“They all have something in common.”
“What?”
“They’re all women.”
“Was the woman found last night raped?”
“Haven’t talked with the coroner himself yet. A lab assistant says she believes the woman was not raped. There’s something very rape-like about these murders, though.”
Fletch was rolling up his dirty shirts. He hadn’t been in any hotel long enough to get his laundry done. “What do you mean?”
“Rape isn’t a sexual thing,” Freddie said. “Not really. The main element in rape is to dominate a woman, subject her, mortify her. Degrade her. Sexually victimizing her is secondary to victimizing her.”
“I understand that. But without the element of actual rape, Freddie, there is no absolute proof that the murderer is a male. The murderer could be a strong woman.”
“Yeah,” Freddie said from the bed. “Fenella Baker. She tears off her blouse and turns into a muscle-bulging Amazon.”
“How was the woman last night murdered?”
“Strangled with some kind of a soft cord, the police say. Like a drapery tie, or a bathrobe sash. They haven’t found whatever it was.”
“The lack of sexual rape bothers me.” Fletch took a jacket from the closet, folded it quickly, and put it in the suitcase. “A strong woman …”
“Terrible.” Freddie got up, took the jacket out of the suitcase, and folded it properly. “Got to make clothes last on a trip like this.”
“I never wear that jacket.”
“Then why do you carry it?”
“That’s the jacket I carry.” He pointed to one on the unmade bed. “That’s the jacket I wear.”
Freddie tossed the clothes in his suitcase like someone tossing a salad with her fingers. “Fletcher, this suitcase is full of nothing but laundry.”
“I know.”
“You’ve got to do something about that.”
“Where? When?”
“Or we’ll put you off the press bus. There are enough stinkers on the press bus as it is. You notice no one will sit next to Hanrahan?”
“I notice he’s always stretched out over two seats.”
“He smells bad.” She resettled his shaving kit so the suitcase could close.
“Will you leave my damned laundry alone?”
She dropped the suitcase lid and stared at it. “Relationships between men and women can be nice. I guess.”
He watched her from the chair where he was sitting. “Can’t say you never had one, Freddie.”
“I live out of a suitcase, Fletcher. All the time. Anything that doesn’t fit in the suitcase can’t come with me.”
“Why? Why do you live this way?”
She was running the tips of her fingers along the top edge of Fletch’s suitcase. “Why am I Fredericka Arbuthnot? Because I have the chance to be. I’d be a fool to pass it up. Enough women get the chance to be girl friends, wives, and mothers.” She sat in the hotel room’s other chair. “Where would the world be without my sterling reporting?”
“Want me to order up coffee?”
“We’d never get it.”
Not giving any neighborhood snail a good race, Flash driving, Fletch had gone to the television studio and sat through the governor’s taped interview. Deftly, The Man Who had turned the interview to the high incidence of crime in this country. He even referred to having heard about the chambermaid murdered in his hotel that morning. The interview with the candidate was to be shown on the noon news.
“You saw Hanrahan’s shit this morning?” Fletch asked.
“Sure.”
“So now you’ll have to write something.”
“Already have,” Freddie answered. “I was fair. Reported that the murders have happened on the fringe of the campaign, no connection with the campaign has been made, the police so far don’t even think the murders are connected.”
“You indicated it could all be coincidence.”
“Yes.”
“Do you believe that?”
Freddie shrugged. “If I did, I wouldn’t be here. Also I had to say, as did Hanrahan, that the candidate has not made himself available for questioning on this matter.”
“Truly, he hasn’t anything to say.”
“Truly …” Freddie was stretched out in her chair, her head against the chair back. “Fletch, what does Wheeler really say about these murders?”
“He treats them like flies on his porridge. He keeps trying to brush them away. To him, this story is the story of the campaign itself. He doesn’t want it turned into a murder story.”
“It would ruin the campaign.”
“He’s talking about organizing the new technology to gather and disperse information, goods, and service for the betterment of people worldwide, and someone keeps dropping corpses on him.”
“Who?”
“Tell me.”
“Would he have any other reason for avoiding our questions? Inquiry? Investigation?”
“Isn’t the ruination of his campaign enough of a reason?”
“I suppose so.”
“You mean, like his own guilt?”
“Sally Shields was found on the sidewalk beneath his windows. As Hanrahan reported, and I didn’t, Doris and Caxton Wheeler have separate suites. Doris is a rich bitch. People tell me she can be real nasty. Who says he has to love her?”
“You think the candidate is using disposable women?”
“Who knows?”
“I don’t think he’d throw one out his own window.”
“Things get out of hand,” she mused. “Things can get out of hand.”
“There is an idea …” Fletch hesitated.
“Lay it on me. I can take it, whatever it is.”
“… that whoever, or whatever is doing this, is doing so to torpedo the campaign of Caxton Wheeler. To destroy him as a presidential candidate.”
“Whose idea is that?”
Again Fletch hesitated. “Caxton Wheeler’s.”
“I thought so. Even to you he tries to steer inquiry away from himself. Was he in his suite at the time Alice Elizabeth Shields landed on the sidewalk, or wasn’t he?”
Fletch shifted in his chair. “The timing doesn’t work out. He says he got out of a car, didn’t see anything like a crowd on the sidewalk, didn’t see the people leaving the bar, and yet when he got to his hotel room he says he saw the lights from the police cars and ambulance.”
“All that can’t be so,” Freddie said.
Fletch didn’t say anything.
“Is Wheeler pointing his finger at anyone else?”
“He’s mentioned Andrew Esty.”
“Esty?” Freddie laughed. “I don’t think his religion condones murder.”
“He’s been with the campaign three weeks. He left yesterday, came back, there was another murder. I saw him in the elevator last night. He was frustrated, angry—”
“Esty wouldn’t want to be caught as a murderer.” Freddie smiled. “The Supreme Court might prohibit prisoners from praying.”
“Bill Dieckmann,” Fletch said.
“Bill’s pretty sick, I guess.”
“Last night I found him in the corridor of the fifth floor of this hotel. He was having one of his seizures. When I came across him, he was leaning against the wall. He didn’t recognize me. He didn’t know where he was or what he was doing. He collapsed. I carried him to his own room on the ninth floor. When he came to, he didn’t know how he got there.”
“What was he doing on the fifth floor?”
“Who knows? But this morning I realized he was standing between the main elevators and the service elevators. The chambermaid was found in a service elevator, right?”
Freddie’s face was sad. “Poor old Bill. He’s got five kids.” Then she laughed. “Did you see Filby’s face yesterday when he realized he had missed the whole ‘New Reality’ speech? You’d think the doctor had just told him he’d have to have his whole stomach amputated.”
“That would be hard to swallow.”