Double-parked, Grover waited outside in the black Ford.
“We’ll both get in back,” said Flynn. “That way we can talk more easily.”
Grover drove west on Newbury Street.
Fletch was sitting as far back in his dark corner as he could.
Coat opened again, knees wide, Flynn took up ‘a great lot of room, anyway.
“Well,” he said, “I guess I’ll miss two o’clock feeding this morning. At least I know Elsbeth can’t wait. Have you ever been to Weston?”
“No,” said Fletch.
“Of course you haven’t. You’re a stranger in town. And we’ve been watching you as if you were a boy with a slingshot since you arrived. I hear it’s a pretty place.”
Flynn chuckled, in the dark.
“All this time poor Grover up there thought you were the guilty one. Eh, Grover?”
Sergeant Richard T. Whelan did not answer the bird’s turd.
“Well,” said Flynn, “So did I. More or less. When was it? Wednesday night, I think. I thought we were going to get a confession out of you. Instead, you invited us for dinner. Then that day on the phone, when I couldn’t get around to see you, I felt sure I could convince you of your guilt. I decided I had to get to know this man. So on Saturday I invaded your privacy for the purpose of getting too know you—an old technique of mine—and damnall, you still turned up as innocent as a spring lamb.”
They went down the ramp onto the Turnpike Extension and proceeded at a sedate pace, well below the speed limit.
“When I heard your voice on the phone early Sunday morning, I thought sure you were calling from a bar ready to confess.” Flynn laughed. “Unburden your soul.”
“I might yet,” said Fletch.
Grover sat up to look at him through the rearview mirror.
Still chuckling, Flynn said, “Now what do you mean by that?”
“I hate to spoil your time,” said Fletch, “but Horan couldn’t have killed Ruth Fryer.”
“Ah, but he did.”
“How?
“He hit her over the head with a whiskey bottle. A full whiskey bottle.”
“It doesn’t make sense, Flynn.”
“It does. It was his purpose to frame you.”
“He didn’t know me.”
“He didn’t have to. And, to a greater extent than you realize, he did know you. Although you’re a great investigative report…”—Flynn took coins for the toll out of his pocket and handed them to Grover—“…you made a mistake, lad.”
“You have to pay tolls?”
“This road is in the state system and I work for the city. We’ve got enough governments in this country to spread thinly around the world.”
“What mistake?”
“Matter of days after Count de Grassi is reported kidnapped, then murdered, Horan gets this innocent wee letter, from Rome of all places, asking him to locate one of the de Grassi paintings.”
“He knew nothing about the de Grassi murder,” Fletch said. “The local papers didn’t carry it. I checked.”
“I did, too. Earlier today. So I asked the man tonight what paper he reads, and he said the New York Times. The Times did carry the story.”
“Christ I knew he read the Times.”
“You had even been mentioned by name, as Peter Fletcher, that is, as the de Grassi family spokesman the day you had the ladies reveal their most intimate finances to convince the kidnappers they couldn’t come up with the exorbitant ransom. The Times printed it.”
“Why would they have? From Italy?”
“You’re the journalist. There’s no end of interest in crime, my lad.”
“Ow.”
“You were undone by the press, my lad. You’re not the first.”
“Horan would have noticed even a small item concerning the de Grassis.”
“Precisely.”
Fletch said, “He must be in cahoots with Cooney.”
“I doubt any man would go to the extent Horan did to protect another man. It’s possible, of course,” Flynn said. “Anything’s possible.”
“It’s still not possible.”
“So you write him this innocent letter of enquiry from Rome, telling him which painting in all then world has caught your fancy, what day you’ll arrive in Boston, and where you’ll be staying.
“On the day you’re due to arrive, the handsome, suave, sophisticated Horan, probably with an empty suitcase, went to the airport, probably pretended he had just arrived from someplace, picks up the Trans World Airline Ground Hostess…”
“I didn’t tell him what airlines I was flying.”
“If he knows what day you’re arriving, he to find out what airlines, what flight number, and what arrival time with a single phone call. Surely you know that.”
“Yes.”
“As handsome a man as he is, looking as safe as your favorite uncle, he suggests Ruth Fryer join him for dinner, at some fancy place obviously he can afford. Probably he mentions he’s a widower, an art dealer, on the Harvard faculty. Why wouldn’t she go with him? Her boyfriend’s not in town. She’s in a city she doesn’t know. Dinner with Horan sounds better than sitting in her motel room manicuring her fist.”
“You haven’t gotten to the impossibilities yet.”
“There aren’t any. Ach, another toll.” He rummaged in his pocket again. “Don’t they ever stop their infernal taxing?”
He handed more coins to Grover.
“He taxis Ms. Fryer to her motel. Allows her time to change. Waits for her in the bar. When she reappears, he has a drink all poured and waiting for hear. He buys her more than one. It’s his point to give you time to get into your apartment and out again. He’s sure that you, a man alone in a strange city, an unfamiliar apartment, of course will take himself out to dinner. And you did.”
Grover steered into the side road which curved up through the woods into Weston.
“Mister Horan was pretty good predictor,” Flynn said.
Ahead, a car was pulled off the road, showing only its parking lights.
“Is that a police car, Grover?”
“Yes, sir.”
“They’d be waiting for us. Not only do they have to effect the warrant, but surely we’d never find the house by ourselves in this woodsy place.”
Grover stopped behind the parked car.
“Using the excuse of dropping off his suitcase, I’m sure, Horan takes Ruth Fryer to what he says is his apartment, but which is really your apartment. An innocent enough excuse to get a girl home with you.” A uniformed policeman from the other car was striding toward them. “You might remember it yourself.”
“Flynn,” Fletch said. “Horan didn’t have a key to that apartment.”
“Ah, but he did. A few years ago he arranged some restoration work on Bart Connors’ paintings while the Connorses were vacationing in the Rockies. And who’d ever demand a key back from a man like Ronald Risom Horan, or even remember he had it?” Flynn rolled down the window. “You should see the number of keys in his desk. Hello!” he said through the window.
“He told me he had done restoration work for Connors.”
“Inspector Flynn?”
“I am that.”
“Weston Police, sir. You’re here to enter the Horan house with a warrant?”
“We are.”
Flynn was hunched forward, blocking the window.
“If you’ll just follow us, sir.”
“We will. And what is your name?”
“Officer Cabot, sir.”
The policeman returned to his car, Flynn rolled up his window, and they started off in tandem at a slow pace.
Fletch said, “Well.”
“You see,, all the time you thought you were leading him down the garden path, he was leading you down the garden path.”
“Because he reads the Times.”
“You were a great threat to him. He had to get rid of you. If he murdered you outright, he’d be a natural suspect. You were coming to Boston to see him, and only him. So he contrived this magnificent circumstance to stop your investigation before it ever started. It’s a good thing I didn’t arrest you right away. Isn’t it, Grover? The man must have been mighty surprised to have you show up the next day at his office as free as a birdie in an orchard.”