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.
Thirty-six
“Good afternoon. The Boston Star.”
“Jack Saunders, please.”
Fletch had gone directly to Room 102—Crystal Faoni’s room—and banged on the door.
Tired and teary, she opened the door.
Fletch guessed that, badly upset by her experience of trying to breathe life into a dead man—into a dead Walter March, Junior—Crystal had been napping fully clad on her bed in the dark room.
“Wake up,” Fletch said. “Cheer up.”
“Really, Fletch, at this moment I’m not sure I can stand your relentless cheer.”
He entered her room while she still held onto the doorknob.
He pulled the drapes open.
“Close the door,” he said.
She sighed. And closed the door.
“What’s the best way to get a job in the newspaper business?” he asked.
She thought a moment. “I suppose have a story no one else has. A real scoop. Is this another game?”
“I’ve got a story for you,” he said. “A real scoop. And, maybe, if we work it right, a job in Boston with Jack Saunders.”
“A job for me?”
“Yes. Sit down while I explain.”
“Fletch, I don’t need a story from you. I can get my own story. Amusing lad though you are, I sort of resent the idea I need to get a story from you or from anyone else.”
“You’re talking like a woman.”
“You noticed.”
“Why are you talking like a woman?”
“Because you’re talking like a man? You come bounding in here, offering to give me a story, arrange a job for me, as if I were someone who has to be taken care of, as if you, The Big He, are the source of The Power and The Glory Forever and Ever. Ah, men!”
“Golly, you speak well,” Fletch said. “You just make that up?”
“Just occasionally, Fletch, you have problems