did you have breakfast?”

“I never got out of the car, Captain Neale.”

“What?”

“I did not have breakfast, and did not buy newspapers. At least, not until I got back to the hotel.”

“Oh, Lord.”

“I changed my mind. I drove through that shopping center and said, to hell with it. It was a beautiful morning and the shopping center looked so sterile. Also, of course, I’m forever making simple little plans like going to a drugstore for breakfast—I like people, you know? I like being with people—and I get right up to it, and I realize everybody will recognize me, and giggle, and shake hands, and ask for autographs. I’m not keen on that part of my life.”

“Are you saying that no one saw you Monday morning?”

“I guess I prevented anyone from seeing me. I wore sunglasses. I drove around. Over the hills. Maybe I was trying to talk myself out of murdering Walter March.”

“What time did you leave the hotel?”

“About seven-fifteen.”

“What time did you get back?”

“About nine. I had breakfast in the coffee shop here. I didn’t hear about Walter March’s murder until later. Ten-thirty. Eleven.”

“Okay, Mister Wisham. You say Walter March was smearing you, trying to destroy you.…”

“Not ‘trying to,’ Captain Neale. He was going to. There is no doubt in my mind he would have succeeded.”

“… because you were becoming a potential threat to him.”

“Don’t you agree? I could never be as powerful as Walter March. We lost the only newspaper we had. But I have been becoming an increasingly powerful and respected journalist. I’m only twenty-eight, Captain Neale. I have a lot to say, and a forum for saying it. Even having me at this convention, telling people what I know about Walter March, was a threat to him. You’ve got to admit, I was more a threat to him as a halfway decent and important journalist than if I had become a skiing instructor in Aspen.”

“I guess so. Tell me, Mister Wisham, do you happen to know what suite the March family were in?”

“Suite 3.”

“How did you know that?”

“I checked. I wanted to avoid any area in which Walter March might be.”

“You checked at the desk?”

“Yup. Which gave me an opportunity to steal the scissors. Right?”

“You’re being very open with me, Mister Wisham.”

“I’m a very open guy. Anyhow, you strike me as a pretty good cop. There’s a lot of pressure on this case. Sooner or later, you’d discover Walter March drove my Dad to suicide. Everyone in Denver knows it, and probably half the people here at the convention do. Concealing evidence against myself would just waste your time, and leave me hung up.”

“It’s almost as if you were daring me, Mister Wisham.”

“I am daring you, Captain Neale. I’ve worked a lot with cops. I’m daring you to be on my side, and to believe I didn’t kill Walter March.”

Twenty

3:30 P.M.

COMPUTERS AND LABOR UNIONS

Seminar

Aunt Sally Hendricks Sewing Room

At three-thirty Wednesday afternoon all the tennis courts were in use, the swimming pool area was full, and on the hills around Hendricks Plantation House people were walking and horseback riding.

The bar (Bobby-Joe Hendricks Lounge) was dark and empty except for some people from the Boston press keeping up their luncheon glow with gin and tonics.

And Walter March, Junior, sitting at the bar.

Fletch sat beside him and ordered a gin and bitter lemon from the bored, slow-moving barman.

At the sound of his voice, Junior’s head turned slowly to look at him.

Junior’s eyes were red-rimmed and glazed, his cheeks puffy, his mouth slack. A small vein in his temple was throbbing. He looked away, slowly, thought a moment, burped, and looked back at Fletch.

He said, “William Morris Fletcher. I remember you.”

“Irwin Maurice Fletcher.”

“Tha’s right. You used to work for us.”

“Practically everybody used to work for you.”

“Flesh. There used to be a joke about you. ‘And the Word was made Fletch.’ ”

“Yeah.”

“There were lots of jokes about you. You were a joke.”

Fletch paid the barman.

Walter March, Junior, said, “You heard my father’s dead?”

“I heard something to that effect.”

“Someone stabbed him.” Junior made a stabbing motion with his right hand, his eyes looking insane as he did it. “With a scissors.”

Fletch said, “Tough to take.”

“Tough!” Junior snorted. “Tough for him. Tough for March Newspapers. Tough for the whole mother-fuckin’ world.”

“Tough for you.”

“Yeah.” Junior blinked slowly. “Tough for me. Tough darts. Isn’t that what we used to say in school?”

“I don’t know. I wasn’t in school with you.”

There was a long, slow, blinking pause.

Junior said, “My father hated you.”

Fletch said, “Your father hated everybody.”

Another