“You’ll stay for supper?” Elizabeth said, coming back to where Fletch was now standing.
“He’s picking up his girlfriend,” rolled Flynn. “At the airport. That will alarm your police escort, I’m sure. I’d better warn them you don’t mean to take flight, or they will tackle you at the information counter. They’ll watch you, all the same.”
“Bring her back with you,” Elizabeth said.
Fletch shook hands respectfully with the children.
“I like you,” Elizabeth said. “Frannie, this is no murderer.”
“That’s what all the women say,” Flynn said. “I haven’t convinced him yet, either.”
“His face was good while he listened.”
“As long as, he didn’t hum along,” Flynn said. “Tap his toes.”
They all laughed at Flynn as a jet whined in a holding pattern over their heads.
“Bring your girl back with you,” shouted Elizabeth. “We’ll wait supper for you!”
“Thanks anyway, said Fletch. ”Really, this has been a wonderful time for me.“
Flynn said, “We’d be glad to have you, Fletch.”
Fletch said, “I’d be glad to stay. May I come back sometime?”
“What’s your instrument?” Winny asked.
“The typewriter.”
“Percussion,” said Flynn.
“Well,” said Elizabeth, “Leroy Anderson wrote for the typewriter.”
“You come back any time,” said Flynn. “Any time you’re free, that is.”
In the cold vestibule, Flynn said, “I guess you didn’t have the conversation with me this afternoon you wanted to.”
“No,” said Fletch. “This was much better.”
“I thought you’d think so.”
“May I see you in your office tomorrow?”
“Sure.”
“What’s a good time?”
“Five o’clock. Any policeman with good sense is in his office at that time. The traffic is terrible.”
“Okay. Where are you?”
“Ninety-nine Craigie Lane. If you get lost, ask the plainclothesmen following you.”
They said good night.
Outside, the air was damp and cold.
Fletch stood on the top step off the porch for a moment, adjusting his eyes to the dark, feeling the house’s warmth at his back, hearing a bit of early Beethoven scraping in his memory’s ears, thinking of the two blue doll’s eyes under a doll’s mop of tossed, curly blond hair.
Across the street, under a streetlight, he clearly saw the faces of the two plainclothesmen waiting for him. It seemed to him their eyes were filled with hatred.
One of them picked up the car phone, as Fletch started down the steps. Flynn would be telling them Fletcher was going to the airport, and they shouldn’t panic…but to make sure he didn’t get on a plane.
“Jesus Christ,” Fletch said.
The scrape of his chin on his shirt collar made him realize he should have shaved.
Thirty
“Fletch!”
He had never seen Andy in an overcoat before.
After they had embraced and he had taken her hand luggage, her first question was quick and to the point.
“Is Sylvia here?”
“Yes.”
“Bitch. What is she doing?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t seen much of her. I mean, I haven’t seen her often.”
“Where is she staying?”
“At my apartment.”
“Where am I staying?”
“At my apartment.”
“Oh, my god.”
“How are you?”
Andy’s big suitcase was in the way of people coming through the customs’ gate. The few porters were being grabbed by artful older people.
“Any luck with the paintings?” she asked.
“Can we wait until we get in the car? How are you?”
He handed her back her purse and vanity case.
“Why did you want to know about Bart Connors?”
“How are you?”
He carried the huge suitcase through the airport, across a street, up a flight of stairs, across a bridge and halfway through the garage, to where his car was parked.
The plainclothesmen, hands in their pockets, followed at twenty paces.
She began her questions again as he drove down the dark ramp of the airport garage.
“Where are the paintings? Do you know?”
“Not really. It’s possible they’re in Texas.”
“Texas?”
“You and I may fly down later this week.”
“How can they be in Texas?”
“Horan seems to have gotten all three de Grassi paintings from a man in Dallas named James Cooney. He’s a rancher, with eight kids.”
“Do you think so?”
“How do I know? I’ve handled Horan very carefully. His reputation is impeccable. Pompous bastard, but everything he’s said so far has been straight. I’m putting a lot of pressure on him to try to crack Cooney’s source.”
“You mean, find out where Cooney got the paintings?”
“Yes. If putting pressure on Horan doesn’t work, then we go to Texas and put pressure on Cooney ourselves.”
“What did you do? You asked Horan to locate one of the paintings?”
“Yes. The bigger Picasso.”
“Where is that painting now?”
“In Boston. Horan has it. I asked him for it Wednesday. He located it Thursday night or Friday morning and had it flown up Friday night. I saw it Saturday. He doubted the whole thing when I first spoke to him about it.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, he doubted whether the painting existed; whether it could be located; if it was authentic; if it was for sale.”
“Is the painting authentic?”
“Yes. I’m as certain as I can be. So’s Horan. And, apparently, Cooney is willing to sell it.”
After paying a toll, they went down a ramp into a tunnel.
Fletch spoke loudly at Andy’s puzzled expression.
“So far, Horan has acted in a thoroughly professional, efficient, routine manner. I don’t like him, but that’s immaterial.”
Driving up out of the tunnel, they faced strata of crossroads, and a vast confusion of signs and arrows.
“Oops,” he said. “I don’t know which way to go.”
“To the right,” Andy said. “Go on Storrow Drive.”
“How do you know?”
He turned right from the left lane.
“We’re going to Beacon Street, aren’t we? Near the Gardens?”
“Yeah, but how do you know?”
They went up a ramp onto a highway.
“I lived here nearly a year,” she said. “The year I was at Radcliffe.”
“Where’s that?”
“Cambridge. Go down there, to the right, to Storrow Drive. You knew that.”
Her directions were perfect.
“Why did you want to know about Bart Connors?” she asked.
“Because the night I arrived, a girl was found murdered in his apartment.”
Her profile was backed by lights reflected on the Charles River.
“He didn’t do it,” she said.
“You seem pretty certain.”
“Yes. I am.”
“That’s why I yelled at you that night on the phone to get out of the villa. When I asked you to go see him, I did not expect you to take up residence with him.”
“You’ll want to go left here.” At the red light, she craned her head left. “We’ll have to go all the way around the Gardens, won’t we? Dear old Boston. Or is your apartment down to the right?
Fletch said, “The police think I did it.”
“Murdered the girl? You didn’t do it, either. If you did, you wouldn’t be trying to blame Bart.”
“Thanks.”
“Bart’s a very gentle man. Wouldn’t hurt a fly.”
“Boy, when I ask you to do a job for me… Did you check his teeth, too?”
“His teeth,” she said, “are perfectly adequate.”
“My god.”
“So who killed her?”