesture toward the divan. “Well, sit down. I’m expected out for dinner, shortly, but let me help you however I can in whatever time I have.”

Sitting, Fletch unbuttoned his jacket, hitched up his trouser legs to avoid wrinkling his new suit.

On the coffee table in front of him were her handbag and gloves.

“I appreciate your seeing me,” Fletch said. She sat on a brightly flowered chair, her back to the light from the window. “You may think me odd before I’m done, but I hope at least you will understand my confusion.”

“I’m sure I won’t think you a bit odd, Mister Fletcher.” She smiled as if she already thought him odd. “Although, I must admit, when you said you’re a reporter, an ex-reporter, I guess I was expecting to open the door to someone … more mature, older, I mean … someone who might look like he’s been through more wars than you do.”

“I keep an innocent look.” Fletch smiled. “It comes from mixing orange juice with my cereal.”

Francine Bradley laughed happily.

Now that his eyes had adjusted to the glare in the room, Fletch saw the photographs on a book-shelf of Roberta Bradley, Thomas Bradley, Jr., school photographs of them at various ages, two photographs of Enid Bradley, a younger and an older, and a large group photograph of the family. Fletch assumed the dark-haired man with his arm around Enid’s waist was Thomas Bradley. On the wall facing him, Fletch saw a brown and black tile mosaic. On a low table near the window was an unfinished mosaic.

“Did your brother do the mosaic on the wall?” Fletch asked.

“Yes.” Francine looked sadly at it. Then she sighed and gestured at the unfinished mosaic on the low table. “And that’s one he was working on. Tom used to stay with me, you know, when he was in New York to see the doctors. He was working on that just before he went off to Switzerland. I’ve left it there. Silly of me, I suppose. It just makes him seem—well—sometimes when I come in at night I almost feel I can see him sitting there, in his robe and slippers, working on it.”

“I guess my questions will seem strange to you.”

“That’s all right.” She glanced at her watch. “I am being picked up

“Yes. I guess the point of my questions is that when I went to do a report on Wagnall-Phipps I was shown recent memos from your brother, and quoted from them. As a result, of course, I was fired.”

At first she looked at him as if he were speaking a language she didn’t understand. “What do you mean, ‘recent’?”

“Dated as recently as a few weeks ago.”

“Tom died a year ago.”

“That’s why I’m here.”

Francine looked at her red-polished finger nails in her lap. “What an odd thing.”

“Yes. It is odd.”

“What’s the explanation?”

“I wish I knew.”

“Who showed you these memos?”

“Charles Blaine. Vice-president and treasurer of Wagnall-Phipps. Generally, one would think, a reliable source.”

“Oh, Blaine. They’ve had trouble with him before. Enid has mentioned it. I think he might be very good at what he does, but … Enid says he takes everything so seriously. Sort of an ogre to his own department.” Francine nodded her head. “Yes, I can see that, from what I’ve heard of Blaine. If every T isn’t crossed, every I dotted apparently he has conniptions.”

“This isn’t a case of T’s not crossed and I’s not dotted, Ms. Bradley. This is a case of memos which were initialed—by someone who wasn’t alive to initial them.”

Francine shrugged. “Then someone’s playing a bad joke. Someone in the secretarial pool. One of the people working with Blaine. I can see where someone working under a tight man like Blaine might want to play a game on him, shake him up, confront him with something inexplicable.”

“It could be.”

“What did Enid say, when you asked her?”

“She thinks Blaine is having a nervous breakdown. She sent him to Mexico for a vacation.”

“Then that is probably so.”

“I went to Mexico. He doesn’t seem to be having a nervous breakdown. He seems to be having a hot, dusty time.”

“Are you qualified to judge, Mister Fletcher? Have you a degree in psychiatry?”

“I left it in my other suit.”

“I don’t mean to sound like a prosecuting attorney. It’s just that … most people can put on a good face. There’s always more going on under people’s surfaces than we’d suspect.”

“Charles Blaine assures me he did not forge those memos.”

Again Francine shrugged. “Then someone’s playing a nasty trick on him.” She smiled at Fletch pleasantly. “The Halloween spirit still walks the earth. People in offices love to play games on each other.”

“Ms. Bradley, when precisely did your brother die?”

“I’ve already said—a year ago.”

“Enid says the same thing. Yet Corcoran and Blaine both say he died six months later—last November.”

