Fletch's Fortune Part 7

"You probably will be. You fit into the category of people who had a motive. He took a child away from you. Were you here this morning?"

"Yes."

"You had the opportunity to kill him?"

"I suppose so. Lydia said the door to the suite was open when she found him. Anyone could have walked in and scissored him."

"What else do you know about the murder, Crystal?"

"That it's going to be the best reported crime in history. There are more star reporters at Hendricks Plantation at this moment than have ever been gathered under one roof before. In fact, I suspect more are showing up unexpectedly, simply because of the murder. Do you realize what it would be worth to a person's career to scoop the murder of Walter March-with all this compet.i.tion around?"

"Yeah."

"It would be worth more than a handful of Pulitzer Prizes."

"Whose scissors was it? Do you know?"

"Someone took it from the hotel desk. The reception desk."

"Oh."

"You thought you had the murder solved already, eh, Fletcher?"

"Well, I was thinking. Not many people carry scissors with them when they travel-at least ones big enough to stab someone-and anyone who would carry scissors that big most likely would be a woman...."

"Fletcher, you must get rid of this chauvinism of yours. I've talked to you before about this."

"It's a moot point now anyway, if the scissors came from the hotel desk, where anybody could palm them."

"Anyway," Crystal said. "It's hilarious. All the reporters are running around, pumping everybody. The switchboard is all jammed up with outgoing calls. I doubt there's a keyhole in the whole hotel without an ear to it."

"Yeah," Fletch said. "Funny."

"You go have your rub, sybarite. Will I see you at the Welcoming c.o.c.ktail Party?"

"You bet," Fletch said. "I wouldn't miss it for all the juleps in Virginia."

"You'll be able to recognize me," Crystal said. "I'll be wearing my fat."

Seven.

"Another one," the ma.s.seuse said.

Fletch was lying on his back on the ma.s.sage table.

She was working on the muscles in his right leg.

He had been told he would have to wait more than an hour for the ma.s.seur to be free.

The ma.s.seuse was a big blond in her fifties. She looked Scandinavian, but her name was Mrs. Leary.

He had waited until she was finished with his right arm before mentioning Walter March.

His question was: "Did Walter March come in for a ma.s.sage last night?"

The ma.s.seuse said, "I'm beginning to understand just how you reporters operate. How you get what you write. What do you call 'em? Sources. Sources for what you write. You're always quoting some big expert or other. 'Sources.' Huh! Now I see you all just rush to some little old lady rubbin' bones in the bas.e.m.e.nt and ask her about everything. I'm no expert, Mister, on anything. And I'm no source."

Fletch looked down the length of himself at the muscles in her arms.

"Experts," he said, "are the sources of opinions. People are the sources of facts."

"Uh." She dug her fingers into his thigh. "Well, I'm no source of either facts or opinions. I'll tell you one thing. I've never been so busy. You're the ninth reporter I've ma.s.saged today, every one of 'em wanting me to talk about Mister March. I suppose I should make somethin' up. Satisfy everybody. It's good for business. But I'm near wore out."

Having worked for him, Fletch knew Walter March had ma.s.sages frequently. Apparently at least eight other reporters knew that too.

"If you want a ma.s.sage, I'll give you a ma.s.sage." She took her hands off him, and looked up and down his body. "If you want me to talk, I'll talk. I'll just charge you for the ma.s.sage. Either way."

Fletch looked into a corner of the ceiling.

He said, "I tip."

"Okay."

Her fingers went into his leg again.

"Your body don't look like the other reporters'."

Fletch said, "Walter March."

"He had a good body. Very good body for an old gentleman. Slim. Good skin tone, you know what I mean?"

"You mean you ma.s.saged him?"

"Sure."

"Not the ma.s.seur?"

"What's surprising about that? I'm rubbing you."

"Walter March was sort of puritanical."

"What's that got to do with it?"

She was working her way up his left leg.

Fletch said, "Oh, boy."

"That feel good?"

Fletch said, "Life is hard."

"Walter March was a pretty important man?"

"Yes."

"He ran a newspaper or something?"

"He owned a lot of them."

"He was very courteous," she said. "Courtly. Tipped good."

"I've got it about the tip," Fletch said.

She finished his left arm.

Suspending her b.r.e.a.s.t.s over his face, she rubbed his stomach and chest muscles vigorously.

"Oh, G.o.d," he said.

"What?"

"These are not ideal working conditions."

"I'm the one who's doing the work. Turn over."

Face down, nose in the ma.s.sage table's nose hole, Fletch said, "Walter March." He couldn't get himself up to asking specific questions in a sequence. He blew the bunched-up sheet away from his mouth. "Tell me what you told the eight other reporters."

"I didn't tell them much. Not much to tell."

She lifted his lower left leg and, with a tight grip, was running her hand up his calf muscle.

"Oh," he said.

"Are you Jewish?"

"Everyone who's being tortured is Jewish."

"Mister March said nice day, he said he loved being in Virginia, he said they'd had nice weather the last few days in Was.h.i.+ngton, too, he said he wanted a firm rub, like you, with oil...."

"Not so firm," Fletch said. She was doing the same thing to his right calf muscles. "Not so firm."

"He asked if I was Swedish, I said I came from Pittsburgh, he asked how come I had become a ma.s.seuse, I said my mother taught me, she came from Newfoundland, he asked me what my husband does for a living, I said he works for the town water department, how many kids I have, how many people I ma.s.sage a day on the average, weekdays and weekends, he asked me the population of the town of Hendricks and if I knew anything about the original Hendricks family. You know. We just talked."

Fletch was always surprised when publishers performed automatically and instinctively as reporters.

Old Walter March had gotten a h.e.l.l of a lot of basic information-background material-out of the "little old lady rubbing bones in the bas.e.m.e.nt."

And, Fletch knew, March had done it for no particular reason, other than to orient himself.

Fletch would be doing the same thing, if he could keep his brain muscles taut while someone was loosening his leg muscles.

She put her fists into his a.s.s cheeks, and rotated them vigorously. Then she kneaded them with her thumbs.

"Oof, oof," Fletch said.

"You've even got muscle there," she said.

"So I'm discovering."

She began to work on his back.

"You should be rubbed more often," she said. "Keep you loose. Relaxed."

"I've got better ways of keeping loose."

He found himself breathing more deeply, evenly.

Her thumbs were working up his spinal column.

He gave in to the back rub. He had little choice.

Finally, when she was done, he sat on the edge of the table. His head swayed.

She was was.h.i.+ng the oil off her hands.

"Was Walter March nervous?" he asked. "Did he seem upset, in any way, afraid of anything? Anxious?"

"No." She was drying her hands on a towel. "But he should have been."

"Obviously."

"That's not what I mean. I had a reporter in here earlier today. I think he could have killed Walter March."

"What do you mean?"

"He kept swearing at him. Calling him dirty names. Instead of asking about Mister March, the way the rest of you did, he kept calling him that so-and-so. Only he didn't say so-and-so."

"What was his name?"

"I don't know. I suppose I could look up the charge slip. He was a big man, fortyish, heavy, sideburns and mustache. A Northerner. A real angry person. You know, one of those people who are always angry. Big sense of injustice."

"Oh."