Fletch Reflected (19 page)

The chain locking the gate had been cut through. The chain-link gate was open. The door to the shed had been kicked in.

Almost all the cars, except Jack’s, were gone.

In the shed Jack found his own car keys hanging on a peg and pocketed them.

Only a few airplanes, the two small jets marked
RADLIEGH MIRROR
, the ancient two-seater, and another small corporate jet were still there. Jack had been hearing the planes of party guests taking off much of the morning, even before dawn.

There were no cars in the parking lot of the office building.

He rode around the country club. There were many cars parked there. Sunday midmorning it sounded as if a party were raging. Jack smelled pork barbecue smoking. Golf
carts were lined up at the first tee like toll booth traffic. There were more brightly clad people stirring around the country club than Jack knew were on Vindemia.

He watched teen-agers racing golf carts. The youngsters were trying to brake and spin the golf carts simultaneously to cut up the lawn. One racing golf cart nearly tipped over on the slope surrounding the swimming pool. That caused a laugh.

Biking back toward the main house, Jack found Mrs. Houston walking on the green verge along the side of the road. She carried a thick brown walking stick. She was not using it to walk.

Jack stopped his bike to talk with her. They were in the shade of the deciduous trees spaced along the sides of the road.

“You know,” she said, “when we first came here, when Chester was first beginning to build Vindemia, he tried to run a garden of his own. I guess I talked him into it.

“He couldn’t do it.

“He built a tight fence around it that went down three feet into the ground and six feet into the air, put a gate on it, and locked it. I asked him if he thought rabbits and deer and groundhogs have degrees in engineering.

“He watered it twice a day. Every day he gave it fertilizer. There was no such thing as a weed in that garden. As soon as I knew what he was doing, I told him to stop, leave it alone. Every time a plant looked peakish, he replaced it.

“He spoiled it. He killed it with care.”

While they talked, a pickup truck came along the road. Two men rode in front. A third stood in back.

There were two rifles in a rack in the truck’s rear window.

The truck was going slowly.

The two men in front waved at them.

As the truck passed, the man standing in back smiled down at them. He said to them, “Sure is a pretty place you have here.”

Neither Mrs. Houston nor Jack waved, smiled, or answered.

As the truck went around the curve an empty beer can thrown from it hit the pavement and rattled until it ran out of momentum.

Glancing at Mrs. Houston, Jack saw her cheeks wet with tears.

“Chester was that way,” Mrs. Houston said. “He thought about what people wanted, to be happy and healthy, needed, to fulfill themselves and be useful, and he provided it with an open hand. He protected them, even from themselves, if you know what I mean. And instead of getting back pleasure in their strength, happiness, accomplishments, some respect, appreciation, all he got back was envy, resentment, anger, hatred, everybody’s desire to destroy him or see him destroyed.

“He had to give up on his flower garden.

“Why didn’t he learn from it?”

“H
ere he is now,” Fletch said.

As Jack rode his bike under the oriole of Vindemia’s main house, he found Fletch and another man strolling the driveway from the other direction. Jack did not recognize the other man.

“Jack,” Fletch said, “this is Lieutenant Corso of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.”

Straddling his bike in the shade of the oriole, Jack shook hands with the man.

“I’ve been telling the Lieutenant everything I know about what’s been going on here.” Fletch looked up from lowered eyebrows at Jack. “I told him you would do the same.”

Corso studied Jack’s shorts. “You work here?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Blue and white, blue and white: everything around here is blue and white.” He looked down at his trousers. “I’m glad I wore my green suit.”

Jack said, “The flags aren’t up.”

“I’ve never seen such a place as this. Didn’t know such a place existed.”

“I have,” Fletch said. “Several. The man who builds such a place thinks he’s building it for his family to enjoy forever.”

“The gates are open,” Jack said.

Vehicles were passing the house slowly.

“I’ve been telling the Lieutenant about the lethal gas,” Fletch said. “That there wasn’t supposed to be any such thing in the laboratory. It must have come from somewhere, put there by someone. We’ve just come back from the lab.”

“Who knows?” Corso squinted. “Big lab like that. I don’t recognize anything that’s in it. All this paraphernalia. Who knows what’s supposed to be there? It’s all just junk to me. Anybody could have put anything in there at any time. The guy himself—what’s his name, Wilson?—could have drug it in himself. I used to have a chem teacher in high school, he’d take a few whiffs of something during the lunch hour. I saw him do it.”

