27
“Where do I put my suitcase?” With perplexity, Fletch studied Jack’s blue Miata convertible.
Fletch had asked Jack to meet him at the front door of Vindemia’s main house at four o’clock, to give him a lift.
“What are you doing with that big suitcase?” Jack asked from the driver’s seat.
“Had to bring formal clothes, didn’t I?”
Jack’s duffel bag was stuffed in the little space behind the seats. He had thought there would be room for another.
When Jack had driven the two-seater under the oriole, many people were milling around in front of the house, going in and out. There were police in uniforms; police not in uniforms. There were newspaper reporters; television reporters and camera crews. Behind them all, Peppy stood alone, leaning his back against a wall, drinking lazily from a quart bottle of beer.
“You might just as well have brought your damned bicycle to pick me up,” Fletch said standing over the passenger side of the car.
“You had your meeting with Lieutenant Corso?” Jack asked. “Everything is understood?”
“Yes.” Still holding his suitcase, Fletch stepped down into the car. “I think I safely can say Corso understands the simple facts. Even that took hours.”
Jack waved at Peppy.
Peppy gave a low wave back.
“Jack! Jack Faoni!” A television reporter Jack recognized only somewhat came to Jack’s side of the car. “What are you doing here? If you’re here, why am I here?”
“Beats me,” Jack said.
“Are you on assignment?” the reporter asked. “For whom?”
“Global Cable News.”
“Oh, no,” said Jack.
“You work for Global Cable News. I had lunch at the same table with you last week in GCN’s cafeteria in Virginia.”
“Oh, yes,” said Jack.
“You were working on the Tribal Nation story.”
“I remember,” said Jack.
“So are you covering the Radliegh story, or not?”
“Not,” said Jack. “I don’t work for GCN.”
“You were last week.”
“Oh, no.” Jack put the car in gear. “I work for the truth.” Slowly he drove the little car around the groups of people in the semicircular driveway.
“Humph,” Fletch said. “Good line.”
Jack looked at his father.
Fletch sat in the passenger seat of the little car. The back of the suitcase was on his head. The front rested on the windshield frame.
Jack said, “I really don’t think it’s going to rain.”
“Never can tell,” Fletch said easily. Then, with more vigor, he said, “You can tell me where else I’m supposed to put it!”
“Don’t ask!” Jack snapped.
At the end of the semicircular driveway, Fletch said, “Left. To the airstrip.”
“The airstrip?”
“You expect me to ride all the way to Tennessee with a suitcase on my head?”
“Do you have an airplane waiting for you?”
“Yes.”
Fletch said, “You have more background, understanding of this story than anyone else.”
“Right,” Jack said.
“You’re a reporter. You ought to report it.”
“Right,” Jack said.
“I mean, you could have called Andy Cyst. Even Alex Blair.”
“Oh, no,” Jack said.
“Why not?”
“I didn’t let GCN in on the story early enough. What I learned from Mister Blair is that I should have called the television crew in as soon as I knew I was investigating this matter. You know, have them around to film Doctor Radliegh discovering the rigged coffeepot, the cabin exploding, the horse falling over dead on him at dawn, me and Alixis in bed, maybe even me and Shana in bed a few years ago in Stowe, Vermont…. Mrs. Radliegh hanging by the neck from a bedsheet tied to the balcony railing … all that good stuff… you know, getting as much of the story on film as possible. Do you think all that might have affected the story in any way? Anyway, Mister Blair explained to me that’s the professional way to do a story, the way I’d have to do things to work for GCN.”
“Oh, shut up.”
“People who ride in cars wearing suitcases on their heads might just be more polite to whoever is driving. One pothole, and you’ll want an aspirin.”
“So what are you going to do with this story? Just throw it away? The public have a right to—”
“No.”
“That’s what I was going to say.”
“I just faxed a complete report to Jack Saunders.” Both his father, I. M. Fletcher, and his mother, Crystal Faoni, had worked with Jack Saunders on the Boston Star. Jack Saunders, now retired but far from inactive, also had be friended Jack while a student in Boston. Jack Faoni said, “Ol’ Jack already has sold the story to an international newspaper syndicate. For a good price, too. He’s editing it even as you ride through the Georgia countryside with a suitcase on your head.”
“Print journalism?” Fletch smiled.
“Mister Blair can read all about it with the rest of the world in the morning newspapers,” Jack said. “I shall refuse all interviews.”
“I’ll be …” Fletch said.
“I hope so.” Jack stopped the car at the edge of the airstrip. “Now what? Do you wait for a plane to pick you up?”
“That yellow two-seater,” Fletch said. “What about it?”
“Will you drive me to it, please?”
“Why?”
“That’s where I’m going.”
“Oh, no. That airplane hasn’t anything to do with you, has it?”
“Certainly.”
“What?”
“I own it,” Fletch said. “Bought and paid for.”
“You don’t fly it, do you?”
“That’s the way it works,” Fletch said. “I go up one place, down in another.”
“Not possible.”
“It got me here, didn’t it? I wanted to see that Bierstadt. By the way, it’s a wonderful painting. Flying in, I even watched you pedaling your bicycle along the road. Earthling.”
“Where did you get an airplane like that?” Slowly, Jack drove Fletch toward the airplane. “The Smithsonian? Don’t they miss it?”
“I bought it from a friend. He needed the money.”
“And you learned to fly it?”
“Not really. I use a road map and stay out of traffic.”
“I didn’t see it on the farm.”
“I keep it in a shed.”
“Who takes care of it for you?”
“Emory.”
“Your farmhand? What does he know about airplanes? He can’t even plug the muffler on his truck!”
“True, he’s never been up in an airplane. Doesn’t trust them. But he’s very good with old engines. And regarding his truck muffler, I don’t encourage him to fix it. I like to know when he leaves for lunch.”
“Dad!” Jack stopped the car a few meters from the airplane. “That’s a piece of junk!”
“It’s a classic.”
“It’s very old. Very, very old.”
“Yes,” Fletch said. “It’s a very old classic.”
Fletch opened the car door and struggled to stand up with his suitcase. “Hasn’t crashed yet. Well, yes it has. Not fatally, though. I mean, not fatally for the airplane.”
He stepped up onto the wing, slid back the cockpit cover, and slipped his suitcase behind the two seats. “And my suitcase fits in it!”
Jack stood on the runway. “I’m just getting to know you. I can’t let you go up in that… classic.”
“Sure you can.” Fletch stepped into the cockpit and fastened his safety belt. “Old dog leash.” Fletch showed Jack one end of it, the end that usually attaches to a dog’s collar. “Works perfectly well.”
He cranked the engine twice.
“Damned thing doesn’t even start,” Jack said.
“Sure it does. Just needs a bit of encouragement.” He cranked the engine again. “Sometimes it’s a bit slow.” Twice again. “Give it a push, will you?”
“Push the airplane?” Jack asked. “How?”
“Get behind and push.” Fletch made a pushing motion with his hands.
Jack leaned his shoulders against the rudders and almost fell over. “This thing doesn’t weigh twenty pounds!” he shouted. “Even with you in it!”
“Ah, yes,” Fletch said. “She defies gravity, all right. Just watch her take off.”
“If you can get the damned thing started,” Jack muttered. With arms extended he pushed the airplane another ten meters.
With a great exhalation of exhaust smoke, the engine roared.
Fletch braked.
He yelled at Jack, “Will I see you back at the farm?”
Standing near the airplane he had pushed to get started, listening to it, studying it, seeing it shuddering and flapping, Jack yelled, “I sincerely doubt it!”
Fletch chopped the air with his left hand. “Bye.”