“Oh, that. I don’t blame you for being confused by that. Tom did die a year ago. We weren’t prepared for it. Enid had been put in as Acting Chairperson of Wagnall-Phipps in Tom’s absence, and she had hardly gotten her feet wet. I think people tolerated her in the job because they knew Tom was coming back. She was backed by Tom’s authority, you see. She talked to me about it. We decided to, let’s say, delay the news of Tom’s death until she was more firmly established as Chairperson. Can you understand that?”

“Yes. I suppose.”

“There was another consideration. A more human reason. Enid was terribly in love with my brother. From all I know, people working for Wagnall-Phipps—people like Corcoran and Blaine, others—were terrifically fond of him. Enid wanted to mourn alone a while. Trying to run the company—well, she just couldn’t take the long faces, the commiseration, of the people upon whom she had to depend. Do you see?”

Fletch wrinkled his brow.

“There were lots of reasons for delaying the news of the death.

The younger staff would have deserted the company, at least until they had more confidence in Enid … lots of reasons.”

“Your brother died a year ago. The news wasn’t given the people at Wagnall-Phipps until six months later, on a Friday afternoon in November. And it wasn’t until the following Tuesday that Enid left for Switzerland. Is that right?”

Francine’s eyes ran over the mosaic on the wall as if she were trying to remember. “Yes. That’s about right.” Her eyes then met his. “You’re asking why we didn’t go to Switzerland immediately, six months earlier, at the news of Tom’s death?”

“That’s the question.”

“It was our decision of the moment. Tom was dead. We’d had no warning of it. The news didn’t reach Enid until twenty-four hours after the death. A cremation was recommended. Enid cabled permission. It wasn’t until six months later that we went to Switzerland, had a memorial service, for just the two of us, brought home Tom’s ashes.”

“You went to Switzerland with Enid?”

“Didn’t I just say so?”

“Where in Switzerland?”

“Tom died in a small clinic outside Geneva.”

Fletch took a deep breath and shook his head. “Ms. Bradley, your brother didn’t die in Switzerland.”

Looking at him, her eyebrows shot up. “Now what are you saying?”

Tiredly, Fletch said, “I’ve checked with the American Embassy in Switzerland. No American citizen named Thomas Bradley has died in Switzerland last year, or at any time in recent history.”

Her lips a perfect little O, Francine sucked in breath. “They said that?”

“So said the American Embassy in Geneva.”

“That’s not possible, Mister Fletcher.”

“And I’m sure they’re not playing a prank.”

“Well.” And Francine opened and closed her mouth silently. “I don’t know what to say.”

“Neither do I.”

“I guess we’ll just have to chalk it up to a bureaucratic mistake. I’ll have someone look into it.”

“This information came with the assurance from the Embassy that regarding in-country deaths, their records are one hundred percent accurate.”

“Oh, Mister Fletcher. If you can ever show me any bureaucracy of any country being one hundred percent accurate about anything I’ll jump over the moon in a single leap.”

Fletch sat forward on the divan. “You see, Ms. Bradley, I have many questions, about many things.”

There was a buzzing from the foyer.

“Excuse me,” she said. She went into the foyer and there was the sound of a phone being picked up and Francine Bradley said, “Hello? … yes. Please tell Mister Savenor I’ll be down in five minutes.”

When Francine Bradley returned to the livingroom, Fletch was standing near the window. He said, referring to the unfinished mosaic on the low table, “You’ve even left the loose tiles out.”

“Yes,” she said. “They’re pretty in themselves.”

“May we meet again?” he asked.

“Yes. I’m sure you mean to be helpful.”

“I suspect I’ve surprised you enough for the moment, anyway.”

“I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation for everything,” Francine Bradley said. “A nasty office prank … a death certificate misfiled at the Embassy.”

“Probably.”

“Are you free for dinner tomorrow night?”

“That would be nice. Where, when?”

“Do you like French cuisine?”

“I like food.”

“Why don’t you meet me at eight o’clock at Chez Claire? It’s only two blocks from here.” She pointed more or less south.

“Eight o’clock,” he said.

She followed him into the foyer. “I’m sorry I have to go now,” she said. “I’m curious about what more you have to say.” She held the door open for him. “I’m sure we can figure all this out,” she said. “Together.”

Beside the doorman, there was only one man waiting in the lobby. He was a silver-haired man in his fifties in a pearl gray suit seeming to look comfortable in an impossibly stiff-looking, narrow-seated, high-backed chair.