Fletch glanced at Jack from an even more lowered face. He sighed.

“Well, I guess I should go question people,” Corso said. “About all these alleged accidents, horses falling over, frayed coffeepot wires, you say have been happening around here. You guys want to come with me? I mean, you guys can pick it up if someone says somethin’ you know not to be true from somethin’ you saw or heard, or somethin’. You know what I mean?”

“Sure,” Fletch said.

“I asked for people to be in the living room.” Corso opened the enormous brass-studded front door to the house.

Jack leaned his bike against a column.

He asked his father, “This guy any good?”

Fletch said, “If he were any stupider he’d need a bar code.”

They followed Corso into the house.

“Freedom is the opportunity for self-discipline,” Fletch said. “Let’s see if anyone around here is an opportunist.”

“Who said that?” Jack asked.

“Fellow named General Eisenhower. Maybe he said, ‘Democracy is the opportunity for self-discipline.’”

“You mean President Eisenhower?”

“You know this lawyer, Nicolson?” Fletch asked.

“No,” Jack said.

“Apparently Radliegh’s personal lawyer. He got called in yesterday from Atlanta. It seems yesterday morning Radliegh
suddenly wanted to review his Last Will and Testament.”

“I know that to be true,” Jack said. “I heard Beauville and Radliegh’s secretary talking about it.”

The living room actually was several living rooms, or large sitting areas, each large enough to seat twenty or more people comfortably, in one huge room.

“Homey,” Fletch commented. “Makes me want to ask when my flight to Tulsa leaves.”

“Do airlines still give out that kind of information?” Jack asked.

“Not voluntarily,” Fletch answered. “Or reliably.”

In one living area Beauville, Downes, and a third man Jack assumed was Nicolson stood in a group near the fireplace, the center of attention. On Sunday morning each wore a proper gray suit and tie.

Mrs. Amalie Radliegh, in black dress, hat and gloves, sat in a wing-back chair. A black veil covered her face.

The Radliegh children sat as separated from each other as they could be in that space.

Daughter Amy MacDowell sat in another wing-back chair, suckling an infant.

In black shorts, Alixis sprawled on one divan; in khaki slacks and blue button-down shirt, Chet sat a little straighter in another.

Duncan, not shaven, hair uncombed, sat on the carpet in greasy overalls and t-shirt.

Nancy Dunbar sat on the divan with Chet.

Mrs. Houston was not there. Jack had just seen her on the road.

Nor was Shana Staufel there. Jack had heard her leave his cottage shortly after dawn.

“Oh, Jack …” Alixis looked up at him through tear sodden eyes. “I lost my daddy.”

Jack said, “I never heard such crap.”

Nicolson was talking to them all. “All I am saying is that
there is plenty of money, of course. The estate will be settled. Each of you will be very well off. But…”

“But what?” Chet asked.

“But this is a surprise to us all. A terrible surprise.”

Duncan scoffed.

Downes said, “It’s a huge estate.”

“With huge problems,” Beauville said.

“No,” Nicolson countered. “There shouldn’t be any real problems.”

“Of course there are,” Beauville said. “There always are.”

“As you know,” Nicolson said, “your dad was a very well organized man.”

Jack saw Fletch watching Corso. The Lieutenant evinced no intention of breaking in, taking control of this discussion, beginning his questioning. He seemed to have settled in his brown shoes and green trousers like a cop on a corner content to watch the human comedy.

Alixis sniffed loudly.

“But he was reasonably young and very healthy and did not know he was going to die last night,” Nicolson said.

“What is your point?” Chet asked.

The baby at Amy’s breast slurped.

“Settling this estate is going to take a lot of time,” Nicolson said. “Two, three years, at least.”

“While you lawyers dine out on it,” Alixis said.

“Right,” Chet said. “While you each make your life’s fortune off it. You’ll take the rest of our lives to settle the estate. Build your hours. Generate paperwork. Misfile papers. Make wrong motions. You won’t get away with it. I won’t let you.”

Duncan said, “How much do I get? When do I get it? I’ve got things to do.”

Alixis said, “Duncan, we all want to get away from here.”

