Fletch’s Fortune

Thirty-five

Fletch had no plan.

He could find no one at the stables, so he saddled the horse he had used twice before, fumbling, as he hadn’t saddled a horse himself in a long time, alarming the horse with his haste.

Once clear of the paddock area, he laid the whip on her and she poured on speed, but only for a very few moments.

She was a pleasant horse, but not too swift.

Clearly, in all her days on Hendricks Plantation, she had never been asked to be in a sincere hurry.

By the time they had climbed the ridge and were approaching the camper along the timber road she was winded and resentful.

Fletch left her in the deep shade of the woods about twenty meters up the hillside from the camper.

He still had no plan.

The camper was open, but the keys weren’t in the ignition.

He looked for the keys under the driver’s seat, over the visor, in the map compartment, then, hurrying, moved back into the camper, flipping over the mattress of the unmade bed, glancing in the cabinets, the oven, under the seat cushions of the two chairs.

He went through the pockets of a dark suit hanging from a curtain rod.

On a shelf was an old cigar box. Inside were screws, nails, a few sockets for a wrench, half a pouch of Bull Durham tobacco, and a set of keys, somewhat rusted.

He tried the keys in the ignition.

The third key on the chain fit.

He left it in the ignition.

Standing by the camper, he realized he still didn’t have a plan.

From down the road, around the bend, he heard someone cough.

Mentally, Fletch thanked his horse, up in the woods, for being quiet.

Fletch flattened himself against the wall of the camper, next to the rear wheels.

He stuck his head out for a look only once.

Joseph Molinaro was walking toward the camper, ten meters away, a rifle under his right arm.

It had not occurred to Fletch before this that, of course, Joseph Molinaro would be carrying a rifle.

He had not thought to arm himself.

There was no time to go back into the camper.

The few branches and stones in the road at his feet were too small and light to make good weapons.

He had no more time to think.

Fletch had left the camper through the driver’s door.

Molinaro was at the back of the camper, heading for the door near the right rear wheels.

Crouching, looking under the camper, Fletch watched Molinaro’s feet.

As soon as Molinaro was on the other side of the camper, Fletch moved around to its rear and along its wall.

Just as Molinaro was beginning to climb the three steps into the camper, beginning to bend to go through the door, Fletch hit him on the back of his head, hard, with the side of his hand.

The force of the blow knocked Molinaro’s head against the solid door frame.

Instinctively tightening his arm over the rifle, Molinaro fell up the steps, half-in and half-out of the camper.

He rolled over.

His eyes remained open only a second or two.

He appeared to recognize Fletch.

Having already been unconscious once that morning, Molinaro’s head settled back on the camper’s floor, and he went deeply unconscious.

Fletch took the rifle from under his arm and slid it along the floor of the camper, toward the front.

Picking up Molinaro’s legs, Fletch slid his back along the linoleum floor until Molinaro was entirely aboard the camper and the door could be closed.

Fletch climbed the steps to the camper and stepped over Molinaro.

He tore two strips from the bed sheet and tied Molinaro’s ankles together.

Then he tied his wrists together, in front of him.

He slammed the back door of the camper, climbed into the driver’s seat, and turned the key in the ignition.

The battery was dead.

Incredulous, Fletch senselessly tried the key three or four times.

He groaned.

Molinaro couldn’t do anything right.

He had come to Virginia to meet his father.

Never did meet him.

That morning he had gotten up, flicked a cigarette into a stranger’s face, and instantly was knocked unconscious.

Then he had let two people know who he was and why he was there.

If the suit hanging from the curtain rod was any indication, Joseph Molinaro actually had gone to Walter March’s Memorial Service.

Next, using that rifle on the floor with telescopic sights, he had murdered his half brother.

He had ambled back to his camper, not even having thrown the murder weapon away, never thinking someone who had figured out what he had done might be waiting for him.

And the battery of his getaway vehicle was dead.

Looking at the man, with the tight, curly gray hair, dressed in the blue jeans jacket, unconscious and bound on the floor of the camper, Fletch shook his head.

Then he climbed the hillside and got his horse.

“I see you figured it out just a little faster than I did.”

Before leaving the timber road, Fletch met Frank Gillis heading for the camper.

Gillis’ horse looked exhausted.

Gillis nodded at Molinaro slung over the saddle of Fletch’s horse.

“Is he dead, or just unconscious?”

“Unconscious.”

Gillis said, “He seems to spend a lot of time in that condition.”

“Poor son of a bitch.”

