Fletch Won

“Good morning,” Fletch said cheerily to the middle-aged woman in an apron who opened the door to him at 12339 Palmiera Drive, The Heights. Her eyes narrowed as she recognized him as the man who had run through her kitchen the day before wearing nothing but a denim shirt hanging from his waist. He gave her a big smile. “I’m really not all the trouble I’m worth.”

“Yes?” she asked.

“I just want to deliver this package.” He handed the grocery bag filled with Donald Habeck’s clothes through the doorway to her. “I’d also like to see Mrs. Habeck, if possible.”

The woman kept the door braced with her feet when she took the package with both hands. The string had loosened. “In seclusion,” she said. “Under sedation.”

One of Donald Habeck’s black shoes dropped out of the bag.

“Oh, my,” Fletch said. He picked up the shoe and put it on top of the bundle in her arms.

The woman drew her head back from the shoe.

“One other question,” Fletch went on. “There was an older woman here yesterday, sitting by the pool. Bluish hair, red purse, green sneakers. Do you know who she was?”

The woman looked at Fletch through narrow slits over Donald Habeck’s shoe.

“She said she was Mrs. Habeck. She acted strangely.”

“I do not speak English,” the woman said. “Not a single goddamned word.”

“I see.”

She closed the door.

“I’ll be back to see Mrs. Habeck when she’s feeling better!” Fletch shouted through the door.

Getting into his car in the driveway, Fletch looked up at the house.

A window curtain in the second story fell back into place.