From behind her veil, Mrs. Radliegh inquired, “Do any of you intend to stay for the funeral?”

Jack heard a noise behind him and turned around.

Shana stood there.

Her face looked like that of an eagle. Her eyes seemed entirely protruding pupils. Her jaw was set to hold a beak.

Standing behind Fletch, Corso and Jack, she was looking around them, watching the people in the living area, listening to them.

She did not glance at Jack’s face.

Amalie Radliegh said, “I think we should bury him out by the laundry yard. You know, where the maids air out the sheets?”

“The point is,” Nicolson said, “there is only one hundred thousand dollars in available cash.”

Alixis gasped. “A hundred thousand dollars?”

“It’s mine,” Duncan said loudly. “I have to have it for my new racing car!”

“Like hell, Duncan,” Amy said. “My children come first!”

“I already owe eighty five thousand dollars!” Duncan said.

Amy resettled the baby at her breast. “My children are the only grandchildren of Chester Radliegh. They come first. And they always will.”

Amalie Radliegh said, “You know how Chester always liked his sheets aired out.”

Alixis said, “To hell with you both. I need to set up a place in California.”

Duncan said, “I don’t care what any of you say. I need to pay this bill, or the car won’t get finished in time to race.”

“Now you’ll all get allowances from the estate,” Nicolson said. “Adequate allowances. It will take a little while to set them up.”

“Allowance,” Chet said. “Lot of good that will do. You mean us all to stay here?”

“Why not?” Downes asked. “Until things get set up.”

“Well, I claim the apartment in New York,” Chet said. “And the rest of you can stay out.”

“No one wants to live with you, Chet baby,” Alixis said. “But I do need to buy a place in Malibu. I’ve been promising it to myself.”

Red-faced, Beauville seemed to be talking to the floor. “Well, I’m fed up for sure. Don’t look to me to run the company. I’m gone as soon as I get a decent offer.”

A telephone rang. Nancy Dunbar reached from the divan and answered it. “Hello?”

“We’ve all suffered enough, this place. Everybody spying,” Alixis said.

“I see.” Nancy Dunbar hung up. She had not said, “I’ll take care of it.”

Nancy said, “A child was just run over outside the General Store. Hit by a car. A six-year-old boy. He was killed.”

“To hell with your brats!” Duncan exploded at Amy. “And you!” he said to Alixis. “It would be good to be rid of you. Talk about spyin’! But you’re not taking my money just to build yourself a human stud farm in Malibu!”

Alixis snickered. “Oouh. How’d you guess?”

“Damned nympho,” Duncan said.

“Druggy,” Alixis said.

“Where is Chester now?” Amalie Radliegh asked. “Where did they put him?”

“I don’t know what to say to you all,” Nicolson said.

“You’ve said it all.” Chet stood up. “I’m going. I’ll leave the jet at Atlanta airport, if anybody cares.”

“We need some cooperation here, a little understanding.” Nicolson was pleading. “We’ve got to find a way of being fair!”

Then Shana stepped around Fletch, Corso, and Jack. She moved toward the center of the living area.

Her face was as red as the setting sun.

“You murderers!” she screamed. Her right fist was up. “You’re all murderers! Every one of you! Each one of you
murdered Chester as surely as if you had driven a knife through his heart!”

Chet looked at her curiously.

“Ah, shut up,” Duncan said.

“Why is she yelling?” Amalie Radliegh said. “She’ll wake the dead.”

To Amalie Radliegh, Shana said, “You did everything you could to make him miserable, every minute. You never tried to understand him! You just stayed in your room, taking pills, drinking by yourself, weeping, telling everybody how miserable you are! Love? Hell! You never even took responsibility. Did you ever try to teach your children to respect their father? To understand him?”

“I never understood him myself,” Amalie said. “It was too much work. Well, it was impossible. The man would talk about anything from ants to spaceships.”

“Did you ever listen to him?”

“I did. At first. It wore me out. Are there ants in space, do you suppose? They’re everywhere else.”

In a lower voice, hands on hips, Shana said, “You’ve all been trying to kill Chester. Each and every damned one of you.”

“I haven’t,” Amy said. “I’ve made my life.” To Nicolson she asked, “There’s no way Vindemia is to be sold, is there?”