Walking the horse, Fletch held the reins in his right hand, the rifle in his left.

He asked, “Junior dead?”

“Yeah.”

Fletch left the road and started through the woods, down the hillside.

Gillis said, “You sure that’s the murder weapon?”

“As sure as I can be, without a ballistics test. It’s the weapon he was carrying when he returned to the camper.”

Remaining on his horse, Gillis followed Fletch through the woods to the pasture and then rode along beside him.

Fletch said, “I wonder if you’d mind putting Molinaro on your horse?”

“Why?”

“I feel silly. I feel like I’m walking into Dodge City.”

“So why should I feel silly?”

Frank Gillis chuckled.

“One of us has to feel silly, and you’re the one who caught him,” Gillis said.

“Thanks.”

“Why didn’t you use the camper?”

“Dead battery.”

Gillis shook his head, just as Fletch had.

“I don’t know,” Gillis said. “This guy… did he murder old man March, or did he think Junior murdered him? Or was he just plain jealous of Junior, now that Molinaro’s dream of being recognized by his father was over?”

Fletch walked along quietly a moment, before saying, “You’ll have to ask Captain Neale, I guess.”

“You know,” Gillis said, “everyone thought an attempt was being made on the Vice-President’s life.”

“Yeah.”

“I did, too, at first, until I realized this was another March who was dead. Who’d ever want to kill the Vice-President of the United States? One could have a greater effect upon national policy by killing the White House cook.”

“Who was in the helicopter?” Fletch asked.

“Oh, that.” Gillis’ chins were quivering with mirth. “Some Marine Corps General. He was here for some ceremony or other, a presentation of some kind, pin a medal on someone. And while the General was making this big entrance, landing in a helicopter on the back lawn, the Vice-President of the United States was arriving at the front of the hotel in an economy-size car—completely ignored.”

They were both laughing, and Molinaro was still unconscious.

“As soon as everyone realized what had happened, that Junior had been shot, the Secret Service hustled the Vice-President back into his car, and back to Washington, and the General climbed aboard his helicopter and took off. The only thing the Vice-President was heard to say, during his stay at Hendricks Plantation, was, ‘My! The military live well!’ ”

They came onto the back lawns of Hendricks Plantation.

Indeed, the helicopter was gone.

People were playing golf on the rolling greens the other side of the plantation house.

“You want to carry the rifle?” Fletch asked.

“No, no. I wouldn’t take from your moment of glory.”

Fletch said, “This isn’t glory.”

Captain Neale saw them from the terrace, and came down to the lawn to meet them.

A couple of uniformed State Policemen followed him.

Neale indicated the man across the saddle of Fletch’s horse.

“Who’s that?” he asked.

Fletch said, “Joseph Molinaro.”

“Can’t be,” Neale said. “Molinaro’s only about thirty. Younger.”

Still on his horse, Gillis said, “Look at his face.”

Neale lifted Molinaro’s head by the hair.

“My, my,” Neale said.

Fletch handed his reins to one of the uniformed policemen.

Neale asked Fletch, “Did Molinaro kill young March?”

Fletch handed Neale the rifle. “Easy to prove. This is the weapon he was carrying.”

Over Neale’s shoulder, Fletch saw Eleanor Earles appear on the terrace.

“Did you speak to Lydia March?” Fletch asked Neale.

“No.”

“No?”

Neale said, “She’s dead. Overdose. Seconal.”

Eleanor Earles was approaching them.

Even at a distance, Fletch could see the set of her face. It seemed frozen.

“She left a note,” Neale said. “To Junior. Saying she wouldn’t say why, but she had murdered her husband. The key thing is, she said the night they arrived she went back downstairs to the reception desk to order flowers for the suite, and stole the scissors she had seen on the desk when they’d checked in. Now that he’s reminded of it, the desk clerk says he was puzzled at the time why she hadn’t telephoned the order down. He had also been slightly insulted, because flowers had been put in all the suites, and Mrs. March had said the flowers in Suite 3 were simply inadequate.”

Eleanor Earles was standing near them, staring at the man slung over the saddle.

Neale noticed her.

“Hey,” he said to the uniformed policemen, “let’s get this guy off the horse.”

Gillis got off his horse, to help.

Eleanor Earles watched them take Molinaro off the horse and put him on the ground.

In a moment, her face still frozen, she turned and walked back toward the hotel.

From what Fletch had seen, there was no way Eleanor Earles could have known, from that distance, whether her son was dead or alive.